Sparkling Lotus Ink

here we are again .1

I've decided to make it an ongoing practice to visit my local river from a point in its journey that I've previously viewed mainly through car windows.  And nearly always during times when I'm down to the minute scheduling-wise; on my way to or from something that generally holds the lion's share of my mind.   But now, based solely on an impulsive gesture last week at almost the same time of morning,  an oaken spell has been cast!  This pair of trees has thoroughly captured my imagination in a way that authentically feeds my soul and spirit.  Can't even count the number of times I've thought about them in the past week. And so I've decided to document their lives as time and weather permits.  Have also decided I'd like to collect ongoing portraits of the river at this particular point in its flow towards the Atlantic Ocean.

Today I had an extra 8-10 minutes to spend framing my shots and walking more extensively.  I've now toured a small dirt road that dead ends at the east-west railroad tracks.  Below you can see the eastern river view at a slightly different angle because I elected to walk down to the deserted boat launch. 

The slope between the ramp and the bridge is covered in young mugwort plants that probably sprouted back in the spring or last fall.  The tree line now features solidly bare limbed hardwoods mixing through colonies of evergreens.

When I took the above picture the faraway trees appeared vibrant amidst masses of rising fog.  Note the spritely young oak in the right foreground.  I imagine its spirit finds great joy in greeting the river each day.  Am not up on local waterside grasses so I can't do much i.d.-ing here beyond the dying clumps in the foreground.  That'll be goldenrod.  And absolutely anywhere a mullein seed's found a way to sprout and take hold it has done so.  Am so impressed with the plants below finding a place for themselves in a scant half-inch width of soil compressed between the asphalt road and the cement walkway.  Plan to keep track and see how they get on in terms of fulfilling their natural life cycle next year.  High odds against, I know, but that's what makes the endeavor interesting.

In truth most of my extra moments were spent finding just the right place to photograph the oak pair so they looked like they shared a trunk as well as a crown.  Gotta make sure to bring my good camera into the car for these jaunts as I'm now keen to play more with the idea "singular plurality" as time and circumstance allow.

ever/green .2

last Friday was a gorgeously sunny day.  I woke with a strong urge to get some new camera angle shots of the white pine that serves as a directional sentry/guardian tree of this Place.  There she is rising above all the others.  Her crown's full glory partially concealed by a fringe of brick red oak leaves.  Had to stand on the edge of my neighbor's lawn across the street in order to get a shot that will let me examine/draw the places where her trunk splits three ways.

Here she is at closer range; framed in part by the Norwegian Fir that thrives beside her.  These two trees form the beginning of a property line that's otherwise consumed by a row of hemlocks.    We presume they were planted when the house was built which would make them 43 years old.   In front of the property line a volunteer windrow has developed.  Three quarters of the trees are white pine/descendants of our sentry pictured above.

If you focus just beyond the brick red oak leaves you'll find yourself gazing at dozens of young evergreen trees.  In addition to taking pictures for this post, I wanted some reference photos that will help me understand both the intentional and co-creatively engineered impact us living here has had upon the landscape. 
I took this picture the first afternoon we were here.  Orientation-wise, I'm sitting with J. in the place where the wild windrow now exists.  Am including it here because its serves as a useful comparative reference for several of the other pictures in this post.  Note, especially, the Hemlock that's been perfectly buzzcut into a graceful mound.  It's directly behind the rainbow whatever kinda co-creative emissary that met us on the field that afternoon.  As we soaked in the landscape's acceptance of us J. and I agreed we'd stop cutting the shallow amphitheater of curved ground where we were sitting.  He predicted the white pine had many children just waiting for a chance to do more than get mowed down.  I looked around while he talked; silently planning which trees to prune and which to let go crazy wild on their own impulse.  Again:  notice the hemlock. Here is the same hemlock last Friday.  From this angle, the post's featured white pine at the top of the field seems slightly smaller but that's illusory for sure.  Stay tuned for more insights about the hemlocks in a later post.  For now the point is that on the afternoon when I took the previous picture I was staring at the hemlock's contained demeanor thinking it was a human-driven illusion that I find particularly perplexing.  J. was talking with great conviction - to and about the white pines that did indeed spring forth over the course of that first summer.  And so it seemed closer to fact than his opinion:  the miniscule evergreens understood they were loved and given strong value as soon as we sat there allowing them to whisper to us.  All the trees understood.  And together we rejoiced on that sunny mid-May afternoon. Now it's nearly November.  And this is what the field looks like after ten attentive and yet oftentimes largely hands-off growing seasons.   On the day I took these pictures I also picked spearmint to combine with half of last year's remaining calendula flowers.  This duet infused in olive oil is my favorite all purpose skin oil. I used to make it in a crock pot which can get fiddly to prevent scorching.  Nowadays I prepare much smaller batches in a double boiler placed on the warming burner of my stove.  Note the dense exuberance of the property line hemlocks.  Also sharp eyes may notice the widow maker hanging from empty maple limbs that are still attached.  Am hoping it came down in the hard rains night before last and all of yesterday but haven't been out to check yet.

