A Heritage of Spells
Cast by
Persons, Paths and Light
Hark to the breathing,
the unbroken word that builds itself out of silence.
One must taste traces of eternity by degrees.
Rilke
Each and everyone of us can recall some moment when the light fell in a certain way or on a certain person or thing and cast a spell calling us to a creative path.
My earliest memories are of being caught in the spell of some creative process—reading and writing, singing and dancing, drawing, coloring, painting, sewing, crocheting, knitting, carpentry. I have always loved making things, the feel of a tool in my hand. Even when I was a little kid, I knew there was not going to be time enough. I started making lists and notes as soon as I could write.
My love of poetry and drawing started before I was old enough to go to school and came from spells cast by my father, Gene Grant—poet, musician, carpenter, fisherman. He used to sign his gifts and letters to me: “Love, Trust, Dare.” I eventually added “Create, Pray, Dance” and made it my slogan. I remember my father’s hands in the lamplight and amber glow from the dial on the console radio, as he peeled the wood with exquisite precision from a yellow #2 pencil with his pocket knife, the smell of tiny shavings and lead scrapings drifting from the emerging, long, shining point, my ecstatic anticipation while waiting to feel the pencil between my fingers, and the excitement of the exact moment when that point would make contact with my clean, white, 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper, and then—getting to watch where that little trail it laid down would lead me. It has led me to produce over a dozen chapbooks of poetry, and even to some awards. It led to cartooning, fashion renderings, and painting.
Sitting in the light of the fireplace with my step-mother Lillian Grant—also a poet—I fell in love with the Bible. Her romantic approach to everything in life cast a spell over the scriptures that brought the people and their message to life. I continue to want to know all about them. What tribes were they from? Who did they love, hate, go to war with? Who were their children, their children’s children? How did the Creator use them? Where did they go? Where are they now? I feel like a detective, my excitement growing as, following clues and making notes, I relentlessly track them through scripture and history and into the world—into my own heritage. I just published a book about women and the Bible, RACHEL’S BAG, In Search of the Qabalah of Our Mothers.
Though both Mama and Daddy were builders and handy with tools, it was my stepfather Daddy Ed who taught me how to use a hammer, starting with the claws to pull and straighten two penny nails from old lumber so that not only the boards would be salvaged but also the nails reused. I was so amazed at how few strokes it took him to drive a nail compared to my battering away at the thing. I remember how it felt with the summer morning beginning to cast its spell of heat over the Sacramento Valley as he showed me just how and where my little hand needed to grip the hammer handle in order to be at one with it, line things up, strike, and follow through with intention. It was the same when he taught me how to shoot a gun—the way it feels in the hand, the heft of the thing, how to stand and sight and fire. These things led to my loving and knowing how to work, how to salvage, value, and make use of everything, how to hold my ground, and how to hit the mark.
My love of fabric started with the delightfully printed cotton sacks in which feed companies used to package grain for farm animals. As a child, I watched my mother, Eden McCloud—also a carpenter, artist, poet, and story teller empty these sacks to feed our chickens, and then magically transform them into beautiful little dresses for me, whirring away on her treadle Singer sewing machine. I will always hear her saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and see that gesture with which she became identified—rubbing a piece of fabric between her fingers, “testing the goods” like a wise old Jew. As I grew up, whatever I could draw she could cut and sew, from doll clothes to prom dresses to wedding gowns. The fabrics graduated from feed sacks to satins, taffetas and velvets, but the spell that was cast was informed by feed sacks with little flowers on them, the feel of warm powdered dust between bare toes on a path leading to a chicken yard, the sound of soft cluck-clucking, the smell of scattering barley, sunlight in Mama’s apricot colored hair. Little did we know that that dusty little morning and evening path would eventually lead to a career in the fashion industry for both of us.
Then there was my brother Bob who taught me to play chess. And yes! there was light! Hours and hours of light from lamps, radio dials, fireplaces, candles, sun, moon and stars, and even an occasional flashlight after Mom called “Lights out!” Hours of light casting the spell over those hypnotic sixty four squares and thirty two playing pieces Dad had impeccably carved, as I struggled to learn the game that was talked about in the exotic verses our father read to us from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Hours under the spell that informs one’s understanding of the nature of reality and the universe in ways known only to chess players. Here was the ultimate training that shaped the mind of this poet and designer to see patterns and paths and visualize outcomes.
My parents, though now having gone off to cast their spells in the realm of the Next Great Adventure, continue to inspire me. I pray to bring some form of expression to the light pouring from and the spells cast by them and by all those I love—including lovers past, and precious friends, my brother Bob and sister Janet, their amazing offspring, my partner Jimmie, who is also an artist, and the Cosmic Cowgirls, all those I think of as McCloud Clan. And then, there is this way that the light loves to play on the cheekbones of my beautiful children… and… and… oh yes! Yesterday, driving into town, there was this girl on a bicycle, her long red hair streaming in the sun, and… and… and….
LOVE . TRUST . DARE . CREATE . PRAY. DANCE
This page has the following sub pages.
