I look around my flat and I see boxes, dozens of boxes
I KNOW, BUT ONLY JUST Claire-Louise Bennett and Ruby Wallis
The first morning of the world is brilliant and sparkly, dazzled by its own newness. All of creation awaits their naming. A hush falls – the bated breath of the divine – and a box is opened. From it emerge cacophonous sounds: of a storm, or a stirred hornet’s nest, of chaos and catastrophe. With that first peek into unforeseeable contents, the infancy of humanity ceases
Adventurers leave their homes, which made them, to find these unmapped places and face dragons and monsters – they face their own fear
I had Pandora in my head so I started to wonder if she had a box. And if she did what colour it might be. I decided pink like her cardigan. And gave it flaps
God knows why, but a whirlwind of purple smoke engulfing a landscape which settles over everything – grassland, houses and hills
I remember the first time I heard the term Pandora’s Box, I was pretty young, and someone, I can’t remember who now, said it to me sort of vaguely, we were both standing on a log in the countryside somewhere
Who opened the box, releasing negative forces into the world?
It’s the Ark of Covenant stored away in a warehouse. It’s in the box at the very back of the top of the wardrobe in your parent’s bedroom. It’s what Freud would say about that. It’s Tutankhamun’s tomb. It’s a bunker in Switzerland
All the gifts Zeus never wanted, he put in the box he gave to you Along with the blame passed on to you, the woman, created for the task, by a male pantheon
Some things you should not look at because they ruin your happiness
And that’s what it is isn’t it? Another of these classic myths that through the centuries of sexism boils down to ‘curious lady dooms humanity’. Cursed be she who questions the imposed order even if it doesn’t really make a lick of sense
Pandora, Cassandra, Jocasta, Medea. We know them but we don’t know how we know them. But we intuit that somehow they are bad…else their names would not still live
I am not familiar with the myth
I am aware that Pandora was depicted as a beautiful woman. I learned this from reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
huge pocket
Ђ I’d like to associate that box with the hope that Pandora finds at the bottom of the box once all the rage and jealousy and disease has made its escape Ϯ My question is, why was this box so easily opened in the first place? It seems to be a bit of a setup. If you want to keep your afflictions locked up, perhaps it’s better to find something less accessible? Ќ It evokes memories of the imagination that I had, for I believed that the box contained pretty jewels and things of great Beauty, that Pandora could perhaps open the box and find whatever she was looking for, anything at all Ђ Pandora’s box has a magical quality and always has had from when I was a child Φ I always found something about the words Pandora’s box a bit irritating, maybe I don’t like the name Pandora, or else I’m irritated by the vagueness of the possibilities of what it means Ж I remember when I read that book thinking, why is it always women who are depicted as wreaking disaster – Eve in the bible for instance – when in fact decisions made by men have caused more sorrow and pain to humanity than women α When she opens her legs – annihilation Ϗ I used to wish that I could fix all problems and it took the form of a pair of trousers with a huge pocket in which there were tools and literally anything that someone else needed – to make them happy – and that I could do this. I didn’t call them my Pandora Pantalones but they could have been that Ϩ When I think of Pandora’s Box I don’t think of the myth, I think of the iconic silent film from the 1920s. In my mind’s eye I see Lulu peering out from her monochrome screen world Ϭ A disruption in the façade of the normal Ͼ Berlin, Mexico City, London Ќ A Myth to my young mind was little more than a fairy story, a story which I changed to make me feel happy whenever I thought about it
plagues, curses, tempests, 50 Winter Papers 6
She is disarmingly naive when she’s not being entirely calculating
I know, but only just, that the box is meant to spill out problems
My daughter Emer when asked about Pandora’s Box told me it is an online shop where she buys very pretty jewellery
For me the whiff of evil power associated with Pandora still sticks to those bracelets even though they are marketed as the exact opposite – girlie, desirable, collectable. I like when I catch a glimpse of one on the wrist of my niece. Hahaha, I think, you’re out of your box!
I wonder about Pandora, who she was, was she young or old, and just what she opened up for herself and the world. I wonder whether she was punished for opening the box, or did she thrive from the wonders and lessons that the box opened, were they positive or negative lessons? Was she sorry she opened it?
