ElynAviva@fiberalchemy.com

RavenLady

Approximately  32” tall.
Materials and techniques: RavenLady’s internal structure is flexible wire armature, covered with fabric “skin” stuffed with wool batting and painted with fiber paints. Face is needle-sculpted. Hair is flax fiber. Dress and cape are silk. Claws are yarn-wrapped wire with metal nails; she has metal fingernails. A metal pendant hangs from her neck. On a staff is her “other” face: the Raven. The head is Styrofoam covered with air-drying clay and painted, then covered with black jacquard silk feathers. The beak is painted, air-drying clay. The Raven has glass eyes.

THE INSPIRATION AND INTENTION:
Ravens have been coming to me ever since visiting Ireland in fall 2007. I had a vision in Ireland of a beautiful, golden-haired woman, one of the Triple Goddesses. She turned toward me and smiled, then turned away. When she turned back her head had transformed into a raven’s head. Suddenly she shape-shifted into a raven and flew at me. It was a very impressive.

Later I learned about the Morrigan, whose Gaelic name means “Great Queen” or “Phantom Queen.” Her origins go back to the great megalithic cults of the Mother. Representing the Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess, she is herself a triplet. In Celtic mythology the shape-shifting Morrigan is a battle-goddess of war, death, and slaughter, changing into a raven and eating carrion on the battlefield. She also appears as the “washer at the ford,” washing the clothes of warriors who are going to die in battle.

She is also associated with regenerative ecstasy and fertility, with healing and medicine, a psychopomp who guides the newly dead soul—a strong, powerful goddess of transformation, clearly! She represents the apparent opposites of protection, healing, changes in consciousness, and death and destruction. But the contradiction is only apparent: the death of one thing is often necessary to bring about the birth of something new.

In various versions of Arthurian legend she gets a bad rap as Morgan le Fay, transformed from battle goddess into a vengeful woman with magical knowledge. Sometimes, however, there is an intriguing twist to the story and the wounded Arthur is taken to her for healing.

I don’t know why She has chosen to reveal herself to me, but I do know that, for me, she represents aspects of the Dark Mother. Like Kali, she is terrifying. But just as Kali devours the false ego in order to liberate the soul, so does the Morrigan transform carrion into compost, creating something new and fertile in its place.