What's in a Name?

Incase you’re new here… Hi, I’m Elise of Lusicovi Creative. I create and sell original, divinely inspired artwork and stories, including everything from canvases and watercolors to digital art printed on demand on mugs and shirts and home goods through Etsy and society6, to hand poured hand painted candles (currently on sale through IG stories/highlights) and print on demand bullet journals. And I research and write and run Oracle Poetry workshops and offer one on one sessions of Intuitive Oracle Poetry.

For now though, I want to tell a magickal story about the name of my business.

Those who know me know I am very proud of my Armenian heritage, and my grandpa who was 100% Armenian and born in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem. I have a tattoo on my arm that says “ancestors” in Armenian. It’s always been a big thing for me. I also am rather obsessed with the sea and the stars and so in short the name of my business comes from some Armenian words that I squished together into my made up “Lusicovi” and from that love of the stars and the sea, which was especially perfect I thought for my underwater photography (more on that in my forthcoming book! Descent: A Dive Into the Mythical Waters of Human Nature through Ancient Stories and New Art).

I named my business when I was right out of college ten years ago and first diving into the actual business side of this whole “art degree” thing. I got my degree in photography but knew that I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself into JUST photography, because even then my soul was telling me that the art was the key.

I knew I wanted to honor my Armenian heritage, so I sat down with my grandpa one afternoon and asked him how to say about three dozen random things in Armenian. “Family, photo, art, design, ocean, stars, water,” etc etc etc.

Eventually I landed on “lus” for “light” and “covi” for “sea.” It had a nice ring to it, and that was that. Done.

Several years later I had a realization that the sea and the stars were the two main subjects of my art, and my biggest inspiration, and wasn’t it cool that without meaning to I had sort of named my business after those two concepts? The sea and the stars. The light and the sea. Neat!

“You are made of the Sea and the Stars, and one day you will find yourself again.” Click to read about my current available print collection.

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But it’s so much deeper than that.

As I have worked to refine my true WHY, it has become increasingly apparent to me that my purpose on this Earth and with this business is to rediscover the sacred divine feminine through my art and stories and academic research even, and through my personal experiences (hello childbirth and motherhood). For creation is of course tied to the divine feminine archetype.

Everyone who’s body has built and then birthed new life is a fucking goddess of creation. I knew that intellectually before I did it myself, and now I know it in a fully embodied way. I know it deep in my bones. That death of the maiden and birth of the mother in a terrifying beautiful dance on the edge of life itself is the pure creative goddess force of the universe right there.

And while it may not be as bloody, any piece of creation— any creative endeavor where something is pulled into being from the realm of ideas and becomes greater than the sum of its parts—is also the same goddess energy at work.

Any time anything is intentionally made beautiful for the sake of beauty, that is the divine feminine.

Any time there is the magic of a community coming together- that sense of community that you can feel but not articulate- that’s the magic of the feminine.

Any time you are “in flow” and dancing with a new thing on the edge of creation and possibility, that’s the feminine.

Any time the human, the body, the soul, the earth, the intuition, the whole, the healing, the patience of true teaching and learning is honored above efficiency and productivity and gross mindless consumerism, that’s the sacred feminine.

And it’s time we give Her Her due.

And here’s the real magick of this story:

Ten years after naming my business “Lusicovi Creative” (because “it flows well,”) and seven years after realizing it also describes my main subjects and inspirations, and three or four years after really solidifying my call to “rediscover the divine feminine and share Her with the world through my art and stories,” I have very recently realized (this week actually, at the prompting of a question posed in a magickal business group I’m in), that every single part of the name “Lusicovi Creative” actually means “divine feminine.”

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The feminine is archetypally and metaphorically tied to water: She is the waters of childbirth, the flow of magic and synchronicity and “flow states,” the grace and calm and depth and sparkling allure of the ocean, the ebb and flow of the tides connected to the moon, and the nourishing life giving force on earth.

In a word: She is water, or the sea. Covi.

The divine is the Light. And I don’t even mean that in a new agey “love and light” “positive vibes only” kind of way. (The true feminine embraces the dark actually, as much as the light, but that’s beside the point.) The divine is the love and the divine is the Light and the divinity/Source/Spirit/God is One/Love/Light. Jesus was the way, the truth, and the light. Yes. But I mean it in the ancient so far back that we only call it “THE book” kinda way.

In the Old Testament and in Ancient Hebrew, the word for god is “El,” or when plural “Elohim.” (This has been translated as the name of god when in fact Elohim simply means gods plural.) But when you look at the etymology of that word El, things get a little wild.

The word el comes from an ancient proto-European word: sawel. Sawel also yielded the Latin word sol meaning sun. The Hebrew word el was eventually transliterated into Greek as the first syllable of the word helios, also meaning sun. (And what is possibly the ancient Light of the Creator if not the sun itself?)

Additionally, there are a wide range of the oldest myths all around the world which all tell basically the same tale of civilizing beings called “the shining ones” who are worshipped like gods, and in fact in some of the Hebrew and Sumarían texts are called Elohim. In Sumerian the “shining ones” (literally Anunaki) are from whence the Egyptians almost certainly derive their name for the “city of the sun”- Anu, which was the center of worship for the sun god Ra, said to be the most ancient god in Egypt.

In pre Celtic Ireland there was a tribe called the Shining Ones which would later be associated with Faeries or Elves, both of which are known as magical beings of Light. Connected to this Irish tribe linguistically we find again in the Greek Pantheon that while the wife of Zeus was sometimes Hera, sometimes she was Diana. And Diana is a name which comes from the Proto Indo-European for “bright sky.”

Native Americans too have their own ancient stories of Bak’ Ti gods (literally “shining ones”) who came to their land and taught them how to build civilization. And in the East all through Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, there are records thousands of years old of “shining ones” who worshipped the “inner light inside themselves as if it was the sun itself.” Which really indicates both the ancient predominance of sun worship and the ancient world wide traces of these shiny beings that came to be known simply as “gods.”

So in all of the roots of the West (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Hebrew), we have the Elohim/the Shining Ones/ the sun/ Gods. In Ireland and the Americas we have ancient magical beings of Light. In the East we have magical beings of Light who worship their inner light like the light of the sun, in order to achieve enLIGHTenment (there’s a reason it’s called that folks). On top of that, we add the fact that nearly every non Christian tradition and pantheon (to say nothing of the Christian emphasis of the Son, the Light of the world itself) holds the worship of the sun or sun god as supremely important, regardless of all the connections to shiny beings (the sun does give us warmth and life after all).

What else can we conclude except that the divine is indeed the Light? Lus.

To finish it off, it is only in the past year that I am coming to learn that in a surprising number of ancient mythologies, before there was a sun god, there was a sun goddess.

Most interestingly, in the myths of my own heritage, the sun was a goddess. (I adapted that story actually, you can read it here.) And the ancient Armenians called themselves the “children of the sun.”

Armenian- the Children of the Sun Goddess.

Lus- The light. The divine. The sun. The goddess.

Covi- The sea. The feminine. The goddess.

Creative- The divine feminine. The goddess energy.

It’s all connected.

And when I sat down with my scratch pad of notes from that conversation with my Armenian grandpa ten years ago, and picked the words that just “sounded right” that “flowed well” and “looked good,” I had NO IDEA the depth to which these would be the most perfect words to describe my business.

But something did.

Something in me attuned to the subtleties of the universe outside of time and nudged me in the right direction. And thank divinity I was creative enough and intuitive enough and savvy enough to sit with it until it felt right.

That’s some crazy potent sacred feminine Big Magic my friends.

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So I’m Elise. El- ise. Elise Diane, incidentally.

I was accidentally named for this work I think. (Because the name “sounded pretty” to my mom.)

Born for this even, as an Armenian, a Child of the Sun. And I accidentally-on-purpose named my business for it as well.

And through divinely inspired artwork and stories, through carefully hand crafted candles which are literal lights, and through intuitive Oracle poetry, I am here to help you rediscover and honor the Light that shines within you like it is the sun goddess itself. Because it is.✨

Book an Intuitive Oracle Poetry Session with me now and get a free small hand poured candle. OR buy a candle through my instagram stories this weekend and get 20% off your Oracle Poetry session!

The Starlight Journal Redoux

2020 was the last year I bought an actual planner. It was the Aurele by @cocorrina.co and it was gorgeous.🤩 I used it for three months, and theeeeen the world shut down. All my clients cancelled projects. My day job closed it’s doors. Suddenly there was nothing to do but go inside. There was nothing to organize except my dreams, for the only thing in abundance besides fear at that time, was time.

What have you been dreaming of lately?

And the question looming in front of many of us: what do you want to do with this one precious life? Now you have the time. ✨

In the magazine volumes that I published that year, I urged everyone (myself included) to really take advantage of this inner time; because as hideous as the pandemic was in so many ways, for a good number of us, at least in the beginning, we were also given the much needed gift of a pause.

All of that urging to reflect came from my first big entrepreneurial project and publication: The Starlight Journal, an illustrated bullet Journal for Organization + Inspiration. Ironically, the Starlight Journal went out of print in 2020 too, due to changes within Ingram Spark.

But it was always intended to be a place for those who identify as both doers AND dreamers. A place for the creatives to organize their lives so they can actually accomplish their big wild dreams. A place for people who want to get shit done without losing sight of the stars.✨

Because, frankly, it’s devastating how much of modern culture expects us to lose sight of the stars in order to get more done. That model is not sustainable. Get shit done, yes, of course. But never do it at the expense of wonder.

Losing wonder is far too high a price to pay. 💫

These days I’m getting a lot less done in the “everyday I’m hustling” entrepreneurial sense. Mom-ing is it’s own full time + job. (Literally ask anyone.) But at least so far, it doesn’t require much actual scheduling or organizing of my plans on paper. But I’m still dreaming. The creative faucet in my brain, it seems, cannot be turned off. And somehow, despite it all, I’ve finally learned to actually embrace this multi year invitation to slow the eff down and reflect.

So I’m more grateful than ever to finally bring you the republished and much more accessible version of the Starlight Journal.

What would you do every day if you acted like you love yourself? If you’re not doing it, why not?

Same lofty goals. Same ideals of dreaming and seeking and reflecting and learning and going and doing. Less pressure. And less price.

For years since I first launched this back in 2018 I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out why people were clicking on the ads but not buying. Aside from the price point being too big a risk for let’s face it, a beautiful but relatively unknown concept- Illustrated bullet journal?? What??- I’ve recently stumbled upon what may be a big other part of the reason: it’s too daunting.

The clues were there all along. When this first released, SO many people that got one gave me reviews like “It’s SO beautiful! I can’t even use it because I don’t want to tarnish it.” Which had me face palming despite the compliment because the point was beauty AND functionality. But as they say, you can lead a horse to water…

Then a year or so ago, @katenorthrup released her second book, Do Less. I love Kate’s other work and podcast and was eager to get her take on what I had been endeavoring to lead people to all along (that is, the reintegration of the divine feminine and the BALANCE of the sacred feminine with the masculine’s much esteemed tropes of “get shit done” and “hustle” and “do do do! And then do more!”). So I got her book and started reading…

….and then somewhere in the middle of the book, after a long day of pandemic BS and working hard trying to overcome it and still get shit done and make ends meet, I held the book in my hands and admitted to myself “I’m only reading this to accomplish something else on my list. I don’t want to do this now. My body is screaming for rest and this is fascinating but it is not rest. Ironically, in order to DO LESS…I can’t do this.” So I put it down and went to bed.

And it is only now, over a year later, that the fullness of that lesson hit me:

Sometimes we DO self care for the sake of DOING, not for the caring or the self. And it works against us, because it’s not actually about the care.

Sometimes a 250 page gorgeous hardcover journal full of deep prompts and someone else’s creative accomplishments is too daunting to put a pen to, especially “for self care.”

So I’ve made it smaller. More manageable. Less daunting. Paperback and more mass produced print quality. And cheaper as a result (though my portion of profits, which is always shockingly low in print on demand books, stays the same).

I’ll end with one final note; a permission slip directly from the author/creator:

Don’t you dare let mine or anyone else’s work stop you from creating your own.

Wreck this journal.

Listen to your body and your soul.

Leave it on the shelf if that’s what your body tells you to do, but never out of preciousness for this Amazon printed reproduction. If you love the artwork too much to tarnish, buy an archival fine art print and hang it on your wall. (I’ve got them! And I can always make one if I don’t. Just ask.) Or hell, tear the page in question out and hang THAT on your wall.

Use this journal to write and draw and dream and doodle and then tear it all out and tear it up. IF that’s what your inspiration - your inner creative genius/daemon- calls you to do.

Wreck it deliberately or wreck it with your many failed attempts at whatever it is you’re creating because trust me on this. Whatever you’re creating will require many pages and many hours of failed attempts. AND THATS OKAY.

If you aren’t willing to fail, if you aren’t willing to wreck things both intentionally and accidentally, in the pursuit of your creativity, your truth, and your inner divine feminine, then it’s not actually DIVINE FEMININE that you’re chasing.

Persephone was the perfect maiden goddess of spring and flowers, remember. AND she was the high mighty destructive queen of literal Hell.

(There are millennia of spiritual rites dedicated to the embodiment of this and sadly millennia working to suppress it, so go easy on yourself if it’s a challenge for you. Cultural gas lighting runs deeeeeep.)

But in the moments that you doubt your creative ability, or your feminine ability, remember this: The maiden has to DIE in order to birth the mother. (And the baby. And trust me that is some messy ass creation/destruction right there.)

With every breath of creation you destroy 10,000 potential creations - because you cannot do it all at once, no one can. If you fear the messiness, you will never start. And you will definitely never get there. If you fear the hurting of other’s feelings, intentional or not, you will never learn to speak your truth. If you fear your own messiness, your own destructive cutting abilities within, I will wager you’ll never truly allow your creative inner feminine voice to shine through, either.

Embrace BOTH sides of the coin of divine feminine, the creation and the destruction. And above all, follow YOUR inner truth. Do not worry about the mess it might create along the way. THEN you’ll be getting somewhere. 💫

And hey, if this hopefully-no-longer-daunting, partly guided, partly illustrated journal will help you uncover that inner divine goddess of duality, that spark of inner creation that whispers truths to your soul, hoping to be listened to in spite of the fear of expressing Her…you can get one on Amazon now! 🙃

In lightness, and darkness, and the whole messy spectrum in between,

Elise

Libra: Scales of the Heart

The constellation of Libra is a unique one among the Zodiac signs. It is an air sign, but is ruled by Venus, the planet of love. (Though in fairness, an air sign ruled by an emotional planet is no stranger than an earth sign ruled by a mental one, as is the case in Virgo.) For the first in this series diving deep into the inspirations that went into each of the zodiac designs found in The Universe Within Zodiac Oracle Deck, Guide, and Journal- NOW LIVE ON KICKSTARTER- click here. To view the Kickstarter, click here!

