. . . . But Anywhere is the Center of the World - 4 Directions Painting

I am in process of working on this painting for Art 4 All People that I developed after meditating.  The quote below it sums up the painting but I never thought of it until deep into painting.

"I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy...but anywhere is the center of the world."

Black Elk - Oglala Sioux

Here are the symbols that came to me in meditation

THE ACORN - To the North

The acorn is the seed of the mighty oak tree.  It symbolizes potential and strength.

"The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It's the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.Closing
- Napoleon Hill

"For every Mighty Oak there was a Nut that stood it's ground"
- Anonymous

During the time of the witch burnings it was practice for one witch to give an acorn as a secret means of telling another witch that she was also a witch.


"A mantra is a one- or many-syllable sound that transcends the mind and emotions. If repeated for it vibrational effect, it brings us to the level of Swaha. A mantra is like a seed: its simplicity hides the potential power it holds. Seeing a tiny acorn, it is difficult to imagine the mighty oak tree within, Likewise, though it might not seem like much, the smallest mantra (like Om), when repeated with the heart, has the pwoer to unite us with our Divine nature." - Nischala Devi, p.110 The Secret power of Yoga

THE WILD ROSE to The East

"To Native Americans in many western tribes, wild roses were a symbol of life. Paiute, Nez Perce, and Interior Salish people believed that wild roses kept ghosts from causing harm to the living, so they were often placed in the homes or clothing of people who were in mourning or felt haunted. Wild roses were also sometimes attached to cradleboards to bring vitality to infants. In some tribes, rose motifs were used in quillwork, beadwork, or other Native arts to represent survival and vitality as well. Wild roses also played a role in traditional Native American herbal medicine, and rosehips (the fruit of wild roses) were eaten as food in many tribes, either directly or as part of a pudding. "

THE CONCH SHELL to the South

The conch is the most ancient musical instrument known to humans.

"A gift from the great ocean, it was held as sacred, and reference is found all over ancient Indian literature.  It is seen in the hands of almost all gods and goddesses, whenever they were happy or going off to war.    In Buddhism the conch shell’s call is meant to awaken one from ignorance, and is a sign of victory over suffering.  In Chinese Buddhism, the conch shell signifies a prosperous journey, and in Islam it represents  hearing the divine world.

The spiral formation inside the conch is symbolic of infinity.  The space , which gradually expands in a clock-wise direction.  The shell is like the human journey of life.  The hard casing protects life.  The pearl inside (a scallop or oyster), and its aquatic nature associates it with the feminine, lunar, and virginity that is symbolic in music. The conch shell’s spiral form and relation to water cause it to represent the beginning of existence. "

http://www.csseashell.com/shells-as-religious-symbols-and-the-meaning-of-life/

A DIAMOND to the West

"Through Remembering the Sef, or Vairagya, we become lucid and vibrant like a diamond. Millions of years of pressure on a simple limp pf solid coal transforms it into a pure, transparent diamond the reflects and refracts light. This prismatic effect showers rainbows of colors on everything without discrimination (viveka). The diamond also appears to take the color of any object nearby.  But once removed it is perfectly colorless again. Likewise, when our minds and hearts clearly refelct our true nature, we may acquire many things, but nothing permanently taints our clarity." - Nischala Devi

". . . the Diamond Self is a reference to our essence, the energetic presence we came into the world with and that is and will always remain intact despite external circumstances." - Diane Mandle

Diamonds represent faithfulness, love, purity, innocence, and relationships filled with love.
They inspire creativity, ingenuity, inventiveness, faith, endurance, and helps in manifesting abundance in all areas of life. 

"Diamond is a symbol of the richness of the Self. As the hardest mineral of all, it is especially esteemed owing to its beauty, purity, and ability to reflect light in a special manner. Diamond brings purity, and clear positive resolution of all problems that bother us, especially after we have become willing to admit our wrong perceptions and approaches, or our unreal expectations. Diamonds work together with other crystals in accentuating their vibratory, healing qualities and can be used for example in crystal healing therapy.

Diamonds are created far within the depths of the earth.  In the normal course of events, a human being cannot make a diamond.  It requires the pressure and heat of the depths to do that.
Jungian therapy is aware that “the depths of the earth” often symbolize of the unconscious depths of the psyche.  A diamond symbolizes the reality of the self: it is forged without human intervention in the depths, just as the self is created in the depths, in the vastness of the unconscious, independent of the conscious mind and ego.

