Spiral Journey: The Beginning

It is a delight and honour to take part in the Monica Sjöö Curatorial winter artist in residence programme for Instagram. As part of the programme I will share my experiences, photography and illustrations while embarking on my own 'spiral journey' inspired by the writings and art of Monica Sjöö. Each journey is both physical and spiritual and encompasses pilgrimages to ancient and sacred sites in my home country of Scotland and further afield. Incidentally, my first pilgrimage takes place in Cornwall...

I can't recall where I first came across Monica Sjöö and her work, but I do remember feeling annoyed that no one had ever mentioned her to me at Art School, as I showed a decided interest in ecofeminism. Annoying but sadly not surprising as predominately male artists and art were continually held up as examples.  Ever since I first encountered her work, Sjöö has stayed with me, her work speaks to me on a personal level as a feminist, artist and follower of the Goddess.

It is so heartening to witness and be part of a renewed critical interest in her work which for too long has been dismissed as hippy dippy nonsense. There is clearly a rise in women reclaiming their power and shedding the dogma drummed into them by patriarchal societal structures for thousands of years. Monica Sjöö, her work and her writings have never been more relevant and a source of wisdom and inspiration we woman need and can draw from. 

First encounter with the Great Goddess

I came across Spiral Journey last summer while visiting an exhibition of Monica Sjöö's work in London. It comprises of a series of personal essays by Sjöö recounting her many pilgrimages to sacred Neolithic and ancient sites across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. For her it was a way to commune with the Goddess, Mother Earth, the Great Cosmic Mother. She describes her series of pilgrimages as a 'spiral journey' - the spiral being a symbol of the divine feminine as we move cyclically and also forward in time. 

After finishing the book earlier this year I decided to embark on my own initiation with the Goddess. I was slowly beginning to recognise my own female spirituality held deeply within myself. I had realised that I carried ancestral wounds which needed to be healed and had a yearning to live more cyclically in accordance with my own natural rhythms. 

It was time for a pilgrimage.

As I was living in London at the time and it was several weeks before I was due to return to my homeland in Scotland, I decided to make my first pilgrimage to Cornwall, an area rich in ancient remains. In Spiral Journey Sjöö recounts that she crawled through the crick stone at Mên-an-Tol in 'constant rain and mud' to experience the healing the standing stones were renowned for in local lore. 

Reading from Spiral Journey

Our own visit to Mên-an-Tol was profound for each of us in its own way. My husband and I walked for a mile from the small lay-by which made for a car park along an old miners' path to the ancient site, thought be around 3,500 years old. It was a warm breezy day in June and although the moor looked bleak the path was sheltered with overgrown hedgerows and the insects buzzed around us as we sauntered up the path - we certainly had better conditions for our pilgrimage than Monica had. I read aloud from Spiral Journey as we went, occasionally tripping and stumbling over the uneven path. When we reached the circle, comprising of four fairly small granite stones - the most memorable of these being the stone with a hole in it, known as the crick stone. We preformed the obligatory crawl though the crick stone before flopping onto the grassy mound, surrounded by the stone pillars.

I read aloud again from Spiral Journey - finishing off the chapter about Celtic Cornwall/Kernow before we lay back under the sun surrendering to the Great Mother. Her presence was warm and gentle and I felt cradled in her embrace. My husband meditated and had his own private conversation with the Goddess which he recounted to me later.

It is said that fairies guard the entrance to the other world here and I fancied I felt their touch, just as artist Jessie M King had as a teenager when she fell asleep on a mountainside in Scotland.

Rebirth: crawling through the crick stone

When we left Mên-an-Tol we felt refreshed, energised and light of spirit. We shared our experiences and agreed that the site had a serene and calm energy. On the way back we realised we had been lucky to have had this sacred space to ourselves as we encountered half a dozen walkers and families making their way up the track.

The photographs you see here are those which I took before we left the site and which I later transferred into cyanotypes.

While staying at St Ives in Cornwall we visited the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden. Hepworth was a renowned sculptor famous for her 'holed stones' and who was inspired by the stones of the area. Sjöö mentions her in the chapter about Cornwall in Spiral Journey. 

It was interesting that in a few weeks I would make another spiral journey to Orkney and see more stone circles and more work by Barbara Hepworth.

Works inspired by Spiral Journey and Mên-An-Tol

In a later process I copied one of the cyanotypes by making an image transfer - I chose the crick stone as a symbol of a portal to the otherworld, or the womb of the Goddess and made four little fairy guardians from clay - one of which is based on the 'Westray Wife', found in Orkney.

Before returning to Scotland to visit the sacred sites of my homeland I crammed in a visit to the Feminist Archive South at Bristol University to look though some of the Monica Sjöö material, which included beautiful screen prints, posters, articles, personal papers, letters and diaries. Later that day I went to the Chalice Well at Glastonbury to drink and bathe in the healing waters of the ancient spring. It was wonderful to experience first hand many of the places mentioned in the archive.

My own initiation into the mysteries the Goddess was subtle and gentle - nothing like the profound experience Sjöö had on psychedelic mushrooms at Avebury as she describes in the book.  But it was enough to have me seeking more and to go alone next time.

The healing spring at the
Chalice Well

Ever since my menarche I have suffered from excruciating period pain and it was Spiral Journey which prompted me to go deep within myself for answers - rather than the unsympathetic male doctors I had encountered over the years.  During one of my meditations the ancestral burdens and wounds which had come from an enforced brutal and patriarchal dogma came through. My own grandmother had been molested by a Catholic priest in Ireland as a teenager - how many more woman and girls in my female line had to suffer under this fear-based misogynist religion? But also with that came the beautiful realisation that it ended with me - I am a cycle breaker. Not only would I end this reverence to a tyrannical male sky god but I would walk the path of the Goddess and find healing, solace and empowerment for women, girls and the Earth again.

My spiral journey will lead me to many sacred places in Scotland, some long forgotten and little known. I look forward to sharing them with you.

Screenprint of the Spiral Journey cover
courtesy of the Feminist Archive South, 
University of Bristol

Reference Library:

Spiral Journey: States of an Initiation into Her Mysteries by Monica Sjöö, published 2018 by Antenna Publications