Drew up the first draft
for Rob’s quilt last week, with ideas starting to gestate about how to
represent her special symbols of colours of the rainbow and chakras, the vesica
piscis, the white dove of Iona and the Celtic interlaced triangle, within the
context of communion with others in her life, love of community and a personal
spiritual journey. The symbols are manifesting quite easily, the most basic and
essential is the full moon. Placement, as usual will come later.
The dove as symbol providing meaning goes back
a long way, as indicating the spirit of divine presence among us – and is of
course, peace symbol. The power for creation of women, represented by
Canaanite, Sumerian and Israelite and Mediterranean mother goddesses known by
various names in multiple places as Ishtar, Inanna, Asherah, Tanit, Astarte,
Anat and Aphrodite was symbolically envisioned as the dove, with many adorning
temples and shrines. A goddess statue from ancient Crete is shown wearing a
dove crown.[1]
And so many goddess images from antiquity have wings. I’m thinking particularly
of Isis, who shelters all and sheltered her beloved son, Horus, beneath her
wings (a myth later morphed into the Mary and Jesus story). In Hebrew the word
for ‘spirit’ is in the feminine form (‘ruarch’), and goddess embodiment known
as Shekinah, queen of wisdom. Aspects of these stories incorporated the symbol
of the dove into Christian symbolism for the immaculate conception of the
godhead by mother Mary, and the dove hovering over the head of Jesus at his
baptism.[2]
The dove, or
pigeon was the first domesticated bird, and was believed to be a messenger, a
go-between for communicating with divinity, destiny with a strong association
with wishful prayer – communication occurring on many levels. Doves were
associated with oracular divination, often in the context of romantic
relationships and fertility. I have read that there are images of a dove being
re-born from the mouth of a dolphin, later transposed into the story of Jonah
being ‘born’ from a whale, his name meaning dove in Hebrew, ‘ionah’ being a
cognate of the Sanskrit word ‘yoni’, which later became known in Latin as the
‘vesica piscis’. It of course represents female pubic area
(often referred to as a woman’s ‘sexuality’),
but much more importantly the sacredness of a woman’s body through which life
is endlessly renewed, symbolizing faith, hope, joy and love that is at the
heart of the lived human experience.[3]
The root form ‘io’ has connotations with and means ‘moon’ in the Egyptian
lexicon, yet another connection to the monthly blood ritual that is the basis
of continuing human life.[4]
Needless to say
there are too many historical and cultural associations to enumerate, let alone
explain in this short description of my creative process. What is important is
Rob’s association through the time she spent in retreat on the Island of Iona,
the abbey of St Columba – whose name means dove in Latin. I am in the dark as
to why this person received his name, and how the symbol of the white dove
relates to him (apart from his name). Maybe because he brokered some sort of
peace among the feuding barbarian tribes of the place the Romans called
Hibernia and had long wanted to conquer, with the story of Jesus, by building
on existing pagan rites and symbols – a common approach to colonization, even
today. Since his name Colum-cille (kille) means ‘Dove of the Church’, it may be
another appropriation of women’s reproductive power for renewing life to
fertilizing a spiritual renewal in pagan lands, though the symbolism is
normally attributed (perhaps in hindsight) as being a messenger of the
Christian god of peace, with the need to be peaceful in a fairly barbarous
environment.
Although not
domesticated as such, I am constantly reminded of doves in my own garden. I
feel blessed by regular visits from the regal grey and white wonga pigeon and
brown pigeon doves living down in the bush, often several times a day. Of
course, I do feed them because I love to see their colours up close; maybe
that’s a form of domestication in the wild. I have come to think that they
actually ‘call’ to me when they are ready for a snack – and not just the doves,
the king parrots and crimson rosellas too! I’m little concerned that the little
‘dove’ I have drawn in the draft reminds me of the Twitter symbol (eeek), but maybe
that’s not a bad thing, since it’s role is to facilitate communication in the
wider world of the ‘social media’. I also know that this is just a sketch, and
the dove will go on morphing as more ideas and connections are made.
[1] She can be seen in my PhD thesis on page 154, and is taken from the Awesome power series, 1989, published by
Swinging Bridges Visuals, Australia, and produced by Rosanne DeBats & thea
Rainbow (later thea Gaia).
[2] Iona Miller, 2016, Ancestors and
archetypes, http://ancestorsandarchetypes.weebly.com/dove-goddess.html
[4] Barbara Walker,
1988, The woman’s dictionary of symbols
and sacred objects, Harper & Row: San Francisco. For me personally at
the moment ‘IO’ stands for ‘immuno-oncology’, which has been my treatment for
advanced melanoma over the last 9 months.
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