drum

Altar to my Spider Totem

The Crazy Crone Aboriginal, Aboriginal Australia, altar, drum, spider, Spider Woman, spirit world, symbols, Uncategorized

Here’s a photo of my altar to my totem, a spider. It is customary not to name the exact spider and I connected with her when I did a soul retrieval. I had to tie a prayer string around my left wrist until it disappeared and my totem would have arrived. So I tied the knot tightly, walked out to my car and the knot had disappeared already. My spider totem appeared, her presence so strong that all the spiders in our home came out to greet her – big, middle and small spiders. Even my husband noticed the spiders everywhere. We were also living in the appropriately named Cobweb Cottage at the time!

My totem sits on my right shoulder. The drum on the wall was blank but once my totem appeared, I painted the spider image and it was amazing how the tone of the drum changed once I’d put my energy into it. I also created the Spider Woman painting. Around the drum are my beaters, rattles, a rain stick and a pair of Aboriginal clap sticks (in the red and black bag) which I sourced from an ethical outlet in the Kimberley region of north-west Western Australia. You need to be careful about buying Aboriginal art in Australia as a lot of it is cheap copies from Indonesia. But my clap sticks are the real deal.

The Life of Stones: Focus

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focusThis my latest crystal mandala layout – for Focus.  I moved the table away from its previous position beside my crystal collection as I felt the grouped crystals interfered with the energy of the crystal mandala and its intent of focus. It feels heaps better in its new position under my spider drum and Shamanic Power painting (see photo below).

Later I’m going to try my hand at talking about the crystals I’ve worked with using my new tablet, so won’t go into details of this today.

I get a poem and photo in my inbox every day from Panhala, a Yahoo group, which started up when I lived in the UK in 2003. These posts really light my day, a wonderful selection of poetry, so I’m going to reprint one here relevant to my love of crystals, rocks and stones:

Stone

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

 I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

 

~ Charles Simic ~

(The Voice at 3 A.M.)

focus-crystal-mandala-woman-of-power

 

All Change!

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I got a bit fed up with my workroom as it felt cluttered, dark and stagnant. So I bought three coloured stands (including, of course, on in purple!), booted out a couple of boring stands, and brightened up the place.

I also moved my crystal mandala table from its previous position close to my shelves full of crystals to its own space under my drum and Woman of Power artwork. I felt when the table was close to the crystal collection that the stones on the shelves interfered with the focus of the crystal mandalas I create on the glass table, and it actually feels are lighter and more focused in its  new position.

My whole workspace feels much brighter and more energised.

studio-space-1 studio-space-2 studio-space-3 studio-space

Tree of Life Bodhran

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Mo & BodhranHere’s a pic of me with my new Bodhran drum to show how big it is.

I finally received it today, with an image of a tree of life painted on it, which was posted on 11th July.  I’ve had a complete runaround with the delivery as Turkish Post claimed they’d tried to deliver it, but in Turkey with a completely different postcode to ours in North Cyprus.

Luckily I always get post sent with a tracking order, so the lovely artist I bought the drum from managed to get her postal system to get it tracked down and today, one month later, it arrived at Customs in Kyrenia where my husband picked it up this morning.

As soon as I saw a photo of this bodhran I was drawn to it but dithered a bit as funds were a bit low. However I paid for it over two months and I’m so glad I did as the drum is wonderful, much bigger than I’d anticipated, the artwork is brilliant, it came with a cover and two drum sticks, one for conventional drum work and the other a double-headed cipin for traditional bodhran drumming. I also found out that you pronounce “bodhran” as “bowren”, much to my surprise.

The tree of life has images for the chakra centres but, in addition, for me the chakra centre paintings look like bees, which are the symbol of love, wisdom, sweetness, productivity, creativity, community, nurturing, being industrious.

Our dogs, ever curious, crowded around, peering in the carton as my husband unpacked the drum, but then scarpered with their tails between their legs when I began drumming with the conventional drumstick.  They finally reappeared, had a good sniff around the drum, then took themselves off to have a rest and recovery period from the strange object!

Bodhran Drum & Sticks Bodhran drum