Hello beautiful blog followers….I want to give great honor to the beautiful process of my maiden voyage in blog land, and it is time for my new identity. Go to my NEW MellissaeLucia Worpress blog to follow the magic and FUN, and thank you for supporting this platform over the last couple of years. Mellissae Lucia {Melissa Weiss Steele}
http://mellissaelucia.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/painted-in-the-desert-a-travel-essay-and-my-new-name/
insect love in the jungle
Costa Rica has captured my heart, as I suspected it would. Before leaving on this adventure whenever I would say where I was going my shoulders would do this little shimmy and I would get a sly grin on my face. Good signs.
Orosi Valley, Costa Rica
The journey on this land has been both oddly familiar and perplexingly foreign. {I am still writing in the present tense. I did not realize this. The first morning back in the states on the rural Vashon Island i had a dream that I was still in the jungle. A part of me is still coming home}. It is a strange feeling to experience a place on an energetic level that does not translate to the practicalities of language and cultural differences with the human ones. The first time I was consciously aware of this type of experience was when I visited the Hopi lands in Arizona. It was home, and I was different.
My Spanish teacher Isabel
I began this trip in a delightful little village in a coffee growing valley call Orosi. It is the sort of place where people sit on their porches in the evenings and greet their neighbors, they have two sacramental temples, the church and the football {soccer} field, and they adore their children. An arty looking Swiss woman makes real, organic wheat bread and pastries, and you can almost always hear someone playing bouncy latin tunes and reggae-tone. They have natural hot springs, and the locals actually look pretty happy. When I researched Costa Rica, it said they are a unique country, with no standing army, almost the entire population is literate, and they have a very high standard of living for Central America. They have dedicated a large percentage of their land to national parks, and they live what they call “Pura Vida,” literally pure life, meaning life is really, really good. They actually say it on a regular basis.
Patron Saint of Costa Rica-Black Madonna Virgen de los Angeles
The magical synchronicities of the trip are still being absorbed, and I look forward to sharing what I can as I integrate the deep mysteries that came through the ancient ones and the land and stone spirits. As life will do, I was guided to spend a month in the Orosi valley which is 40 minutes from the most important religious site in Costa Rica, which has a BLACK MADONNA! On her feast day, August 2nd, the devout walk 20 miles on their hands and knees to the cathedral in Cartago. I got to see folks doing the final leg of the journey in the church as they slowly made their way up to the little two-inch icon in such a humble fashion. I did not know she existed until I had been there a while, as I do not research my trips extensively. I Intuit where to go, and then show up and am lead to where I am best served. More on the Virgen de los Angeles as it emerges.
Mist Spirits at volcano Irazu, Costa Rica
Volcano Irazu's brilliant lagoon
From the mossy lushness of the Northwest, my heart remembers the magical white horses grazing on the terraced green hills, the huge toads devouring bugs in the evenings, the giant flying cockroaches, the black earth of the volcanos with hot springs on the rivers, coffee coffeee everywhere, the charming “adios” given as a greeting, the American thrift store clothes imported for that real US flava’, running out of vegetables at the grocery store, trying to learn Spanish when I was being deeply initiated by molds and pollens {good luck}, the wild 6.0 earthquake on my 9th birthday {see last blog post}, the abundance of friends available when you stay in hostels, only wearing my backpack about 20 minutes the entire trip, hearing weed wackers buzz regularly as the Tico’s attempted to subjugate the jungle, how light and effervescent the volcanos actually felt, and Lord Aranal the volcano, shrouded in the mist spirits, with the vacation portion of the trip at the fabulous “backpackers resort” http://www.essencearenal.com/ Much love to the jungles I shall return to.
Volcano Aranal the last morning
OK, work with me here. I can´t find a way to call the US for under multiple dollars per minute, I am butchering the language and inserting my latent Italian at every turn, and saving the day in this magical verdant valley I have found a stencil graffiti artist that is extraordinary. I wish I could show you pictures, but I have blissfully left my laptop at home, and so you can see an image from when I was 15 in Paris and the level of detail the aerosol artist possess. The local ones here have that 1980´s punk feel to them with raw powerful women commanding their space and some erotic poses as well. WE LOVE IT as Alee and I would say. {Back in the USA..images added!!!}
I am here studying Spanish in the Orosi Valley in Central Costa Rica. The village is pokey and delightful, filled with vibrant tropical flowers, huge frogs in my hostel, and beautiful people. Costa Rica is the Switzerland of Central America with no standing army, a 95 percent literacy rate and a standard of living uncommon to their neighboring countries.
