Chapter 12: THE IMPORTANCE OF ROOTS
At a small local art gallery, I encountered the original work of Greta van Niekerk, a rather mysterious and reclusive artist I had read about in a magazine some time before my visit to Knysna. Her work had gained considerable international acclaim, and art aficionados in the know were of the opinion that her star was ascending. It appeared that investing in her work was a wise decision and I would have done so had my career and finances not been on such shaky ground at the time.
The photographs of her work that had appeared in the magazine I had read didn’t even begin to do justice to the powerful emotions that the actual work evoked in me. Standing spellbound in the Knysna art gallery, what struck me most forcefully about Greta’s work was the sharp contrast between her work done prior to 2005 and the paintings she completed subsequently. Before 2005, Greta exclusively painted small, dead creatures in tones of sepia, dust and ash. Although the paintings were profoundly sad; some might even call them morbid; they certainly evoked a powerful, visceral response in the viewer. I was absolutely transfixed by a painting of a tiny dead bird, which had obviously recently emerged from the egg, the shards of which lay scattered about, the weak, vulnerable little body covered in damp feathers. The bird was held, with infinite tenderness in the left palm of a disembodied hand, whereas the right palm cupped an intact egg. I was almost overwhelmed by the pathos of the contrast between the hopeful fecundity of the egg and the hopelessness of that tiny, dead body. Other paintings depicted, respectively, a cracked clay bowl spilling a pile of dead grasshoppers onto the sand, a pile of small, dead fish in a dried-up pond and a tiny dead kitten with a toy between its paws, its head at an unnatural angle.
In stark contrast, Greta’s paintings after 2005 were wild and exuberant abstracts on large canvasses, absolutely bursting with life and colour and vitality. What a remarkable metamorphosis! There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that the artist had undergone a powerful personal transformation and, as such, I found her story to be irresistible.
I attempted to gain an interview with Greta van Niekerk, but her telephone number was unlisted and she clearly did not engage in the usual social media activities that often enable one to track people. Greta’s agent in Cape Town, as well as the city galleries normally exhibiting her work, refused to oblige, saying that Greta did not grant interviews to anyone whatsoever, as she believed that her work said absolutely everything she had ever needed, or wanted, to say. Much disheartened, I spent some time in the Knysna gallery, gazing at her work and trying to get into the mind of the artist.
The rather chatty and slightly bored curator of the local gallery was able to assist me somewhat in my quest to get to know Greta. She was able to supply the information that Greta van Niekerk had moved to Knysna in 2004 after a personal tragedy and that she lived in a very remote place, up in the mountains. The local curator repeated the information that the other galleries had supplied, namely that Greta never, ever granted interviews.
I gave up on the story of Greta van Niekerk at that point and continued pursuing other stories for my book. However, a month later, fate was to intervene in the most unexpected way in order to bring me a wonderfully inspiring tale.
During my time in Knysna I indulged my love of hiking on a regular basis. How could I resist, given the wild and natural beauty of the place? On one particular morning I had almost completed a six-and-a-half kilometre hike that wended through dense, indigenous forests to emerge at a lovely, secluded picnic spot, where I had planned to enjoy an early lunch. Hearing a soft whimpering sound in the bushes to my left just off the path, I stooped to investigate, finding a small, tan, miniature Dachshund quivering with fear and licking its left paw. I held my hand out to the terrified dog and he licked my fingers, clearly deciding that I was to be trusted. I picked up the small dog and sat down on a log to examine its paw. There was nothing seriously wrong, just a large thorn embedded in the paw pad and, apart from a sharp yelp when I extracted the thorn, the dog appeared mostly unscathed by the experience. When I put him down on the ground, he took a few tentative steps on his injured paw and then, finding it to be fine, jumped up against my leg and licked my arm. I gave him some water, which he lapped thirstily and a piece of egg sandwich from my picnic, which he gobbled down. Now, of course, I had to decide what to do with the little fellow. Scratching him behind the ears, I said softly, “Where’s your family, little guy? Did you get lost on the trail?” The dog whined and pricked up his ears.
Then I too heard what had attracted his attention. A soft woman’s voice calling, “Dash… Dash… where are you, my little one?” I picked up the dog and briskly walked in the direction of the woman’s voice, further down the trail.
