Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
The Stag and the Tree
"Any guesses as to what our all-time most popular pysanka is?”
I'm talking with Luba Perchyshyn, owner and co-founder of that longtime Minneapolis landmark, the Ukrainian Gift Shop. Not one to sit by with idle hands, she's working on an egg as we speak; I can smell the melted beeswax in the kistka as she works. Over the years, she's made—and sold—tens of thousands of pysanky. Her hands are deft and quick; the kistka makes little scritching noises as she draws the tip over the surface of the egg. She doesn't seem to have any problem at all carrying on a conversation while simultaneously constructing a complex three-dimensional design.
“What?” I ask, curiosity piqued.
She turns the egg to me. Written in blackened beeswax across the shell, two stags with branching antlers face one another, heraldic-wise, across a tree that in some ways resembles a giant flower.
“We've not only sold more of these than any other design, we've sold way more of these than any other design, for years now,” she says.
“Really?” I say, intrigued. What the Christian significance of the pattern—if any—may be, I don't know. Twin Stags, and the Tree of Life? As a pagan, it seems clear enough to me what's going on here; we're all cervophiles, pagans. “Why, do you think?” I ask.
“I have no idea,” she says. “People sure do like it, though.”
She pauses, kistka motionless in mid-air.
“What is it about trees and deer?” she asks, shaking her head.
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That's interesting, in "Two Flutes Playing" by Andrew Ramer it says that the recuring monomyth for gay men is two men together under a fruit tree. Think king Ling of Wei and Mi Mi Tzu-hsia under a peach tree or Lono and Kapa'ihi under the Koa tree. In a Christian context I guess the twin stags could represent David and Johnathan.