Week 28: Unspooling in the Dark of a Cave
“unspooling in the dark of a cave”
Collage, cut New Yorker Magazine paper, 9" x 12"
I promise I’m not having a dark-night-of-the-soul experience. But thanks for caring.
It was midnight on the first really cold night of the season when I selected this week’s New Yorker issue—from January 2020 with cover art by Pascal Campion. I’d had my eye on this one for a while, and it finally seemed like the right time, especially as we’re heading toward the longest night of the year.
“Twilight Avenue” by Pascal Campion @pascalcampionart
The New Yorker, January 6, 2020
The title words for this week’s collage came out of a short piece called “Storytelling Across the Ages” by Adam Gopnik. He tells of a study that “suggests that three-quarters of the hand stencils found on the walls of dozens of European caves were made by women, and that the paintings alongside them likely were as well. Early man may have thrown the spears, but early woman made the pictures telling how.”
Pretty cool.
Gopnik continued, “The patriarchy had little place in caves.” And that’s when I got a vision for this collage. In fact, I thought those words were going to be the collage title and that this piece was going to become my first collage yoni.
INNER CRITIC URSULA: Really? Are we going there? Caves, wombs, patriarchy?
INNER CHEERLEADER JULES: What’s wrong with yoni art? It’s good enough for Judy Chicago. And Georgia O’Keeffe.
URSULA: Actually, O’Keeffe claimed … oh never mind. If you want to alienate your male readers…
JULES: Why should they be scared of a womb?
URSULA: Good question. (Puffs imaginary cigarette.)
But the final collage turned out to be less yoni-like than I originally envisioned. I’m fine with that. And somewhere during the creation process, the true title became apparent: “unspooling in the dark of a cave.”
This time of year always feels a bit cave-like as the days get shorter and colder. Holing up at home feels cozy, and it’s a great time to look inward, evaluate the past year, look ahead to the next.
And although this pandemic has had us in cave mode for nine months now, I still appreciate the Earth’s encouragement to go within.
The darkness might seem scary, but it doesn’t have to be. My subconscious can teach me a lot if I’m willing to pull up my big-girl panties and take off my blinders. “Unspooling” doesn’t have to mean unraveling. Like old-school film editing, I have to unspool the film to examine the frames, decide what I want to keep, what I want to leave on the cutting room floor.
The darkness might feel cozy, but the caterpillar isn’t meant to dwell in the chrysalis.
If I stay stuck in the darkness, gazing inwardly, how am I ever going to be of service in this world? Isn’t that where we are headed in our evolution as a species? Are we moving beyond me-me-me to look outside of ourselves? To remember that we are all connected? That we really are all in this planet Earth experiment together? That whole butterfly-flapping-its-wings effect?
URSULA: Why don’t you introduce yet another analogy?
ME: Point taken.
This art challenge has been a good reminder for me—balance is key. Being on a schedule of constant creative output—as fun as it can be—takes a toll. The obsession our American culture has with productivity is, I believe, a function of The Patriarchy, a symptom of the Wounded Masculine. Not that productivity itself is a negative thing, but if I tie up my identity and self-worth with my productivity, I am caught up in the dysfunction. Burnout is inevitable. For me.
I had gotten halfway through this cave-dive collage when some life-stuff happened. I decided I needed to take a week off just to preserve my sanity. And I’m so glad I did.
Balance. Divine Masculine needs Divine Feminine needs Divine Masculine needs Divine Feminine...
If I want to put ideas into action, I need a healthy balance of both. I love my cave time. And I love emerging into the light. I love this winter solstice season. And I love that the solstice signals the return of spring.
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED CARTOON
(What was that about productivity?)
