From the Land of Myth and Wonder

For more about Helena and her art
please go here.

It is late August as I type these words. Here in the MidAtlantic states, we are going through yet another heat wave, and a certain realty salesman is still in the White House. It has been a long, hot summer in Pennsylvania, and I am recovering from whooping cough. I am struggling to find some actual words of wisdom to share that will not sound like more whining and complaining. I take heart in the many positive things I see changing in our culture, such as greater acceptance of trans people and relationship styles and gender identities. I believe that study and practice of myth, ritual, and art allows people the freedom to express and discover their true selves, especially in these difficult times. I am pleased to be able to use this as a forum to share my visions and thoughts with you all.

I am honored to have been selected as the 2018/19 Artist in Residence by the Society of Ritual Arts, and am pleased to be able to add my voice here to Coreopsis. I have done a few reviews and interviews as well as an article for Coreopsis in the past, so it is a thrill to be able to serve in this capacity. I will be sharing my art and words with you in this issue – please also check out my review of Loreena McKennitt’s new album.

I teach art history at a very small and underfunded historically black state university, and this year, our enrollment is very low. In spite of this, I came back to school to find my colleagues in good spirits, the students cheerful and optimistic. The millenials get criticized for a great deal, but I believe this generation is changing the world, and that makes me hopeful for all kinds of things. Having been at this university for fifteen years, I have watched many millenials enter our school and graduate, and now I am encountering Generation Z this year; I just met my first openly trans student at this university today. This gives me greater hope and optimism as this individual seemed to be embraced by their schoolmates without question. I have never before seen this on our campus.

The cover image I originally painted for this issue is of Odin, hanging on the World Tree. In the Norse tradition, Yggdrasil is the name of the Tree of Life, and also the connection between the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology. In this particular myth, Odin sacrifices himself to himself (a only a God can) by hanging himself from the tree. He hangs there for nine days and nine nights, at the end of which, he gains the wisdom to know the Runes – the letters that form the Futhark, the Viking alphabet. I’ve been studying and illustrating the Norse myths a lot lately, and this image reads and life, death, and shamanic transformation to me. It is a theme I’ve watched develop a lot this summer. A dear friend and former student became horribly ill a few months ago and spent the entire summer in the hospital with septic shock. Thankfully, her body began to respond to treatment, and she slowly got well again. I told her she had been through a classic shamanic dismemberment. A marker of a shaman is often when an individual has an experience of being rendered apart – either physically or on the astral – and then they are put back together as part of their healing, and then are gifted with magical abilities themselves. As artists, we work with all kinds of deaths and rebirths – rejections and acceptances, clearing out the old to make way for the new. She is now considering life anew after going through such a harrowing experience. I told her she is now in the company of all the great magicians who have undergone such transformations.

My final thought about all this is: Summer is the beginning of the waning of the year, and Autumn brings the harvest before the deathly months of winter. I often feel summer is my break time, and my renewal time, however this year; this was not my experience at all. Gripped by coughing spells that left me more depleted than I care to elaborate here, I wondered when would I feel renewed again? Along comes the beginning of the academic year, and like Odin, I fell and then screaming (coughing) I returned to life.

And so it begins.

Gallery