Up: [[Myth-Making]] Created: 2024-11-06 Updated: 2024-11-10 #### The Process This is from an Inspired Inquiries course. There were 44 brilliant prompts which I completed over seven non-consecutive days as I made the art. The story was written in chunks in response to some of the prompts. ![[Allegorical Final.webp|500]] Once there was a woman who had always known that she loved creativity in all of its myriad forms and felt a special affinity for those magical beings who create and stay true to their heart, their soul, their inner world. She no longer wanted to keep envying them. She yearned to be one of them. And in that yearning she knew that she could be, because dreams like that are given and persist only when the soul’s [[Daimon]] is there to help make them a reality. Standing at the door, her favourite pottery mug in hand, she let herself finally acknowledge that what she desired most was to Pay Attention, Be Amazed, and Tell About It, all from the relaxed, centred, focused and creative stillpoint of her Self, her inner [[Hestia]]. Where she comes from it is well known that life is a race against the clock to accomplish great things perfectly. And yet, still came the day when she encountered the magpie and clearly heard its message: “Be playful. Hold your days lightly. Love what you love, and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks.” She picked up her nest, her source of nurturance, stillness and comfort, and she left the land of hurry. She entered the nearby forest where she delighted [[Being]] in present time, her senses wide awake, her companion magpie on her shoulder as she wandered deeper and deeper into the woods. Eventually she came to a clearing where there was a man sitting by a well. He encouraged her to take the long view, to see the big picture as well as the details, reassuring her that this would teach her that all would be well, and would help her to have perspective on individual events. She understood that each moment is unique and beautiful in itself, but is also a piece of something larger, unknown and unknowable. It was late at night when she finally left the kind man, and the forest had become menacing. Her face and hands were scratched and torn by the brambles and thorns surrounding her that she had to move aside, one painful cut at a time. She felt the trials of the week injuring her, scaring her. Jamie’s aggressive nit picking and Trump’s decisive win threatened her trust in rationality, her cherished value of civility, and the calmness of her life in her hometown and in the larger world. She struggled to make meaning, to make sense of a new reality of conspiracy, mistrust, and hatred — a reality she had been aware was developing, but she had believed that there were enough other people who had also seen it that it would surely be defeated. She persevered, slowly moving deeper and deeper into the dark until she came to a sudden panicked stop at the edge of an enormous canyon. If she had taken just another couple of steps, she would have walked into the air and plunged to her death. Fortunately, the walls and floor of the canyon were compressed sand, light enough that she had caught a glimpse of them just in time. The canyon stretched as far as the eye could see. She couldn’t get around it. She didn’t know how she could get through it. But it felt new and specially created for her. She understood that the only way out was through. Eventually she found a spot where she could maybe, just maybe, get down the slope. She slid, stopped, then slid again down to the bottom, all the time facing into the barren darkness of the canyon floor. When she reached the bottom, where before she’d seen only compressed sand, now she spotted signs of life — small shoots of green and tiny spouts of water breaking through the surface of the sand. She rested for a bit then made the difficult climb up the sand wall on the other side, tearing her hands and feet further as she tried to gain purchase on the wall. Eventually she got out and continued her arduous journey through the dark woods. Soon she spotted a small red hut, known to be the home of an ancient wild woman. Through a window, a fire could be seen on the hearth. And as the door swung open she saw the ancient woman rocking in a chair in front of the fire, back and forth, back and forth. The old woman beckoned her forward, took her on her lap, and continued to rock back and forth, back and forth. After some time, the old woman plucked a feather from the traveller’s sweater and threw it into the fire. Upon leaving the hut, she heard the ancient wild woman say, “Don’t fly. You must stay on the ground.” She knew it was time to be completely herself, a woman who lived her heart’s desire to Pay Attention, Be Amazed and Tell About It from a place of flow and calm. She took up her nest and vowed to savour the world’s and her own beauty. But she had made this vow many, many times before. What was going to make this time different? How could she take what she learned on her journey to BE different? She looked up at her brilliantly lit and clear North Star and walked in the direction it beckoned. She went through another thick, deep woods but this one wasn’t scary. It was a pine and spruce forest that smelled like she was walking through a Christmas tree farm. On the other side of the forest, she came out on a small clearing by the edge of the ocean and made her way to the mouth of a cave overlooking the water. The cave was compressed sand just like the canyon she’d laboured through, but this time she felt dry, cozy, warm, and perfectly safe. The woman knew that her outer travels were over. Her North Star had shown her what she needed for her inner travels to continue. She didn’t need to move to the ocean or find a cave. She needed Hestia’s cottage, depth work, art, writing and plenty of solitude, all things that were familiar to her. Her work was to take her body into her nest and begin all actions from there, from her ground.