Creativity Friday: Completing the Sacred World Oracle

And then there were none—none cards, that is, to be finished in the Sacred World Oracle. Here’s a first look at the four remaining cards.

The Sacred World Oracle celebrates the beauty and diversity of the earth and its creatures, utilizing myth, folklore, and nature to offer wisdom and guidance. It was created to offer you a simple way to access the wisdom of the natural world, just as humans have done since time immemorial. And now it is complete. All the files—art, text, and design—for the SWO are off to U. S. Games Systems, who will be publishing The Sacred World Oracle soon. In the meantime, you can try a three card reading with the SWO here. Enjoy!

• Filed under mythic living, publications, tarot and oracles | 2 Responses

Sacred World Oracle: Five animals to go….

With all the projects going on here—novel revisions, iPad e-books, gallery exhibits, and iPhone apps et al—it’s been some time since I’ve posted any Sacred World Oracle updates. The good news is that I’m closing in on finishing this deck, with just five cards left to illustrate. I’m very pleased that U.S. Games Systems will be publishing the Sacred World Oracle; they’re also the publisher of my Goddess Tarot and Lover’s Path Tarot. If things keep on schedule as hoped, deck will be available in mid-2011.

With five cards left to illustrate, I thought it would be fun to get your feedback: What other sacred animals should I include?

Some background information: The decks is divided into quadrants, each devoted to the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. I’d like to add another card to the quadrants of earth, air, and fire; two cards to water. You can view most of the art here. Or, better yet, try a free reading with the in-progress Sacred World Oracle.

Here’s what I have so far:

Bat
Bluebird
Butterfly
Dove
Dragonfly
Owl
Peacock
Raven
Spider
Bear
Bull
Cat
Dog
Fox
Lion
Rabbit
Ram
Snake
Carp
Crab
Dolphin
Frog
Salmon
Swan
Turtle
Whale
Centaur
Chimera
Dragon
Falcon
Firebird
Horse
Phoenix
Salamander
Scorpion

I invite you to post your card suggestions in the comments below. If I use your suggestion, I’ll send you a copy of the Sacred World Oracle when it’s published. (In the case of two or more people making the same suggestion, a drawing will be held.)

So bring on the animals!

• Filed under mythic living, new projects, publications, tarot and oracles | 5 Responses

Creativity Friday: Interview and giveaway with author Mary Sharratt, author of Daughters of the Witching Hill

This Creativity Friday, I am fortunate to have acclaimed author Mary Sharratt as my guest. Mary’s novel DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL was recently released to a bouquet of glowing praise included a coveted starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. I’ll be posting a review of it soon. Short version: DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL is a spell-binding novel, rich and evocative and very moving. Frankly, it’s one of the best books I’ve read in some time. As I read it, I found myself tearing up at the beauty of her writing as well as at the unrelenting hardness of her main characters’ lives.

DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL is Mary’s fourth novel. She is a writer who traffics in myth and magic and folklore — in other words, the manna of my existence. DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL is set during the infamous Pendle witch trials of 1612. It reveals the true story of Bess Southerns, aka Old Demdike, cunning woman, healer and the most notorious of the Pendle witches, and of Alizon Device, her granddaughter, struggling to come to terms with her family’s troubling legacy. Last month, I was thrilled to host a reading for Mary during her and Jos’s recent visit to New York City — we had a wonderful time. (BTW, the reading is available to watch here as part of our ongoing Authors at the Gallery series.)

In this interview, Mary generously shares with us her experience writing DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL —a process inspired by the Lancashire area in which she lives with her husband Jos and horse Boushka: the story of the Pendle Witches unfolded almost literally in her backyard. She also offers wonderful advice for aspiring authors.

More good news: we’re giving away a copy of DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL to one lucky blog commentor. Details at the end of this post. You can also read an excerpt from the novel here; there’s also a wonderful YouTube video featuring Mary and her horse here.

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Kris Waldherr: DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL offers a revisionist version of the Pendle witch trials. I know you spent a lot of time researching and examining the original documents from the trial. How close is your novel to history? How much was invented? Was there any plot point which you changed for the sake of creating a stronger book?

