Swing on the Sun!

Yule!
Yule!
The wheel swings round!
The year turns round
from Yule to Yule
Swing on the year!
Swing on the sun!

A blessed winter solstice day and night to all in the northern half of our beloved sphere Mother Earth! This is an traditional English children's street chant from Victorian or probably earlier times. I made this as my greeting card in 1995, wrote the letters with broad and pointed calligraphy pens, burned screens and printed them on my Gocco printer in two colors, put them in envelopes and sent them in the mail with stamps. Can you imagine! Ah well, please forgive me repurposing some of my earlier art here in a digital disguise, but the sentiments are nonetheless heartfelt to all my friends near and far, at this darkest time of year, the light is reborn!

A Yule Altar

Our hearth altar decorated for Yule. The Wheel of the Year mandala hangs on top of a sewer lid my husband has had hung above our dining room wood stove for decades, his symbol for the water cycle, which mirrors the circle of life. As a sanitary engineer (and in his political life, worked for years to bring recycled water to our county), he was so fond of this manhole cover that he had a friend surround it with metal scrollwork and inscribe a plaque under it with "Tibi excretium mihi pontium et oleum." This is Latin for "To you shit, to me bread and butter." Well, I digress. Just saying that our altar is a bit unusual. But it's bright and light and full of wonderful imagery, including Mama Gaia, Father Christmas and sundry attendants, spirits, ancestors and seasonal greens. And the longest night draws near.

La Befana-The Italian Christmas Witch

Leave it to the Italians to keep the old ways around in the form of a broom-riding, gift-bringing witch at Christmastime. In parts of Italy, children know the story of La Befana, a "strega" (that would be the Italian word for witch), who was visited by the three Magi a couple of thousand years ago, who were following the star in the East to find the sun child, and invited her along. She wouldn't leave off her housecleaning to go and see the baby Jesus, and in her remorse later became the Giftbringer, riding down the chimney on her broom and leaving sweets and toys for good children at Epiphany, or a lump of coal, or black candy, if they were bad. Thus she would visit "all the holy children."

Urbania’s Festa Nazionale Della Befana is a five-day Italian festival in early January that celebrates Befana, and it's a parade FULL of witches. The photo above was taken by photographer Nico Tranquilli and can be found on his website here. Underneath the photo is a link saying "Full set here" and will take you to the a wonderful set of pictures of the entire festival, f-f-f-f-filled with w-w-w-w-witches!

Years ago, after my mother died, I found in her things a poem about La Befana. Wish I could find it right now, but it was the first time I'd heard about her. It seems a little funny that an Ohio Irish/German housewife would have saved this story, but something must have rung true to her about it, maybe that she too could fine the Divine if she left off her endless round of housecleaning, cooking and child care. Maybe we need a little of that right now, in our endless hustle and bustle, to leave off our errands for a moment and go out and look at a star.

In anticipation of going to see my local Revels this coming weekend, I've searched and found some wonderful video on YouTube of Revels excerpts from all around the country and from many years past. Storytelling and music are time-honored traditions that flourish in the dark time, and here is a gem I found of Norah Dooley telling the old story of Befana. This celebration falls on January 6, so I am jumping the date here a little, but this is such a wonderful performance I have to share it. About six minutes, you can spare a little time this busy season for a magical story, can't you?



The embedded video should work on this page, but the link in the word "here" above will take you directly to YouTube.

Looking for the Light on Santa Lucia Day

The days grow shorter, the light fades away ever earlier, rain or snow falls, and the sunset peeks through under the lowering clouds, reflecting the glow in the rain-shined deck out my back door. We hunker down, or bundle up and go out to see the sky, glimpses of blue, or a ray of sunlight shining through the raindrops. We look for light, and when the heavens do not provide enough we light candles and put up colored lights. We wait for the shortest day, the longest night when the sun is reborn into the yearly cycle. Yule comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word meaning "Wheel", and the turning wheel of the year does seem to catch here for a moment. Every seed we plant, every hope and prayer we utter, every light we hold to our hearts comes out of the fertile darkness. It is a time of rest, for some, while others run faster and faster, filling up the season to distract themselves from that disquieting darkness. And yet at no other season of the year is a sunset so beautiful, or any light, as when it is darkest. Such is the nature of gifts.

