Abundance on progress... Glazing..,

Abundance in progress...

Jellies!

Mohawk Warrior Woman

Mohawk woman in progress...

Stepping thru in progress....

Patience, Respect, Boundaries, Messages, and Wisdom.

Last night I did a pathways spread with my medicine wheel cards to clarify where I am at right now in my life. I love using divination to cast light on the patterns of energies surrounding me. I think of it as lighting a lantern in the night and discovering another piece of the mysterious path I walk.

East is the direction of spiritual strength and the spiritual direction I am moving in. The animal spirit that came was Ant. Ant is a community minded creature and works for the good of the whole. The energy Ant brings is patience and trust. Be patient and I will be rewarded and have what I need.

South is speaks about what my inner child is being taught and what I need to trust in myself. Skunk is the card I drew. The confidence with which Skunk wanders through life comes from a profound self-respect as well as the respect with which other animals treat her. Its about how the carriage of my body reflects what I believe about myself. What I believe about myself is my ultimate protection. It is also about asserting myself without ego.

West presents the internal solution to my present challenges and who did I draw but Armadillo. Armadillo is about boundaries - about defining my space, saying no, honoring my time, and choosing the experiences I wish to have as part of my life. Negative criticisms and disapproval roll off Armadillo's armored back.

North presents the animal spirit who helps me integrate the lessons of the other directions. My old friend Hawk appeared in this direction. Hawk is the messenger of spirit and to hear that message one must be observant, aware, and open to receiving signals, omens, and signs. Hawk tells me to circle high over my life and examine what I see. Hawk is the key to walking my wisdom.

The center is called the Sacred Mountain and the animal spirit who comes is about who I am right now in the present moment. Amusingly, Owl appeared. Owl is Wisdom in all her aspects. Owl, a creature of the night, flies on silent wings and is about understanding deception, both being deceived and seeing through deception. The message is to use my powers of observation to intuit the whole truth of the life situation I am in. Owl is magic and clairvoyance.

Clarity I asked for and clarity I received. Be patient and I will be rewarded. Believe in myself and let the energy of that belief permeate throughout my body and inform how I carry myself in the world. Set boundaries and honor my time and my choices. Use my armor to shed those negative words that are not mine. Be observant. Pay attention and be open to messages. Look at the big picture and walk in Wisdom, flying silently on my wings when need be.

New Years wish...

As the year comes to an end tonight, I am thinking thoughts of gestation. What is turning over in the compost of old patterns leaving and new ideas being birthed? What do the spirits that be want from me in this coming year? What do I want to manifest?

I have find it valuable to ask these questions of myself, especially at these transition points in the season. Doing so clarifies how I live my life. Using the current words of the time, how I occupy my life. This year I ask these questions from a place of groundedness and a commitment to be focused.

My wish is to manifest my life with passion, balance, and prosperity. To go out into the world creating positive change in all I touch. To be surrounded and supported with harmony and love.

May your wishes manifest in the best possible way this year. Happy New Year!

Happy Solstice!

Happy Solstice!

After the long dark of the autumn, the sun is returning. The "child" is born again from the mother's womb. I am always a bit surprised by the intensity of the dark, especially at the end. I think because I go into the clear dark as if I were in a womb. There is always some part of my life that needs gestating whether I am conscious of it or not. And being unconscious of it is the more likely case as things that grow in the dark, like babies, are intuitive and organic and have their own way of being.

For me, the coming new year is one of focus. Of taking all I have learned and bringing it out into the world. Of gratitude for the teachings that have come to me, the community of friends who support me, and the life I live of abundance and opportunity.

This morning I drew the Wheel of Fortune card. This is my year card so I chuckled seeing it show up. The third card was an Ace of Discs. Good fortune, good luck, and gifts are coming my way - I hope around manifesting more and more of my lifework. The son of Swords, the second card and not upright, a reminder to release the old patterns of being overly rational and step into the flow of my path and to remember to trust.

May your Solstice be filled with light and joy, your holidays bright and merry, and your new year filled with abundance and love.

Her hair is full of stories...

Art Reception December 10th!

My latest newsletter is up. Read all about the Images of the Virgin show and reception on December 10th!!

Wise woman in progress

He Who Dances with Snakes in progress

Shadows & hilites in progress....

Transformation... In progress...

a pattern come full circle

My mother, who is a psychic, was ordained a minister in the Church of the Holy Grail in Santa Cruz in the 1970s. As a result of her studies with the church, she held classes at her house for many years. The classes encompassed all kinds of metaphysical teachings from readings to hands-on healings.

