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An Art Meditation

by Katie LaFond

This piece is a transcription of a meditation Katie shared at an EarthSpirit Saturdays event on July 25.  If you’d like to join future events, please follow the EarthSpirit Community on Facebook.  
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Hello, and welcome.

My idea for today’s session was inspired by my difficulties with Zoom. Like many of us, I have done a whole lot more Zooming lately than ever before. I find it difficult and an incredible energy drain. I had a moment recently where I was doodling while I was Zooming, and my whole body and brain felt better. I suspect Zoom is mostly left brained for me, and the doodling was helping me get back into more right brained space. So, I thought that today I might share a doodling meditation with all of you beautiful people. 

I’ll lead us in some opening exercises, then we’ll meditate as I read some poetic prose I wrote, and draw for a bit. So take a minute, and get yourself some materials for doodling, painting, sculpting, whatever feels good to you right now. It needn’t be serious art, that’s not what this is about. It’s about relaxing, softening, and calming the self in meditation, with art as a way to help that process. I’m hoping this will jumpstart your creative process, and help unstick that creative block. You don’t have to be a trained artist to enjoy making art. Humans make art. You’re qualified.

I invite you to gently close your eyes and notice your breathing. Don’t try to change it, simply be curious about it. 

Open to the breath in your lungs; the heat of summer; the waters of tears, sweat, and the sea; to stone; to the trees, that even as they are full and lush have begun to turn within; to the Sun Moon and Stars; and Open to the Unseen Ones.

Gently open your eyes, take up your tools, and create as you’re moved to.

All improvisation starts with the first mark, word, note. That first piece creates entire universes, makes thousands of decisions in a single stroke. Yet we do this every day, all day, with our words, our steps, our thinking. In one breath the urge to consider this first motion is undeniable and thick with significance, and how can we possibly just do it? And yet if we take too much time to consider all the possibilities that come with the infinite before boldly making a decision, we find ourselves paralyzed, unable to move forward. Go with your gut. Make that move. Make your mark. It needn’t be large, perfect, earth shattering, it simply needs to be. 

The first move invites the second. The second wants to dance with the first, whether mirroring it from a distance, or intertwining with it as a tango dancer, dragging her toe with the density of her passion. The second move is almost as significant as the first, bringing us a second dimension to the world we are creating with the motions of our bodies. You already know where that second mark goes. Let it flow.

With our third mark, we bring shape to our world. Just as milking stools rest upon three legs because they will always be stable, our third mark creates stability but not rigidity, and the art will begin to take on a life of its own. Our job is simply to be curious and see where it goes. Moving from a place of decisive action, from seeing possibilities and making impossible choices, to watching as our creation evolves on its own. 

We plant seeds in our gardens. Tiny hard packets of possibility. We go, armed with tools that bring us confidence if not guarantees. Spades, forks, rakes, cultivators, watering cans, tiny pots to start plants on windowsills, intensely scrutinized as morning coffee brews… Perhaps the seed won’t sprout. Perhaps a bird will eat it, or it will mold before it grows, or it will grow politely in its patch, or perhaps it will grow to take over entire gardens. Seeds are not promises, they’re possibilities. 

Do your seeds grow in a garden, or are they wild? What do you notice first? What takes time to become clear? Are there vines and brambles and hidden mushrooms? Are there neat, tidy rows? Do you plant with a ruler, or do you toss them, wild eyed, daring them to compete for light, warmth, water, and will? How does it grow through the season? Does it feed you? Does it feed itself, symbiotic plants fixing nitrogen, creating structures to climb… what other things live there? What bugs, worms, butterflies and critters make their home here? Sleep. Creep. Leap. 

So many marks in our lives are not of our choosing or making. We zentangle the corners of our identities, weaving our webs of self in the corners and doorways of our hearts. Sometimes we do the arduous work of shifting some of the major structures, but always there will be a shadow of where the structures used to be. 

A sigh. The body heaving and moaning, lungs letting go of their cargo. Another breath, and a moan. Breathe, and keen. Breathe, and sing. Breathe, and speak. Breathe, and whisper. Breathe, and whimper. Breathe and cry. Breathe, and wail. Breathe, and hum. Breathe, and shush. Hush. Hush.

Puzzle pieces, jumbled in the heart. Slowly assembled, but not all the parts belong, and some fit together only tenuously. How do you approach this puzzle? What do you do with the pieces that don’t quite fit? 

