Crone Time

In the woods, trees of many generations stand together. With potential life spans of hundreds or thousands of years, we can no longer overlook the wisdom of these ancient and possibly immortal communists. The medieval woodsmen did not hesitate with axe in hand, to cut them down to build houses and fuel the hearth. The still faulty logic of then/now states that natural resources have no purpose but exploitation and that a witch burns so well because its body is also made of wood. Branches, limbs and tinder- they are the bodies once piled up and together burned. What if something survived these events, a wooden memory?

Trees sway and speak in violin strokes, the sound of a creaking door being opened very, very slowly. A hand liver spotted reaching, skin hangs slack and sunken back upon the sinews. From behind a mossy log this hand is touching the bark with a familiar sensuality, dragging four finger tips across the surface, sending out little ripples in all directions. This intimacy is magic, technology, crime, the crone speaks…

“The closer my breasts get to the ground the better. Drooping and swaying as pendulums revealing that everything on earth is attracted to its core and will be called to return. I have been asked if I take the devil as my lover and I answer no, I am only getting down with gravity, that is my supernatural lover, I dance a relentless fall into its embrace, submitting to the cold earthen floor.”

Seeing a historic parallel between the activity of deforestation and the execution of women* as witches Carrie McILwain speculates on the perspective of a shapeshifter, a thing both tree and human presenting, part victim, full of wisdom and all hero.

English language only

Credits: Carrie McILwain – Concept & Performance

Eine Produktion von Carrie McILwain in Zusammenarbeit mit Vierte Welt Residenz

Foto: Carrie McILwain