Leonora Carrington, The Giantess (the Guardian of the Egg), 1947

[Kæmpekvinden (æggets vogter)]

Private collection © Estate of Leonora Carrington / VISDA.  Unknown photographer

COSMIC EGGS

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As darkness slowly overtakes our days, introspection and an air of mystery follow. The Occult knocks on the door. Oh, a giant woman with a tiny egg!?!

I welcome you!

Eggs. The frailest of armor, yet the most potent place to grow. Wild change and tender stillness meet here, inside the fertilized egg, housing a becoming, not yet ready to crack open the shell to the unknown.

The giant woman currently resides at ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, and I went to meet her, face to egg. The exhibition with Leonora Carrington’s work is stunning, and as a surrealist, she indeed opened the door to the occult and the wild world of magic. Eggs were often motifs in the works of surrealists, and Carrington is no exception. I LOVE her work and I highly recommend the exhibition. Oh, how she delved into all corners of consciousness, and immersed herself in dreams, eggs, mythologies, horses, tarot! What’s not to like? Playful and serious at the same time, she freed herself of her strict heritage and the strings of rationality and reason. The exhibition allows us to follow her spirit. Go see it.

The egg plays the main character in many mythologies and is associated with no less than the birth of the world. The Cosmic Egg can be found in Egyptian, Babylonian, Polynesian and many other creation stories. In Chinese mythology, the universe at its beginnings was an egg. Pangu (the first god), was born from this egg. Similarly, the ancient Egyptians believed that Ra, the sun god, was hatched from a cosmic egg. Egyptians also commonly thought of the sun itself as an egg. Hinduism takes a similar approach to drawing connections between the egg and the cosmos: the shell as the heavens and the yolk as the earth.

The egg also represents the renewal of the cycle of nature. Eggs were often used in rituals as a way to encourage fertility for humans and Mother Nature. These practices endured, and we can still find examples from 17th-century France, where brides would break eggs to ensure pregnancy. Also, in Germany farmers would smear eggs on their ploughs in the spring—a fertility rite during sowing season.

We all come from eggs, humans and animals. Human females are born with 200.000 egg cells. By the time a woman hits 40, only 3% is left. I am approaching 50, and my egg-laying time is slowly ending. A threshold to a new period of life begins, completely unknown and still somewhat taboo. My current fascination with eggs is most likely related to that.

My ostrich egg

Recently, eggs have turned up in my life, or, in other terms, my awareness of eggs have been sharpened lately.

One manifestation of egg was in Paris. The city felt enchanted to me, and I literately saw unicorns every day (four days, four sightings. That’s another story, though). In line with this magical vibe, I encountered an ostrich egg on a slim wooden pedestal in a store and had to bring it home (this decision led to a high level of anxiety on the crowded train ride home. I felt like Carrington’s painting: A giant egg guardian).

In my home, it looks estranged, like something from another era, transported to the present from a late Renaissance Wunderkammer (Cabinet of Curiosities / Raritetskabinet. I prefer the German “Wunder”). Here, wonders of the world were displayed without hierarchy.

I love the idea of a Wunderkammer: a container for everything that brings you joy, spikes your curiosity and sense of awe. Imagine having a particular space to meditate on and a deeply wonder about the wonders of this world. My ostrich egg is seemingly empty, yet to me it’s full of stuff that makes my heart sing, wonderfully.

I see this giant egg as a symbol of creation and as a tribute to the feminine, both human and non-human.

A greeting to all of you two-, four- and eight-legged, furred, hooved, finned, winged, slimy sisters - and everybody else who is part of this cosmic egg experience we call life,

Birgitte