Old European traditions put the celebration of Christmas (which is really an overlay on the older pagan custom of celebrating winter solstice) at different dates all over December and even into January. Today is Santa Lucia day, celebrated in Sweden with an Italian-sounding song, when a girl dressed all in white with a red sash and wearing a wreath with four lit candles upon her head, brings food and blessings to all. Here is a look at a modern-day recreation of this ancient tradition, in the Pacific Northwest. There is probably no other holiday, at least in the European calendar, that has so many traditions, customs and old ways associated with it. Because people need to celebrate the most when it's darkest.

December, December, Revels and Yule!

December's first Full Moon shines brightly this night. The second will be a "blue moon", on December 31. December is all about light in the darkness. We sharpen our eyes for beauty and grace amid the shortening days. Yule is fast approaching. What is most important to you about this holy winter season, this holiday? No shopping frenzy on my list; gifts come in many forms, and can be small and silly, or just a note to an old friend saying you still remember them. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Company and celebrations, music and light abound in our hearts in this darkest time of the year, here in the northern hemisphere.

My local gallery outlet, Kaleid, will be opening their holiday shopping month with a reception and opening of the San Jose Glass Artists exhibit on Friday, December 4, from 7 to 9 p.m. Part of the First Fridays tradition in downtown San Jose, many galleries stay open late and there will be plenty happening around town. I will be at the reception on Friday, December 4 to say hello and show some new work. Unframed art, drawings and paintings, priced for bargain shopping, will be on display at my space in the gallery (detail of one piece above, a study of letterforms for the Spelling Words book series). I will also bring along a few of my limited edition book works, which I can not normally display at the gallery as they are by nature fragile. If you are in the San Jose area, come on downtown! There is free street parking in the evenings, and the gallery itself is at the ground level of a big parking garage which can be entered on Fourth Street or San Fernando Streets. I'd love to see you.

My greeting cards for winter solstice have been an ongoing project since 1990, as many of us wish to mark the season as the rebirth of the Sun. Others who mark the birth of the Son feel some off these sentiments too, as earthwise concepts make their quiet way into organized religion. I hope my readers will consider supporting my artistic efforts in making these alternative solstice greeting cards, or other gifts available on my website. The new card for this year is The Horn Dance. Artisan cards and prints make special gifts.

And finally, if you are near any of the ten cities in the U.S. that have Revels productions this month, I encourage you to go and celebrate with community. I wrote about Revels a year ago in my last December first post, Why I Revel, and my sentiments are the same. This year our local Revels will be visiting Bavaria and exploring many of the traditions which have come to be part of our Christmas celebrations here in the U.S.

Earthrise-Her Blue Body

I can only repeat the title of my previous post: Isn't She Lovely?

This blue crescent in the vastness of space is our home, our only home, our precious home. I cannot make anything as beautiful as these photographic images of our Mother, her blue crescent shape in the vastness of space.

I've uploaded more photos to my website of the new book work, Her Blue Body, my artistic response to Alice Walker's poem, "We Have a Beautiful Mother."

A few years ago, this earth poem began circulating around the internet, as beautiful words will sometimes do. But it wasn't until I saw a DVD recording of Alice Walker reading her own poem that it sank into my bones. What a beautiful litany to Mother Earth, I thought. The recording was of a concert called "Praises for the World" arranged by Jennifer Berezan in Oakland in 2003, as a response to the insanity of war. The program was a gathering of extraordinary women and men, including not only Alice Walker, but Gloria Steinem, Wilma Mankiller, Vicki Noble, Luisah Teish, Eve Ensler, and many many more performers, dancers, poets, singers and ritualists. The entire concert was an unending praise song, with a chorus of women and men singing without pause for the entire program. It was an amazing outpouring of love, a call for compassion for the world soul, a light of hope in some very dark days. You can see some excerpts of this DVD on Jennifer's "Edge of Wonder" website, including Alice reading her poem, at this link.

