Getting magical help from the old ones

Today is a day to be under the doona with my loved one, cocooned in a soft fuzzy world cuz it's all just too much. I need to be wearing this.


The love is still going strong here, post V day. This was a boxed quilt
made to celebrate the last one.

Two matching quiltlets with treasures from our adventures,
a love note written in his famous doggerel, a paris metro ticket
and the party where we first met.

The cool grrls over at Yarnbombing had too much time on their
hands so they interviewed me.
When Leanne asked my why I geurilla knit, somehow
"Because I'm an artist" was not going to cut it.
If you are dying of boredom, waste another five minutes
of your life by reading the rest, but in a nutshell it is
because I crave magic.

Born a sensitive Piscean and extremely shy as a child, I spent solitary
days/weeks either in the bush or creating variously
visible alternative worlds to be nourished in.
They were populated with cereal box critters, fairies and
talking animals, much like the daemons of the Golden Compass.

As an adult, I crave evidence of a world more magical than this one.

Here's where the concept of a muse, guiding hand, god or daemon comes in.
A force that feels other than you guiding and holding your creative hand.

In Ancient Rome, a genius was not something you were, it was
something existing externally. It was the teaching aspect of a person, appearing
in dreams or daydreams, as an impulse or image. A specific spirit
or dæmon, may inhabit an image or
icon, giving it magical powers.

The word for genius has the same root as 'genii', as
well as genius loci, meaning the spirit of place or specific locality.

In Roman times, every man had a genius and every woman a juno

(Juno was also the name of the queen of the gods).

This aureus of Hadrian shows the genius of the circus.

In addition to the genius or juno of each individual, regions, families, households and cities had a genius, a spirit of place. Think about the Statue of Liberty representing the States as a figure, or the Eiffel tower representing Paris's magical place in the world.

Here is where Elizabeth Gilbert comes in.
She gives an engaging chat on the powers of the muse, as a creative guide, and why it's so easy to burn out as an artist. We have forgotten the old ways.

It is nearly 20 minutes long, but let it run in another tab while you surf. It's the grrl+dog pick of the week.

“There is a life force, an energy

That is translated through you into action,

And because there is only one of you in all time,

This expression is unique.

If you block it,

It will never exist through any other medium

And will be lost”

MarthaGraham