CARRIE REDWAY | THEDNA ARTS

MYTH + FOLKLORE + RITUAL. Carrie Redway's art inspirations and Thedna Arts blog. Visit www.thedna-arts.com.

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Working on a new collection of poems with 1911 as the backdrop-- incorporating my great grandmothers during their early adult lives, a specific road in my hometown, generational trauma and snake handling.

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Epoch Writing Prompt

December: Holly leaves

Holly leaves for the winter season foraged from my yard. The pointed and prickly leaves poke my hands as I carry them inside, and arrange them in jars and goblets. It reminds me of grief. When my father died, my grief sometimes physically felt like a thousand tiny pin pricks at any time.

How does the prickly nature of holly leaves feel on the body? The rough scratch across skin? How could it relate to how grief feels?

Writing prompt: The winter holly leaves scratch thin skin.

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Harvests, 2022 Carrie Redway

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Gnarled tree, Lime Kiln Trail near Granite Falls, WA

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Epoch Writing Prompts- February in Seattle, WA

Snow fell heavily for a few days in February. Spring had already shown a bit of herself but the snow blanketed any new growth. Except for this one leaf of a sprouting daffodil stem in my yard. She grew tall and has one blade out in defiance of winter.

For February, consider the end of this daffodil leaf and how it pokes up out from a foot of snow. Imagine how the leaf is bearing the weight of snow. Is it smashed down, or does it find a place for both the snow and itself? If snow could be grief, how does the daffodil, who thought spring was coming, wear the burden? Does the daffodil think it's a burden, or a temporary part of time?

Writing prompt: The daffodil wore snow like a cloak.

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The things we keep that belonged to those we love.

This music box was my paternal grandmother's, "Grandma B". The music box sat on her dresser and she kept in it her rings, her watch, the jewelry she wore daily. I do the same now. It plays a tune when you turn the dancer. I remember playing with this as a child while I watched her get ready for the day.

After she died, I chose to keep the music box. When I first opened it, I noticed a note on a small scrap of paper. It read: "Red gave me this music box." As she got older, she wrote notes that she kept in or under many of her possessions to remind herself the occasion or who gave her certain things. I keep this note still in the music box as well. Photo by Carrie Redway.

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The forest ahead. The path awaits. We plod along as we do in grief. Henry's Ridge, Maple Valley, WA. Photo by Carrie Redway.

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Winter Solstice Ritual Art Project

Winter Solstice is an important time for me. In early 2020, I took an old peanut butter jar and designated it my grief jar. Over the year, I put in notes of grief and the names of people who died with whom I had a connection. On Winter Solstice night 2020, I took the names and notes, read them out loud in my own personal ritual and put the papers in a bowl with the snow from that night's new fall, and the incense ash I burned during the reading. I created a paper sludge, and in the next few days I worked that sludge daily into a paper sheet. I let it dry under weights for several days more to make a hard paper sheet that I plan to use further in art.

For 2021, I decorated my grief jar with thread, pine sprigs and a dried carnation from a bouquet sent to my family when my father died. I write my father notes. I write my grandparents. Short prayers. It's my ritual for the year, and for Winter Solstice 2021, I'll do the same burn and water ritual to lay these things to rest.

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Epoch Writing Prompts- January at Taylor Creek

I will routinely post a few guided writing prompts for the Epoch writing circle here. In 2019/2020, I hosted a couple of writing circles that explored death and cycles through nature. Since we cannot meet in person, it is my hope to share these prompts through the blog here and continue the writing circle in this way.

For January, we will look at natural elements found near Taylor Creek in Seattle. Photo by Carrie Redway.

Moss growing on a tree. Imagine how the moss feels to touch. Is it wet, soft like velvet, cold? Is the moss part of the tree, or separate?

Consider grief as a plant.

Imagine what grief would feel like if you could hold it, or touch it like you can moss on a tree. Think about how it would smell. How does it change and spread like moss on a tree, if it does?

Consider how this moss started. Did it grow a little at a time? Did it extend slowly around the tree, or rapidly, or all at once?

Writing Prompt: Grief is a plant. The moss told me its origin story.

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More cemetery foliage and overgrowth on stone markers. Visiting Mt. Olivet Cemetery, also the resting place for Seattle indigent burials.

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I am drawn to cemetery foliage and overgrowth, and nature taking over manmade things. These pictures are from a recent visit to the Old Fellows cemetery in Elma, Washington.

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"Each grief carries its own hunger." A line from my poetry chapbook Vulpecula that I turned into a mixed media piece.

Two months... It's been two months since my dad died. I've been very internal lately; quiet and pulled into stillness for this process. Our bodies ask different things from us in response to death and grief. This grief asks me to be still and patient with disconnection, with my brain, and with what it can hold right now.

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Making a few more small cards/bookmarks with dried dandelions and paint as a grief practice.

I make odd connections in grief and lately I'm comforted when listening to REM's "Losing My Religion". I have never thought about it in terms of watching a loved one die. While the song's original intent seems to be unrequited love, there is something about it that makes me think about sitting bedside with someone as they are dying. And there is nothing you can do but be there and witness what is happening. There was so much sitting and waiting in hospice with dad. I found myself frequently counting in between his breaths to see if they had slowed, even without realizing I was doing so at times. The emotions, the stillness, everything, seemed so much bigger and far away.

Picture is a still from the music video.

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Several years ago, I visited Iceland and felt a very strong connection there. I have a memory of visiting Gullfoss later in the day, when it was getting dark. I could not see the waterfall that well in front of me, but I could hear the water rushing close. It was an eerie feeling, but still strangely comforting. I snapped this picture not really knowing what I would get. 

Lately, I have not been sleeping well. Sleep tinctures and winding down to a hot tea at night is helping. I have recently discovered Slow TV on YouTube and I am watching videos of train rides through Norway and Icelandic road trips (the Sigur Ros 24-hour event specifically), which is helping calm my body. I am writing some using scent as a ritual for creativity.

I keep going back to this picture of Gullfoss at night, and trying to recall that strange peace in not knowing what was ahead but knowing something was still out there.

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A small altar for Dad.

1. Wrenches that still smell of grease from his tool cabinet. He loved building and working on anything.

2. Drafting pencil. I have memories of him making rough sketches of buildings and machinery at the kitchen table.

3. A bottle of liquor from his work travels to Amsterdam in the 1970s/1980s.

4. A 1954 Corvette. He loved classic cars and owned a couple of Corvettes in his lifetime.

5. An origami crane I received while he was in hospice.

I miss you, Dad.

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Dad's blanket kept him warm at home, and in hospice. Now his blanket keeps me warm.

Found poetry with dad's blanket.

the body's purity / rubbed a wound with dirt to reduce pain / the mark stayed connecting the body / give us all that and make it fact / stark modern eyes / his fingers and toes / everyone is staring at you / tingling, amazing

Carrie Redway, 2020

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Epoch: a writing circle

A few snaps from the latest writing circle, up in the loft space of Cortona Cafe. We worked through prompts about fox skulls, mice myths, barnacles, shells and more.