I used to watch my mom doodle whenever she was on the phone. The nature of the conversation didn’t matter. Her attention was both diffuse and focused as shapes issued forth from that place between thoughts.
Her hand entered a trance-like state, moving pen across paper in some kind of interstitial dance.
I loved seeing what would emerge. Always mesmerized by the contrast of fluid and sharp lines. She could have collected them over the years and turned them into a coloring book.
I’d biomimic her, inadvertently apprenticing to this altered state of consciousness. And to this day, I too doodle when I’m on a call, or listening in on a course or podcast.
I think it lets the vast fields of connectivity speak through me in ways I’ll never be able to interpret. But I know there’s a story living in the different shapes. Their movements tug at my imagination.
I decided to try beading one of these shapes - winding and curvy.
Prophesying the color pallet is just the beginning. How the colors want to be in relationship is the next layer of listening. Then comes the edging, and the fringe.
Made of porcupine quills I harvested & cleaned myself, this particular fringe draws its inspiration from a pair of earrings my mom passed on to me that she bought at a pow wow years ago. I don’t know who the artist was, but I feel the need to name them, even anonymously, so as to cherish & honor their dreaming.
I think it’s funny that the etymology of the word “doodle” means “fool.” Somehow that makes so much sense when I consider the feeling of being in a trance-like state, not absent of presence. I can’t help but think of the tarot card, and the way that soft-footed human is following a butterfly right over a cliff.
That’s kind of what it feels like to follow the soft encouragements of some otherworldly force guiding my hand in a seemingly innocuous action.
But look at what that butterfly-following impulse aided in bringing forth. A pair of adornments that have a story waiting to be told, and the title is this:
Matuwehs and the Cosmic River of Nyx
*Matuwehs (porcupine in Passamaquoddy)
*Nyx (the Greek deity of the Night-or Night itself personified)
Story forthcoming.
Earrings are a part of the Matuwehs Collection.