Libra is truly unique though, because it is the one constellation in the zodiac which is not a depiction of a living creature- it is an inanimate object, cold, calculating, harsh and scientific, and yet it deals with that one thing at the center of all life: the heart.

The season and archetype of Libra is associated with the Justice card in Tarot, as well as the classic “Lady Justice” who is often cast in bronze and perched atop court houses, holding her own scales. (A trend which almost certainly emanates from ancient Egypt and is merely a continued nod to the same archetype of Libra.) Because of this association, I have also illustrated the Scales of Libra as held by Lady Justice- blindfolded and everything. The blue green color in the background is also in homage to the copper statues of this classical lady.

Matters of the heart often require impartial truth and justice, but not heartlessness. Though Justice may be blind, she cannot be heartless. For justice in essence is the re-balancing of the heart. Where injustice is done, there must be compensation, acknowledgement, and ultimately forgiveness. Without it, the hearts of both the victim and the perpetrator will weigh too heavily.

In modern analytical times, we forget that the laws and courts which issue justice did not spring into existence fully formed. They were formalized slowly, the institutionalization of morals, which are nothing more than millennia of observed human actions and consequential human feelings- a knowing deep in our hearts of “this is wrong” until it isn’t, because justice has been served- and they are constantly weighed and rebalanced using those same human hearts.

In the Thoth Tarot deck, Justice is emphasized as a deeper balance- the eternal, ineffable balance of the universe. The creators of that deck saw Justice as the acknowledgment of karma, essentially - a trusting that even if we cannot see it, that justice and harmony will ultimately prevail. To me this is the same sort of ten thousand foot view which is required in true forgiveness. For in order to truly forgive, a certain apathy to here and now justice is required. True foregiveness means giving grace to those who have wronged you, even before they apologize or make it right. It is intentionally letting go of resentment and hate and revenge, not because immediate justice has been served, but because you deserve the lightness of heart that can only be achieved by letting go and putting faith in the ability of the universe to rebalance fates. It is knowing that your hatred and longing for revenge harms no one but yourself, and it is knowing that if those who have wronged you can not humble themselves to ask forgiveness, they will ultimately be in more hell than you could rain down on them with your vengeance. It is a true lightness of heart, an evening of the scales in your own soul. It is cosmic justice, rather than a more material one.

Ma’at, goddess of the scales.

The history of this archetype is fascinating as well, because of the link between those copper Lady Justice statues and ancient Egypt I mentioned earlier. Court Houses all over the West are built in the Neoclassical Architectural style, following after the designs of buildings in the US Capitol. Those designs in turn were built following the neoclassical style, which was an 1800s revival of the actual classical era of Ancient Greece and Rome. And though stylistically and visually different enough, much of the culture in Ancient Greece and Rome was actually originally adopted from ancient Egypt. Which brings us to the goddess Ma’at, Egyptian goddess of Justice, who ruled over the afterlife ceremony which weighed the heart of the dead against a feather.

In Egyptian mythology, the heart of the dead was weighed as part of the passage to the afterlife. The heart must be lighter than Ma’at’s feather (in other words, it must not be weighed down with earthly resentments and injustices either dealt or received) in order for the deceased to pass into the Egyptian equivalent of heaven in the afterlife.

Aside from the literal scales, Ma’at has another similarity with the sign of Libra; they both are rather less embodied than one would usually expect. According to WorldHistory.org, Ma’at was less of a goddess and more of a spirit of that cosmic justice that the Thoth Tarot taps into:

“Ma'at's spirit is the spirit of all creation, and if one is in tune with that spirit, one will live well and have good reason to hope for eternal peace in the afterlife; if one refused to live in accordance with the principles of Ma'at, then one suffered the consequences which one would have brought upon one's self.”

For reasons that are perhaps obvious by now, I used other illustrations of Ma’at to inspire my Libra goddess depiction. I also appreciate the synchronicity of the feather and the heart though. Since Libra is an air sign ruled by the planet of love, it seems all too fitting that the things balancing on the scales would be a feather (often used in spiritual and other metaphorical contexts to represent the element of air), and a heart, the thing that is actually at the heart of this sign’s mental clarity.

To view the whole deck and journal project now live on Kickstarter, click here! It’s only been 24 hours and we already have $500 pledged! But we still have a long way to go! So if you love this deck so far, please help us by sharing the Kickstarter page and/or any of your favorite blog posts about it! (Check out my Instagram here for more easily sharable content!) Next, we will dive deep into the watery realms of Scorpio!

Until next time,

Stay Enchanted my friends, stay curious, and keep chasing wonder! 💫

Discover the Universe Within…

As Above, So Below

As Within, So Without

As the Universe, So the Soul

therefore...Know the Universe, Know Thyself.

Introducing the Universe Within Zodiac Oracle Deck, Guide, and Journal. Written by Magic Kathi, Artwork and Design by Elise Rorick. 

This project has been in the works for over a year, and was delayed right at the end (well, really several times by different pregnancy complications, but also and most intensely at the end) by the early and intense arrival of this little Cancer Sun Pisces Moon baby- but it is finally live on Kickstarter, and we are all so excited! 🎉

View the details and pledge/pre-order here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lusicovicreative/the-universe-within-zodiac-oracle-deck-guide-and-journal?ref=project_build

Traverse through the stars and planets on a magical journey of self-discovery.

Use this Oracle deck and guided journal (available in digital journal or gorgeous printed book) to unlock the secrets of the Zodiac, learn how the stars and cosmos impact your life, and ultimately discover the universe within your own soul. 💫

As you work your way through the deck and guide, use the deck as any other oracle deck- Sit with the beautiful imagery of each daily card draw- study the symbolism and mythology embedded in each card and let it whisper to you the wisdom that the universe and your soul want you to know. Use the guide and journal in conjunction with the oracle cards to delve deeper into each sign, exploring the energies and discovering how each archetype affects your own birth chart and different areas of life. Journal with each sign as you move through the zodiac year and bring to light the challenges and gifts of each energy. 

As you learn about the traditional meanings of each of the zodiac signs, so too will you illuminate your own strengths and weaknesses, and the cosmic balancing act that dances across the night sky and through us all. Use all of the knowledge and wisdom you gain to enhance any planetary magic you are already doing, or let it be the portal into that new realm. Adorn your altar each day with the affirmation, sign, and planetary card of the season and meditate on their beauty and what they inspire in you. By the end you will not only understand the zodiac constellations and myths better, you will understand yourself more deeply, and thus, you will know the universe, having discovered it within. 

“The beauty and magic of the universe is reflected through you, just as the beauty and magic of the universe is mirrored back to you with every beautiful and magical thing you meet here in this physical realm. As within, so without!“

To learn more, watch the full preview video, and support the production of this Oracle Deck and Journal, view the Kickstarter here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lusicovicreative/the-universe-within-zodiac-oracle-deck-guide-and-journal?ref=project_build

As an extra bonus, everyone who pledges at the main pre-order tiers will receive $5 off if you pledge in the first week of the campaign!

And if you love it, please please help us spread the word! If we receive 2,000 or more deck orders, we can add gold foiling onto the deck as well! 😍 ✨

It’s super exciting. We know! 🎉

(If you’re as excited as we are, stay tuned! We’re putting together the details for a virtual launch party this weekend!)

Until next time, Stay Curious, Stay Enchanted, and Keep Chasing Wonder, friends! ✨

P.S.- if you missed it last week, here is the full breakdown of mythology, archetypes, and inspirations that went into the design of the Virgo card! (I started with Virgo since we are in Virgo season, and tomorrow when we switch to Libra season, I will share the same detailed breakdown of the Libra card!) ✨

Virgo: Keeper of the Sacred Flame

In five short days, a collaborative project I’ve been working on for over a year now will launch on Kickstarter- The Universe Within Zodiac Oracle Deck, Guide, and Journal. Illustrated and designed by yours truly, with writings, affirmations, and journal questions by “Magic Kathi,” Katherina Hillenberg.

To read all about the project as a whole, see the preview, and get updates, check out the Kickstarter preview video (and mark your calendars for launch day next Monday!) here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lusicovicreative/1482102860?ref=2o3aew&token=e9030f1c

Because we are releasing this project on the full moon in Virgo next Monday, and because a journal is inherently aligned with “Virgo vibes,” and because we are currently in Virgo season, and because it happens to be my sun sign, I am going to do a blog series where I tell the behind the scenes stories of the creation of each of the signs in this Zodiac deck; and I am going to start with Virgo.

A quick side note to those in my audience who are not familiar with Astrology or the Tarot. #1- If you are interested in learning more about Astrology, then this blog series and this Deck and Journal are definitely for you! Read on! And be sure to support the Kickstarter next Monday when it launches! #2- Tarot and Astrology are similar in that they both deal in universal archetypes and both can be great tools (along with other ancient myths) for better understanding our own psychology. The Tarot and the Zodiacal archetypes are all tapping into the collective unconscious, as Joseph Campbell called it. They are ways to examine different energies and elements of life. Everyone has had a tower moment- where everything is crumbling in order to make way for the new. Everyone knows the feeling of being swept up in the passion of new love- represented by the lovers card. Everyone has a physical body and material goods, cutting mental clarity and moments of clouded mental confusion, flowing emotions, and the fiery ambition of career or other projects. These are the elements of life personified in the Zodiac and in the Tarot -represented by earth (material), air (mental), fire (creative), and water (emotional)- and as this book and deck explore, these energies and archetypes impact each of us at different times in life in different ways. These energies and their impacts are real, and often the Tarot and Oracle cards can be useful not in a prophetic way, but in a psychological one. More important than the card that is drawn is one’s own psychological reaction to the card drawn, especially in conjunction with the question posed in the first place. Very often, if we can just slow down and be curious enough, we actually know the answer to our own questions, we just have to actually notice how we think and feel in response. The tarot and other oracle decks like this one are a tool to help us pay attention to our own psychology. Now, on to our examination of the Virgo archetype!

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“Virgo, the Virgin,” oh how I cringed each time my zodiac sign came up over the years. Virgo the perfectionist, Virgo the organized one, Virgo the planner.

True, Virgo is ruled by Mercury, a planet which is strangely exalted only in its own sign, and Mercury is all about messages and the mind- so it does make sense for Virgos to be, let’s face it, a bit neurotic.

But the characteristics and descriptions of Virgo never at all felt authentic to my personality. In fact, I think in hindsight what always bugged me was that while I may have indeed come across as a pure perfectionist goody two shoes, and while that does match the description of Virgo, it did not match how I actually felt, and what I resented was my own inauthentic projection to the world.

I did not want to be identified with Virgo because my outer projection was in fact quite similar to Virgo, but that was what I didn’t like- the fact that my projection did not match my inner experience. Not to mention I simply didn’t see how someone as creative and frankly chaotic as myself could ever be described as “organized” or “thoroughly well planned.” That doesn’t jive at all with my own experience of creative chaos, flying by the seat of my pants, and making it all up as I go.

Two pieces of context were missing. Well, maybe three.

Kay and I on the trip to Savannah, GA in which she pointed out that I definitely AM a Virgo.

Firstly, my best friend, another Virgo, pointed out to me when I brought up this discrepancy that sure, I was creative and chaotic, but I was also constantly striving to control the chaos. I was designing a journal specifically to organize my creativity and other life chaos, for Pete’s sake. (The Starlight Journal) Whereas someone truly chaotic wouldn’t bother ever trying to control, contain, or analyze any of it. So it turns out that despite my own annoyance with it, the stereotypical Virgo characteristics do in fact fit at least parts of my personality, and I have just had to come to terms with that.

Secondly, the broader context of my birth chart reveals the true key to my emotional experience being at odds with this Virgo description, but I’ll save that in depth analysis for the Scorpio blog post.

Thirdly, again in broader context, it turns out that the stereotypical Virgo characteristics have become somewhat distorted over time. The word “Virgin” in fact simply meant “young woman” in its ancient original context. Relatively innocent and pure, yes, but not in a way that forbid her from ever engaging in sacred acts of creation, including but not limited to actual sex. Somehow over time we have forgotten that the Virgin Mary is celebrated because she is a mother, because she trusted the divine plan and allowed creation to flow through her without needing to understand it all up front. These are all deeply tied to the sacred feminine. And yet somehow in the modern world we have divorced motherhood and all of sacred creation from the messiness required to get us there. The Virgin Mary is celebrated not so much for her actual motherhood -the creation of new divine life- but for being pure, virginal, and thus never sullying herself with the “dirty sinful messiness of sex.”

As the saying goes, “creativity is messy, and I am very creative.” And yes, painting is often messy. Pottery is literally dirty work. Sex is messy, emotions are messy, frankly pregnancy and childbirth and nursing and child raising are allllllll very very messy, dirty, and downright gross. They’re inherently unpredictable. That’s the price we pay for literal creation.

The fertility and abundance celebrated at the harvest, the season in which Virgo reigns in the sky, are the very prerequisites for the creation of new life, which requires in fact the same messy, inspired, passionate energy with which we also create paintings and dance and novels and pottery. It’s all messy, and it’s all sacred. It’s all transcendent, and precious, and (when done with the proper intentions of love rather than hedonism) that messy transcendental preciousness is why it is sacred. The messiness and the transcendentalism is also why it is feminine- because in order to experience it fully and in a pure and sacred way, we must surrender to the experience and to the divine.

This is equally true in inspired painting or writing, in sex, in childbirth, and in mothering. The truth is, try as we might to analyze and organize and control, we cannot. And that is the beauty and sacredness of it.

(Although speaking of messes, have you noticed how usually in order to organize anything you have to make a bigger mess of it all first. That might be god chuckling at us Virgos.)

In the Tarot, Virgo is associated with the card The Hermit. This archetype I find actually bridges the gap between the ancient and modern stereotypes about Virgos. While the modern idea retains only the masculine aspects associated with Mercury and the mind, and the ancient traditions associate Virgo with the feminine elements of the harvest, the abundant and fertile earth, and the goddess Deméter, and thus ancient Virgo embodies creation in general (Virgo is an Earth sign, after all), the Hermit manages somehow to incorporate both.

The Hermit card, you see, is about knowledge and learning, yes, the mental pursuits of the mind. But more deeply it is about wisdom- specifically the wisdom found within. It is about the journey and discovery that occurs when you retreat from the busy-ness and noise of the world, and venture within to hear the whispered wisdom of your soul. It is the archetype and illustration of gnosis if ever there was one. It is usually (if not always) depicted holding a lantern- at once the flame of light which illuminates, enlightens, teaches, and the sacred flame of inspiration or messages from the divine. (See, Mercury does belong here, just not how we typically think.)

For is it not usually when we are quiet, introspective, and curious enough to hear our own soul that divinity whispers to us inspired words of wisdom or creation? It is not a coincidence that the Muses of Greece and the Holy Spirit of Christianity are both said to speak to us at various times, inspiring great passions and innovations, and illuminating great wisdom both.

