I’m still on track with my Life Book class, which is no small feat! A new lesson pops into my inbox every Sunday evening for the entire year and each is so different from the last.
“Messages from the Muse” with Shiloh Sophia McCloud
Shiloh says there is a legend that those who are supposed to meet are connected by an invisible red thread. For her lesson, she led us in what is called “visionary reception” — allowing a vision to present itself to us from our muse.
I had trouble with this week, honestly! I am not a fan of guided meditations and this woman is super spiritual about her painting. Because she was a bit much for me, I ended up following her pdf. Her work is gorgeous. Mine isn’t! But I did it. I think overall it’s horrid, so here is all you are allowed to see of it!
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“Artful Shamanism” with Effy Wild
Effy describes ‘artful shamanism’ as a way of going deeply within, “gathering insight and information about what’s happening ‘in there’ and then bringing that back out into the light of day in the form of an art journal spread.” I love her reason for art journaling: “Many of us are attracted to art journaling because it allows us the opportunity to process what’s happening in our lives, meet ourselves on the page, and memory keep in a meaningful and beautiful way.” I love that! That’s pretty much how I feel about writing in a journal.
Before there were therapists, there were shamans. Shamans were those members in our tribes of old who looked after the psychological and spiritual well-being of our ancestors by communing with their natural surroundings. Effy asked us to use our imagination to try to find the source of our inner selves. Or something like that. This one was too out there for me too.
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“Divine Colour” with Dion Dior
I learned all about ancient color systems and how colors relate to the Chakra system, an ancient philosophical model of our internal universe, consisting of seven levels of ever-expanding states of consciousness. The word “Chakra” translates to “Wheel,” a spinning sphere of energy within us.
Dion writes that to honor your own divine colors, you must remember to ALWAYS:
- Remain grounded and in touch with your body. Work toward good health and vitality.
- Be aware of your feelings without being ruled by them.
- Accept your sexuality without being driven by it.
- Have confidence in purpose, but don’t dominate others.
- Embrace your compassionate and loving heart. Remain centered and peaceful.
- Speak your truth with clarity and listen to those around you.
- Honor your imagination, wisdom, and divine spirit.
The rainbow within each of us is a complete indivisible system of color and energy, but for this lesson, Dion asked us to choose only one color. “Our choices and preferences of color bring us truly into ourselves.” I selected Indigo.
I learned that Indigo represents wisdom, self-mastery, spiritual realization, good judgement, life purpose, connection to divine. Dion says:
- Your indigo orientation is for self-reflection. Your demon is illusion.
- The element of indigo is light. It’s purpose is pattern recognition.
- The identities of indigo are image, intuition, imagination, visualization, insights, dreams, visions.
- To honor indigo, your affirmations are: “I see all things in clarity.” “I am open to the wisdom within me.” “I can manifest my vision.”
Huh.
The assignment was to use our color (indigo) and to use the color wheel to find complementary colors (orange-red and yellow-green).
Well, here are my watercolor flowers. They ended up looking more violet than indigo. I wonder what that says about my soul????
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ATC Swap Prep
During the last week of May, we worked on creating two ATC cards for a swap. How fun! ATC stands for ‘Artist Trading Card’ and they are basically miniature works of art sized: 2.5 x 3.5 inches intended for sale or swapsies!
Here are mine. I made three because I wanted to be able to keep one. I’ll let you know what I get in return!
Tim Holtz tissue paper, some paint and sprays, washi tape border, strips of words, and doodle pen.
You can view more “Behind the Art” posts here and more Life Book posts here.
