I will go off of memory for the retelling of my journey.
First, we would pick a medium we were comfortable with. Mine is digital.
We started with body. I took a picture of my chest, careful not to show any nipple. No need to upset my dear husband on this day. I then took the picture and Monet app'ed it. So it became more of a true outline. The chest was important to me because it encases the heart and is an iconic aspect of being a woman. I love breasts. I love having them, no matter how big. It is a place of femininity and Feminine Power. It's a fine line to walk of course bringing this up at all. But we will never be able to please everyone.
At some point we set an intention. I will keep mine private for now although I would say that anything that I do, most anything, within the last 12 years always has a focus of asking the Universe for help in the telling of my Raver J story. Currently it is in it's "Jivana" form. So the intention revolved around inspiration for my story.
We then were instructed to scour through images we would use later. I can't remember at the moment if we were given clues as to what topics to create or if we were given topics. I think we were probably allowed to choose, knowing how these things go. It is our journey right? I know that I drew upon Nature, and Priestess... the other 3 topics have escaped me now. Possibly crystals, and ancient cities, and.... I should have blogged days ago but I have been absorbed in a permaculture intensive the last week. So be it. This shall be whatever it shall be. From those topics we were to write one word that defined our favorite image from each image topic and then to write these words inside the body outline I believe? Well, that's what I eneded up doing anyway. My words were: Strength, Power, Light, Color, Eyes.
You can see two versions of this. The black and white version, and then another version with purple and light and a hexagram. I find the one with the hexagram particularly ineresting because the line intersects the "S" making it look like the word "Strength" was written with a dollar sign "$trength". My story, JIVANA, is critical of money, power, and consumerism. I did not plan for that line to do that. It was a layer on an app I used. When it happened though, I knew it was write. I could feel it in my body. The titillation. ;)
We were then supposed to write from these 5 words a story. We only had 2 minutes. Instead of sharing the actual words of the story the top video of this blog post is the story in an image based format. I have casually named it "What happened?" -- My two minute story I must say had some direction. I received a vision years ago. It is in my novel although the part of the novel that is not finished. My novel will end up being 4-6 novellas. The first one has been released already. Where this story would come in is around novella 3. Because I have not published that part yet, everything is still available for further clarification and.... this vision I had from a long time ago has haunted me for years. What happened? How did we get to this place of Patriarchal domination? What happened to the strong and revered women? Why have the temples of the goddesses been forgotten? Why do we think they are only "myth"? How did we as women allow that to happen. To write about all the has come to me over the years would be another blog post I am willing to write, but not right now. Today I am merely writing about the process I went through on my Soul Art journey.
Let me try and briefly explain the pictures in the video. Jivana is the name of the character in my book. It is also my author name now as I ever continue to embody her to make her story manifest. Her costume is blue with checkerboard print. The checkerboard has always called to me. It is the duality. The light, the dark. The 0 the 1. A portal into colorful, illusory dimensions. So the black and white images are manipulated checkerboard print. I used a picture of myself that I manipulate. Mirrored, recolored slightly to have pink and purple raver colored vs. red pinup colored lips. The mirror is reflection for the question of "What happened?". I look out over an ancient city and ask. Then I go into Nature to ask. Many years ago I did a journey where I was to travel to the Underground. We had to find the tree of life, find a door, then travel through the tree to depths of the Earth. I first came to a place, a dark room before I would go through the door to the underground. There was a lying Buddha on his side that would point to the door for me. So I have tried to capture that imagery for you/me. This fused image is light coming through a canopy in the forest illuminating a tree with a lying Buddha over it. It's all very subtle as was that journey through the darkness of the Underworld (where I would find my power animal). The next image is of a priestess in all her power and glory, with a purple crystal ball, and a black and white portal bridge connecting me from the present into the past. The next image is of two shoes. Sparkly crystal high heel vs. the purple and white checkerboard boot. They mirror each other. A crystal lies on to of them.
Walking in the shoes of another. That was part of what my story was trying to convey to me. And wars... they are so destructive. When we annihilate Nature or another culture, we lose so much accumulated knowledge. I think I become more and more of a pacifist each and every day. I don't know what it is yet exactly. But it has to do with history I don't yet know but am desperately searching for. I am of mixed blood and there is an aspect of myself I am perhaps trying to heal and resolve. The light colored eyes vs. my dark colored eyes aspect. The conqueror in me vs. the conquered. I am given clues through journeys but Spirit/ the Soul/ The Universe does not do all the work for you, Spirit points the way. I feel I have family history to go through in addition to studying the history of ancient Priestesses.
Laura asked us to embody the story for our final piece. Again, my medium being digital, I decided to layer. I used my chest, the body of the priestess, a checkerboard overlay with different colors, and my image to make the piece. I used Circular to create a Mandala. I tweaked it to bring out the eyes as that was one of the words for me and something I am ever more in tune with. Eyes, perception, how we see the world and how the world and it's beings perceive us.
Thank you Laura Hollick for this incredible journey. What I learned was to trust my body. All throughout the journey I intuited and felt guided by the subtle excitement I would feel in my body as I created certain images. If I did not respond, it wasn't right. If I felt slightly stimulated, I was on the right path. So the process for me was slightly and delightfully erotic which I felt was appropriate since I was working through the subject matter of the priestess. Embodying the trust of the creativity of my soul. I have trusted my guidance for years but to feel it in my body. That was new to me. Thank you.
Below was my final piece!
