The bone sweet shop. That sounds incredible. There is a bone sweet shop on the banks of the Thames, the south side of the river, where many of the bones thrown into the river from ancient feasts, or abbatoirs, or butchers wash up with the tides, all collecting together as the muds over up their treasure. I've collected a fox or dog jaw bone, various vertebrae and chicken bones. Several hundred years old. last month I found a badly decomposing dolphin washed up and half buried on Hove beach. It gave me its jaw bones, minus teeth, which are now soaking in my garage to remove the last vestiges of flesh. I have found porpoise vertebrae in the past, now adorning a talking stick. I reburied the human jaw bone, with teeth, I found near the psychic's grave I tend at Bishopstone recently. Part of me wanted to keep it, but I knew that was not the right thing to do, so I reburied it in a small ceremony.
Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of my mother's death. I was privileged to be with her when she took her last breath. I washed down her body and sat with her in the hospital for some time. I wish I'd brought her home for a few days, but I did not know then, what I know now, what is possible when it comes to tending the dead in the immediate aftermath of the spirit leaving the physical body. My mother's gift to me in death was giving me the runes. I have never looked back.
Yes, I know that bone shop and "beach" very well! We live in SE London, walking distance from the Thames. In the past I have even taken my shamanic group for children there to go bone hunting and treasure hunting! You do everything with beauty, grace and ceremony. I was fortunate that my mother died in the Netherlands where palliative care at home is well-organized and keeping the body at home until the funeral is offered as a serious option. (And so are DIY funerals). Thank you for writing in!
"I want to say in one place for long enough for the land to become an extension of my own body. For my feet to remember it so well that I will continue to walk here in my dreams (long after I leave)."
From.what I've read so far it definitely sounds transformative on many levels but I'm curious, did you succeed in that wish?
Oh yes! In my mind and dreams I now walk around Sisimiut as if it was the town where I grew up. It is embedded in my muscle memory (and art)! And I am taking a group of art students there in September 2024, so I will "go home" in a 9 months' time!
I cannot wait to be there with you next year. I am enjoying re-reading your posts from Greenland, Thank you. I am fascinated that you stayed in the one place and I have the call to move, move around, to feel the different parts beneath my feet, to explore, to feel the different places. I'm reading Boundless Adventures in the Northwest Passage by Kathleen Winter; she mentions the bones too. (I shall post the book in our group)
I cannot wait either!! But I had been to Greenland before and that time we move around constantly (we took a boat all the way to Disko Island!) So this time I wanted to feel like a local, like Sisimiut was my hometown. The book sounds great! Please post in our Greenland Group! XXX
The bone sweet shop. That sounds incredible. There is a bone sweet shop on the banks of the Thames, the south side of the river, where many of the bones thrown into the river from ancient feasts, or abbatoirs, or butchers wash up with the tides, all collecting together as the muds over up their treasure. I've collected a fox or dog jaw bone, various vertebrae and chicken bones. Several hundred years old. last month I found a badly decomposing dolphin washed up and half buried on Hove beach. It gave me its jaw bones, minus teeth, which are now soaking in my garage to remove the last vestiges of flesh. I have found porpoise vertebrae in the past, now adorning a talking stick. I reburied the human jaw bone, with teeth, I found near the psychic's grave I tend at Bishopstone recently. Part of me wanted to keep it, but I knew that was not the right thing to do, so I reburied it in a small ceremony.
Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of my mother's death. I was privileged to be with her when she took her last breath. I washed down her body and sat with her in the hospital for some time. I wish I'd brought her home for a few days, but I did not know then, what I know now, what is possible when it comes to tending the dead in the immediate aftermath of the spirit leaving the physical body. My mother's gift to me in death was giving me the runes. I have never looked back.
Yes, I know that bone shop and "beach" very well! We live in SE London, walking distance from the Thames. In the past I have even taken my shamanic group for children there to go bone hunting and treasure hunting! You do everything with beauty, grace and ceremony. I was fortunate that my mother died in the Netherlands where palliative care at home is well-organized and keeping the body at home until the funeral is offered as a serious option. (And so are DIY funerals). Thank you for writing in!
You wrote during your time in Greenland last year
"I want to say in one place for long enough for the land to become an extension of my own body. For my feet to remember it so well that I will continue to walk here in my dreams (long after I leave)."
From.what I've read so far it definitely sounds transformative on many levels but I'm curious, did you succeed in that wish?
Oh yes! In my mind and dreams I now walk around Sisimiut as if it was the town where I grew up. It is embedded in my muscle memory (and art)! And I am taking a group of art students there in September 2024, so I will "go home" in a 9 months' time!
I cannot wait to be there with you next year. I am enjoying re-reading your posts from Greenland, Thank you. I am fascinated that you stayed in the one place and I have the call to move, move around, to feel the different parts beneath my feet, to explore, to feel the different places. I'm reading Boundless Adventures in the Northwest Passage by Kathleen Winter; she mentions the bones too. (I shall post the book in our group)
I cannot wait either!! But I had been to Greenland before and that time we move around constantly (we took a boat all the way to Disko Island!) So this time I wanted to feel like a local, like Sisimiut was my hometown. The book sounds great! Please post in our Greenland Group! XXX