A few weeks ago, I was browsing through my friend Rachel Oakes' photos she had taken on a recent jaunt to a small British village, and I
paused when I came across one photo. "Is that a peacock on the roof??"
I asked, surprised. She explained that it was actually a straw
sculpture on the thatched roof, known as a straw
finial. We continued in conversation as she explained that such things
were quite common in the villages around her. Meanwhile I was
positively glowing with glee to find something so utterly charming,
whimsical, and magical.
I knew all of you would enjoy them too.
According to an excellent write-up on the tradition at this link, the tradition originated from small straw sculpts on top of hayricks
and straw stacks. Taking the form of birds, crosses, crowns, boats,
apples, and more, the ornaments were, at least according to some,
supposed to be a friendly way to show which hayrick
belonged to whom.
Folklore also suggested that the straw sculptures could ward of witches
and birds. The witches were given "something to play with, thus
diverting her attention from making mischief elsewhere."
Although the earliest examples of decorative straw finials date to 1689,
it's still easy to find artists making these organic ornaments today.
Below are a few of my favorite examples I was able to find online.
A few years ago, artistic visionary and director Tim Burton debuted his version of the classic fairy tale-esque story, Alice in Wonderland.
It was released by Disney, and it was a visual feast of glorious
surreality. By all rights, I should have loved it, but something always
stuck in my craw when I thought about the way it had been done.
Finally one day, watching the movie again, it dawned on me what the
problem was. The Alice of Tim Burton's movie is a thoroughly modern
young woman, who is confident and independent, and who never once throughout the entire movie ever says thank you to anyone who helps her.
A few months ago, Disney released another film, this time a movie version of the musical Into the Woods.
Once again it was gorgeous and well done, but it bothered me that there
was not one character in the entire movie who I felt was "good."
Everyone showed selfishness, greed, or a lack of conviction. And in
many cases, those negative qualities caused harm or death to other more
innocent people. (As you can tell, I hadn't seen the stage musical in
quite some time or I might have been better prepared for such a dreary
tale)
Why do I mention all this? Because this weekend I went to go see Disney's newest live-action fairy tale, Cinderella.
I went into it expecting to adore it, and I left even more thrilled and
satisfied than I ever had hoped I would be. I suppose this is the
point at which I need to say "spoiler warning" for those who haven't
seen the film yet, although really, who doesn't ultimately know what the
story of Cinderella is going to include? But still, I will be
mentioning a few details from the film, so...spoilers.
Cinderella
is the best role model of a good-hearted individual that I've seen in
the movies for years. My husband can confirm to you that from the first
time I saw the first trailer, posted above, I immediately became a
Pavlov's dog when I heard the words her mother said to her...
...and
would immediately begin a sniffling cry. I don't entirely know why
these words mean so much to me, but they do. They seem to beautifully
sum up exactly what it means to be a good person. Kindness. My
goodness (literally). What an old-fashioned quality that is entirely at
odds with the priorities of modern life and modern society!
Selfishness and greed are devastatingly rampant. In schools, students
are being taught that there are no moral absolutes. And each generation seems to be more and more "me me me" and less aware of the concept of common courtesy.
In
the film, Cinderella doesn't just generally flit around in an airy
fairy way, grinning, giggling, and being sweet as cherry pie. She
undergoes real trials, real hardships, and shows the true meaning of
selflessness and kindness through those times. There are several
moments in the film when Cinderella specifically shows these qualities.
A few that stood out to me were...
-When an employee
of her father's comes to tell the family that her father has passed
away. Cinderella is clearly devastated and heartbroken. But before she
closes the door, she pauses and looks at the man, saying "I'm so
sorry. This must have been very hard for you." (paraphrased from memory) Even in a moment of
absolute pain, she still finds the time to sympathize with another
person.
-When Cinderella is frantically running to her
carriage from the ball, she bumps into the king, bows, and starts to
run, but then stops for a moment to say "your son loves you very much,
you know. You must be a wonderful father." (again, paraphrased from memory)
-When
Cinderella has just received her cruel nickname from her stepsister, and
been told by her stepmother that she has no place at their table, she
bolts from the house to a wild horseback ride through the woods, clearly
in emotional tumult. She stops when she sees a flawlessly ethereal and
beautiful stag, no more than five feet from her mount. Hearing hunting
horns in the distance, she pleads with the stag to run, and sets off
through the forest beside the hunters, pretending to be out of control
of her horse, when really she is anything but. Once again, she sets
aside her emotions in the moment to help someone else.
The
point is...being good and being kind are not just a coat we can put on
when life is easy or we feel like it. It is a habit we grow into day to
day. For Cinderella, her parents taught her from an early age to care
about the well-being of other people and creatures. It was a habit
learned over many years, until it became a natural reaction in most
cases.