Diamonds are famous for incredible hardness and durability.  They symbolize the durability and resilience of the true self, and of the yearning that we all have for a connection to the lasting persistent nature of psyche, and of our own deepest identity  In the times of life when we often feel most fragile and vulnerable on the conscious level,  Jungian therapy knows a deep need of the individual is to come into contact with the reality and persistence of the self.  Often the meaning of dreams revolves around encounters with this reality.

Diamonds have very complex shapes.  They often have many, many facets.  In this way, they bear a resemblance to the human personality, which has a multitude of dimensions and aspects.  Jungian therapy lives in the awareness that, like diamonds, we are multi-facetted — many facets not even being conscious.  To understand the meaning of dreams containing the symbol of the diamond, we must understand the multi-dimensional beauty and wonder of the diamond as an image reflecting the endlessly diverse and multi-facetted reality of the individual self."

Diamonds concern the fundamental reality of who we are.

Throat Chakra Painting

I did a Chakra body map exercise with Art 4 People and one of the weakest images I made was for the throat chakra.  My task was to develop the weakest and strongest images from the exercise into a painting.  

This painting is about 24" by 24".  The most important parts of the face in the center to me are the lips and the ears.  The lips are closed (I talk too much) and the ears should be open to listen.  If I were to title this painting it would be called 

"I AM LISTENING"

Each petal has a word connecting to the throat chakra: listening, speaking, expression, saying yes etc. This painting also seems to be influenced by the work I did on the Hero-ine's journey painting. I used the traditional number of 16 petals, the traditional color blue and the crescent moon symbol.

This is a piece last month in my sketchbook about the throat chakra.  I couldn't have made the painting above without this piece.  It's where I found the colors and the lengths of the petals. I may add the Sanskrit bija mantra Hum to the painting above.  I am not sure.  I'd like to do all seven chakras but it takes a lot of time.

I really love the way the throar chakra painting came out.  I like putting myself as the face of the painting.  I like to be in my paintings right now since in my day time job as a decorator my job is to be invisible.

Drawing and Painting the Root Chakra

 

I finished a painting on the root chakra this weekend.  It comes out of an intuitive drawing exercise at Art 4 All People and a bunch of my own sketches.

 

 Traditionally the root chakra has 4 petals so I have been playing with this.

 

 

 The color of the chakra is red and the downward pointing triangle is one of the psychic symbols.

 I am attracted to the tree with roots as my personal symbol of this chakra.

 The final painting also has a yellow square another symbol of the chakra.  I wrote the words: security, Stability, safety and Grounding on the painting.  I may paint it again when I have more time.

Painting the Hero-ine's Journey in 5 Layers - Return with Elixir

I have finished my 5 stage Painting the Hero-ine's Journey as part of my Transformative Art Certification at Art 4 All People.  I loved the stages.  I am not used to making abstract work but I really enjoyed it.

Here's my final painting it's kind of like a supernova

RETURN WITH ELIXIR - Layer 5

THE ROAD BACK - Layer 4

REWARD - Layer 3

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS - Layer 2

CALL TO ADVENTURE

Chakra Creation Gathering

Last month I hosted a Chakra Creation Gathering to create your own personal Chakra Mandala.

People asked themselves if there was any issue they were working on in their life? Self-Esteem, Confidence, Forgiveness, Joy, Security . . .?

Then we explored which chakra this emotion/issue relates to and begin the healing/growth/transformation process through art by making the chakra.

Here are the results.  I was amazed

Painting the Hero-ine's Journey in 5 Steps - 4th Stage - ROAD BACK - It's not about making a painting it's about the experience of making a painting

In stage 4, the Hero-ine struggles back to the world from which the hero came, boon intact.   The path and the plant that were so clear in 3rd stage are now obscured in the 4th stage.  There is still light in the journey helping the hero-ine know her destination but there are more trials and tribulations to experience.

In Campbell's structure I am collapsing 2 stages: The Road Back and The Resurrection.

THE ROAD BACK.  About three-fourths of the way through the story, the hero is driven to complete the adventure, leaving the Special World to be sure the treasure is brought home.  Often a chase scene signals the urgency and danger of the mission.

THE RESURRECTION.  At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of home.  He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher and more complete level.  By the hero’s action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning are finally resolved.n his book, "The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure,"

Christopher Vogler writes "that for a story to feel complete, the reader needs to experience an additional moment of death and rebirth, subtly different from the ordeal. This is the climax of the story, the last dangerous meeting with death. The hero must be cleansed from the journey before returning to the ordinary world. The trick for the writer is to show how the hero’s behavior has changed, to demonstrate that the hero has been through a resurrection.

