Turtle World Theory

From ancient Hindu and Chinese cultures to the more contemporary writers Stephen Hawking and Terry Pratchett – among many others – the idea of the earth being on a flat plate supported on the back of turtles is a well-loved myth. These turtles are particularly special and come from my young Grandson Freddie’s much cherished turtle collection, and were the most patient of models.

There are quite a few variations in the Inuit Myth of Sedna, but being in a little boat with her Father in a storm with a raging sea with her Father is the common thread. Her Father, frightened by whichever spirit caused the storm, throws her overboard, and when she clings to the side of the boat to save herself, he chops off her fingers. As she falls to the ocean floor, she grows a fish tail and becomes goddess of the Northern seas, while her fingers become the different sea animals we know today. A grisly but also rather beautiful story. An icy dwarf planet beyond the orbit of Neptune in the far reaches of our solar system was also named after her.

Artists down the centuries have painted Narcissus, the young man who fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water, wasting away until his death, after which a narcissus flower sprang up in his place. In my interpretation of the myth, the ever increasing encroachment of AI into our lives and even our bodies was the idea behind this painting.

Dragons have been with us since the dawn of civilisation and have enriched our human history with passion, fantasy and fire. They are the oldest, best known, and most fearsome, yet the most enchanting of legendary creatures. For alchemists in Medieval times, dragons had a symbolic meaning  beyond their practical use, and some alchemists considered the dragon to be symbolic of the prima materia from which the Philosopher’s stone was derived, thus an inspirited dragon could be transformed into a philosopher’s tree.