Images From the Tear Garden:A Tale of Seven Sorrows

A Visual Narrative of a Broken Marriage

Julia Sutherland 2007

Our imagery are the wounds and healings. Farelly

Philosophical Statement

Research as a Contribution to Art Therapy

If we are to continue in our commitment as a service profession to improving the quality of life for individuals and society at large, it

makes sense that we do not attempt merely to duplicate what is widely available through other disciplines, but instead focus on we have to

contribute to our speciality.

Catherine Moon, 1998:23

Objective: To experiment with and demonstrate a theoretical and practical approach to a narrative art therapeutic intervention with application to therapy

for women following a broken marriage.

In the Beginning : Finding a guiding image

Creativity is not a solitary movement. That is its power. Whatever is touched by it , whoever sees it, senses it, knows it, is fed. That is why beholding

someone else’s word, image, idea, fills us up , inspires us to our own creative work.

Estes, Women Who Run With The Wolves. P 298

The Virgin of Seven Sorrows: Mater Delorosafrom Boyer, The Cult of the Virgin P56

‘Neustra Senora de las Angustias of Seville’ (From Boyer)

Care of the Soul requires a different sort of language from that of therapy and academic psychology. Like

alchemy it is an art and therefore can only be expressed in poetic images, mythology, the fine arts, which provide priceless imagery by which the soul’s

mysteries are simultaneously revealed and contained.

Moore . Care of the Soul

The Tear Garden: A Personal Narrative

An exhibition of a series of images based on the Mater Delorosa, Mother

of Seven Sorrows

Arts therapy offers an opportunity to work in a serial form or steps, but also the creation of images which can be revisited or

changed. It also offers the opportunity to look behind those images.

Roose- Evans

I: Betrayal in the Garden: Easter 2002 He said that love fled suddenly in the golden glory of an Autumn day in Queenstown For no reason. But in truth his heart moved for another waiting in the wings of all our lives.Bare footed she called across hills, and valley of deepening shadow Columbine, Columbine Breath sweet with slumberous Lilac wine Smokey too with promise of the spirit of Dionysusand all his pomps and promises Goblets of dream. Different and silver paths suddenly laid bare Shocks of ice ruled my hairAs the swift sword, hidden in wing hit home. Soul of tears revealed her countless petalsLotus FlowerRaining Glassy tears In the garden

The First Sorrow: The Garden of BetrayalA sword shall pierce through thy own soul Simeon’s prediction

II: Flight from the Garden July2002Early morning he fled with stealth. And left a note tinged with a hint of regret Footprints marked the crystal pathwayThe beginning of the end And the beginning Of the long valley of tears The child bride now face-lined with many sorrowsAnd grandmother for the first time Gowned in white And wearing the lace cap on her head which once held a veil Protection from prying eyes torn asunderAs the memory of the promise once made and about to be broken is framed in silver.But spirits now summoned gatherAs the shadow man Once Romeo and bridegroom fleesWithout turning onceNot seeing the blue tree laid bare in the winter gardenWhere she once decked all their joys and sorrows Like brightly coloured baublesAnd where sunflower girls thrived in dappled light Her soul criesas the second sword plunges deep Stretching the golden band

The Second Sorrow: Abandonment in the Winter Garden

On the coldest morning , in secret , in the very dead of winter, leaving only a note and footsteps in the frosty garden the grey man fled.

III: SeparationWar raged in the gardenand the angels in the sky above screamed like skybirdsas the whole world opened into chasmwhen he came with the proposal that would shatter all illusion.Stones rained down on the helmet holding fast From the catapult concealed behind his backWords spoken by others Sweet as honey wine dripped behind the secret smile But she could see the card And could read it Hidden up his sleeve Which slipped in one small movementAnd she became lupine thing And armed with new bible her army behind and around herShe sent arrows laced with power too and held to half the roots as they snapped and when trees fellHer soul torn unsunder and fluttering, set free on hostile windsThe black cat prowledThe third sword cut and his heart took wings....