But sometimes, it was harder to be kind. Under
those circumstances, Cinderella had to draw upon her courage. It took
courage to stand up to her stepmother and still try to go to the royal
ball after she was told she would not be attending. It took courage,
more generally, to stay in that household and be bossed around simply
because she wanted to protect and care for the home that her parents had
loved so dearly.
There is an every day kind of
courage, the kind that tells us to keep going, keep moving in our lives
even when things seem most dire. Cinderella had no expectations to meet
a prince on the day she saved the stag in the forest. She had no
expectations to find the prince again on the night she went to the
ball. She did these things because she was kind, and because she was
courageous. But I want to believe, no, I need to believe, that
the universe is not fully random: that courage and goodness and kindness
are somehow rewarded over avarice and greed and selfishness.
Cinderella's great message is that this is indeed true.
Sometimes,
life is not a fairy tale. The movie version of Cinderella is utterly
and totally beautiful, a multi-faceted gem from beginning to end. Even
the death scenes in the film are graceful and pure, sanitized for an
audience of wide-eyed children. Sometimes life and death can be uglier
than the film represented. But that doesn't change the importance of
the message, or its truth for our lives, no matter how ugly or messy
they can become.
Yesterday morning, after going to see
the film the night before, my husband and I went out to the store to buy
a doll of Cinderella in her ball gown (the most beautiful gown I've
ever seen on the screen, fyi). We were driving from the toy store to
the grocery store to do our weekly shopping, and when we exited the
highway, my heart went from elated and happy to devastated and broken.
On the exit ramp was the large body of a Canadian goose, hit and killed by a
passing car. That was heartbreaking enough to see,
but standing to the side of the road, confused and trying to protect its
partner, was a second Canadian goose. They mate for life, you know. I
immediately burst into anguished tears, and could hardly see to drive
to the store. When we pulled in, I called the local police department
to see if they would move the animal's body from the road. That was the
responsibility of the Department of Wildlife, we were told, which was
only open Monday through Friday.
We finished our
shopping, but neither of us could stand the idea of leaving the animal
there. We went back to the exit after picking up a shovel in our
garage, and moved the bird from the road to the ravine by a small creek
right beside the exit, but far enough away to give them privacy. My
husband held the shovel, but he needed me to shift the bird onto there.
I could hardly see through my sobs as I gently moved its weight onto
the plastic scoop.
It
was a moment of pure heartbreak. There was nothing beautiful or
redeeming about it. It was utterly and totally gut-wrenchingly
terrible. Tom held me while I cried afterward, and he whispered "thank
you for having courage and being kind."
Because
that's what I believe in. Have courage, and be kind. No matter how
beautiful life can be, or how ugly and terrible, that's what can sustain
us. A simple and old-fashioned concept, one easily scorned. But there are indeed moral absolutes, and in my opinion, kindness is one of the most important.
Last week was the first week of Mythic March, but I felt pretty silly
doing a Monday Makings update last Monday when the calendar date was
only March 2nd. So this is the first Monday Makings.
How have I been doing with Mythic March? Weeeeelll truth be told, not
so well. We had a pretty big house emergency come up last Tuesday,
right around the time I had hoped to start on a project, and it took all
of our focus away from anything creative or non-urgent.
Basically, it's like they say in this blog post, about falling in love
with your home again despite its imperfections:
"But alas, owning an old house isn’t always as romantic as it sounds. Trust me on that. With character and age come many expected
and unexpected updates and repairs. You dream of decorating and
furnishing that lovely old home, but in reality your money might go to
exciting things like new sewer pipes, roofs, and electrical panels."
The blog article includes this little image, which made me giggle out loud when I saw it.
It's true...roof repairs might not look pretty on Pinterest, but sometimes you have to have priorities!
It appears that my situation might be in hand now, so I can hopefully
start working on some projects. I have a couple of commissioned
drawings to do for friends, and I'm hoping before the end of the month
that I might also have time to resume work on an artwork
I started years ago, before I had even started on the Twelve Dancing Princesses dining room, actually. I set it aside to work on the dining
room, and never got around to it. I hope to complete that unfinished
project, or at least start working toward that
end, in March.
So what has everyone else been doing for Mythic March so far?
My friend Brittany Warman started out Mythic March by making some
gorgeous jewelry pieces. I love how full of mystery and symbolism these pieces are!
So Mythic March hasn't even quite officially begun, but I have a great project to share with you all that won't wait.
My friend and extremely talented writer, C.S.E. Cooney has started an Indiegogo campaign for a new project that hits all the marks. It's creative, it's unique, it's mythic, and it's definitely interstitial.
I'll let her describe it to you.
