New Years Monk Mandala with POP ART

The Monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery rock! I was blessed to have a front row seat at the releasing of this labor of love, the sand mandala. Words cannot convey how intense this work of art is, I was shaking when I saw it “finished”  on New Years Eve.

Seret’s Collection here in Santa Fe hosts the monks each year for their daily chanting and sand tapestry creations.  I had never seen the releasing, and was blessed to have my buddies Amy and Beth there with me. Each stage of the ceremony was filled with a pageantry and beauty that was inspiring.

When the monks came out in their yellow crowns I felt like Mayan priests had entered the room from centuries past. The telescoping horns they played shook my entire torso as the two elder women bowed to their offerings. Watching the precision and reverence they carried during each of the phases of the event was an honor.

They chanted, blew horns, made wild and crazy chaotic explosions of noise, and then were silent. Life really has become like one big acid trip, without the drugs. The world really is Technicolor, in sight, sounds, taste….and these ancient practices recognize that. Lets shake-um up so they enter an alternate reality, and then bring it down so they can sink into the temple we’ve created.

Then the mudra-making bell-ringer circumvented the mandala, took the white daisy that has been with the Dalai Lama altar, and dropped it in the center. Very Wabi Sabi; lets rake a perfect zen garden, and then drop a leaf in it.

He took bits of the sand from each directions and dropped them in the center on the flower. He bowed his head, took off his pompadour hat, and placed some sand on the crown of his head. Next came the slow and methodical crooked pointer finger pushing the sand into the center from the four cardinal directions, and then the cross quarters. In one of the photos you can see the white powder on the monk’s finger and his quietly profound recognition of having this sacred dust on his finger.

Time for  a changing of the guard, another monk takes his blue handled brush and does swirls into the center to obscure the images. wow. The busy bee monks are on point again, no more rhythmic chanting here, they need to make little dime bags of sand for we patient devotees to carry off into the world. The MC monk said this was the first time they had dedicated one of their mandalas to abundance and prosperity. They wished for the world to see a rebalancing in resources.

AND as if it couldn’t get any better than this…THE POP ART ARRIVES.

Yes, one of the monks has a CHIPS AHOY box to carry the little sand offerings in. It was such a thrilling juxtaposition, the ancient traditions with a gleaming blue box of processed American cookies. The commercialization of the “good life,” in a box of hockey puck “treats.”  Life is so so good. And now my two baggies of vibrating rainbow sand are sitting with Santo Nino, Eshu, messenger between the worlds and opener of the pathways to blessings and abundance. Blessings on the sacred sparkly soils.

Thanks Amy for the first image of the Mandala-its a great one.

to see more about the monks: www.MysticalArtsofTibet.org

LETS-Land of Enchantment Tarot Symposium VIDEO of The Birth of The Oracle of Initiation

My Oracle of Initiation LETS presentation with the image "Sanctified"

I want to share the wonderful video Carrie Paris and I created today from my presentation for LETS- Land of Enchantment Tarot Symposium that was here in Santa Fe this October. Below is also an update about The Oracle and my travels, projects and upcoming adventures. Life is good.

LETS-Land of Enchantment Tarot Symposium VIDEO of the Oracle of Initiation’s Birth {use either headphones or plug into external speakers…the audio is low}

http://vivu.tv/portal/archive.jsp?flow=397-654-7677&id=1291578442700

Carrie Paris Tarot Goddess and co-organizer of LETS

I want to share some wonderful new videos about The Oracle of Initiation deck and keep you up to date about my travels. I will be leaving Santa Fe at the end of January 2011 to go to the west coast to teach and divine and then will be off to Central America for 5 months to learn Spanish. I am currently finishing the book to go with the Oracle deck and look forward to telling you more about that project and the wonderful contributors I have gathered. The deck is a vast and Mysterious creation that has called forth a variety of voices to help illuminate its potentials.

Lisa with one of her De St. Croix Tarot images

Tonight on the Sagittarius New Moon I was doing my manifesting through Beatrex Quntanna’s incredible 2010 Moon Book { to order your 2011 copy:

http://www.beatrex.com} She and Susan Lennox have created a workbook to utilize the moons incredible power to co-create the destiny we desire. The reason I am bringing this up is because there has been some really interesting synchronicities with this moon’s symbolism and my stepping out into videos offerings.

