What is Krikonkraken?
Krikonkraken is a visual, textual and public but personal expression of a personal reflective and creative journey through life. I’d love you to join me searching inwards and stretching outwards!
I go high and low, shallow and deep, sharing experiences, ideas and reflections on gardening, philosophy, education, crafts, mental health issues, cooking and baking, literature and film – and more. Browse the page, there is a lot going on! I hope you find a way around the site, and some categories you enjoy!
Who is Krikonkraken?
My name is Maud. I have developed this website where I publish visual blog posts about a variety of different themes. This is a way for me to catch, articulate and structure thoughts, activities and ideas in order to share them with you and others.
I hold a PhD in theological ethics and have worked and taught in academia since the late 1990’s. I am also a trained organic gardener with a particular interest in Permaculture. I’m passionate about crafts (mostly textile crafts, but not only…). I love to cook and bake, and am writing a novel.
What does ‘Krikonkraken’ mean?
It is a name I made up, a combination of two organic images that together symbolise the intertwining of light and dark, growth and stagnation, high and low…
‘Kraken’ is a mythical sea monster, a giant octopus.
‘Krikon’ is the Swedish word for ‘damson’, a wild plum.
The words Krikon and Kraken convey that this is a site of multiple interests. Krikon represents land, growth, order and lovely jam. Kraken represents the ocean, destructive forces, chaos and fascinating symbolism.
The site is structured round eight quite different themes, like an octopus’ eight tentacles. The themes vary from practical interests such as cooking, crafts and gardening on the one hand, and on the other hand; more theoretical themes that interest me and that I am trying to work through. The span is large: philosophical, ethical, political, educational, psychological, theological and feminist.
I created the ambivalent name Krikonkraken because to me, it means that both order and messiness, happiness and fear, growth and destruction are part of life.
Krikonkraken has become a transformative and integrative symbol for me. The odd combination of a mythical octopus and a wild fruit is an multifaceted symbol of life as I experience, interpret and live through it. Different aspects of life cannot always be logically unified or easily harmonised. I strongly believe, though, that disparate threads of a life can be integrated through thinking in terms of symbol and narrative. This can be difficult, but can also be seen as a creative struggle towards a deeper and fuller life.
The project exists in a borderland between my personal and professional self, and is in many ways an attempt to integrate the two. One aim is to catch, articulate and structure thoughts, activities and ideas. Another is to see how different interests and areas of life can enhance each other.
What do I mean by that? Well, I have experiences from gardening that have given me new ideas for my professional life as a teacher. My research in ethics has given me patterns of thought which I can express in my artwork. Cooking with friends from different countries has given me ideas for local activities that bring women together from all over the world. Cooking can inspire storytelling, and storytelling is part of understanding oneself and the other.
I am doing this project for myself as a challenge after having hit rock bottom for a while and need a way to climb out of a pit. However, I am not writing to myself, but as if to a new friend.
One of my (very ambitious) hopes for this site is that it will inspire others to work towards finding their own transformative symbols of the challenging journey we call life (if they are so inclined).
I suspect that only a few of Krikonkraken’s themes will interest you. But I sincerely hope you enjoy and help me develop those that you DO find interesting! You are very welcome here, and please browse my rather wordy pages and posts (minimalist writing has never been my forte).
Enjoy!