MOON PATH by artist Ulla Anobile

Paper mache, acrylics, 14" x 14"

Via Ulla Anobile: MOON PATH is a piece about initiation, which, in contemporary terms, means entering voluntarily an inward facing state when preparing for a transition to a next stage of life.

Often an initiate is dressed in white, denoting purity. But I had to dress my seeker in red: the color of life, blood, vitality, experience. Likewise the four 'moon pillars' guarding the piece had to have a red dot at each apex. 

The Moon is often associated with the water element, and the water element with the unconscious part of the psyche. Thus the fish swimming on the path, telling of movement in the deep waters of the psyche. The footprints perhaps indicate the steps of those who've taken this path before. And the turtles? They are reminders of slow-and-steady progress and of the earth. Because existing too one-sidedly in a 'moony' state requires firm grounding.

The glyphs around the 'Moon Gate' are, clockwise from bottom left: 1) Weird Sisters, or The Three Fates. In folk tales, the Moon is often associated with the weaving of fate. 2) I took this from a Finno-Ugric embroidery pattern. It symbolizes the Sun. 3) Water. 4) At the top, the 'owl eyes' are my version of what archeologist Marija Gimbutas calls 'the eyes of the goddess' in her book 'The Language of the Goddess'. 5) a very distorted version of 'Hope', simply because I coudn't fit the rather wide glyph onto the narrow gate frame. But it's kind of pretty, I think. 6) Time. 7) the oracle of Delphi, where Pythia, the mythic Greek figure, read the future. You can make up your own story based on these symbols.