When I was 19 or so, home from college for a few days, I joined her class for an evening. That particular evening she did an exercise where she handed around a sealed envelope with something in it. We each held the envelope in our hands, closed our eyes, and then spoke what we saw or felt.

When the envelope came to me, I remember being unsure having never done anything like this before and then surprised when a vision, almost like a movie, came to me of a young native American youth sitting astride a brown and white Appaloosa pony up on a bluff above my village. Somehow I knew he and I were the same person.

From up on the bluff, I could clearly see all the intimate details of village life laid out below: woven baskets of food, furs spread in the sun, smoke from the tipis, children running and hooting, women cooking and weaving, and horses grazing nearby.

Next to me was an elder - a shaman. He was speaking with me about what I was to do in my life. It was a quiet, unhurried conversation as we sat on our horses in the morning sun watching the village.

I never forgot this vision and now it has returned to me full circle.

I have spent the last few years healing my Divine Feminine self. When I was visited by two snakes last May, I realized I had not acknowledged the role of the Divine Masculine nor has it held a true place in my life. My spiritual work this summer was to release old negative patterns from the hurtful, unbalanced relationships I have had with men.

These energies manifested in a cyst in my body which had to be removed 10 days ago. Before my surgery I sensed an entity waiting patiently to manifest. After the surgery, as I moved out of the fog of anesthesia and pain into healing, I began painting a third angel painting in which the angel holds the cyst from which emerges transformed energies in the form of a bejeweled butterfly.

As that painting progressed, the entity became clearer and more present. And then, Tuesday of this week, I woke up and He was here standing toe to toe with me looking in my eyes. I was taken by surprise at the quiet intensity of his presence.

I know that he is the youth I saw in my vision matured now into a strong, fierce, patient, sure man. A powerful man who has no need to look in others eyes for approval. He has a place now in my heart. And he wants me to paint him.

Transformation in progress....

The Healing

News from Serpentina's Studio

My newsletter for this autumn is now available.

Note: prints and greeting cards can now be purchased in a variety of sizes and papers via Fine Arts America. Links are available on my Gallery pages for each painting.

Enjoy!

We are the Altars We Create

This came to me this morning via my fellow Altarista Catherine. We are truly the altars we create!

ALTARS. WOMEN’S ALTARS.

November 6, 2009
by Grover Cleveland

Altars. Women’s altars.
Altars of peace, of beauty,
Of everydayness, of family.
Altars of whimsy and strength,
Of presence and escape.

Altars to what we love,
To whom we love,
To whom we are now,
To the discovery of
Who we are becoming.

Women’s altars to honor
Ourselves, our lives,
Our spirits, our lineages,
Our families and loved ones,
The known and unknown.

We assemble the altars out of
Our hearts, guts and spirits.
However consciously or
Whimsically, they are made
Of the stuff of us, what matters.

Disassembling them, we bring
Them back inside ourselves,
Integrating and absorbing
What we have externally
Observed and honored.

We are the altars we create.
Altars. Women as altars.

Shadows and lights....

Blocking in....

Questing....

Message from a passion flower...

Woman with head of fire

I am in the midst of training as a teacher of the Color of Women method. One of the homework assignments has been to paint our personal version of the Lady of the Divine Spark which I have almost completed as you can see above. I started this painting before I went off to the first weekend get together for our training where I met all my other sisters-in-painting and had an amazing and wonderful time.

After the weekend of training, I returned to this painting and realized the energy of the painting had entirely changed. (Ifyou look down a couple blog posts, you can see an early sketch.) What had been a trickle of connection with something had become a flood with the gates torn off their hinges and look out here she comes! What was on the canvas before was not what wanted to be painted now.

At first I thought she was of the "head on fire" persona, however, as the painting progressed she manifested not as 'on fire' but 'of fire'. She is pure creative fire. I find it highly amusing that the day and evening I spent painting her culminated in a rare lightening storm - as if she has so much energy it lit up the sky. Divine Spark indeed!

Contemporary Symbolism

Periodically, and not very seriously I have to admit, I have wondered where my artwork fits within the larger world of art and artists and styles and movements. Recently, I discovered an answer that clicks together like puzzle pieces. The pieces came to me through a conversation with Roberto Gomez de Perdomo, the Impressario for the gallery of my wonderful teacher, Shiloh Sophia McCloud. The painting above is one of hers hanging over my altar: Paradise is Within You.

He explained where Shiloh's work sits within the larger context of the Contemporary Symbolism movement and how her work has been influenced by artists like Gustav Klimt, Frida Kahlo, and Mary Cassatt. Interestingly, artists who were rebels in their time.

I thought about what he said. I have always loved the work of Mary Cassatt and Frida Kahlo. I discussed Frida in my thesis and how the traumas in her life must have influenced what she painted. She walked her own unique path in the world.

