The Church of Old Mermaids

Last winter, during a month-long stay at the Endicott West writers' retreat in Tucson, Arizona, Kim Antieau sat down and wrote a mythic novel titled The Church of Old Mermaids. "I had no intention of writing," she says, "but I reread The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I wanted to write a simple story like that, full of compassion and passion, from a woman's viewpoint. I was going to write The Woman and the Old Sea. I imagined a woman walking through the wash and picking up trash to sell at a table she sets up on 4th Avenue in Tucson. I thought she should call it a church. But what kind of church? That's when the Old Mermaids came my way...." Kim's novel hasn't yet been published, but you can read the first chapter on-line here. (And find a list of her other books here.)

Since then, Kim has set up her own Old Mermaid Sanctuary, and is encouraging others around the world to do the same: to create sacred spaces large and small that are personal, magical, and unique. "The Old Mermaids lived in the Old Sea," she explains, "until it dried up [turning into the Arizona desert]...then they had to make their way in a world that was new and alien to them — and they did it with love and beauty....Many of us feel as though we have washed up on alien shores because we no longer live in our places of birth, or because we feel out of sync in our communities, or because we are not living in a place where we can discern beauty. The word ‘sanctuary’ comes from the Latin ‘sanctus’ which means holy. ‘Holy’ comes from the word ‘whole.’ A sanctuary is a place where we are whole and holy, it is where we mend ourselves and the world until all is whole and holy.

"Creating an Old Mermaid Sanctuary is not about consumption or knowing about fine art. It's certainly not about what our mainstream culture has declared beautiful or popular...The Old Mermaids created beauty and saw beauty all around. Their home was a work of art, cobbled together from what they found in the desert. Isn’t that how most of us create our lives, cobbled from what we can find?...I want to see Old Mermaid Sanctuaries everywhere — and I would like to create a gorgeous Old Mermaid Sanctuaries book, complete with photos and stories of your Old Mermaid Sanctuary places — be it a dresser top, a room, a yard, a spot in the forest, a workplace, a home. I hope you'll want to participate in this project."

To learn more about the Old Mermaid Sanctuaries project (and how to participate yourself), visit Kim's Church of Old Mermaid blog -- where you'll find stories (including one, I'm honored to say, inspired by a drawing of mine), musings, and information on The Old Mermaid School of Telling Tales & Finding Art and the newly created Old Mermaid Journal (from Lulu Publishing).      

For more information on the folklore of mermaids, you'll find a good article on the subject by Heinz Insu Fenkl in the Journal of Mythic Arts archives. There's also an extensive mermaids website devoted to mermaid lore, links, and imagery.

Comments

[Charles de Lint]

Kim often writes books I wish I'd written, but I'm more than happy to be able to sit back and simply absorb them instead. She was the author of one of my all time favourite novels, Coyote Cowgirl. Now, with The Church of Old Mermaids, she's the author of two. The book is brilliant, but what I like best about it is what Terri decribed above: it invites the reader to become a partipant. Not in some odd sf convention/let's dress up as characters way, but in a manner that can have a real, positive and broader impact on the participant's life and the world around him or her. We all need to find the mermaid inside us and remember the old sea from which we came.
Thank you, Kim, for bringing such honest beauty into our lives.
And this book *so* needs to find a publisher.

[sirensongs]

I absolutely love the title "Church of the Old Mermaids." I just wish I had time to read all about it. New Year's Greetings from the land of enlightenment (BodhGaya, India) and HH the Karmapa's teachings!

[Julie in Virginia]

Joanna led me to Kim and right on into the COTOM where I felt an immediate flash of recognition and comfort - and a memory of the women of the sea who swam in Avalon Bay when I was growing up. I just knew they were real! And they were!

[Tori]

My wandering through the 'Net currents drew me to Endicott on a quest for the Remedios Varo painting "Desire." My favorite childbood story was the original, not disney-ized, The Little Mermaid.
I love the idea of the old mermaids creating beauty out of loss and at hand objects.

[Kathleen Valentine]

This is so interesting. I had no idea there was another book about "old mermaids" out. My novel "The Old Mermaid's Tale" was just recently published and I have been trying to find it on various book sites and came across your blog. I hope this book does very well.

Best wishes.

[Kim Antieau]

Thank you so much for the kind words. Church of the Old Mermaids is now available to everyone here:http://www.amazon.com/Church-Old-Mermaids-Kim-Antieau/dp/1440452245/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228777552&sr=8-1