Offering Mandala for Pachamama

I've been thinking for quite awhile about Navaho healing sand paintings. As part of the ceremonial process, real objects such as stones, herbs, flowers and meaningful "trinkets" are incorporated into the visual symbology of the mandala. These temporary mandalas can often be built-up via layers, reminding me of a Peruvian shaman's medicine bundle offering (despacho).

Cut flowers are as transient as any ceremonial sand mandala when it comes to making "art", so I decided that I'd construct a digital version of a floral offering... using photos of actual blooms from my garden - in this case, Mexican Sage, Rose and Datura.

This is one of the images I came up with based upon what I had been making for the Pachamama series (showing her hidden spirit face emerging through forest leaves.

Pachamama Offering Mandala

New Work: Pachamama

While working on new Plant Spirit imagery, I've been listening to some podcasts by Dr. Bruce Damer recounting his new myth about the 'Great Mother' and the evolution of our Earth's biosphere - a hyper-conscious intelligence embodied within and emerging from the neuronal net of plants (root brains), bacteria, and mycelia fungi. (His podcast is called Dr. Bruce's Levity Zone - or you can subscribe via iTunes. Look for episodes from 2013, esp. those recorded at Symbiois festival or at Burning Man.)

Out of this, I began playing with a few elements imaging Pachamama (Great Mother). A couple of examples below.

Planetary Mandala

I recently started work on a new series the I have been thinking of as planetary Goddess mandalas. I suppose this might seem astrologically influenced, but not exactly. More shamanically attuned / intended.

The original notion was to work with a double exposure technique using the Goddess bodies overlaid by sacred flowers, tree branches and leaf textures. In the heart of each mandala appears the particular astronomical body. The Goddesses hold court in each image - 4 in the Solar mandala, 3 in the Gaian mandala, 2 in the Lunar mandala, and 1 in the Venusian mandala. Additionally, various associated birds and power animals appear (Earth -> owl, Moon -> hummingbird, Sun -> hawk, Venus -> bat and rattlesnake).

Gaian Goddess Mandala

Lunar Goddess Mandala

Solar Goddess Mandala

Venusian Goddess Mandala

These pieces are current on view in the "Double Exposure" exhibit at the Blue Door Gallery in Yonkers thru April 27th. www.bluedoorgallery.org

Green Tara Visualization

It's taken me quite a bit of time to finish this series of images for the Tara Self-generation visualization practice. (I took the empowerment over a year ago...) In order to simply present the sequence, I decided to put together a gif animation combining the images with associated textual instructions.

The sequence is based upon my notes from the original empowerment ceremony as well as study of the booklet "The Yoga of Enlightened Mother Arya Tara" from Tharpa Publications. The images present the core sequence - including a "no self" meditation practice at the end, but excluding the ceremony's typical framing prayers and offerings.

Green Tara Visualization

The Magic of Flowers

This is a video by Vladimir Vorobyov

Spirit Totem for My Birthday

In a recent journey, I was given an image to create as a totem for this emerging cycle in my life (or at least for the next few months of transition from fall into winter).

Sagittarian Vision Mirror Totem

The image shows a Snowy Owl perched atop a blooming Prickly Pear Cactus. Owl is holding a Snake in its beak. Behind Owl, in the night sky can be seen the blue-white star field of the Pleiades. Some of the major stars of the cluster mark the head and the tail of the Rattlesnake (in Owl's mouth). In many Mayan dialects, the word for rattle and Pleiades is the same.

Below the Cactus is a pair of flaming antlers - a shamanic gateway and protective sign. On either side sits a pair of Smoking Mirror hieroglyphs (based upon the Aztec variant of this Meso-American symbol with the vision plume merging from the mouth of the skull). The mirror represents contemplation, the smoking mirror is that of journey and vision quest by the Mirror Lord.

Owl has come to me over the last few months introducing itself as a new companion and power animal to guide and watch over me in this next phase of my life.