Another place, another time. A wind comes, and sucks fiercely at the branches, and the stones, and the bones. Taking away anything that is not solid and strong and it is scary but in its wake is a clarity and lightness of spirit that would never have been chosen…… but dances with the vastness of spirit.

Sweat, beading and falling, rolling down warm skin, finding its path and blossoming as a dark patch on fabric. Tingles on sun- warmed skin, and more sweat. A salty sting in the eye, and then the delight of a gentle breeze kissing salty, sweaty skin. A face turned to greet the breeze, and the scent of flowers comes with it. An eternity in a moment, an indulgent moment, in deep awareness of the strong currents swirling, always swirling, in an endless dance.

What sweeps you away? What grabs your fascination with thousands of enfolding hands and everything else falls away before the deep passions of your being? What is it that you pick up, and the hours disappear as you dissolve into the joy of doing? Is there more than one thing? How often do you let yourself become so absorbed in something? Does it scare you? Delight you? Confuse you? 

What is the weave of your fabric? What is the warp, running along the length of your life, sticking with you, stubbornly or consistently, supporting you? Is it thick or barely noticeable in the final tapestry of your story? What is the weft? The threads you choose each day, weaving in and out of the other strands of your life? Is your weave smooth and even? Do you feel the threads with your fingertips? Is it sticky and fuzzy and awkward, tangling from time to time? How patient are you as you untangle the threads? Do you change your weft, to make it easier to weave, or do you like that soft, fuzzy wool so much you’ll take the time to slowly work it into your fabric? When you pull a thread from your life, how careful are you to pluck each remnant fiber out? Do you keep it? Do you add it to a new project? Do you let it go?

Consider for a moment,

The sensation of sun on your skin

Goosebumps

Cold shivers

The scent of rain and leaves in autumn

The crunching sounds of cold snow underfoot

The smell of wildflowers

The sound of bumblebees

The warm heaviness of loved ones sleeping in your arms

The taste of honey

A cup of tea, a toasty woodstove, and a compelling story

Easing into a warm bath

Watching the sun rise

Watching the sun set.

Soddenly crawling into bed after fulfilling, challenging work, to relax into a deep velvety sleep

Bathing in Full Moon light.

The feel of writing with the perfect pen

Waking slowly from a sweet dream, a smile on your lips, as you gently bring that sweetness into your waking day

Gently soaking knitted lace, spreading it out, and seeing the patterns and swirls emerge clearly for the first time

The first flowers pushing their way through the winter snows

Working diligently at a piece of art, stepping back, and realizing it is so much more than you thought as you were working so carefully up close

The way a perfect sunset takes your  breath away.

Music so beautiful you gently cry

The first ripe tomato in the garden

What feelings make you stop, forget the past and the future, feelings that make you exist only now?

What is precious to you?

What moments in your life changed you forever?

What mistakes have you made that were actually happy accidents that revealed things to you you can’t now imagine your life not containing?

What is your favorite flower? Color? Bird call? Food? Animal? Person? Time of day? 

What do you turn to for comfort when the world feels too big, too hard, too much? 

How do you celebrate when things flow well?

How do you know when it’s time to be done? When it’s time to step back, to look at the whole, and to contemplate final touches? How do we know when, and how to let go? 

Look at your piece. Close your eyes. Breathe deep and think of puppies, waterfalls, and candle flames. 

Open your eyes again. If you were only to make one more mark upon the page, what would it be? 

Perhaps things need to sit sometimes. Perhaps the time isn’t now. Perhaps your work isn’t complete, and there isn’t anything you can do about that right now. Are you able to let things be, trusting that when the time is right, you’ll know, you’ll return, and both you and the piece will be ready?

It’s time to set our tools down for now. We are not static. We need to rest, to nourish, to eliminate, to dream. Our art flows like waves in the ocean, with tides and swells and spray.

Feel yourself. Be curious, but not judgemental. Feel your breath, and the points of your body that are supporting your weight. Feel the spots of tension you’re holding. Go ahead and roll your shoulders. Feel the frustrations, and the satisfactions, and the confusions, and the surprises… and breathe.

Feel your chest rising and falling with your breath. Wiggle your fingers and toes, your legs and your arms, give yourself a hug, run your fingers through your hair, take a deep breath, and take a minute to just be in your body. 

Thank you so much, and I wish you a beautiful season.

Art doodle

Art by Kimé Moore, used with permission

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To see more of Kimé’s art, visit her page, SwedishWillow Arts, on Instagram or Facebook.

