An Artist’s Almanac
Enlivening Time
09.02.2024 - 10.03.24
Things of the Earth, 2023. Acrylic and Pencil on Paper, 10cm x 15cm.
From Imbolg to the Spring Equinox
1st February 2024 - 20th March
Ritual
You can enact this ritual by yourself or with others (online or offline). You will need some rainwater in a dish (tap water is fine if you don’t have rainwater) and a candle: water and fire. As you speak the incantation light the candle and then dip your fingers into the water, slowly lift them above the dish and let drops of this water fall from your fingertips back into the dish.
Incantation
At the Spring Equinox we join the balance between Luna and Sol, between water and fire: a balance between fully transformed darkness and newly emerging brightness. We stand in-between, naked, vernal, free of articifice, aware. Water gathered from the skies this last while vivifies our husks; flame fires our bones. As the rain falls, our ardour ignites; life surges.
About the Spring Equinox
The Spring Equinox is a time of balance, union, manifestation and fertility. It is a time when we might become aware of the life force within and around us; when we might feel the surge of life and the fullness of living. The Spring Equinox is one of the eight Celtic festivals each of which marks a significant change in the calendar, in our yearly cycle. It’s also known as the Vernal Equinox – vernal meaning springlike and youthful.
The Spring Equinox is one of the two points in the calendar – the other being the Autumn Equinox - when there is balance between darkness and brightness, between moon and sun, between Luna and Sol, between Yin and Yang, between water and fire.
Astronomically, it is the time when day and night are almost but not quite equal. Almost, but not quite equal: Nothing ever reaches a perfect balance: almost but not quite equal is as close as we get. This is as true for ourselves as it is for night and day. The Equinoxes guide us to an almost-balance between our own interior and exterior lives.
The balance at the Spring equinox differs to that of the Autumn Equinox. At the Spring Equinox the balance is between a fully transformed darkness and a newly emerging brightness. At the Autumn Equinox the balance is between a fully transformed brightness and an emerging darkness. So each equinox has a different feel, and marks a different kind of transition.
The Spring Equinox marks the beginning of the bright half of the year, the Solar, Yang half of the year. This doesn’t mean that this half of the year is connected only to light, brightness, Sun, Sol, Yang, but that these energies, qualiites, are more pronounced. There is always an interplay - a drama perhaps - going on between Sol and Luna.
Alchemy and Calendrical Art
I think the soul paints itself transforming. I work with alchemy and the eight transitions point in the calendar year as a way of working attentively with the soul/psyche’s unfolding. The calendar year begins and ends with the darkness of winter; a spiral of change. Alchemy begins with the emergence of the Prima Materia, the brightest, blackest, most alive matter, and ends with the creation of the Philosophers’ Stone (Lapis Philosophorum). The stone; a powder, a tincture, perhaps the Prima Materia itself, is, amongst other things, referred to as Lapis Occultus and Arcanum (mystery, deep secret, elixir, secret remedy). The transition points - the Celtic cross quarter days, the solstices and equinoxes – prepare for soul for what lies ahead. Once manifested, the ripened stone then transforms through four seasons; participating in calendrical processes and relations of gestation, birth, growth, blossoming, fading, dying, absence, emptiness and birth again. This is what I paint. Each year I work with similar material but from different perspectives and sometimes with new understanding.
The Nine Calendrical Transition Points
My articulation of The Nine Calendrical Transition Points are inspired by alchemical encounters towards self-realisation and by rituals and myths that mark changes in the seasons and the subsequent impact on everyday and spiritual life.
In particular, I work with the solstices and equinoxes (quarter days) and the Celtic fire festivals (cross quarter days) celebrated in November, February, May and August. I add an additional point at Samhain (November) to accommodate the ending of one cycle and the beginning of another.
For me, these nine transition points seem to align with the painting/creative process itself, which, to my understanding, involves the psyche’s transformative unfolding. By psyche, I mean the web of our being that flows between the deepest aspects of self, other, cosmos and the processes of becoming conscious of these depths.
By giving attention to the properties of each of the nine calendrical transition points as they emerge in real time in the external world, I find an unparalleled opportunity to simultaneously explore equivalent internal relations and transformations. I’m interested in how all of this manifests itself in painting and other creative activities.