Having finally got unpacked, sorted out and pretty much settled in here in North Cyprus, I’ve also got my paintings and crystals/rocks sorted out too. Next week I’m putting them up for sale – although I’m a bit nervous about my artwork as it’s the first time I’ve offered it for sale publicly. We’ve removed the bed from our spare bedroom, I’ve set up tables to display my tables and crystals, and I’ve spread my paintings around. We’ll see what happens next week!
In my spate of revisiting former paintings, I also revised two smaller pieces to re-energise them. The first is what I’ve called “The Heart of Om”.
. I’ve lightened the circle surrounding the Om symbol, as well as re-painting it red to illustrate its power. I’ve also added pale violet flashes around the inner circle to lighten the red background which looked a bit dreary before. This version feels far more energised and powerful.
The next painting I re-visited is “Howl Often”, the words being from the rules for women in Clarissa Estola Pinkes’ wonderful book: “Women Who Run With The Wolves”. I’ve intensified the words with a deeper purple, put a paler purple around the wolf image to make it stand out more, and added a purple line to intensify the red on the edge of the painting.
Again, this feels clearer and more focused. Below I’ve also included the original paintings.
When I lived in Woodenbong, high in the ranges between Queensland and New South Wales, I created this image of Baubo. Baubo is a goddess whose origins are somewhat mysterious, but she is associated with belly laughs, bawdiness, the joy of female sexuality and the healing power of laughter.
She is best known for her role in Demeter’s revival after she went into mourning when her daughter, Persephone, was abducted by Hades, God of the Underworld. Demeter abandoned her role as goddess of earthly fertility so that the world became barren and lifeless. Baubo finally approached the grieving goddess, told her some jokes which made Demeter laugh, and then is reputed to have lifted her skirts (although it’s unclear what was underneath), which made Demeter erupt into belly laughs which brought her to life again. She resumed her role as Goddess of the earth, brought back harvests and fertility and eventually persuaded Zeus to command Hades to release Persephone.
Baubo is also known as the original Wise Fool, and also as a wise crone, with crone being used in its original meaning
being used in its original meaning of a mature woman with knowledge accumulated from life’s experiences. Whatever, I loved the idea of a painting which is simply joyful, fun, a bit silly and dedicated to the mirthful joy which creativity brings us. So here’s the revamped version.
I’ve used orange for joy and the squiggly lines around Baubo’s figure represent the anarchy of letting ourselves go, having fun and enjoying the chaos and release of a good belly laugh. In the spiral in Baubo’s belly is bright red glitter to represent the firing-up of creativity and the joy it brings. In the spirals on her breasts are small, tumbled, citrine stones to represent abundance. At the centre of the spiral on her head is a rose to represent love.
From her heart chakra, in the centre of her breast and pouring up to her head are dried rose petals from the Apothecary’s Rose in our garden – an ancient rose from the Turkish region the petals of which, if scented, are used to produce rose otto essential oil. The rose petals represent love to infuse our creativity and joyousness. At the crown chakra is a golden rose to represent divine wisdom while the feathers represent the air element which carries sacred inspiration. Around the figure are butterflies for transformation, at each corner a rose shape to represent love that fires up joy from east, west, north and south, above, below, behind and before us. Finally at the top is a bright orange flower shape to represent sunflowers, the light of the sun enveloping us with joy, abundance and creativity.
I really enjoyed not only the original creation of this painting but adding on all the bits and pieces which felt appropriate to my new life here in North Cyprus. I’ve been feeling energised, more creative and a whole lot lighter this past week and stuffing around with Baubo’s painting has been fun and a bit of light-hearted creativity.
Finally, here’s the original painting. I still like it but I feel the new revamp reflects my own lighter approach to living. I extend an invitation to you to embrace silliness, joy, laughter and lightness of being!
As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to have time away from the internet and work with any creative ideas which came up in my time free of Facebook, news and so on. Luckily for me, I did get some inspiration!
I decided to revisit some former paintings I’ve done and cheer the
m up a bit. I’ll post info about three others in another couple of posts. In this one I want to look at the painting I did back in Australia with lots of blues and a really wimpy figure in the middle. This is the original painting and I felt that while the colours around the figure were full of energy, the small figure looked pretty overwhelmed and ungrounded.