A plug for my school. I found Montana Linda in The Lonley Planet, and it is terrific. For $760. I get my own private dorm room for a month, a shared bath, kitchen privileges, and sixty hours of one’on’one Spanish classes. I am very happy with my teacher, and the entire staff is great. Montana Linda is said to be the most affordable school in the country, where costs can be double some of the other Central American countries. I also feel really safe here, and its pretty calm. You even get 2 dog guardians, magical white horses and cats on the roof. I won´t mention the big cockroaches. http://www.montanalinda.com/
I came here after going to Antigua, Guatemala for Semana Santa, their psychedelic Easter festivities. When I was researching this trip before my Oracle of Initiation book overtook every bit of my bandwidth, I read the name of this valley and a potent energetic YES swelled in my heart.
I actually have no idea why I am truly here. I have carried an intuitive knowing for about five years that I need to speak Spanish, and immersion was going to be the only way. My ego self has quite a long list of places I would choose to go before here, but here I am. I have been around the block enough to see a sneaker attack when it’s on its way.
Let me explain. After my husband died in 2002 I went on a seven-year vision quest reclaiming my true self. Horses were the sneaky instigators in that round of my expansion. I fell head over hooves in love with them, and what they actually ended up doing was bringing me back to tha land. They were the carrot that drew me into union with the earth and my creative receptivity. Somehow my lack of interest in Central America will turn out to be some form of life path epiphany.
I am in my first week of being in Orosi, and it is slowly revealing itself to me. I am vacillating between wishing I had a traveling partner and thanking my lucky stars for being alone. Last weekend a group of young missionaries were in the hostel, and when I went on an adventure with them I noticed how closed the locals were to a rag-tag bunch of backpackers. When I am alone there is a much warmer reception. For me that is the great struggle in my life, my love of the synergistic magic that can occur between us, and my MASSIVE desire to be alone. So, I sit with one of my many dualities. What a fascinating incarnation this one is.
I got early training for this when I lived in Italy at 20, and those skills and confidence are serving me well. It is such a different experience to be more aware, awake and intuitively plugged in this time. I was a pretty lost young lassy, and this is really a gift to see how I deal with the language and cultural discomforts.
I was reminded last night of how potent music can be to bridge worlds. When I lived in Italy there was an international station that played such a wild mix of music you never knew what was coming. The local pool is next to the Hostel here, and someone was having a birthday shindig. The playlist was steadily Latin dance music until a descent Beatles medley kicked in, and then Double Dutch,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr7QvpHsJBg
Funky Town [the crowd roared], Hurts so Good, a Gary Glitter remake, Credence Clearwater Revival, and then into a long set of Reggaetone. wow. I was sure Peaches and Herb, the Pina Colada song, The Whiz, Bette Davis Eyes, Electric Avenue or Captain and Tenniel were going to be blasting at any moment.
Spanish classes are going well, four of my initial twenty have occurred. As I said above, I can butcher the language well. So, greetings from paradise, where I am slowing down, not driving, cooking in an open air kitchen on a crumbling hot plate, eating hotdogs and other mystery meats, and enjoying the mist covered mountains. Mellissae Lucia
Here I am in glorious Antigua, Guatemala. I have come to Central America to learn Spanish and experience Semana Santa, Easter in this Technicolor land. It is the biggest Easter celebration in the world, begun after the Spanish overtook these lands. The procesiones (processions) and valaciones (holy vigils) have been occurring since the mid 1500s. The procesiones have 7000 pound floats that shudder and lurch through the streets with 60 men, women or children carrying them on their shoulders for 10 to 12 hours. These devotees all wear purple robes until good Friday when they change to black. A corporeal representation of the weight of responsibility and honor necessary to properly eulogize Senor Sepultado, the crucified Christ.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh84u0Ak07E
These behemoth barges are glittering apparitions, surging and swaying over the cobblestone streets. They are made even more magical and elusive by the thick cloud of frankincense dutifully swung ahead of the approaching float. With its jerking movements it seems like a drunken centipede, with the altar of the gods above attempting to win the beauty pageant for devotional glory. There are a series of Jesus´s and Mother Mary´s that leave the different churches daily throughout holy week. They are very very graphic, with all of the blood and glory of the crucifixion horror portrayed.
The entire event is awe inspiring, crowds of believers filling the streets lined with food and souvenir venders adding a circus atmosphere to everything. A band follows the float, with the loud exhaust spewing little generation responsible for illuminating Mary or Jesus as they lunge through the streets. The droning funeral march of the band can be heard throughout the town from morning to night. They even blast it on televisions when the procession is not near. I have been taking both film and digital pictures, and will not see the fruits of my labor with the analog images until I return.
As I write they are broadcasting Christ in his coffin being paraded through a church. This is a big deal here. I do not in any way mean to minimize colonialism, destruction of indigenous culture, or the violations done by organized religion, but I also wonder where true devotion and love for Jesus and Mary fits into all of the injustices. Beatrex Quntanna spoke of an astrological event over the next 8 years where we are to heal the heart of the world religions. I am holding onto that, the beauty, the sincerity, the humility of honoring something beyond ourselves, the great grace within the Mystery.
