"Goewin Necklace" by
Morgaine's WellAmanda has been a wonderfully helpful leader and team player for the Etsy Natural Healers Guild; she has recently created a Facebook Fan Page for the guild!!! Here is her exclusive interview about herself and Etsy shop
Morgaine's Well!
My name is Amanda Gynther. Ich bin in Vienna, die haupstadt von Ostereich. Or, for those speaking only english, I am in Vienna the capital city of Austria. I was born in a zen school in Cambridge MA. Both my parents are Budhists. Grew up watching cartoons with Zen Master Seung Sahn, who wrote books like Dropping Ashes On The Buddha and Compass of Zen.
My background includes studying swedish massage therapy, shiatsu, I am a reiki practitioner level 2, I never seem to finish anything. I first went to school as a vocal performance major for a while. Then i studied reiki and massage for a couple of years, then some time later I returned to my studies and began a degree in archaeology. And I have a minor in mythology due to my life long study of it.
I married a PhD in theoretical physics several years ago. We have 3 dogs that we love dearly. One of them is 15 years old and rides around the city in a stroller. Due to my husband's career, we move around internationally a lot. There is no telling where we will be in a year and a half. It is an adventure that spans literally continents.
My shop name is based on a myth. Morgaine, was the sister of King Arthur Pendragon, king o' the brits. Later, she was demonized by the catholic church. She was the Lady Of The Lake and the high priestess of Avalon an island between this reality and the land of Fair, or so the legend tells. She created Excalibur, Arthur's famous sword under the well of Avalon. Excalibur was a magical sword that would protect her brother from harm and ensure his victory.
Later, she would be demonized by the christians and would go down in history as an evil sorceress. Who she actually was in the early tales would be lost and her character and motivations completely misunderstood. Though they tried to cover her over by demonizing her brand of wisdom, they failed. Clues remain in the old texts and stories that will tell anyone who knows what they are looking for the path to the truth.
They said when i was a child that I had ADD (which turned out not to be true.) They also said that i was dyslexic. (that is true. I most definitely am and i got the paper work to prove it.) They spent years analyzing my every move and gesture and misreading into everything as much as they could. Then they wrote reports on me that were complete fiction and based on their imagined version of who i was and what my motivations were. They never took blood they never checked the physical in search of the cause of my issues. Instead they just decided, based on a lack of evidence meeting the criteria set forth by the scientific method. Years later, someone finally did take blood. They found a serious deficiency in vitamin B, and several other vitamins that would have taken a decade and a half to have developed to such severity, including an iron deficiency. So, I fixed it. The result is, no more ADD symptoms. Magic! Tada! No, just common sense and sound science and a healthy lifestyle.
I chose the myth of Morgaine for my shop because I identify with both her character as a person in the early myths, but i also identify quite closely with what the ignorant ones motivated by an agenda they spelled out in blood, death, and torture did to her, when they turned her into a witch.
The well is a symbol. It is the gateway into.... another universe. The land of the fairies that is the sacred sound in the Dagda's cauldron. It is the place all artists go. The one filled with self reflection. The deep place we disapear to when looking for that part of ourselves that is driven to create. We pull up a formless substance in the well's bucket, and we fashion from that internal substance from down the well, something beautiful and meaningful that touches other people. Just as Morgaine, did when she made Excalibur from magic down in the well of Avalon.
When i was little i was in a terrible car accident that should have killed me. I was treated as a burn victim over large percentages of my body, many operations later and after the mending of a not broken, but a shattered pelvis and all sorts of reconstructive surgery on my face, and years of physical therapy etc.... I would hope that my work gives them what i had in the days after that accident. My mother did not know what to do. So she gave me a large piece of rose quartz. It fascinated me. I was only 5 years old, and something about that stone maybe just the inclusions though i think it was the energy of the stone itself calmed me soothed me and completely removed my terror and my pain. I want to give others that need to varying degrees for various purposes the same kind of.... peace in their darkest moments and their most joyful moments or moments when they simply need it more what that stone gave to me as they wheeled me off into the operating room totally lost in the energy of the stone, rather than the terror of having my body cut open and my insides messed with by a bunch of strangers who's faces were not even visible under the surgical masks.