Gustav Klimt I could not picture immediately. I did a search on his paintings and realized I remembered his paintings perfectly well - just not his name. His paintings of women are glorious though they were not well accepted when he painted them.

Knowing this background enables me to place my work into the context of Contemporary Symbolism like another piece of the puzzle falling into place.

A muse and a quest....

I am questing for the 'tools' that help me manifest my lifework right now in my life. These tools are magical, wondrous, and creative. They make take any form - a person, a word, a stroke of paint, a brush. I feel myself with my feet on my path, bare toes in the brown earth wiggling and making patterns in the dust on the trail. I can feel around me the energies of creation, bird song, cat purring, rose scent, and the texture of magic.

I close my eyes and step forward reaching out with my heart, sending tendrils of myself out in all directions - east, south, west, north, sky, earth and back to heart. The vibrations return back to me of the 'tools' I am sent to find. I can taste them in my body. I know they are coming to me as I reach out to them.

The doorway ... In progress....

in progress: The Doorway of Money and Red Sparkly Shoes

Doorways are thresholds that represent opportunities and choice. They can be open, closed, locked, or hanging off their hinges. Sometimes, I know I have to move through a doorway and I ignore its existence. Then there are times I call a doorway to me because that is where my path leads me. Such is the case with this doorway.

Money, wealth, abundance, and prosperity are all linked concepts for me. Yet there is/was something not quite balanced in the way I was holding these concepts. Part of this came from the long history of how my father dealt with money; he always had a scheme to make money and never actually was able to hold on to any. My mother was the one who saved up money that he stole from her to spend on his latest get-rich scheme.

The lessons I learned taught me to not value my contributions as a woman. I fell into this pattern of letting men have all the worth I accumulate. I walk away because I wasn't worthy of it and they were going to take it anyways because that was what men did to women. Sigh. These childhood conditioning things are never pretty.

My intention in shifting my relationship with money is to honor myself, my life work, and my needs. I see myself surrounded by ever-increasing upward spirals of money and wealth that support myself and my daughter with more than enough to live, travel, create, and enable my work of helping others to connect to their own innate creativity. This is the doorway I am creating. It has golden doorposts with spirals going up them. The collage bits are about money and travel and creativity and my life work.

And then there are those red sparkly shoes. Those are magical and they are MINE. You see when I walk through that doorway, I put them on and click my heels three times and the world changes.

jack rabbit clearing the way

When I was out walking today, I saw two jack rabbits. Rabbits are most obviously associated with fertility given their ability to procreate. However, they are also associated with the lunar cycle and with the tides of life. When a rabbit appears in your life, it can bring you a better sense of the movements of the tides within your own life.

I am intrigued by jack rabbit showing up for a visit. The last month or so have been difficult. Another mysterious malady of the abdominal region has shown up, similar to what showed up around 4 years ago, and then disappeared on its own. The doctors are not much help as they run test after test.

Because I walk a spiritual path, I am well aware of how things I am working on can manifest in my body. Having something happening that is a mystery is a sure sign of it being more than simply physical. It usually takes me a bit of time to discern the nature of what I am dealing with and so it has been this time.

I keep getting the message that I must move forward for the other things in my life to fall away or align in more positive ways. To move forward, my path has to be clear enough to make progress. Clearing is the key concept here. I must clear away my stuff - those patterns that no longer serve and the perspectives that no longer support me.

I have begun by clearing my fears around money and financial success. My relationship to money and financial success is rooted in my sense of self-worth. Am I worthy of being financially successful? YES! Do I believe I can do my life's work and sustain myself and my daughter financially? YES! I clear away the sticky fears and bring in the glorious many hued colors of success!

Why is the Queen of Swords here?

The Queen of Swords sees the black and white in the threads around her, but she knows the world is never truly black and white. What she does know is when it is time to act, time to protect, and time to cut away. She slices through illusions and clouded thinking demanding clarity.

She will not allow you to stop when you must keep moving. She is implacable. She is action in the face of paralysis. She uses her leverage to move even the most blocked stone in the river, rolling it to the side, if necessary, so the full current of life can rush past it .

Ride on her shoulder or place her in your heart, she will protect you. She clears the way of all obstructions. Do not doubt her power. Do not stand in her way.

Queen of Swords in progress

I posted some days ago about a visit I had from two snakes. There was a releasing and opening that has happened in the weeks following that visitation. A shifting in my perception of myself and how I relate to the humans in my world. One of the shifts is about how I relate to the men in my life, especially those who are angry and not self-aware.

