The Colours BLUE & INDIGO

In the Colour Energy Course that I attended last year, we did an in-depth exploration into each spectral colour. Each week we focused on a particular colour and it's associated energy Chakra. We explored the colour's energy through senses, meditation and painting using only the tones and hues of that colour.
 

For each class we were asked to dress in the colour we were exploring that week. A still life, made up of various objects in the colour was set up in the studio. Little bottles of essential oils associated with that Chakra and colour were set out on a tray for us to smell. Even the food and drink that we had during our tea break was in the colour we were exploring.


The Colours BLUE & INDIGO

I have been struggling to write this post about Blue and Indigo. This session was a very emotional one for me. It left me questioning many things... I've been struggling to find the words...

We combined the Blue (Throat Chakra) and Indigo (Brow Chakra) sessions because when mixing paints in various shades and tones of Blue and Indigo there is an overlap in the colours, Indigo being a dark blue reaching towards purple.

The still life was beautiful as always. It made the studio feel cool, calm and relaxing. If you closed your eyes you could imagine walking through a gentle mist, or into the darkness of the night. Some blue shades could leave you feeling a little sad or 'blue' however.
 

 

 

 

 

We sat around the still life soaking in the colours and smelling essential oils like Cypress, Eucalyptus, Myrrh, Patchouli, Pine, Geranium and Peppermint.

We then mixed up our paint, making six different shades and tones of Blue and Indigo.

 

After our meditation I started off by painting quite calmly, covering the canvas paper with lovely teal and light turquoise paint. When I started adding the darker shades (Indigo) my brushstrokes became more frenetic. I then, rather energetically, added all the shades I'd mixed, creating a lot of texture and movement on the page. I grabbed the wooden printing blocks and a plastic scourer and continued to add even more texture onto the canvas. I was working freely and loosely, with intuitive spontaneity, just as we were meant to.

 

Texture added using the wooden printing blocks

 

After our tea break, it was time to take a look and see if my painting had anything to 'reveal'. I saw a face and a seahorse. They didn't make a very good composition so I turned the page 90 degrees. And again. And again. And again. I had to then remind myself that this wasn't about a pretty picture with a carefully considered layout and composition. I needed to paint what I saw. So that is what I did.

My final painting

 

 

At the end of the session we did another meditation. We had been given a piece of paper and were asked to write, without thought or hesitation, the first thing that came to our mind. Like a message from the universe.

 

I wrote: "Meet me down at the bottom of the deep blue sea."

 

We then had to go around the class and, stopping at each person's work, do the same for them. So without thought or hesitation we wrote the first thing that came to mind when we sat in front of their painting.

The messages that had been left for me by my classmates were:

"Holy Communion"

"Beauty and serenity can be found"

"Looking intensely"

and "Serene beauty - your spirit guide"

 

We took turns to share our 'messages' with the class. One person said that my "spirit guide" made her think of the clay sculpture I'd made in my first Astar class 9 months earlier. As she said it, I experienced a wave of emotion and could not hold back the tears. (It was rather embarrassing, I must say)

My clay sculpture had been about a dear friend who had gone missing at sea in March 2010. His boat and his dog, who was still alive, had been found two weeks later but he was not on board.

 

Detail of the seahorse

 

When I got home that evening I did an internet search to find the symbolic meaning of a seahorse.

This is what I found:

"The seahorse is thought to have mystical significance among the Ancient Greeks, Europeans and Asians. The Ancient Greeks and Romans believed the seahorse was an attribute of the sea god Neptune and as such, the seahorse was considered a symbol of strength and power."

"Chinese cultures believed that the seahorse was a type of sea dragon, and as such they were revered for their power and thought to be symbols of good luck. Sailors have long viewed the seahorse as a good luck charm too." (source)

 

And then I read this, and my tears returned...

 

"The ancient Eurpeans believed that the seahorse carried the souls of deceased sailors to the underworld - giving them safe passage and protection until they met their soul's destination."