The Hermit, and also the true Virgo archetype, is the archetype of the keeper of the sacred flame of embodied creation (motherhood and fertility) and of inspiration- of the messages and wisdom (Mercury) found within our own souls. It is this sacred feminine archetype (the trusting receiver and care taker of divine and thus sacred creation and inspiration) that I have depicted in the Universe Within’s Virgo card.

The Virgo Illustration from The Universe Within Zodiac Oracle

Surrounded by an abundance of flowers and vines of the Earth, and holding an apple, this Virgo is modeled after a neoclassical painting of Eve, the first mother who walked with God in the abundant garden, and was cast out for daring to follow her curiosity, seek knowledge and wisdom on her own, or even become aware of her own body. For indeed, speaking in terms of evolutionary biology, it was apples and snakes which caused our brains to evolve to be able to spot them, and it was this cranial development which caused the painful childbirth which God predicted would befall Eve. But this consequence, as it seems to me- not a punishment but a natural consequence- is simply the price we pay for creation.

The messiness is always the price we pay for creation. And the pain and mess of it all should never take away from the sacred transcendental awe due to Eve and every mother for their act of creating new life. Truly, women are goddesses of creation. Ask anyone who has ever witnessed it, no matter how messy.

Reference images for the Virgo Illustration. From L to R: The Taste, by Hans Zatzka, Kay holding her house keys on move in day, and Kay smiling holding her first published book.

To represent the Hermit and the true sacred feminine (holder of the flame of divine creation) nature of this archetype, my Virgo maiden is holding not a lantern, but a star.

Stars are the best metaphor for divinity- the sacred, the inspiring, the deities, and the literal flames- that we humans have throughout history. We have mythologized the deities as stars and denizens of the sky in stories both ancient and new, just as we have wished on stars, a prayer to divinity in another form. Thus this depiction of the Virgo archetype has caught a falling star- she is literally a goddess, holding both divinity and embodied knowledge in her hands.

Finally, on a personal note, the face of the Universe Within’s Virgo card is modeled after the face of my best friend Kay, my personal favorite Virgo, and one of the best channels for the flow of divine inspiration and creativity that I know.

Kay adjusting her crown at our Summer Solstice picnic a few years back, looking like the abundant, creative, badass goddess that she is.

So here’s to Virgo season and all it’s many abundances.

May you have an abundance of health, of cheer, of good food and drink, and may you have an abundance of wisdom and divine inspiration as well.

If you need a helpful tool for that last one, be sure to check out this deck and journal when it launches next week! 💫

The Shining Sun Goddess Arev and the Fire Spirit Krag: A Sun Legend from Armenia for Summer Solstice

THE ARMENIAN LEGEND OF THE CREATION OF THE SUN AND FIRE

Adapted by Elise Rorick from Translations  by Bonnie C. Marshall

Once There Was and Once There Wasn’t...

…A cold dark Earth. When that cold dark Earth gave birth to the human race, Arev and Krag were only children, barely able to walk. These two small children were a part of a tribe living in the caves of Mount Ararat.  The men of the tribe hunted all day in the cold and dark, in order that the people may eat. But it was dangerous work, and they often fell victim to the wild beasts of the forest. You see, the wild beasts had an advantage over the new human race- the beasts had sharp eyes that could see well in the dark. The humans, however, did not, so the beasts could often see the humans before they saw the beasts. Therefore, only the strongest, swiftest, and sharpest men of the tribe were successful hunters. Because they needed so much strength for hunting, the men ate almost all the wild game they caught themselves. The golden-haired maiden, Arev, and the curly-haired boy, Krag, spent their childhood only dreaming of juicy meat in that cold dark cave. Very rarely were they able to partake in the feasts. 

One day, someone proposed a change in this status quo, and the dark cave erupted in a din of argument. The new proposal was that the tribe hunt all together- and partake of the meat all together. The strongest of the men, the successful hunters, did not like the idea of being slowed down or put in danger by the weaker members of the tribe, and thus it became a long and violent quarrel. Arev and Krag listened from the darkest part of the cave as their people fought for days to choose a leader whose word, once spoken, could be law and settle the matter of hunting and feasting. Eventually, the wisest of the men was elected (or else all his opponents were quashed), and Arev and Krag found themselves glad mostly that the hunters could go back to hunting. They didn’t get to eat much meat, but even scraps were better than nothing at all. Still too young to venture outside of the cave and battle the beasts of the forest, Arev and Krag resolved that one day they too would become strong and agile hunters. 

The new leader declared a new law.

Henceforth, the leader himself would eat first to maintain his strength to guide the tribe. The hunters would eat second to maintain their strength for continued hunting. The women and children would still eat last, but now at least it was law that every hunter bring his game back to the cave to split amongst the tribe. Keeping fresh meat to oneself outside the cave was expressly forbidden, and anyone who broke this law would be cast out to fend for themselves in the dark and cold. Even before fire, there was strength in numbers, and safety and shelter in the cave. 

Though life on that cold dark Earth was difficult for the first humans, under their new leader, the tribe prospered.

As it grew, so did Arev and Krag. Finally, they were big and strong enough and had proved their worth- they were able to join the hunt. Sparkling with anticipation and excitement, they ventured together out of the cave and into the forest, their senses pricked for animals. After a time, they found themselves separated from the other hunters. They had been tracking a rabbit through the brush, when the wind changed and whispered to them “Danger!”  

A tiger was nearby!

They could hear it’s heavy footsteps and it’s snuffling breath. But mostly, they could hear the sudden echoing silence that had descended around them. All the animals of the forest quietly held their breath, hoping to stay undetected by the terrible predator. 

“Quick! Up into the tree!” Krag whispered urgently. “We’ll never be able to outrun it!”

He hoisted Arev up into the branches, clambering quickly after her himself. With the dexterity of monkeys, they raced up the tree, climbing out of the beast’s reach. As they waited and watched in the silence, trying to quietly catch their breaths, the tiger followed their scent to the base of the tree. Sniffing the air, the beast reared up, placing his front paws on the tree trunk. But he was unable to climb any further.

He let out a great roar, indignant that his prey was out of reach. Arev trembled, and hid her face in Krag’s broad shoulder. 

Krag was not afraid. He felt bold. He had to protect Arev, and this was his chance to bring home a great feast for his tribe. Congratulating himself for his quick thinking, he palmed the large stone in his hand, which he had grabbed as they escaped up the tree. He studied the tiger, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

Suddenly, the bright burning eyes of the tiger lit up it’s entire face. At that moment, Krag pounced, and with a swift and well placed blow of the stone, the tiger fell. 

The brand new hunter let out a “whoop!” of victory, and dancing and beaming with pride, he looked up to Arev. 

She was beaming too. In fact, she was downright glowing, and surrounded by a shimmering light. Krag was startled, even a little frightened, but he was mesmerized. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her glowing beauty. He didn’t even realize that his own face was burning bright as well. 

“What’s….happening?” Krag asked, still enthralled. 

“I’m not sure….” The young maiden responded, as she climbed down from the tree.

He helped her down off the last branch and she stood shining in front of him. Her face looked just as enchanted as he felt. She placed a hand gently on his cheek and continued. 

“The burning bright gaze of the tiger- when it flashed it must have burned your face, for now your face is engulfed in hot flame. Your bravery has made your face handsome, and the heat of it has pierced my heart. My soul is glowing- I think- burning out from my heart...because of you.” She moved his hand to her heart with her own. 

The heat bubbled out of her and hot tears of happiness, love, and a little pain (the first tears ever shed on earth) streamed out of her bright eyes. 

As Arev’s tears fell, they did not hit the ground. Instead, they turned to bright glimmering star drops, and floated up into the dark black sky. They sprinkled the heavens with the burning light of Arev’s love, and Krag looked on in awe.

One single tear, however, did fall. It fell from Arev’s chin and dropped, still burning, onto Krag’s hand, which was still resting with Arev’s hand on her heart. The glowing tear burned his hand, but somehow the pain felt sweet, and it did not sway his gaze. 

Finally, Arev smiled, and wiped her eyes. 

“We should go.” The glowing maiden said brightly. “Our tribe will be waiting for us, and for this feast.” 

The spell was partially broken then, and shaking his head from the enchantment, Krag looked around with caution and remembered where they were. He bent down and hoisted the fallen beast onto his shoulder, still struggling to take his eyes off Arev (which did make the hoisting of the tiger a tad more difficult). The two set off through the forest, with Arev walking in front, lighting the way with her still burning passion. The whole forest seemed to glow with her radiance. 

When they entered the cave, it was illuminated for the first time.

The cold dark corners were pierced with the pair’s warm light, and the people of the cave were frightened. It took them a long while to reassure their tribe that they were not evil forest spirits, but their very own Arev and Krag. The people gathered around, casting furtive glances at the couple, but also glancing hungrily at the freshly killed tiger. Eventually they conceded, and the tribe began to feast, but all the while the other inhabitants of the cave watched the shining maiden and the young man’s fiery face with fear and distrust.

Their fear hardened their hearts.

A short time passed, and darkness gave way to light in the cave. The bitter cold gave way to warmth, but though they had the warm fire of Krag’s burning face, its warmth could not soften the cold and hardened hearts of the tribe. In the light, the people could see for the first time that they were all quite different. The beauty of some (and the ugliness of others) was striking to all. And it hardened them further with jealousy and resentment.

Though the leader was wise, even he was not immune to the effects of this revealing transformation. He noticed first that there were many beautiful maidens in the cave, and it made him glad. But the light also granted him the vision to see that these young beautiful maidens were not looking at him in return. Their gazes fell to the younger and stronger hunters, and with this revelation his old heart twisted with envy. 

The wise old women of the cave were equally troubled. They were visibly older, grayer, and hadn’t as many teeth as the young women, and they could see that the young men and hunters of the tribe were paying much more attention to the young and beautiful maidens. Their hearts too, twisted in fear and jealousy. Eventually they went to the leader discretely and demanded that things return to how they had been. 

“You must kill Arev and Krag. Their light is more oppressive than the darkness! Soon we will all fall to despair! Let the darkness return. In the darkness, we were happy, for we did not know these differences. The less we know, the happier we can be.” 

Their demands caught on, and soon others began shouting “Kill them! Kill them!” 

The leader nodded solemnly. He raised his hand and a respectful silence fell. In his darkened heart, he agreed with the cruel old women. But he sagely knew that as the leader, he must be wise and forward thinking. The light and warmth was not all bad, after all. It allowed them to cook meat, and stay warm on the coldest of nights. And when Arev went hunting with them, her illumination gave the hunter’s a great advantage over the beasts of the forest, for now they could see equally as well. 

Considering all of this, he raised his voice and made his proclamation: 

“In the cold and the dark, we suffered long. It was difficult to see the edible plants of the forest, the fish and the game. The nights were very cold, and many of our tribe died as children for lack of warmth. We cannot kill Arev and Krag, for then we would loose all the benefits of their heat and light. But neither can we allow them to stay together, for when they are together, their brightness is too strong. It illuminates too much, and some things are better left in darkness.”

His decision rendered, as the leader stepped away, he glanced at the nearest group of young beautiful maidens and shuddered. 

The people of the cave were satisfied with their leader’s proclamation, and did as he had advised. They separated the young man and the maiden.

Arev they threw into the sky, and she became the burning sun, illuminating the forest each day for the hunters.

Krag they bound, and used his burning face to ignite the fires of their caves. They even passed him from cave to cave, sharing the fire’s warmth with their inquisitive neighboring tribes until he had spread all over the world. 

Each morning, the shining Sun Goddess Arev rises, searching for her lost love’s burning face until dusk. Thousands of years have passed, but Arev’s hope of finding her lost love has never eclipsed. To this day, the brilliance of her heart pierces the darkness, chasing away the cold nights. Her soul shines throughout the day, radiating with love for her dear Fire Spirit Krag. 

The Fire Spirit endures the same cruel fate as his beloved.

As he travels the world, keeping people warm with hearth fires and campfires, he catches longing  glimpses of his beloved, mesmerized by her dance across the sky each day. Each morning he rejoices at the sight of her luminous beauty, though his own light is often extinguished shortly after dawn.

And each night, as his fires are ignited again in the glowing dusk, he watches with the same enchanted awe and pain as Arev’s glowing sunset paints the sky and dips below the horizon, until only his own burning glow remains to light the night.

And so it will go on, for as long as the Sun Goddess and the Fire Spirit love one another, their love and their light keeps them immortal. Just as our burning love keeps us immortal - in a sense - as well. 

Three apples fell from heaven- one apple for the storyteller, one apple for the person who heard the story well, and one apple for the whole world.  

~*~

In ancient Armenia, the people referred to themselves as “Children of the Sun” and worshipped the sun goddess Arev (or Ara) at an intriguing archeoastronomical site called Carrahunge, which is similar in purpose to Stonehenge. This myth of Arev and Krag is passed down from oral traditions of unknowable age. Incidentally, I discovered this story in a book of recently translated myths and legends of Armenia while researching my own heritage, and I have rewritten and adapted the story myself. It was first published in the Winter 2020 Volume of the Starlight Emporium Magazine (still available for purchase, even though the Emporium is currently on hiatus). I thought that it would be appropriate to share this story and the illustration I made to go with it for the Summer Solstice, as we celebrate the jubilant life of the sun. I find it intriguing that the Summer Solstice coincides with the beginning of Cancer season in the Zodiacal tradition, given that the sign of Cancer is the sign of nurturing emotional mothering. Yet again we can see traces of celebrating the feminine energies on days that purportedly are all about the fiery masculine Sun, and yet again I am reminded that the oldest myths and legends actually praise the sun as feminine. For more on this topic, check out my Spring Equinox article, Sun Goddesses of Spring.

In fact, almost none of the celebrations that have taken place around the world for time immemorial on these celestially significant days are actually anything other than inherently and obviously packed full of feminine energy. Summer Solstice indeed is also known as Midsummer, and there’s nothing all that “masculine” about May-poles or Weddings or A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Celebration itself, especially the celebration of community and nature, is inherently feminine in nature. (For more on the historical types of celebrations that have happened on the Summer Solstice, check out the brilliant article in the Summer edition of the Starlight Emporium by Anailia Raven.) The proper masculine comes in to play more subtly, in these and most other societal instances: by creating the boundaries necessary in order that the feminine energies of celebration, life, and light may burn brightly and thrive. Just as in this ancient story from an ancient land: the feminine is the light, but she is sparked by and fueled by the love of her masculine partner, and working together, they protect and illuminate the world.

May your Solstice this year bring you light, love, and renewed life. ✨

Once in a While You Get Shown the Light in the Strangest Places if You Look at it Right....