Basically, Brimstone Rhine has two EPs worth of music. The first is calledAlecto! Alecto!,eight
songs about women of Greek myth and legend as you've never heard them
sung. Medea, Medusa, Alecto, Dido, Lysistrata, Calypso, Scylla and
Circe: they're all there, each bright-lit under the spotlight she always
deserved. Every song assumes its own musical genre, including blues,
calypso, rock, waltz, lit-hop, and cabaret. The second EP is calledThe Headless Bride. This is a darker journey
into carnival-noir-weirdo territory. These eight songs lean hard toward
rock and even (gasp!) go a bit METAL at times. But we also have a
creepy trad folk tune about a ghost (you know, the eponymous "Headless
Bride" herself), and a few more waltzes about beautiful monsters who
like to eat people. Oh, and there's a nautical dirge. I call it "Kenning
Song, or The Barrow Brine." Get it? Ha! Oh, also there's a VERY naughty
nursery rhyme!
Sounds pretty amazing to me! I have her book of poetry, and loved every poem in it, so I can't wait to hear what she comes up with for these albums. She also is part of a group of women who perform songs at various conventions and events. They are known as the Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours. How's that for a name? Love it! Point being, she is no new hand at writing songs and performing them either.
It's a great fun project to support, and I hope you consider chipping in whatever amount you can toward her goal!
Click here to view her Indiegogo page and watch her video explaining the project.
Oh my dear loveys, I have missed talking to you all. I've been lost in
snowblindness, going through a dark night of the soul this winter
season. I've been quiet here, but I've been
busy with Faerie Magazine, creating some stories I'm quite proud
of in the Winter 2014 and Spring 2015 issues (which you really should
obtain, through a subscription or by going to Barnes & Noble). But
this blog has been quiet. So quiet. Too quiet.
In fact, it has been so quiet here, I almost forgot my favorite blog
event of the year is coming up in just THREE DAYS. Just this morning it
dawned on me that it's about to be time for MYTHIC MARCH to come around
again on Domythic Bliss. And I was elated
to remember. It was like remembering a birthday party will be held for
you just days from now, with tea and scones and cake and flowers and
presents.
Mythic March, for those who may not be familiar, is in its third year
this year. It started when my friend Lisa Stock and I were lamenting
how awkwardly timed the National Novel Writing Month of November
is...since November is an extremely busy time in both
of our lives, during which it is nearly impossible to schedule a massive
endeavor such as writing a 50k word novel. We agreed that spring was a
marvelous time to break out into new projects, and Mythic March was
born.
Now, I don't know about any of you, but it seems to me that I especially
need Mythic March this year. This winter has been a terrible one in
Ohio (and even more so for my dear Boston friends for whom I am sending a
sympathetic hug). I've felt extremely depressed
and anxious, fixated on every little small thing (and large thing) that
is wrong with my lovely home where I've been trapped for the last four
months or so. The days have been so cold that I've wanted nothing more
than to huddle under a blanket on the couch
watching Netflix and drinking tea, and yet some part of me has been
furious with myself for not creating much of anything or doing anything
worth noting for that time.
Spring is on its way. Tomorrow night's low is forecast to be -10 here, but
the days are getting longer, and more kinds of bird song are in the air
each morning. By the end of Mythic March, the world will look quite
different than it does now, and new creations
are a marvelous way to mark this beginning. Our modern society has far
too few rituals to celebrate changes in life and in season. This is
one that I feel I am trying to create, both in my own life and for all
of you.
So please join me. Spend Mythic March resolving to create something.
Make a playlist of songs that inspire you to dance. Write a ritual to
celebrate the end of the bitter cold weather. Write a story, draw a
picture, create a collage, invite friends over
and make a fruit pie...the point is not what you do, necessarily, but
just that it is done with a spirit of imagination and an eye toward new
beginnings.
And when you have started working, please come back here (or to the Facebook group) and share your progress. I promise I'll be elated to
hear from you no matter what you're doing!
So yesterday my husband and I dismantled Christmas in our home. Every year, everything looks so blank and stark after the warm glow of Christmas lights and the greenery and festive garland come down. Some people deal with this post-Christmas blah by delaying the dismantling of the decorations. And if it was just up to me, that's probably what I'd do...leave Christmas up until around the start of April. But for those of us who have to take down Christmas shortly after the holiday, here are some ideas for post-Christmas decor that can still look festive.
I started a pin-board on Pinterest with these and several other ideas, so go there to see even more!
It seems like the post-Christmas vignettes tend to either go in the direction of pale colors and snow, or warm woodsy colors and pine cones and deer and the like. This wreath below rather nicely encapsulates the variety of post-Christmas items commonly used in decorating.
Another cute idea I thought for the early months of a new year was to do a vignette with different clocks.