The ladies goofin' it up

Today Carrie Paris, local Tarot Goddess and I recorded my presentation for the LETS-Land of Enchantment Tarot Symposium conference that happened in October. The initial talk had technical difficulties and did not work. Part of the LETS conference’s magic was the potential to see the main presentations online, from anywhere in the world. Carrie and I tried to record my talk again, and the sound was silenced. So today, our 3^rd try, we recorded a great presentation on the birth of my Oracle deck, and the sound is low on some computers. Hmmmmm. here is the link again….

LETS-Land of Enchantment Tarot Symposium VIDEO of the Oracle of Initiation’s Birth {use either headphones or plug into external speakers…the audio is low}

http://vivu.tv/portal/archive.jsp?flow=397-654-7677&id=1291578442700

Jordan Hoggard with his soon to be available Land of Mystereum Tarot Deck- The Death Card

So I am reading about the Sagittarius New Moon in Beatrex’s book and the manifestation Goddess featured is Saraswati. The description speaks of her as “fusing our personality with the light of our divinity…When this fusion occurs, the Law of Sound is made available and we have the ability to manifest our vision through the resonance of our voice!!!!!”  So….it gets better…As Carrie and I created the altar backdrop for the LETS video today we PUT HER SCULPTURE OF SARASWATI BEHIND ME!!!!!

So, it is interesting that my video is muffled at times. Hmmmmm. Still sitting with what this may mean.

Tarot Maven Mary K. Greer with my Oracle deck

It really is a cool video, I am proud of it, and the images that accompany the fascinating story are gorgeous. Some of my early inspirations are really interesting. It is a 55 minute investment, but watch it instead of a TV show or reading something else. It really is a gift to see how another has enlivened her life and stepped into her unique passions and joys. Inspiration feeds the soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Co-organizer Margaret Letzkus on her sacred geometry presentation

 

I have also included a couple of animoto videos of my earlier work. Good stuff.

Earthen Body Series

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eagle Eye Graffiti-Earthen Body Series

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxEQUY342Og

Weiss Steele Early Art Work

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fire Horse collage

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0jYUc7Hgus

Donnaleigh de LaRose created this wonderful video using the Oracle deck. I will be on her Beyond Worlds Tarot Tribe radio show March 6th 2011. Cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcp8JM2eYc8&feature=player_embedded

January 15^th 2011 I will be speaking to the wonderful Albuquerque Tarot Meet-up…come play with one of the limited edition decks if you are in the area. We will have both juicy depth and raucous fun. That’s a good combo.

Sifu is so cooollll

So happy holiday, and if you want a reading in-person in Santa Fe, you will need to catch me before mid January. I can always do work over the phone as well.  I am seeing a lot of lineage coding coming up in people to be released and have had wonderful success with other clients in transforming those old messages and constrictions that were never truly ours. Break free from the agony of the illusions of isolation, shame and worthlessness. They are NOT TRUE YOURS.

There are also copies of the first edition of 88 signed copies of my Oracle deck on the website..go get your today to help read the landmarks, challenges and gifts along your glorious journey of awakening. www.OracleofInitation.com

Jordan, Marianna & I

So here’s to the intensity, the turbulence, and the great beauty of this Grand Initiation we are all undertaking. I will see you all dancing under the stars as we embody our true brilliance and divinity, together…MelissaBee

Pegasus collage by moi

NEW Painted Body Series #39-Turquoise Pendelton Blanket with Mudcloth

I am in LOVE with this newest set of photographs taken here on the land in New Mexico. The Painted Body ritualistic photography series has been one of the great loves of my life, as is the powerful earth here in the land of enchantment.

It is not an easy place to live. The desert is like The Dark Mother wielding her sword, “we shall cut this away NOW!” You do not marinate in your process here as you might in a more watery or relaxing place. Because of three very intense years here, and a need for more juiciness mixed with a deep inner-knowing that I am to learn Spanish, I am leaving. Look for me teaching and divining on the west coast this spring after I finish the book that accompanies my Oracle of Initiation deck.

I do not know if I will return to this lover, the land,  or if my wandering shall call me elsewhere, but I do know I have been blessed beyond reason with my creative & spiritual relationship to this place.

So on this windy day in Abiquiu I started my goodbyes. It was rough. And it was beautiful. This canyon may be my favorite place on the planet. I am so irrationally happy and at peace there. Something happens in a place where one is so happy. I look more alive, more beautiful in any photographs you will see of me there. I am fully me.

