The gryphon image attached itself to me around 1989. That was when I became active in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). As part of the process, I created a heraldic device for myself, with the help of a local herald. The primary charge was a gryphon. I’m not sure where we came up with that as an image, but I know I liked it.

I haven’t been active in the SCA for some years now, but I did meet my wife while I was. Her goose and my gryphon became traveling companions. “Goose and Gryphon” appeared as our joint identity.

Eventually, our heraldic icons became personal and artistic icons. My wife Jenny lost the goose, but created Folkcat to replace her. My Gryphon marched on. We now explored life’s mysteries as Folkcat and Gryphon.

The image I use on business cards and web pages is one that Jenny created. She had bought me a lovely resin casting of a gryphon that held a candle in its head behind the eyes. She took photos of that and then used that as a model to paint a gryphon seated on a rocky ledge. That image got simplified into the icon I use now:

I liked this image. It carried the colors of my heraldic device, which are also the colors of the chakras I am doing the most work on right now. It just felt right.

The gryphon has a colorful history in myth. Of the sometimes contradictory attributes offered, I have adopted those that present the gryphon as a steadfast guardian of treasure. My SCA device showed a gryphon passant, that is, one with but a single claw upraised. This gryphon was standing still, but the raised talon advertised that he was alert and ready. I liked that, and I have strived to live that way — at peace, but alert and ready.

So that is why Gryphon is a gryphon. Oh, sure, there is more to the story than that. But that will do for now.

-= Gryphon =-