Anam cara

 

I have long known and shared that the day I rediscovered my love of art - around four years ago now - was like finding the piece of me that had long been missing. Art and being creative is as important to me as ever, if not more so, but in the past week I've done some reflecting and realised that the tribe of sisters I've connected with because of that creative outburst is the glue that holds this part of me together.

I've just returned from an eight day pilgrimage around just a handful of England's sacred sites with a powerful group of just some of these women - sisters in soul spirit. As I've learnt from previous retreats, the power of our sisters is truly a magical thing. There are women out there who you are meant to be with - who bring out your own beauty and share a little of their own soul with you. This is Anam Cara. Friendships are formed to last a lifetime, we connect with a bond that cannot be broken.

Fellow sister Stephanie shared this with us before we left:

In their book, The Archetype of Pilgrimage: Outer Action with Inner Meaning, Wallace and Jean Clift describe the various reasons for embarking on a pilgrimage: to answer a call to adventure (one of the first stages Joseph Campbell described in “The Hero’s Journey”); to experience a place of power; to hope and ask for healing or a miracle; to express a love of God or Goddess; to find or reclaim lost pieces of ourselves; to give thanks; to ask for forgiveness; to leave the routine of ordinary life and experience something new or numinous; and to prepare for death.

We each had our own reasons and purpose for being together - some were apparent before we embarked on the journey and others told us their story as we travelled. We are the weavers.

These ladies accepted me for both who I am and what I wish to be. Each of them taught me something unique and special.

Oh yes... and we ate cake...

And drank cider...

And then, on my return the magic and pull of the creative tribe kept on working. I stopped to visit Kat whose artwork and writing I have admired for years, who I've chatted with on the phone and whose art passes through my hands every month on our Magical Journal Journey with seven other sisters. At last we were able to meet in person and give the tightest squeeze of a hug. I have the last journal in our current journey waiting for my input. I'll write my emotional outpourings on this project in a separate post, but it is once again, Anam Cara.

I have so much more to share about my experiences in Avebury, Glastonbury and Cornwall (plus a few places in between) - please watch this space... In the meantime you can read the experiences of my sweet sisters on the pilgrimage here, here, here and here.

 

A magical journal journey

Taking Gemma's journal to Glastonbury seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do - for after all, has not this group of artistic ladies named their project 'magical journal journeys'?

And just look at the cover - dragon skin for sure!

So, I carried the book of magic up to the Tor and to the Chalice Well. At the Well it took a light shower in the healing spring water - luckily dragon skin is quite water resistant!

And then, back home and suitably inspired by feminine energy, I created a homage to Mother Earth in these two pages.

I feel a change in me, a shift in the currents. Something long dormant has woken, a spell broken by another... The urge to create is strong in this one...


(I'm also sharing these sketches with the Sunday Sketchers - I have long been absent from my friends there!)

Bossa nova

Just when you thought you might get a blog post that didn't reference Glastonbury, I sneak one in under a Latin American radar!

You see, the thing is, I'm doing another of these round robin journals and am working on Sue Richardson's bossa-nova-themed book. Sue is a jazz musician which I find terribly exciting and exotic. In fact, I was so inspired that I ended up buying a whole new album of jaunty tunes - but more on that in a moment. Let's first drift through the mists to the picture above....

Do you wonder sometimes how the universe conspires to set things in perfect alignment for you. I return from my trip to the fabled land with the magic of the Lady of the Lake and lyrics of Roxy Music floating on repeat through my conscious, only to find a journal with a distinctly up-beat Latin American feel - not a match to my mood at all... or was it?

For listen carefully to the smooth tones of Mr Ferry singing Avalon and you'll find words of a very serendipitous nature!

So, with one double-page spread under my belt I could have had done with it and moved onto my next project - but no! For you see, I am something of a fan of the Latin beat - I think I may have been Brazilian in a former life. I wanted to paint those rhythms after all and tap my brushes like drumsticks and dance the paint across the page. I thought a new iTunes purchase might help, so added to my overflowing hard drive a little bossa nova compilation for the Muse to dance to - and samba she did, swinging those hips and flicking her tresses bedecked with feathers and sequins (she's such a party girl!)

It's the music I remember from my Dad's vinyl collection (Wes Montgomery, Charlie Byrd, Stan Getz) - the kind I would scoff at as a New Romantic teenager but which I have come to love. A bit like olives I think - a taste one acquires as one grows older and we stop consuming the type of sugary substances that dull our taste buds.

So, tomorrow this journal goes in the post and I await the next.

\|I'm also posting Gemma's 'purple' journal - but that's a whole other blog post....

Until then...

Goddess of Avalon

Possibly one of the most ridiculous things I said over the weekend was when I announced in a somewhat startled fashion that my self portrait looked like me! She came from Tam's class at the Call of the Wild Soul retreat. It's not really a surprise that there is a resemblance - I did paint over a photograph of my own face after all!

My son, Mum and boyfriend on seeing it though all said that I am much prettier in real life. Bless 'em!

There is definitely essence of me in here though - from the floaty dress to the flowers in my hair. The piece is full of hidden symbolism as I honour my superpowers and accept that actually I have quite a few good qualities - not something we do very often!

And this lady above? Well, she's not me exactly. She is every woman. She is the Big Wild She, our inner Goddess. She is feminine intuition, she is nurture, she is powerful beyond your imagination! Thank you Erin Faith Allen for lighting the touch paper to bring her out of me :)

The Mists of Avalon

 

 

I took myself off on a weekend of adventure to the fabled land - Avalon - hiding in the mists just outside of modern-day Glastonbury.

Four days of magic and mystery with the energy of this special place mixing with the wild souls of the women gathered to make art and find their inner Goddess.

My night dreams conspired to wake me up before the lark and nudged me to view the world outside my window. Where I was expecting blue skies was just a veil of mist stretching as far as the eye could see. Would Avalon be the other side? It was too good an opportunity to miss. I set out on a dawn pilgrimage to the Tor.

Silence save for the birds and livestock calling for their breakfast.

Long skirts brushed through the wet grasses as I disturbed the fairies from playing their harps.

Rabbits hid among the grasses as the Tor and Tower remained as illusive too...

I knew it must be up there somewhere...

And the voices whispered the stories ...

Of love and betrayal ...

Until the guardians of the sacred place bid me back beyond the veil to paint my own Goddess...

 

More on the magical Call of the Wild Soul Art Retreat later this week.

Through the mists

 

I'm going to Glastonbury soon. Just as the music revellers pack up their tents and muddy boots and the marquees get packed away for another year, there will be a new pilgrimage to the sacred sites as artists let the ancient muses guide their paintbrushes.

 

Once more I will heed the Call of the Wild Soul and allow the English countryside to weave a little Goddess magic and recharge my creative fire. They say that the intersecting ley lines give a power to the site that is associated with King Arthur, druids, the fairies, Joseph of Arimethea and Jesus. Many believe that the site of the Chalice Well marks the spot where Joseph hid the Holy Grail.

 

I shall have to open myself to the magic and see...

 

Sharing today some more artwork from the Magical Journal Journeys project. I'm a bit behind in posting - these were May's pages in Priti Lisa's blue journal.

 

PS: I'm reading The Mists of Avalon to get me in the mood!