So I swished different paint colours straight from the tube over the old figure to create a stronger, more energetic figure which filled the whole canvas. Then I placed a sea-green, round stone at the heart centre, for love at the physical, material level. This was surrounded by small, rose quartz chips for love at the spiritual level. Four rays radiated out to represent love at the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels.
Then I added in more violet for the head shape, to signify the wisdom with which we operate when we link the power of a loving heart to the power of thoughts. And radiating out are turquoise rays which represent communication with love.
This figure, for me, is a homage to the power of Aphrodite who is the patron of Cyprus. Aphrodite is reputed to have been born from spray surrounding a rock at the western end of Cyprus, where Aphrodite’s Rock now stands. For me, Aphrodite is a power energy as, astrologically speaking, the ruler of my sign (Libra) is Venus, another name for Aphrodite. I also have three other signs in Libra which strengthens the influence of Aphrodite in my life.
I have for a while wanted to create a power figure for Aphrodite as the renowned painting of her by Botticelli always looks so goody two-shoes and off the planet. I know it was a produce of his times, but it is a typical representation of woman on a pedestal, the Madonna as opposed to the Whore. So this for me is a portrayal of Aphrodite as the goddess of love – a love which is not soft and wimpy and idealistic, but a love which is real, fiery and incredibly powerful.
In completing this poem I’m reminded of one of my favourite sayings:
“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on the day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
I’m not a great adherent to the concept of God, I prefer Divinity or the Sacred, but I believe that if we can harness the energies of love for the good of all sentient beings, then humanity will reach for the stars and truly light up the web of life.
My computer is sort going on the blink, not sure what is happening as sometimes it works a treat and sometimes the screen blurs. It’s not the hard disk, it’s a graphics part, so off to the compute whizz on Monday to hopefully get it sorted out. I’m also hoping to get a back-up fixed up too.
I think this is interesting given that I’ve just got my workroom sorted out, our move from Australia to North Cyprus has been finalised, and now I can give some contemplation to my new life here in the eastern Mediterranean.
I was surprised that my workroom ended up looking so earthy and grounded, as I’d had in mind working with more blues and purples, to reflect the fact I’m now living on Aphrodite’s Island. But my intuition and inner voice led me to the grounded work area which is most likely what my inner voice is telling my I need given I’ve got so many air signs and live in my head so much.
I’ve also unpacked my crystals, keeping my favourites on a table in my workroom, with three-and-a-half boxes stored in our small shed which I’ll be selling at a later stage.
In the meantime, contemplating a fortnight possibly without a computer made me realise I spend too much time on it, at the expense of my creativity. I realised how excited I felt at the prospect of not being glued to a computer and remembered a time when the internet was not part of my life and I was far more productive in a creative way. So I’m spending the next fortnight writing and painting.
Consequently, I won’t be posting blogs in this time, and I hope I return in due course refreshed, rarin’ to go and full of new ideas and inspiration.
Hasta la vista!!!!
In an earlier post, I mentioned how I’ve been reflecting on the new path opening up for me. I’m not quite sure where I’m heading but one of the tools I’m using to sort out some ideas regarding my relationship with money (the bane for all of us) is Julia Cameron’s book The Prosperous Heart.
I mentioned that, as I started on this and read her comments about trusting the Sacred in your life (she talks of God, but that has patriarchal overtones for me, feel free to use whatever is meaningful for you), our Land Rover broke down. Big time – the automatic transmission packed in and we found out it would cost 3,000 Euros to repair, way beyond our means. I decided this had to be connected with my focus on money, so decided to not worry and see what turned up.
The day after our car came to a grinding halt, I was contacted by a couple who wanted to buy my spare printer and they mentioned a reputable car yard in Nicosia. So we fronted up with our rather shaky Land Rover (it only just made it over the Besparmak Mountains behind Kyrenia which you have to cross to get to Nicosia), and got offered a trade-in of GBP4000 which is exactly what we got for our vehicle when we bought it upon arriving in North Cyprus, and a nice little sedan, a Suzuki Aerio, for an extra GBP1500 which was just within our means. It’s 2002, one owner, 90,000 kms on the clock, good condition and just what we need.
