DAY Of CYCLE: DAY 23

INPUT:

Songs I’m listening to today: MY LIGHT, MY DESTROYER- CASSANDRA JENKINS

So these are real things that happened
Where you can apply these, these, um, important concepts
And understand that
When we lose our connection to nature
We lose our spirit, our humanity, our sense of self

LYRICS CASSANDRA JENKINS- HARD DRIVE

Film I’m watching: ‘THE OUTRUN’-

I went to watch ‘The Outrun’ in the evening at the local cinema ‘Hermon arts Centre’, an old converted welsh congregational chapel in the centre of Oswestry a local town. I knew practically everyone in the building, we were all wrapped up warm as if we were camping.

That’s the thing about around here, you can’t go anywhere without seeing people that you know.

I really enjoyed the film, the plot felt serendipitous. I had been feeling a little low about my situation, living with my parents at 32, not being in London anymore with no view to go back. The entire plot is set around a 29 year old woman who’s had to return to her family home from London after struggling with alcoholism. It’s about fighting this, wanting to return to London and her journey of healing through nature.

Although my reason for leaving wasn’t addiction, and was a combination of ill health (I was on a stomach tube for two years and couldn’t get out of bed) and a breakup, I have followed the same road. No matter the illness, the road looks very similar.

It was strange to watch it, but it reminded me that I’m where I’m meant to be, and that the itch to get back to London is somewhat of an ego need, to be in the centre, to be in the ‘right’ place, to have an excuse for being exhausted and fast paced. To have everything at my fingertips. Whilst dating I’ve had many people rule me out because I wouldn’t think of returned to London, like I might lure them away from the busy ness of the city and into the hills. Sometimes I wondered if my love life, my career and my social life would be better in London. But then I remember I need my mental and physical health and that those two things suffered dramatically there. Without those to things nothing else can happen.

Books I’m reading: THE FEMININE IN FAIRYTALES

Song I’m learning on guitar

Trying a new one with a slightly harder strumming pattern

What I’m Knitting

OUTPUT:

Three pages

CURRENT PIECE

It has some semblance of a tree.

Am I being purposefully brutal, am I bringing ‘suffering’ into this rather than nurturing. Hate it until it behaves correctly.

I need to love it into existance

And I dislike it again.

It’s whenever it’s a work in progress, what is that about? I was fine when I had WIPs at work, I could show the most basic things to a group of talented people knowing it’s not finished so it’s fine that it doesn’t look great.

What is it about my own personal art that means I’m struggling to implement this?

It’s when some part of it is ‘half done’. Reject it before someone else can?

Gonna need to learn to not do this.

NEXT PIECE INSPIRATION

Moodboard of these symbols

Along with the works of Hilma Klint and taking inspiration from the Voynich Manuscript visually, I want to use symbolism from books such as ‘Women who run with wolves’ and the most recent text I’ve read ‘addiction to perfection’.

KEY SYMBOLS

1. The Demon Lover – Represents the inner critic, toxic perfectionism, and the pursuit of an unattainable ideal.

Healing: Recognizing its false promises and embracing imperfection.

The Demon Lover

Arthur Hughes

Rama Spurns the Demon Lover

(‘Rama Spurns the Demon Lover’, 1913. )

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Warwick Goble

2. The Body (The Starving Body) – Symbolizes disconnection between body and soul, manifesting in eating disorders or numbness. Healing: Reconnecting with the body’s wisdom.

3. The Hollow Woman – A woman who has lost connection to her soul and intuition in pursuit of perfection.

Healing: Reclaiming inner life and embracing imperfection.

4. The Wise Old Woman (Crone) – Represents deep feminine wisdom that comes from accepting life’s imperfections.

Healing: Learning self-trust and intuition.

Crones. © Asma Istwani

Old Woman Seen from Behind,
by Vincent van Gogh.

5. The Clockwise Spiral – Symbolizes external growth, structure, and order. Potential danger: Leading to burnout if disconnected from inner self.

6. The Counterclockwise Spiral – Represents deep inner transformation, dismantling old identities for rebirth.

7. The Chrysalis / Butterfly – Transformation from suffering to wholeness, requiring patience and surrender.

Maria Sibylla Merian, 1679

8. The Snake – Represents the body’s wisdom and feminine instinct, urging trust in intuition.

9. The Moon – A feminine symbol of intuition, cycles, and accepting change.

10. The Ocean / Water – Represents deep emotions, surrender, and the unconscious.

11. The Dark Night of the Soul – The necessary crisis before transformation, requiring faith in the process.

12. The Black Madonna – Symbolizes the rejected deep feminine power, intuition, and sensuality.

13. Fire – Represents purification, destruction, and transformation of false perfectionist ideals.

14. The Womb – A sacred space for inner gestation, emphasizing patience before external action.

15. The Golden Shadow – Represents repressed positive traits such as joy, creativity, and spontaneity.

16. The Voice of the Soul – The inner truth often suppressed in perfectionism.

SYMBOLS WITHIN THE TALES

1. The Handless Maiden – Represents a woman’s loss of power due to external control, requiring reclaiming her soul.

Celeste Woods

2. The Fisher King Wound – A culture’s loss of the sacred feminine, needing restoration of balance.

3. The Bridegroom Who Would Not Eat – Represents the starving soul in perfectionism, urging self-nourishment.

4. Bluebeard – Symbolizes the destructive Demon Lover who kills women’s creativity, requiring rejection of perfectionism.

Bluebeard illustration by Guillon for an edition of the tales by Charles Perrault published in Paris in the late 19th century

5. Lady Macbeth– Used to discuss the destructive pursuit of power and perfection. She interprets Lady Macbeths actions as embodying negative aspects of the feminine psyche when it is disconnected from it’s nurturing qualities

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

1889, John Singer Sargent

Each symbol represents a step in the journey from perfectionism to wholeness, urging the balance of feminine wisdom
with external achievement.