In the course of writing practice just now, I made a discovery.  I have said that I wish to bind wounds with the gauze of spirit through art. I previously thought that this meant to do art– and when people looked at it their wounds might be bound. Now I realize that by drawing nature and other subjects, I am binding wounds as I give loving attention to the subject of the drawing. If others find it healing, that’s fine. But the wound-binding happens as I do the work, to whatever it is I am drawing (and wherever else the energy is supposed to go). I’m almost embarrassed to admit I didn’t “get it” before this!

Today I remembered the tower niche insert, and recalled how I took joy in maintaining it while we lived in the Cushendall Tower. I worked on the niche spontaneously and naturally. I was drawn to the niche even before I got there, but I didn’t realize why it beckoned to me until I actually began to clean it and did the paintings that reflected the moon, stars, and crows*. It was a kind of stitching heaven to earth:

Peace mounts to the heavens, the heavens descend to earth, earth lies under the heavens, everyone is strong.    

–Victory Song of the Morrigan, Book of Fermoy***

***

The Book of Fermoy RIA MS 23 E 29

The Book of Fermoy was written in 1373 by Adam ó Cianáin on twenty-two folios. The first eight folios are still bound together, while the other fourteen were split off, and now form the “Stowe Fragment” held at the same library.

The manuscript contains The Book of Invasions, “Fosterage of the Houses of the Two Milk Vessels” (both of the Mythological Cycle), “The Wooing of Emer,” (the Ulster Cycle) “The Adventures of Art son of Conn” (the Kings Cycle), The Voyage of Bran, and many more stories, with numerous variations with those found in other manuscripts.

*The Morrígan is a goddess of battle, strife, and sovereignty. She sometimes appears in the form of a crow, flying above the warriors, and in the Ulster cycle she also takes the form of an eel, a wolf and a cow. (http://en.wikipedia.org/)