February 20th, 2023
New Moon
April 30, 2020
She blackens the canvas, Mars Black, the god of war. She isn’t at war, is she? At war with what is, at war with grief, a world turned upside down and now again by an unseen messenger? Who stops us in our insane movement. So many dying. She is in the high risk group. No kidding.
She enjoys slathering the paint, blocking out the light, the surface, inviting image, color to emerge. Or she thinks, might she simply crawl into the canvas and curl up, wrap the holy darkness around herself and wait for illumination to enter her heart? Hidden in plain sight she could rest. From thought, from the ache of longing for her Beloved, for her life.
She sits. The painter picks up the brush dipped it into cobalt and cerulean blue. A bowl emerges under her hands. A bowl moving with waves of color, sea moving under cloud and sun. Inside it’s mystery, the woman’s smoldering longing ignites, flaming up, sending sparks into the star-lit sky.
A large, black, turquoise robed woman appears. Star Woman? The Woman Who Fell from the Sky? She is falling. She cradles the bowl in her generous lap, in the keeping of her large hands. Her mouth a bellows, stirring the flames, embers fly.
The painter sits back. A voice speaks to her, telling her the story of the Night Sea Cauldron, the alchemical womb of the Night Sky Woman. Inside the bowl is her shattered heart, she tells the painter, and all the dead she owns. Alchemical memory, remembering them into presence. Remembering them into her life. Remembering them into the web of her being. All beings.
The woman imagines herself curled inside the bowl, surrendering finally to the Spirits of life, of death, surrendering to what has always called her. Star light flies through the night sky, cascading sparks of light fall from Star Woman’s halo. Not a nice neat halo, but an exploding snaking trail of lights, of life.
The painter sits back in her chair, remembering that star light reaches us millennia after the star body has died. Her heart lifts, their light reaches us, lifts us up. The Old Ones are there, a trail of stars to follow, to navigate the rocky seas of her life. The milky way, the road of spirits. Her tight fisted heart opens, grabs a hold of her ribs, climbing, climbing, rib by rib, melting spilling from her eyes, raining into the night sea cauldron.
Bone Woman Blog 
The pathways of ancient light that the old ones walk and the great carrier bowl
of life lived and life loved and ancestors near. A holding.
Thank you Nora for the beauty and the grief of your words and your images.
Always love to you. Dorothy
Thank you Dear Dorothy for your beautiful reflection. Love, Nora
Amazing image, Nora, so full, so rich. The hairhalo stunning w such gavitas below. ❤️
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Thank you Debby “gravitas below”. Yes the underworld. Love, Nora
I love this painting, Nora, how the stars are part of your hair, of you — and the words, so very powerful, as always. Much love, Liz
Thank you Liz for your appreciation of the writing. Love, Nora
Each image a remembering, an act of courage in the midst of grief…..thank you for every brush stroke and sharing, Nora. Both weave me into the fabric of life and death….
Much love,
Abbe
Dear Abbe, Too long we haven’t seen each other. Thank you for your reflections Abbe and your acknowledgement of courage. Love to you, Nora
E’O! Even as the heart climbs, the breath and holy tears filling the vessel, there is ‘yes’ that nurtures and stirs the life yet unfolding.
E’O — Patti, thank you for holding the “unfolding for life yet to come.” I think of you often on your journey of grieving and living. Love, Nora
wonderful- over flowing.
Thank you Olive dear, thinking of you. Love, Nora