How do we get any better than this? Well, there are the alfombras, the mandala like carpets that are spread over the nubby cobblestone streets for the processions to stagger over. These rainbow carpets are made of colored sawdust, flowers, plants, bottle caps…anything that may make a powerful statement to the beauty of Christ´s sacrifice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZEED4iMv8c
I wish I could upload some of my images, but I have freed myself from my laptop and do not have a secure place to lad my images. It will have to wait. If you search google images for ¨Easter + Antigual Guatemala or Semana Santa + Antigua¨ you can see some of the barges and carpets. I added a couple of videos so you can get the idea.
Lets talk about manifestation, magic and graffiti. Now that’s a good set of topics! When I was staying in Oceanside, California I was woven into a really illuminating story of how grand and mysterious the universe is when it comes to manifestation. Through hearing the background of what was wished for two days before the faux Banksy graffiti appeared, I wove together this amazing story of the power of intention to manifest blessings beyond what our human minds can have conceived of.
I am not using specific names to respect the privacy of the people involved, but the message still comes across.
Two days before the faux Banksy graffiti materialized, one of the owners of the shop Quiver Board Works and Bull Taco in Oceanside was speaking to a confidant about wanting to energize the business in a new way. On the day of the graffiti tagging the owner received a call that the building had been vandalized. The caller said they would be painting over the offense quickly. Just as this was all transpiring the owner saw on his i-phone a TMZ TV show report saying the artwork was done by British graffiti artist Banksy.
This is a BIG DEAL.
Background on Banksy. He is one of the best known graffiti artists in the world, and his real identity is a mystery. Last year a “documentary” on him was nominated for an academy award called Exit Through the Gift Shop. His work is so clever, intelligent, skillful and subversive that it carries a very distinct and recognizable signature. He has managed to achieve a level of fame while still retaining his street credibility and the world not knowing his true identity. I have added some of his images below.
As for master manifestation, for such a respected international icon to be associated with any business is a marketing coup. This is the sort of press that can’t be bought. And it was on a hip surf shop, the water’s equivalent of skateboarding/punk/hip hop/self-defined creative cool culture.
The owner of Quiver Board Works could not have orchestrated a more appropriate or cool marketing idea. The power of this story, even if it turns out that the image was not actually done by Banksy is THAT IT DOESN’T MATTER. They still got the press, and it energized the business and the local arts community. It blasted open Oceanside to the entire network of creative mavericks across the world. This is master manifestation at its best, putting out there what you want, and allowing the universe to deliver it in magical and mysterious ways BEYOND WHAT YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE!
So remember this next time you are holding space for a dream, the blessings may come in wildly fabulous ways you could never have imagined.
Below are some images of the graffiti with my beloved Lisa and Alee.
a "real" Banksy
Banksy
Banksy
San Diego has once again, been fabulous. The Oracle of Initiation book continues to take up the majority of my time, and I send love to the friends that I will have to catch on the way back round. The Ocean is cleansing me in her own unique ways, such a welcome contrast to the desert. Below are a few of the highlights of this trip…Jo in touch with her awesome; Eshu/Ellegua/Santo Nino and I at my Controversial Bookstore Shape-Shift your 2011 Oracle of Initiation Workshop; attendees contemplating the Oracle at the workshop; Violet a magnetic friend; and Mother and daughter beauty. OH- and I am taking FILM images these days, with an eight lensed camera, and as you can see below the disposable camera with fortunes printed on the images. The oracular accuracy of the fortunes on the images was uncanny. LOVE IT as Alee and I say.
and a teaser, look for the faux Banksy graffiti blog post coming up about master manifestation.
Hello San Diego! I have returned from the desert and am back to share the gifts of New Mexico’s magical inspirations. I have 3 events here in San Diego the first week of March, and have limited spaces for soul purpose readings that week. Two of the events are at Controversial Bookstore and one is at Chris Brittian’s The Art of You Expressive Arts Studio.
I am thrilled to share my new understanding of my Oracle of Initiation deck with you through what I have learned writing the extended book to accompany the 88 limited edition copies. The book is due out in April before I am off to Central America on a Medicine Walk for 5 months. There a few copies left if you want one of these fierce sacred tools. www.OracleofInitiation.com
Sunday March 6th at 4pm Pacific time I will be interviewed on the influential Beyond Worlds Tarot Tribe radio show. It will be archived if you want to listen at a later date. My website also has a ton of juicy articles about my The Oracle deck, my ritualistic photography work, solo adventures and spiritual transformation and will soon have new videos of the Painted Body work.