Here's the windrow from the front.  Also our lovely natural fire pit in the foreground.  This year a young colony of mugwort set root at the lip of the pit.  I prepared the Healing Lights essence blend along the inner slope of the left breast.   All around this granite wonderment there are colonies of prunella, st. johnswort, red clover, wild daisies and a deliciously luminous light violet species of wild orchid I'm reluctant to demystify by properly identifying them. 

yesterday ...

I met myself returning at least in the selfie/shadow sense.    Before that I wandered around the place and took a lot of record/update pics.  Will post a few of my faves later in the weekend.   Have recently decided if the general world is determined to keep on going to hell in a handbasket - I'm going to declare a personal universe in which 4 day weekends are completely the norm.  Have always done a lot of my best work and had the most meaningful interpersonal experiences on weekends anyway, so ...

happenstance meets intention

This is the river closest to my home.  The images in this post are phone pics from approximately 9:40 this morning.  Love that the far view west reveals five of the endless ridges of hills that epitomize this region.  I've thought about taking pictures with my phone ever since lengthy infrastructure retrofitting was completed but there's almost always two way steady traffic or full-up parking on the off-ramp river access points.  This morning there was nobody but me on the road.  Only one person was on the water.  I had 15 spare minutes to spend doing something I keep not getting around to despite how much I longed to do it.  Grabbed my phone and walked briskly to a good shot range from the vastly improved - I guess you'd call it a Viewing Trail.  Took the shot above along the way to the end of that fenced-in trail.  Definitely planning to go back as an official local excursion with J. and documenting the entire thing in gleeful detail.

Above the river flows east with a lone boatsman puttering along like he does it all the time.  While walking and looking all around I automatically scanned for blooming flowers.  Noticed several clumps of Evening Primrose and an enormous colony of Great Knapweed spilling down the steep embankment. 

As soon as I drove down the sloping parking road I noticed these two oak trees.   When I passed them on my way to the bridge I addressed them silently with greetings and good cheer; on the way back lingering in their presence - moving closer by gradual stages.   We are pleased with your attention to detail.  This was their vibrational message to me.  It applied to being photographed and approached at closer range.  It also applied to being touched by me and so I stood with a palm on each trunk speaking to these two vibrant examples of Other sentience.  I spoke from my heart.  Took this image because I was so struck by the fast turnaround of synchronicity, having just gone through old scrapbooks and in one found an ancient (in my life's timeline) letter that I quoted in the previous post. 

These are clearly not Grandfather trees.  But they're definitely a pair of trees.  Oak is unarguably a Grandfather medicine spirit with a long timeline that's in part shared with human intent to turn Oak's strength into strong objects.  I grew up in a home filled with oak furniture.  There was an oak tree in our backyard that sheltered and soothed me when things got too discombobulating in the house.  I was conscious of all this as I touched the trees.  And was silent for a time.  The first thing I told them was that I had visited truly mighty oaks of considerable age in England and France.  I described the impact the trees had on me.  I told them about my childhood oak companion and that I married a man who initially won my heart by outlining his utter certainty that trees were highly responsive to tonal vibrations.  He hoped to devote an ongoing portion of his life to listening well enough to decipher some fragments of the music trees made purely for the love of congregating together in sound as well as form.