As I was walkin' 'round Grosvenor Square
Not a chill to the Winter but a nip to the air
From the other direction, she was calling my eye
It could be an illusion, but I might as well try, might as well try

She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes
And I knew, without askin', she was into the blues
She wore scarlet begonias tucked into her curls
I knew right away she was not like other girls, other girls

In the thick of the evening, when the dealing got rough
She was too pat to open and too cool to bluff
As I picked up my matches and was closing the door
I had one of those flashes I'd been there before, been there before

Well, I ain't always right, but I've never been wrong
Seldom turns out the way it does in a song
Once in a while, you get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right

Well, there ain't nothing wrong with the way she moves
Scarlet begonias or a touch of the blues
And there's nothing wrong with the look that's in her eyes
Had to learn the hard way to let her pass by, let her pass by

Wind in the willow's playin' "Tea For Two"
The sky was yellow, and the sun was blue
Strangers stoppin' strangers just to shake their hand
Everybody's playing in the heart of gold band, heart of gold band

I’ve never actually heard this song sung BY the Grateful Dead. I’ve never been (or known well) a Dead Head. But I DID grow up a Parrot Head, thanks to my parents and their friends. (I’m pretty sure my dad still has original Buffet Records, which might even make him an honorary Hipster, much to his chagrin.) And though it’s not an original Jimmy Buffet song, his version of it is always one of my very favorites. Something about those Scarlet Begonias tucked into her curls…

I always wanted to be that girl:

…Wild curly hair with flowers she had probably plucked from a nearby planter (Let’s be honest, when I am in Florida, I AM that girl), sharp and cool, but smart enough to know to enjoy life, wise enough to recognize the flashes of light in strange places when you see it, and someone whose carefree presence and the way that she moves causes strangers to play and laugh together in a dusky heart of gold evening… the smell of begonias (one of my favorite flowers, incidentally) on the salty ocean breeze….definitely not a girl like all the others I saw around me as a teenager in the Midwest.

I never truly felt like I fit in in the Midwest. My heart has always belonged to the sea. (Maybe it was from all the Buffet music I inevitably overheard as a child? Who knows. I don’t even remember seeing the ocean before I was well into my teens, but I have always loved it.)

The first concert I ever went to was a Jimmy Buffet concert. And the second, and the third….and frankly I’ve lost count. I haven’t been to a lot of concerts in my life, but the vast majority of them have been Buffet. (Again, my parents were Parrot Heads. It was island life in a parking lot for a day. I LOVED it.)

The summer of 2015 was concert number…..4? 5? 6? I honestly don’t know. But that year, my younger sister was old enough to come too, and my roommate Katie tagged along as well, because she was thankfully always up for an adventure.

We put temporary chalk colors in our hair, wore grass skirts and tropical parrot shirts, and at the last minute I also stuck this photo prop flower clip in my hair. I saw it sitting there and just thought “Scarlet Begonias” and then it had to come with.

We were living in Noblesville, IN at the time, and the concert was in Cincinnati, OH, so it was a small road trip. Because the concert always gets out so late at night, when its an out of town show, the big group of us always stays in a hotel that night, gets breakfast the next morning, and then we all head for home. That year I believe the concert was on a Monday or Tuesday night. So it was a weekday mid afternoon when Katie and I arrived back in Noblesville the next day. We had the rest of the day, no plans, and were still buzzing with the island life vibes of the concert. Our apartment complex had a pool which on weekends was always full of kids, but which on this random weekday afternoon was completely empty. So on a total whim, we decided to finally do an underwater photoshoot like we had been talking about since we moved in.

There was no plan. There was no concept for this shoot. I just dug through my prop and costume box and grabbed a few things to play around with- inevitably perhaps, the flavor of the prop collecting and the final photos became that carefree, sharp, wise, and flowing vibe of the girl with scarlet begonias tucked into her curls…. I even grabbed the scarlet begonia hair clip. (Along with, obviously, my model pirate ships.)

And as it turns out, the song is true.

Once in a while, you do get shown the light in the strangest places, if only you catch it just right, and recognize it when you see it.

The resulting photos from this impromptu “Jimmy Buffet” themed photo shoot are still some of my very favorites ever, even 6 years later. They’re some of the best ones I’ve ever taken.

We were just playing around. Just going with the flow of inspiration, following the light and jamming with the heart of gold band, so to speak…. And that is the magic of finding the light in strange unexpected places.

….or maybe I just love them so much because they capture the same feeling that I always yearned for and identified with…the flowing profound beauty of the girl with scarlet begonias tucked into her curls, catching the light in the strangest of places, like the universe was winking at her through the artistry of the lyrics, the music, the images….winking at her through that kind of island life and the beauty of all the salty, soulful stories found in Jimmy Buffet’s music.

Because for me, it’s always the story that gets me. The lines that are pure magic:

“ONCE IN A WHILE YOU GET SHOWN THE LIGHT, IN THE STRANGEST PLACES IF YOU LOOK AT IT RIGHT.”

-Scarlet Begonias

“THERE IS A TALE THAT THE ISLAND PEOPLE TELL, DON’T CARE IF IT IS TRUE, CUZ I LOVE IT SO WELL.”

-Jolly Mon Sing

“MOTHER MOTHER OCEAN, I HAVE HEARD YOU CALL…WANTED TO SAIL UPON YOUR WATERS SINCE I WAS THREE FEET TALL…”

-A Pirate Looks at 40

And then there’s this one: Cowboy in the Jungle.

“Steel band in the distance
And their music floats across the bay
While American women in moomoos
Talk about all the things they did today
And their husbands quack about fishing
As they slug those rum drinks down
Discussing who caught what and who sat on his butt
But it's the only show in town

They're tryna drink all the punches
They all may lose their lunches
Tryin' to cram lost years into five or six days
Seems that blind ambition erased their intuition
Plowin' straight ahead come what may

I don't want to live on that kind of island
No, I don't want to swim in a roped off sea
Too much for me, too much for me
I've got to be where the wind and the water are free

Alone on a midnight passage
I can count the falling stars
While the Southern Cross and the satellites
They remind me of where we are
Spinning around in circles
Living it day to day
And still 24 hours may be 60 good years
It's really not that long a stay

We've gotta roll with the punches
Learn to play all of our hunches
Make the best of whatever comes your way
Forget that blind ambition
And learn to trust your intuition
Plowin' straight ahead come what may
And there's a cowboy in the jungle…”

And if that isn’t just about THE magical perfect description not only of Jimmy Buffet/island life vibe, but of the ideal philosophy of a well lived life….I don’t know what is.

Maybe my heart is so enthralled with these images precisely because they have that flavor (and memory) of “Yes please. That is who I have always wanted to be. This is the life I want.” that always resounded through these songs for me.

For me, Jimmy Buffet’s music is not just about laying on a beach or a boat all day, wasting away again in Margaritaville (though who doesn’t enjoy that from time to time?). It’s much more magical and deeper than that:

‘JIMMY SOME OF ITS TRAGIC, SOME OF ITS MAGIC, BUT I HAD A GOOD LIFE ALL THE WAY.”

-He Went to Paris

With the wisdom of the lyrics, the stories these songs tell, and the steel drums and other music sweeping over me, I can just about smell the salty ocean and the begonias on the heart of gold breeze….

And it feels like home.

Which, after all, IS the overall theme of this Fine Art Print Collection.

So if any of the stories, lyrics, or images speak to your soul in a similar way, I invite you to grab one of the very limited prints currently available in the Sea and the Stars Collection, on sale now. Adorn your walls with the images that allow you to go to that place of magic- of coming home- just like the simple scarlet Begonia in my hair does for me. 🌺

Sunrise Wave Fine Art Print- 5x7in

$15.00

Add To Cart

Scarlet Begonias Fine Art Print- 5x7in

$15.00

Add To Cart

The Dance of Yin and Yang: Thoughts on Aquarius

Yin and Yang. Dark and Light. Feminine and Masculine. Nuit and Hadit. Expansion and Constriction.

Aside from being the season of Love and Valentines, February is the season of Aquarius. And actually, those two things are not as disconnected as they might seem. Last year in February I was struck with a bit of inspiration- perhaps there is something deeper happening underneath the chocolates and flowers and cheesiness of an overly commercialized Valentines Day. Yes, we should be focusing on love every day of the year. Yes we should be treating ourselves and our significant relationships regularly. But perhaps Hallmark actually picked up on something deeply human and played it to their advantage. Perhaps in the dark and cold of February winter- when we are still too far from Spring to have much hope of new warmth, but are well enough into winter’s slush and sludge to be well and truly over it already- maybe this is the time when we naturally draw together with our loved ones; as a reminder that in the dark and drudgery of winter, it is actually US who are each other’s light and hope in the darkness. 

Here’s some more deeper meaning that I just learned today. The season of Aquarius is very much one of higher purpose. As an air sign, Aquarius is a dreamer, a visionary. Someone who zooms out so far as to realize that what is good for the collective is good for everyone within the collective, including oneself, and dares to dream that big and bigger. Aquarius is the dichotomy of self-less/self-ish pure logic. We are entering (entered? It’s up for debate) the Age of Aquarius, leaving the Age of Pisces, and if 2020 wasn’t a preview of massive Aquarian shifts still to come, then I don’t know what is. 

In my house, Aquarius is particularly present because my partner is a triple Aquarius. (And as I have been reminded already 10 times this year, “It’s the age of Aquarius. I can only be right!” 😂 That triple Aquarius energy works really well in our household though- because like the Yin/Yang, we balance each other very well. He is Aquarius and Aries, largely. (So air and fire.) And I am a Virgo Sun with a Scorpio Moon, Rising, and Pluto, and a hefty dose of Capricorn for good measure. (So Earth and Water.) And in practice it’s a pretty beautiful dance. He has his visionary crazy optimistic moments, which I can appreciate but also ground with my Virgo and Cap when necessary.

On the flip side, he encourages my dreams (even the ones I think are practically unrealistic) in ways I will forever be grateful for.  He also can balance my Earth and Water muddiness with a healthy dose of logic. (Pure, helpful logic that is, not drive-yourself-crazy-Capricorn/Virgo logic.) Aquarius is also the water bearer though- which is exactly what this triple Scorpio needs: someone to hold the space for my sometimes overwhelming watery emotions. So I can cool his fire and ground his head-in-the-clouds optimism. And he can fuel my dreams and hold the space for my watery dreams to flow. Like I said, it’s a beautiful dance. (But lord help us when the little one arrives in July- A Cancer sun and we shall see what else. We might be in for a ride! Lol) 

Above all, Aquarius is the sign of Inspiration. Often divine inspiration- for indeed in the Greek myth of Ganymede associated with this constellation, what was poured from the great water-bearer’s cup was the nectar of the gods. It can be confusing because you’d think that as a “water bearer,” it would be a watery sign. But actually (and it is mostly through my own personal relationship that I can see this most clearly), the water bearer could only be a sign of Air.

Water is beautiful, life giving, flowing, cosmic creative energy. It is the feminine, the yin, the expansion, and the goddess. And yet, without the banks, a river is just a puddle. Without the direction of the logos, the waters are pure chaos. 

In every atom there is the expansive fiery energy of the universe- literally expanding. And yet, because of gravity -an equal and opposite force of restriction, a pull against the outward push- things exist. Literally. Without the beautiful dance of opposite gravitational forces and  expansive forces of the universe, matter wouldn’t....well... matter. Nothing would. Because there would be nothing. It is only through the dance of the opposites that anything is actually created. 

I think Aquarius is the same. The creative life giving force of water is lifeless and stagnant without the banks of the river- the container which allows the waters to flow. And where there is that dichotomy, the life around the river flourishes and prospers. In ancient Egypt, the Nile flooded at the time of year when Aquarius was in the sky, and that flood of Aquarian waters was celebrated because of the life it enabled to flourish. In the same way, I think that the chaotic force of creativity and art are nothing without the vision- the inspiration- both a direction and container in which to flow and flourish. 

Which brings us to the Star. In tarot, the Star card is one of rest, rejuvenation, and inspiration. It is the rainbow after a heavy destructive storm. The first light of dawn after the darkest night- the visionary bright hope for the future. In a word: Aquarius. And yet, like any Star, we cannot appreciate it without the darkness that surrounds it. In the Thoth tarot deck especially, the Star is represented by the goddess Nuit. Nuit was associated with the Egyptian Nut, goddess of the night/heaven (and thus she is also perhaps Tiamat, the Crone, and even the Virgin Mary), but she is a goddess of the Thelemic tradition. 

As the goddess of the night and heaven, Nuit is the goddess of the expansive cosmos- the heavens at night, in all their expansive, wonderful, awe-inspiring glory. She is the goddess of that cosmic continual expansion- the same expansive force of the universe found in each atom pushing out against gravity. Gravity is represented in this tradition by Nuit’s counterpart and consort, the God Hadit. Hadit is the focused attention. If Nuit is infinite expansion, then Hadit is infinite contraction. He is the infinite point of awareness, for indeed, our human perception cannot truly perceive more than one thing at once.

As much as we love to congratulate ourselves for our multitasking prowess, we all secretly know that focus can only truly be given to one thing at a time. In the entire infinite and ever expanding cosmos of things that are and are possible, the human body can only perceive and focus on a finite amount at once. That point of awareness, which is happening infinity times all over the globe every day and constantly changing- is Hadit. It is the opposite force (but working in conjunction with the force) of infinite expansion that is Nuit. And thus, through their sacred union, Nuit and Hadit create their son, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, who is associated with different versions of the Egyptian Horus, particularly “Horus of the Sun.”

Metaphorically we can say that the dance of Nuit and Hadit create...everything. All matter, all of us, the sun which brings life to all the Earth. In several senses, this is another version of the Holy Trinity, perhaps a more original one. 

This infinite tension between expansion and contraction is the same as the tension between the river and the banks, the chaos and the order, the light and the dark, the yin and the yang, and the inspirational direction of Aquarius and the creative force of the waters of divine inspiration which he bears. This beautiful dance is present all throughout the cosmos, in both the microcosm and the microcosm (As above, so below, after all.), and thus, so too are the cosmos, the waters, and the light of inspiration represented in this sacred yin/yang painting.

Incidentally, I was randomly inspired to sketch quite some time ago, but only upon learning all of this about Aquarius and the dance of infinite cosmic tension and inspiration that Aquarius represents, was I inspired again to actually paint it. Magical, right? 

Tales from Winter Nights

Today, December 21st, marks the last winter solstice of this decade. The word “solstice” comes from the Latin sol (sun), and sistere (to stand), and is known as “The Day the Sun Stands Still.” In the case of winter, it’s the day that the sun stands still on the other side of the world, banishing the Northern Hemisphere into the longest darkest night of the year. It also marks the time in the cycle where the sun begins to come back to us, and as such, the Winter Solstice has always been a significant day of celebration to almost every culture.

For the vast majority of human history, we have depended on the cycles and seasons of agriculture to run our lives. And so, to mark the very end of Fall (the season of harvest and hard work), and the beginning of the dormant season of Winter, humans the world over have pretty much always held feasts or festivals or celebrations of some kind on the Winter Solstice. From Juul to Saturnalia to Chaomos to Soyal to Yalda to the modern Christmas, humans have seemingly always gathered together on that long dark night to battle the dark with festivities and firelight, and to celebrate the rebirth of the celestial life sustaining light. Interestingly, if we examine these ancient and sustained traditions throughout the world for how to celebrate this rebirth of the light, we can find traces of the familiar.

