Little did I realise when I completed the painting the Cycle of Completion that it would also be the beginning of a new series of artwork. In the Cycle of Completion painting a crow came in very strongly as a totem aspect to her. Representing death and life, ending and beginnings, the mysterious forces of creation and the transitional windows from one way of being to another. I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised that in this painting of a deep gathering in of life and the completion of a larger cycle - that a beginning was dancing in the same space.

There are going to be 5 paintings in this bird totem series that are all born from my journey over the last number years of being initiated into menopause and the subsequent journey of transformation. Each bird and its totem medicine has come from the feathers I’ve gathered and been gifted as I have pilgrimaged on the land over these years. You can check out my previous blog about this Feathers, Stones, Shells and Sticks.

I thought I would share a little about the multi layered depth within the series as each painting also embodies an aspect around woman, her mythological connection with birds and the Sacred Feminine.

To give you a little taste the second painting in the series is called the Swan Maiden. We all know swans are graceful, elegant creatures who are widely known for being a symbol of transformation and purity. The swan embodies 3 elements – earth, water, and air as they can be on land, on water and fly. Stories about Swam Maidens and their various descriptions of a divine dance between a beautiful celestial Swan Maiden that becomes a mortal woman go back to the 1st millennium BC in the ancient texts of the Rig Veda. The Rig Veda is a Hindu text, but these stories are found throughout the world in myths and folklore in various telling’s.

I won’t go deeply into any of the individual stories here but the overall theme of one story is that a beautiful Swan Maiden lands by the water’s edge, with swan sisters, and she takes off her feather cloak and bathes in the water. As she is bathing, she is seen by the man of the story who instantly falls so deeply in love with her he decides he must have her. So he steals her feather cloak so she cannot fly away and takes her for his wife. Now she is trapped into a domestic life and over the years she also bears him children.

In all the Swan Maiden tales the female swans are captured and are married to a suitor. They become unhappily ensnared in a domestic half-life by being ensnared by a man using deception to capture her in some way. This all points to women needing to be tamed and coerced into being domesticated to fulfil the worldly roles placed on her as all Swan Maidens were free women, represented as immortal women, who had the ability to bring prosperity to all of life. They are all stories of patriarchy and sexuality being used to suppress and tame woman. It is of course through the suppression of Feminine Essence where woman can lose herself in relationship to another and lose herself in the complexity of the patriarchal world view.

In the next part of the story, the Swan Maiden either finds her hidden away feather cloak or is given it by one of her children. In all stories there is a stolen token, of a feather cloak, a swan robe or swan skin. She then puts on her feather cloak and instantly takes flight leaving behind everything, even her children. Here she is reclaiming her Sacred Essence and revealing her shapeshifting powers. She is restored.

Working with the Swan Maiden painting and connecting with her powerful totem I see how this also tells the tale of the transition phases of womanhood and of menopause. In the stories all Swan Maidens are represented as fertile as they have children connecting them from the maiden phase of life to the mother phase. Until the moment comes, a choiceless choice – when the opportunity is given to her through her feather cloak being found. She doesn’t hesitate and donning her cloak, robe, or skin she takes flight moving onto the next phase of life – the crone phase. Where through this transition she is gifted back her connection to her celestial self, her Sacred Essence with all the wisdom of a live lived and lessons learnt.

The Swan Maiden is a powerful symbol of the cyclical. Of the lost and found. Of the struggle for woman in our modern-day world with all its complexity and outer demands. Of the transformative path of relationship and sexuality and the danger for woman to lose connection with her own inherent essence for another. And a tale of transition – from one state of being to another which to me also sings of the Rites of Passage of womanhood and the reclaiming of our stories.

I love the multi layered meanings in the Swan Maiden. You can connect with her on so many levels and drink in her symbolism and wisdom as a guide.

The Swan Maidens transition on my easel.