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the eternal story of...
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...from a time so long past as to be indefinite in history or tradition...
What do you mean... a little Green Man...?
Lots of people have asked the Dollmaker that very question.
they ask.. "This Green Man Doll... just what is he about?"
(The Dollmaker is obliged to explain less frequently now,
since more people seem to know who Green Man is these days...)
{...an interesting sign of the times}
... be that as it may, the Dollmaker shall now answer the question, her way...
the question being...
Who is Green Man?
SO... Once upon a time, on Earth...
there lived a strange race of Ancient Earthlings
who had Vines growing from their mouths and noses....
LOL. Just kidding.
They certainly didn't have vines growing out of their mouths and noses! How absurd!
These Ancients were... ordinary humans... like you and me...
Except that they were GREEN!
LOL. Just kidding.
No, no, they weren't green.
Okay, really now, Once upon a Time,
there lived an ancient race of ordinary people who were very into
the GREENERY....
This group of ancient earthlings observed that, by mid-winter, all the leaves had fallen from the trees,
yet this did not mean that these trees were dead.
On the contrary, the trees grew more leaves again in the Springtime.
When the time was right, the trees came back to life.
(Sound familiar, self-evident, even simplistic?)
Right. But it wasn't just the trees- the bushes and shrubs grew new leaves again too,
the grass came back from dried-up husks,
and the flowers popped out in renewed splendor-
all of which fairly reliably led to fruiting, harvesting and eating...
and indeed, folks back then made eating a priority!
Generally speaking, to this day we still feel strongly about eating.
So Nature absolutely awed the simple folk of ancient times-
they really marveled at the behavior of the Greenery.
They watched throughout the winter
and waited for the Greenery to come back each year
and they saw it as miraculous and darn near religious when the Green did come back.
And each year in the Springtime... they called it-
The Return of the Green.
( I believe I mentioned they were simple folk.)
The color GREEN
symbolized new growth...a new beginning...a fresh start...new life...food.
And the Return of the Green was a reason to party.
So, the simple Green-loving people of olden days would hold these wondrous festivals
to celebrate the Springtime and the Return of the Greenery,
during which they danced and frolicked about and found ingenious ways
to entice the Greenery to flourish.
Yes, friends, they did think that they could entice the Greenery to flourish,
and some of you know that this is definitely
Another story...
...for now let us just say that since
the GREENERY was the Theme of the Festivities,
someone had to REPRESENT the GREENERY in the PARADE!
Back in those days, the men were the actors;
they even played the parts of women onstage, so of course it was a man
who got to wear the costume made of leaves and branches
and play the part of the GREENERY in the parade,
waving to the rabble-rousing crowd while perched on a festively adorned donkey
who also wore a matching costume of green and leafy branches.
The guy impersonating the Greenery became known as
the GREEN MAN.
(LOL! Yes, this Tradition lives on, even today!)
Now, then.
During these ceremonies, there was much gratitude expressed amongst the Ancients
to the GREENERY for the wine which made philosophers of a great many of them...
and when these Philosophical Elders got together
to contemplate the matter of the cyclical Greening, it struck the ones still standing
that the man on the back of the donkey pretending to be a GREEN MAN,
really was a GREEN MAN!
hmmmm....
It took centuries to unravel what these wise elders meant...
but evidently the philosophers of old intuited that
the individual representing the SACRED GREENERY
had the same regenerative properties within himself as the plants he was honoring-
They understood that Mankind can be said to be... well, green.
In other words, Self-Renewable. Capable of new growth.
For most people, a typical example of Self-Restoration happens
during our "dormant" phase- during sleep each night.
We wake up and we are renewed!
.....................
Artists who could understand the philosophy of the day strove to preserve these blinding realizations
in painting and sculpture.
They got to work carving the Green Man image into stone walls
and into massive wooden doors.
Oftentimes artists would depict a masculine face surrounded by leaves,
sometimes with vines twirling into or around the mouth,
sometimes with rather odd expressions on the face...
Tourists coming across these images might wonder
what sort of half-plant half-human creatures
these ancient artists were striving to represent -
...but scholars such as Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell
have found the GREENMAN images fascinating
and have written volumes describing Greenman as
an ARCHETYPE
...which means: A Universal Truth
able to be experienced by any Human Being of any race or nationality
at any time period throughout endless Time...
wow.
So, into these lofty realms... enters... yours truly,
the Dollmaker.
She who is always on the lookout
for unique and powerful, new and meaningful Imagery for her Dollmaking...
hmmmmmm, what's this?
Green, leafy and symbolic... oh yeah, got to make HIM!
Consequently, savvy, informed gentlemen who come a-shopping
at the Wee Peeple Doll Arte Gallery
will often select a Greenman Doll, realizing that
"SELF-RENEWAL"
applies to emotional and spiritual renewal
(AND relationship renewal) as much as it applies
to the regeneration of fingernails and leaves.
hmmmm!
So, the answer to the question,
"Who is the Green Man?"
LEAVEs us... (hee hee)...
gazing upon our own reflections in the mirror...
however...
There are times when the legendary Greenman appears
in the trees sometimes... if we look carefully....
we MIGHT be able to see him-
the Greenman...
not the doll, not the archetype, not the parade-walker, but the legend,
cast of shadows, stems, leaves and light
shifting forward and backwards in a slight breeze...
...watch for him.
Kandra Niagra, Dollmaker
PO Box 326
Smithville, Texas 78957
Phone: 512-332-6680
Email: bigkandra@aol.com
04/12