Upon receiving this journey image and during creation of the actual digital image, I was struck by the similarities of the central totem (Owl, Snake, Cactus) with that of the Mexican flag (Eagle, Snake, Cactus) - itself originally based upon an Aztec hieroglyphic place sign for their capital city of Tenochtitlan (where Mexico City stands today). Legend has it their leader was informed in a dream by the god of war, Huitzilopochtli, that they were to settle in the place where they would find an eagle on a prickly pear cactus holding a serpent. The place where they saw this sight was quite inhospitable - a swampy area in the center of three lakes - on a small island in the Lake Texcoco. This is where they settled and built the great city of Tenochtitlan with its Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon.

Plant Spirit Healing

This highly recommended book on plant spirit medicine is by Pam Montgomery. I read it last year and it changed my life.

A quote from her website:

The cover photo by Linda E. Law is of Lady’s Mantle. I sat with this image for the longest time wondering about the alien being that is so prominent. This being has a masculine quality to it and I was surprised to not see a more feminine being. Then in a flash I saw it wasn’t an alien after all but, instead, a wise old alchemist. I’ve started to call him Arturo and, of course, Alchemilla (Lady’s Mantle’s latin name) would reveal such a being. You will find that each plant reveals different beings, some are sweet and others are almost disturbing, just like life. These most amazing photos give you a rare opportunity to delve into the essence of the plant.

- Pam Montgomery

Shamanic Mandala

I created this mandala for my shamanic friend, Kara, who writes the Conduit of Joy blog site. The overall composition of the animal guardians and guides, their projection upon constellations and their general locations were given to me during a recent journey.

The animal spirits include a panther, an owl, a raven, a lemur, an Egyptian scarab beetle and a lunar moth. Kara, as Durga, rides a lion of power and mastery.

I haven't a clue about how this all fits Kara or the moment of transition she is in, but I hope to find out more soon! I get the feeling that meditating on the locations (quadrant or compass direction) where the animal spirits reside in the mandala would help to reveal deeper significance. One thing that strikes me immediately is how many of the animals have "big eyes" - embodying / symbolizing night vision or acuity of vision?? I think this is certainly a clear message about her shamanic skills!

Sky Signs: Taurus New Moon Conjunction

Well, perhaps it wasn't quite a new moon last night (Sunday, April 26th), but the moon was certainly at a minimal sliver of silver... Around sunset in the west, the conjunction of Mercury, Moon and the Pleiades stood out to the naked eye!

Today, I meditated on this astronomical event more deeply so as to understand it's possible significance(s)...

Of course, the Pleiades is the snake's rattle constellation for the Maya, the portal to their star ancestors. It's importance is magnified at the Summer Equinox when it's apogee overhead marks the half-year point before the mid-winter opening of the Xibalba Be "dark road" portal to the heart of the galaxy (the land of the ancestors).

The moon confers knowledge of cycles, of transformation, of the Dreamtime and of feminine creative energies. Watching over us at night, the Moon initiates us into the knowledge of the hidden rites, of the great secret of being beyond ego self.

Mercury is the messenger, bringing communication to and from the Gods. In many medicine wheel traditions, the messenger of the Spirit realm is the fleet-winged, nearly invisible Hummingbird.

Thus, this is certainly a moment of high connectivity between us on earth and our ancestors. A time of "Thinning of the Veil". To honor this event, I created the image:


It is based upon the celestial locations recorded photographically last night during the conjunction. The Pleiades is above the moon, here shown in it's rattlesnake form. Below the moon and sightly to the left can be seen the small glowing dot of Mercury. This point marks the focus of the interaction between the hummer and it's flower. The plant is a Datura metel cultivar named "Double Purple" which I grew last year, my favorite Datura flower. (Datura, of course, is known as "Devil's Weed", or in Spanish - la Yerba Del Diablo - but it is known to the Chumash people of California, the Mohave, Yuma, Cahuilla, Zuni and others as toloache from the Aztec toloatizn, "to incline the head". It is used to induce sleep, dreams and divinatory visions.)