The light specific to that 15 minute window left the trees in opposite arcs of light and shadow.  I noticed and admired this.  Together their crowns seemed to merge into a single canopy dweller.  Behind them rests a semi circle of concrete division markers.  In the mid-90's the river rose 65 feet.  These trees were a lot younger then.  They probably had more siblings.  I noticed at least one of their offspring standing off to one side.  I also noticed the area was pristine.  And spotted a few trails I'd feel more comfortable exploring with another person along. 

I stood as long as I dared with a palm on each trunk.  Their life force was strong.  It pulsed underneath my fingertips.  The energy was strong and well-balanced.  These two trees had clearly been spared by deliberate design.  I don't know if they were always canted at opposite angles or if that's got something to do with a disturbed root system when the road went down.  In flower essence therapeutics Oak is a classic remedy from the Bach repertory.  Within that system the essence is associated with perseverance and persistence.  Today's experience makes me wonder if there shouldn't be a notation, also, concerning sturdy graciousness.  Something sustainable under any conditions.  Like the old women of my childhood.  Yes.

ever/green .1

Above are the expressive upper branches of a young white pine living at the edge of our driveway.  I have my own special name for her.   Others who are drawn to this specific tree's vibration have given her names reflecting their unique impression of her.  She and the additional white pines in these images were less than six inches tall when we arrived.  She was barely noticeable then but now she is the tallest and fullest.  J. estimates she's ten or eleven feet.  She and the others in her habitat grouping form a vibrant windrow that graces us with privacy while offering shelter to many species of birds and countless other sentient beings.

***Years ago a woods-walking kindred spirit shared his formula for getting in touch with the co-creative entities in an unfamiliar landscape:  Research ahead of time so you go in cognizant of the region's First Peoples' relationship to the trees in that place.  As a general rule a specific tree species will likely be known as sacred if only in far gone times.  In many place that tree's presence may continue to dominate space and local imagination within our world of today. 

Here's a way to grow a more intimate awareness of your own sacred capacities and connections:  find a gorgeous tree of a species that already means something important to you.  Approach the tree joyfully.  Reach into the trunk of your intuition.  Reflect all that is glorious about this species of tree.  Consider singing your praise and gratitude.  Then take a generous portion of the energy this experience yields to find another tree in the same species that's neglected or struggling in some way.  Approach quietly to offer very gentle touch as you would an ailing child or beloved animal.  Express a soft intention to return over time in order to offer ongoing care and love.  Follow through even if it takes a few times to get the sense of energetic connection fully synchronized.***

In the part of the world where I live White Pine/Pinus strobus holds a very powerful presence in the landscape as well as indigenous stories and legends.  Although there aren't nearly as many here at home as there are hickories and maples, there are still more than enough white pines to hold a distinctive tonal resonance.  The trees featured in this post were nearly cut off at the ground "as a good will courtesy" prior to us passing papers.  We (obviously!) asked that they remain.  Life without them is unthinkable to the entire family.  Quite recently it outright shocked me to come across an image highlighting how not-there they were on the night of our walkthrough. 

The friend referenced above also passed along a tip for maximizing personal bonding and healing time with a specific tree medicine spirit: Find a place where two old trees of the same species grow side by side.  Address them as grandfather and grandmother.  If you're meant to work with them you'll feel their energy radiating directly from their root system to your own. It's a powerful feeling you can't mistake.  Like an orgasm in that you'll know past doubt if it happens.  Make sure you pick a sacred pairing that's convenient to visit on a regular basis.  You'll want to spend time absorbing wisdom and solace that only you and the trees can know through spending time together.

  There's a particular grandfather and grandmother at the Garden in the Woods that I've visited as an internalized pilgrimage and also within the course of viewing special art installations.  Will have to trawl through my gallery of thousands and see what I might find of this particularly wise and loving couple to share in a future post.  The  trees are found near the center of the property's exhibition space.  Their branches intermingle above two different pathways.  Located as they are, at the hub of a cross, the energy from the trees rises to filter throughout the landscape in an undeniable way.  There's a sense of serene peace, for sure, but there's also something a lot more basic and primal at play.  The root chakra responds to evergreen/pine energy because it's so strongly embodied in a scent that remains fresh and swiftly recognized by human brain chemistry.  White pine's powerful anchoring force further roots our own souls and spirits more firmly into our body.

