endomental

  I made this piece from a photo a few years ago, in response to heartbreak and grief. I called it Heart Crusher. Recent personal and societal events have made it difficult to settle into creating. Everything feels loud and immediate. There has not been much space for art, or even for thinking about it. But this piece came back to me. I remembered how clearly it spoke for me then, and how much I needed that clarity at the time. Heart Crusher is not only about pain. It is about recognition. It reminds me that I have felt this level of grief and anger before, and that I did come through it. Changed, yes, but still here. Maybe it will speak to you, or for you, too.

This post is part 9 of my 12 Days of Yule series, inspired by the Pagan Grimoire . Day 9 looks at the Deer Mother, a folkloric figure in Northern Eurasia. The Deer Mother, because female reindeer don't shed their antlers in winter, carries or lifts the sun in her antlers at midwinter.  The description inspired me to make this digital collage from three different public domain images. Each one was edited, cropped and positioned to visualize the mental image that I got, thinking about how the folklore got started. I imagine that early North Eurasians saw a reindeer silhouetted against the low-rising sun, and started telling the story of how the deer carried the sun in her antlers. Twilight at the Riverbank In the lore, the Deer Mother is a guide and light‑bringer, a powerful reindeer mother who moves through the solstice night keeping the returning sun safe. I started to imagine her as crepuscular (most at home in the edges of day) curled into the snow at dusk, the river beside her ...

This post is part 8 of my 12 Days of Yule series, inspired by the seasonal framework at Pagan Grimoire . Day 8 turns toward volunteering and service, approached here not as instruction, but as a way of noticing how care, dignity, and generosity surface in winter stories and imagery. In the rush of ordinary holidays, I let these quieter observances slip past me. Not intentionally. Just through accumulation. Days stack. Time moves forward. There is no retrieving what was missed. But the meaning does not vanish with the calendar. So this continues, slightly out of date. In winter stories from Europe, before streets were lit with gas or electric light, food was sometimes set aside for travelers. For those moving along cold roads. For neighbors whose hearth had gone thin. For strangers who might bring news, danger, or possibility. Hospitality was not ceremony. It was survival.  What survives of that tradition is atmosphere. A sense that generosity, in winter especially, is b...

Before getting back to the 12 Days of Yule, I wanted to pause and look more closely at the header image. The background image on my header is called Purple Roses . It began as a photograph of motor oil floating on rainwater in the street. Like any oil on water, it had the full range of color. Yellows, greens, blues, purples. Everything shifting constantly, depending on light and angle. I wanted to capture that color variation, and moved around until I found the right angle. Later, working with the image, I enlarged it too much and it became "pixelated." That caught my attention because it did not feel digital. It looked like bubbles in glass. My mom used to make stained glass. I recognized that texture immediately, and it changed the direction of the editing. Now it felt nostalgic. The original oil slick had all the colors, but I leaned into pinks and purples because I like them. If I had an abstract stained glass piece, those are the colors I'...