48 Summers (2011-2016)

The pale, deathless Affodil overruns the Elysian fields of Hades. A favourite food of the dead, Affodils are almost invisible and unknowable to the living. In the mortal world they finds approximate form as the vivid yellow Daffodil that erupts and decays each spring. It is thought that attention to the materiality of the earthly daffodil may coax an encounter with its shy invisible shadow. Perhaps her attention ebbs and flows at the threshold between these worlds, at least for a while, until the silvered fields quieten their call.   She hears the emptiness.  Spring, another spring, slowly transforms the anonymity of this unknown, until she feels a glow of sunlight on her cloistered folds.

Ritual for Holding the Darkness and Brightness in Balance

Year 1
Acquire a bunch cut daffodils and arrange in a vase. Allowing the shadow of the Affodil to be sensed, notice the Daffodil's gradual transformation to decay and death.

Year 2
Identify a cluster of Daffodils growing on grassy ground. Turning from the nearness of the invisible world, see how their yellow glows with the light of the mortal world.

Year 3
Plant 48 daffodil bulbs.

Year 4
Tend the 48 daffodils through their life cycle from bright green shoot to seed-head.

Year 5
At the spring equinox remember: hold both the darkness of the soil within which you planted 48 daffodil buds, and their vivd yellow brightness, in balance.