spring spell

Morels, spring garlic, asparagus, duck eggs, several bouquets of sweet peas and daffodils. This is what came home with me from the farmer’s market this weekend. Last night I slivered some of the spring garlic, sautéing it along with the morels in butter. Served over a steak along with grilled asparagus, on a table graced with a vase of fragrant flowers, I gave thanks for the season and savored the taste and smell of it.

The duck eggs? My neighbor has been baking up a storm – lemon pound cake most notably – from the eggs which I have been blowing out to make psyanky eggs.

I have been making psyanky eggs for over forty years, learning the art from a friend in junior high. The practice precedes Christianity and takes a lot of time and focused attention. It is serious spell work. At eighteen, I complemented my wages as a dishwasher by selling psyanky at a gallery in the little town I had moved to on the Oregon coast. I ate a lot of eggs and friends kept me company as I drew symbols on the empty shells with melted beeswax, dipping them in progressively darker dyes, drawing out the future I wanted for myself.

Before the internet, the address of the store where I got supplies I kept close to me, a treasure in itself. Now I have easy access to Ukrainian small businesses which sell psyanky supplies, but I like to remain faithful to the small store in the East Village which has been mailing me dyes and kistkas for decades now. After years of ordering from them, I finally visited the store a few years back. It was everything I imagined it to be, small and magical and filled to the gills with decorated eggs of every size and shade.

My goddess daughters have learned the art from me, and many of my friends have an egg or two or three in their possession. I have given them to new parents to bless a birth and put them in the coffins of loved ones who have died. This morning, I gave a friend who is recovering from several losses an egg covered with hearts and the word joy. Every egg is different, and every line and color has meaning. Red for love, violet for power, green for growth, white for purity, pink for success, blue for health. Apples and plums are for wisdom and healing, windmills signify happiness, birds bring fertility, dots stand in for the stars and constellations, flowers bring beauty, deer bring prosperity. Lines drawn around the eggs symbolize infinity and eternity.

This year, my new art studio has a table covered with jars of dyes and my beeswax, candle, kistka, and eggs have traveled from studio to kitchen and dining room table, depending on who is visiting and where we are sitting.

Egg magic is a powerful and unpredictable thing. Every spring there are eggs that explode in the last step of melting the wax off or crack suddenly as I am working on it. Doing psyanky is practicing the art of non-attachment. The spell is in the process, not the finished product. Every egg takes the dye in a different way, control over the wax is minimal. It is not an art for perfectionists. I love it.

When I finish writing this, I will get back to psyanky making. I think this next egg will be pink, green, and blue. It will be a spell to assure many many many more springs with morels, duck eggs, asparagus, and spring garlic. Oh yes, and bouquets of daffodils and sweet peas as well. And psyanky spell crafting.