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Spirit Soaring!

by Kate Richardson
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The Spirit Soaring Art Salon and Gallery formed the core and bulk of my experience at the Parliament of 2018. In the weeks leading up to it, I had already been reaching out to and communicating with artists who might participate. When I arrived on Thursday, the first thing I did after checking in at the EarthSpirit booth was to start setting up the gallery space, located in a generous alcove right next to the Red Tent. Deirdre negotiated lighting as I unloaded my easels and tables (the overhead fluorescents were on one switch, and lit both gallery and Red Tent).

Deborah Koff-Chapin showed up early, and set up a table draped with a banner and decks of her Soul Cards. Deborah then spent every plenary and assembly making ‘touch paintings’ in response to the speakers and performers; keep an eye out for an online gallery of her Parliament work. Swami Matagiri Perkins dropped off two paintings by Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, and I set up a table with the drawing I had brought and some cards, just so it wouldn’t seem empty.

Over the next couple of days more work arrived and the space became full and lively. One evening an artists who became aware of the gallery while visiting the Red Tent

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Mosa’s altar and Carolyn’s mask (photo by Moira Ashleigh)

called me to ask if she could set up an altar. I enthusiastically invited her to do so; it was a thing I wished I had the energy and resources to plan and execute but had not been able to. So I met Mosa McNeilly, who set up a beautiful and deeply meaningful altar honoring Yemaya, and her ancestors brought from Africa to America. She gave permission to share the poem she posted alongside the altar, which I will do in a separate post.

Sunday morning I arrived to check on the gallery and found some striking drawings of stylized goddess faces right next to Carolyn Hawthorn’s paper sculpture of Medusa’s head, resonating with her fierce energy.  I did not get to meet the artist, Megha Venketasamy, until the actual Salon on Monday, just another example of the beautiful synergy of our location right next to the Red Tent.  I can’t speak enough gratitude for the way ALisa and the Red Tent holders shared the space and the flow of energy through our area. The Spirit Soaring gallery and the Red Tent experienced a flow of conversation, energy and experience between them that felt inviting and richly creative.

Finally Monday noon arrived, and the gallery filled with even more art, along with all the artists and others who came to attend the Salon. I patterned the presentation on our EarthSpirit Art Salons. Each of the artists briefly introduced herself and her work, then presented some statement or demonstration of how her creative process connects with or expresses her spirituality. With 17 artists presenting, we used the entire 90 minute time allotted, and many stayed later to engage or continue conversations.

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Dr. Suresh dancing (photo by Moira Ashleigh)

The offerings were wide-ranging. There were drawings, paintings and photography, weavings and tapestries, and books. Cheri Jamison sang an operatic aria, Mani Rao sang one of the Zoroastrian devotional songs she has composed, Dr. Padmaja Suresh along with her spoken presentation, demonstrated her training in Indian classical dance. Mosa read her poem and called on Yemaya with chant and rattle. The artists came from different disciplines and different spiritual backgrounds, and there was a joyful enthusiasm of sharing the wealth and range of expression.

Many of the artists expressed interest in keeping in touch with each other, and following each others’ work. I felt that the supportive, engaging experience I’ve had with our EarthSpirit Art Salon’s format translated very well to this setting. I received enthusiastic feedback encouraging us to repeat and expand upon it for the next Parliament.

I had thought this would be the end of my blog post, which I drafted after the Art Salon, but the experience continued! On Tuesday, the art started to leave the gallery, and I started to break down the easels and tables. In the late afternoon as the space was emptying out, Mosa came by with some friends, and began drumming on some drums she’d left there after a workshop. People began dancing, and joining in the drumming and chanting. The now mostly empty gallery space became an impromptu drum and dance, which seemed a most fitting closing for the joyful expressive energy that had inhabited that corner of the convention center. It delighted me as I was preparing to let go of a space I’d been holding all week, and seemed like a natural outgrowth of the kind of energy that EarthSpirit seems to join with and bring forth in the world.

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Weaving a Fabric of Inclusion

by Andrew Watt
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One of the items on display here at A Parliament of the World’s Religions is Esther Bryan’s Quilt of Belonging. Consisting of 263 hexagonal frames for 263 embroidered and textile blocks, the quilt is a kind of self-portrait of Canada at the dawning of the Christian Era’s second millennium: there is one block for each of Canada’s First Nations, and one block for each nation of the wider world whose immigrants have come to Canada. It took six and a half years to create. Members of each immigrant group and First Nation worked on the block representing their community, some only agreeing after long periods of negotiation and gradual or grudging trust-building. One nation, San Marino, is represented by only one person in all of Canada, while other blocks represent thousands of people and their descendants. One two-year-old sewed a couple of stitches, while a 92-year-old had to be helped to hold the embroidery needle between trembling fingers. Just outside the display area, several massive crates with giant foam rollers inside hold the Quilt on its travels around Canada — which have already taken it enough miles to go from Earth to the Moon five times. Listening to Ms. Bryan talk about the creation of the quilt left me with the impression that the Quilt of Belonging is not simply a quilt: it is a treasure-house of stories.

