Preface, Vol 1 issue 12

Once again a contribution by Rebecca Gilbert, her poem, Rain. Also her work is the carpet page design, Winter Solstice, on page 190. The border describes a great water serpent, with its tail in its mouth. The body of the dragon is filled with panels, alternating keypatterns and animal designs. Thanks also to Colleen Clancy, who contributed a good spiral roundel study. on page 181. Collen was a member of our group that used to meet to study Celtic art through the early eighties.

My article, Symbolism of the Centre in Ancient Cultures, was originally published as part of a longer piece entitled, The Diamond on the Heart: Introductory Reflections upon the Archaic Foundations of the Art of Illumination, first published in Arche, notes and Papers on Archic Studies, 4&5, 1980, for the Center for Archaic Studies, Franconia, New Hampshire.

About this time, I was also greatly taken with the Work of Marija Gimbutas, particularly her publication of materials from the earliest cultures of Old Europe, from the forgotten age between the Stone age anf the Bronze age, the Chalolithic, or Pottery Age, when apparently we had a culture which venerated the earth in the form of the goddess,  and whose symbols and iconography seem so evidently the distant precursors of Celtic art. From her great book, The Godesses and Gods of Old Europe, I drew the repertory of borders from fifth millenium vases reproduced on page 188.