Persephone is very much alive for me right now in the dance the earth is doing with the sun. I love her story and her symbols. Seeds. Pomegranates. The descent to the Underworld and the return. The mother (Demeter) who grieves for her and in her grief witholds her gifts from the world until her daughter is returned to her once more.
I went hunting for Persephone poems tonight and found a few that really rocked my world. They were all found in this extraordinarily fine poetry quarterly that I'd never heard of but stumbled across in my search. I believe the title of the quarterly comes from a poem called "The Goblin Market" by Christina Rosetti ~ one of the first poems I read out loud for the sheer joy of the words on my tongue, and the first poem that made me cry the ugly, snotty, red faced cry that one prefers to cry in private.
Serendipity feels spring-like, doesn't it?
Let me explain.
I am a blocked poet. A lot of you have read that in my bio. I started arting because I couldn't write, and prior to the block, writing had been the way I got through *everything*. Having no outlet, no means of creative expression was *killing me* and if you think I'm kidding, I'm not. I was so depressed I could barely get out of bed. It was the winter of my discontent. I was Demeter in those dark days, grieving, only I felt that the gifts associated with Spring ~ inspiration, new beginnings, poems ~ were being denied to me.
In pursuit of a deeper understanding of the divine feminine inspired by my experience in The Red Madonna, I recently went looking for some poems I'd written that I *thought* were about people in my life, but realized were actually about The Mother/Sister/Crone. A few tweaks, and yes. These were poems about longing, about wanting, about women, about sisterhood, about the divine. The *very week* I did this, I got notification about the monthly Red Madonna call in which we were invited to read our own writings.
How do you say no when the Universe comes knocking in such an obvious way?
You don't.
So, I swilled two glasses of CabSauv, and I got on that call, and I lit a candle, and I read.
Here they are. As an aside, I write as 'F. Stuart' and have since 1997.
This Is What It Is To Want
As though it's spring and I hear water
lick my lips, prepare my mouth to open wider.
As though sense receives a hint of herbal green
in the last white days of dying winter.
As though heat hovers over what is cold;
lit match over wick,
winged mother over egg
or open, wanting beak.
As though there is no water near,
winter is new,
the match won't flare to life and
the mother bird, fallen, flightless,
is silent,
empty bone and feather.
As if she always was, went from me
and is returning.
As if she never was, never,
and is now beginning.
©F. Stuart
***
Magdalene's Mirror
Unlike silver on glass
giving back
only what crosses the face;
clenched jaw, nod, smile, furrow.
She is black ink in water
three a.m. river
sipped Shiraz in the
lupine hour.
Not cheaply bought
in press board gilt frame.
Magadalene’s mirror.
Dreamed of sister.
Under skin twin.
©F. Stuart
***
Remembering that I once wrote, that I could write, that I may write again brought me into stark awareness of the return of Persephone in my life. She just arrived, holding a pomegranate and offering the juice as ink, beckoning me to take a taste, wiping her mother's grieving eyes.
Here's the video
A thousand thank-yous to JournalArtista who demonstrated the stencil technique I used to create the background, and to Shiloh McCloud who is teaching me oodles about painting stylized, iconic portraits.
Supplies Used
(wherever possible, I link to my source for these products)
Strathmore Visual Journal 9 x 12
Frog Tape (great masking tape that seals against acrylic paint)
Liquitex Basics paint
Stencil by Julie Fei Fan Balzer (purchased from The Art House Store)
Baby wipes. :D
Dylusions by Dyan Reavely
Stewart Gill Paint
Copic Multiliner
Floral stamp by Donna Downey
Pan Pastels
Archival ink in black by Ranger
Sakura Gelly Roll (metallic)
Music by my 'art-to-guy', Anugama.
Inspiration provided by Persephone and her glorious return from the Underworld. Thanks, Hades. We'll send her back soon. xo