I will ask for love and faith as I step away from a home that has met me in ways I never knew possible, and may or may not be my daily dance partner in the future. We shall see. They say when New Mexico claims you, you will always be back. At least I am humble enough to realize I don’t really know where my path shall lead.

Blessings to the land, The Painted Body series, and my Oracle of Initiation deck that all emerged here.

I wrote this on facebook in response to others appreciation of the work: “The vibrant blue Pendelton blanket crown looks incredible with the stark-white canyon walls and equally arresting turquoise sky. There is a lushness to the primary colors vibrating off of the rugged, fraying African mudcloth. Cool man…life is beautiful…”

Way Weaver and Pattern Walker Coleen Renee’s Painted Body Initiation

My sister Coleen and I met the call of the Red Earth together through my Painted Body ritualistic photography process here in New Mexico. Enjoy Coleen’s first hand account of this transformative,  fierce and joyful experience:

Red Earth Calls

By Coleen Renee

 

Red Earth calls…

Primal stirrings…

Awakening self I do not recognize.

Oh.

It’s you!  Yes, I…I remember now.

Take my hand, let’s play, walk, sing, dance, scream, laugh, sleep, pray, be…

United.

I’ve missed you.

I love being in nature in my altogetherness.  The obvious vulnerability and the strength felt while standing in that vulnerability brings an aliveness and freedom one must experience to understand.  It’s perhaps a bit like the first time you say, “I love you” to someone.  You’re not quite sure how it will land, but you feel the power of owning and expressing it.

When I was invited to participate in the Painted Body work with Shaman/Artist/Healer, Melissa Weiss Steele, I said yes without hesitation.  Being naked in nature is almost always a “yes” for me.  Of course the Painted Body work offered something very different.  I have seen the growth of Melissa’s work over the years and heard many stories of her adventures.  I felt profoundly honored to be asked to participate with Melissa as my guide and witness.

We headed up a canyon in Abiquiu, New Mexico on a warm sunny afternoon in November.  Being a very pale woman of Irish descent with “bad” knees, I worried a bit about surviving the harsh sun and making the trek into and out of the canyon.  Melissa let me set the pace.  Toting a gallon of water I headed in with Melissa’s guidance.

I was not prepared for the intensity of the place: immediately sacred, challenging and very aware of me. Having been here many times, Melissa had become quite accustomed to the energies and gave me several helpful suggestions as I worked to acclimate to the intense energy moving through me.  I finally found my center by both grounding into the earth and lifting my heart to the heavens while leaning against a dark red earthen wall.

More in sync with the land and its energies, we continued into the canyon.  We had set our intentions as we drove to the canyon entrance.  I sought guidance for my work and the courage to walk my path fully.  The Land Spirits offered me teachings and gifts in great abundance.  I took in all that I could at the time and weeks later am finding new revelations from my experiences.

Deer chose the spot for the actual Painted Body work in the late afternoon.  As I disrobed, that familiar sense of strength and vulnerability infused me.  To remove the barriers between nature and myself is an act of trust that, for me, is always rewarded with a delightful communion of spirits.

The sensations of being painted – coolness of the paint, texture of the brushes – made me acutely aware of my skin and before I knew it moved me beyond it.  While my skin was being covered I slowly became more and more naked to myself. Parts I had never experienced began to surface.  These unexperienced parts of me intrigued and even thrilled me.  I slipped into my animal self – and sight, sound, smell, touch and even taste became attuned and merged.  My Western thinking mind no longer had control of me. I was free of ideas of who I was suppose to be.  I walked across the land without a thought to my feet.  I brandished a stick for the pure delight of it.  I laughed.  I prowled.  I rolled in the beautiful red, red earth and was embraced by the Mother and reborn.  I danced.  I played with Sun, Earth, Vegetation, Melissa, shadows – exploring whatever called to me there in the safety of the canyon and with Melissa as sacred witness.

As the sun moved beyond the canyon and shadows fell my new experiences merged within my more familiar self, now changed forever – now changed for better.  I vibrate differently.  I am more assured of my path and feel the courage to walk it pumping through me.  I dressed once more in my clothes but the Painted Body still covers me – it has become part of my new skin even after many weeks of bathing.

