Books, Still & In Motion
women, wisdom and mold
Hello Dear Readers,
Do you find the smell of decomposing leaves and wet grass in the morning intoxicating? I certainly do.
So in the spirit of this place where last winter and spring I danced myself through grief,1 I went to hang out with my mother-in-law’s music books…and did some more dancing.
The wet, soft and oddly pliable paper was mushy beneath my feet. I wondered what the interior of the book would look like, so did what I dared not do since first creating the Garden Library, and opened that decomposing music book.
The damp pages reluctantly turned and this song presented itself. Woman is Fickle…false altogether. Wow. This is from another time and another place. Or is it?
I’ve been re-reading Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, an engrossing reimagining of the Arthurian legends.2 This song, and the ideas presented in Avalon made me wonder - Is the ‘legend’ of Adam & Eve the origin story for woman as fickle?
What if, instead of God casting Eve out of the garden, a goddess had celebrated her bravery and curiosity and that same goddess had remained in power for millennia? How might the state of the world be different? Clearly, all the knowledge these books contain hasn’t helped!
This, I think, is why I composted my Harvard and University of Virginia diplomas and brought all these books out into the garden to decompose. It is time to reclaim the life-giving voice that belongs to womankind.3
Perhaps that is also why I brought my Still, In Motion self-portraits out of the studio and into the Garden Library. There is energy embodied in the earth that demands our brave and curious questions and attention.
Fickle and False? I don’t think so.
The reference books called and I remembered how Calvin had kept me company on March 31, 2022 when I first created this space…I pulled out The Dictionary of History, whose binding is now illegible, and turned the pages.
White man after white man, until finally I saw a woman’s profile, white, but at least not a man, and the pages beneath her, alive. A book. Still and in motion.
And I was reminded of how we buried my mother on a bed of compost she and I co-created in May 2022 and that she too is still and in motion, slowly becoming one with the earth.
Who knew these meandering questions and this newsletter would emerge from that moment 18 months ago?
Before returning The Dictionary of History to its rightful place among its reference book brethren, I noticed that leaves and pine needles had adhered themselves to the decomposing cover. Already it is fading back into the place from which it came.
Increasingly, I understand that true knowledge exists in all those hidden and unseen places we take for granted or don’t even notice, like the compost pile, the landfill, or a ‘garden library’ in a backyard…
…and that the idea of knowledge (knowing a bunch of a-contextual facts) is very different from wisdom, which is the capacity to mix and mingle random bits of information into a narrative that explores, inspires and gives hope?
This seasonal transition from fall to winter is beyond time itself, but feeling the mossy moldy detritus between my toes reminds me that I, too, am part of this knowledge/wisdom/cycles of life process. All those books I’ve read over the decades have been digested and processed and are now feeding this new level of comprehension.
For me, life truly is all about process and my capacity to honor the wisdom that surrounds me. All I need to do is allow myself to see, hear, touch, smell and taste more attentively…and perhaps dance in the snow and take decomposing books apart…
I envy my 14 year old Boykin Spaniel, Calvin, and his sense of smell and how attuned he is to emotional shifts in a room and even in a garden library.
Thank you, as always, for sharing your time and this space with me and for joining me on this adventure that I call 13 Tons of Love.
With cheers and gratitude for you being you,
Lyn
How might you tap into your senses this week?
Do you have a special place that renews you and invites you to wonder?
Please respond in the comments section below!
Between September 2022 and May 2023, I participated in Atelier 37 at The Griffin Museum of Photography. My project, Still, In Motion, was part of the Atelier’s group exhibition in June-July 2023. You can also see the work on my website, LynSwettMiller.com - - I have mixed and mingled images from this project with today’s exploration in the Garden Library.
The Mists of Avalon, published in 1982, is one of many books honoring the wisdom of The Goddess. It also happens to be the first one I read, though not until the 1990’s. It’s been two decades since I’ve spent time with Morgaine and The Lady of the Lake, but the power of its message resonates more deeply now that I am past menopause and entering my years of ‘Hagitude’ (check out Dr. Sharon Blackie’s Substack newsletter, The Art of Enchantment). It seems the more I cultivate my relationship with this one small piece of land, the deeper I go.
Goodness knows, I am not the first person to write this! But this is my first time the different narratives in my life have converged and inspired me to honor this truth. I have been quiet, we have been quiet, for too long.