“[Juul] was a Pagan Scandinavian winter festival when Juul logs were burned and fires were lit to symbolize the heat and life-giving properties of the returning sun. It was believed that the yule log had the magical effect of helping the sun to shine more brightly. 

The people who celebrated during this festival drank Meade around the bonfires while minstrel-poets sang of ancient legends.”

(read the full article here)

Juul logs burned in Scandinavia in winter to help the sun shine brighter, and while they burned, the people drank mead around bonfires, and mistrel poets sang songs and told tales of ancient legends. Sounds pretty familiar. But not just to us and our modern Christmas traditions of Yule logs, drinking, and carol-singing.

“The Festival of Chaomos was a Pakistani celebration in which a small number of Kalasha or Kalash Kafir people observed the ritual of baths as a part of a purification process. 

There was also singing and chanting, dancing, bonfires, festive eating and a torchlight procession. This celebration lasted for at least 7 days and it is during this time the demi-god Balomain passed through the Kalash region.  He is said to be collecting prayers as he goes and is worshipped during the festival.”

(from the same article here)

The Festival of Chaomos in Pakistan, the Soyal Ceremonies of the northern Arizona Hopi tribe, the celebration of Gody in Poland, Greece’s Brumalia celebration, the Hindu’s celebration of Makar Sankranti, the Persian festival of Yalda, and even the Roman celebration of Saturnalia are all further examples world wide of festivities that take place on the darkest nights of winter, and center around the celebration of the light returning to the earth and the end of the harvest season. They all feature drinking, dancing, storytelling, bonfires, and feasts. Soyal even features gift giving to children, and Yalda features general acts of merry goodwill, both traditions which are familiar to anyone caught up in the modern Christmas spirit of giving.

During Saturnalia, a festival with all of the modern chaos of Christmas-time, but more intentionally and joyfully than we usually have, they turned the tables on normal life so far as to elect a Lord of Misrule to preside over the wild festivities, in homes and temples decorated with evergreen trees.

“The idea was that he [the Lord of Misrule] ruled over chaos, rather than normal Roman order. During this time homes were decorated with boughs of laurel and evergreen trees, lamps were kept burning to ward off the spirits of the darkness, and temples were decorated with evergreens symbolizing life’s continuity.”

(from the same article here)

Legendary beings, whether spirits, men, goddesses, or monsters, are often celebrated and featured in fireside tales in midwinter as well. From Santa Claus to Jolly Old Saint Nick, to the Scandinavian Nisse, to the sun god Horus in Egypt, to the goddess Beiwe, who travelled across the night sky in a transport made of reindeer bones with her daughter, and brought back the greenery and fertility of the Earth (and thus evokes Persephone and Demeter), many Gods and spirits have been celebrated and talked about around the time of the Winter Solstice. There are many cultural traditions that propagate tales of mythical monsters, too, who play tricks on humans in the darkness, or who steal the sun.

Not all spirits are bad and steal the sun though. A part of Soyal, one of the most important ceremonies to the Arizona Hopi, is that the kachinas (spirits that watch over the tribe) come down from their home in the mountains of San Francisco and bring the sun back to the Hopi. Thus they celebrate this return of the sun and spirits with dancing, feasting, singing, prayers and purification, giving gifts to children, and of course rich storytelling.

From the deserts of Arizona to the sands of Persia, the celebration on the longest night of the year is a celebration of the triumph of the sun and its deities. In Iran, the triumph goes to Mithra, the Persian Sun God, who defeats the darkness. The ancient Persian festival of Shab-e Yalda, meaning “Night of Birth",” is celebrated in the usual human way. People gather together in the darkness, to protect each other from the evils and monsters lurking in the dark, and they burn fires to light their way as they perform acts of charity. They feast on nuts, pomegranates, watermelons, and other local delicacies, saved from summer specifically for this night. They make wishes, read the poetry of their renowned and legendary poet Hafiz, and some even stay awake all night, waiting specifically to rejoice at daybreak, when the sun rises and banishes the darkness of the longest night.

This post recapping this collection of traditions from around the world is one that I initially wrote as a post for inside of the Starlight Collective. One of the beautiful things about the flow and divine feminine aspect of the Collective is that sometimes what I set out to find and share is not at all what I discover. But then, where would be the fun in the discovery if it was? For this past week, the creativity prompt was to write a story or poem to tell around a midwinter fire. So for the curiosity post, I set out to find and share my favorite “tale from midwinter,” expecting to easily find a cache of “stories ancient peoples told around ancient campfires” in their entirety and nicely cataloged, from which I could simply choose my favorite and share. The reality was not that simple. It seems that other than a few stories having to do specifically with winter or snow (The Snow Queen, etc.), “tales from midwinter campfires” is not really a genre from which to select your favorite story or poem. A vast and wondrous collection of descriptions of midwinter traditions (all of which MENTION stories generally but never specifically), however, is readily available. And it is this which I have wound up summarizing. In fact, I liked the final product so well that I decided to share it publicly, as well.

I did, however, find one mention of a very specific poet that was traditionally recited at one of these Solstice festivals: the Persian poet, Hafiz. And so, I would like to end with my favorite poem of his. Imagine it being recited over a warm drink and warmer fire, underneath a blanket of stars peppering the darkest night sky:

All the Hemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.

Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting

While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.

From: 'The Subject Tonight is Love'
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Imagining Consciousness

When I dreamed up the Starlight Collective, I knew it was something that I wanted to participate in. That’s what they say, right? Write the book you want to read. Do the thing you want to see happen in the world that no one else is doing. So, that has been a part of this all along.

If you want to read more about why I started the Starlight Collective, you can check out this post from August. Suffice it to say that I started it for myself, in part, but also for anyone else that wanted to learn how to incorporate a creative practice into their busy schedules and re-balance both aspects of the divine. I knew that I wanted to re-connect to the divine. But what I never dreamed at the time was just how…..dreamy it was going to be. It is everything I have ever wanted in an online presence, community, and in a creative practice. And it’s only just getting started.

And, as it turns out, the synchronicities surrounding the posts and prompts in the Collective keep knocking me off my feet. It seems like the divine is winking at me every week, trying equally to reach out and connect to me. Because, see, I schedule the Collective posts all about a week or so in advance. And then they wind up being exactly what I most need to hear/think about that week. It’s been a little bit wild, but in the most cool way.

And so for this regular blog post, I wanted to share a bit of a behind the scenes peek at my favorite example of that so far.

The prompt for the week was this:

For this week’s creative prompt, we are flipping the script again and playing around with archetypal themes. This month’s creative writing prompt is:

What did sleeping beauty dream about while she was asleep? And/or where did she go?

Write a poem, or short prose piece in response, but also feel free to start by just answering the question directly, and let the words and ideas and your imagination flow. See what happens after that and what you can make out of it. As always please share what you write, if you feel inclined!

The creative prompts go out on Mondays, and on Wednesdays I share a “Curiosity Wednesday” post which is some sort of article or blog post or what have you that relates in some way to the Monday Creative Prompt. This post also allows me to nerd out a bit and do some research on something curious. So for this week, because the Creative Prompt had to do with Sleeping Beauty, I got to nerd out extra hard and shared this psychological examination of Sleeping Beauty/Consciousness:

Like most stories famously animated by Disney, the story of Sleeping Beauty has a complicated past and a dark history. But that is what I find so fascinating about them. Did you know that there are traces of this archetypal story as far back at 1300AD? Everyone knows about Grimm’s fairy tales (in which this particular one is called “Briar Rose"), but did you know that before Grimm there was Perrault’s version? And before that there was a version by Giambattista Basile called "Sun, Moon, and Talia," which dates to 1636. Andrew Lang later adapted Perrault’s version for his famous Fairy Books. And, what I find personally most fascinating: there is a tale in 1,001 Arabian Nights that, while somewhat tenuous, is still considered a “Sleeping Beauty Tale.” (For references and a more detailed history of this tale, check out SurLaLune Fairy Tales’ page on the History of Sleeping Beauty: http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sleepingbeauty/history.html)

This story is peppered all through-out time and all over the world. What I find most curious is: why? Why did all of these different cultures and writers produce similar tales about a princess who falls asleep and is awakened by a prince? (Or in some cases, by her children.) What does is say about the fundamental human condition that we keep telling ourselves and each other this same story? Some post-modernist and feminist readings of this tale are affronted at the implication that a princess needs a prince to come and rescue her and wake her up. But Canadian professor and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, who has lectured and written books about comparative mythology combined with his clinical experience over a long career, offered the below quote in response, as his comparative mythological interpretation. I find it to be a fascinating study in human psychology, and I personally agree with him that to read the story at the surface level of “the message is that women need men to rescue them” does not do the profound history of this tale justice.

It has been around far too long, and appears in far too many instances of human creativity, for it to be that simple. Peterson offers a deeper psychological dive, and I find his analysis interesting most especially in light of the historical darker versions of the sleeping beauty tale. In the older versions, it was not the kiss of the prince that wakes Briar Rose. It was her children suckling at her finger and sucking out the spinning wheel splinter. According to Peterson’s psychological reading of the significance of his tale, I think that would mean that it is children, often conceived while metaphorically asleep or unconscious to the realities of nature and the world, that awaken in women the hyper consciousness of motherhood.

And evolutionarily speaking, at the very least, that’s not wrong. Women tend to be more neurotic (in the clinical sense, not in a derogatory sense) than men, and why wouldn’t they be? They spend the first years of their child’s life attached almost literally to a helpless being, purely as a byproduct of human reproduction. Of COURSE mothers are hyper aware of every possible impending danger. Of course having an infant makes you incredibly conscious of everything happening around you. Your child’s life may depend on it! That is what we mean when we say that the prince (or the baby) wakes the princess up. Because it is through interaction (specifically sexual interaction) with men that we love that we conceive and birth babies and THAT is what forces women into states of hyper consciousness, as a purely biological imperative to the survival and evolution of our species. Which of course, makes it a fundamental and crucial human tale.

If you’re interested, read the transcript of Dr. Peterson’s lecture where he talks about Sleeping Beauty and its psychological significance below. Keep in mind that this was a lecture and that I have personally transcribed it, so, as many of us do when we tell stories aloud, it’s not a perfect essay, and he does go on a few tangents. But overall I find his conclusions fascinating. I would love to know what you think of this take, and I say that especially to any mothers in our group. Please leave a comment and start a discussion! <3

“You know in sleeping beauty, Sleeping Beauty goes to sleep. And the reason she goes to sleep- you have to remember what happens. She has parents who are quite old, and so they’re pretty desperate to have a child, like so many people are now. And they only have one child, like so many people do now. And they don’t want anything to happen to this child, because like, hey, it’s a miracle! And there’s only one of them. And so, she’s the princess. And so it’s like “we’re not letting anything around her!” So they have a big christening party, right? And they invited everyone. But they don’t invite Maleficent. And Maleficent is the terrible mother. She’s nature. She’s the thing that goes bump in the night. She’s the devil herself. She’s everything that you don’t want your child to encounter.

So the king and queen are just like “Well we just won’t invite her to the Christening!” And it’s just like well good luck with that. That’s an oedipal story right? The oedipal mother is the mother who devours her child by overprotecting him or her. So that instead of being strengthened by an encounter with the terrible world, they’re weakened by too much protection, and then when they are let out into the world, they cannot live. And that’s the story of sleeping beauty and that’s what the king and queen do.

And they apologize to maleficent when she first shows up and well you know they have a bunch of half witted excuses why they don’t invite her. “We forgot.” Haha it’s like, I don’t think so. You don’t forget that. And she kinda makes that point. It’s like the whole horror of life- you don’t forget about that when you have a child. You might want to keep it at bay but you don’t forget about it. The question is do you invite it to the party? And the answer is it bloody well depends how unconscious you want your child to be. And if you want your child to be unconscious then you have the added advantage that maybe they won’t leave home….

So Sleeping Beauty, she’s naive as hell. They put her out in the forest and have her raised by these three fairies who are also completely devoid of any potency and power. Right? There’s nothing maleficent about them. And then the first idiot prince that wanders by she falls in love with so badly that she has PTSD when he rides off on his horse. And then she goes into the castle and she’s all freaked out because she met the love of her life for like five minutes for god’s sake. And ya know, that’s when the spinning wheel- that’s the wheel of fate- pops up and she pricks her finger.

And they tried to get rid of all the spinning wheels, of all the wheels of fate, with their pointed end. But she finds it, and pricks her finger, and falls down unconscious. Well she wants to be unconscious! And no bloody wonder. She was protected her whole life. She’s so damn naive that her first love affair nearly kills her. She wants to go to sleep and never wake up. And so that’s exactly what happens.

And then she has to wait for the prince to come and rescue her. And you think well how sexist can you get, that story? No seriously. Because that’s the way that that would be read in the modern world. Like “she doesn't need a prince to rescue her.” So you can say “well the princess doesn't need a prince to rescue her.” But that’s a boneheaded way to look at the story. Because the prince isn’t just a man that’s coming to rescue the woman (and believe me, he’s got his own set of problems, he’s got a goddamn dragon he has to contend with).

The prince is also representative of the woman’s own consciousness. The consciousness is often presented in stories as symbolically masculine, as it is with the logos idea. The idea is that without that forward going courageous consciousness, the women herself will drift into unconsciousness and terror. And so you can read it as the woman who’s sleeping needs a man to wake her up and of course the man also needs a woman to wake him up, it’s the same thing. That’s the dragon fight in sleeping beauty.

But it’s also the case that if she’s only unconscious, all she can do is lay there and sleep. Like the sleep of the weak and the damned. She has to wake up and bring her own masculine consciousness into the forefront, so that she can survive in the world.”

(To learn more about Dr. Jordan Peterson, visit https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/ Also check out his Podcast, which contains his Psychological Significance of the Bible Lecture Series, from which this excerpt is derived. Or check out his book, 12 Rules for Life.)

So, even if I wound up ending this post there, I would have already been really proud of this content and wanted to share it. But it gets better. Because. I wrote and scheduled these Collective posts over a week BEFORE they actually were posted inside the Collective. And I planned the prompt/topic for that week over a MONTH before it actually posted. And I’m super happy with how that Curiosity Wednesday post turned out. But that’s not where this story ends.

Fast forward to the day that it actually is posted inside the Collective. That Monday night, I had a literal actual dream while asleep that was about my life but related in freaky weird ways to exactly this psychological examination of Sleeping Beauty and the themes therein. And so, on that Tuesday morning, slightly baffled already, I was even more surprised to realize, “oh my god. The collective prompt this week is to write about where sleeping beauty goes when she dreams ! And I just had this crazy weird literal dream! Maybe I should write about that?” And the next thing I knew an entire poem had poured out onto the page.

So, the final note of this tale is this poem; my own creation based on the creative prompt that I scheduled for us all to do, and a literal dream I had the night that it posted. I hope you enjoy it even half as much as I enjoy how it came about.