Mary Sharratt: All the major characters and events in this novel are drawn from the primary source material, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, court clerk Thomas Potts’s account of the 1612 Lancashire Witch Trials. I also drew on recent scholarship on historical cunning folk and witches in Early Modern Britain, and on the sweeping social changes emerging from the Reformation. Owen Davies’s Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History, Emma Wilby’s Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits, Ronald Hutton’s The Rise and Fall of Merry England, and Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars were huge inspirations to me. All the charms and spells mentioned in the book are based on documented Lancashire folk magic, taken either from the primary source material or from John Harland and T.T. Wilkinson’s book Lancashire Folklore.

I remained as true to history as I could while trying to craft a dramatic plot structure. But I have taken some fictional liberties. There were so many different Nutter families involved in the story, that I had to change the surnames of all but accused witch Alice Nutter’s immediate family to avoid confusion. I also had to change some first names since there were so many Annes and Johns and Elizabeths that even I became confused. Perhaps the biggest liberty I took was making Mother Demdike the illegitimate offspring of the Nowell clan—this is pure fiction on my part with no known basis in fact.

KW: Many fiction writers talk about the challenges involved in crafting the right voice for their characters, especially when a novel is written in first person. In DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL I found the individual voices you concocted stunningly evocative and heartbreaking, especially for Bess Southerns, or Mother Demdike. I could really sense her physical limitations, her struggles. What was your process in creating these women of Pendle? Did you struggle with individuating them?

MS: Before the actual writing of the first draft came months of research and note taking while I tried to work out who the narrator would be. After much reflection, I concluded that Mother Demdike was the catalyst, the one whose personality stood out most strongly. As I wrote the first draft, her voice just seemed to emerge organically from the primary source material and even from the land itself, her native land that I walked each day, mulling over her story in my head. Her voice came very clearly as I wrote down the tale. Later I encountered a hitch when her voice suddenly stopped and the writing process stalled. And then Alizon’s younger, more uncertain voice took over and I realized that if Old Mother Demdike started the tale, young Alizon would spin it to its end.

KW: Of these characters, who was easiest to write? Who was your favorite, or that you identified with the most? Why?

MS: Both voices, once I had “found” them, just seemed to flow with a will of their own. I passionately love both women for different reasons. Bess for her indomitable strength and will and love. She is the epitome of a woman whose character was so strong that others found her scary. Alizon was more hesitant, uncertain, and doubtful, and I identified with her uncertainties, her questing for the deeper meaning of all her family had to endure.

KW: These women’s lives are incredibly difficult — toward the beginning of the book, Bess begs for food until she becomes aware of her healing gifts, which brings her a better life for a while. So much of her family’s rise and fall was tied into King James’ obsession with the occult. Did other women (or men) have similar experiences (whether or not they were practicing witchcraft)?

MS: Whether or not common folk had reputations as witches or cunning folk, they had a hard struggle for survival in East Lancashire. One bad harvest could result in famine and starvation.

East Lancashire had long been a poor backwater, never very prosperous as far as agriculture was concerned—the land was better for grazing than for farming. This was why, in the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution was born here. There were many hands and not enough paid work. These common people, struggling to feed their families, provided the cheap labor for the world’s first industrial cotton mills.

KW: Bess has a rather intense relationship with her familiar, a seductive male named Tibb who also appears as a hound. Only she can view and hear him, though. What did you make of Tibb? Did you think he was real? Or a hallucination? What parallels, if any, are there between Bess’s relationship with her familiar and the shaman’s relationship with the spirit world as healers?

MS: Modern people are allowed their skepticism, but for people in Bess’s era, the spirit world seemed very near—an active presence in daily life. Tibb was real indeed, as far as Bess was concerned.

In traditional English folk magic, no cunning man or cunning woman could work their charms without the aid of their familiar spirit—they needed this otherworldly ally to make things happen. Emma Wilby’s book, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits, is a comprehensive scholarly study of cunning folk in Early Modern Britain and their perceived relationship with their familiar spirits. She has drawn some interesting parallels between cunning folk and shamans in tribal societies, and has even compared a cunning person’s life-long relationship with their familiar spirit to that of Siberian shamans’ relationships with their spirit wives or spirit husbands. The spirit was generally, but not always, the opposite gender of the spirit worker, and the familiar spirit often appeared in a very intimate, seductive guise.

