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As you may have read yesterday, this week was often marked by sadness for both my partner and me. Yet of course we know that we cannot, should not, get stuck in this. It's fine if there are moments when tears drip down your face, but it's not fine if it plunges you into depression and the sadness of the loss threatens to overwhelm you. Although we no longer have Lana with us, we have had eleven wonderful years with her. It requires rethinking. And that is not easy if you are still in the processing process. Yet we must move on. Especially now that spring is getting closer every day and judging by nature, it has already arrived. I have already spotted the first flowering Blue Grapes, just like the first Daffodils in the bud and a purple carpet of flowering Crocuses also caught my eye. I admit, when I see that I still think, "Why wasn't Lana allowed to experience that anymore after that long winter? She always enjoyed the first days of spring so much." But I also know that the answer to that will never come.
Skipper and Myla are now enjoying the rising temperature and the blossoming nature. After a few days of doing nothing but paying attention to the two of them, I was ready for something else on Thursday. The sadness for Lana simply has to be given a place, but it must not be the case that I lose all my creativity again, as I did years ago. So I slowly started looking again at the many hobby projects that were waiting for me. And the first thing that caught my eye was a dried slice of birch wood. At first, I thought I'd find a photo of Lana to burn onto the disc, but later I thought, "No, that's too early." I need to give myself more time... There are so many things I can burn.
For some reason, the first thing that came to my mind was to burn an image of an Owl. So I looked at some pictures I've made of Owls in the past, and finally drew an owl on the wood and started burning. To be honest, my thoughts weren't always in the right place last week, but once I was starting to burn on the wood I was able to focus reasonably well on what I had to do.
Why an owl? I don't know... but I always find them beautiful to see. And Owls have something mysterious about them. The beautiful light wood of a Birch tree is my canvas at the moment and in this way I bring together two things with contrasting symbolism. I always find it great to know what symbolic meanings are attached to certain things, and so when I searched for it I found that the Birch tree symbolizes purity and youthfulness. When they saw Birch trees, people thought of the Virgins dressed in white, full of magic and healing powers. That's a beautiful meaning. For me, it is important that the wood of the Birch is nice and light so that the contrasts of wood burning are clearly visible. Because the wood of Birch is quite soft, my pen burns easily and I do not have to work with very high temperatures. It burns easily.
The Owl has completely different symbolic meanings. With an Owl, you are certainly talking about the most famous of them all, of course, Wisdom. But that an Owl has many more meanings... I was not aware of that before I looked it up. And I'll be honest, if I had known, I might not have started it. In addition to Wisdom, an Owl also stands for Secrecy. Now I have little to no secrets, so I didn't find that meaning very exciting. But the next one hit me right in the face. An Owl is associated with Death and transition in some cultures. That meaning touched me, especially considering that we are in the process of dealing with the loss of our Lana. But wait a moment, because Owls also represent Protection, Spirituality, and Change. All these symbolic meanings together made me hesitate for a moment whether I should continue burning this Owl. But eventually, I put that aside and focused purely on the burning itself. I'm not done yet, in fact, only the first contours are now on the wood, and the rest of the process of giving the Owl its contrasts, and trying to 'bring it alive', is the next part. But not for today.
It is certain that when everything is ready I will have brought together a lot of symbolic meanings, although, for 99.9% of people, it will always be just an Owl on a Birch wood slice, for me it will always be more. Now that I know all the meanings and the time when I started this creation, considering the situation,
And so we do!
