Beholding my Sacred Mothers

After my wonderful Steampunk weekend in Port Townsend with Dad, I had the rest of the week to relax. I had less time than I reckoned, because Dad had quite a few activities on his burner --- a few more than in past years! When we weren't running to the village for errands, we might be on a hike at Point Colville on Lopez' south end. Once we went to Odlin Park, and with the weather so nice, temps were high in the 80s. My bare feet could scarcely tolerate the sand in the sun, it was so hot, but I donned my tiny handmade bikini and lay there in my freshly black-haired beauty, soaking up the warm rays like a sheik's princess in a private courtyard. In a surprise to us, people I knew began showing up for a mentor-youth beach party, so I got to chat with several old Lopez adult mentor-friends of my own. On the second to last day, Dad and I took a wonderful hike up Lopez Hill, on a brand new trail for me.

Sisters, or mother and daughter, rocking it on Pride week

As is typical of a trip home, I brought more activities (and clothes!) than I could utilise, because I was used to having to entertain myself while Dad worked. Having less spare time this trip, thanks to a daddy who's so active it's making me feel quite proud, I focused on making statues of the two Earth devas who wanted to work with me since Beltaine: Gaia and Aliria/Nafta. Gaia was partly done, so I'd packed her parts carefully in a box with fiber fluff. The rest of my Sculpey clay and tools came too.

It feels good to have images of the particular forces, archetypes or forms our deities are taking or representing, if they happen to be more specific than the "Great Unknowable" (though I work with that, too). The very popularity of avatars, prophets, and demi-gods in world faiths show that, as visual creatures, we like having an image to look at outside of our imagination, even if our manifesting must begin on the imagining plane. The Divine as a whole may be unknowable, but we like to ground our faith in the infinite variety of forms we sense around us.
For me, a creative spirit since early youth, the weight of manifesting a groundbreaking, unorthodox image or one with a deep personal connection is far greater than copying or working with a common form: When you do this branching out, you become a private (at least, unless you're picked up on by other people!) kind of prophet.

Sachamama: "Mother of the Jungle", one of the sacred forms of the serpent in the Americas

So it was with my two statues. Prior to the May 4th Butterfly goddess statue, I hadn't worked with polymer bake-clay since my youth! I was very excited, and a little nervous. The joy of manifesting via art and the thrill of beholding what has spoken to your mind and spirit... There is no conparison!
I chose to make Gaia first, because her image has been manifested in "Earth goddess" form many times before by artists. I based mine, in fact, on a well-known statue that I love, but which is often beyond my wallet. In other words, I had a clear blueprint to tweak about with.
On the flip side, I saved Aliria-Naftha for the second run. I wanted some practice, and the Gaia statue would give me lots of rich colors and ideas to play with. Aliria, being an unknown, unpopular deity archetype, has a greater psycho-spiritual weight with me, since she places me in position of trailblazing and prophecy --- In a world teeming with millions of witchy-woo people and mystics, I find almost NO ONE on the Internet (maybe five hits even mention it) who works truly, deeply, spiritually with petroleum. (What freak would want to? Oil's icky, right? And how'd you get to work this morning, and are your nice altar candles still paraffin?)

Jackfruits! Earth's fertile creativity and humor enchants me ♡

I find I do many things in balance, on a spectrum between two dipoles. These beautiful Earth-goddesses represent those two ends, and they cannot be categorized so easily into "good twin / bad twin" simplicity, however they may appear. Gaia represents particularly the upper world where we naturally live, the teeming, pregnant biosphere with its waters of life. She is the millions of land, water and air spirits, the ripe fruits of procreation and abundance. But so too is she the power of the tornado, the earthquake, the sudden biological bloom of some pernicious, gobbling new life-form. And where, after Gaia has created copious carbon-based life from minerals and the Sun's energy-filled blessing, do the remnants of that life go? She composts, recycles, reuses, feeding other critters, turning it to soil . . .
. . . But not all. The excess carbon life-waste piles up, gets crushed beneath rock and mud, slowly transformed, and hoarded, pure condensed solar fire cradled in Aliria-Nafta's realm, the belly of the Earth. Even as it does, solar rays continue streaming toward the Earth. More power is produced by the Sun in one second than could be used in a million years by humans, even at our current rate. It all begins with the Sun, and its thin interface with Earth where life formed. . . .

Aliria's energy, meanwhile, is that of fire bound into Earth. It is the end result of this marriage of energy and matter, like a battery of stored solar power. Released by fire, she is anything from the small comforting flame to the raging bitch, Earth's version of the Burning Woman. If released gradually or with respect, she provides the life-breath of trees and plants, carbon dioxide; but if abused or invited without caution and restrain, she will rise up and take our lives. Changed through chemical means, Aliria's already great versatility in brewing hydrocarbon molecules of all sorts truly blossoms into the dark shapeshifter, resulting in more chemicals and plastics than we can probably ever discover and name --- eternal products removed from the great cycle, stagnant and toxic to life. Our relationship to Oil is what we make of it, and what we make of our future!