During the resurrection, death and darkness are encountered one more time before being conquered for good. Danger is usually on the broadest scale of the entire story and the threat is to the entire world, not just the hero. The stakes are at their very highest. The hero, uses all lessons learned on the journey and is transformed into a new being with new insights."

In this stage of the painting I spattered black and red to obliterate the stage three painting. My husband loves this stage of the painting and asked me not to paint any more and tell my teachers that it was done.  But I will paint the last layer!  It's not really about making a painting it is about the experience of making the painting.

Painting the Hero-ine's Journey in 5 Steps - Stage 3 - Reward - All the way to heaven is heaven itself

My painting continues. My heroin'es journey continues. There is a poem I read in Zen and Creativity on Tuesday that reminded me of the Hero-ine's Journey:

All the way to heaven

is heaven itself.

I didn't paint on Wednesday.  I don't know what happened.  I had the day off but I ran out of time.  I did do a lot of art because I went figure drawing for 4-1/2 hours.  But that will be another post.

I woke up early this morning and ended up doing 2 layers of the Hero-ine's Journey, layers 3 and 4.  This post is about layer three.  The 4th layer is outside right now drying as I type on this computer.  I want to recap a little because these layers are just layers so I feel I need to put them in context.

Layer One: Call to Adventure

Where the spirit does not work with the hand

there is no art.

- Leonardo Da Vinci

Layer Two: Trials and Tribulations

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead 

where there is no path and leave a trail

Layer Three (Today's Layer): Reward

Charles Olson describes this stage as "obtaining some kind of boon, which may or may not have been the apparent goal at the start."

Vogel calls this stage Reward or Seizing the Sword: "The Hero has survived death, overcome his greatest fear, slain the dragon, or weathered the crisis of the heart, and now earns the Reward that he has sought."

Lost - yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, 

two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. 

No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.

- Horace Mann

I have painted a diamond coming out of a plant.  I am not exactly sure where it came from.  The jewel is a very obvious choice for a reward. Maybe it is because of the story I have been working on for years the hymn of the pearl about a jewel. I feel like I have seen this imagery before but I can't recollect where.

On the whats your sign website is written: "Overwhelmingly, the diamond symbol or the triangle symbol motif expresses itself in terms of clarity, ascension and wisdom. Not of the ordinary sort of wisdom though. I speak of a clarity and wisdom that transcends the banalities of our everyday realm."

That seems good to me for the Hero-ine's journey.  When the reward is given there is an opening, a clarity, a renewal.

I have always stayed with the initial rhythm of the painting.  I am not sure if that is keeping with the intention of the exercise but I could never let the rhythm go.  There is this dramatic motion to the upper right corner.  As if the painting itself wants to escape the canvas.

Perhaps the stylized foliage is a subconscious homage to one of my favorite painters, Rousseau

And as before, Georgia O'Keefe is still influencing the painting.

I feel this painting is a very selfish act.  I never have been an abstract painter and there is something that feels very self-absorbed about it.  So I am struggling with that as I remind myself of this poem

To study the Way is to study the self.

To study the self is to forget the self,

To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things..

- Ethei Dogen

Painting the Hero-ine's Journey in 5 Steps - Stage 2 - Trials, Tests, Allies and enemies

This morning I started layer two of my painting of the Hero-ine's Journey in 5 steps. The painting is mine and the heroine is me.  The journey is mine - all is me.

"If you are not the hero of your own story, then you're missing the whole point of your humanity.” 

― Steve Maraboli

At the same time I am a child of the universe no less than the sea and the stars.  And I am the sea and the stars, I came out of the waters of my mother's womb and I am made of star dust.  So this painting about me is also a painting about the universe.

Chris Olson says Stage 2  of the Hero-ine's Journey is about  "being transported to an alien environment, where many trials are faced and endured."

Vogel writes "having crossed the threshold, the Hero faces Tests, encounter Allies, confronts Enemies and learns the rules of this special world,"

Here is stage 1 

I think this stage of my painting may be about how many paths there are to chose from.  Who do you know which path to take.  There are so many dead ends and wrong turns.  My dad used to love this poem by Robert Frost "The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 My painting reminds me of the basketry I used to do where the layers are all interwoven to make a beautiful geometric form.

One of my favorite baskets to make was an Appalchian Egg basket

The colors in this painting remind me of Emil Nolde, a painter I have loved since my youth.

I wasn't careful with the paint.  I didn't tighten up the forms.  I accepted this was just a layer in the journey to the next layer.  A layer that would be covered soon.  So I decided it was more about the energy and the form, not precision.