Wilby also links the belief in familiar spirits to the Fairy Faith, the lingering belief in fairies and elves that existed alongside Christianity. This connection was also noted by scholars in the Early Modern Period. In his 1677 book, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, Lancashire author John Webster mentions a local cunning man who claimed that his familiar spirit was none other than the Queen of Elfhame herself.

KW: You’ve written other novels — THE VANISHING POINT, which was also set in the seventeenth century, THE REAL MINERVA, and SUMMIT AVENUE, which uses fairy tales as part of its structure. How did your process for writing DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL compare to them? Easier or harder? Better or worse?

MS: My goal in writing fiction is to spin tales with much truth in them, hence interweaving my narratives with myth and fairy tale. I once did a storytelling seminar with Hugh Lupton who said that, “Myths are timeless stories and their function is to tell the truth.” SUMMIT AVENUE draws on dark, raw fairy tales mirroring a young woman’s coming of age in early 20th century Saint Paul. THE REAL MINERVA is a female retelling of The Odyssey—in small town Minnesota. The teenage protagonist’s name is Penelope and she is both the one who makes the journey and the one who waits. Set in 17th century Maryland, THE VANISHING POINT, a tale of star-crossed sisters and their quest for love, drew on the lore of the Green Man and the Vanishing People—the fey folk.

DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL was a departure for me because it was based not on folklore intertwined with fiction but on historical events and the lives of real women and men—a tale of heroism and tragedy that unfolded where I now live. My truth-telling mission here was to right ancient wrongs, to allow these unjustly maligned women to speak through me and finally tell their story in their own voices.

KW: Many of the people who read my blog are also writers. What sage advice would you give to them about the creative process of writing a novel? What do you wish you knew then that you know now?

MS: The primary rule of sustaining a career as a writer is that you’re in it for the long term and you won’t get any reward out of it unless you love the process of actually writing. The end result may bring nothing but rejection letters and rewrite after rewrite. You may have to put aside entire manuscripts before you come up with the one that speaks to a larger audience that finally lets you break through into publication. But even then, this is a highly competitive and volatile business. Great books often get mediocre sales for no particular reason. Love what you do and do your best to support other struggling authors. Buy their books and go to their readings. Help create the kind of writing community that will also welcome you when you get your first book published.

KW: Finally, I understand that you’re working on a novel about Hildegard von Bingen. Can you tell us a little about it? How does it compare to writing DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL with its female healers and cunning women? When can we expect to read it?”

MS: My current novel-in-press, KNOW THE WAYS, will reveal the dramatic life of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Benedictine abbess. She was an incredible character, a polymath who composed an entire corpus of music and wrote books on subjects as diverse as natural science, medicine, and human sexuality—she’s credited as the first person to describe the female orgasm in depth. A mystic and visionary, her prophecies earned her the title Sybil of the Rhine.

Her story arc is amazing. Her parents offered her as a tithe to the Church at the age of eight when she was enclosed—literally walled into a claustrophobic anchorage—with another young girl, Jutta von Sponheim, who probably would be diagnosed with anorexia if she were alive today. Yet Hildegard triumphed to become one of the greatest voices of her age. And she’s not so far removed from my historical witches as people might think. She healed with herbs, crystals, and gemstones, and was guided by visions. I suspect that if she had been born a few centuries later, she might well have been burned as a witch.

I think it will take me another year to finish the novel.

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Thank you, Mary, for an amazing interview! As I mentioned above, Mary has generously given us a copy of DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL to raffle off here. To win it, simply leave a comment by midnight, April 29, 2010.

The rules: Only one comment per person. Book can only be shipped to U.S. or Canadian mailing address. Winner will be chosen at random and announced here April 30 next Friday. Good luck to all!

• Filed under creativity, friends and colleagues, giveaways and raffles, mythic living, studio and gallery | 13 Responses

The Most Romantic Week on the Blogosphere: The Most Inspiring Love Story Ever?

To finish my “Most Romantic Week on the Blogosphere” featuring the Love Tarot app, I am compelled to share with you what I consider to be possibly one of the most inspiring of love stories — the tale of Dante and Beatrice. On top of that, we’re giving away a copy of the Love Tarot app and one Amor and Beatrice print (autographed by me) to two lucky blog commentors. Details at the end of this post.