The next morning on the way to the airport, Melissa pulls off the road to show me some of the slides from the photos she took in the canyon.  Part of me doesn’t want to see them for fear they may rob my experience somehow.  But I am pleased to find how wonderful it is to recognize myself in a picture looking just like I felt at the time of the photo.  How rarely it happens in our culture to have one’s insides and outsides matching.  How delightful to have a visceral experience accurately captured – a true mirror of the naked self in the Painted Body.  I feel so grateful for this profoundly beautiful and deeply precious experience.  Thank you Melissa!

Margi Halfon’s Painted Body Initiation into the Hidden Petra-like New Mexico Desert

Petra is a DreamTime place. It is a magical and cloistered city tucked away in the desert cliffs of Jordan. The first time I saw an image of the huge temple facade peeking though a slender opening in the canyon walls I was stunned. I have yearned to walk through that portal into that otherworldly place since that day. I had no idea that through moving to New Mexico I was entering the same landscape as “a rose-red city half as old as time.”

Petra

Like Petra, New Mexico is an enchanted and mysterious place. It has its own hidden canyons, caves and tunnels. I have made it my work to enter these worlds and dance with the energies. The Painted Body ritualistic photography series emerged from these explorations in graffiti strewn tunnels and waterways. Now I am sharing these adventures with other brave souls, and we are embracing our fierceness and joy through these initiatory photo shoots.

Margi Halfon is a complex and magnetic person. She has her own deep cloistered parts, and is also a sparkly and engaging spirit. She and her partner Sean Tebor’s vision is to weave together yoga, dance and Tarot creating a community gathering place where Santa Fean’s can explore and embody their own juicy vitality.

Margi entered this Painted Body Process from a place of surrender and awe. She had recently gone through some intense personal shifts and was ready to meet the earth and herself through this collaborative ceremonial process. Throughout the journey she kept pointing out how much the land reminded her of Petra. She had been fortunate enough to visit as a younger woman when she lived in Israel. I had not shared with her yet that I pulled some of my own Oracle of Initiation divination cards and The Stargate deck by James F. Jereb before we met. Both of our ‘Masters of the Stargate’ cards were Egyptian. I found the parallels between her recognition of Petra similarities to this place and each of our connection through the cards to Sekhmet and Re incredible. The world NEVER ceases to amaze me.

Margi and I in a Petra-like portal created by the camera...life is so fascinating

As we wound our way back into my secret cathedral in the stones I was aware of what a gift I have been given by having such a sacred place for my soul. Margi illuminated how rare it is to have a relationship that feeds and nurtures me so deeply. It really is my hidden sacred temple. It is home. The feelings of love, joy, peace and belonging I experience there is what I have always dreamed of. This knowing of my connection to the land is part of the wisdom I share when I take people on these initiatory journeys; a gateway into their own re-enchantment with the Earth Mother.

During the Painted Body process different people need different things. At times the Painted Body shoots have been very shamanic and intense, at other times playful and inquisitive, but always potent and visceral. It really calls forth what transformation that person needs at that time. The process always offers a doorway into delight and wonder through engaging with the raw natural world. The exposure of the nudity, the sensuality of the paints and the soil, the freedom of flowing through the ritualistic container that we create all offer an opening into ones true essence. That really is our work, to reclaim our own inner knowing and engage with life from that innate radiance. We are all creative, passionate, powerful people when we release old programs and constrictions connecting to our pure potential.

Margi met this place of pure potential. She embodied her regalness, her reserve, her exuberance, her vulnerability and her unbridled joy. She danced her own rhythms, she touched her own depths, and the canyon, camera and I witnessed her majestic Spirit. It was an honor to share this experience with her. Life is beautiful. Thank You.

www.OracleofInitiation.com

Water like Fire-Lyric Kali’s Water Spirit Initiation

I.

Water in the desert is extremely precious. I grew up in the lush and mossy Northwest where the water element could be overly abundant at times. Moving to the Southwest has completely changed my relationship to this fundamental structure of life. Many times I will go exploring in the wild and not hear or feel the direct presence of water. This is truly like being a fish out of water.

One of my favorite places on earth is Abiquiu, New Mexico. I fell in love with this magical place three years ago when I visited The Ghost Ranch for the first time. This is the land Georgia O’Keefe claimed as her own, her sacred place; exploring & painting the mesas, arroyos and geological wonders of this expansive landscape for the last fifty years of her life. Abiquiu captured my heart and soul as well, it is the terrain of all of the “above ground” Painted Body images in my Oracle of Initiation deck.

