Nacht und Träume
Dear to the muses and Hecate, the mother goddess of dark, chthonic places and witchcraft, cyclamen is the flower of opposites. In folklore it symbolised life and death; an ingredient of wedding cakes to increase fertility yet a woman who walked barefoot on cyclamen would abort; both a love potion and a gracious farewell to love: Cyclamen as its name implies means cycle.
I was listening to Schubert’s ‘Nacht und Träume’, half awake at six in the morning on the radio and I saw the colours gold on black. I cast about for an as yet unused image that I could transpose into the gold-black bower of my Schubertian reverie. The image of young Burce from Turkey holding the cyclamen posy seemed promising. Taken on the first of October I was unsure what to do with the shoot, Schubert gave me the key. Today is Halloween.
