Tryptic

So I have been doing research for a new play recently. It came out of the wives tale about the origin of the word spinster. (Yes, I am aware that this is a very niche and nerdy reference to base a play on).

But the play is about women. About our independence. About the plight and fight of centuries to be able to just support ourselves.

It sounds like a downer, but I am hoping it won’t be.

In looking into women, our history, and the imagery I want to invoke, I am struck by the number of trilogies that there are.

Women exist in myth with multiple aspects. There are dozens of dual goddesses from different mythologies. There are the goddesses of war whose alternate aspect is tending to the hearth. There are the goddesses of beauty, whose other aspect is wisdom. There are also many, many goddesses whose other aspect is male. There might be a lot to unpack with each of these. Why can’t beauty and wisdom exist together? Why can’t a warrior tend the hearth? Why are things gendered the way they are?

But those are questions for another time. Another play or work of art.

For me, the thing that grabs my attention is the triple aspect. Goddesses that exist simultaneously as three different things. They are both three separate things and one thing.

In my Western education, such a thing was usually attributed to Jesus.

I think it fits a woman better.

I know so many women who ‘wear different hat’ or ‘have different modes’. They will stand there being a parent and a working woman, and so many things all at the same time. They shuffle through them, both being one at a time and all of them at once.

Of course, men do this too. I don’t want to say that this is unique to any gender.

It’s just the image of a woman that is a multitude and also singular is striking to me. Both a goal to aspire to and something to run away from. Something that exists within me as well as in others.

We are all tryptics.