Source?

Source?

From the stars, on a mountain, with the bears, my beads…and paint.

 

I do this thing called Visual Medicine, or Painting with the Universe. It sounds all woo-woo witchy and I suppose it is but it is also real and it is also medicine.
          You all probably know I’ve been an artist my entire life. “Artist” took many forms. Sign painting and calligraphy for custom invitations as a teenager. When I hit college I interned doing terrible graphics for an evil company that made me wear heels. I had two jobs right after graduation that really taught me what’s what and I became an art director for advertising, design and marketing companies. That career served me well, supported us and built our home. It also let me shift into freelancing, working when I want which in reality means working ALL the time. It also allowed me to see the country with my partner-in-crime husband as we traveled for his work.
          Since finances changed for the country in 2008, then covid, the design world has withered in my opinion. Where is the appreciation for beauty? Everyone has the power at their own computer-busy fingertips to create horrendous logos with rude computer generated fonts. It’s one big hard-ugly mess in my opinion. My industry’s annual publications featuring the best design for the year used to be inches thick, now they are flimsy or non-existent (out of business) magazines.
          I shifted to painting “fun” art, joined some online art communities that I adore and painted animals, mermaids, fairies, tiny houses, trees etc. This is great fun but earns no money. The craft/art show circuit was mastered by me and still it was just an exercise in spinning my wheels that disappointed my accountant. Desperate times are not filled with art collectors.
          Abstract art has been a love of mine and that’s honestly where I’ve made the most money (per unit if you want to look at it that way) and received a ton of satisfaction. When I paint abstracts it always has a meaning. How can it not, I’m usually thinking about something, chewing on a problem, or in appreciation while painting and those feelings come out thru the paint.
          I happen to believe art saves lives. It’s true and I can back up that statement but that’s for another day. I stumbled happily upon this method, Visual Medicine, created by a charming, wise artist in London, Suzette Clough. Hey, that sounds interesting. But listen, it’s blowing my mind. These creations come from source. What is source for you? God? The creator? The goddess? The divine? Maybe you don’t consider these things, where beauty comes from, how did we get here, but I sure do. For me there IS a source. I’m not certain what it is but I’m becoming more and more sure it IS there and it IS creating. My mind is less scientific and more artistic, though I do have a deep respect for the sciences. I just believe not every single thing can be explained with numbers and measurements.
          Back to art. This method is messy. It involves my favorite things, gorgeous acrylic paints, sometimes glitter (maybe Suzette would be appalled), watercolor paper and water. I basically pour paint onto a piece of plastic and drag and dip and dance wet watercolor paper thru the blobs of paint. Come on, that sounds fun doesn’t it? And the best part, you have to WAIT. Just wait. For what? For the paint to dry. For the paint to transform into a message meant just for me, or a message for you. It’s thrilling and I feel like a 4 year old waiting to hear Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer’s feet on my roof on christmas eve. I just get giddy watching the paintings morph and shift and alchemize into something meaningful. Like the bee in the art that goes with this writing. Plain as day I see a bee. That bee is there for me, or maybe for you. I’m paying attention. I think these little paintings, most are around 4×6 inches, postcard size, are messages from source. For me! Just for me! Or for one of you. When I see this happy little bee flying above creation or under the stars, or into flowers, what that means to me is probably different than what it might mean to you. Do you see a message here for you? If this bee could speak, what would she say to you, right this minute? What would she say? Get quiet and listen, she may be whispering something important.
Ravens-unkindness or magicians?

Ravens-unkindness or magicians?

From the stars, on a mountain, with the bears, my beads…and paint.

I never understood the fascination with ravens. They seemed to be the spirit animal for beaded elders and yogis of the new age realm. But not long after we stopped moving all over the place and settled into our land in Vermont I started to notice these incredible birds.

There is a different quality to the outdoors when the leaves are on the ground, buried under snow. If you know winter, you know what I mean. Every sound seems more intense, more pure, more resonant. All the background noise is absorbed in the snow. You can see thru the trees that block the view all summer. Where I live the ravens play on air currents reflecting the shape of the mountains. Sometimes you can get lucky and hear 2 or 3 or more communicating between trees or across the valley. They light fifty feet up in the tops of giant white pines and chatter to each other, saying, “it is a glorious day from atop my tree! ” And then comes their rattling clicking sounds, back and forth from one to the other in turn. They’re lovely conversationalists with low gurgles or sometimes sound like angry women, “ack!”

With my back against the trunk of the white pine I want to catch every syllable. My whole body is listening. Can I please just always remember these songs to pull out when I need a moment of nature magic? There are quiet, almost nasal grinding sounds I can only hear when I stop breathing. They’re whispering the raven way. I wonder how they make these noises, so not-human. Are they coordinating who will find dinner or when to pick up the kids? There are quick staccato notes like a stubborn child practicing their scales on a piano, up and down over and over. “Hey, listen to me!” Some sounds are a warning about predators, announcing food opportunities, or calling in the neighbors to gather for a meeting. If I have to put raven music in a genre it would be categorized as pure play. Complete joy. Happiness. Celebration.

