Saturday, August 23, 2008

"The Gift"

...so, like I said in my last post, I couldn't avoid temptation & joined up with the 2008 BJP. And have all my designs RTG for the next year. My theme? Coming up with that was interesting. In our family, we have a word for people who have an ability to know things, or see things ahead of time... as well as some other abilities. We call it The Gift. Others call it being psychic. Some call it witchcraft! In the Italian tradition, it's called Stregheria...which supposedly predates the Celtic tradition. I've been studying this since I have this Gift. Some Italians say it's hereditary, but I have a feeling that most people have this "gift", but not alot of us use it or want to acknowledge it. I was blessed to never be laughed at for it, & so I continued to use it or access it.
...now the problem is which symbols to use? Us Italians tend to have alot of words & alot of symbols & sigils! So that wouldn't work. And my Scandinavian side had too many Runes! Ah, but I had a book called "A Witch's Runes" by Susan Sheppard. She chose 12 symbols to use for her book, plus one that is all encompassing. She is an astrologer, so her symbols matched up with the Zodiac too. She talks about the history of using runes & symbols...from the Roms to the Egyptians, to the Native American petroglyphs, etc. Some of the runes she chose have been used by several different groups around the world, but her designs are mainly of Pictish origin.

...so, I decided I wanted to study these symbols as they relate to my gift. Each month I will do an off-loom beaded rectangle of the symbol, connecting them with the Zodiac & the traditional gemstone color for that month. This was alot to figure out in one day! But I did it! Here's a pic of my sketchbook so you can see how I tried to match it all up! And a bunch of my beads laid out to see what I needed to order for the year.


I also did a practice piece to see the actual size & what color thread I was gonna use. It was either white or a neutral. This picture is kinda blurry, but I decided to go for white as it seemed not to add to the color of the bead as much. Not sure if you can really tell in this picture.

As I go thru' the year, I will try to explain each of the symbols & it's meaning. And I hope to get a clearer picture of this part of myself. You can follow my progress here on my blog, & also visit the 2008 BJP blog here. There's not alot up yet as we don't officially start until September...and we're not allowed to show pics on that blog until the end of the year. I feel like I'm at the starting gate & can't wait to run!!!

Oh, one other thing! Each rectangle contains 625 beads. The center, which will be my connecting piece for all 12, has a symbol that encompasses the meaning of all of the 12 other symbols. It will take up 4 squares. Now, y'all know how I feel about math, but once I found my calculator & multiplied 625 times the size of 16 squares, I got exactly 10,000 beads!!! I was totally amazed at how this turned out considering I did it so quickly. So I'd like to dedicate each of those 10,000 beads to each of the beings (men, women & pets) whose lives were destroyed during the times of the Inquisition. I know there were alot more than 10,000, but it's a start.

Blessed be & warmest aloha!

1 comment:

Jody said...

This sounds like a wonderful project & am sure will be an adventure.
The Gift is powerful!