As I rounded a loop in the trail I saw her: a tiny, delicate, ethereal-looking creature with an extremely worried expression on her face, which disappeared as her face lit up with joy to see her dog. “Dash! There you are! Where have you been, you little rascal? I’ve been looking for you all morning!” Dash madly wagged his tail and struggled to get out of my arms and so I put him down on the ground and he raced up to his mistress for a joyful reunion. “Where did you find him?” the woman asked me, “I was frantic. He took off after a bushbuck and I thought I’d lost him forever.” Her voice broke slightly on the last sentence and I could see that the little dog meant the world to her. When I told her about the thorn I had removed from Dash’s paw, she grasped my right hand between her two, small soft hands, looked deep into my eyes and softly said, “Thank you,” but with such heartfelt gratitude, that it suffused my entire being with joy.
On an impulse I invited the woman and Dash to share my picnic lunch and her moment’s hesitation before responding in the affirmative told me that she wasn’t accustomed to the company of others but that she would make an exception due to the circumstances of our meeting. I introduced myself to her and nearly fell over backwards in surprise when she reciprocated saying, “Greta van Niekerk.” Her wry smile at my surprise confirmed for me that she was well aware of the impact upon me of her name. However, I didn’t comment and refrained from asking her about her work, even though I was dying to hear her story. Some instinct informed me to proceed with extreme caution around this shy, introverted person.
Once seated at a wooden picnic table and enjoying egg mayonnaise sandwiches, Greta asked me what I was doing in Knysna. She had already noticed from my vehicle registration plates that I was not a local. I took great care in presenting my work to her in the best possible light and when she asked about the stories, I related one or two to her, with relish. When I paused for breath, Greta remarked, “You are a natural story-teller, Mr. Allen. I can imagine that the world of journalism didn’t really feed your soul. I would love to read some of your stories for myself. Would you consider allowing me to do so?” I was rather taken aback at the astuteness of her comments. I was feeling a little bit protective of my stories at that point and hesitated to share them with anyone else until they had been polished and perfected. Greta remained perfectly still, watching me intently with her wise, black eyes set in their network of fine wrinkles and patiently waited for me to reach a decision.
“Yes. I would like that,” I replied, surprising myself. Somehow I knew that I could trust this strange, fey woman and, besides, there was just a feeling of such rightness about her request that I simply couldn’t refuse.
And so it was that, a few days later, I dropped off eight of my stories at Greta’s tiny cottage, which was surprisingly ramshackle for an artist of her stature. We made an appointment to meet there again a week hence, at which time she would share her first impressions of my work.
At our appointment, Greta astounded me with her wisdom and insight and I was incredibly pleased that she had been my very first reader. She had, in a few short hours, immeasurably enriched my work. Her comment, at the very end of our discussion, is one that I most treasure to this day. “Peter, I know that the Lady will be pleased with your work. You have done her justice.” Then, just as I was preparing to leave, Greta placed her hand on my arm to stop me and said, “Peter, I have a story to tell. Perhaps it could be included in your wonderful book?” Well, as you can imagine, my heart nearly burst open with excitement and so I sat right down again and took out my notepad and pen. This, then, is Greta’s story.
***
Greta was born into an extremely wealthy family, which had made their money over three generations from the manufacture of precision instruments for industrial and laboratory use. As the youngest of three children, the only daughter and of an artistic, rather than a business bent, she had never felt seen or understood by the other members of her family. Both her older brothers took after their father and were large, powerful, forceful extroverts. They delighted in playing elaborate pranks on Greta and bullied her whenever they believed they could get away with it, which was often, as Greta’s parents were great believers in the old adage that, “boys will be boys”. Greta, who was always small, quiet and introverted and not at all adept at standing up for herself, often felt as if she disappeared entirely when her family was around. Greta’s mother’s life revolved around supporting and nurturing her sons and her husband. She and her daughter were never close. Greta’s brothers were top achievers from the very beginning and they both ended up with MBA’s from a prestigious school, whereas Greta struggled to concentrate or to apply herself at school and just drifted along in a dream world without making waves and without being noticed much at all. When Greta was twenty-one, her maternal grandmother provided the funds and the impetus for her granddaughter to study fine art at college, which is what she herself had studied many years earlier. Had she not, Greta would probably never have discovered what it was that she wanted to do with her life.
As it was, at college Greta finally discovered her passion. She simply loved her course and when she was painting or drawing, the entire world suddenly made sense. She found that she was able to express herself through her art in a way that simply wasn’t possible through words alone. And she also discovered that when she spoke through her art, people actually listened, which they very rarely did when she spoke in words. Greta won a prestigious award for her final year exhibition and a great future was predicted for her. None of her family made the effort to attend her prize-winning exhibition and, although she told herself that it didn’t matter, deep within she felt sad and unlovable.