Pine's medicinal properties are astringent and deeply cleansing.  The scent of a few crushed needles rubbed between the finger tips can automatically set into motion an invaluable clearing of cobwebs.  This property can provide sturdy backup for an overworked brain and/or an emotionally depleted soul. In another month all manner of pines will begin to sashay into the house and hold pride of place everywhere the deep green needles look beautiful and smell good.  Drafting this post inspired me to put it aside for half an hour in order to visit a far more extensive self-designated windrow at the eastern edge of our property.  I thanked them all (there are three or four dozen trees involved) for their presence and all the life they sheltered, especially during the cold months.   I'm not sure if I've previously acknowledged their value and capability in this direct a fashion.  Normally I simply speak of my ever-expanding love for them and my personal gratitude to be sharing the space.

(am thinking it's time to move deeper into co-operative spirit and learn more about things that the trees themselves might love and be grateful to experience...)

 

let's visit the fairy house

In mid-August my family visited the Three Sisters Healing Sanctuary out in Goshen.  It was T's first visit but J and I also went  in '16.  This time out I took 326 pictures.  Very few weren't keepers.  This suggests a strong likelihood I'll be sharing more over time.  For now let's just tiptoe quietly into the realm of the Fairy House.  It didn't exist the last time we were there and all three of us found it an absolutely charming addition.

fyi

Decided to go ahead and fire up nichobella again since I so enjoyed constructing yesterday's post about a specific art journal. And then? Even more enjoyed Grace riffing on favorite paint colors in the comments!  There's a sticky post at the top of the blog until I get it together to alert a few folks who might be interested in That if not This.  Have also published an overview/introduction type post for the Alchemical Rituals project that glances at its narrative form in greater scope.  Just scroll down below the sticky for latest entries. 

Alchemical Rituals .1

Today's post is a lateral move on the same underlying subject for much of this blog.  Above is the finished cover of an art journal I've worked in since January '18.  At that time I impulsively signed up for a year long online art journaling class called Rituals.  This was the brainchild of Vanessa Oliver-Lloyd.  In her introductory video for the course Vanessa spoke of bringing participants closer to their own forms of ceremony and sacred self-care rituals.  For me it certainly did that - in a few instances beyond anything I would have imagined or thought to actively set in motion.  I wound up working on this project, off and on at very specific concentrated intervals, until the end of last month.

I allowed myself to take more time because it was clear to me early into the process that I was doing more than introspectively recording a consciously mindful year in my life.  I was also just as consciously developing a ceremonial announcement to myself that, following a decade of making my way through the vestibule of the Croning process, I felt I had arrived in the welcoming embrace of this ever-significant third stage of a woman's life. The journal was to be a celebratory acknowledgement of that arrival.  I aimed to include all that mattered (heavily codified of course) from the first two stages of my life.  This allowed me the grace of consciously choosing what form(s) of myself I wished to bring into the future with me.  I figured I'd work largely in metaphor but sometimes in direct linear relationship to ongoing daily life.  

I worked in a larger format (11 x 14) than any of my three previously established size comfort zones.  Mainly this happened because I hoped to avoid spending any money on this project - at least not beyond raw supplies that were already on my radar and thus I knew might tempt me because it's how I'm wired.  Beyond that - I had what I had, period.  My cache of supplies included a purchased-at-half-price Strathmore sketchbook.  I rewatched a video I recalled bookmarking about how to systematically break the spine of these books so the smythe binding becomes more pliant and copic-like.  I relished making a conscious ritual of that.  I also embraced the ongoing challenge of thinking/designing in an unfamiliar size/shape of blank space.

  Just before the class officially began I determined that I wished to create a dystopian on-the-fly graffiti wall version of a classical illuminated manuscript.  The very idea thrilled me with both its audacity level and the uncharted potentiality for personal growth of a visual nature.  At first I began working with the months' various themes without concerning myself over the cover.  Then while sifting through a pile of kinda-forgotten collage fodder I came upon the substrate version of a free Holistic Health magazine I'd picked up years earlier. 

