BLODEUWEDD

The Welsh Goddess created from flowers, to be constant love, but later, the Christians changed what she stood for and who she was by saying she was created by magicians forced to marry Lleu because his mother had cursed him saying he could never marry a human woman.  They decided she was made of flowers just for him and they made her wrong, according to them, since she already had a lover who decided to hate her husband.  Lleu was made vulnerable to her lover’s attack and then Blodeuwedd was blamed for it.  She turned herself into an owl, and her name became Flower Face that is the name of the owl.  

No matter how her being was changed, she represents the temporary beauty of all flowers and flower’s that change through the season, that still bloom.  She is the promise of autumn for all of us, and also represents that Spring will come again. 

Her story is that she was made of all the parts of a blossom, nine kinds of blossoms, even the tiny buds on trees, even wheat, and, when all made, she was dressed like a doll in beautiful clothing.  Her skin was the hue of snowdrop flowers and lilies.  When done, and she wakened, they gave her to Lleu.

Lleu was young and had bright red hair, handsome, and he was very pleased that he finally had a wife that was not human.  She hid her dislike of this stranger in treating him as any good wife would.  

A new man came to offer her her freedom from Lleu, and she wanted to be free of Lleu so she betrayed Lleu with this stranger in order to gain her freedom. 

Her husband came home from hunting and, she knew she had to get a secret from him.  You see, he was also made by the magicians and one gift was that he could not, would not, die in battle or in any way.  He loved Blodeuwedd so much that he told her the one way he could be killed.  She waited a year before she had her way.  

She invoked Fate, the stranger who knocked on her door, and he set up a way to pierce Lleu on his side where he was most vulnerable.  That was the secret.  He had to be standing in such a way that struck a certain pose.  Blodeuwedd knew this and had told the stranger, who had become her lover.  The spear released Lleu’s soul to escape his form.

She was free of this fashioned relationship, to be avenged her own fate.  You see, her soul was not fashioned by the magicians.  Her soul was created eons ago as energy and soul and the flowers were only a covering for her original soul.    She was once known as the white lady and the story of the white lady carried on and on down the ages.  For anyone who married that soul, death was the bride price.

Blodeuwedd represents all the little deaths we go through in relationships.  We give up some of ourselves, both partners.  Many of us come to new relationships because of a crucifying death.  I came to this new relationship I have been in for four eyars, due to the death of our spouses.  We were all friends for ten eyars.  I was The Bee Man’s wife’s best friend down in Arizona where we all camped together each winter.  My husband was The Bee Man’s best friend.  We lsot our parytners;  he, to my friend’s death because of cancer;  mine, to death by cancer.  I knew about the Bee Man’s wife’s death, of course, since we were friends and kept in touch over our summers and I talked to her two weeks before she passed.  When my husband passed, in Maine, five months later, I did not, of course, talk to the Bee Man.  We were not especially friends.  But a year after our partner’s deaths, a motorhome pulled up beside me on my lot and a moptorhome I recognized pulled in.  He had come to spend the winter with my husband, not knowing he had passed.  We mourned and grieved tougher and our families got involved and we made the decision, that winter, that we would be compatible and would like to spend the rest of our years together.  It is a sweet story within many stories.  Deaths had drawn us together and we did not have to explain our moments of grief.  We both honored each other’s grief.  But I have a secret, too.

Sometimes I feel guilty that I can not love The Bee Man as much as my beloved Man Hands.  It feels, to me, that he deserves better.  Not that I do not love and care about him.  I truly do.  It is just not the same and sometimes I wish I could offer more, feel more, be more.  But, I am learning to accept that we are, indeed, good partners, and comfortable together.  That has to be enough.

For this painting, I let inspiration simply take over.  I collected some ephemera and glued it down.  Then I did a wash of white to calm down the colors and tie the background together.  I, then, drew her in charcoal and ebgan the pop art type painting.

In your relationship[s], do you see little deaths ( things you gave up, the other gave up) in the relationship?  Do you honor what is?  I have learned to.

©Carol Desjarlais 5.6.20