Songs of Ancient Midwives, Un-Named Madonna, and other Arisings

This piece is brand new (as of Christmas Eve, 2013).  I don't yet know what to title it:  "Our Lady of _____________?"  I think her face is sorrowful, and of course the image of old, broken, decorated tiles or potshards have always meant to me reclaiming and arising of that which has been lost, broken, buried in the ancient past.  There is a surprising sense of Arising in these Icons that  I've felt compelled to finish  these past few weeks.  The Arising of the life-giving Goddess, arising from the mythic body of the Earth, arising from the shadows in this time of need.  And now that I think about it, this recent holiday, buried beneath all the consumer frenzy, is about the Solstice, and the birth of the new Sun God, the Christ Child..............

When I searched the internet, was it so hard to find any (good)  poems about Birth, let alone Midwives.  Believe me, there are plenty of poems about Battle and the glories, or not so glorious, realities of War.  I think this is another indicator of our world's  patriarchal priorities (death is way more important, and interesting, than the bringing forth of life.  And even that becomes trivialized or co-opted.)  Perhaps this is part of what the sorrowful expression of this "Madonna" means, seeking to arise in the fragmented consciousness of humanity..........

Certainly, these works keep surfacing from the dusty depths of my own creativity, and some dreaming part of me wanted to bring them forth.  

 "Sings with the Voices of Ancient Midwives the Songs They Once Sang, Singing the New Life Into The World.........."

"Shrine for the Ancient Midwives"

 

I'm always making Shrines, Reliquaries, "Containers" for images or objects that are important to me in one way or another.  This is a universal human impulse, and such shrines provide us with a "memory station" to re-connect with what is large, meaningful, sacred in the midst of daily life.   Here's a few new ones:

"Bloom Where You Are Icon"

The "Reliquary for the Flight of a Phoenix" is something I make over and over.  It began on the Summer Solstice in 2003, when I was at an artists colony in Connecticut, I-Park.  That ecstatic summer I would walk in the woods and fields, and let the objects I found tell me stories, integrating them into story sculptures.  A bright yellow feather, perhaps from an Oriole, became a relic left over from the recent flight of a Phoenix, born again from the ash and, as one holds that magical feather in one's hand, somehow you participate in that glorious, distant flight.  It becomes your own flight as well. 

"Reliquary for the Flight of a Phoenix"

Here are a few from earlier times.  I've always loved the one below, which I guess shows various symbols of transformation, including the Phoenix and the Snake, and of course, the breaking away of masks that enclose the soul.  If that makes sense..................

 

Did I see you?

feel your smile

as you

fell?

People cross bridges

cars pass under them

or water

you waited

then jumped

(it must have happened

 quickly)

but what was it that rose in you

like a slow Phoenix

new wings

   outstetched?

....Felicia Miller

 

One of the "Persephone Icons",  and Persephone is always identified for me with the eternal process of life dying and being reborn.

One of the Spider Woman Shrines I made at Wesley..........to remind myself that we are all "weavers" with the actions of our minds and hands.  So may I align with the Great Weaver................