Metamorphosis ring- daphne
Posted on Instagram on July 11, 2018
"A heavy numbness seized her limbs, thin bark closed over her breast, her hair turned into leaves, her arms into branches, her feet so swift a moment ago stuck fast in slow-growing roots, her face was lost in the canopy. Only her shining beauty was left." (The Metamorphoses)
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It's been an emotionally and mentally demanding week.
For a few days I struggled to get in touch with my creative flow, I felt a bit sluggish. I missed the refuge creativity gives me.
So today I marched to the workspace with the intention to create. Only create. Without expectations.
Just with the will to make something beautiful and soak in the process.
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I wanted this ring to feel alive, like a branch wrapping around the finger. I wanted it to be light in weight, but with a certain presence.
For it to be grace and embrace and escape and beautiful change.
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It features a beautiful faceted Amazonite gemstone, and it's completely hand fabricated - this means nothing here is cast, the leaves are cut from silver sheet, soldered, carved and shaped.
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It's a one of a kind statement of graceful feminine strength.
It's embracing the change and being open to its beauty.
Even if it feels like the change is shattering all we thought we knew about ourselves.
Holy Natural Heart
Posted on Instagram on July 9, 2018
"Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone (hold on)
(Hold on) if you feel like letting go (hold on)
If you think you've had too much
Of this life
Well, hang on" (R.E.M.)
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When you have been in deep crap for so many years, in such a poor state of mind, and you finally get a break from it all, and feel...decent, even good, for longer than two days...
You kinda get used to it.
And when things turn bad, it's so damn difficult to hold on to your new mindset, to not fall in the old program and feel like you are guilty and worthless. To not think that you are hopeless and things can never really be good for you.
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This has been me the past two days. Hanging on to the thread of what I learned from therapy, while feeling the old patterns pulling me in the old places.
I feel like I can't breathe.
Which makes sense, since I am all tensed up, my rib cage trying to protect my wounded heart.
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To shake it all of...to work it out...to do something good out of it. To conjure a magic recipe for this pain.
This is why I sat at the bench today and created this Holy Heart.
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With the most beautiful sky blue heart, to remember to breathe, to allow the rib cage to expand and take the wide sky in.
With thorns, to acknowledge the pain and what hurts - I am not going to push my emotions down and try to ignore them again.
With wings, because I refuse to give up. I refuse to think I will not be able to soar.
With flames of leaves, again and again, because Nature is Mother and Home and Belonging.
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The back is engraved with the most delicate "breathe" in my own handwriting.
Delicate engraving, because I want it to feel like a whisper against the heart rather than an order. I want it to be gentle like a breeze.
Ring the bells
Posted on Instagram on July 2, 2018
"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in"
(L. Cohen)
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It's awfully difficult to sit with the discomfort. With the pain, the fear. The sense of failure, of disconnection.
It's difficult to really love and embrace myself for all that I am.
To watch those parts of me that seem so full of cracks and wounds and wondering if I will ever be able to fix them.
To look my weaknesses in the eyes and not cringe.
And then, it's harder to stop and remind that I don't need fixing. That I may be different but not weak or broken.
It's harder because it's such a new concept for me. One that allows me to definitely live better in my own skin, and face life in a different, easier way.
I guess it's about that loving yourself thing that I read oh so often about but always struggled to grasp.
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This Australian Boulder Opal...the part our eyes are driven to, the part that captures our eyes and soul with the pale blue glittering in magic...that's the crack. That's the weakest part. The strong part is the brown matrix you see all around it.
Still, it's the crack, filled with tender magic, that gets us.
And this is why I chose this stone for this piece.
As usual, surrounded by natural shapes, by leaves and branches, because I always need the reminder that I belong to that something greater and bigger. Home.
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On the back, a crack.
And a knowing heart with an eye to really see, and rays of light to face the darkness.
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The crack is indeed where the light gets in.
Holy Heart
Posted on instagram on June 30, 2018
"Come loose your dogs upon me
And let your hair hang down
You are a little mystery to me
Every time you come around"
(Nick Cave)
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This pendant is to represent what is most holy to me, the connection with Nature. This one is too, someway, related to the concept of Ancestry that keeps showing up for me recently.
Because we are all children of the Earth, and this is the first bond that ever was. The bond they can't take away from us.
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This is a comfort and protection talisman.
A reminder to go back into the heart space when all feels confusing and scary. A reminder of Home, in the beautify swirling greens of the gemstone.
On the back, a Hand with an Eye is a symbol for protection, along with the phases of the Moon.
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By looking at it I can remember the feel of moss beneath my hands. Of young leaves giggling upon my fingertips. Of hair untied, bare feet, deep breaths.
Home.
Where I am not asked to be someone else.
Matriarchal
Posted on Instagram on June 28, 2018
This one, born on a Full Moon, is for the female line.
For those ties forged by blood, ancestry and sisterhood.
For all the strong beautiful unique women that I met in the last years, for the gift they brought me - to see and experience what a powerful thing a woman can be.
It's for the women who feel deep and dream big, and for my swelling heart as I work together with them.
It's for the women who came before me and left me field notes to navigate life - they are artists, poets, writers, singers.
It's for the mostly forgotten women in my own lineage: you may have been deemed unworthy and your life and names may not have been passed down to me, but I see you. I honour you.
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Sky blue and red are colors I associate with Goddess. I can't tell exactly why, it just happens.
A Sleeping Beauty turquoise, two teardrop garnets - sky and blood.
A skull carved in a pearl - the memory and the ancestors.
A brass heart - because of the ability women have to live in their heart space and accomplish incredible tasks following it.
Leaves because of Nature, the great Mother and nourisher.
Snakes, for they belong to Her.
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So much passed through my mind's eye while assembling this. Memories of Mayan iconography together with dreamcatchers.
I can say this one had a mind of its own and basically came forward, demanding the least thinking on my side, and mostly the work of my hands.
I like when it happens. When I am the hollow bone for things greater than me.