The girl made of wood didn't come here on foot;
suddenly there she was on the beach, sitting on the cobbles,
her head covered with old sea flowers,
her expression the sadness of roots.
There she stayed, watching over our open lives.
the morning and being and going and coming, over the earth,
as the day faded its gradual petals. She watched
over us without seeing us, the girl made of wood:
crowned by ancient waves, she looked out
through her shipwrecked eyes.
She knew we live in a distant net
of time and water and waves and noise and rain
without knowing if we exist, or if we are her dream.
This is the story of the girl made of wood.
- Pablo Neruda, Mascaron de Proa (Figurehead of a Ship)
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| model, Maeve O'Sullivan - Photography by, Kaley Isabella - Painting by, Paul Scofield |
A sacrifice was made; women in the long line of fire. Women have stood out; given arms they did not fashion, to defend themselves against languages they were never meant to speak. Men stood with fire; in reverence, in opposition, in lust. In actuality, women stand alone; framed by their own unspoken irrefutable justice: Her sustained myth.
Myth exists in sustained time carried forward through multiple dimensions. Myth touches all who cross it, and the wisdoms translate speakable and unspeakable, tangible and intangible patterns. Myths are not human but told by human. Myths like ocean currents; impossible to trace an origin impossible to contain. I am certain myths are pillars, which stand to hold us up in awe of what is possible.
Joseph Campbell once said, "Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life".
Let's bring our attention to spirit, as we navigate our quests and frame our legacies.
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| Self portrait; New York City, NY - 2014 |
Why?
Fortunate for us, we find myths in real time. I have often entertained the idea that the diseases humans "battle" are myths in real time, or the 'clues to spiritual potentialities'. The humans I know who "battle" diseases are heros among us, and not all of them are battling all the time.
My grandmother's has Alzheimer's disease. Her disease has caused her to loose her short term memory and some of her long term memories. However, she knows me, giving me a great deal of warmth and affection when we are together, yet she doesn't know my name, my work, or how I came to be in her life. She is in, as my father calls it, an eternal present moment. Her face has changed. She is child like. She adores her dolls and stuffed bears. She doesn't resist reality or fight with anyone. She seems to glide through her days in momentary aliveness. On Friday she asked me for my name. I met my grandmother for the first time on Friday, and watch her politely greet the young lady i've been busy becoming. She is the only person I know who is deeply optimistic and curious, learning everything for the first time at 86 years old.
My grandmother; a girl made of wood.
Figurehead of a ship:
...she looked out
through her shipwrecked eyes.
without knowing if we exist,
or if we are her dream...
I watched the documentary
Maidentrip about a fourteen year old girl who sails the world for two years in attempt to set the record as the youngest person to sail around the world alone. There was a point when hours turned into days, days into months, and months into timelessness surrounded by ocean. Without land it's clear that time or reality has no end and no beginning. H
ow is it that dream and reality are so interchangeable? What does disease teach us about the capacity for humans to transcend the physical and meet with reality through another channel? What does it mean to be a living myth? To stand independent of reality as a pillar of potential...
everything.