A prick of love
The wheel of fate spins
A welcome sleep
The sleep of the damned
The bliss of oblivion.

Open your eyes.
Open your eyes.
Open your mind.

Deep in the swirling depth of midnight,
A splinter of light pierces through.
It whispers a message,
Ancient and obscure
But crystal clear:

Wait. Please.
I'm sorry. I'm getting there.
It's a long journey. With many thorns.
....and a whole damn dragon to contend with.

"Courage, dear heart."
It shivers through the void.
"For both of us."

The light will break.
Auroras of truth will shine again.

Wait.
Rest.
Have faith.
Courage.

/fin.

If you’re interested in joining the Starlight Collective and being a part of this journey to rediscover the divine masculine and feminine, and to get these sorts of posts, prompts, creativity, and community every week, (freaky weird coincidences and dreams apparently an optional side effect, but not guaranteed results) you can join here. It’s free to join until next January, so now is the time to try it out!

Leave me a comment if any of this speaks to you too. I’ve already gotten back some really powerful resonances from sharing this poem, so really this whole story just keeps building and building….

Love and light. xx

Announcing the Starlight Collective

Welcome to the Starlight Collective! If you aren’t able to watch the video above, here is what it says, plus some extra details at the end: 

Hello and Welcome!  

I’m Elise: Enchantment Artist, Book Designer, Creator of the Starlight Journal, and now, the creator of the Starlight Collective. 

I designed the Starlight Journal as an illustrated bullet journal specifically to balance creativity and inspiration with productivity and organization. To do that, I included 150 bullet journal pages, which are blank, so that you can use them however you need: to track, to schedule, to plan, to organize your life however you need to organize it. I also included 100 pages of inspiring artwork and creativity prompts, which are scattered throughout the book, so that they interrupt those productivity pages, specifically to remind you to always stay inspired and enchanted. 

When I was designing this journal, I wound up with an endless supply of creativity prompt ideas. Everything from introspective journal prompts for self discovery and self care, to drawing challenges to improve your line work, to painting exercises, to creative writing prompts, and everything in between. And only about a quarter of them actually wound up in the Starlight Journal, because there simply wasn’t enough space for everything. 

So, I have decided to share all of those extra prompts with my creative supporters and followers, and to do so, I have created the Starlight Collective. 

In the Collective, we will come together as a community, outside of the cluttered chaos of Facebook, and really schedule in time to be reflective, to gather together, to really connect with one another on a meaningful level, and most importantly to have fun and just let things flow. 

The Starlight Collective began as a mostly natural progression from the Starlight Journal, which began simply because I personally needed to find more balance. But what I did not expect when I first had the idea, was how much the Collective is actually a collection of virtually ALL of the things that I hold most sacred.  

The Starlight Journal and the calendar pages that I designed to go with it (more on that at the bottom) did a pretty good job of encapsulating everything that I believe is crucial about balancing the divine masculine and divine feminine to create space for sacred wonder to blossom. And thus, the Starlight Collective is in many ways a continuation of that. But there is one extra thing that the Collective has that no book ever could: it is a community. Of soulful people coming together in a continual journey (an adventure, if you will) to explore art, stories, writing, wellness, and connection (to ourselves, to each other, to nature, and to creativity). It will bring together artists, writers, and other creatives (read: humans). It will inherently provide space for us all to learn and grow together. Because that is what community is. And over and over, through many varied and random conversations that I’ve had these past few years, about politics, about society, about social media, about philosophy, about what it means to be human in this world, and how on earth we navigate through all the fear and negativity and downright doom, every single time the conversation lands on: the best solution is community. Actual community. Real connections between human beings. It is sacred. And it’s time to create it in a profound way once again.

If you’re feeling the pull of this connection too, join us now. There’s no obligation. It’s completely free. You don’t even need to create another account (or log in to Facebook and be inundated with notifications). You’ll meet a whole collection of interesting, amazing, inspiring people just like you. We will get to connect on a deeper level: making art together, chatting, sharing triumphs, struggles, and so much laughter. 

The very first Collective Prompt will go out on Monday, September 9th. But you want to join now, a bit early, because you will have immediate access to two free PDF downloads that will enhance your Collective experience if you go through them first. And as an extra bonus, I’ve recorded videos of me walking you through each of the PDFs and explaining exactly how you can use them just like I do- first to dream big, and then to break those dreams down into manageable actions every week that will transform them from overwhelming ideas to reality.

I’m so glad you’re here, and I can’t wait to get started and share all of this creative goodness (and creative journey) with you! 

A couple of important things to note:

-The Starlight Collective is a completely FREE community from Sept 2019- December 2019. Starting January of 2020, it will be a paid membership group, and eventually there will be a physical gifts membership tier. 

-The Starlight Collective is a community, but it is not a Facebook group. 

-When you join the Starlight Collective, you will receive a weekly prompt from me, posted on the secret Starlight Collective page of my website, with a roundup email at the end of the week. Prompts over the course of the month will include: one journal prompt, one art activity prompt, one creative writing prompt, and one nature and/or wellness related prompt. These are the same sort of prompts that can be found in the Starlight Journal, but even more of them, and even more structured. 

-You do not need the Starlight Journal to join the Collective. Any old journal (or even scrap paper) will do! Although if you do need a new bullet journal, I obviously recommend the Starlight Journal and the upcoming Create Journal! ;)  

-Collective members will have the opportunity to network with other members, to promote (on specific posts only) their own businesses or services, and hopefully to collaborate with one another. 

-Collective membership also includes access to a private monthly group video conference call, where we will gather together to connect and make time in our schedules for creative play. 

-The Starlight Collective also includes two free Starlight Journal related PDF downloads and a video of me walking you through each one! Together they will help you dream, create, and ultimately balance creativity with productivity to make your dreams a reality. 

ARE YOU READY TO FIND BALANCE? TO DREAM, PLAY, CREATE, AND CONNECT?

See you on the inside!

Pandora Revisited

Those who are familiar with astrology or astronomy (or indeed the apropos theories plural of Greek time) will already know that all life is cyclical. Perhaps then, it is no real coincidence that I should revisit my own ancient beginnings. I have been researching a lot of ancient and pre-history lately, for various and converging projects, and simultaneously looking to the future in really big ways. And somehow all of it is pointing backwards AND forwards to Greece and the Mediterranean, and specifically, to the ideas I explored in my first major body of work: my undergraduate senior thesis, titled Opening the Box: Exploring the Myth of Pandora.

The Pandora project was completed as my senior thesis work in the spring of 2012. It won the Joe and Carol Trimmer Prize for Outstanding Honors Senior Creative Project/Thesis awarded by Ball State University’s Honors College. The thesis paper and all of the images will be collected and republished later this year for the first time since 2012. This project was foundational for my career and still encompasses all that I stand for and hope for my art career to be.

I had always planned to re-release this collection of work in 2019, and while I have pushed that release back a bit from my originally intended publication date of August 2019, somehow everything around me appears to be pointing to this. To Pandora, to cosmology, to ancient history and future plans and underwater photography, religion, and myth, all of it swirled up together in ways that maybe aren’t actually meant to ever be untangled. Maybe the entanglement is part of the wonder of it all, in the end.

So, both running behind schedule, and paradoxically right on time, I present a preview of the upcoming republication of the Pandora project. Make sure you join my email list here if you want the latest updates on this publication!

Opening the Box: Exploring the Myth of Pandora

Why do we, as humans, treat each other so often with malice, spite, and vindictive cruelty? Why do injustice, pain, and heartbreak exist in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? Where does evil come from?  These are truly universal questions, ones that everyone from every age and race has grappled with since the beginning of time. This is evidenced by how many times this theme comes up in the folk tales, mythologies, and stories from every culture across the globe, which is exactly what I am exploring with this academic and artistic undertaking. 

Arguably the most well known explanation today for the human condition is the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Perhaps the runner up for proposed explanations is the Greek myth of Pandora’s box. A vastly simplified version of this story is that the god Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and brought it to Earth so that man could benefit from its warmth. Zeus was enraged and so he created Pandora, the first woman, who was a beautiful disaster. She was to be the downfall of man, for her insatiable curiosity was meant to unleash all of the evils with which we currently deal.

Stories, particularly the story of Pandora, are how we as humans explore, explain, and examine the human condition. At its core, this is exactly what Opening the Box does as well, in a fabricated space not unlike mythic or fantastic worlds in stories such as Mount Olympus or Middle Earth.

For me underwater photographs have always been reminiscent of some other realm. They are abstract and otherworldly. Sometimes eerie, but always ephemeral and magical, underwater photographs seem to be from, of, or about another reality, where earthly rules of physics do not apply. With the Pandora project, I am after this otherworldly effect.  I want the pieces to have the qualities of underwater photography that I like, because that is what I’m drawn to: the flowing fabric, abstract ripples and bubbles, and ethereal feeling. What I do not want them to be is merely “people dressed up and playing around in a pool” which, as raw images, they tow the line. By adding the paint, I remove them from the context of the pool (a specific sight with specific connotations) and place them instead in an ambiguous, universal “underwater” space- a fantasy space. The value of which is the same as the value of fantasy literature. In the same way as fantasy authors (which invariably includes the people who originated myths and folklore like “Pandora’s Box”) create fictitious worlds in which to explore themes of the human condition, I am creating fictitious, fantasy spaces in which to explore the very same themes.

With the Pandora project I am trying to explore the great mystical basis for truth in general; for humanity at its core, and life on earth. Since the beginning of time, people have been searching for the answers to the mysteries of life. Though we have exponentially advanced our scientific understanding of the world, I would argue that humanity as a whole is no closer to understanding questions to the oracle such as “why is there evil?” Therefore, it bears going back to the roots of humanity and civilization, to all of the varying cultures that developed across the world, to look at the explanations they devised. Perhaps in this universal archetypal story can be found a commonality that provides at least a hint of the answer.

By creating imagery that does not directly illustrate, but rather is loosely based on Pandora and her literary cousins, in an imaginative space, with unique connections between stories, I hope to offer a new look at the human condition and all that it entails.

Descent

Hope

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Stay Enchanted!

Thoughts on Art and the Economy

People these days are often rather concerned with the economy. Fair enough, as it is all encompassing. But focussing so much on GDP I believe is a detriment to the human experience. The first financial laws and principles recorded (before coins or money were even invented) were on Hammurabi’s Stele in Ancient Sumer, right around 3,000 BCE. Economy is literally as old as civilization. But there is something far older.

The oldest recorded and dated paintings are the paintings in the cave at Lascaux, in France, and they date to roughly 16,000 BCE.* The economy may be intrinsically linked with human civilization, sure. We need a way to trade with each other. But it seems to me that art is intrinsically linked with human existence, which is far more fundamental.

This is why I believe that, regardless of the economy, art and the act of making art are vital to a high-quality life.  Art is a part of what makes us human, because it is merely expression. As British artist Hamish Fulton once said, “Art is the creative business of how we interpret and engage with life.” Simply put, art is how we as humans express our thoughts, opinions, and inner visions, and by doing so, it is how we deal with life and everything it throws our way.  Art is a part of humans being human.

            Art is not only hugely beneficial to the artists, however. It is also enriching for anyone willing to engage in the art. Good art makes the viewer think, hopefully about something new or in a manner that they never have before. Either way, if the viewers are willing to truly give a piece of art more time than it takes to glance at it, and if they are willing to have an open mind, they are sure to find that unprecedented thoughts will find their way in. Perhaps the work only allows you to rethink a certain object. Perhaps, however, it leads you to question much deeper things, like why and how are we here? Or what makes us human? As long as people continue to be willing, art will continue to inspire deep contemplation and questioning, which ultimately leads to personal and social growth. 

            Aside from enabling an audience to think critically about life, art is a connection between human beings. Or rather, it is a vehicle for that connection. The point of most art is to express the thoughts of the artist, and to give the viewer those same thoughts or questions. This inherently connects two people—two people who likely will never come face to face—because it connects their minds and their spirits. It connects their thoughts, and something as simple as that is reassurance that we are not alone.     

            Another benefit of art as a means of linking humanity together is that art is not hinged upon one language or another. It is visual, and so one does not need special knowledge of any given language in order to understand, appreciate, and connect with art. While we have thousands of different written and spoken languages on this planet of ours, art is a means of communication that is not dependent on any of them.

I believe this literary independence is largely due to emotion. Whether it is overt or subtle, the emotion embedded in a piece of art is still there, and it is accessible to anyone anywhere, so long as they can see it. Emotion is universal and timeless, and it is that universality that makes art timeless as well. A masterpiece by Da Vinci or Van Gogh is just as powerful now, to people all over the world who cannot speak Italian, Dutch, or French, because the works of art require nothing more than that their viewers be human.

People smile, laugh, envy, cry, scorn, and desire in the same language. Regardless of when or where you live, you can and probably will identify with the emotion found in a piece of artwork in front of you, if you try, and in that instant, you are connected not only to the artist who created the work, but to anyone else who has ever viewed the work and experienced the same thoughts and feelings about it. And that is a very powerful thing, one that should never be dismissed due to something as erratic as the economy.

Part of the cave paintings at Lascaux, France. Learn more about Lascaux here.

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*16,000 BCE turns out to be a very very conservative estimate. New discoveries suggest that the paintings at Lascaux may be up to 38,000 years old. And cave paintings in other parts of the world suggest that humans have been painting for much, much longer than we ever imagined before. Suffice it to say that artistic impulses are older almost than it is possible to wrap our heads around. To read more, check out anything by Graham Hancock, and/or this article from the Smithsonian. Or this one.

Why Starlight?

So, why a “Starlight” Journal? What is it about starlight that is so important? Like everything in this journal, the name is not an accident.Yes, it’s pretty and enchanting, but it’s also more intentional than that. And yet, it is intentional in ways that I’ve only come to realize well after I named the project. Originally, it just sounded right. Even more strangely, I later discovered the meaning behind the name I had already chosen as a result of things having (I thought) nothing at all to do with this project...the universe works in mysterious ways, my friends.

Back to the original question- what is it that is so important about the stars? That turns out to be a more complicated question than it first appears. It’s bigger on the inside.

For one, there’s not a human being alive who can lay outside, stare up at the blanket of glittering stars dotting the void in front of them, and not feel awe in the original sense of the word.

Awe-struck, that is. Inspired, energized, impossibly insignificant and tiny compared to the vastness of the universe, and yet simultaneously meaningful and oh so ALIVE. It’s a transcendent experience; a universally transcendent experience, in fact.

“And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

This Nietzsche quote comes with a lot of speculation as to its meaning. One possible and popular interpretation is that you become what you focus on, which is true. He’s probably talking about the metaphorical or psychological abyss here, but I think the same holds true when you gaze at the literal abyss- the open expanse of stars in the sky. You become that vast and inspiring universe. Or rather, you realize that you already are. The chemical components that make up life on our planet, including the blood that runs through our veins, is only formed in a dying star. And stars at varying levels of decay are what you see when you look up on a clear night. You’re watching the glittering dance of the universe-- its continual growth and evolution and decay; a thing with which every one of us is inextricably linked. We ARE the universe in ecstatic motion. Every one of us. We are the ecstatic dance of ancient stardust, looking up and focusing on the void and realizing that we are continually becoming, and already are, ancient stardust ourselves.