The Third Sorrow: Separation, War in the gardenThe centre torn apart

IV: Sorrow in the Tear GardenStripped bare she shelters in the tear garden in a liminal place where flowers bow down with sorrow too.Her cap flies free into the air now as angels wings leaving her light-headedasshe relives memories of the garden of the triangle the special place where now only spirits dance in fairy rings And a life once lived but now lost falls out of reach.Tears spring from hidden wells and pour in endless riversInto the ace of cupsBut now is rest as he is hides on the other side of the globe in his own underground world The heart now broken holds the four of swords as her home passes into new hands and she into another place , another garden.

The Fourth Sorrow: Defeat in the Tear Garden “And who can say why your heart cries,

When your love dies?Only time...” – Enya: Only Time

.

V: The Serpent in the GardenOver those mountains he flew like an albatross home to Dunedin And with great haste with the messageAnd with fury he knocked at the gate papers in hand which would dissolve everything and explain nothing.And she turned him awaytoo bare and not yet prepared to assume the garments of divorce which the fates already had sewn which she would wear in shame and forever.With no defence he took her by stealth and stabbed her in the dark pathway in the darkened gardenAnd sent his envoy the serpent to stand in waiting With a great threat hanging over her and to dog her every step until she would submit and mark the dotted line with her treasured name that would end in a death of a marriageShe fell into strong arms and then was wrapped in care and communion with loving spirits There were no screams left to inflame or give delight when she asked him into her own new garden And signed to the sound of a soft and strange lament, from a heavenly choir And he sighed and mumbled words sprinkled with shame but no regret And stabbed the sharp sword in her side, Once again

Panel 5

VI: Leaving the GardenI look down on the garden of my childhood, my womanhood and motherhoodIn the pink and early light of a February morning, as we leave Dunedin without fanfare. I am navigator lIn search for new shores and new things to care about The vigilant soul and adventurer by my side We slip as ships in the dark from moorings now not solid.On ward a long, long journey NorthDunedin is grey and blue and softShe sees old homes and stone buildings and rolling hills,the brooding harbour the beach of childhood, The graves holding bones of most dearly loved left behind, left unattended The cityscape draped in mist Are now memories captured in images in a painting Angels carry stories on the wind of a person now gone and spirits flutter as white butterflies in old gardens where the tear flower still growsAnd while my soul now sings from time to time as tender tendrils from the buried sorrow grow toward lightmy heart cries and holds six burdens.

Panel 6

VII: The Wedding of Harlequin and ColumbineI will hang memories from strings

in the library

for all to see

and the fates who are responsible

for all things in heaven and in earth

hold them into light

I will tell tales

of the Tear Garden

to all who come here

and how I travelled through that space

To a far off place in another Island

beside a Lake as once was spoken, by a seer of future things.

Here water is turquoise

and the Mountains blow steam

and sometimes rocks in an alarming fashion

And in the sky behind a new garden

the mountains stand in majesty cloaked in white too

Under a dark and tangerine sky,

often sprinkled with diamond stars.

And the old woman

Who is a stranger and yet who is familiar

Collects blood and tears

in a crucible to turn memory into paintings

of primary colours and gold and silver.

“The brush is mighty:” she says

By some strange alchemy

symbols form in imagination and rise up from where they come

The image of the marriage of Harlequin and Columbine

too hard to consider except in a kind of jest

takes shape in pastel form.

My children will gather in that place

in this auspicious year of 2007

Witness to the final betrayal of their father

as he shuts the door with a slam

and turns his back

on 40 years, no farewell of course.

And leaps with some kind of abandon into the abyss

and across to another world with hubris his friend

to more familiar spirits

A hard and golden heart

and Summer Wine

and a wedding ring and perhaps my name

his earthly gifts to a brand new wife.

And the other family of which I am now forgotten

embrace their new daughter and sister

as their own

In the garden of the Bleak House and white roses

and lavender

Now ends this tale of seven swords and seven sorrows

made with heavy heart (from all that metal)

With these new clothes and with these pearls

I will turn

I will return

In happier frame in angel wings

For what is meant .... for what is sent

Panel 7