Hel and Her Kin
by Lara Vesta
Lara Vesta, Hel and Her Kin, pen and ink on archival paper, 17 x 14 inches, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.
Hel and her Kin
LARA VESTA | OCT 2023 | Issue 28
Art is a huge part of my healing practice. In the process of making art I find solace, joy and reconnection. Art is ritual and devotion.
Much of my inspiration is mythic, rooted in ancient lifeways and earth-based spiritual practices long forgotten. Myths and art become a tool for integration, re-membering the web of wyrd and reweaving a life of meaning and purpose.
Several contemporary authors have inspired my journey through the mythic: Max Dashú's book Witches and Pagans has been a remarkable resource for understanding the potent feminine roots of ancient myth. Ralph Metzner's The Well of Remembrance addresses the reluctance of descendants of European ancestry to pursue investigation of their earth-based spiritual lineage due to fear and misunderstanding, and the psychic holes we bear as a result. The work of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas has contributed substantially to my understanding of ancient Europe, specifically reverence for the sacred creative feminine. The field of archaeomythology, as introduced to me by Dr. Mara Keller, has helped me to synthesize art, spirit, archaeology, mythology and root my artistic journeys in academic resources.
This art is all completed in ceremony, some of it rooted in communal gnosis, some personal, some attached to lore, some drawn from the deepest well, that of faith and relationship.
Lara Vesta, MFA, is an artist, author, storyteller and educator transforming chronic illness into a path of healing and reclaiming. She is the author of The Moon Divas Guidebook, Wild Soul Runes: Reawakening the Ancestral Feminine, and the forthcoming Year of the Dark Goddess (Red Wheel/Weiser 2024). Her research interests include ancestral connection, mythtelling and disability as initiation. She shares her path of ancestral animism, sacred art and story with her Patreon community and through by-donation classes at the Wild Soul School.