The Life and Times of the Plume

“I understand how scarlet can differ from crimson because I know that the smell of an orange is not the smell of a grapefruit…Without color or its equivalent, life to me would be dark, barren, a vast blackness…Therefore, I habitually think of things as colored and resonant. Habit accounts for part. The soul sense accounts for another part. The brain with its five-sensed construction asserts its right and accounts for the rest. The unity of the world demands that color be kept in it whether I have cognizance of it or not. Rather than be shut out, I take part in it by discussing it, happy in the happiness of those near me who gaze at the lovely hues of the sunset or the rainbow.”

[Helen Keller, The World I Live In, 1908]

…humdinger.

I picked daffodils this morning

because their yellow hues made my soul sing.

I wanted even more sunshine in my home,

more light for my eyes,

more color.

What hue is twanging your heartstrings today?

I was sipping Lord Bergamont and writing my morning pages today when I realized something:

Yesterday, while at the hospital having my regular blood draw for my thyroid tests, I realized why butterflies have been such a central theme in some of my pieces lately (continuing now with the cocoon series and the lycanidae series). Never mind the obvious connotations we attach to butterflies regarding rebirth, transformation, transitions, seasons and the freedom of flight. I think when I create these butterfly pieces, I feel they’re directly connected to the broken butterfly in my throat — my thyroid.

Particularly, in the month of October, when I lay in bed unable to sleep, I could feel that butterfly shaped gland at the base of my throat flapping its wings, fighting for its life (funny enough, more of my thyroid died that month and my spirits were low…very low…). I felt an otherwise quiet gland at the base of my throat, a gland so vital to the stable functioning of my entire body at cellular level, come alive and beat its wings. Perhaps I have an active imagination, but one of my best friends who also suffers from a thyroid disease promises me that she too can sometimes feel her thyroid flapping its wings.

Either thyroids really do flap their wings — they are butterfly shaped — or we have attributed this movement to our thyroids in order to give motion and feeling to a part of our body that is ailing us and is otherwise silent. It’s interesting, isn’t it?

At any rate, I think the butterflies I’m turning out are prayers and hopes for a healthy thyroid, for a healed thyroid, for balance in my body, my mind and my life. For the time being, my thyroid is behaving like a ridiculous, handkerchiefed bandit, stealing tiny portions of my well being from me, piece by piece. Perhaps, I’m not solely creating these pieces for the health of my body. Perhaps these pieces can be considered talismans, protection and hope for the health of your body and a steady and suitable metabolic rate at a cellular level. Always.

In keeping with this topic of butterflies, last week, my painted butterfly larvae arrived. I’ll be hatching and raising butterflies! I’ve never tried such an experiment before so hopefully I’ll be a relatively natural keeper of these critters. I’m keen to hatch them and watch them unfold their delicate wings when they exit their carefully spun, silky chrysalis homes. I hope the details of their life cycles will fuel my cocoon and lycanidae series. I reckon, if I can keep a butterfly alive, surely there’s hope for my thyroid (though this hope is void of logic since there is hardly any rhyme or reason behind thyroid diseases).

Periodically, my hands feel bound by the betrayals of my body. I tend it so carefully and yet it continues to break. Creating pieces of jewelry containing butterfly forms and raising authentic butterflies feels so symbolic to me in this moment. I crave equilibrium, with regard to my thyroid. It feels proactive to have butterflies in my life right now and central to some of my design series, as if these things encourage health in the small piece of me that is broken and continuing to break.

Fairly frequently, I find I cannot convey why I choose the forms in my design series. There’s a rightness in my heart, mind and hands while I work, but my lips fall dumb and heavy when I try to give that rightness words. Some say an artist should be able to mount a defense for the work of their hands, but I say, what if those audible reasons are locked up in the flesh and bones of our bodies. What if the words I am able to give are a mere fraction, a dash of surface, a squint of reason behind some of the work I’m doing here. What if I must keep those words locked up in heart chambers and bone marrow because releasing them leaves me too vulnerable, like a white tailed deer on open prairie with a coyote pack speckling a wind swept horizon. These objects I’m turning out are tiny reflections, tiny slivers of glass that make up the mirror whole…it’s the living behind the work that holds the real meaning…if not being able to verbally convey the whys behind it all is part of that living (the silence of alabaster and the beating of heart) then I opine I’m doing just fine.

I hope this Tuesday holds only the best for you.

I hope you look down and say, “The work of my hands is good.”

I hope you get to keep some of your words just for yourself.

And most of all, I hope you are all whole and well.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2011/04/12/962/