The Origin of My Protectors

When I was a child, I had decided that almost any fear, any threat, any possible monster lurking in the darkness could be conquered by following a set of rules to invoke the protection of the something good and greater.

There was a late-night weekend show called Chiller Theater that aired throughout my childhood. It was a double feature (though for a few years it was a TRIPLE feature I believe!)  of old classic and otherwise mostly B grade monster and occult films every Saturday night starting at 11:30pm.

The host of the show, Chilly Bill Cardille, was best known to the world for his role as the news reporter in the original "Night of the Living Dead". ( I also lived quite near the cemetery from that movie and had friends who lived directly across the street from it. . . such fodder for over-active, young imaginations!!!)

The whole production of Chiller Theater was a real camp-affair! In-studio skits between commercial breaks and films took place on a castle inspired set and included Cardille as well as a host of characters with names like like Terminal Stare, Georgette the Fudgemaker and Stefan the Castle Prankster. 

But even with the levity of those breaks, the movies were often quite scary to me (as with all the classic Karloff, Lugosi, Price films!)  So began the practice of pulling myself fully up on the reclining chair in the dim, flickering tv light and covering myself with one of my grandmother's hand crocheted afghans. In my mind, as long as all my extremities were covered completely, I was safe.

On occasion, like getting a snack in the kitchen during a commercial break, or in the heat of summer, I needed more active safety measures. What I concocted was a series of little internal "tests" which, if passed, allowed me the same measure of safety outside of the protective afghans. 

These tests were things like; holding my breath through a commercial break, staring at a digital clock til it changed the minutes, having my snack and being back in my chair by the movie's return, and sometimes I just repeated certain phrases in my head when moving from one chair to a couch or to the kitchen or to my bedroom. Those are too silly to repeat here but they were all for the result of an invoked protection.

Basically, little, internal talismans and rituals.

And those old movies were really the least of my fears. There were even scarier "modern" horror shows like Night Gallery or Sixth Sense. My childhood bedroom, ages 4 thru 11 was a frightful place. Nightmares, pitch black darkness, strange things. . . too many to mention. But my grandparents house where I spent most of my time while my mother worked and where we lived from 11 yrs old onward was nothing of the sort. It was the epitome of the word "sanctuary". And, despite and/or due to the extraordinary circumstances of several life changing events that happened there thru the years of my childhood, my belief in the unseen and protective, grew and never wavered. 

So it should be no wonder that upon reading and learning about the pantheon of ancient Egypt somewhere around the age of 11, I immediately took up the idea of amulets, protective symbols,  animal deities and rituals! That's a love that continues to this day and never loses interest for me.

My crafty kid-self went mad for the little amulets and statues. I spent countless hours at the library researching anything I could find about the pyramids and ancient civilizations, one leading to another and so on.  So there was that, coupled with my already strong belief in the unseen and "other" worlds of the fae and the such. All of it making a very strong impression that formed the foundation of so much in those early years

It's why, all these years later, after so many years of struggling so intensely to find my creative place in the world, I have come to create items like these: 

Now, of course, between ancient deities and fairy inspired works, I feel like I am sending these little protective creations into the world for others to invest themselves in. I cannot imagine anything more pleasing than to be putting so much of my early self into what I do as an adult and sharing it. 

It keeps those days and beginnings close and reminds me of them constantly.  The good and the bad. But mostly good. 

I often think of those days now, building blanket forts, cardboard space ships, tree-houses and crows nests, invoking protective measures in my internal world in countless ways. Childhood is, after all, a very uncertain and overwhelming place. I am so grateful to have had so many outlets then. . . 

It's always interesting to follow the thread that runs from the very beginning of things. To see where the here and now came from and to  understand, for myself at least, that the journey is a constant. So all of it matters. Especially those little details. . . especially now.


Thank for reading and for sharing in this journey, and this inner world, with me. :)

nicolas


PS: I find it very amusing that upon searching the internet for Chiller Theater, I came across a site that lists every weekly showing over 20+ years and the films that were played for each and every Saturday night from the beginning! Are you kidding me?  Man I love the internet!

Idea in Process - Amulet Magic!

I adore amulets.  .  . In my Shadow of the Sphinx shop , half of my sales are of my little mini altar and wearable amulets.

In my paracosm of childhood, amulets had such power. Luckily, my mother was a lover of costume jewelry so I had oodles of fun things to create stories around and that she did not mind me "borrowing" for my imagination's sake.

So lately I have been realllllllly wanting to create amulets that will hail from the "Bewildering Pine" world to offer in Bewilder and Pine as well. Of course, the fun is in the making and creating of the "ancient" stories to go along with them.

Now, for the finished product, I envision setting up a very dark, apothecary shoppe look and feel for the photography where I would display the amulets in their magic boxes and with their scrolls of authenticity etc etc.

But the amulets are where I am beginning and below is the first iteration of one of them. A simple polymer piece with an iron rust patina. aged and mysterious. This one, I believe, would ward off
nightmares and keep the wearer safe from dark ogres and malevolent shapeshifters.

I love the aged patina look and the mysterious golden symbols inscribed. It feels magical to me even at this early stage.

Sort of a nightmare capture device. The box shape and the hole in the middle to lure the nightmares within. Woven with repellent spells to ward of all of those other nighttime creatures too.  Could have used this as a child! :)

Anyway, that is the beginning of it and I wanted to post it because, in my world, too many ideas get lost in the shuffle of maintaining the shops and all the custom work.

I have to remember, sometimes, that what inspires me most is making what I truly want and love, and that only those things really inspire me and refresh my soul. : )

Thanks, as always, for believing!

nicolas

PS, I've been inspired this week by a book about Stonehenge that I have been wanting to read for awhile. It goes into detail about the larger community of sacred circles around the Stonehenge site and how the key to unlocking so much of the mystery seems to have come thru the ancient belief that stone circles and monuments were for the dead while wooden/timber circles and monuments were for the living. 