 

 

Blue is the colour associated with the fifth Chakra, the Throat Chakra. It deals with issues of communication, expressing our own personal truth, creative expression and symbolic thinking.

 

The colour Indigo is associated with the sixth Chakra, the Brow Chakra. It is also often referred to as the third eye or the mind center. As the 'source' or center of psychic knowledge, this Chakra produces our Dreams and Fantasies, as well as such advanced psychic states as Clairvoyance, Telepathy, Clairaudience and Spirit Communication.

 

 

xxx For Paul. In loving memory. xxx

RAZIEL (by Anonymous)

I have been receiving some wonderful feedback about my blog posts to do with the Process Art classes that I am doing.

This message really made me smile... :)

"Hi Wendy I just wanted to share with you how you inspired me to join ASTAR. After your initial classes you shared your journey and I was intrigued. I found classes close by and have completed 2 courses and all I can say is WOW! And thank you for the inspiration. It's been an incredible, symbiotic, spiritual and artistic journey xxx"

I was very excited to hear that someone reading my blog had experienced something similar to what I'd been experiencing. Something magical. I was even more excited when they agreed to share their profound experience with us, here, on my blog. :D  They would like to remain anonymous.

Here is their story...


My ASTAR experience has been a deeply profound and spiritual one. The art has opened the spirit and the spirit has embodied the art.

The last course I attended was Chance Art and as a natural control freak I found the "letting go" to be most exhilarating and terrifying. Each lesson revealed a deeper understanding of myself and culminated in a mind blowing experience which I am still wrapping my head around.

The exercise involved cutting up our "poems" we had written through the previous weeks, putting all these individual words into a bowl, we sat with this bowl and then with eyes closed pulled out eight of these words.
We then strung these words together to make up a coherent or semi coherent sentence, after which we wrote this sentence over and over again on a sheet of paper using wax, bleach, ink – whatever we wanted to use. Once the entire sheet was haphazardly filled with these words we filled in the blanks with colour ink, coffee, tea, more bleach again whatever we wanted. By the end I thought my sheet looked like a morning after a heavy night.

After tea we sat quietly looking at what we had done as if we were cloud watching, forming images out of shapes and shadows.
When I looked, all I could see was the outline of a face and the suggestion of wings. So in the spirit of chance I went with it. The entire experience was out of this world. I did not feel as though I was doing it, as I followed the lines I found that the shadows that were there already revealed the lips, the eyes and the body. It was surreal.

After class I was exhilarated, and in the week following I kept thinking about my angel. During a meditation the letters RAZIEL flashed in my mind. I wondered if this was the name of an angel so after swinging between wondering and telling myself I was loosing my mind, I decided to Google it!

And there it was. Raziel, the angel that holds the messages of God. The angel that opens the third eye.

This experience has challenged my spiritual beliefs and has opened a whole new world of wonder to me.




Raziel

 

...

 

Dear anonymous.

This is so SO beautiful. It gave me goose bumps.

Thank you so very much for sharing.

xxx Wendy

 

Giraffes

As I mentioned in my previous post, "Geisha", the second term of my process art classes focused very much on letting go of our inner critic. This was done in a number of ways, from passing your work around the class where each student got to add something to your work, to working with a blindfold on.

 

In this class we started off blindfolded once again. We used inks, tea, coffee, charcoal and chalk pastels to fill the page with random markings. We covered a number of pages, working fairly quickly, without much thought given to what we were doing.

The pages looked something like this:

 

One of the textured pages created using a mixture of tea, coffee, inks, charcoal and chalk pastels.

 

We lay the pages out on the floor and were asked to choose one that "spoke" to us. One that seemed to have a hidden image or images.

I unfortunately don't have a photo of what my chosen page looked like before I worked into it, but what I saw at first were 3 GIRAFFES! Two of them were quite humorous and cartoon-like, and another was more realistic. I also saw a couple of birds. I used a wash of black ink, some charcoal and chalk pastels to help define the shapes that I was seeing.