It’s not too late: You can still enter the giveaways from earlier in this week! Here’s what you can win:

Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland.
The Lover’s Path by Kris Waldherr.
The Queen of My Self by Donna Henes.
Goddess Tarot deck and MP3 of The Tarot School’s teleclass for The High Priestess from Ruth Ann Amberstone.

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“Why Dante and Beatrice?” you may wonder. After all Dante never got his girl. She didn’t love him in return. Heck, the poet hardly spoke to her, if we’re to believe what he wrote. Nor did he send her any notes or any other indications of his affection. The truth was that Beatrice Portinari never knew how much Dante Aligheri adored her when she died prematurely in her twenties. Dante’s infatuation with Beatrice was one which he nurtured with subtle stares during church services, cherished greetings during accidental meetings — and transcendental poems shared with everyone but the object of his affection.

Most people know that Dante lived in thirteenth century Florence and wrote The Divine Comedy, an epic poem describing his vision of a journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. The first part, the Inferno, is the liveliest part of the work. Once you read it, it’s hard to forget its intensely visceral imagery and the sense that the poet is settling some serious political scores. Though Beatrice appears within The Divine Comedy as his guiding angel, she was also the subject of his first book, La Vita Nuova (“The New Life”). It is in La Vita Nuova that Dante fully recounts his love for her, and of how she inspired his art.

In a lot of ways, it’s easy to just consider Dante’s love for Beatrice a courtly love contrivance for his art — but what art! Here’s an excerpt from a poem he wrote about her death:

Great anguish do my sighs give unto me,
Whene’er my thought unto my heavy mind
Doth bring her to me who hath cleft my heart.
And thinking oftentimes concerning death,
There comes to me so sweet desire therefor
That it transmutes the color in my face.
When this imagination holds me fixed,
Such pain assaileth me on every side,
That then I tremble with the woe I feel;
And such I do become
That from the people shame takes me away:
Then, alone, weeping, I lamenting call
On Beatrice, and say: “Art thou, then, dead?
And while I call her I am comforted.”

When I think of all the art, poetry, literature, and (yes!) lovers who have been inspired by Dante, it amazes me. Everyone from Dante Gabriel Rossetti (though one has to pity poor Elizabeth Siddal, whom he plucked out of obscurity to be his Victorian-era Beatrice/Kate Moss) to, well, moi. Dante’s work has been illustrated by Sandro Botticelli, William Blake, and Gustave Dore. On the music front, Rossini and Schumann set his words to music, and it inspired a symphonic poem by Liszt. As for modern poets, Dantesque imagery found its way into the works of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, Gabriele D’Annunzio, and more writers than I can possibly list here.

All these influences and sources – and this is without even mentioning the films and novels and other art forms that owe Dante their due.

Why is the poet’s love story still so compelling, seven hundred years later? My theory is that Dante and Beatrice reminds us of the power of loving for love’s sake; of the beauty that pure devotion to another can inspire. And what can be more romantic than that?

So here’s the chain of events: Beatrice inspired Dante. Then Dante inspired everyone else. And that is why I consider Dante and Beatrice to be the most inspiring love story ever.

In closing, here’s my retelling of Dante’s devotion to Beatrice, adapted from The Lover’s Path Tarot; this account was based on his La Vita Nuova:

Beatrice was nine years old the first time Dante gazed upon her, he slightly older. Her presence made such an impression that he felt as though his spirit had been infused with light. From that moment, Dante adored Beatrice above all others. Through the years as they grew into adulthood, Dante sought to meet Beatrice, too overwhelmed with love to do nothing more than stare at her. He noticed that Beatrice was so full of grace that any who saw her experienced a happiness which could only be described through sighs. All this convinced Dante that Beatrice was truly an angel. Since he said nothing, Beatrice did not suspect Dante’s love; she thought him dumb with shyness. But her warm greeting never wavered no matter how awkwardly Dante acted.

When Beatrice turned fifteen, her parents arranged her marriage to a wealthy merchant. The first time Dante saw Beatrice after her wedding, she was accompanied by two of her bridesmaids as they walked along the Arno River in Florence. Overcome by the knowledge that she was now another’s wife, Dante turned his face from Beatrice to hide his tears. Beatrice’s bridesmaids misunderstood and thought the poet had insulted their mistress. They jeered at him as they led Beatrice away.

