Happy Year of the Ox!

Two loved ones in my family are celebrating birthdays in March that are exactly a week apart and both were born in the year of the ox 36 years apart. In honour of their special year we had a party last night and I made an ox cake. I used a recipe for snickerdoodle cookies for the legs, horns, ears and tail. Hot milk sponge cake makes up the forehead and haunches and fudge brownie fills in the rest.

I remember a dream that I had a while ago about doing work with a shaman somewhere in South America and I was given the job to make a cake to get the ritual started. There was a sense of honour in the task. I had the same feeling while creating this lovely creature for my family and friends. I wonder what the eating of the ox will inspire?

Celtic Roots Festival Art Work

For a week or so every January or February I am hard at work with a now familiar creative task. Since 1993, I have created a design to celebrate the Earth, Air, Fire, Water: Celtic Roots Festival. This is number 17 in the series. A slide show of the all of the work is available on the Celtic Festival website.

In getting started I am guided by the four elements that take form as human or animal. Sometimes there is a theme that needs expressing. This year speaks of "the scattering" of Celtic people throughout the world. I started with the image of a house and gave it the wings of the geese to suggest a house taking flight. The roof suggests furrows in a field, making reference to scattering and taking root.

The animals, ox, goose, dragons feeding the hearth and the fish all speak to me of home in Huron County a place where many found themselves after scattering. Lake Huron and the agricultural land continue to be a valuable resource and a part of our natural heritage.

And so, the act of scattering becomes taking root in a new place called home.