Hidden Nature

After working on the Forest Goddess series, I began to think about visibility / invisibility and it occurred to me that the jungle environment could provide another impenetrable screen, helping to conceal hidden things not quite obvious, dream-like, perhaps secret. And of course, the jungle is a realm of shamanic practice - the realm of ancestors, plant and animal spirits, ayahuasca visions.

I set about creating a leaf 'screen' based upon iconic jungle foliage. I wanted to make this leaf pattern repeating so I could tile a number of such blocks together into a larger  panoramic aspect ratio. In this process, the adjacent and overlapping leaves began to form symmetrical totemic / figurative forms. The impact was similar to Rorschach inkblots.

If you look carefully (in the enlarged images) you may begin to resolve images of figures and animals concealed in the jungle.

Jungle Panorama 01

Jungle Panorama 02

Like any Rorschach image, your interpretation of what you see represents a shifting understanding / vision based upon a mix of cultural indoctrination, personal dreams, phobias, emotions, etc. 

As a viewer embodying a more traditional 20th Century Western mindset, the jungle is dark, all-encompassing, unknown, unspeakable: it is the "Heart of Darkness" to be avoided, symbolizing a potentially life-threatening path into danger, loss of self, even madness.

For other viewers who embrace the 21st Century "archaic revival," this Western view of the jungle as something to be feared and avoided is 're-coded' with an indigenous world view full of respect, awe, and mystery. It can be a place of healing, self-discovery, and revelation.

Hidden Nature #3

The most current jungle landscape in this series is built up from panels of two sizes with various background leaf patterns that can be re-arranged (like lines in poetry stanza: ABBAABBA) to allow reconfiguration of the work. It would also allow the piece to "wrap around" corners in an exhibition space. Reminds me of James Rosenquist's F-111 wall painting.

Jungle Panorama 03

CU: left side

CU: right side

Happy New Year 2015

Here is my New Years card for this new year...

Visionary Art by Fred Tomaselli

Artwork by Fred Tomaselli

CIrcle of Spirits

I just completed a new piece based upon journey imagery that I received a week ago. The work combines three sources of guidance from three different realms - the sky world, the tree world, and the ocean world.

CIrcle of the Spirits

In the nighttime sky, the Pleiades star cluster is overlaid with a constellation of an owl carrying a rattlesnake in its beak. (The rattle is the Mayan symbol of the Pleiades). The ocean quadrant is populated by whale and dolphins singing song lines of the deep (deep ocean, deep time). The forest quadrant presents a cathedral of redwood trees, the spirits of which are gathering in a ritual circle (called forth by Lady One Death, the great dark spirit of nature).

Solstice Skies

Lunar Eclipse in the Dark Rift

This eclipse occurring on the Winter Solstice is important in that it is one which is amplified by conjunction with the Galactic Core (Sagittarius A black hole) of our galaxy. As the Milky Way rotates over the year, it becomes aligned vertically across the plane of the Ecliptic and across our horizon. The Dark Rift dust clouds of the central galactic region now form a direct path connecting the earth realm with the realm of the ancestors - The Dark Road or the Royal Road of the Maya. They saw this configuration with the galactic band perpendicularly crossing the Ecliptic as "The Rising Up of the World Tree." Due to the coming end of the current 5000+ year long Long Count, the current alignment is a sign of the final calendar cycles leading up to 2012 transformations.

Nearby in the sky, the constellation of the Pleiades helps mark this period. The Pleiades is seen to be the fiery rattle of a great sky snake, here in combat with a owl protector. The snake and owl (or hawk) totem pair are key symbols for Mesoamerican cultures throughout Mexico & Central America.)

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.

Fall Equinox - Conjunction of Moon, Jupiter, Uranus

With the Full Moon falling next to the Fall Equinox, I participated in an Ecstatic Body Posture journey circle. As part of the posture enactment, we held up a snake effigy in our left hand and a woven ring of Mugwort in our right. During the journey, a large Owl came to guide and protect me. For others in the circle, Kundalini snakes and oscillating energy played a prominent role.

Fall Equinox Dreams

I came across a photo of the Equinox midnight conjunction showing the moon rays and a brilliant Jupiter below. Reflecting upon this image, I felt the tug of the changing energies of the season working their way from Dreamtime into our time and place. A slow shifting from active summer growth to fulfillment and winter rest / hibernation. I decided to make an image to celebrate this moment.

