Start here: "Uden ansigt," Efterklang
"The songs... are about belief and togetherness."
Hello! This is the very first scene of Faye’s Wing, a multimedia memoir about the creative quest for fulfilment beyond a fixed spiritual identity. Read this if you’re curious about what that means. The story is probably best enjoyed sequentially: view the full list of scenes here.
'The songs in our new album, ‘Altid Sammen,’ are about belief and togetherness. Not in a religious way - none of us are believers of a defined religion. The words are searching for meaning in intimate relationships, in nature, in death and eternity. The bonds we create; to gather, hold hands, sing or share a moment together.' - Casper Clausen, Efterklang.
[Bristol, December 2019]
I squat in late afternoon sunlight by the clanging radiator, feet awash in shifting tides of blue-grey paper. Perched high above the gorge and battered by every passing gale, our top floor flat could be an isolated skellig hermitage, were it not for its prime location. Crowning the city to the west, Leigh Woods and Ashton Court stretch tender green, lush across the river. My back is to Clifton Village; its clickety-clicks of fine leather heels and small dogs, gleaming white Range Rovers and year-round sunglasses can be viewed from the kitchen side of the flat. Our home of four years sits atop a converted Georgian building. Ours has been carved out of the eaves, a dinghy in a sea of sky. It straddles two buildings to form a tunnel of rooms, southern and dripping with golden light on the valley side, northern and shaded on the street side. A frail cradle over a bluff of urban lights to the left, with Brunel’s Suspension Bridge to the right.
My coral-painted toes blend into the turquoise and pink design of a faded Berber carpet. Tiny paper triangles and other more oddly shaped bits stick to my calloused heels as I lean forward, holding a scrap of stormy cloud, fingertips smudged with dirty glue. All around me are torn sheets of semi-gloss paper, organised in a textured palette of blues, blacks, and scarlets snipped from lifestyle magazines. My billowing red skirt kaleidoscopes the cuttings into different configurations each time I stand or turn. It’s a rare quiet weekend with the boys before they fly to their father’s for Christmas, and so the Teacher has given me a sacred art assignment, rather than the longer shrine sessions prescribed for home retreats.
Sacha, my youngest at 14, flops on the white sofa, his back to the window. He drums lightly against his knee, like his father used to, tongue to the side, lost in a distant stare. Efterklang’s 'Uden Ansigt' builds, producing a crackle of static from the bullet-shaped speaker.
'Cool song, Mom,' he enthuses, gaze fixed on his phone.
I nod and smile, eyes on my scissors as they follow the curves of a large paper petal. We share moments of grace like this, parallel playing like children, though I am the mother, he the downy-moustached child. Content in our own worlds, yet sharing a Venn diagram of breath, sound, and kinship.
I am sitting atop the traced outline of my cross-legged thighs on a swathe of brown paper, overlaid with cuttings of Picasso doves and Parisian slate roofs, of deepest fathoms and velvet nights. At the cardinal points, mandala gates guard the sitter, each capped with a Sanskrit name I have been chanting in clockwise nightly rounds for nearly a year. From above, I would look like someone sitting on a shiny red lotus flower. A sheet of metallic wrapper salvaged from a gift or a plant, it crinkles with every move.
The assignment is to give a creative, felt form to the scripture my fellow Kula members and I have been practising nightly. We are scattered across the globe, yet linked by our ancient Northern Indian practices, aiming to worship the Goddess’s body so intimately that we unite with Her. For each of Her 108 names, we offer a rose petal, a garland of mantras around our body, Her body. I pause and leaf through my liturgy, which rests on a carved wooden stand at my elbow. As the Goddess’s sacred form in writing, it must never touch the ground. Spotting the next name, I mouth it silently, scribble it on a paper petal, and paste it in the appropriate place inside the mandala. The song crests in a great splash of indigo—funky, cool, familiar. In Danish, Casper sings, 'Without a face/Through the wind/I stand/Forever by myself/The living street/Spring once more/Forever by myself/And the joy of that place/Could remain’1. Forever by myself… I am looking forward to seeing them again in February, my favourite band, with their unabashed happiness and big songs.
My phone lights up, and I jump to read what the Teacher has replied about the assignment. I had set out to make something life-sized and real, with materials from home, but the scale is off, the triangles and outer petals don’t quite line up. It feels too complicated, like I’ve taken on more than I can handle and lack the skills to represent what I feel. From the other side of the world, she writes:
Teacher: Who cares about the proportions, Marguerite Devi? Carry on with love and joy. Obstacles don’t stop us! Art is not about creating a vision. Art is expression in the moment. We accept what emerges as Her expression.
Me: It’s another one of my 'getting it right' moments.
Teacher: Perfection does not exist. Getting it right holds us back.
The buzzer interrupts my response, and I look to Sacha, who does not budge.
‘Why should I get up, if he can’t be arsed to fish the key out of his bag?’ he mutters.
I read over the Teacher’s last line, a familiar theme by now. Heavy steps approach the door, the jangle of keys, a backpack dropped by the front bench. A boot drops with a clomp, then the other.
'Mom? Sacha?'
Luke, my middle son, already had a deep voice as a toddler, and, at sixteen, his frame has finally caught up with his baritone. The sloping floor gives the slightest shudder as he takes giant steps into the living room, dwarfing the low furniture and snapping his brother to attention.
'Yo, guys, why didn’t you get the door? You just chattin’ breeze?'
Another stride, and he bends over to kiss me on the top of the head, his folded body still massive over me. Never one to miss an opportunity for tenderness, Sacha joins the scrum.
'Three-headed hug?'
And now Ben, the eldest, appears from his bedroom, takes the earbud out of his good ear and walks over to our family huddle.
'Four,' he says, holding the three of us close.
Read the next scene.
Faye’s Wing comes out every Wednesday, and often features music and visuals from contributing artists.
Lyrics (c) Efterklang, reprinted with kind permission from the band.
Your writing is so beautiful and captivating. I’m so looking forward to continuing to read the story. :-)
Thank you, Carla! I’m curious to see where it goes, too.