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The Magic of Stags

October has begun, that wonderful month of ripeness.
Apple harvest, pear harvest, plum harvest – and grape harvest.
It’s supposed to be a good year for wine…

And in the midst of all this abundance stands the stag, a red deer, the king of the forest.
He is an extraordinarily majestic sight, and with his antlers, he seems to tower above the forest thicket, symbol of the vital plane with all its entanglements and attachments.


His antlers literally reach for the sky, and so the stag, as a solar animal (belonging to the light), has the power to bring light to the darkness of our feelings and also the magical power to lead us to other planes, to higher vital and spiritual realms.

October
Hand-signed art print with small original drawing, unique piece, 42 x 59,4 cm

The stag is also considered the enemy of snakes, which it tramples with its hooves.
Christian iconography (teaching through imagery) readily adopted this idea, interpreting it as the victory of good over evil.

Since ancient times, numerous spiritual experiences with stags have borne witness to its power.
Celtic mythology recognises Cernunnos, the god with stag’s antlers, as the protector of the forest and wild animals.
He is also the guide to the Otherworld and – luckily – back again.

Special magical power is attributed to the white stag above all. According to ancient Celtic belief, fairies are said to ride upon him and likewise show the way to the Otherworld.
In Harry Potter, the white stag is the Patronus that, when the young wizard finds himself in dire straits, rushes to his aid and chases away the deadly, black Dementors (soul-sucking fiends).

A stag with a luminous cross between its antlers appeared during the hunt to Saint Hubertus of Liège, converting him from an inveterate hunter to a preserver and protector of wild animals, which from then on he saw as creatures of God.
It has been known to us since then as the so-called Hubertus stag.

Artemis, the virgin Greek goddess of the hunt, nature, and the wilderness (later called Diana by the Romans) is usually accompanied by a sacred stag.
We could view this as a symbol of the dualism of sun and moon since Artemis’ twin brother Apollo is identified with the sun and she herself, as Selene, with the moon.
In my drawing for the month of October, we can see a queen with a water jug and a king with a blazing torch as corresponding to these opposites.

But even on the ordinary, physical plane, the stag is a very special creature.
He grows new antlers every year, no matter how splendid they are!
After mating season and winter, in February (in ‘Hornung’, an older German term for February), the stag sheds his antlers, and by the following summer, they have grown back to their full size.
In this way, the stag symbolises resurrection and renewal.

In my childhood, I once encountered a fully grown stag one beautiful summer’s day as I was picking berries in the forest. All of a sudden, he stepped out of the thicket onto the forest path and looked at me. Then he leapt back into the woods.
It was truly a magical moment!

And now I’ve lived in Berlin for a long time, the city where, in the early 19th century, Prince Pückler rode through the streets in a carriage drawn by four or six white stags to stop in at the Café Kranzler, located at the time on the boulevard Unter den Linden.
He truly knew how to bring together the magical and material worlds!

I try to do that as well, as best I can, with my drawings.


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