Already, I am aware of the seductive power of Aliria-Nafta. Starting in the 1800s, "civilized" white men influenced by industry and patriarchy instead of holistic indigenous ideas of a balanced living Earth --- those men so easily susceptible to an entity whose province is pure raw, quantifiable power --- fell fully under Aliria's sway, and cries of "Oil! Oil!" set off a race down the slippery slope of addiction and abusive relationships . . . for there is no doubt about it: While not evil, Aliria is an underworld force, and fire-power an underworld commodity. She is the one who loves to escape the confines of her subterranean pressure chamber and play, but in this same vein will she sneak out of pipelines, tankers and rail cars --- sometimes explosively --- to remind us who our Mama is. Aliria is the one who can shapeshift into anything we need her to be, give us anything we want to have, but will kindly neglect to tell us her price. Even for the seemingly immune super-rich, she has a price: "Your future generations and health," she whispers.
As humans are naturally drawn to power and to what is "bad-ass", so my heart yearns to bond more fully with this, a kind of personal dark goddess. All the more because she is SO right in front of all of our noses! It's like suddenly being able to see what everyone else is stunningly blind to seeing, then being inflamed to break the message to people: "Wanna start a revolution? Have you ever wondered about that empty hole in yourself you can't fill, and why? Look, listen. . . ."

Even more personally, this work taps into a kind of obsession of mine that reaches back to age six or seven. That is young. Like it or not, my childhood horrified fascination with engines and all things oil and grease, courtesy of an engineer dad, is linked to some of my earliest-formed ideas of mystery, sensual experience and power. Years were spent in the company of imaginary, anthropomorphized engine characters. Add to that my later discoveries of science and oil family history, and here are grounds for a large chunk of my self-identity, if I so choose it. Oil's deliciously dark, silky grip on my imagination has erupted numerous times over the course of my life, at times amounting to what is nearly a fetish. And greasy Severus Snape might fear he had no precedents in my universe!

Therefore, it is no surprise that Gaia and Aliria invited me to work with them as one, simultaneously, and overwhelming intinct tells me it is important to balance work with one by working with the other. "Green" spirituality that ignores or denies the great role of Oil and its gifts to us is to invite a creeping kind of greenwashed or holier-than-thou spiritual "shadow", and also to perpetuate the insidious presence of oil-related cultural shame or even despair. To focus on petroleum is to possibly fall into the slippery whirlpool of its seduction, to glorify it to the point of ignoring the huge toll of its continued abuse on our world and its creature societies. Even more than the carbon load or explosive flames, the toxic by-products of our misuse of oil --- pesticides, plastic trash --- are what threaten us now.

Like a tightly packed cattail bursting apart into flying clouds of seed, triggered hydrocarbons dissolve into raw unleashed energy: The terrifying power of petroleum

So I find myself poised between two modes of being, which really amount to an awareness of the whole, both upper and lower, light and shadow. As a nature-loving mystic with oil roots, I suppose I am one of the folks somewhat well-equipped to walk this edge of spiritual gray areas and conflicting interests: The sacredness of both, the past and future of both . . . and of us. Perhaps I am particularly honed by so-called fate to play well the role of an "oil witch".

This pair of photos sums up my blended nature in a rather amusing way. Part of me is very much the modern Earth witch, to whom this enchanting bath of crystals and flowers greatly appeals. Put a heart-opening spell on the water while I'm at it. Whereas, the other calling in my nature is quite keen to catch the first flight to Baku, Azerbaijan, to visit the famous Naftalan spa, for a warm, slippery, healing bath . . . in their unique grade of crude oil.

When it came time to put Gaia in the oven (hmm, something a bit environmentally incorrect there, or is it just being honest lately?), I ran into a problem. Last Thanksgiving, my well-meaning gran tried to bake a dish, placing it on a new aluminum baking sheet . . . so new, it still had the plastic label on. The label melted, gassing me clear out of the house with awful, throat-wrenching, gut-heaving toxic fumes, the kind that invoke instant, visceral fear for breath and life. But Dad never uses the oven, and plastic still hung in blobs and strings from the racks! Cleaning the oven and racks was the first order of the day, unless I wanted to repeat the horror. It was necessary to do it anyway, lest we forget next time we bake cookies and summon Hexxus.

Yuk!