 

My final artwork, "Giraffes"

 

I was horribly disappointed at the end of this class. Not only did I end up with what I considered to be a really ugly picture, but I also didn't see any obvious meaning or feel any connection with the giraffes. The end result is not meant to be important, but it is always a bonus if it turns out well. I hadn't particularly enjoyed the process either, so I went home feeling rather cheated :(

 

The following day, on Facebook, a friend shared how her daughter had been gored by a tame boar and needed stitches in her leg. In her status update she said, "It has forced us to slow down. Assess, and figure out what this "Boar Medicine" means."

Boar Medicine? I had no idea what that was so I did an internet search. My search took me to a page about Native American Animal Medicine where I read,

"The Native American practice of "animal medicine" embraces an awareness that reveals itself when a certain animal crosses our path."

And, 

" Animal Medicine is that which you need to learn RIGHT NOW! and the lesson that is coming across your IMMEDIATE path. Another animal may come cross your path tomorrow. Your attention may be called to one of these animals through television, conversation, daily experience, etc. Regardless of how one of these animals comes across your path, study the message and apply to your daily Life . . . they have a message for you!"

 





Detail of "Giraffes"





 

The Giraffes...

Okay, so it may have been a bit desperate of me and really silly to have wanted to find meaning in the work I'd done the previous evening, but I couldn't help myself...

I looked up "Giraffe Medicine" and found this:

 

"Today Giraffe is letting you know that it's time to stick your neck out. Start making new connections, stretch yourself, reach as far as you can. You are up for the challenge."

 

And yes, of course it made sense to me... I'd just finished making a list of gift shops, online shops and markets that I could approach about selling some of the goodies that I make. Seriously!

 

So, the next time an animal crosses your path... ;)

My Guardian Figure

I attended my first ASTAR (Awakening Spirit Through Art) art class last night. Amazing. I loved it! I am very excited about the journey that lies ahead.

We were to create a Guardian Figure out of clay.
We started off by holding a large lump of clay in our hands, and with our eyes closed were given a guided visualisation to do.
At first I saw a tall man, broad shoulders, strong, caring, crouched down, embracing and comforting a tiny, fragile me. As the meditation continued my figure became very tall and thin, gentle, feminine, flowing and radiating light. I thought it was a woman with a flowing skirt and was then confused, was my guardian figure a large man or a tall thin woman?
When we started working with the clay I found myself moulding it into a tall, thin, flowing figure of a man. He reminded me of my late grandfather (whom I never met) with his bald head.
When we'd completed our clay objects we were given a cardboard tray of sand and asked to select anything we wanted from a table of 'found objects'. This included beads, old jewelry bits, sequence, feathers, seed pods, shells, bits of fabric, you name it.
At first I chose an ornate blue heart bead; a pretty, broken, ornate pendent and a pretty, patterned, antique tea strainer that would make a lovely impression into the clay. But my Guardian figure didn't like any of them and I found myself putting them all back.
I've never been big on sea shells and coral, but that is what I found myself returning to my desk with... a selection of things from the sea, and a small white feather. I arranged, and rearranged my objects. I balanced a broken oval shell on his head like a halo, but was then moved to embed it into his body, like a pregnant tummy that had opened up. A tea light candle, 2 kelp pods with 'umbilicle cords', 2 cowry shells, 3 beautiful pieces of coral, and 7 round, light reflecting, mirror mosaics now surrounded him. And the small white feather I inserted between his shoulder blades, like a wing, or a fin.
When our creations were complete, we took pencil and paper and did a short guided meditation. We asked our Guardian Figure what their name was and what message they had for us. We wrote down the first thoughts that came into our minds.

My Guardian Figure's name turned out to be the same name as a late friend, who sadly passed away at sea a few years ago when I was pregnant with my twins. My message that I received was a reassuring one about my twins and my older son, a compliment about me as a mom, and a blessing for my family. I'd spent time with this friend's family very recently so he had been on my mind, but I was not consiously thinking about him during the art session.

I found the experience to be very moving. The final result is special, but the sculpture will not last as it will not be fired. I will put it in the garden, to be slowly washed away... earth to earth...