faeries in the garden...

My friend and neighbour hosted her daughter's 5th birthday party over the weekend. As a tribute to the little princess, she dressed in her daughter's favourite style - as a faerie.

I took this shot as she stood chatting with another mom. The cactus lined up perfectly beneath her, and then I went to work in photoshop...


the holy cactus has a guardian angel :)

Human energy fundamentals #1

There is no such thing as 'bad' energy.

We perceive reality mainly through our sense organs. Things around us transmit/reflect waves of energy, which we translate into sight and sound. Our sight depends on our interpretation of visual wavelengths entering our eyes. Our hearing depends on our ability to receive and interpret sound waves through our ears. Our sense organs send the input to our brains, which then processes the data and gives continuous feedback to the cognitive functions.

When we speak of working with the human energy field, we are referring to a range of vibrations that are not usually sensed with the sense organs. Generally these vibrations are interpreted emotionally. They can also be experienced as physical sensations in the body, depending on how much attention one is focusing on the input.

We are equipped to deal with a wide range of inputs within this range of frequencies. Some vibes make us comfortable, others make us uncomfortable. Most of us classify the comfortable vibes as 'good' and the uncomfortable ones as 'bad'. This judgement is based on how the incoming vibration makes us feel, which in turn is based on our capacity to process these vibrations.

There is no such thing as 'bad' energy. It is our reaction to the energy that determines how we classify it, and therefore we have created the distinction. Often times this works in our favor. A vibe that makes us uncomfortable may just be the fore-runner of an action that harms us. This mental classification has evolved along with our other survival mechanisms.

The danger with this classification comes when we begin working with the deeper levels of the human energy dynamic. We all experience suffering. We all have a range of emotions that make us feel bad. And this invariably stimulates the survival 'fight-or-flight' response. Often we experience an uncomfortable emotion and we instantly run from it or fight it off. In doing so we have failed to process our experience. This unprocessed experience sits as a 'block' in the personal energy dynamic. It hampers flow and therefore hampers spiritual growth.

When working with the human energy dynamic, the facilitator has to be aware that the distinction between 'good' and 'bad' energy is a function of the physical survival programming within the brain, and as such has no concrete reality outside of our perception of it. By understanding this one is free to work with a range of vibrations, and therefore more able to facilitate change.

portrait

This is part of a portrait that I'm busy working on. I'm trying out a new process, using the energy lines to create the feeling for the piece. I've done this in drawing for many years, but its another thing all together when paint is involved!

It's a portrait of a family friend. I'm hoping this painting will honor her, and allow her to acknowledge her deeper strengths. She's an investment banker, she flies round the world every other day, signing multi-million dollar contracts, shopping in the most expensive boutiques. She's confident and successful and completely on top of her game in the male dominated world of South African banking.

But she worries sometimes about not having a family to come home to, she works to hard to build up any deep or intimate relationships. So she is sad, and a little afraid, and she lives and loves hard to steady herself.

This painting is for a beautiful, strong, radiant woman. Brave, intelligent and headstrong.

I honor the contribution she makes by being alive.
I want her to experience herself as so much more than the sum of her hopes and fears.

spider mind

I used to be an arachnophobe. Spiders scared the hell out of me. All those legs, so foreign, so other. Then, a couple of years ago, while exploring the entheogen known as mescaline, I had a very interesting experience.

Ant and I were in our room, we had spent the day boiling copious amounts of San Pedro cactus in a large pot, and straining out all the lumpy bits, until all we had left was a thick, greenish brown, extremely foul tasting liquid. (I can quite honestly say that I have no intention of doing mescaline again as direct result of how absolutely awful it tastes...)

Anyway, we managed to drink the required cupful, and we were lounging in the main bedroom, safe space extraodonaire, enjoying the subtle feelings of mescalito as it began to course through our systems. We jammed a bit on the guitars, making music that sounded like heaven, the harmonies and riffs filling the air as naturally as our breath filled our lungs. The trip was very peaceful, and rather uneventful, until the point that Ant discovered a perfectly formed spider skin lying on our bed. It was the skin of the African Rain Spider, a large, non poisonous variety that moves indoors when the weather is wet. We had never seen such a perfectly shed exoskeleton before. The spider had managed to shed it in one go, and had done it almost as a gift, leaving it lying at the end of our bed. Rather unusual, considering that it must have happened during the course of the evening, while we came on to the trip.

