bricolage project day 2 [girlhood]
Today’s bricolage comes from the beach at Carkeek Park which has been my go-to place for contemplation for 16 years. There is little that I can’t process emotionally or mentally when I’m near the water at that particular beach. My only rule for this piece was that the objects had to come from beach.
The (randomly chosen) word girlhood comes from the lovely children’s book, Hope is a Girl Selling Fruit by Amrita Das. An excerpt from the book that I can so relate to is:
CHILDHOOD. Mine was far my idyllic, though not untypical. I was responsible for a great deal when I was very small, and my girlhood passed even before I knew it.
So where did that leave my story? I struggled with myself, talked things over with my friends and my teacher but all I had were ideas, nothing concrete.
This is often something that happens with girls–the responsibilities we have in our families keep us from being given the opportunity to explore our interests. We are less encouraged to do so and our aspirations and ideas given less merit. Despite receiving more college and graduate degrees, women are still paid less than men. I’m taking a poetry class with poet Douglas Kearney at present and wrote this poem this morning. It occurs to me as I write this how it reflects my thoughts about the value of the Feminine–the indwelling nature of life. Concepts of ownership and value continue to be part of our cultural conversations and are certainly very alive in my own consciousness.
weighted leathered hexagon
beauty enhanced with
bruised flesh
(how many hands have touched it?)
protruding navel like an
axis mundi
labyrinthine inner nature concealed
(sticky sweetness contained)
Illumined with flickering
candlelight
explored with eyes and fingertips
turning it over in my warm hands to reveal
a barcode sticker pressed tight
against red skin
as if we can assign human value to Nature’s bounty
(Persephone understood)
As I will continue to do in this series, I will end with a quote. This, from Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu:
“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets,
to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled
with a rose that is bedecked with dew…
Human beings are actually created for the transcendent,
for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful…
and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world
a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.”
I found this quote in an online Jungian group this morning. His words underscore my intention for the Bricolage Project–to notice and celebrate the beauty and truth in life and to allow my creative meanderings a place to expand and my ideas to become more concrete.