Finally I fired up the oven, a bit nervous since Dad uses it so rarely. I could still smell the fumes a bit, so I turned on the fan. Not a bad idea anyway, when baking polymer clay.

And she not only made it, she turned out fantastic! All Gaia's small details, the tree, waves, and her hair with its flowers, came out clean and hard, and the internal use of scrunched-up aluminum foil kept her from slumping, at least not noticeably. Her proportions are a bit odd with her arms, but it's not bad for someone who hasn't messed about with polymer clay since mid-childhood.

The swirls on Gaia's pregnant belly and hair came out especially nice. At least three colors, maybe four, went into her swirling belly colors. Polymer clay is fun, because you can mingle colors without relying on glazes. You can't eat from it, but it's perfect for things like statues.

From the side. She's a bit more smug-looking than I planned, but it somehow works: As though no matter what idiocy we get up to next, Earth will persist in her fertility, or simply in the sheer inviolable mass of her iron arse, upon which we skitter like mere insects.

Detail on the lower front and side, with swirly waves and trees. . . .

Having lifted one still-toasty statue out of the hotbox successfully (and squeeing, so thrilled and relieved was I), it was time to gather serious courage, and mold out of polymer mud Gaia's underworld daughter and sister.

The result is sublime, and, aside from yet more wonky proportions in places, is several grades of goddess-on-the-loose in your face. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect a goddess of fossil fuels to be.

I saved Aliria's head for last, along with that final burst of courage, because as in my youth, manifesting the face of a person or entity is the acid test: It means looking into their eyes, beholding the full spirit of this thing to which you're relating inside yourself. Until then, I focused on her lean, sleek figure, so unlike the fertile curves of Gaia, draped in a slinky skirt of flame. Shoulders took form, abs rippled and her spine found its contour:

I had structural challenges with this one too, mainly the placement of her arms in making sure they had enough support without sagging. I put this support in with pillars of clay shaped like garment sleeves, which resemble dripping oil. Also, one arm had to be draped over another rather tippy pillar with a wheel on top, a kind of crank machine that symbolizes the "Wheel of Time", Aliria-Nafta's implacable power to crush entire past eras and species into fossils and fossil fuels.

Once the main structures were sound, I got to have more fun with details! No point in making bones about it, this is a goddess of geologic time . . . and death. She needn't wait for extinction, either: If La Brea took deity form and swaggered onto a stage, it would look like this. Aliria is a Kali-type figure, and even when Oil comes to the surface in a natural setting, it can trap lives, as happened to millions of creatures at La Brea --- ninety percent of the larger remains found in the Tar Pits were predators, over 6000 wolves and sabertooth cats alone, witness to the fiendish trap that sticky asphalt sets for opportunists using the bait of a single trapped prey animal. About the most bad-arse, and true, representation this goddess can take is to be crushing a predator skull underfoot, which is what I did. Now, another alpha predator species is bound nearly irrevocably in her sticky embrace --- us. But there existed a time when we were not so mired!

Then there's her face.

This is my absolute fave pic of her so far, because from the pose and flaming breasts to the lighting, she radiates the sheer attitude that befits an underworld goddess of oil and power. I swear, that is equipment under her skirt, and I didn't even put it there; the clay slumped to bulge like that! Her sculpted body is beautiful.
But the face is what has no equal, really. It screams "other": strange, dangerous, possibly reptilian, almost prehistoric; perhaps part machine . . . inhuman, basically. It's the face of a force toxic to us, borne from Earth though it might be. An otherworldly face, glaring us down with nemesis eyes, and smirking.

Aliria's back is similarly shaped and taut. After I got the head on, I was able to fix the hair in place and add her crown. "I want a crown," she said to me, and agreed to one made of blue and white natural gas flames.

More angles showing the symbolic fossilizing machine, its oozing oil, and Aliria's disturbing face. The face, like my childhood fascination with oil, has a long personal history. Most of my earliest imaginary characters from age seven or so, which were essentially anthropomorphized generators, who thus drank oil and gasoline, had this same odd face. They continued to long into my teenage years; a "gen" character, in fact, inspired me during middle and high school to become a basketball 3-point shooting star! The face became synonymous with mystery, coolness, edginess, sleekness, skill and power --- things a child gravitates to and idolizes, as with superheroes --- and, undeniably, all things "oil".
 "This is how you relate to Oil, and to me," Aliria basically told me during my making of this statue. "So at least once, you need to depict me with the face of a gen."
 It was the first time I'd ever rendered in three dimensions a "gen" face, the face so deeply rooted in my imagination and soul. Small wonder I needed so much courage, even now as a veteran of art and more hardened by life!