I look forward to supporting you shape-shift and redefine all of the intense turbulence we have been experience to claim our unique brilliance. E-mail me if you have any question, and come play with me and the startling Painted Body Spirit Beings in the deck at any of these events. earthenbody@gmail.com
Art & The Oracle- Explore Creative Shape-Shifting with Melissa Weiss Steele & The Oracle of Initiation.
Tuesday March 1st, 2011 6-9pm $50. All supplies included
Come explore the powerful insights available through using art, imagination and divination. We will be working with the Painted Body ritualistic photography images within Melissa’s original Oracle of Initiation deck to creatively dance with the many energies, inspirations and potentials we each carry when we access the full range of our fierce, shape-shifting abilities.
@ The Art of You Expressive Arts Studio
3060 Adams Ave, San Diego, CA 92116
Shape-Shift your Destiny in 2011 with The Oracle of Initiation
1.Introductory Lecture Thursday March 3rd 7-9pm $25.
2.Workshop Saturday March 5th 1-5pm $60.
@ Controversial Bookstore
3063 University Ave, San Diego, CA 92104
http://controversialbookstore.com/
We each have the powerful ability to choose how we respond to these challenging times. Turbulence becomes a gift when we learn how to navigate and harness the fierce and fluid transformational energies currently available. The Oracle of Initiation divination deck by Melissa Weiss Steele is a magical and inspiring tool, illuminating the dynamic opportunities available through shape-shifting your own shadows and complexities.
Learn how The Oracle can reveal where you are currently at in your own process of awakening; how to redefine previous struggles as the keys to your unique offerings; and where to focus your passions to bring forth these precious gifts to the collective.
Beyond Worlds-Your Tarot Tribe Radio Show
hosted by Donnaleigh de LaRose
Sunday March 6th 2011 7pm Eastern 4pm Pacific
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/beyondworlds
Melissa will be interviewed about the creation of The Oracle if Initiation deck and share how to use this visionary new tool over the air. Host Donaleigh was inspired to created a video about using the Oracle of Initiation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcp8JM2eYc8
On an Adventure!
Melissa will be leaving the country for 5 months in April 2011 on a personal Medicine Walk. Limited edition decks will still be available {until sold out}, and a selection of certain fine art prints. She will be scheduling readings and Spiritual Initiation Counseling work when she returns in September 2011. There may be a delay in answering inquiries depending on her internet access. When Spirit calls, we may not answer e-mails!
e-mail earthenbody@gmail.com
I am off to one of my all-time favorite places on the earth..Abiquiu. I will be staying at Casa del Sol, the zen-calm retreat center away from the main campus on the Ghost Ranch. Abiquiu is where Georgia O’Keefe spent here last 50 years of her life exploring the land and doing art, as I too love to do. It has rainbow-colored canyons, a lake, and a sense of home I have not felt anywhere else. All of the above ground Painted Body images in the Oracle deck were taken there, and most of the Painted Body collaborations with others. A sacred, sacred place for me. I am bending time and finishing the text to accompany my Oracle of Initiation deck this next week. I just moved, my e-mail is down…a lovely and productive Universal time-out. Send me happy bee energy to finish the project and get it to the editor, and I there may be a snow storm taboot!
59. Expansion from The Oracle of Initiation deck by Melissa Weiss Steele
“This was by far the most inspirational meet-up ever! Melissa, and the images of her Oracle of Initiation deck, evoke the deepest part of your psyche in layers that allow you to become one with your feelings. Her presentations have you hanging on every word and shaking your head in agreement as you come to realize THIS is your place in life. Thank you, Melissa, Asher & Wisdom Moon for the insights presented on a power-filled afternoon!”
Gloria Vinskey, Albuqurque Tarot Meet-Up
“Fabulous! I never thought I might come across another deck and love the purity of it, as I do James Wanless’s Voyager. However, Spunky clear hearted and visionary Melissa and her Oracle of Initiation deck have won me over.”
Early Gardner, Albuquerque Tarot Meet-up
We had a wonderful day divining with The Oracle of Initiation yesterday at the Albuquerque Tarot Meet-Up. I got see some familiar faces from LETS-Land of Enchantment Tarot Symposium held last October in Santa Fe and some new friends as well. This was the last presentation I will be doing on the land of The Oracle’s emergence before I am off to the Ocean and Central America.
During the event we got to consult The Oracle’s wisdom about what our true happiness is as a way to center and focus our intentions and dreams. We also examined what outdated stories we are carrying offers us access to our Rainbows in the Dark, the potential to reframe the initiations we have encountered to find our true power and gifts. Thank you to Margaret & Robert for organizing the group, and Amy & Meekah for being fabulous Guardians while I offered my sacred work. life is good.
27. Gathering; 46. Reliance; 3 Instinct from The Oracle of Initiation
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
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