When you gaze upon the glittering night sky, you at once realize just how small you are compared to the expansive abyss above. At the same time you also realize that you, the tiny individual, are both made of and a part of the whole that is this vast and powerful universe, literally and metaphorically. If you gaze too long at the universe, I think you become one with it-- or maybe more accurately, you realize that you always were one in being. And that is both a powerful and humbling experience. Which, really, I believe everyone should experience as regularly as possible. So the stars are immeasurably important for facilitating this sort of transcendent experience. Gazing at the stars makes us better humans.

And then there is the light. Everything always comes back to the light--the name of my business, the name of this journal, even the name of my chosen medium (“photography” means “light writing”).  

It might seem a bit strange at first for the focus of a very dark, nocturnal adventure to be the light. But it’s true. You need the darkest dark in fact, the places with the least light pollution, to see the most light in the sky. Darkness and light are two sides of the same coin: darkness is only scientifically the absence of light, in a physical sense. So, in a way, of course you need to go through the darkest dark to find the metaphorical light within yourself as well. You need the darkness because without it there is no true light. The hero is always born at the height of chaos in the story, because the chaos and darkness is what creates the conditions that require a hero, or light, in the first place. This is why we celebrate Christmas, the birth of the ultimate hero, at the winter solstice. Because the hero is always born at the height of darkness. And this is where the theories on that Nietzsche quote can get really interesting, because right before he says “when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you” is a line about monsters- a warning not to become the monster you seek to destroy.

Metaphorically speaking, Nietzsche’s abyss is most likely our own darkness. And in many ways, we do have to face our own darkness; descend into our own darkness, and ultimately overcome it, in order to truly find and embody our own light.  

Light is always the highest good. The light illuminates- both literally and figuratively, and that is good. God said “Let there be light,” and it was good.  Because knowledge is what allows us to grow figuratively, and light from the sun creates heat and life and physical growth. Fire and light further are tools that humans have mastered to allow us to advance knowledge and technology in unprecedented ways. You can literally learn more if you have candlelight (or electricity) that allows you to spend more time reading and learning.

Just like physical darkness is the absence of light (and in a way, vis versa), and so one cannot exist without the other, good and evil (the human capacity for darkness and light) must also exist as two sides of the same coin. In order to have the highest good, we must also necessarily have the lowest evil. One cannot exist without the other.

Furthermore, in order to ensure that we are choosing the light, we must first face the darkness. We must acknowledge that the darkness is an equal option. Otherwise it’s not a choice, it’s a default.  And we cannot take credit for a default. We must gaze into the abyss of our own darkness, and instead of letting it consume us, instead of becoming the monster we seek to destroy, we must choose to focus on the lights that dot the abyss like stars. Because if we focus on the light, we become the light.

Maybe there is something to the act of gazing at the stars that physically mimics the metaphorical, and so we feel that awe and power resonate in our souls when we stargaze-- for the beauty is almost always terrifying, too. The terror of space and darkness could just as easily consume us if we let it. And yet, laying on blankets and gazing up, surrounded by the darkest night we can find, we do not look in fear at the empty blackness of space. Instead, we look to the light of the stars. And we delight in their light.

For it is always the light of the stars that guides us along. In terms of movement and navigation, the stars have always been the guide, shining like beacons in the night. Their light orients sailors, and guides them along their way. If you are lost, whether in a forest or at sea, or even just within your own soul, the thing to do is always to look to the heavens- look to the familiar and steady lights in the sky, orient yourself, and follow them home.

Since ancient times, we humans have always looked to the steadfast stars glittering above us to light our way in a real and literal sense. But even as we evolve our technology, and the light of our cities drowns the light of the stars, there is still a significant but metaphorical way that we use the stars as guides: we wish on them.

It sounds fanciful- the stuff of fairy tales. But fairy tales are usually true in profound ways. A wish on a star is more than a delivery order to heaven. A wish on a star is in fact the embodiment of finding the highest physical light (which represents the highest metaphorical good, because lightness IS always goodness), orienting ourselves towards that highest good, and following it home. Once you name the highest good you can imagine in your wish, then you have your orienting point, and your guiding light. It is only once you determine where you’re going that you can determine how to get there. So, we wish on stars. We pronounce our destination to the universe, and then we use that wish to guide us to it, just like sailors following the stars home. And that is no more an accident than the name of the Starlight Journal.

Get your copy of the journal here, and let this starlight help to guide you to your highest good.

This month’s shop release is also my favorite line from this article, so if it resonates with you especially, grab that line on a print, mug, tshirt, or other home decor item here. And as a bonus, get the design on the back of the Starlight Journal, which for me so embodies the importance of following the light, in the shop as well.

Thank you, as ever, for your support and interest in this blog, my creative musings, and my creative work. If you’d like to support this blog, consider grabbing a product from the shop like the Ancient Stardust or the I Create Myself pieces featured today, or consider supporting my creative work in general on Patreon. Learn more about that here.

April Art Feature - Now Bring Me That Horizon

Please excuse me for a moment while I geek out over how awesome this piece looks as leggings.

The shop feature for April is also one of my very favorite watercolor paintings, a piece entitled Now Bring Me That Horizon.

I wrote an extensive post already on my thoughts behind the philosophy of chasing new horizons (read that here if you missed it!), but I wanted to also talk briefly about the art piece that inspired my writing.

When I finished this piece and shared it on social media, people commented how much it reminded them of Peter Pan, which frankly thrilled me because I LOVE Peter Pan (the novel especially). And, fair enough, because I did include the two stars in the corner. Those two stars show up in a lot of my artwork, and indeed are even a part of one of my tattoos, and they come from Peter Pan in the first place, because it is in all seriousness my favorite book ever, if I have to pick just one. (If you’re skeptical of that, hold tight, because I have another post planned for later this year that will explain. But this is not that post.)

Second star to the right, and straight on ‘till morning. Neverland is arguably a land of great adventure, just over the horizon. But, interestingly enough, that was not at all what inspired this painting. Instead it was a different movie about a different black pirate ship…Pirates of the Caribbean. The 5th one, in fact, for I am an unashamed Pirates of the Caribbean fan and was unreasonably excited to see the 5th one in theaters, and I loved it just as unreasonably. It actually ended up inspiring me to create at least two pieces of art (two of my favorites), because of course on top of being about pirates, this movie also interwove star lore into it’s plot, and ya’ll, that is my jam. Incase you haven’t noticed, I am all about the sea and the stars over here. And also less obviously, PIRATES.

So I saw this movie in theaters and I came home just LIT. UP. And, having nothing else pressing to do, I just on a whim sat down at my desk and started playing with watercolor paints. The remarkable thing though, was that this piece developed over the course of several weeks. See, normally I am way too impatient for “proper” watercoloring. I can never quite seem to get things to have the depth and colors I want them to, and a good part of why is that I’m just too impatient to give them the time they need to really dry and then reapply. But for whatever reason, this time, I started with the sun and sky, and then was just playing with colors, and eventually I had filled the page. And then I walked away from it and let it dry….for a few days, actually. And this is the weird part. But I knew there was something to this one, even though I didn’t know what exactly. It was just an ocean scape. I’ve tried probably a million of them. But water is hard to capture in watercolor (ironically), and the galaxy trick is tricky too. So a few days later, I actually came back to it and, I think still listening to the Pirates soundtrack (or quite possibly watching one of the earlier movies on Netflix), I added another layer. Remarkably, it started to look better. So I waited a few more days. And then I added another layer.

Realizing quite by happenstance that I was on to something, I repeated this process a couple of times until I had what I thought was a pretty good sunset ocean scape painting. I added details of the stars, and (probably because I had Pirates on repeat that week), I also added a pirate ship. Although, that could have also just been my default. I don’t honestly remember. But I do draw pirate ships as a basic default if you stick a blank piece of paper in front of me and tell me to “sketch anything.” I don’t really know why. They just always come out. I think deep down I might be a pirate, or a mermaid. So I added a pirate ship here, too, and then I added some gold paint marker stars, the stereotypical Peter Pan stars, and a decorative boho moon.

Stepping back to examine, I had pretty well shocked myself. I didn’t realize when I began this painting that I was even capable of creating a watercolor painting as beautiful and layered as this. And it certainly was not anything I had planed on. Rather, it just emerged, an image from my (often literal) dreams. This is where the magic is. It’s that flow and freedom of just sitting down and playing around with your medium, and then being shocked and delighted when a beautiful pirate-y painting emerges — at once reminiscent of two of my favorite stories of adventure, and eventually even becoming a piece to spark philosophical writings on the importance of the pursuit. It’s the synchronicity and freedom of chasing an exhilarating but murky feeling through unknown waters (literally on the paper through pigmented water), not really knowing what you’re doing, and then realizing afterwards that all along you were chasing an unknown adventure and making a piece of art about chasing the unknown adventure.

That sense of freedom is even more fitting when you consider the title of this piece, which is of course no accident. The ship is obviously chasing the sun on the horizon, but that was more of an accident than anything pre-planned. The real meaning derives from a quote by the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow.

“Not just the Spanish Main, love. The entire ocean. The entire wo'ld. Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and some sails, that's what a ship needs. But what a ship is... what the Black Pearl really is... is freedom.”

That sense of freedom, of exploration, of chasing the horizon to the Spanish Main and the entire world, is something that calls to me like the gold calls to the cursed pirates. I think to some degree that sense of adventure calls to all of us, and I really do believe that following the call can lead to the most amazing experiences that make life worth living. Not all treasure is silver and gold, indeed.

If this painting calls to you or inspires you like it does me, you can grab it as a mug, tshirt, leggings, sweatshirt, cell phone case, etc. in the shop here! If you would like this piece as a fine art print (the metallic prints especially are GORGEOUS) or as a canvas, please send me a message here! Know that either way you will inspire yourself and support a local independent artist, which will help me to bring you more art, inspiration, and philosophy.

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Love and light.

Now Bring Me That Horizon...Thoughts on the Pursuit of Happiness

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Every American knows that these are the unalienable rights written right into the core of our nation’s founding. At first glance, it appears that the founding fathers did a funny thing there- the pursuit of happiness? Why not just life, liberty, and happiness? Surely that would be better! Who doesn’t want an entire nation of happiness? That sounds like Utopia! But actually, the founding fathers did a brilliant thing there. Because, as it turns out, it really is all about the pursuit.

Here’s the thing. We don’t actually WANT Utopia. Not if you look at the history and meaning of the word. Utopia sounds nice, in theory, sure. It’s an untroubled paradise. Where the sun is always shining and no one has any cares. But it’s not what we want, because it’s not what we think. '“Utopia” literally means “no place,” or “not place.” It comes from the Greek ou, meaning ‘not,’ and topos, meaning ‘place.’ And it was first used in the satirical book Utopia by Sir Thomas More in 1516. So really, the entire point of the word from its inception has been to illustrate that “Utopia” as we conceive of it- as a paradise of delights- actually does not exist. Perhaps it cannot exist. It has been suggested that if humanity ever did achieve a Utopian society, we’d just get bored immediately, and burn it down, for lack of anything else interesting to do.

The words “paradise” and “Eden” both bear examining as well. Because, strangely enough, therein lies the answer. See, these days, “Paradise” and “Eden” are interchangeable, with themselves and with “Utopia.” And, in some ways they are the same, or similar. But there is nuance here, and it’s worth exploring.

The word “Eden” especially is a weird one. Currently, Webster’s Dictionary lists three definitions:

1. See Paradise, sense 2, which reads: “a place or state of bliss, felicity, or delight” (Sense 1 of “Paradise”, by the way, links you straight back to “Eden Sense 2” in a complete loop.)

2. “The garden where according to the account in Genesis Adam and Eve first lived”

3. “A place of pristine or abundant natural beauty”

Paradise and Utopia are both listed as synonyms for Eden, as are Never Never Land, Fantasyland, Camelot, and Shangri-la, among others. I find Never Never Land especially curious in this context, as Neverland is famously the place where you go if you refuse to grow up. A place that, like Utopia, sounds great, because who wants to grow up? Adulting is hard. But Neverland has a dark and sinister side to it too, one that is entirely overlooked in Disney’s telling of that tale. And of course, in the end, if you refuse to grow up because it is hard work, then you don’t get to grow up, because growing up is a privilege, too. It’s right there in the book. It’s my favorite line and it’s the very end of the story:

“There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.”

If you refuse the great responsibility of adulthood, you are also barred from the great joy and meaning of adulthood. You remain stuck in a naive Neverland, play acting, but never actually acting on the world with any meaning or potency. To even believe that there is such a thing as an untroubled paradise where no one has any cares is a naive view of the world. Because of course there are troubles in the world- we have the whole of the world to contend with; the whole of nature. And if you think that’s nothing but sunshine and daisies, you have a rude awakening coming. So no matter how you slice it, to exist in a state of Eden, or Neverland, or to strive for a Utopian fantasy that by definition does not exist, is inherently to be almost unbelievably naive, and therefore powerless. There’s a reason Neverland is for children.

But I digress. I am most interested in the etymology of “Eden.” The conception of it in modern times seems to stem entirely from the fact that the place in Genesis is dubbed the “Garden of Eden.” What then, did those ancient Hebrews mean when they chose that word? Here of course is our fundamental answer: Eden comes from the Hebrew edhen, meaning “pleasure, delight.” So when they wrote the story down, those ancient peoples intended it to mean “Garden of Pleasure,” or “Garden of Delight.”

Which brings us to Hieronymus Bosch, and his circa 1490s painting entitled, The Garden of Earthly Delights. And what a surreal fantasyland this painting portrays. Still almost a complete quandary among Art Historians, not much is known for sure about Bosch or his paintings. They aren’t even dated, so 1490s is an educated guess. All we know is that it first shows up in writings in 1517, right after Bosch’s death. None of the artist’s writings survive, so all we really have to go on is the piece itself, and the title. Even here, things have become muddled, because the piece is a triptych, with three inner panels and two outer panels that are visible when the piece is closed. The inner panels are each basically separate but related paintings. The outer two panels together form one complete image. The largest and middle inner panel is actually the only part of the whole that was originally titled The Garden of Earthly Delights, and yet the entire piece has come to be known by that name, and the names of the other individual panels seem to have fallen away. The left panel is sometimes known as The Joining of Adam and Eve, but individual titles of the rest are not mentioned in any online articles I could find, nor in the information found on the Prado Museum’s website, where the piece is currently housed.

[Note- most of my facts on the Bosch piece have been paraphrased from My Modern Met. Read their excellent article here. I also consulted Wikipedia and Museo del Prado, which has a wonderful interactive online exhibit of this perplexing piece of art. ]

“The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1490 – 1510). Prado Museum.