At the time I found it the kind of meaningful that lasts for ages - to offhandedly encounter a boldly illustrated woman who looked a lot like me from the back wearing a color of dress that was at the time highly significant to me.  As soon as I got home I tacked the cover above a small dresser filled with rattles, crystals and tarot cards.  For years the image reminded me of who I most imagined myself to be in the spiritual and idealized senses of Being.

My first plan was to leave the cover in place and simply collage over parts of the original cover that didn't fit my theme and the design mood I wanted to set.  I thought I'd have the former me entering the book and then at the end of the year I'd paint myself face first emerging from the back cover.  As is always the way of an ongoing introspective creative venture, this worked until it didn't.  I wasn't, after all, entering this project and whatever it might become as the "old" me.   The most obvious change I'd have to make as a nod to deeper acknowledgement of who I already was: fix the hair color.  

The next thing I changed was the dress color - choosing my fave deep red-violet ink to painstakingly apply with a tiny round brush - around and about the botanical patterns on the dress.  I gambled this color of relatively transparent ink over stationary bright yellow might yield something of a purple-ish mahogany color similar to manzanita bark.

Pretty soon after that I gesso'd over everything but Earth Star and the sashaying female form.  Stared at that I don't know how long before I realized the title of the actual journal in front of me was both obvious and profound.  Furthermore, the lettering could be constructed in a way that would give the cover just the kind of vibe I'd envisioned without yet knowing what it would mean at any level of detail.  Among many other things this project brought me home to a core/eternal version of myself that was inextricably linked to flower essences in a variety of different ways.  Most congruently and deeply it brought me home to self-relationship as a flower-based alchemist.  During the summer of '18 I began to prepare essences after three growing seasons of the co-creative web maintaining a form of radio silence that's quite difficult to describe with words.

In the end I got all artist-ish picky and specific about the hair and how it wasn't at all right and I just wasn't gonna be happy until I gave into the fairly loud as opposed to quietly still inner voice that kept suggesting just let yourself go with a paint pen.  Also was compelled to do some sandpapering until the skin was lightly dark or darkly light and thus more like my own.  In the very beginning, before I'd changed anything but hair, I'd wanted to paint the skin violet or the color of manzanita bark.  Then that felt far too exposing. I mean this directly in the context of having decided to go on instagram in large part so I could share portions of this project while it was still happening -with other people who were sharing individualized responses to a collective endeavor.  Those ladies would have actively applauded I'm quite sure but at the time my reasons for wanting to do it were very vulnerable and significant in a way that was raw and demanding of protection.  

I feel strongly that this particular creative project belongs on this blog rather than something separately devoted to personal creative output.  I wasn't sure why I was so certain when I started to write this post but now as words find their intentional conclusion I see it's pretty obvious.  Earth Star Alchemy Rituals is a way I both synthesized land/interspecies communication and codified it for easy carrying, lifting, and sharing as my life moves forward.  So much of what goes on when we consciously deepen our connections with other species is far beyond the scope and limits of language.  I don't think any single group of inter-species wisdom keepers understands that better than flowers do. 

This project didn't just help me to get everything I've written about on this blog into a congruent form of personal meaning at that beyond words level.  It also taught me how I was choosing to be seen by all the other species here on this small piece of land where I live.  Had never thought of any of this from that particular angle - the idea of choices in self-presentation being important rather than a terminally human preoccupation...

full moon in aries

shot through bedroom window - last night around 11 p.m.

elemental reunion

Today Mama Cat and I walked down to the little stream that cuts through the northern edge of our property.  The wellspring is further up the hill where we live.  From our place the water passes through a culvert.  It reappears as a spring in the barnyard of the farm across the road.   Shortly after the vernal equinox the water rises all the way to the top of the banks and it moves with a thunderous roar.  During the summer, especially in a drought year, the bed is all but empty.  This year I really wasn't sure what was going on because a ginormous chime of Carolina Wrens colonized the wild roses that line the slope down to the stream.  I declared the area off limits to human traffic until the rose leaves started to drop from the cold.  Today was the first time I've visited the water in a close-up way since late Spring.

Crystal water guardians have been in place since our first Autumn.

J. replaced the original (badly rotten) bridge the second or third year we were here.  Now it's nicely weathered. 

So many leaves you have to look closely to see where the water flows ...