Gorgon Hair

Today’s drawing of Mary Magdalene

Painting Mary Magdalene today, with my friend next to me working on her own painting, was a version of the life I envision after I’m done with my current job life. Working in community, sharing knowledge, eating together, spending time creating. Even though I still have work to do in my current life, I am practicing for a great next life. Working on it joyfully, one hour at a time…

My drawing of Mary Magdalene today looks a little like Medusa, the Gorgon. I remembered that there are parts of the story of Medusa that we usually don’t learn about. A publication by the Metropolitan Museum of Art about Medusa in classical art tells the story of the mortal gorgon: She was a beautiful virgin who was raped by Neptune (Poseidon) in the temple of Minerva (Athena). The angry goddess changed Medusa’s hair into snakes as punishment for the desecration of her temple.

Medusa, who turned people into stone when they looked at her, was the only mortal of three gorgon sisters. She was beheaded by Perseus, and because she was pregnant by Poseidon, the winged horse Pegasus sprang out of her body as well as his brother, the giant wielding a golden sword called Chrysaor.

Medusa’s power grows in her death as two powerful beings emerge out of her body and her head is worn by the goddess Athena on her shield. A head that could still turn people into stone… a head with snakes as hair.

(Maybe there is more to the story of Medusa. Maybe her snake hair is telling us something. Maybe the snakes are symbols of protection, and the loss of her beauty a way to ward off the evils that have harmed her in the past. The hero Perseus kills her, and with her head he stops a whole army. Which suggests that Medusa was not so bad, if after all she only turned into stone those that dared come near her. It was the hero who used her head for his own purposes.)

As a visual image, Medusa is seductive. Her hair of snakes is attractive to the eye. To my eye. I like to draw hair for my own purposes.

When I draw the Magdalene’s hair, like in my other images, the hair is the connection to nature, a way in which the Magdalene is one with the natural world. Visually, the Magdalene’s hair spreads in space showing expansion into Earth or into Heaven.

Like Medusa, the Magdalene’s hair is an expression of her nature and spiritual power.

Greek terracota roof tile, c.a. 500 B.C.