Central panel of “The Garden of Earthly Delights”

Left and right panels of “The Garden of Earthly Delights”

Painting on the two outer panels that appears when closed.

Though we do not have the original titles of the rest of the panels, nor any word from the artist himself but the middle title, the subject matter is generally agreed upon. The outer panels are thought to depict the creation of the world, as outlined in Genesis—specifically the Third Day, after the animals and plants were added, but before the creation of man. Upon opening the panel, and reading it, as it were, from left to right like a book, we can see that the three panels depict in order: Adam and Eve with God in the Garden of Eden, presumably before they are cast out, followed by the central bizarre and surreal panel that is The Garden of Earthly Delights, followed by a hellish landscape that is generally agreed to depict hell itself. And thus this work as a whole shows the progression of creation and the downfall of man, as outlined in Genesis, with a bizarre twist in style that most likely originated with Bosch. Indeed, if it reminds you of the surreal melting clocks or other work by Salvador Dali, that is because it inspired Dali, when he viewed it at the Prado, and could thus be considered the grandfather of surrealism.

Now, we don’t have the time to even scratch the surface on the phantasmagoric collection of figures in this piece of art. Indeed literal volumes of speculation and symbolic interpretation have been written on that subject. So if you are so inclined to learn more about the details, I definitely encourage you to do so! But for my purposes here, suffice it to say that Bosch’s interpretation of the phrase “Garden of Earthly Delights” is downright chaotic at best. While never explicit, it is certainly sensual, lustful, bizarre, surreal, and in many places both confusing and disturbing. Some have even deemed it ‘hallucinogenic.’ This painting pretty clearly depicts human delight…but run completely amok.

The garden that we see in the first panel, on the other hand, while still a bit surreal, comes across more balanced and peaceful, without the chaos and entanglement of limbs and creatures everywhere. The second panel shows us human delight gone way too far, and the third depicts the inevitable result of hell. Curiously, the biggest difference between the second and third panel, at least from a distance, seems to just be the change in color scheme and background. Do we know that the third panel represents hell because it is black there? While the central panel is bright and vibrant and therefore cannot be a hellscape? Remove the color and the depiction looks strikingly similar.

Panels two and three, with color removed, and extreme darks lightened in the third panel to be more congruent. The chaotic elements, especially as compared to the first panel, look much the same in these two panels.

This, of course, is the point. What IS the difference between human delight run completely amok, and hell itself? Perhaps it really is just the coloring we give it. For, whether we like it or not, humans do have a historical tendency to descend into hellish chaos when our delights run wild and undisciplined. We crave structure. We like inherently to put things into boxes; in their “proper place.” And we crave pleasure too. But only pleasure all day every day quickly becomes chaotic, or else it becomes boring and unbearable and we go looking for trouble, looking for chaos, just so that we have some chaos to make ordered. Too much chaos, too much delight, turns out to be as impossible to bear as too much order or burden. So perhaps Eden is not where we find true happiness after all. Perhaps only delight all the time gets boring. Or it gets chaotic. Or both. Perhaps this is why Utopia as Paradise does not exist.

We still have one word left to dissect though, and that word is paradise. Because, though it is listed as synonymous with Eden and Utopia, I would argue strongly that it is not at all the same. We’ve already covered the dictionary definition of the word, since it is so inextricably tied to the definition of Eden, but what about the etymology of “paradise?”

As it turns out, paradise doesn’t appear to have any ties to “delight” except in its use and subsequent entanglement in the Garden of Eden. “Paradise” originally comes from an old Iranian word, pairi-daêza, meaning “walled enclosure.” And is found in the First Persian Empire (330BE- 550BC) to refer to the empire’s “walled gardens.” Further, as the word evolved in Iranian, it curiously lost all sense of walls entirely and became merely a garden or vegetable patch. Why then, is paradise a walled garden?

Here we can only speculate. But I suspect there is something fundamental in this speculation, even if it cannot strictly be proven. So let’s speculate: What is a walled garden? Well, a garden is nature. Nature is a bit chaotic. It’s certainly awesome in the original sense of that word (“extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear”). And that combination of daunting and inspiring certainly speaks of the call to adventure- the urge to go out beyond the familiar and conquer the unknown, which is always a bit chaotic. If the garden is a garden of delights, then it can obviously get chaotic, because as we have seen, those delights can run amok. Except in this case, the garden runs into a wall—a wall on every side, in fact. Because this garden is enclosed. This chaos is enclosed. It is contained. It is not permitted to spill over into true unbridled chaos, say. Maybe, while still nature and therefore still awesome, this chaos is contained- familiar, domesticated, even just a bit. Maybe a walled garden is the perfect balance of chaos and order. Of delight and structure. Of nature and industry. Of wild and settled. Maybe that’s why it is the optimal place for human beings, we creatures who seem always to be chasing chaos in order to make order out of it; in order that we may integrate wild unknowns into our known domain (another ancient meaning for ‘paradise,’ by the way).

We chase the unknown, so that we can make it known. And then, having made the previously unknown integrated, having successfully enclosed a bit of chaos and gotten it sufficiently in order, say, we get bored with it, and so set off again to seek new and greater unknowns, and integrate them as well. We humans constantly balance the known and the unknown, chaos and order, delight and structure, walking the middle ground like a tight rope, for if we stray too far in either direction, we descend into a hellish existence, either clawing our own eyes out in boredom, completely crushed by tyrannical an immovable structure, or becoming completely overwhelmed and swamped by chaos.

Is it a coincidence, by the way, that “bored” and “border” sound so similar? Etymologically speaking, it would seem yes. A border is “the line between the wild and the settled regions,” while bored comes from bores, which are used to drill holes. Yet they are undeniably similar words. One encloses, draws a line quite literally between chaos and order, and the other tends to be suffocating, a slow torturous rehashing of the same familiar things, like something small slowly boring into your existence. Perhaps the moment when “bordered” slips into “bored” is the moment where there is insufficient chaos available within the current walls, and that insufficiency, that border, bores into us. And so we must cure the boredom with more chaos. We must adventure. So we head outside of the walls, into the wilderness, forever chasing the sun towards endless new horizons.

Because as it turns out, this search for adventure, this continual striving out into the unknown, so that we can make it known, this pursuit, is where we humans seem to find the most satisfaction. The happiest we ever seem to be is when we are balancing the chaos and the order, when we have sufficiently ordered our domains and then set out to chase new horizons, one foot in reliable structure, one foot tremulously stepping out into wild unknowns. We are happiest in the balance. We are happiest in walled gardens. We are happiest in the pursuit.

So, as Captain Jack Sparrow says at the end of his adventure, now…bring me that horizon.

Your Tell Tale Heart

“Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art.” 
― Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art

..And when things go wrong, what you should do is make good art. I love this concept. I KNOW this concept. I know this whole speech almost by heart. I basically preach this. It is always the making of the good art that saves you. Or at least it is always the making of good art that saves me.

And yet, sometimes I have to be reminded. And strangely, last August, when I was going through some personal hard times, I was continually hearing the chorus of “paint your feelings.” Which, I’ll be honest, is not usually my go to. I make art because I am inspired. And working on good art pieces that I’ve been inspired to create always takes me out of time and makes me feel better. So it’s always a good panacea for emotional pain. But rarely do I actually paint my literal feelings. But, I kept hearing it. So finally one day, slightly exasperated because “what does that even mean- paint your feelings!?” I sat down at my desk with a blank sheet of paper and my watercolors, and before I knew it, this anatomical heart emerged, along with the Pirates of the Caribbean line that I love so much.

I drew the veins in gold as a reference to the Japanese method of Kintsugi-

Translated to “golden joinery,” Kintsugi (or Kintsukuroi, which means “golden repair”) is the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with a special lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Beautiful seams of gold glint in the cracks of ceramic ware, giving a unique appearance to the piece.

This repair method celebrates each artifact’s unique history by emphasizing its fractures and breaks instead of hiding or disguising them. Kintsugi often makes the repaired piece even more beautiful than the original, revitalizing it with new life.

-My Modern Met Article

For me , I think, this artistic representation, with a subtle nod to the beauty of the brokenness, turned out to be the perfect way to process my broken hearted feelings, and also to find the beauty again, literally through the artistic rendering process. (For many more extensive thoughts on love and choice and whether or not you should lock your heart away, read my February blog post here: Always Choose Love.)

For Kay, who loves anatomical hearts of all kinds, this painting became immediately tied to her character of Cupid from Tell City. It would seem that once again, and even more unintentionally this time, I had created relevant fan art. Even when I try to make art about my own personal stories, it ties back into archetypal stories somehow or another. Ha! I guess no one can escape their destiny.

So yet again, when we sat down to determine what we should use to create Tell City merchandise for fans to rep, we quickly and easily landed on this piece too. Kay wanted the anatomical Cupid heart. So we hunted down a relevant quote from Tell City, I digitized and edited the image to change the text, and for the back I pulled in the Tell City “skyline” from the book cover and decorated it with the same fill pattern as the heart.

Et voila! Grab this heart for your own- as a reminder not to lock your heart away, or as a reminder of everyone’s favorite diapered cherub, or as a reminder of whatever else you might bring to the piece. Check it out here! And, if you don’t have one yet, grab your copy of Tell City here!

This blog and my artwork runs entirely with the help of people like you. If you’ve enjoyed this behind the scenes look at my artwork, if you enjoy the artwork, enjoy Tell City, or if you just believe in supporting independent artists and authors, please consider sharing this post, buying a book or some swag, or for an even more in depth look behind the scenes, consider supporting Lusicovi Creative on Patreon. Learn more about that here.

One Sacrifice Away

As a freelance photographer, I frequently do contract work for Amazon. As of January 1, 2018, cell phones were banned in the Amazon warehouse and studio, blanket statement. Deal with it or leave. Which….some days, is really annoying. Especially at first, it was terrible. Everyone hated it. And everyone I’ve told about this rule, to this day, is baffled. “What? You cannot have your cell phone? What madness!” It seems like a huge sacrifice. But sometimes, with great sacrifice, comes great reward…

See, on the Amazon studio days, we have scheduled 15 minute breaks. And I am not one for whom idleness is tolerable….almost at all. I’m seemingly incapable of just sitting for 15 minutes. Occasionally you chat with coworkers, but even while chatting, my hands usually itch for something to do. So I started bringing in crossword puzzle books, and then my sketchbook. Specifically, at some point in my early art school days, I had obtained a small simple black 5x7 or so sized sketchbook. It was half filled. And then at some point in school I started using bigger ones and so this half empty book just was there on my shelf. Until one day last January, I grabbed it on my way out the door.

When I had downtime that day, I flipped through to see what was in the book from the years and years before. Browsing partly out of curiosity and partly out of a search for something else to do, I came across a series of pages that contained only stark outlines of varying shapes- a wine bottle, a leaf, an apple, etc. I came to the page with the apple and decided, for fun, to shade the apple and fill it in. So I grabbed my pencil and did that.

By the time I had added the dimension to the apple, it reminded me of the Tell City cover apple. As an added touch, I inscribed the classic Tell City phrase, “One Sacrifice Away.” But I still had time to kill. So I continued with my Tell City theme, and added an arrow piercing the apple, in classic William Tell fashion.

These lines (also featured on the back cover of the hardcover dust jacket) have always been some of my VERY FAVORITE lines, not just of Tell City, but possibly of all fantasy writing. They manage to evocatively echo and reverberate both backwards and forwards in time, calling up many ancient myths, and also pushing forward into the unknown misty landscape.

The part that evokes Snow White in particular, combined with the imagery of a reflection in a well (which would naturally ripple) has always appeared in my imagination as a rippling mirror, that blurs the lines of surrealism. Is it a mirror? Is it water? Is the apple floating? Or reflected? Or all of the above?

So, with my favorite “One Sacrifice Away” quote swirling around in my mind, I added a rippling ornate mirror to the background of the now definitely Tell City fan art piece I had stumbled my way into drawing. I actually had originally envisioned adding a light shadowy panther’s face into the mirror as well, but I ran out of time.

When I left work and got back to my phone, I took a quick photo of the drawing and sent it to Kay, who I imagine squealed with delight to see it. With the distance, time, and extra perspective, I ultimately decided that to try and add the panther into the image would be overdoing it, so I left it as it was. Sometimes good art is knowing where to draw the line. (ha!)

If you have a copy of Tell City (and if you don’t, get thee hence to Amazon and grab a copy! Or click here.), you know that this drawing wound up in the intro pages to the novel- a thing of which I am immensely proud. I might actually even be more honored to have my artwork featured inside the book than to have my designs on the cover. “Cover designer” is a thing I am certain I am good at. I love doing it, and I’m confident in my ability to craft magical and enchanting book cover designs. “Graphite realistic surreal fan art drawer,” on the other hand, is something that surprised me. I hadn’t hand drawn anything in graphite in a long long while, and even in the heyday of my art school days, I was never particularly quick or skilled with realistic graphite drawings. I could manage it, usually, but it was always a struggle. This piece, however, just seemed to flow from my brain to the pencil to the page with unprecedented ease. Perhaps it was the reward for my sacrifice of not having my phone that day to waste time scrolling on….

Aside from being featured in the book (or perhaps, because it is featured in the book), when it came time to design Tell City merch, including this drawing was a bit of a no brainer. By that point, we had already paired the apple drawing in the front of the book with the poem that was a message from the oracle, and so as a bonus, all of the merchandise that has a back, features that poem on the back as well. And so, aside from having it in your copy of the book (Again, grab that here if you don’t have it already!) , you can also get this enchanting drawing on virtually any home good product or accessory you can image, or in a print. (If you want a signed archival fine art print, send me a message here- otherwise grab one printed on demand at the shop!) My personal favorite are the leggings!

Hopefully it resonates with you the same way it does with me.

You can support this blog (plus a local independent author) by purchasing and repping any of the products in the shop here. Or by buying the novel here (and share your reviews with us on social media!) You can also support this blog and my general creative endeavors and musings by becoming a Patreon supporter. Learn more about that here. Thanks for stopping by!

Tell City Cover Evolution

If you didn’t catch the long version of the story of Tell City, hop over here and read it now! I thought it might be cool to share the simple visual progression of the Tell City cover, from August 2013 to November 2018. Enjoy! And feel free to ask any questions in the comments if you have them!

The first ever cover sketch from August 2013.

And a few pages later in my notebook, from a few months later, during a night of art making and listening to Kay read from the book.

The first ever Tell City cover design.

And the event poster that went with it.

The most recent sketch of the full Tell City cover spread.

The first version of the newest cover, obviously it still had a bit more evolving to do.

The final front cover design.

The final entire hardcover dust jacket spread.

And finally, the best part. The cover design is available to order printed on virtually any home good or accessory you can imagine! They even have leggings and socks! Check it out and rep your favorite newest fantasy novel here! (All proceeds go to benefit an independent author and independent artist!)

The back of all the shirts.

You can also support this blog by contributing on Patreon. Learn more about that here! And support Kay by buying the book, below!