The Artist Date is a dream-child of Julia Cameron. We’ve discussed her book, The Artist’s Way, and highly recommend both the book and the weekly date. It can be life-changing. It can open your creativity like nothing else. This week, we’re humming to layers of souls.
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Once a week, as my two boys make music behind closed studio doors, I go walking on an ancient burial ground. Just a block from the music store where they take their lessons is a Native American burial mound, built around 250-150 B.C., by a people archaeologists have named the Adena.
The mound is the center of a municipal park—the city hosts gatherings here: craft shows, festivals, dedications. I’ve been here many times, trudging up and down this hill with my boys. Once we saw a group of teenagers trying to ride a skimboard down its grassy slope. They took turns balancing precariously on the slippery surface of the board before tumbling in a heap midway down. Yes, I’ve been here many times. But sometimes inspiration comes when I change the way I see.
Today I walk up the cobbled steps.
It’s unusual to be alone on the grassy knoll so I savor the slow wind around and up. The mound is 175 feet in diameter at its base and 35 feet high. I notice wild violets growing through the cracks in the stone—purple and white. For some reason, the white ones make me think about the thirteen skeletons that were excavated from this dirt in 1883-84. The People Who Know say there is evidence some of the thirteen were still alive when buried.
I stoop and pluck a white violet.
The top of the mound is flat now. It used to be more conical but was leveled off in 1840. Residents needed a place to put a judge’s stand for the horses they raced around the base. I sit on the edge of the grassy hill and look down at the colorful shops and restaurants below. I close my eyes and try to imagine horses running flank to flank while, just feet away, the thirteen sleep embedded in soil. I listen for the thundering hooves, breathe deep to catch their horsey scent mingled with crushed grass. But all I smell is the heavy scent of Moo Goo Gai Pan and fried noodles from the Main Tin.
I read somewhere that the Adena were a “broad-faced people” whose custom was to reshape and flatten the head through the use of a cradle board during infancy. The city rushes by below me and I can almost feel my skull begin to flatten—changing shape, I am part of this mound beneath me.
I rub the velvety petals of a white violet and Frederick Buechner’s words come to me—those words from The Alphabet of Grace that have haunted me for a while now.
Beneath the face I am a family plot. All the people I have ever been are buried there—the bouncing boy, his mother’s pride; the pimply boy and secret sensualist, the reluctant infantryman; the beholder at dawn through hospital plate-glass of his first-born child. All these selves I was I am no longer, not even the bodies they wore are my body any longer, and although when I try, I can remember scraps and pieces about them, I can no longer remember what it felt like to live inside their skin. Yet they live inside my skin to this day, they are buried in me somewhere, ghosts that certain songs, tastes, smells, sights, tricks of weather can raise…
I sit atop an empty tomb and think about all the people I have been. How some dying parts have struggled against the layers of soil the years pile on—still breathing. Buried alive.
I am a family plot.
Souls in want of grieving.
Humming now, I slide back onto the grass and reach my arms up to a fading sky. There’s only time for one song.
I pick myself up, leave that white violet in the center of the grassy knoll and head down the hill.
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Photo by Muffet. Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Laura Boggess.
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Will Willingham says
Ah, imagination undone by Moo Goo Gai Pan. 😉
Always takes me away a little to consider the history of a thing or place, what’s happened on that same ground, the people who have passed through. Literally passed through, I guess, in this case.
Thanks, Laura.
Maureen Doallas says
So many wonderful details in this piece, Laura. I’m particularly struck by the explanation for the broad face. Amazing history. I wonder how many people take the time, as you have, to learn about it.
laura says
There were originally over 50 mounds found in this area. Now, only a handful remain. Most were destroyed when the land was developed. It does something strange to my spirit to imagine bulldozers plowing through. But I guess that’s not any stranger than horse races 🙂
laura says
That got to me too for some reason, Maureen. It made them more real to me somehow. So many secrets held by the earth. I’m grateful to have discovered a tiny part of one.
Monica Sharman says
We just learned that the Aztecs purposely shaped their babies’ heads into cones because that’s what they thought gods were supposed to look like. They also sharpened the teeth to look like fangs.
I love how you listened, and smelled (though it was not the scent you were after). And now I want to get my hands on The Alphabet of Grace.
laura says
Isn’t that interesting, Monica. I can always count on you to teach me something. And you will love The Alphabet of Grace.
L. L. Barkat says
i am thinking about those “dying parts” that are still breathing. Sometimes it is most compassionate to unearth them; sometimes it is more compassionate to let them go their way (and the mourning helps us do that).
And the artist in you? I hear her. I want that she lives.
laura says
I had those same thoughts as I was writing, L.L. And it surprised me what these ancient people stirred inside of me. Isn’t that the beauty of an Artist Date?
Marcia Terwilliger says
The mounds, green, grassy, I can see them in my mind as well as every detail, it is like I am there with you. What got my attention to read it was the violet, sweet and dear, old fashion and deep in color. Must have been some shade near by for violets love a bit of shade. It was soft, a way to respect a place where the dead are buried. It was a nice quiet read.
Laura says
Thank you, Marcia, I’m glad to know I adequately conveyed the mood. This type of Artist Date stirs the deep places. And the violets reminded me of the flowers that grow on the tombs of the kings of Rohan in The Lord of the Rings. I looked it up and that white flower is sometimes called Evermind because it blooms all year. Though the violet does not bloom all year, I think it a fitting flower for royalty–don’t you?
Lee Lueck says
Laura, thank you for a respect and wonder that helps connect me to this sacred mound and its ancient people. Unlike you, I entered my Artist Date with grumbling, and my observations never rose above the level of a nursery rhyme. I’m linking up my exploration of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art: http://wp.me/p2KW4P-p3
laura says
I’ve had my grumble moments too :). Crystal Brides looks breathtaking! Thanks for sharing all that loveliness with us, Lee.
Sandra Heska King says
I love the scent of the sacred you share here, friend. But i’m a little sad over the skimboard and moo goo gai pan. I wanted to be sitting on that mound with you, smelling horses and crushed grass.
I had an unplanned artist date yesterday.
http://sandraheskaking.com/2013/05/a-lake-and-an-artist-date/
laura says
I love the unplanned ones. They’re even better for the surprise, aren’t they?