Over two years ago I opened my solitary work with the Painted Body ritualistic photography series to collaborations with others artist, mystics & adventurers. I am thrilled to share some of the images that were created yesterday in a rainstorm with the fierce and earthened Lyric Kali. Lyric is one of those people you do not forget. When you meet her she glows. She is passionate, outspoken, perceptive and fascinated by the complexities of people’s engagement with life.

She is alive. She can also be intimidating depending on how comfortable you are with your own strength.  Her work is inspiring people through her own story of struggling with self-worth through her physical form. The ways we accept or isolate ourselves because of the size, shape, or color of our bodies. She is a brave woman who embraces the underworld descent as an essential component to reaching the upper world expansion. She carries duality and paradox in a way few people can manage. She is a vision of walking your talk, even with its uncertainties and insecurities. I honor her ability to grab life and ecstatically dance with it.

Lyric became archetypal during this photo shoot. She became the flowing earth; she became the blood red water; she became the flames of power that were pounding off the rocks. She was the graceful bird, the sturdy  rock, the timid maiden, the shape-shifiting priestess, the fertility Goddess in all her glory. She was The Feminine in all its various guises. It was a great honor to witness her beauty through merging with beloved Oshun, the water deity of unbridled passion and delight.

II.

I too had my own initiation with the Water Spirits surging over the canyon walls. I want to point out again the rare opportunities running water in the desert affords. I have been to my blessed Rainbow Canyon at least 40 times. I have seen running water in it TWICE. Both of those times have been in the last three weeks.

It has been my dream since moving to New Mexico to actually see what a flooding arroyo looks like. I was warned that you could be swept away by the strong torrents of rushing water when the sky really opens up. I had never been at the right place at the right time to experience this primordial force. About three weeks ago I did a major release of some fundamental pieces of my life. I had done a process and closed the door on a series of choices and relationships that no longer served me.  Part of the process was to burn some sacred items. I knew I needed to bury the remains in my beloved canyon, for mama earth the transform them.

The day I went up to bury the shards the sky was dark gray; very foreboding. After surrendering my offering to the holy dirt the rains began. The Thunder Beings danced across the skies and the deluge began. It came on so quickly I could understand the warning about being taken away by the currents. I finally got to experience my sacred place when she is drenched in water. I got to hear the sounds, smell the soaked earth, see the channels of red earth merge into the stream. It was incredible. She became alive in ways I had never seen. It literally was the greatest gift I could receive. My prayers of self-liberation were answered with the best day ever. I was soaked and muddy when I walked back along the slippery road to my car. I was totally full and beaming with gratitude and joy. How could it get any better than this?

As I absorbed all of the sights and sounds of this unknown aquatic desert world I heard a powerful sound. I thought it was the reeds in the river beings whipped around by the wind. As I looked at the reeds they were still. What was this jet engine sound echoing off the canyon walls? As I looked ahead there was a massive waterfall pouring off a high bluff across the river. I was stunned. I had never witnessed the water in that way. It was as if the world was upside down, completely changed. Dry one day, moist the next. The oceans returned to this ancient land.

Blood Red Rio Grande

I yearned to baptize my new identity under its powerful vitality, but there was no way to cross the river. I stood honoring this unique miracle and then continued up the road. As I rounded a corner…the angles kissed me. A blood red, wild, rushing flow of water was leaping and pounding over the rocks on MY SIDE!!!

I sat beside the watery temple both entranced and intimidated by its fierceness. I asked my Spirits if I should go in….and they said “naw.”  hmmmm. It was such a calm and centered No that I trusted it. I did analyze why I wouldn’t. This is ME. This is the woman I have become, a woman who disrobes and meets the rushing water at its source. And I got a NO. And I trusted it. So I sat and communed with the flowing altar for a bit. Out of nowhere a little truck comes chugging by; a young couple were out exploring. OH, that is why I was held back. After they passed I asked again, I got a definite yes. So I too, as Lyric just did, met the Water Spirits here on this arid desert landscape.

After each of our immersion rituals the skies cleared and the sun returned warming our satiated bodies.

What a blessed, blessed life it is.

Oracle of Initiation cards on the land of their emergence

I took these images Sunday in Abiquiu where the “above ground” Painted Body ritualistic  photographs were taken for my Oracle of Initiation deck. The canyons, waterways and mesas of Northwestern New Mexico are my home. There is a calm, a beauty, a resonance for me in that place that rewires my nervous system whenever I visit.