I’ve experienced ravens talking beyond the usual “caw!” only a handful of times, always in the mountains and always in the cold. They communicate the goings on they see from so far above, so different than my vantage point, gravity keeping me planted firmly on the ground. If I’m really quiet, I can hear the air moving against their feathers as they fly above, showing off, showing me what it’s like to be airborne.

Fun factoids about the Raven: They’re smart. Like, dolphin smart and able to figure out multi-step puzzles. They mimic sounds of all kinds so they might meow like your cat. They are the morticians of the sky, cleaning up dearly departed wildlife. They play, alone, with others, with sticks, slide on roofs, rocks, balls and other animals. Ravens live up to 17 years in the wild, or up to 40 as a pet. They hang out in young gangs eating and marauding together until they pair up to mate. A flock of ravens is called an UNKINDNESS, which seems sort of rude to me.

The art above is a scratchboard raven I did for an intensive I’m collaborating in called The A.R.T. of Becoming A Witch. I know, witch is a loaded word that gives off all sorts of smells! But this is fun and good and worthy and you can join. It starts this coming Sunday, March 26th on zoom and is all about deepening our awareness with our senses, using the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms as examples of knowing. Check it out! https://janetconner.com/art/

The wonder-filled star nosed mole

The wonder-filled star nosed mole

From the stars, on a mountain, with the bears, my beads…and paint.

Here’s the star nosed mole, an inspiration if ever there was one. A few characteristics: nearly blind, lives underground in swampier areas (we see them where I live in Vermont), 22 appendages called RAYS are in place of their nose, the fastest eater, the most sensitive touch organs in the animal kingdom, and the list goes on. An odd and seriously cool creature. Can you imagine using your face to know where your prey is, not by seeing but be feeling that creature’s electrical impulses? yep. Their nervous systems are so efficient they send impulses to their brain so fast it tests the physiological limits of neurons. And they can smell underwater. I’ve never really thought to try, I’m not certain I’d even want to. They blow out bubbles and suck them back in to pick up odorant molecules. Amazing.

I’m about to embark as a collaborator in an intensive called The A.R.T. of Becoming a Witch. It all happens on Zoom so anyone can participate. We are going to learn about how humans “gate”. It’s basically a survival technique where as young people we shut out what can become too much information for us to handle. Some of what we instinctually shut out we can deliberately open back up to. Hearing. Seeing. Feeling and the list goes on. Come and play with us. The link is above. You might just find you have something in common with the Star-Nosed Mole.

Mother of destruction, seed me.

Mother of destruction, seed me.

ECOSYSTEM BUILDING

Did you know Alaska burned most of last summer? Many have no idea though it was a big deal in my world; for me, the creatures, the land and outward.

At first the fire just seems like DESTRUCTION. The orange glow becomes a trigger for all sorts of emotions. And the lack of sky, only gray thickness is as if on another planet. The far off mountains completely disappear. This is not a landscape I know anything about, the burned.

As time passes I watch a new ecosystem building. Plants and fungi spring up. I’ve learned to ALLOW creation in all its forms. Even fire is creation, fertilization, building. What a human word, building. When I speak of nature I will try to not use such human words as building from now on. 

I bow to the fire. At the center is gold, precious, valuable. The chartreuse around the edges of where the fire happens is the NEW already sprouting, even while the fire was red hot.

Mother of destruction and regeneration, seed me, water me, compost me, combine me, lichenize me to partner with new ways, accentuated devotion, creative soure.

Sara Ellemire

Sara Ellemire

Contributor

Layers of colorful skirts, jingling bracelets and the scent of the outdoors accompanies Sara wherever she goes. This long haired beauty has studied magic and the tarot since childhood. Sara’s great grandmother Else taught her the way of readers and that the elementals are her allies. Living in rural Alaska fuels her love of the icy cold and all creatures of the sea. Writing of the mysteries of the tarot is something she does with her familiar, Charm, a silly raccoon.

I see your branches.

I see your branches.

Painting with the Universe TREE and Branches

I see you. Your branches are my arms reaching into the deep blue. My leaves eat the sunshine. Your roots travel deep and we talk to one another. This fruit it feeds the world. I am sacred, my family is holy. We shelter and support each other. A perfect collaboration

The mountains are home

The mountains are home

PAINTING WITH THE UNIVERSE

The mountains are home to the grandmothers. The mountains ARE the grandmothers. So many stories go untold if we don’t stop and sit and stare and listen. She waits. Taking her great deep inhale the stars tumble thru time. Falling at my feet they grow as celestial flowers. Tales of mountains, crackling fires, wing beats, thumping hearts. Let’s all gather to listen.