The funny thing is that the Land Rover dropped in our laps too, it came up for sale the day before we arrived, the guy who picked us up at Larnaca Airport told us about it and we decided to buy it for the time being until we got settled, BUT it is hugely expensive to license each year and we’ve been dithering whether to sell it or not. AND last week, as I said, I asked for a sign about what to do and got it answered big-time when the transmission upped and carked it.
It’s made me realise that there are far higher energies at work in the global web of which we are a part and with which we interact. I don’t pretend to have answers or offer an instant solution because it’s still a complete mystery to me too. It takes faith to let go and trust that the right answers will turn up at the right time. And of course, I acknowledge that it’s hard to remain confident and optimistic when finances have just gone base over apex.
Nevertheless, I get a sense that all this change and synchronicity is paving the way for my baby steps on my new life pathway. Life is always interesting, challenging and exciting. Can’t wait to see what opens for me in the future!
“Dying isn’t the sad thing, what’s sad is not living intensely” – 90-year-old man to cancer survivor, Albert Espinosa.
We were recently watching footage on BBC Worldwide of runners in New York disappointed at the cancellation of the Marathon. Some were entirely negative and complained bitterly, but others took a different view – they intended to catch a ferry to Staten Island and offer their help to residents clearing up after the recent super-storm which hit the US east coast.
This action seemed so creative and positive, but not only that – it shows how people’s hearts can open to those in need and distress.
The same thing happened in Australia when huge floods hit south-east Queensland and the city of Brisbane. People turned up in droves to help clear up and clean out houses which had been swamped by the Brisbane River.
I also read of a bloke in China, Mr Chen, who watches out for those intending to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge into the river below. He intervenes where possible, talks the people out of suicide and supports them as they try to sort out their problems and get on with their lives.
One of the people interviewed had decided to commit suicide as his daughter had had leukaemia, he couldn’ t pay the bills, and if he was dead his debt would be cancelled, allowing his family to survive financially. He had been talked out of the suicide and couldn’t praise Mr Chen enough for counselling him and providing financial support out of his own pocket to help the man and his family get their finances sorted out.
And similarly, Don Ritchie died recently in Australia who saved countless lives, possibly hundreds, by talking to people readying themselves to jump of The Gap, a high cliff in Sydney notorious for suicides. He had no formal counselling but he would gently talk to people, offer support, and take them back to his house for tea and refreshment. He received a “local hero” award but was always modest about his achievements in supporting people in need.
A theatre group is putting on plays, with the entrance fee being donations of food items which are then distributed to local charity and relief organisations. Small co-operative shops are also being set up, local currency schemes, food parcels being organised from goods donated by various people, soup kitchens being established by volunteers. Across the nation other mutually supportive initiatives are growing as people discover the power of taking action themselves and building alternatives ways of organising themselves and helping themselves and others.
I also find it interesting that, when you start a topic such as this, similar details surface. In our local North Cyprus newspaper, there was a report of a Spanish man, Albert Espinosa, who battled cancer for years as a young child, eventually losing his leg. It has inspired him to let people know that life is important and he tries to connect with what he calls “yellow people”, people he believes can be friends or strangers who briefly enter our lives and can make us feel special and change our life a lot or a little. He aims to make a point of talking to people he doesn’t know wherever he goes and says he generally gains from the encounters and aims for at least one a month.
I mentioned it on Facebook but when I was leaving the Royal Festival Hall in London in October I bumped into a young man who asked me if he could shake my hand. I said: “Certainly. And I’ll give you a hug if you like.” He looked pretty gobsmacked but agreed and I have to tell you it felt great to hug a complete stranger and give him a peck on the cheek. I could feel my heart centre radiating love to this young man with his life ahead of him and simply wishing him well. Amazing experience for me, not quite sure how he took getting hugged by a strange 65-year-old with bright purple hair but hopefully he recovered okay!
Why am I writing this? Because so much is made these days of individualism, but when the chips are down, it’s community that counts. It happens all around the world, no one country has a o on community, kindness and caring. I do hope though that the lessons Greek people are learning spread worldwide – when you stand on your own two feet, feel compassion for others and open your hearts to support each other, a new kind of society is being built, one that eschews greed and instead embraces loving kindness.