I love the work of a wide range of artists. Including El Greco, and many of the renaisance painters. My inspiration is largely however from myths and legends and life lessons i learn and the stories people tell me. I am a seanchi. An old box of beautiful things just retelling these stories that have been with humanity for thousands of years. The tales with deeper meaning for all of us as they touch on the very core of what it means to be human. Also, I am inspired by the people around me and their various hang ups and issues and their difficulties in life and all the fear and terror and baggage we all carry around with us.
Humans have been creating since before we were humans.... I am inspired by the neanderthal that first made ochre painted beads out of shells by drilling holes in it. Those beads predate even the early cave artists, who also inspire me. I am inspired by the long history large apes have of making things. That on it's own drives me nuts with fascination.
I love Hans Christian Anderson and all his stories.
Another of my favorite artists was a greek musician named Orpheus who literally used his art to raise the dead.
I am most inspired though by the effect that art of all kinds has on human beings, on individuals as well as on entire cultures.
Marketing tips... Ummmm.... Yeh.... Uhhh... Hmmmm.... I would love to offer some but i think that is the end of this that i am still working to figure out. Do YOU have any ideas??? How do YOU market? Dear gods, i would love to know what works.
In ten years, I would like to be living somewhere in Europe on a small organic farm with some sheep and or goats, a couple of horses, 2 dogs a few chickens, a nice place for my husband to set up his telescope near the coast of somewhere that has a nice mild climate. I would like to have 1 child, and a beautiful studio of my own that looks out over the farm and the ocean. i would like to be making not just jewelry art but also Finnish Sami crafts, recording music, and doing many other kinds of crafts and artwork. It would be wonderful to meet in my studio regularly with a craft circle that gathers to craft and tell stories, while my child learns about the arts and music and my husband is downstairs in his office being his sweet but nutty professor self.
Namu Amitabul Single Flower Necklace
Handmade stuff, has a spirit all it's own it is an energetic individual rather than a mass produced piece of crap that will one day end up a polutant probably on some giant trash barge destroying our ocean as it floats around one day. Handmade stuff has a soul of sorts. It is also built generally speaking to last. The quality tends to be better and it supports human makers rather than machines. That is really important, because it is that we make and create that is most fundimental to what makes us human. So supporting that is so critical in an age where it is dieing a slow and painful tragic death as machines take over doing the very thing that makes us human.
I had a vitamin deficiency for years, it wreaked havoc on my sanity it was so bad. What i like most, is finding a team of people to teach me more about a healthy lifestyle. People who are trying to live and provide a healthy lifestyle to others. Thank you all so very much for your efforts. You have no idea what it means to me that you are out there doing what you do. Eating naturally and living naturally is another core part of what makes humans humans. I am truly greatful for the support i get on the rare occasions i find to make and post a treasury. And i simply love and am fascinated by some of the various items i happen upon in all of your etsy shops....
Lessons learned on Etsy... Few, very few.... It is really hard. The only thing i have learned really is that Etsy is huge and it is very easy to get lost. Promotion is important. But how and where beats me. I am looking for lessons I am looking for guidance, and i gotta say, it really is a downer how very little i have been finding. But i keep on looking and some day. by the grace of nature herself i am going to find the answers i am looking for. And when i find them, I will share them. Till that time i am afraid i am rather useless on this issue anyway.
You can find me at:
www.morgaineswell.com/blog.morgaineswell.com/theseanchisblog/www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Morgaines-Well/115126820515twitter.com/#!/Morgaineswell
"Original Watercolor Illustration - Mother Earth" by Adelaida