It was around this time that Greta met Sam at the home of a mutual friend. Sam was five years older and an attorney. She was a powerful, opinionated, ambitious woman who swept Greta right off her feet and she fell very deeply in love. When Greta finally, after almost six months of dating Sam, introduced Sam to her family, they were horrified. Greta’s father informed her that she was unnatural, a disgrace to the family and no longer welcome in his home. Greta’s mother simply bowed her head and quietly accepted her husband’s decision. Although Greta’s brothers did call to check up on her from time-to-time, it was pretty much the end of all contact with her family. To tell the truth, she hardly missed them and she was financially secure, due to a trust fund from her grandmother that ensured that she would never have to earn a living for the rest of her life.
Greta and Sam were very happy for the next ten years. Although Greta enjoyed the stable and secure home life they created together, she was unable to find any direction in her art. She started, and destroyed, hundreds of artworks during this time. It appeared as if her early promise was doomed to remain unfulfilled. To Greta it felt as if she was waiting for something to happen; something that would provide her with inspiration or with a purpose to her life. Sam often expressed frustration at Greta’s lack of direction and her aimless drifting, but it was probably partly this lack of ambition on Greta’s part that kept them together for so long. Sam would not have been able to handle the competition had Greta been successful. Sam needed to always be the centre of attention and the top dog and Greta was very happy for her to occupy this role, as long as she, Greta, could simply drift along, undisturbed, in her little dream world.
When Greta was thirty-six, she and Sam made the decision to have a baby together. Greta had had a pelvic infection when she was a child, which had left her infertile, and so the couple made the decision that Sam would be the one to carry their child, even though she was already over forty by this time. The women very carefully selected the father of their child from the hundreds of options available to them and, within two months of being artificially inseminated, Sam was pregnant. What followed was the most wonderful time for Greta. She and Sam had never been closer and Sam appeared to become softened by impending motherhood. She was kinder and gentler with Greta, who absolutely blossomed in the warm light of her partner’s love. Then, six months into the pregnancy, disaster struck.
Sam was about to enter the court to present closing arguments on a case that she had been working on for months, when she was gripped by a sudden fierce pain in her pelvis. She bent over double, gasping with pain and fear and reached out to her colleague for assistance. Eight hours later, despite the very best medical attention, Sam was delivered of a dead baby, which signalled the death knell for her relationship with Greta too. Somehow, their partnership was not able to survive this tragedy and two months later Sam left Greta in a whirlwind of tears and recriminations. In the aftermath of Sam’s departure Greta was left shell-shocked and disbelieving. How had her life fallen apart so rapidly? Sam’s devastation at the loss of their child had, of course, taken centre stage, leaving Greta now time or space in which to grieve. So, after Sam left, Greta spent the next six months all alone and completely isolated, silently grieving the loss of both her child and the love of her life.
One morning Greta got out of bed, walked barefoot over to the blank, stretched canvas that had been waiting on her easel for more than a year and began mixing paints. Ten hours later she suddenly became aware of the fact that she was dizzy with hunger, quivering with exhaustion and that her pyjamas were covered in paint spatters. But, there before her on the easel, was the genesis of the very first painting she had made since leaving college that accurately expressed her feelings. It was eventually to become the painting of the little dead bird that I had first admired in the gallery in Knysna. During the next few weeks, as she painted in a frenzy of creativity, Greta found that she was resenting more-and-more the intrusion upon her life and her painting that friends, her brothers, newspapers, the mail and her neighbours represented. And so she decided to sell her large city house, which anyway reminded her too powerfully of happier times, and move to a remote cottage in the mountains of Knysna. The reason she chose Knysna was simply that she knew that it was a small, quiet town and also because her grandmother had always spoken of the place with great fondness. Greta was far too distracted by her muse to spend much time considering which town would best suit her, other than that it should be both small and quiet. The cottage she found was in a state of some disrepair, but to Greta that mattered not a whit. It was extremely quiet and remote and the surrounding mountains and forests were perfectly suited to encourage creative endeavours.
For the next couple of years, Greta lived only to paint. She expressed all of her hurt and sadness and loneliness and grief on the canvasses that rapidly piled up in her makeshift studio in the sunny sitting room of the little cottage. She went for weeks on end without seeing a single other person and her infrequent sorties down to town to buy supplies became a trial and an unwelcome distraction from the business of painting. She became somewhat eccentric, painting in her underwear in summer and wrapped in a bathrobe in winter. Her clothing became shabby and everything she owned was covered in paint. She lost what little extra weight she had been carrying and became thin and insubstantial, drifting through her dream world of creativity, disconnected from reality and accompanied only by her muse.