One thing I've taken flack for, beginning as a small youth up through *the making of this very figure. No shit.*, is this apparently big hairy deal about color. The "gen" characters had jet-black skin. Of course they did: The little real generator they were based on, a Briggs-and-Stratton, was painted black! Hello-o!! Likewise, it made sense to me to make Aliria jet black because she's the goddess of crude oil. I don't see her as blue, like Kali, and she sure ain't going to be green. (Kali has also been depicted as black, however.) Nor does plain red fit; she's not a devil, and not always on fire. In either case, these are not human entities, any more than an alien or swashbuckling cartoon rat.
Yet certain members of my family, on either hearing my "childish" descriptions or seeing my pictures, immediately came out with comments including the word "negro". Hell, today you don't even use that word. Coming from an originally Southern family, it's a burden I've had to accept for being imaginative, long before concepts of "black" or "white" people even registered or mattered to me. As a kid, I only envied my imaginary friends for their velvety black skin as I did their power, skill and sheer cool factor, but they were not human . . . they were generators. A child's mind works in amazing ways as it tries to relate to this big, mysterious world. . . .

I admit, there is a splendid kind of silent power in shaping an icon of such black-hued beauty, ferocity and strength. What a kickass figure! A wordless statement, in a white and spiritually whitewashed USA that abuses both people of color and Oil, of what I revere and admire. But that inhuman face is also meant to tell people: This is not an African-American or African diaspora deity at all . . . this is something oth-er, bitches. Deal with it. I'm good with this clay stuff. If it's meant to be African, honey, you'll know.

Another good photo from the back so far. I like how the hip turned out, plus her hair and clothes. My friend Tim has since told me of the power he feels from this figure. The details were a lot of fun: I added little fossils, trilobite, ammonites, fish, ferns, shells, and a few bones all around her skirt and feet, and sort of wanted to keep adding more, but a good balance is necessary to art.
Also on topic of wanting to do more, I simply ran out of time. Knowing that I had no choice BUT to finish the Aliria statue and bake it before leaving for Portland again, and do it somehow prior to us getting up to catch the ferry at 5:00 next morning, I worked feverishly but, thanks to the structural challenges, misjudged the time needed to complete it. Aliria was like, "Bitch, you committed now. You gonna finish it with me." (She's that kind of goddess anyway.) Finally, she was "done enough" and went into the hotbox. At an eye-gritting 3:45 a.m., I turned the oven off and caught a pitiful wink of rest, thinking: Tomorrow, we'll find out!
Tomorrow came, all too soon, and even as I packed the rest of my vacation possessions feverishly, I opened the oven on the sly . . . to find a perfect Aliria-Naftha statue. Oh, the delicious, triumphant and secret joy of the successful artist, the manifester! Especially in regard to a radical vision of sacredness in a world that tries to crush or define us by religious boxes! Feelin' pretty damn cute, and smug, and grateful, I packed Aliria back in her and Gaia's box and taped it shut. Smuggled sacred contraband in my bags! ♡

At the Brass Screw Steampunk event, there was a Sculpey artist who inspired me, including this little badass mermaid siren. Being one who works with the stuff a lot, she had plenty of great techniques and textures to admire. I still have lots to learn, but this is a satisfying start!

At last, Gaia and Aliria-Nafta side by side on their altar, sitting on my still-unfinished sewing job from Beltaine's maypole. Gorgeous gals! Depending on how we choose to relate to both, together they hold our human society and ultimately our fate in their hands.

And look what came in the mail! I broke down and ordered it on May 30th, deciding the price was good for an 1895 printed-by-the-author 1st Edition. Besides, I wanted to learn more about oil. Doomsday books about oil don't interest me much, since my mind can already go there, and I'd rather focus both on solutions now and honoring Aliria herself. But this book, I had to remind myself on opening it, was published pre-aeroplane, pre-plastic... even pre-automobile! This is a window into my European ancestors' early relationships with the budding oil boom --- before it became taken for granted. Before it became clear that our relationship with Oil would, if left to progress, kill us all. The author voice is so blinded-white-male, I laugh; I cringe. Here, I find such gems like a "hymn to Petroleum", and chapterlets titled things like, "A Pathetic Incident." Now, how could I resist?

"Feelin' Cute": One of the photos above was perfect for a popular meme that's been making the rounds on social media lately. This rendition has extra punch by framing something as "cute" which really isn't. Take Hexxus: he's a sentient cloud of hideous pollution, in a way cute, sexy and hilarious all at once, while being simultaneously not. Aliria isn't pure evil like Hexxus, but still... she's crude oil. It's all about the attitude:

Oh Aliria! You so bad. ♡
My first polymer clay statue makes a fun one of these, too. Goddesses can be as cute, or not, as they want. Inspired by the "Bad Cat" series:

♡♡♡