For years it was believed that Stonehenge was an anomaly, an enormous monument sitting all alone on the Salisbury plain but, in the last 15 years,  research and new digs have shown that to be anything but true. This is very inspiring to me. . . time keeps revealing the secrets of the dead and the idea of certain materials being linked to the living or to ancestral dead is so remarkably simple to me. 


I was fortunate enough to visit Stonehenge in the late 80's and remember it as if it were yesterday. A cold, rainy Spring day with only two other people around the entire time I was there. Those stones in that setting, even with the modern highway that runs beside it. . . only the Badlands of South Dakota have ever given me the same feel. Ancient, magical. . . eternally alive with unending stories to tell.

Sign of Aquarius

When I was a boy, age 14, I walked into my first New Age bookstore. A little, literal, back-alley shoppe of enchantment called "Sign of Aquarius Books". I was, for lack of a better word, "searching" for answers to something that had happened in my life when I was 7 that no normal or spiritual/religious explanation could possibly explain.  So, here I was,  7 years later still seeking answers when I stepped through the old, bell-laden, victorian door and into the shop.

No bigger than a modern studio apartment, the place felt cozy and inviting to me as soon as I set foot inside. This was not the typical soon to be cliched "new age store" of the 90's with all the trappings and merchandise galore. . . no, this was the old school,  throwback, specialty book store that once thrived in this world when uniqueness and niche selling was part of the brick and mortar world. There was one room off of the main room and I heard voices in there so I assumed it was an office/storage etc and proceeded to begin browsing the shelves.

I was fascinated by the books I saw on topics I had never even heard of.  I might have been wandering for 5 minutes or so before I heard a voice say, "Helo dear, is there anything we can help you find?" I turned to face a short, stout, beaming silver haired woman in her 60's, her eyes so alive. . ..  and her husband who was also short and stout and rosy cheeked. I smiled and shyly said, "Umm, no . . . I just was . . .. looking. . .  " but that sentence did not end as a statement but as an unfulfilled expression. The couple both smiled and the woman said, "Well, if you have any questions, I will be right over here but take your time and enjoy"

Oh, I did. . . I think I may have spent hours that day sitting on the floor leafing thru books on everything from Taoism to Tarot to Guardian Angels and Fairies.

My mind was alive with the symbolism and possibilities within. . . and while I may not have found my answer then and there, I definitely walked into a place that allowed me to explore and dream. One of the few outside of my home world that did so and, as was often the case in my life,  one that I would come to look back upon as a small but important event. 

I feel, with a nod to my guardian Angel loving Grandmother, that I have been "watched over" since I was a child. . . though I have come to see it, thru my own passing of the years, as an unbroken connection to something inherent. Not an external force that helps and aides but an internal one that, if we remain true to it and do not get so caught up and lose ourselves in THIS so called reality around us, will serve us infallibly until the end of time.

It's what we all know before we are "taught" anything here. Before our parents realities and those of the ghost world around us take hold. It has saved my life on occasion and has always guided me back to creativity and self fulfillment no matter what turn I took off the path.

That turn, down an old alley, into Sign of Aquarius, was a gift at the age of 14. That's a time when teenagers can be wholly consumed by their internal angst, lack of self comfort and incessant desires to "fit in" and yet I was turned outward and into new mysteries to indulge in and to digest. They took me deeper within. . . past all the bullshit of peer pressure and "coolness" and pop culture and steered me back into my own imagination.  Sign of Aquarius, in our high proced realty-crazed, big box store nightmare, is long gone. But inside, it remains alive and that dear couple, then angels in my midst, are forever with me again.

nicolas

The Genesis of an Idea - Taoist Stones

It would be easy to miss the Taoist Stones  I sell in my shop.

Amid the colorful and whimsical and the detail lush creations, these seem to be an odd-one-out you could say. But they have actually been around almost as long as Bewilder and Pine.

They began as an idea to combine simple symbols with a mini-monolith form.  The stone titles all came from one of my favorite Taoist books, "365 Tao" which I also pulled from for inspiration about 20 years ago for a series of multimedia art shows where I invited 30 artists and dancers to interpret the one word titles from the book that I used in the show thru their own creative medium. It included, video, dance, painting, textile art, sculpture,  poetry, spoken word and improvised movement . The music I wrote back then for the shows was also inspired by the one word titles out of this book.

So it is no surprise I turned to the book again to create something new.

The main thing I want to say here is that it has taken four years to really perfect these stones.  I've tinkered with the symbols and even the words used for the set have changed a bit over time.

But last week I sold a set of all 11 and decided that they are, for now, "done"

So this is really the first time I've written about them. They quietly move thru the shop at a pretty good pace and often will sell in bunches with some people ordering one and some two or even three for their altars or for friends.  Often I did not have the entire set available when I first introduced them as finding the time to remake them among all of my other projects was iffy at best. Now I just list them as in stock and make them to order as it only takes a day from start to finish do do them and I really feel I have them down.

I've also had people request custom stones for words of their choosing which I am always happy to dwell on and create. . . even one that was inspired by a symbol from the "Legend of Zelda" for a very sweet UK customer! :)  

But it was just this week, after making the complete set and photographing them all together, that I realized they are indeed, "something".  SO here they are, my own set of Taoist Meditation Stones. Inspired by many things but all my own. :)

nicolas

The entire set of 11 Taoist Stones

The Taoist stone for "Flow" and you just have to love an item that photographs so well in sunlight! :) 

Simple, clean packaging for a simple product.