I allowed myself to be hurt over and over because I did not know how to stand up and say enough is enough. One of the lessons of the two snakes was not just that I needed to change how I relate to abusive 'male' energies, but that standing up to that energy showed me that it is my perception that empowers the energy of the other person. When I fear, it feeds them - and disempowers me.

And, when I stand up and stick to my boundaries, what I fear does not manifest. By not empowering someone else through my fear, I open the door for something new to manifest. I create a container for opportunity.

All these patterns of understanding are coming together in me and, lo and behold, who shows up but the Queen of Swords. She who clearly sees what must be done and takes action. She who wants me to paint her.

Yippee kay yay doo daa whooo hooooo!

I just clicked on a button that is going to change my life - again.

All my life I have dabbled in the arts. I did collage, book binding, graphic design, jewelry making - everything except painting.

When I began the Women's Spirituality masters program at ITP, things in my life changed and transformed in amazing ways. One major breakthrough was coming to a place where I owned living, working, and being an artist. I am a creative being and I live the pink in my hair!

One of the classes I took in my first quarter was a class called Art as a Sacred Practice. It was taught by Shiloh Sophia McCloud - painter, teacher, inspiration, and cosmic cowgirl extraordinaire.

My experience in the class was absolute total happiness. She put a brush in my hand and a canvas in front of me and I painted. My painting was Cat Goddess Singing Creation - an supremely apt title for those who know me. (Thats her at the bottom of this post.) My memories of the class were of me smiling, happy, and not wanting it to end.

After the class I kept painting and it has become a lifeline, a spiritual practice, and a gift to our planet. It is a key part of my lifework to bring creativity and healing to our culture and painting is huge piece of that.

Shiloh is offering a training course to certify those who want to teach her Color of Woman painting classes. She has never done this before. And yours truly has applied and been accepted into the program!

Yippee kay yay doo daa whooo hooooo!

When the doors open, step through.

How do I manifest my lifework?

This is a question near and dear to my heart. A few years ago I walked away from my career in hi-tech for a variety of reasons which included following my heart's desire. One of the things I discovered that had made that job so dissatisfying was the underlying cultural requirement that my mind lead. Minds do not actually work very well as leaders.

I can hear those of you who love the logical ways of the mind going, say what?

My heart leads because this is where the font of creativity flows from. The energy of creativity is intuitive, inspiring, spontaneous, passionate, and definitely not logical. My best paintings are ones that are painted entirely from my heart. Heart is intuition.

This is not to say that mind has no role in my life. Mind has a very clear role. Mind supports heart. When heart receives a vision that just has to be painted, mind figures out when it can happen and keeps the schedule clear. When heart sees a delicate weed shape that just has to be drawn, mind remembers where the sketch book is.

What has this to do with life work? Everything. Manifesting my lifework is a process that requires trust, passion, vision, good luck, and hard work. It is about following my heart's desire, not my mind logical conclusion.

Every once in a while I have to remind myself that I live from my heart and follow my heart's desire. It brings everything I do into a sharper focus which is critically important when my life is moving through a period of change. That focus enables me to see through the fears that arise. It enables me to shift how I manifest in this world. And the power to shift how I manifest is how I manifest my heart's desire.

Lizard bite

Today Princess showed me the treasure she had under my bed - a large alligator lizard. I could see Princess was not getting very close to the lizard which meant it was pissed enough to bite. (the photo above is similar to the one I found.)

I went and got a small cloth so I could grab and wrap at the same time, hoping to avoid a bite. However, Lizard was just on the other side of a bed leg and hard to get at. So, of course, I did not get a good hold and he bit me hard on my knuckle. No blood, just torn skin.

He let go and I told him to stop wiggling, I was getting him out of the house as fast as I could. And I did - right out the front door where my passing neighbor stopped in surprise to see what I had.

I let Lizard go on the side of the front step and Lizard stopped and stared at me, clearly intent on communicating something to me and it was not thank you. It felt a bit more like "will you please get the frigging message already." Ok. My knuckle is tingling and aching so I go back in and start looking up lizard symbology.

Lizard medicine is about dreamtime, intuition, subtle perceptions and leaving things behind that need to be left behind. (Ted Andrews' book Animal Speak has an excellent discussion about lizard.) Lizard tells us to listen to our own intuition above anything or anyone else. To write down and pay attention to our dreams. To pay attention to the subtle energies speaking to us. That our psychic abilities are going to wake up or notch up a level.

Apparently, I needed a dose of Lizard energy. I am thankful for the message especially the part about listening to my own intuition above all others. That validates my own sense of empowerment.

But I still have one lingering question for Lizard. Was I really paying so little attention that I had to get bit so hard my knuckle still aches - or were you just being pugnacious?