Sacrifice of the Virgin Bride

This piece is a perfect example of how the subconscious mind works to inspire the creation of any artistic endeavor.

As I began working on the main part of the centerpiece, (the larger Rose Quartz teardrop and the Garnets surrounding it), I had decided to call it "Unbridled Passion". At that point, it was a fitting name. However, as the branches along the top took shape, I decided it needed a better name. A more appropriate name. As I continued to work on it several possible names came to mind. Finally, as I finished the centerpiece, I settled on "Sacrifice of the Virgin Bride". Really, I just thought it was sort of a neat name that would grab people's attention.

After it was posted on JewelryLessons.com someone made a comment about it looking like a uterus. I laughed it off thinking it was just a funny coincidence. After my mother said the same thing about it, I laughed even harder. When I finished laughing and began working on something else I started to think a little bit harder about it. I decided to look again at the necklace, and I began to see it too.

As women, we make so many sacrifices in our lives. We sacrifice our time for other people. We surrender our dreams, many times giving way for other dreams of our own, or to help someone we love to accomplish their dreams. Of all the things we choose to lose, none of them are so great a sacrifice as the one we make for our future.

When we choose to have children, we sacrifice our bodies. We give what ever we can while a child is growing inside us to nourish him and to make sure he is strong. We spend hours of agony pushing them out. Then we give them our love. We spend years nurturing our children. Teaching them right from wrong. Giving them everything we can to make sure they grow up ready for the world.

We give ourselves completely to our children. In conception, labor, and throughout their lives we make incredible sacrifices. During pregnancy, our bones and teeth become weak as our bodies give all the nutrients we need for ourselves to the developing child. In delivering our children unto the world our bodies are torn and beaten. In raising our children we forget that our bodies are as important as theirs and so we fail to remember to do the little things we need to in order to keep ourselves healthy. In letting them go, we send our hearts out with them.

And then they leave us. They move on to make sacrifices of their own. In doing so, they make us more proud than we could ever have been of them, all while breaking our hearts. We love them so much that we cannot bear to let them go. But in the end, we have to.

In love, we sacrifice our bodies so that our children can go out into the world. In that act of selflessness we ensure the future of all humankind.

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To see more images of this necklace, go to my Etsy shop.