Art and Mourning
Dear Friend,
Becoming an artist requires the practice of mourning. Without decay there is no new life.
Thank you to the lovely friends who sent pictures of wild mushrooms growing in their gardens and on daily walks.
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Content note: reference to a historical murder βΒ please read with care.
These fungal companions have comforted me on thirtieth anniversary of the murder of a childhood friend. I didn't expect to be so unmoored by this memory but I have found myself going through many of the stages of grief as I grapple with my feelings.
She has been in my dreams.
I remember that she was killed in her childhood bedroom. I remember that no adult wanted to talk about what happened.
Years later, I started working on a story that would eventually become The Museum of Atheism. The story of a girl murdered in a place she felt safest: her home.
I wanted to write about the devastation of murder but also about a curious, tenacious child who wanted to read comic books, play in the snow and run free in the open air.
The book became my fantasy communion with the child inside many of us who were policed for our creativity, gender expressions, and our desire to play.
I wanted to explore how she brought her empathy and her love to bear on what she was confronted with and that she was free, in her own way.
I didnβt want the story to end with death but with transition.
Transition from violence to wild and irrepressible fungal life.
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Libra I is The Artist.
Kening Zhuβs illustration contains softness and sharpness. The ruthless swords are haloed with the luminosity of the moon.
The sharpness of the blades reminds us of coming to the point, making a decision.
The softness of the moon evokes intuition, dreams, and initiations.
Every artwork requires both sacrifice and desire.
Venus and the Moon.
If you would like to pay attention to this moment, join us for Atmospheres. We will meet tomorrow at noon BST to imagine silk blindfolds against our skin, and to write together.
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π Fruit
Two of Swords
Cardinal air: hoodwink, meditation, play.
This scene could be from a play or a photoshoot. The figure could be sitting for a portrait, or waiting for a lover to release them from a game.
Libra I - The Artist
Cardinal air: initiation, commitment artistry.
Every artwork requires both sacrifice and desire.
Venus and the Moon.
Read More
Artmaking in Fiction
Cardinal air: harmony, nourishment, artists
I am working on a novel concerned with artmaking, and it occurred to me that there are so many, and such varied, novels and films that deal with this subject. A feast of delicious artworks
Read More
π¦ Spores
My novel is slowly coming together and it is steeped in the ideas from a letter I wrote around a year ago about fantasy and internal worlds.
πππ Mycelium
Katie Kitamuraβs Audition is the perfect Libra I novel. I have been haunted by its unsettling midpoint shift.
I wish you a week of soft silk, sharp insights, and deep release.
Love, LJ
this is microdosing ceremony, a letter from my artistβs cocoon to yours.
find out more about rituals and writing on the ceremony podcast.
explore creative rabbit holes on my website.
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