Gaian Tarot Artist's Journal

My Art Retreat at Sitka

 

Last week I gave myself the gift of an art retreat — five days of getting up and knowing there was nothing on my plate to do except make art, all day long.  Heaven.

I haven’t done any artwork at all since I finished the last Gaian Tarot card last fall. I’ve been wanting to learn the ancient process of encaustic (painting with beeswax) for the past three years, but didn’t allow myself to try it out until I had finished all the GT cards.  I even signed up for an encaustic workshop on Whidbey Island (not too far from me) last September, then had to cancel because I had too many deadlines at the time. 

I became fascinated with the medium when I realized its possibilities — you can build layer upon layer of collage, paint, and embedded objects, with layers of beeswax inbetween.  All the layers are translucent and the bottom layers are somewhat obscured.  You can scribe lines and textures into the wax, and you can scrape back parts of the top layer to reveals color and pattern underneath. 

It’s messy and tactile and makes room for happy accidents. It’s about as different from colored pencil painting as you can get! 

Wordless Wednesday ~ Edge of the Western Seas

 

In the Cauldron of Creativity

You may have noticed that I have not been consistent with my blogging for some time now.  There’s a few reasons for that.  I feel like I am in a third-quarter-moon phase of blogging; that’s the time when the old ways of doing things no longer fit, but the new way of doing things is not yet clear.  I have been ruminating for months about changing things up; changing the name of the blog and its design, moving it over to Wordpress, keeping to a regular schedule, brainstorming ideas for posts.  

You see, the title “Gaian Tarot Artist’s Journal” no longer fits me or this blog. I originally started it in 2004 to document my process of creating the cards and to get feedback from readers. Along the way, I started blogging about all sorts of different things that I’m interested in.  Since the Gaian Tarot cards are now done, the blog needs a new name.  But what?
 

Wordless Wednesday ~ A Visit to the Palouse

 

Finding Your Secret Place

(Another one from the archives. I wrote this before I started working on the Gaian Tarot, and it was published in SageWoman in the Summer of 1999.)

 

"Following the spring branch was how I found the secret place. It was a little ways up the side of the mountain and hemmed in with laurel. It was not very big, a grass knoll with an old sweet gum tree bending down. When I saw it, I knew it was my secret place, and so I went there a lot.

Granma said . . . she reckined most everybody had a secret place, but she couldn't be certain, as she had never made inquiries of it. Granma said it was necessary. Which made me feel right good about having one."

- Forrest Carter, The Education of Little Tree ¹

This passage from the award-winning children's book The Education of Little Tree strikes a chord in just about everyone who reads it. Who among us does not remember a secret place we stole away to as a child, that was magical, special, and sacred? Mine was a apricot tree in the backyard of my suburban Los Angeles home. I spent countless hours in her branches. When we went camping in the mountains, I always found some rock by a bend in a stream where I could settle in with my books and sketching pad, and dream the time away.

Maybe our childhood souls knew something we've forgotten as adults.

I was introduced to the concept of a "Secret Spot" as an adult through the Kamana Naturalist Training Program. As a naturalist-mentor, Jon Young teaches his students that the key to learning any nature skill is getting to know one place really, really well. We are so engrained by the dominant culture to be consumers that we are often consumers of natural places too. How many mountains have we climbed, how many valleys or seasides explored? Jon Young's assertion is that, as enticing as it is to visit many beautiful and wild places, we will never learn as much about nature (and about ourselves) as we will by being deeply intimate with one place.²

Wordless Wednesday: Green Beach Glass

 

Four of Air - Gaian Tarot Card of the Week

What do we need to know about the week to come?

Four of Air

Beautiful, beautiful robin's eggs, all nestled away in a cozy little nest.  What a perfect seasonal card to pick, especially since Mama Robin is even now sitting on a nest of eggs, just under my studio deck.  It was a joy to watch the process as the robins built a nest in one location, then abandoned it when they decided another spot would be safer and more secure. The first next was extraordinarily beautiful but rather precarious.  The one they settled on is much harder for us humans to see, which is probably part of the point. It's hidden away from prying eyes, safe for those eggs to incubate until the little ones are ready to hatch.

The moon wanes over the next four days as we await the New Moon in Taurus on Thursday May 13th, which brings (ta da!) the opening of the Gaian Tarot Circle. I'm working on all the goodies I have planned, to have them ready in time for the GTC members on Thursday.  At the same time, I'm feeling in need of more sleep and rest than usual. Perhaps that's in response to the long hours I usually work, or perhaps it's in response to my new commitment to cut way back on those work hours. Perhaps I'm just tired because I've ramped up my exercise program considerably over the last 10 days or so.  I haven't yet reached the point where exercise gives me more energy; I'm still pretty tired when I'm done!  

In any case, I feel like this card is giving me permission to cozy up, cuddle up and dream a bit more.  Hide out from the world for a bit longer, and dream a few new dreams . . . 

What about you, dear Readers?  What does this card say to you? 

One May Morning long ago . . .

 On May Morning five years ago, I sat on my porch at Heron House and sketched the garden & "the gossip of the Place" as Gary Snyder says. I don't live there anymore and our beloved neighborhood dog Rex is gone too. Still the sweetness of that May Morn persists like the scent of lilacs and lily-of-the-valley. (Here's a link to a giant version so you can read all the little notes.)  

A Blessed May Day to you all!

Happy Earth Day

 I may be spending Earth Day inside a hotel for the Readers Studio, but I can still dash outside to touch Mama Gaia, throw cherry petals into the breeze and give thanks for all She does for us.  Blessed be. 

Wordless Wednesday ~ Storm Comin' In

(That's Gracie's house on the right.)