Mægtha and Hretha Lunar Stone: Work in Progress

 Another nice afternoon (at least meterologically) allowed me to get outside again and do more engraving - this time, tackling the 27kg slab of sandstone which will be the 'lunar stone', depicting the lunner goddess Mægtha and her hermaphrodite consort, Hretha. Mægtha is the goddess of the full moon while her pendant also depicts the lunar phases - crescents, gibbous and full.

This was the first part of the work:

And the point at which I left it, about an hour and a half later:

Only the sickle remains to be outlined thicker, and then it'll just be a case of deepening the grooves and thoroughly washing it all so it doesn't look too fresh. I decided to improvise a bit by turning er right breast into a spiral to create a vertical sequence running down the body. The straight lines and the spiral motifs have just made me think of the work of Richard Long (A Line Made by Walking) and Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. The line/spiral designs look like they could be aids to astronomical alignment (or are the kind of design that, in real-world engravings and monoliths, would have some scholars speculating) and also the Nazca lines in Peru, which appear to have been ritual paths walked for cosmologically significant purposes. I have only recently considered the idea of situating some of these works in landscapes close to home, and if I had more time (and a spare field) it would have been interesting to walk out a Long-style stretch and spiral on the ground in reflection of this work. How amazing would this look, cut out of the land like a prehistoric chalk figure? It would certainly be a physical match for the epic 80,000 word text - but unfortunately isn't do-able at this stage.