To dive in the darkest depths

Posted on Instagram on March 15, 2018

Someone once told me that you have to accept to dive in your darkest depths, because that's when you come back to the surface with the most beautiful pearls.
I am almost sure it was @sacredfamiliar telling me something Vali Myers had told her once - but I may be wrong.
Anyway, this is something I remind often. Gives me strength in the rough times. Gives a meaning to the pain.
Today I had to bring this one to life - it pushed and pulled and demanded my time and fingers - and I feel this is the message it carries. At least one of its messages.
A strange alchemy, the creation of this pendant.
First I carved the skull in a freshwater pearl; I am growing fond of them.
Then melting a piece of silver, and impressing the texture of a cuttlefish bone on it - excitement, magic. Rotten stink. Hah.
And then came the tendrils that hold this almost-heart-shaped piece, reminding me of spider legs.
And then the snake circling the skull, with the slender thread running through it - is it a lock of mermaid hair? An umbilical cord connecting us to the center of the universe?
It has a surrealistic, dreamlike quality to me, this one.
The feeling that I could discover a new layer of meaning to it, new symbols, every time I look at it. Every time I run my fingers on its surface, on those tiny lines that are almost part fingertips and part layers of earth.
An amulet for all of us, swimmers of the inner sea, deep divers of the uncharted depths, sailors of walnut-husk sized boats on the stormy waters of life.
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One of a kind, sterling silver and freshwater pearl (and cuttlefish ghost)