The Quilt is currently on display on the first floor of the North Building. It’s nearly impossible to take in all at once — the ribbon of color that forms the upper edge creates a rainbow of extraordinary intensity. Yet as one approaches, the appearance of continuum dissolves into a formula of precise strips of color all down the length of the hall. Beneath

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Photo by Miriam Klamkin

these ribbons of hue in harmonious order are the Nations. The eye catches on San Marino, and then on the Tlinglit First Nation. One has to go and seek out countries of one’s own national origin: perhaps Great Britain, perhaps France. The Diné come into view, and then perhaps Thailand. Malayasia and Tonga and Cuba appear. The Labradorans and the Dakota and the Haida.

It’s the opposite of erasure.

And then something curious happens. You stop seeing the names of countries, and you start looking at the artistry, at the needlework, at the overarching structure of the quilt. You start to see the heavy tassels of yarn along the bottom. You start seeing how the fabric pulls against the stitch-work here and there. You begin to imagine women and men sitting with Esther Bryan in kitchens and living rooms, all across Canada, as she gently but deliberately earned their trust, came into their communities, and helped them stitch a quilt block. This pull here was a stab through the textile by an untrained hand; that one over there is a daughter guiding her mother’s hands that are starting to lose a battle with arthritis; these interwoven threads were stained by the tears of a refugee remembering their homeland. You start to see those big crates carrying the quilt on the back of a cargo skid pulled by a ski-doo across the ice for a display in the far north, or hauled onto a ferry for a showing on Prince Edward Island. You imagine careful hands unrolling it from its crate for the first time, and staring in wonder at a picture of their homeland for the first time.

And then you, the viewer, start to cry.

You become one with the stories that you see, hear, and imagine in the great quilt before you. You, in a sudden moment, find yourself drawn into the story of Canada, even as a visitor, you find yourself wrapped in all the tales of wonder and heartbreak and hope and tragedy and dignity that are caught up in this quilt, tangled together in its threads and in its fabric.

You are in the presence of a relic. A medicine, in a sense. An object that has been made holy by the hands that have made it, and the stories that have been woven into it, and

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Photo by Miriam Klamkin

the community that has chosen to honor it. An emblem of Canada — not its government, not its national presence on an international stage — but of its people and its common life.

So many rooms and spaces at the Parliament are barren and devoid of symbolism. It’s a conference center, of course — part of the very nature of the spaces within it is that they are non-descript and easily shifted from one purpose to another and another. At the same time, though, the Quilt of Belonging shows a portrait of grace: a nation of nations, a country of countries, at peace with itself and with its neighbors.

And simply by viewing the quilt with your other eyes, you feel the potential for welcome and trust, the gracious hospitality, and the growing strength, of this year’s host nation for the Parliament.
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EarthSpirit is at A Parliament of the World’s Religions this week in Toronto!  You can find more updates here and on our Facebook page.  

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Searching for Symbolic Identity


by Martin Bridge
3 views of goddess carving by Martin Bridge
The experience of Spirit, of Magic, of the transcendent far outweighs the importance of understanding it. Those who have attended one of the Art Salon events at either “Rites of Spring” or “A Feast of Lights” will no doubt have heard me speak to the importance of the yearlong study of “Anamanta” and the effect it had on my artwork. My work became much more abstract for numerous reasons, the first and foremost is the emphasis placed on experience.

One of the other essential aspects of this shift is that I feel like the illustrative quality of much Pagan Artwork that depicts spiritual or deific forces often trivializes these entities. It also sets unrealistic expectations in seekers, leaving some people searching for grand visions of towering White Stags emerging from the perimeter of a Stone circle that has materialized around them or a Silver clad Goddess descending from the moon. While we wait for these experiences we may miss the more subtle (and more frequent) expressions of spirit.