Below I will share something I channeled after serendipitously finding what I call Rainbow Canyon. The piece below is also how I received my new name, Kwahu, from Maria Yraceburu. I had just moved to New Mexico and went to San Diego where Maria & Lynda Yraceburu were living at the time. Maria is one of my Teachers, and I felt it was time for a new name. Horse Dancer no longer resonated, the Horse Spirits had done their work of bringing me to the Southwest and now I was in a new phase. I asked Maria if she had any thoughts, and while reading the last paragraph of the piece below she dashed out of the room and came back with a card bearing the word Kwahu on it. It means “Eagle Prayer.” She said the calling forth the others is the visionary work of the Eagle Clan, and that was my destiny. Great honor and blessings to being seen and may I learn how to gracefully carry that calling. Love to the land, my Spirits, and transformation. www.OracleofInitiation.com

Ghost Ranch December 2007

I sat on top of the ridge looking down into the canyon below and cried. I cried because of how truly happy I am. I cried because it feels so good to be here, so right. This Technicolor climate with foreign topographies. A land I have not known in this lifetime, but am inexplicably drawn to. I would try to stop crying, but would begin again, a heaving sob of joy over learning how to be truly satisfied. Satisfied for yourself; satisfied through the land and adventure; satisfied because you were brave enough to make a new life and your body knows its real.

You are right where you are meant to be. No longer feeling left out or lonely, no longer seeing what is missing or lost, but holding onto what is honestly yours. Embracing the fullness of this time, and living the life you have always dreamed of living. Walking this pristine land alone, in silence, with the wind and sun and the birds.

A remembrance, a coming home to some part of yourself you never knew. Having come so far into yourself that no one, nothing, can turn you back now. You belong, wholly, completely. You are finally sovereign, unto yourself. You have done it, you belong to only you, and now you can truly share, because you are centered in your power.

And the Universe shall meet you from this place, and call your name, and ask you to come forth, offering what you have learned. And it will be glorious, ringing true to those who can hear the call, the call to an authentic life.

Welcome home, you have just arrived.

NEW Painted Body ritualistic photography series in New Mexico

I romped through the lush fields of one of my favorite locations here in Santa Fe  creating the 33rd shoot in the Painted Body ritualistic photography series. The Painted Body process brings me profound delight, a way to play with nature in a way I knew as a child. And yet the woman also plays, enchants, is seduced by the raw beauty of the moment, the sensory awareness ripened and different than the child…the luscious union between woman and land…home. The preciousness of vibrant green expanses within this arid desert climate can also not be underestimated. Blessings to the Water and Fire Spirits.

May you find and dance your own wild joy…blessings Melissa

I have included a few of the images below…see the video for more..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjfL9IQwstY

www.OracleofInitation.com

www.MelissaWeissSteele.Wordpress.com

Returning to Mother Ocean

Returning to Mother Ocean yesterday, I cried.

The desert has called me to her arid climate, yet my cells spent nearly four decades at the seaside. Your cells do not forget these things. I was also reminded how much you learn about her ways over time. A friend from Hawaii said you never turn your back on her, she is fierce and wild and unpredictable; deserving of great reverence. When you have spent your formative years dancing at the hems of her undulating skirt, you sense when you may get swamped by a big wave;  you can feel when the tide is retreating;  you know when not too get too close. Mother trains you.

The Ocean in Big Sur is untamed and free, crashing wildly against these glorious rugged black cliffs. It’s enough to make a coastal girl swoon. The power and force of the surf here reminded me of an incredible Earthen Body photography shoot I did in 2007 at Whariki Beach in New Zealand. The Earthen Body series of self-portraits were the beginning of my exploration of merging with The Earth and reclaiming my sovereignty through disrobing before the Mother. The Painted Body images within The Oracle of Initiation came directly from this transformative process.

Today in Big Sur I was reminded of the intensity of that  Whariki experience as the waves pounded in and out of the beautiful eroded chambers within the rocks. There is a primal energy to the crashing surf that is unmistakable. I actually find it terrifying at times, completely out of my human understanding of elemental power and force. That level of base survival instinct also has the ability to awaken a compelling intensity within a ritualistic context. You can see it in the images below from New Zealand. I was actually within a cave as the surf pounded into the  caverns worn into the craggy mound. I did not actually know if the waves would engulf me, breaking through whatever barrier was keeping them at bay. Boy was that a day.

So much of the work I do is about facing fears, and finding my own strength and passion within that place; the Ocean is an invaluable ally. These Whariki images below  are what the wild ocean feels like to me. I have returned to her, and my cells  are singing in profound love and reverence.

