Ecstasy

This piece was created from a dream I had of the moon tree. According to Jungian analyst Esther Harding (1971) in her ground-breaking book Women’s Mysteries, the sacred moon tree is

of a very ancient date, and appears over and over again in religious art. It is especially frequent in Assyrian pictures. . . . “Its root stretched toward the deep” proclaims that the power of the moon extends even into the underworld. . . .  The line “into the heart of its holy house . . . hath no man entered” proclaims the fact that the meaning of the Moon Goddess and her moon tree is a mystery, indeed it might be called the Mother of Mysteries.  (p. 48)

Around the same time I had this dream, I started entering spontaneously into ecstatic states through some of my dreams. I would be taken with a rush of energy though my entire body. These moments were extremely pleasant and had an erotic tone. Ecstatic states are hard to hold because there is such a thing as pleasure anxiety and a deep fear of experiencing new things. I also believe these ecstatic states connect to the sacred or archetypal feminine, represented by the image of the moon tree. In this piece, the moon tree is slightly hidden behind layers of wax, which suggest its mostly inaccessible nature. The sigil in this piece is a request to be opened to ecstasy in good and gentle ways.