channeling my POLITICAL rage into art
Hello witchy friends! I know it’s been a minute since I’ve written, so I wanted to take the time to sit down and give an update.
Given the political state of my, and probably your, country, it’s been hard to try and market my products amidst the horrors happening all around us. I also know there is a lot of tumultuous activity happening in many many other countries, most of which are far far worse than I am currently witnessing in my local area.
On top of that, I’ve been dealing with a lot of personal struggles pertaining to physical and mental health, and trying to stay informed on current events while I wasn’t stable proved to be very difficult and led to a lot of hopelessness.
I’m sure I’m not the only one.
For me, my business is my passion, its my lifeline. It’s not only a way to provide myself with fulfilling and sustainable work, but also a way for me to provide others with positivity and power. After my lighthearted Aphrodite launch, I wanted to make sure that my values were still apparent as a business owner and an artist.
So after some time, I was able to channel my rage into something productive.
I drew this with the intention of creating a linoleum print, and experimenting with a new style turned out to be a fun challenge for me! Hopefully soon I’ll be able to purchase the supplies to carve it, I think it would be super awesome to somehow contribute it to the movement against ICE, perhaps by spreading prints around my city.
That being said, let me break down the symbolism!
The woman in the drawing is Lilith, sometimes referred to as the queen of demons. Now, her origin is honestly pretty muddy. She’s rarely explicitly mentioned in very old texts, but started out as a baby-eating demon in Jewish recounts. Sounds scary, I know, but hear me out… Around medieval times, the Alphabet of Ben-Sira was written and pointed out the discrepancy of Adam and Eve’s story in Genesis. In was noted that the Bible claims Adam and another woman were created at the same time, whilst later stating Eve was created from Adam. Within the Alphabet of Ben-Sira, Lilith was named as Adam’s first wife, who declared herself equal and left Adam when he did not give her autonomy. From there, she eventually became a symbol of feminism, women's autonomy, and anti-patriarchal force. Now, this is a very summarized recap, so if you’re interested in learning more about her I always encourage doing your own reading!
So nowadays, when I see imagery depicting Lilith, I associate it with the more modern version of her.
Before I go any further, I’d also like to briefly say— I’ve reconnected with my love of research. I have had this intense urge to feed my brain with knowledge now that I am feeling more stable and one of those subjects has been Chaos Magic. I will probably go into more detail in a later post, but one of the main concepts is that something is only real if you believe it to be so. For example, Lilith is only real because I acknowledge her existence, vs I believe her to be real regardless of me acknowledging her. Now, either is perfectly fine. I only bring this up to say, the version of Lilith I acknowledge is the real one to me. Others might see her differently, and again, that is perfectly okay.
With that explained, let me get back on topic!
Around Lilith are two of her symbols/sigils. I have also drawn her with a snake, which she is often depicted/associated with. If you have seen media surrounding ICE, I’m sure you’ve seen the phrase “Eat/Kill mICE", so naturally, I drew the snake eating “mICE”. I know the symbols are fairly “on the nose”, especially if you already have an understanding of who Lilith is and what she represents. But, that’s the point. I wanted this to speak to those who recognize her, to potential witches who feel silenced or hopeless, to women who feel powerless. This is a reminder of power. A reminder that women are allowed to have a choice, allowed to fight back. This is so much bigger than just one issue, this address multiple issues in my area— women’s rights/reproductive rights, immigration, freedom of expression/religion, etc. I think, and I hope, that this can resonate with a lot of people.
Before I leave you, I just want to say this: do not consume news media if you are struggling to handle it. You are not part of the problem if you choose to take a step back to take care of yourself first. You are not choosing ignorance by protecting your inner peace. It is okay to take a break from the details as long as you remain aware and acknowledge that the issues are very real and do exist. Only take on what you can. No good will come from you trying to absorb the negative energy; you cannot take it off someone else’s shoulders you cannot lift the dark blanket off the world. If you can’t swim, you wouldn’t jump into the water to save someone drowning— you’d be no help. There are other things you can do to contribute. Find local movements around you, donate where you can, stay educated in other subjects, vote, call your senators, etc etc.
Stay strong. We got this.
