Identify Yourself

 

The Symbolism of Hair

“It feels like a place where ideas live. There is an energy in the room that excites and frightens me.”

Jasmine Warga (Other Words for Home)

          My friend, Anna and I made an interesting discovery recently. Her mother, Valeeda, who lived in Meridian, MS, began to exercise her creativity toward the end of her life in ways she had never done before—by writing, art, and singing. She was an attractive woman who had lived her life, as all 1950’s Southern women did, in service to home and family. But later in life, her creativity began to demand attention and with all her children grown and married, she had time to indulge it. One of the things she did was to create small plates with faces of women on them.

          In the later stages of our shut-down from Covid 19, I went through a drought in my creative energy. As anyone who creates anything will tell you creative energy comes and goes and is its own governor. You can’t make it come to you, and without it, everything you make is as dry as unbuttered toast. The break came recently when an image of abundance began to form in my mind. I created the fabric wall quilt you see here, and I want you to pay attention to her hair. It is unusual, and notable. And, it is the same hair as the women who are depicted on Valeeda’s plates.

          I met Anna’s mother only once in the early 1990’s. I had never seen the plates before as Anna received them only after her father's death three years ago. But, as you can see, the hair is almost identical. The conclusion Anna and I have drawn is that this hair is a symbol of creative energy.

Hair has always been symbolic. In classical Jungian psychology, it symbolizes thoughts and ideas. But in general, it is a visual indicator of identity. In men, consider the difference between dreadlocks, a mohawk, a crew cut, and a shaved head. How do we perceive them differently? What do we identify with each of them? In women, bleached, super short, green, red, pulled up in a ponytail, or back in a bun—we identify personality with hair. And of course, in the Bible, there is the familiar story of Samson and Delilah in which she cuts his hair, and he loses his unusual strength. Native Americans, who wore their hair long when they joined the military, felt that cutting off of their hair removed their unique intuition. The military sees it as an initiation into a changed identity. When everyone looks the same, it signifies that you are no longer an individual free agent, but a team player, an obedient servant of the people.

Whatever the meaning of the identical hair on the creative projects of Valeeda and me—decades apart—I am grateful for the change in energy, the flow of the creative juices. Without that, I am an intensely disagreeable person. Trust me on this.

                                        In the Spirit,

                                        Jane

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