Sense the Sighs!

Not tired

not dead

not drunk

but trying to

sense

the wind

that once

whispered

through the tree tops

The Abject (Christmas Tree)

Every year around this time I have the opportunity to study numerous variations on the topic of The Abject.

The concept of the abject is developed by the Bulgarian/French feminist and philospher Julia Kristeva whom I find fascinating but cumbersome to dance around the Christmas Tree with.

However, I think I grasped this much:

The abject is placed outside of the available categories of definition and exists as

an intermediate state

 between the concept of an object and the concept of the subject,

something alive yet not.

The object is situated outside the symbolic order from where it threatens the order and augurs the end of meaning

and at the end of (the) day(s):

death.

Face it or photograph it!

1. 1. 11.

On the first day of the year, the sky is gloriously fresh and spring mists hang in the air. It’s quite special and delightful the way people everywhere have taken particular care over their clothing and makeup, and go about exchanging New Year felicitations.
Somehow I feel these words are mine (as much great art do), yet they are more than 1000 years old, belong to Sei Shoonagon and are originally written in Japanese.
I am reading The Pillow Book and find great inspiration - the apparent random mix of nature descriptions, diary entries, character sketches, lists of awkward things and anecdotes come forward as being very post-post-modern indeed!
My N.Y. resolution 1. 1. 2011 is to make 'a mossy' version of a pillow book - inspired by journeys off the beaten path.
Happy Now!

Baby It's Cold Outside

 Baby, it's co*LD* outside!

 Far too* cold to put up a tent.

   Stiff, blue fingers are not suitable for tying knots.

Let's

go
 INDOOR

celebrating
sOlstice
and
finding
 recipes for making yourself a(t) home -

 it's time for mbaking

 a

Christmas Cookie Cabin

Happy X***

Recipe for making Yourself a(t) Home

Do you fancy a recipe for making yourself a(t) home!
Well, I don't have the exact recipe for YOU, but I am happy to disclose, how I did.
Last summer when I was reading Anne la Bastille,  I stumbled upon this statement about her tent: .....All my equipment has been tested, retested, simplified, and refined with every camping and backpacking trip....

I knew exactly, what she meant, having participated in numerous outdoor trips myself, but this time my mind turned round and came up with the idea: Why not make a tent that is the opposite of this: impractical, untested, in process and with a high ceiling? More feminie, more spiritual, more me!

I might have been influenced by the 15th century tapestry, from which I have painted a never finished transposition for my dining room.
Nevertheless, this is how I did: First I walked around in circles trying to sense the dimensions of my personal space; then I put in the dimensions in the equations for making an octagonal tent.
From then on everything has been a journey.
I am the happy owner of a homemade home, a House of WildWood-Woman and my own travelling museum and gallery all in ONE.

DIY!!!

A Girl with a Gun and a Dream

I am a girl with a gun, but contrary to these ladies, I am not much of a good shot.

I load my (plastic) rifle with rowan berries and dreams -

and who knows -

some day I might harvest my own bullets in a FOREST of fulfilled dreams

:-) 

World Wide Visitors

 

Like Henry Thoreau and Anne la Bastille I have three chairs in my House of WildWoodWoman, one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

"When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain" (quoted passage from Walden; or, Life in the Woods ).

In Århus one visitor helped me tune my newly obtained violin, which I bought, because I can NOT play the violin. I tried playing it once, and I got this euphoric feeling you sometimes get, when you walk into unknown land.

 

When I had been out for a while and returned to my cabin, I was often met by signs of visitors, who had enjoyed themselves. Sometimes things were left behind, but except for one visitor, nobody was light-fingered.

I liked that, and I also appreciated all the writings and drawings made by visitors in my guest book.

Many of the visitors gave thanks for the shelter.

You are very welcome!

House of WildWoodWoman went West

House of WildWoodWoman went West to participate in the exhibition Nybyggerne i Ridehuset (The Pioneer Settlers in the Riding House), Århus, Denmark.
And it was indeed surprising how many great visitors such a small house could contain!

Wild Wood Woman

Death of Mr. Perfect comes as no surprise

The snow arrived unexpectedly early this year in Sweden. Apparently it also did in Canada. In the morning I had the opportunity to make my own Mr. Perfect, but unfortunately he didn't last long. By mid afternoon the next day all traces of him had vanished. And back in Copenhagen nobody had ever even heard about him.

Questions & Answers

I recently went to London's East End to see the show Questions and Answers by Marcus Coates at Kate MacGarry.
Marcus Coates is renowned for his often hilarious performances where he is wearing animal skins and appears to go into shamanic trances in an attempt to get answers to questions raised by the audience.
Trying to address everyday questions as well as major political problems this way is a refreshing new (old) approach - and isn't it THERE in the gap between subject and object, matter and spirit, nature and culture etc. that we find THAT?
But is it possible to look through other specs than those we have been wearing for 300 years in the Carthesian worldview with it's neatly hierarchically ordered and distinct dualisms?
Rane Willerslev is addressing the Cartesian legacy in anthropology in the book Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs where he challenges the Western anthropolgical view that tends to see shamanism and animism as "a particular cultural construct, intensely intriguing and interesting perhaps, but without any foundation in reality".
Marcus Coates uses mimicry in his practice i.e. he imitates but without loosing his own identity (he only dresses partly as an animal). But is he an artist acting like he is a shaman, or is he seriously trying to be a shaman? Well, leaving Descartes behind, the question is meaningless. To me he is entering the realm where he is not an artist (or shaman) and yet he is also not not an artist (or shaman).
In conclusion I would like to confess: I am not a tree, but I am also not not a tree.