She even offered a rainbow at dusk. How does it get any better than this?

I shall kiss the ocean for all your desert and interior dwellers. She is a Queen.

Duality Doll and The Incredible Hulk-A Modern Day Myth of Love

Today we shall share a modern-day fairytale though the love story of Duality Doll and The Incredible Hulk. As with most great myths, this lies somewhere between fact and fiction.

Duality Doll and The Incredible Hulk make their home in a lovely valley in New Mexico. Their intimate bond was first observed by a plucky and adventuresome photographer as she was being initiated by the Earth Spirits of these enchanted lands. During this enlightening process the photographer wrestled with her own issues of judgment and dissociating from the earth through witnessing the discarded debris on the land. This daring artistic messenger was called to see the beauty and tragedy of our shared isolation from ourselves, and the earth; recognizing our responsibility in the unconscious use of natural resources. Throughout the process she was able to find resonance and holiness within the relationships and juxtapositions, patinas and patterns in these sand covered vignettes. The one thing that stood out strongest to the photographer was the children’s toys.  She took many images of these once cherished playmates, now abandoned and neglected. During these initiations was when the photographer was introduced to the potent bond of Duality Doll and The Incredible Hulk.

Duality Doll and her beloved, The Incredible Hulk, have endured a long and complex romantic tale. They are the legacy of a culture that turned away from their sustaining relationships to the sacredness of the earth, becoming a haunted and lost civilization.

To understand where they are now, we must go back to one of the pivotal moments when humanity lost its way. During the Medieval era, when the ruling elite established the feudal system, people became property. This inhumane practice caused a deep splintering within the sacred bonds of humans and their earth-centered relationships.

The men were torn from their sustaining connection to working the land. They were required to go to war, breaking their innate connection to the tending {tenderness} within their lives. The women were left to carry the entire weight of the homestead, no longer part of a supportive web of seasons and cycles within a vital community. The women also began to pursue the soulful partners they had lost. Instead of being the receiving shrines they were naturally created to be, the women began clutching and yearning for their men who were no longer available in the gentle protective ways they had once been. Both the men and the women lost the natural balance of giving and receiving, containing and expanding that was a nourishing balance for both.

Fast forward to our courageous characters today, and their contemporary predicament. Duality Doll learned she was not naturally valuable when she became a commodity, expected to be an over-accommodating pleaser. The Hulk lost his innate sense of duty and dignity when it was taken from him through oppression and force. They both lost their natural rhythms to each other when they no longer navigated from their intuitive internal compasses. They had lost their sense of grounded power and integration through the cultural structures of injustice, inequality and greed.

They lay together, eyes searching for the vision of the Beloved. His sacred amber chamber was shattered; he became the exaggeration of the once sacred warrior. Either aggressive or distant when faced with the heartbreak of the lost intimacy to himself and others. He is the green man on steroids, the awesome destructive force of nature, either out-of-control or vacant.

Duality Doll is living between her shadow and light. Half of her face is her deep feminine wisdom, and the other half is her expectation that she must please all others before herself. That she must deny her wholeness to soothe and satisfy everyone else’s needs. She does not know her true direction; her legs are splayed as she tries to live the life everyone else wants of her. She is the handless maiden, her tools of giving and receiving severed at the wrists. She can no longer authentically tend to herself or others, she is weak, defenseless and fragile.

And, even within this state, they are both true, and strong, and innocent, and real.  And they are there for each other. They spend their days in the snow and sun, washed over by the rains and sands, committed to being connected and learning to meet one another, again. They have all the tools they need surrounding them: her rusty sacred cauldron; a nourishing baby bottle; white paint to cleanse; the sacred plants and elements; and each other. Their eyes are open, and their body language says, “we are here for each other, lets figure this out together.”

Her arm socket is awaiting the flame to arise from the re-illumination of her Sacred Inner Temple. His darkening is the return to the fecundity of the earthy loving green man. Her torn holy robes, connecting them as a sign of their true divinity.  Their community of fellow rubble is reclaiming the temple of their civilization after the apocalypse. They are taking the abandonment and wreckage and reconstructing it into a unified and sustainable vision of utopia. And it all starts with this devotion and commitment to holding each other’s wholeness, beauty and shadow. Let us all emerge into a renewed world of sacred illumination through our beloved Earth Mother, our original container.