Greetings friends, on a lovely stormy day.  It seems a quickly moving front is passing through, clearing some already today but having thoroughly stirred the canyon with its introductory winds.  So hard did they blow, that the comforter would stay on the bed even tucked in, and I was impelled indoors for the first night since last it began warming up last March.  I sleep so much more soundly, relaxed by the sound of the river’s currents of course, but less believably rocked into slumber by even the hardest blowing winds, comforted and assured by the physicality of earthen breath no matter how intently it disarranges the building materials on the porch or inadvertently discomforts the canyon’s branch-hugging birds.

The photo above shows one small section of wall a next to where I sit and type, to the left of me as I face the widows and the river with my little desk.  You will note the natural balance affected by this combination of Oberon Zell Gaia statue and Lauren Raine Gaia mask, and an unsmiling pic of an imprisoned Geronimo with an unloaded photographer’s Springfield carbine prop.  And in the center, a “Marble Man” made Earth globe representing the world that Geronimo in his understandably unpleasant way sought to protect.

Today I am trying to finish a column for a newspaper I write for, edit both Kiva and Loba’s wonderful new pieces on the topic of “Balance” for the Winter issue of SageWoman magazine, and nail a gutter back up that we need to channel water into our rain barrels.  Yesterday was quite different, a rush of student work and emails in the morning, another painful foray to the sliding-scale dentist for us po’ folk, and then too muddle headed to do meaningful writing.  Using elder and Vitamin D to bolster our immunity to the flu we’ve been fending off, I tried to just relax and watch a dvd movie but was drawn instead… to drawing!

I had been wanting to find time for over a year, to create a portrait logo with plant illustrations for our ever more empowered Animá student Angie, for use as a banner on her inspiring blog about earthy mothering and the need for mothers to nourish and tend themselves: Authentic Mama.  The smaller the actual drawing, the harder it is to make a portrait actually look and feel like the person portrayed, so I started with a 5” design that Kiva can now reduce by half for its intended purpose.  You as well as herbalist Angie get to see it here first, posed holding her sweet children Ella and Wyatt, looking the archetypal healthy mom but lately self-defined as so much more.  Below her either side or enlarged illustrations of sensuous Trillium, one of her three main plant allies.  I drew the other two as well, noble Nettles and resilient Rosemary, to appear at each end of the upcoming logo/banner.  Instead of being placed against a blue field, Kiva will use an evocative plant photograph background.

It seems I could not stop there, even though there were no more immediate art commissions awaiting my hand.  It was not so much diversion from the aching jaw as self-soothing and self-healing through the ministration of pencil and pen, and what proved an irresistible desire to surprise, honor and hopefully please our latest confirmed TWH Conference volunteer.  In this unrequested pencil portrait, we see Tonya (Tony, or “T”) with her magical, plant loving daughter, a masterful herbalist and her budding protégé.  T has had extensive experience organizing events as well as running her Blazing Star Herbal School, making her perfect to serve as the Assistant Director of our Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference, possibly helping with every aspect of promotion and organization before and during this exciting 2010 conference.  T, we sure hope you feel welcomed, appreciated and acknowledged!

To others of you who have inquired about commissioning art for yourselves, I will take your orders (for a donation or trade) so long as you understand that it takes awhile with all the deserving students and vital publishing venues.  It is a gift to me to be able to shift into the wordless artist state, creating visions of beauty and balance as I witness the results, at the rate that I only wish I could manifest our healing vision in the larger, needing world.

I close with an invite for you to read Part 3 of the Pitfalls on the Path series, below (the previous 2 parts can be found in this blogs Archives at right, under “Teachings & Practice”), highlighting a not always comforting awareness that is nonetheless as crucial to our empowerment as any pleasant or positive inspiration.  To the degree we can, we will use this blog to provide you with some of both, to better equip and empower the right action that serves not just us but the whole.

Wishing you purpose and wonder,
-Wolf

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Categories: Announcements, Updates & Canyon Tales, Artwork

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Announcements, Updates & Canyon Tales, Artwork. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.