I put my foot prints at the bottom left corner of this layer to symbolize the path.  If you believe in intuition as I do then logically it follows that acceptance of whatever path you take will be the right path for you.  u The main footprints I remember in art are the footprints of the Buddha

"The footprints of the Buddha (Buddhapada) are one of the early representations of the Buddha in the anticonic (no statues) stage of Buddhist art. The Buddhapada are highly revered in all Buddhist countries, especially in Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Symbolizing the grounding of the transcendent, feet have been objects of respect in India long before Buddhism. According to Buddhist legend, after the Buddha attained enlightenment, his feet made an imprint in the stone where he stepped."

Painting the Hero-ine's Journey- Intuitive Sketches - The Seven Archetypes

My synchrodestiny of today was that I wanted 2 days off between jobs.  I was sure I wasn't going to get it because my first day of work was today.  I worked from 9am to 1:30pm until my boss told me that he had miscalculated, my first day of work should be Thursday not Monday. I was overjoyed, I get to have Tuesday and Wednesday off to paint, read and do yoga.


With my new found time this afternoon I thought it would be interesting in my exploration of the Hero-ine's Journey to make some sketches of Vogler's Seven Archetypes.  I thought if I sketched them I might understand them better.  My rules for myself was no reference, no planning, just sketch the first thing that comes in your head.  This is what I came up with:

1. HERO-INE - the protagonist, main purpose is to separate from the ordinary world and sacrifice herself for the service of the Journey.  The heroine answers the challenge, completes the quest and restores the ordinary world's balance. The story takes place through the hero-ine's eyes.

2. MENTOR: "The mentor provides motivation, insights and training to help the Hero-ine."

3. THRESHOLD GUARDIAN: "Threshold Guardians protect the Special World and its secrets from the Hero-ine, and provide essential tests to prove a Hero-ine's commitment an worth."

4. HERALD: "Herald characters issue challenges and announce the coming of significant change.  They can make their appearance anytime during a Journey, but often appear at the beginning of the Journey to announce a CAll to Adventure.  A character may wear the Herald's mask to make an announcement or judgment, report a news flash, or simply deliver a messafe."

:

5. SHAPESHIFTER: "The Shapeshifter's mask misleads the Hero by hiding a character's intentions and loyalties."

6. SHADOW: "The Shadow can represent our darkest desires, our untapped resources, or even rejected qualities.  It can also symbolize our greatest fears and phobias. Shadows may not be all bad, and may reveal admirable, even redeeming qualities.  The Hero-ine's enemies and villains often wear the Shadow mask.  This physical force is determined to destroy the Hero-ine and her cause."

7. TRICKSTER: "Tricksters relish the disruption of the status quo, turning the Ordinary World into chaos with their quick turns of phrase and physical antics.  Although they may not change during the course of their Journeys, their world and its inhabitants are transformed by their antics.  The trickster uses laughter (and ridicule) to make characters see the absurdity of the situation, and perhaps force a change.

All in all, I like my intuitive sketches.  I think I would like to make some more attempts on the Shapeshifter and the Trickster.  I think they could be more fleshed out.  I had a lot of pleasure in doing this self given assignment

Musings on the Inner Critic

One of the lessons I have done in my Integrative Transformative Art Training is

Life is Messy - It is Time to Befriend Your Inner Critic

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. 

 - Eleanor Roosevelt

My task was to paint my inner critic which they refer to as my inner dwarf.  I did 4 paintings in my sketch book, working on them mainly in my car.  All these paintings were intuitive.  I didn't plan anything I just let whatever came out come out.

The first verson of my inner critic looks a lot like my dad

The 2nd painting my inner critic was hanging around my neck like an incubus.  It made me feel like my throat chakra was in need of some healing.  

"An incubus is a demon in male form who, according to mythological and legendary traditions, lies upon sleepers, especially women, in order to engage in sexual activity with them. 

Its female counterpart is the succubus. Superstitious folk have for many centuries told salacious tales of incubi and succubi, and Genesis 6 is a passage used to support the credibility of such stories. These terms remain current among heavy metal bands and occult groups today. 

Some traditions hold that repeated sexual activity with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death." - wikipedia

The next painting the inner critic was whispering negative talk in my ear. The ears are still part of the throat chakra.  I am crying in the painting because I am so upset about what my inner critic is saying to me.

It was also winged but ended up looking like an adult ugly version of those winged head angels you see in italian paintings

The last version in was crawling up my head.  It was too skinny to be my father and sort of looks like my husband.  I felt like is was now on my crown chakra filling my head with negative ideas and self doubt.