It gave me the willies, but I was on the far side of the bed, and I felt the distance provided a sufficient buffer. But then Ant picked it up. He didn't know about my (rather silly) arachnophobia. He picked it up in order for me to get a better look, and I shrieked as the distance between me and the spider relic was all of a sudden reduced to a mere couple of centimetres. As he bought it into my personal space, I yelled even louder. But before I had the chance to get away, an extraodinary thing happened. I felt millions of little spiders, running up my legs, then up my torso, and down my arms. As they reached my hands, I had the strangest sensation of actually being a spider. Each hand was a spider. Each finger was a leg, and my hands curled as I merged completely. It felt like the soul of spider, the great archtype, the weaver, was inside me, and I was part of it. Patient spider, waiting quietly in the corner as the hours pass. Scuttling spider, weaver of webs and maker of silky strands. Spider as functioning consciousness.

Within seconds the whole experience was over. I was myself again. But I was no longer afraid. Spider was no longer other. Spider was now part of my intimate experience of being alive on this planet. Spider mind was one that I had managed to briefly touch, spider consciousness had been my consciouness for a fleeting moment.

I was in awe. I was wholy shaken. And I have never looked at spiders the same again. Since then I have done some research into the archtype of the weaver. In many African cultures spider is one of the gods, Ananzi, the mischevious weaver of illusions. Spider mind is a mind that can run 8 streams at the same time. Eight legs moving with conscious direction to forward spiders intentions. I have learned a lot from my brief period of oneness with spider mind. And it no longer scares me.

(The picture that I drew a few days later is the closest I can get to decribing the actual experience. Words fail terribly when discussing altered states of consciousness...)

NADA

This marking is threefold.

1. Not A Drug Addict

2. Spanish: meaning 'nothing'

3. Sanskrit: meaning 'universal source of sacred sound'

I have been using a plant as the basis for my spirituality since I left the church 10 years ago. I am tired of relying on an external source for my peace of mind. I am tired of being tired. I Am Not A Drug Addict.

Whenever my mind prompts me to roll a 'quick fix spliff' I am reminded by my marking that I have CHOSEN NOT TO. And every day I will chose not to, until I can use the herb as a sacred medicine guide. It is way to special to use without impeccable intent...

(just for your peace of mind, I practice scarification as a means of body decoration and as a way to mark sacred rites of passage. I only cut the top layer of the skin, leaving a scar that will fade - completely - within 6weeks to 3 months. At one stage of my life I used cutting as a means of pain relief (ironic, yes) but I have much better ways of dealing with my problems now. These days I am fully conscious when making a new marking, I act out of deliberate desire to affect positive change, rather than a compulsive pain-seeking self destructiveness...)

F*cking hippies!

I've spent the weekend, and the week before that, (and the month before that...) working on pulling together a Gathering. A Gathering of the hippie underground, the Rainbow Warriors. The idea originated in America in the 60's (what didn't?) and since then the annual American Rainbow Gathering has grown in numbers to the point that there are tens of thousands of people involved. Here in South Africa there were 5 of us committed to making it happen. Each with their own agenda. Five people, trying to find their way to some kind of consensus regarding community and neccessary action...

The initial Rainbow vision was created as a reaction against the blatant hedonism going down in hippy America. A few outstanding people decided against drugs, chose family and community instead, and so it grew. In South Africa if you mention a Gathering of the tribes, where marijuana is expressly discouraged, and kids are welcomed, you get a whole lot of blank stares. And nasty comments...

I guess the S.A. scene is just not ready for any cohesive action.

Turned out to be a great party. About a hundred people at the height of it (once the electronic music began) and lots of kiddies everywhere. But I didn't work my ass of to create a safe space for people to get stoned in. You can lead a horse to the water, but ya can't make him drink!

So, after weeks of effort and careful planning, I ended up spending the weekend at home, and popping in occasionally to check that things were running smoothly. Today I must go back again to help with all the packing away, picking up all the litter that the stoned hippies left lying in the sacred ground of an enchanted forest....

What I have learnt from all this is that community starts with two people, and then maybe grows to three, over the years perhaps a fourth person joins... and so on. There is no instant community fix. And even if we all smoke the herb together it don't make us family.