Lulu is a simmering, smoldering, sexy, celluloid, screen siren. She is the embodiment of 1920s glamour with her slinky black bob, flashing eyes and carefree smile. But Lulu is a world of trouble
Pandora is misunderstood and it’s not Pandora’s shop on Shop Street as my husband thinks
As silky as a slinky snake She won’t be boxed
In the next frame, she is home feet up, tea cupped, in a soothing ritual of rest
Men lose their minds, their willpower, their morals when they are around her
If you find you don’t care for this binary, could you accept that we already contain everything?
multiplying on the coffee table
silver lining
Д She is the rebellious disobedient one and someone to fear. She looked at her lovers head on you see. You look at her when she enters a room π I think an apt update would be lazy entitled bigoted man doesn’t just open the box – he has the power to close it but chooses not to because it might slightly inconvenience him and besides – I mean – couldn’t he use all the chaos caused by these plagues or scourges or whatever to his own benefit? ϧ Pandora’s box immediately makes me think of opening the door of a strange dark room Ϙ A feeling of anticipation, excitement and wonder of the power within. A temptation with a fear of something prohibited and irreversible Ͼ You could say these unopened boxes are the ‘what ifs’ in my life. An arrangement of ‘what ifs’ arising from a fear of not being able to return the contents to their place. And so I keep them tightly shut, carrying them from home to home, unopened boxes multiplying on the coffee table Φ There was a very particular time in my life when the description opening Pandora’s box fits perfectly. I’m not sure if there is an adequate word to describe the profound experiences that opened up and I was absolutely unready for. I longed to return back to the time before it all kicked off, but I couldn’t, and I’ll never forget the moment that I realised that I could never go back to the way I was before ϧ This analogy of the dark room, uncertain ground, is something I have used to describe what it’s like to venture into a new part of my psyche or emotional being, testing out new areas of feeling which are not straightforward or pleasant – it can be frightening, like looking into the abyss Ќ I was eventually to find out that my version belied the Myth surrounding Pandora’s box, I found this entirely unsatisfactory ϧ Without risk, there is no growth Φ The lessons have been incredibly deep and profound and have changed me forever π Stop crying about it already and find the silver lining to the mounting pile of corpses α And of course that box in its crudest clearest sense is her vagina
Some try and go back to where it was before the disruption, some flow and thrive and are able to co-create a better world, others get stuck in sadness, depression and doom
Open and closed are opposites, but maybe they don’t need to be Open and closed are opposites, but maybe they don’t need to be
I fear to let go of the tight grip I have on multiple locked vessels within me. A woman is not allowed to become hysterical. Keep a lid on it and all that
An opening up of something that cannot be put back to the way it was before, but an opening up of what? Something tremendous most likely, layers upon layers of new energies, experiences and emotions that perhaps we weren’t ready for
Is that the doorbell? If it’s your bad news letter, don’t open it. It’s in an email about the SECRET of how to lower your blood sugar. It’s in a vial in a lab, quivering. Put a lid on it. This message seems dangerous. It’s buried treasure. Similar messages were used to steal people’s personal information. Is there truly a difference between inside and outside?
With Pandora’s act, layers of complexity are added to the world. Human becoming is initiated by the loss of innocence; the contours of the self are known not just through love and joy, but also through suffering and illness
The unknown box is also the knower and the process of knowing
The unknown box is also the knower and the process of knowing
I bought it for fifteen pounds from an antiquarian in Camden passage
I bought it for fifteen pounds from an antiquarian in Camden passage
Pandora keeps nothing in her box at all. It is full of the imagination and projections of others
Pandora keeps nothing in her box at all. It is full of the imagination and projections of others
She lives within me
She lives within me
Don’t shoot the messenger
Don’t shoot the messenger
Shines a light
Shines a light
(some are gifts from my mother)
Chloe Phil Sarah Mary Louise Róisín Suzanne Ruth Áine Jessamyn Alice Mary
Michal Karole Kate Sarah Anne Vicky Deborah
