I’ve been procrastinating for too long, too much cerebral thinking and not enough dumb making (so my tutors are telling me). So I have a concept an feeling which I want to evoke. In short it’s the idea that one can be alive and yet not, stuck in a living limbo. Ever since I was diagnosed I was living my life to a given timeframe, my prognosis, but now that I’ve out lived this I’m in open (blue) water, afloat and all at sea, without reference or sight of land. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a bubble, I’ll zone out, voices become distant and the pit of my stomach feels like a ball of lead. Before I was diagnosed I was a different person, I was a career engineer, I had a clear purpose and I achieved objectives, now I have feelings that I don’t know what to do with. I’ve been told that my cancer free future is predicated upon a bone marrow transplant, a procedure that has a 50% chance of fatality (at least with my complications). So apropos of nothing (certainly not anything to do with the season or Dickens) I want to capture these three ‘ghosts’: past, present and future. The use of three elements has strong ties with mythology (as I suspect Dickens was all too aware). The Greeks called the three who controlled the thread of life of every mortal the three fates; the Spinner (Clotho), the allotter (Lachesis) and the unturnable (Atropos).
Basically the three witches, sorry my mistake (Shakespearian-slip) the three goddesses were the daughters of Erebus & Nyx (Darkness and Night). They determine each and everyones lifespan, their allotment of misery, and their destiny. Clotho the spinner and youngest (aka Nona by the romans) creates the thread, she decides when someone is born, but also has the power to bring someone back to life (such as Pelops). Therefore she is the bringer of life. The second goddess, Lachesis (AKA Decuma) measures the length of the thread (with a rod), she monitors ones destiny. Lastly there’s the eldest, Atropos (AKA Morta), who deals with the end of life, she carries the shears and the scales, Atropos is capable of cutting ones life short. She chooses the means and ultimate timing of each persons death.
Whilst the Greeks called the fates Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos the Norse had three similar figures, the Norns, who were referred to as Urd (what once was – past), Verandi (what is coming into being – present) and Skuld (what shall be – future). Seemingly the very words Dickens used for his three ghosts…
However this understanding is based on a linear concept of time, the Norse where not so linear. Whilst past and present are accepted terms “what shall be” is more complicated and a deeper understanding of Norse mythology is needed to understand the meaning. Like the Judeo-Christian belief of the garden of eden, the Norse spiritual cosmos was predicated on a beautiful garden. Whilst the Norse believed in an enormous Ash tree (not an Apple tree) growing out of a water well (Urd) at the very centre. The tree provides spiritual transportation between the nine worlds which exist on the branches and within the roots, Odin rides his horse (Sleipnir) up and down the trunk travelling between the worlds. The well, called Urd (the Norse word for destiny) or the well of destiny. In norse mythology the three ‘WISE’ maidens carve runes into the tree, the lives and destinies of children.
“Fundamentally, this image expresses the indigenous Germanic perspective on the concepts of time and destiny.” (McCoy n.d. “Yggdrasil and the well of Urd”) here McCoy explains that in the old Norse, germanic language, as with english today there is no true future tense, instead we add a verb that depicts an intention to do something. So there’s past which related to the well, a collection of water (memories) which nourish the tree. The tree itself, is the present, real, tangible. This leaves “what shall be”, which McCoy suggests is the dew on the leaves, the hail and the streams which run back into the well. Therefore this is not set but ever changing, a cyclical, changeable possibility which can be influenced by others.
Therefore Skuld’s role is more dynamic, and manipulable than you might think it sounds.
The norse mythology is closest to my appreciation of the spiritual world, therefore it is this ideology which I intend to draw upon. I also wish to incorporate Žižek’s theories around the Event. Using my surroundings of the rural setting as a canvas I shall create sculpture and video to capture a sense of the cycle nature of life whilst nodding towards the intertwining nature of present and past spiritual beliefs.