That night, Dante retreated to his chamber in anguished shame. While he slept, a vision appeared to him in his dreams as the stars reached the ninth hour of the night. From a cloud the hue of fire emerged a god-like figure. This being, who identified himself as Amor, the spirit of love, held a woman whom Dante recognized as Beatrice. Amor also held a heart, which he told  Dante was the heart the poet had irrevocably given to Beatrice.

Dante awoke from his dream resolved. His love for Beatrice would be no earthly passion to expire when they died. Instead, he would immortalize Beatrice with poems that would last forever. As their lives unfolded, Beatrice was honored by Dante’s verses as no woman had ever been. The poet’s fame spread—and with it, the story of his love for Beatrice.

Over the years, the story of Dante and Beatrice has inspired many to give their hearts just as completely.”

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TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: I have one copy of the Full version Love Tarot app and an autographed Amor and Beatrice print, which reproduces the drawing for the card shown above. To enter, simply leave a comment for this post; please indicate whether you’d like to be entered for the app or the print. Or both. For a double entry, tell us your about your most intensely romantic experience.

It may not involve another person — for example, I was enraptured during my first trip to Venice like a Victorian heroine overcome by Stendhal Syndrome. Or it might. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that romance is all around us — Valentine’s Day should be a celebration of that, rather than a marker (and marketing ploy) for happily we’re partnered off.

The small print: You have until midnight EST on February 14 to leave your comment. Winner will be chosen at random and announced on this blog Monday, February 15, 2010. Sorry, but this giveaway is limited to U.S. only.

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Top art: Dante and Beatrice from the Love Tarot app by Kris Waldherr.

More about the Love Tarot app: Considered to be the most romantic app in the App Store, the Love Tarot app offers gorgeous tarot readings inspired by famous love stories, such as Tristan and Isolde and Cupid and Psyche. This five star-rated app was recently relaunched to include a tarot journal for users to save their readings and other inspirations.

Available in Lite and Full versions, learn more here. Or download the Full version on iTunes now.

• Filed under giveaways and raffles, iPhone apps, lover's path, mythic living, tarot and oracles, the art world | 5 Responses

On life, love and loss

“I refuse to think of death. I decide that every day is going to be my best day ever. And it is.”

— Joyce Iris Miller (1930 – 2009)

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The abruptness of my last blog entry suggests that something sudden and unfortunate occurred here in Art and Words land. And it had. My mother-in-law, Joyce Miller, passed away on the evening of December 9th at the age of 79. Since then, we’ve been thrown into a land of bereavement and its aftermath, both emotional and practical.

It’s amazing how much time and energy loss takes. I’m certainly old enough to know loss in my life. But this one has really cut to the bone. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard if Joyce’s death had been expected. But it wasn’t — she had a sudden heart attack and died instantly. Otherwise, she was a vital force until the end, full of good humor and joy (as her name suggests). Besides a husband of 56 years, she left behind a daughter and a son — my husband — and two granddaughters.

How can I describe her without sounding like a hagiography? But all this is true — she was simply an extraordinarily generous person who saw the beauty and good wherever she went.

She gave her time and talents to numerous non-profits organizations, including the Library of Congress and the Women’s Democratic Club. She was someone who gathered friends everywhere she went and kept them. Joyce was also the best grandmother to my daughter Thea. Filled with patience and playfulness, she always had some special surprise to greet Thea with every time we visited her in Washington, DC, where she lived. She was always ready to tell a story or to give a hug.

Joyce also loved to have fun and enjoyed beautiful environments. Before her death, we had talked about taking a trip to Monticello and Newport to view the mansions of the rich and famous. She also enjoyed a good gossip and a dry vodka martini, preferably on the rocks with olives. One of my favorite Joyce quotes: “I gave up guilt. It wasn’t that hard to do.”

Joyce Miller was one of my favorite people in this world, and possibly the kindest person I’ve ever met. Last week, we laid her to rest in a grave we covered in peach-colored roses, not far from where John Philip Sousa was buried.

I miss her greatly already. But I feel blessed to have known her.

Joyce Miller with Tom in Rome, sometime in the 1970s.

• Filed under art and words, mythic living, queens, the world around me | 9 Responses