| Unfortunately,
that was about all I was able to learn from my Grandmother,
who felt she was breaking tradition to teach me even that.
She was, you see, tradition-bound to teach only one student,
in the next generation, of the opposite gender! She had apparently
not found any males in my parents' generation that either
were suitable students or wished to learn, and was able to
rationalize some, that had she found such a student, he could
have taught me... and hence my basic education.
She
died when I was a young teen, before I was really interested
in traditional crafts, or traditional Craft, and my interest
lay dormant until, as a young woman and artist, I rediscovered
hex signs as potential batik designs. In my research and reading
at that time I came across an out-of-print book entitled "Diary
of a Hexenmeister" -- fascinating reading that dovetailed
well with what little I had been taught and some of what I
had discovered in the intervening years of spiritual questing.
The
designs are a way of representing energy, lines of force or
will, the collaboration between the painter and Deity and
much of what my grandmother DID, but did not explain, was
covered in the book. Rather than just being "whipped
out" using a drawing compass much as geometry students'
doodles, Grandmother would pause as she drew. She did not
just put the compass on the paper or wood upon which she worked,
but placed the point with deliberation. With the point set,
she then set the radius of the circle, paused, and always
inscribed the first circle with careful deliberation.
In
this way she centered herself, and mentally put God at the
center of her work, with the radius metaphorically representing
the reach of God's will and the circle bounding all as does
Deity.
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