I’d like to share a new series of photographs that I took in Islay, Scotland. I have named the series “Melusine” after the European legend of a feminine spirit depicted as a mermaid sometimes with wings. I have always liked the poem below and I believe he references Melusine in this poem, I feel it reflects everything I wanted to capture and every emotion that I wanted from these etherial photographs.

Sun Stone

	willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
	a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
	tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
	turning course of a river that goes curving,
	advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
	arriving forever:
                  	the calm course of a star
	or the spring, appearing without urgency,
	water behind a stillness of closed eyelids
	flowing all night and pouring out prophecies,
	a single presence in the procession of waves
	wave over wave until all is overlapped,
	in a green sovereignty without decline
	a bright hallucination of many wings
	when they all open at the height of the sky, 

	course of a journey among the densities
	of the days of the future and the fateful
	brilliance of misery shining like a bird
	that petrifies the forest with its singing
	and the annunciations of happiness
	among the branches which go disappearing,
	hours of light even now pecked away by the birds,
	omens which even now fly out of my hand, 

	an actual presence like a burst of singing,
	like the song of the wind in a burning building,
	a long look holding the whole world suspended,
	the world with all its seas and all its mountains,
	body of light as it is filtered through agate,
	the thighs of light, the belly of light, the bays,
	the solar rock and the cloud-colored body,
	color of day that goes racing and leaping,
	the hour glitters and assumes its body,
	now the world stands, visible through your body,
	and is transparent through your transparency, 

	I go a journey in galleries of sound,
	I flow among the resonant presences
	going, a blind man passing transparencies,
	one mirror cancels me, I rise from another,
	forest whose trees are the pillars of magic,
	under the arches of light I go among
	the corridors of a dissolving autumn, 

	I go among your body as among the world,
	your belly the sunlit center of the city,
	your breasts two churches where are celebrated
	the great parallel mysteries of the blood,
	the looks of my eyes cover you like ivy,
	you are a city by the sea assaulted,
	you are a rampart by the light divided
	into two halves, distinct, color of peaches,
	and you are saltiness, you are rocks and birds
	beneath the edict of concentrated noon 

	and dressed in the coloring of my desires
	you go as naked as my thoughts go naked,
	I go among your eyes as I swim water,
	the tigers come to these eyes to drink their dreams,
	the hummingbird is burning among these flames,
	I go upon your forehead as on the moon,
	like cloud I go among your imagining
	journey your belly as I journey your dream, 

	your loins are harvest, a field of waves and singing,
	your loins are crystal and your loins are water,
	your lips, your hair, the looks you give me, they
	all night shower down like rain, and all day long
	you open up my breast with your fingers of water,
	you close my eyelids with your mouth of water,
	raining upon my bones, and in my breast
	the roots of water drive deep a liquid tree, 

	I travel through your waist as through a river,
	I voyage your body as through a grove going,
	as by a footpath going up a mountain
	and suddenly coming upon a steep ravine
	I go the straitened way of your keen thoughts
	break through to daylight upon your white forehead
	and there my spirit flings itself down, is shattered
	now I collect my fragments one by one
	and go on, bodiless, searching, in the dark....

	you take on the likeness of a tree, a cloud,
	you are all birds and now you are a star,
	now you resemble the sharp edge of a sword
	and now the executioner's bowl of blood,
	the encroaching ivy that over grows and then
	roots out the soul and divides it from itself, 

	writing of fire on the slab of jade,
	the cleft in the rock, serpent-goddess and queen,
	pillar of cloud, and fountain struck from the stone,
	the nest of eagles, the circle of the moon,
	the seed of anise, mortal and smallest thorn
	that has the power to give immortal pain,
	shepherd of valleys underneath the sea
	and guardian of the valley of the dead,
	liana that hangs at the pitch of vertigo,
	climber and bindweed and the venomous plant,
	flower of resurrection and grape of life,
	lady of the flute and of the lightning-flash,
	terrace of jasmine, and salt rubbed in the wound,
	a branch of roses for the man shot down,
	snowstorm in August, moon of the harrowing,
	the writing of the sea cut in basalt,
	the writing of the wind upon the desert,
	testament of the sun, pomegranate, wheat-ear....

                         	life and death
	are reconciled in thee, lady of midnight,
	tower of clarity, empress of daybreak,
	moon virgin, mother of all mother liquids,
	body and flesh of the world, the house of death,
	I have been endlessly falling since my birth,
	I fall in my own self, never touch my depth,
	gather me in your eyes, at last bring together
	my scattered dust, make peace among my ashes,
	bind the dismemberment of my bones, and breathe
	upon my being, bring me to earth in your earth,
	your silence of peace to the intellectual act
	against itself aroused;
                         open now your hand
	lady of the seeds of life, seeds that are days,
	day is an immortality, it rises, it grows,
	is done with being born and never is done,
	every day is a birth, and every daybreak
	another birthplace and I am the break of day,
	we all dawn on the day, the sun dawns and
	daybreak is the face of the sun....

	gate of our being, awaken me, bring dawn,
	grant that I see the face of the living day,
	grant that I see the face of this live night,
	everything speaks now, everything is transformed,
	O arch of blood, bridge of our pulse beating,
	carry me through to the far side of this night....

	gateway of being: open your being, awaken,
	learn then to be, begin to carve your face,
	develop your elements, and keep your vision
	keen to look at my face, as I at yours,
	keen to look full at life right through to death,
	faces of sea, of bread, of rock, of fountain,
	the spring of origin which will dissolve our faces
	in the nameless face, existence without face
	the inexpressible presence of presences...

	I want to go on, to go beyond; I cannot;
	the moment scatters itself in many things,
	I have slept the dreams of the stone that never dreams
	and deep among the dreams of years like stones
	have heard the singing of my imprisoned blood,
	with a premonition of light the sea sang,
	and one by one the barriers give way,
	all of the gates have fallen to decay,
	the sun has forced an entrance through my forehead,
	has opened my eyelids at last that were kept closed,
	unfastened my being of its swaddling clothes,
	has rooted me out of my self, and separated
	me from my animal sleep centuries of stone
	and the magic of reflections resurrects
	willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
	a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
	tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
	turning course of a river that goes curving,
	advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
	arriving forever:

	Octavio Paz



		
		

			

				
			

			

				
			

			

				
			


			

				
			
			

		

I’ve always liked to believe that there are things in the world that we can’t explain. Myths and Legends really interest me. After all there’s no smoke without fire, and why can’t these things exist?? Either that or whoever came up with them had a really vivid imagination! We are silly to think that there isn’t any other form of life out there, we can’t be the only ones in the universe?? Then I thought… if there were such things as mermaids and monsters there would be no way to keep the mystery, the magic would be destroyed, and that would be wrong. As a little girl I would always imagine fairies and mermaids and always wanted to be one, maybe still do a little! These legends are always something I keep in mind when I am thinking about projects. I know I could go and photograph things to make a ethical or political point, but there’s so many bad things in the world that if i can just take someone into their own imagination, into a fairytale, just for a few moments by looking at my photographs then I have achieved my goal. In turn I want to create my own myths and legends.

Verity

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