As EarthSpirit has been evolving, how the community defines itself changes as well. Even the slight change in the language in describing “Rites of Spring’ from “A Pagan Celebration” to “A Celebration of the Sacred Earth”, is a strong indication of it’s individuality and uniqueness that has been shaped by it’s history. One of the main reasons for initiating the Art Salons was to give the visual artists within our community a chance to share and talk about their work while exploring how we can better integrate what we do into the rituals and evolving traditions of the community. This also created the opportunity to start to talk about how what we put forward visually describes and defines who we are. A related area that I am trying to explore, in my own work as well as in groups like the Spider Clan at “Twilight Covening” is to look at the symbols we use in our art and ritual working.

I feel a bit of an internal tug of war when I think about the use of symbols in relationship to my magical work. I at once feel a strong resonance with the power of ancient symbols from times long past and foreign cultures and also a strong desire to move away from the cultural appropriation, editorial revival and sometimes direct misuse of symbols that I see within the greater neo-pagan movement.

Of Depicting the Goddess

For years I have not chosen goddess forms or imagery for any of my work. It took a comment from a friend to draw my attention to this and I realized that there was a subconscious choice to stay away from them as I feel there is a wide array (bordering on a surplus) in contemporary neo-pagan artwork and I didn’t feel like I had any particular insight or anything remotely original to bring into the mix. I didn’t want to work on the subject(s) simply because of other people’s potential interest in it.

It was not until I spent a weekend in my great Uncle Clark Fitz-Gerald’s studio with his son Stephen that I chose to do a small venus form that was partially inspired by that friend’s comment and almost challenge to work in a more feminine quality (even in my abstract work). And largely inspired by my Great uncle’s own interest in the Iconic “Venus” forms and his collection of replicas of Neolithic and early European goddess forms and his own renditions including the comical “Venus of Bucksport.” His interest in these forms are similar to my own, finding the simple, more iconic and abstract forms some of the most compelling images of the divine feminine.

This particular rendition was carved primarily at Twilight Covening. One of the predominant themes that was held through the visioning ritual last year was abundance, in particular abundance of what we need. This tied in closely with the story of part of the carving’s creation.

“This tree was cut five months ago and this segment left behind. Rather than leaving it to rot I chose to make something of it. When I began my work I had a clear image of what I wanted it to shape but I was working with haste and accidentally fractured a part of the wood. Due to my carelessness I had lost an essential part of the wood and I would be unable to create the form I had originally envisioned.”

“At that point I was left with two options: abandon my work and leave what remains to rot. Or to continue, working with prudence, and though I recognize that no mater what I do I would not be able to shape the form I had originally envisioned that I could still shape a work of beauty with what I did have.”

Our expectations and dreams sometime cloud us from seeing the beauty of a more simple way of being.

Some of the other more significant aspects of this piece are that it was shaped from the base of the tree that provided the Maypole used at Rites of Spring 2008. Also the beadwork adorning her form was done with patterns, most of which arose from this past Spider Clan’s work in exploring symbols relating to abundance. This has an important connection to the second piece I will describe here.

Energies of Abundance

Abundance painting by Martin Bridge
This painting grew directly out of the clan work at Twilight Covening 2008. One of the predominant energies we were exploring was that of Abundance. Long before the event we were sensing the growing sentiment of Lack, as people were wrestling with the idea of travel primarily due to high gas costs. Little did we know as we chose this as one of the energies to explore that the event would be precipitated in less than a month with the banking collapse that lead to the current recession we are experiencing.

While human markets were crashing the climatic conditions yielded a bumper crop of apples in the Northeast. Apple trees were dropping branches under the weight of this years fruiting, one person I spoke with mentioned that it was the greatest crop he had seen on the trees in his memory of approximately 80 years.

Over the years of the Spider Clan’s work we have seen a remarkable co-incidence of multiple persons conjuring similar representations when asked to visually depict something symbolic of a particular energy or principle. This year one of the most predominant images that appeared in conjunction with the idea of abundance was that of a fruiting tree, providing enough to be taken and still to return to the earth continuing to provide for future generations. As we distilled and simplified the form the symbol utilized in this composition was what resulted.

The composition of this piece is one frequently repeated in my work, with a central symbol centered below two circular forms suggestive of eyes – a universal symbols for consciousness. In this case it was considering the extreme version of animistic philosophy that even ideas and concepts can have a spirit or consciousness guiding them.

My hope is that as we continue such exploration that our community can develop it’s own symbolic/visual identity and we can begin to rely less and less on external, adopted (or appropriated) symbols.

I invite you to play with and utilize this symbol in any way you can utilize it in line with its original intention.

(Go to http://martin.ritualarts.org to learn more about Martin and see his artwork.)