These words began repeating in my mind and heart, and for a year I incubated them. One morning I woke up with the form of this book complete in my mind. Then began about eighteen months of trials and experiments with the form and the content of the poem. The engineering problems seemed insurmountable so I would walk away, work on something else. But I kept coming back to this one, and I am glad I persevered. Holding this book in your hands is magical, as you discover where the "pages" are, how it "reads," and the trick it does in unfolding out to its wonderful dome shape.


I can't reproduce the text of this wonderful poem here or on my website. In fact, because of labyrinthian copyright laws, Alice Walker herself cannot even reproduce her own already-published poems on her website or blog. She does not seem to harbor any ill will about this, having been involved with the publishing industry for decades, and knowing that these laws are there to protect her work. The poem appears in an anthology called Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems, 1965-1990 Complete, copyright 1991, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.


So I will not reprint her poem here, but encourage you to borrow the book from the library or buy it. And much to my delight, since I began this book project, Alice Walker now has a web presence. A visit to Alice Walker's Garden will take you through her more recent poetry, and many other writings and musings that are a delight to read. I consider her one of our true wisewomen. She writes from the heart, and is not afraid to speak truth to power. Her thoughts about the copyright issues surrounding her previously published poetry can be found at the Poems link from her home page. Thank you, Alice, for all that you do, and for these beautiful words.

Today, November 30, activists and earth lovers worldwide will be taking to the streets to demonstrate for action on climate change. Ten years after effectively shutting down the WTO (World Trade Organization) meeting in Seattle, and just before world leaders meet at the UN Climate Change summit in Copenhagen next week, organizers will be in the streets leading non-violent (we hope) demonstrations for the health of the planet, against big business and uncaring governments. I offer these pictures of our Mother, as this artist will not be taking to the streets, but my heart will be with them. Bless them for the work that they do. We only have one home.

I am pretty sure that all the photos of Earth on this page were taken by NASA. Say what you will about the space program; the single most important thing it ever did was give us these images of our Mother. Over the last forty years, much and little has changed in how we care for Her, but we can never forget Her fragile presence, waxing and waning in shape like any other globe, but singularly blue, out there in the enormity of space. Everything we know of life, there, on Her blue body.

Isn't She Lovely?

The dome of our Mother Earth as She faces the Sun, Her other half in darkness. An image reminiscent of one inscribed on our planetary consciousness forty years ago, in Apollo 11's first images of Earthrise.

Text is Alice Walker's poem "We Have a Beautiful Mother."

Isn't she lovely?


This sculptural form emerged in a waking-up-in-the-morning moment last year. The poem had been going around in my mind like a litany for the previous year; the book form is one I learned in a book arts workshop over fifteen years ago (which needed considerable engineering trials and refinements); and the images just flowed as I was recovering from a trip to the medical underworld. This last of six pages in the book was inspired by a dome-shaped piece of Persian turquoise in a Navajo-silversmithed ring I found in New Mexico in 2007. The blue ground of the turquoise stone within the matrix stone was in a shape so womanly, I painted it for my Mother Earth image.

This is a prayer book for our Mother Earth.

I love the mandorla shape as the book emerges from the slipcase, for which I have Don Drake at Dreaming Mind to thank for his collaboration in this box design.

Today this book called Her Blue Body is showing for the first time in Boston. If you're in the area, this book show would be fun to visit. Details here; my book is at Priscilla Juvelis' table.

More images to be uploaded later on my website as I am experiencing technical difficulties today.