The image (above) shows the conjunction with moon light radiating brilliantly. A lunar rainbow effect. The spirit owl circles overhead as the spirit snake reaches towards Jupiter. Owl is both wisdom and clarity of vision. Snake is the power of transformation. Just the traits each of us need now in these difficult times...

On either side of Snake are Mugwort offerings, their incense burning skyward. Throughout the world in many different cultures, Mugwort is (has been) recognized as a powerful dream medicine, bringing forth strong, lucid dreams. Mugwort stands as guardian of the gateway to Dreamtime, to our ancestors and spirit guides. Through its smoke or by drinking of Mugwort tea, that door can be opened wide. Collecting the leaves and flowers into a simple sachet for under the pillow provides a powerful effect on dreaming, as well.

Even though it is late in the year and not the prime time to harvest Mugwort, I selected a number of plants to process into tea leaves and smudge sticks (dream wands). Everything is drying right now...

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.)

Ecstatic Body Postures - 2009

This posting will be updated monthly to present posture journeys based upon this year's new moon cycles. For more information about Ecstatic Body Postures, read my previous postings (below) and visit the Cuyamungue Institute. If you are in the New York metropolitan area, contact me and I will ask Marianne Carroll, our local group leader, to contact you with details about the next (monthly) circle.

Mayan Whistle Pose

02.24.09 - Pisces New Moon. Mayan Whistle Pose - This is a "living myth" posture - related to the Hero Twins of the Mayan creation story, The Popol Vuh. For this posture, I created a wide golden necklace matching that found on the original sculptural figure. The ceremonial collar is covered in hermetic hieroglyphs, with specific translations as indicated (see collar detail below).

The trance image is a composite of a number of trance experience as reported by the participants: at the bottom right of image is the rattle with "incense" (spirit smoke) coming off of it, producing the vision space of the ancestors (upper panel). We see a circle of 3 ancestors joined together in a ceremonial circle, each of them in the journey pose, and each wearing the golden collar covered in mystic hieroglyphs. Behind them / emerging from their circle is a pillar of fire and water. Within this portal / vortex can be sensed images of attending spirit animals - protectors and guides. We can see a pair of guardian wolves at the top of the image emerging from the smoke, further down in the mid-section, a pair of totem ravens. Thru the fire and smoke rises the (kundalini energy) snake of transformation. Finally, in the bottom left appears a white cave bear appears to ensure the ceremony results in healing for all.

Mayan Ceremonial Trance Collar

Feathered Serpent Pose

01.26.09 - Aquarius New Moon. This is a time of rapid portal openings and energy shifts: a solar eclipse falls on this new moon, followed 2 weeks later by a lunar eclipse on the full moon gateway. Meanwhile, Venus (in the evening) and Saturn (in the pre-dawn) play in the vicinity of the moon over the coming month... The posture figure is The Feathered Serpent, circa 6000BC-2500BC, found in areas as diverse as Bosnia, Siberia, Peru and India. The pose is classified as a Spirit Journey / Initiation pose.

Here is part of my journey notes:

I am in a desert landscape under a central tree - acacia. In the darkness around me I sense, then clearly see, a large number of animal totem spirits circling and dancing... As it becomes daylight, the spirit animals auras become indistinct, almost imperceptible. Yet I can sense them still dancing and cavorting around me in the landscape. The shadows cast by the tree leaves catch my eye - I see refractions of a full eclipse - a myriad of solar "beads" which glint and shine in synchronicity with the sun and moon conjunction in the sky above.

A hummingbird flies up to my ear and whispers "Let go, let it fall away. This is the time of transformation, of falling away, of stripping away the illusion - to reveal something new and unexpected under the old skin. A new world, a new world tree. Let the old tree come crashing down... let the old skin fall away. Do not fear. Help others around you through their fear of what seems chaotic, out-of-control."

The solar shadow play mentioned above is a real physical effect that I've had the pleasure to witness several times in "waking reality" - it occurs because the tree crown's leaf crossings randomly create a thousand "pin hole" camera-like apertures which transmit silhouettes of the solar eclipse, projecting a myriad of sharp, glittering eclipse images onto the ground below in the tree's shadow. The effect is strongest near totality.