Concept - Culture is part of our luggage that we bring with us to a new country. We have no choice and we do not always know what we bring with us, we cannot bring with us what is not there. Travel helps us to discover what we have brought with us. Culture is like a torch that can reveal itself only when it comes into contact with other cultures. It is, as if, this thing that we call culture, needs a specific place to come out, to become visible.
Travelling to new places helps us recognise things that we did not see before. It is often only after you have travelled and arrived, that you recognise what you have been carrying all the time without seeing it. - The stranger within yourself. 

Flowers and plants have long since been in the handluggage of immigrants, as much part of their culture, as traditions and customs; often part of their way of life, or perhaps a reminder of the land they have left. These treasured plants are carefully nurtured in a seemingly alien environment, sometimes they survive, just. Sometimes they glory in their new environment, and great carpets of flowers grow side by side with native plants, mingling to make a new kind of exotic and wild landscape. 

A closer look at the columbines that grow outside my backdoor in the harsh Queensland sun, reminded me of my Great Aunts cottage garden in England, and memories of the circus, of the clowns - Harlequin and Columbine. Interested in the association I traced back in to history and beyond into myth, and discovered a rich mixture of culture - entertainment, the Venice Carnival, the origins of mystery plays in Europe and England, folk festivals, then further back to darker origins, when ceremonies and sacrifices were held to ensure the fertility of the land, the people and the continuance of life. 

The character of the present day clowns had changed much. Herle Quin or the Herle King was the sacrificial God /King who was killed annually to ensure the cycle of Life and Death, and the alternation the seasons. Columbine was his lover, as is now, but then, she was the archetype Great Mother, who never dies.
"men take their colours as the trees do from the native soil of their birth, and once they are moved elsewhere, entire cultures lose the art of mimicry, and then, where the trees were, the fir, the palm, the olive, the cedar, a desert place widens in.
D. Walcott

 This poem seems to sum up the cultural situation in Australia today, but in my research there seems to be a more optimistic note, culture evolves, changes.
Culture binds people together, like roots of a plant bind the soil, holding the pattern of the landscape together. Today with the ever accelerating pace of social and economic change the symbolic references embedded in the old myths are shifted to current issues, thus culture evolves, disintegrates, and reforms, changing its meaning but still binding people together. At this time Life is no longer what it was, and not yet what it will become, there is a desert, a vacuum, a danger of regression that compromises renewal, growth and survival. Making new meanings out of old myths is one way to ensure this renewal.

 For me the columbine has, for me, has shone like a torch down a track that has led back through the history and traditions of many countries, and has made visible past culture and times. Light is only there to illumine the darkness. Without darkness there is no light, and we cannot see what we bring with us.
In the tapestry, the image of the columbines, disintegrates, reforms, the new shapes only hint at what might become.

 Transitions - a diary of thought processes (taken from my notebook)
25/11 - These initial notes were made looking out a paddock covered in coreopsis a garden plant, that has run wild in the Granite Belt, and so turned my thoughts initially to plants and seeds that we have bought to Australia.
Thesaurus entry - impedimenta, things we bring with us (when we immigrate) such as plants and seeds, cultural luggage - symbols of flowers - national symbols, private symbols, historical symbols, often appear in tapestry, language of flowers.
flowers - symbols of culture which florish, die or survive, reminder of a domestic garden or uncontrolled wildness, memories of a garden at Camballan, N. Territory, where an English woman was trying to grow pansies, in very adverse conditions, looking at the flowers in my garden, in particular Columbines surviving the depredations of climate, dogs and chickens. Memories of my Great Aunt's cottage garden

 31/11 Memories of the circus, Harlequin and Columbine the two clowns, It then occurred to me that these two characters might be more than they first seemed, a quick phonecall to a friend confirmed that she knew them as characters of the Venice Carnival. This was the beginning of a search through etymological dictionaries, I have always been interested in words, the changing of meanings of words throughout time, and connections between languages, a history of the theatre, and Fraziers "Golden Bough" also "Masks, transformation and Paradox" by A. D. Napier.

 Columbine or Columbina is Italian for little dove, information about her was minimal except that she was always Harlequin's lover, and the dove was a symbol 
Ishtar one of the many names of the Great Goddess, or Earth Mother.
Erlen Konig (King of the Alders) - Herle King ( English name for Woden, King of the Gods) - Arlechino (a demon in Dantes Inferno) Helle Quin (French King of Hell) 

5/1 Harlequin has differing names in various countries, but in the various cultural traditions his roles are similar, either that of a God/King sacrifice to ensure the continuance of Life, that of a scapegoat who takes away the sins of the people re- enacting the drama/ritual, or that of the Helle King from the Underworld who leads a troop of Wild Men. It is this last tradition that is reminiscent of the actions of clowns at a circus today.

 Harlequin in his various roles has one constant, a costume made up of patches of of coloured materials, at first there seemed to be no connection between what we think of as traditional. Harlequin dress and the descriptions of the sacrificial God/Kings who were dressed in foliage, to represent the spirit of the tree, part of the belief system of old Europe, but a reproduction of a 14th century woodcut depicting Harlequin, in patched costume, looked very similar to 10th and 11th century tapestries depicting 'wild men' who were traditionally dressed in foliage, or leaf shaped pieces of material. These 'wild men' in turn seem to be direct descendants of the centaurs and satyrs who appear in Greek drama and mythology.

 The Helle King is the leader of the Wild Hunt, he is a giant from the Underworld followed by men and women in torment, the souls of Purgatory expiating their sins, becoming scapegoats for the rest of the community. This enactment has over the centuries become more comic and ribald, but recently a town in Northern Italy has reverted to the original more savage ritual, which has drawn a lot of criticism.

 The sacrifice the God/King was originally the actual sacrifice of the King who representation of the God of Vegetation, sacrificed to ensure the dying of the old year and the beginning of the new, the return of spring and the continuance of Life, a carrying out of Death. Eventually a substitute 'king' was chosen and killed, then in more recent times, the rituals became a re -enactment, which evolved into folk festivals and mystery plays. In all these traditions Harlequin always had a female counterpart his lover, sometimes unnamed, she was the Earth Goddess and the constant, whereas Harlequin always died, and was always reborn.

 20/1 If myth represents the greater cycles of succession of seasons, the cycle of life and death, which translates into the succession of generations, when the old dies and the new is reborn the cosmos is held in balance. There is a transition, a point of crisis, and the two worlds (of myth and reality) have to be kept apart, or chaos ensues, the boundaries have to be established, culture, its growth, evolution and change are a way to do this.

 25/1 On looking back at my notes, I realised how many references to the landscape there were. Many of the myths that have been handed down, have their roots in the landscape, the landscape often maps the culture of a region, whether in myths that explain why the world is, buildings and structures exist from older cultures, trees still have special customs or names attached to them, menhirs, hills, springs often have a meaning or a story connected with them. In the past myth was the way we connected to our landscape. We, in Australia, have been transplanted into a landscape that we are not connected with, through myth and culture. If myth, tradition and culture are the roots that bind us to the earth, these roots can only evolve through time, change and transition, from older traditions, these 'roots' cannot be suddenly discovered, apparently in vacuum, appearing, without reference to past cultures. Our culture is yet to evolve. Its apparent disintegration is necessary, before it can become something new.