In May 2024, I turned 70. An eye exam earlier that year, showed that I had cataracts, apparently from growing up in a sunny country. The cataract surgery was scheduled for the middle of May. I felt physically vulnerable knowing that with age my senses, ligaments, joints and whole body are becoming more fragile. Of course, there are remedies and ways to stay healthy, but the reality of aging suddenly became clear. Replacing parts of my physical self for artificial parts to be able to see better was completely foreign and scary to me, while at the same time magnificent that modern technology and medicine can produce such miracles.
What was the meaning of seeing better than ever before? I contemplated this as a metaphor but waited for an unexpected illumination coming from deeper inside than intellectual analysis. Asking the right question of an experience, dream or challenge, always bring surprizing magical moments of revelation to me that triggers evolutionary insight and growth when acted upon.
In 2020 I started making art fulltime, after a significant transition from professional working woman to being retired. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to use creativity to explore my soul without distractions or worldly pressures, but I first had to accumulate and refine the tools and techniques of my crafts. I felt liberated. (Astrological transits at the time were Uranus conjunct Mercury and Sun Trine Mars.) 2020 turned out to be productive in more than one way. This year made me Ouma to a beautiful granddaughter. Becoming a grandmother was at first an intellectual realization which slowly became an engaging and interactive experience with a new being that amazingly reflected parts of my own child self. It is as if this little being mirrors my lifelong evolutionary journey back to me; showing me the new potential that came from all my decisions.
Almost 4 years after Remi’s birth, I am re-visiting my artwork with new eyes. Astrological transit over the last 3 years was Pluto conjunct my natal Chiron). I realized after trying to translate a piece done on paper in 2019, to fabric, that I cannot go back in time from where my psyche is now. A completely new work needs to be created from my renewed perspective and vision. Over the last 3 years a lot of healing happened. A whole new pandora’s box opened for me to be addressed. Another layer of wounds became visible and needed healing. I had to dive into my own darkness and fears, that also released a totally new level of liberation. Old destructive patterns that I thought I had overcome reappeared as current ones which was terrifying. I was confronted by my fears and had to re-commit to trusting my instincts and intuition, acknowledging myself. My life choices were after all valid and constructive. I had to recognize, identify, confront and heal deeper layers of distrust and fear, hidden from myself, before I could step over the threshold of Crone-being. An even deeper trust in Life itself matured. This is when I realized that I am a Crown. This is the gift of my new vision after a Pluto transit.
Liberation came from this deep dive into my shadows experience.
Liberation
Looking at the paper version of my art-piece now, it is so clear that the image is of a ‘youthful mother’. She is creative and seeking wisdom to share. She holds the Sun and the Moon in her hands and the Stars in her hair. The wisdom she wants to share with everyone, comes down from the ‘All’ through the chakras to enlighten herself and then move back up to the centre of wisdom, the third eye. Her feet reach for the sensual earthiness of a velvety rose with its perfume of beauty and unconditional love. Now I see however that she was in fact the Hanged Man (as in the Major Arcana of the Tarot) version of an archetypal Mother. Now, in 2024, I realize that she had no solid footing and is floating in space, idealizing life and sacrificing herself, holding on and holding out for her ideals. She has yet to accept her own physicality, her own beautiful reality, and not live for other’s realities, like that of an archetypal mother.
Magician
Then as I look at the art piece ‘Turquoise Woman’ I now see that she is an expression of my unconscious wish at the time, to give birth to a new aspect of my being. The ‘Young Girl’ and the ‘Mother’ seen together in the center pregnant belly, are both ready to give birth to the new Mother Earth, the Crone and Wise Woman. The maiden and the mother have become one but not yet united with the Crone. Together they will give birth to her, integrating by becoming the Crone. But that did not happen yet. The timing is only right now to transform and accept my own individuality by becoming whole inside, having faced and healed my fear of life not being perfect, but being the Crone; the one who have lived a long and complex life of challenges and choices that has brought me to this ‘now’ place.
Turquoise Woman
Artmaking helps me with recognizing the transitions through my personal growth phases as a woman, when I look back on these art-pieces, and it helps me make choices for future progress. These works shows where I was, what I felt at the time, how I changed, and how to proceed.
The gift of new vision has guided me through the threshold and entering the Crone phase in my existence, but it came as a process of becoming. Artmaking is part of this magical process. Artmaking is a dedicated practice of consciousness development. Consciousness grows in the darkness behind the scenes while I make. I become aware once the timing allows and the awareness in unexpected illumination. To me, that means that I just do what I do and wait for the magic to happen while knowing that it will, because I asked for consciousness in my soul. Sometimes it takes years for the illumination to unfold and cannot happen from intellectual analysis alone.
This was the case in becoming a Crone for me. Intellectually I felt like a Crone because of logical reasons, but other transitional spiritual events had to happen before my bones, blood and spirit could fully embrace my Crone being.
Love and Blessings,
Jayni
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