One spring morning, Greta awoke naked and freezing cold on the floor of her studio, her face and hair covered in brown and grey paint from where she had fallen asleep on her palette. The last thing she could remember was painting, with the windows thrown wide open, to relish the rainstorm of the previous night. A tiny, but insistent, voice inside her mind told her that she had gone too far and she realized, with considerable shock, that she was actually slowly dying. She knew that she had to make a decision about whether she wanted to live or not and that it was not a foregone conclusion what that decision would be. She hacked the dried oil paints out of her hair with the kitchen scissors and then shaved her head, took a shower and dressed in marginally clean clothing before sitting down to tea and toast, the first meal she could recall eating in quite some time. Instead of returning to her easel, Greta pulled on a fleece hoodie and went for a walk in her wet, overgrown garden.
As she walked past an enormous, lush bush covered in a profusion of purple flowers, Greta glanced down and noticed how very rich and fertile the black soil appeared. A stray thought crossed her mind that just about anything could grow in that soil. On an impulse, she bent down and thrust both her hands deep into the moist, humus-rich soil, curling her fingers around and squeezing the damp, cool solidity of it. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply of the fecund scent of the soil and the wet garden and it occurred to her that she felt happy for the first time in a very long while.
Greta’s hands began to tingle pleasurably and she wriggled them even deeper into the soil. Suddenly it felt as if her fingers were extending and her eyes popped open in shock. She gasped to discover that her hands had indeed become tree roots that were rapidly stretching and growing as they worked their way deep into the soil, seeking moisture and sustenance.
“Don’t be afraid,” Greta heard a soft, gentle voice speaking deep within her heart and she looked up to see a lovely green woman smiling down at her. Dumbstruck, Greta could only stare at the woman as she spoke again, “Greta, you are allowing yourself to drift away from life and yet you have such a good reason for being here, for being alive. You have been given an exceptional talent, which allows you to move the hearts of people and to make the world a better place and yet you don’t share that talent. You choose not to nourish or sustain yourself and yet you live in a place where so much nourishment is freely available for the taking. Feel your roots, Greta, feel how they reach deep into the soil, absorbing sustenance and hydrating themselves with the water of life. Greta, roots are so very important.” As the green woman spoke, Greta felt her roots stretch out far and wide and these roots provided a conduit for the sustenance that her body required to slowly, gently, unfold into a strong and beautiful tree. The feeling of connection and nurturing was far beyond anything that Greta had ever encountered in her lonely, disconnected existence thus far.
“You are noticing how connected you feel, Greta. Your roots connect you with all the other trees and plants around you via an incredibly intricate web of symbiotic, mycorrhizal fungi, which allow all the plants to communicate with each other. As you grow, notice how many other living things are attracted to you, and so arrive to come and co-create with you.” Greta became aware of insects buzzing around her crown, birds settling on her branches and then a small, grey doe shyly appeared and began to delicately nibble at her leaves. Various species of moss and fungi and lichens began to grow on her trunk and around her roots and she gradually became aware of the micro-organisms in the soil that were growing and multiplying and supplying her with nourishment, just as she provided them with vital sugars and other compounds that they required for their growth.
“Do you see, Greta, that you are a part of a great and grand co-creation with all other living creatures? You are connected to Life, and your strength and survival are dependent upon being part of the whole and contributing all that you are to the whole. You are not alone. You have never been alone. You have only imagined that you were disconnected and alone. Don’t you realize that even your inspiration as an artist comes from being part of the All? When you paint, you are tapping into the collective creativity of which you are a part. This is your purpose, Greta. To simply express, in your own unique way, that unique perspective which is you. To express it as beautifully and magnificently and grandly as you possibly can. This is your gift to All That Is, and this is your reason for being.” Greta felt her heart swell with joy and wonder at the words of the Green Lady and then she simply relished the ecstasy of her connection with Life.
Some time later she gradually became aware of the fact that she was curled up in the overgrown flowerbed, clutching two handfuls of soil with a massive grin on her face!
“Something changed for me from that day onwards,” Greta told me. “Something clicked into place and I stopped grieving. The lifting of my sadness and depression made me realize that, for my entire life, I had barely been alive. Now, I wanted to live and to experience life to the full. And I wanted to paint and to share my work with the world. I found myself an agent and the rest, as they say, is history. Except, of course, for my precious little Dash coming into my life for companionship and also to make sure that I am reminded to stay in place, rooted to the Earth!”
***
Greta’s story struck a very deep chord within me. I too had been feeling lonely and disconnected from the world for some time. I knew that I could follow Greta’s example and also connect with the life force within, thereby finding my own way towards a more authentic version of myself. Suddenly my old life and my job at the newspaper seemed very far away, and just that little bit meaningless. I felt a shiver of excitement run up my spine. What would the future hold for me? Could a deeply transformative experience be awaiting me as well?