BENDING REALITY

As I become an Elder and Hag, land and water become my mirror and I meet Her in the landscape.

Isn't the likeness extraordinary?! >>

Growing old is a privilege not granted to everyone. I want to use this opportunity well and receive every day as a precious gift (not a human right).

Elders have many jobs: truth-speaking, soothsaying, mentoring young people and hosting rites of passage, wrestling back the concept of Elders from the Abyss of Oblivion.

The current scientific evidence-based approach to reality is extremely valuable - but not the only valid way. Reality is more malleable than we think. When we shift into a more magical mode, surprises and small miracles start to occur.

When I lean into other dimensions, other modes of being and other beings lean into me. An exchange occurs. Perception shifts, the ancient art of shapeshifting returns.

International Teacher, Author, Painter and Forest Witch in Europe and Globally

There is a word for seeing meaningful patterns or shapes in "random" things (such as animals in clouds and faces in rocks): pareidolia.

My way of being in the world is "porous". I believe that everything that is has indwelling spirit (not just human beings, but also rivers, rocks, trees, mountains, plants etc. Even a computer or dishwasher!)

To me dreaming is the state that comes closest to experiencing the interconnectedness of all beings. In my dreams I dance with the snow spirits and learn the songs of lakes.

Twice a year I spend one month alone in our forest house in Sweden and I stay clear of all human beings. I discovered that once I become less invested in "all things human", wild animals come closer and features in the land become more malleable, less permanent.

Photography is one way of interrupting temporality, moving the slider back and forth on the timeline, blurring boundaries between older and younger selves; also blurring the boundaries between me and and my surroundings. Photography (even selfies) can be a way of inviting otherworld beings into everyday reality and then catching glimpses of them on camera.

International Teacher, Author, Painter and Forest Witch in Europe and Globally

On the second anniversary of my mother's death I spent a night sitting out on an uninhabited island and was gifted a swan skeleton (my mother loved birds!)

I had made this drawing the week before I found the swan skeleton (pictured on the left). It was only after I took the photograph that I noticed the striking similarity!