Wind, Texture & Dream Bowls

As I write, the wind is shaking the house and creating harmonics as it whistles 

through the forest. It feels much more like mid-February than a few days from

May. Snow flurries and below freezing temperatures are predicted for tonight. 

Already this evening, Pasha has captured two young mice. One was put outside 

to no doubt make her way back in, the other was dinner. (Pasha's dinner, in case

you wondered) Pondering what I wanted to share with you this evening, 

I came across the tree photo above and was reminded of the painting below. Its from

a series of forest paintings that live in my Etsy shop - or have been living there - 

someday I hope they'll go live somewhere else! I'm so eager to revisit this series 

when I carve out some painting time in the future. At present I am continung to work 

on the new web site, promotional materials, and dream on what classes and retreats 

to offer this summer. Its getting down to the wire, but I'm almost there, phew!

"Green Light", V.Claff, watercolor, 2011

With so much of my time focussed on the screen these days, I find I'm craving 
texture. I'm bursting to create with something other than the computer, though 
I've learned a bit more of InDesign, which is very helpful. I can now do what I
need to create the brochures for the new studio program, and yesterday I made 
an advertisement for a local paper. As much as all this is exciting and I love the 
results, I NEED a different sort of sensual experience when creating. I need the
fibers of paper, the liquid glide of paint or ink on a surface, the pull of a pen 
scratching paper. So it seems this craving has led me to to photograph things 
that share a strong textural quality. 

A while back, I was inspired to photograph my collection of leaves 

while still inside a jar - almost watery at times. 

Even further back in time - years ago - I made a Dream Bowl from a gourd

using a wood burning tool, beads and feathers. I was offering a retreat and ritual 
to make Dream Bowls and use them in ritual to speak ones dreams and later to work 
with as focusing tools for intention work. I hadn't made a gourd bowl before, so 
I thought I'd better if I was going to be teaching how to! My bowl is very simple, 
with a drawing of a bear and a winged being. The ritual process was quite 
powerful for people, so I filed it away to bring out again in the future, and I 
continued to use my own bowl now and again to hold dreams, intentions and 
affirmations. 

Last weekend I offered the Dream Bowl ritual again, this time to the group of 

young women I've been working with. Once again it was a very powerful 

process - harder than you might think to invite women to claim their dreams 

and set intentions to manifest them.

       

It was a warm, beautiful day, and we sat outside to sand and cut the gourds to 

ready them for decorating. All three of these gourds were sent to me last year 

from Grace over at Windthread who can grow nice, strong gourds in the warmer 

climate - thanks again, Grace! I wish I had gotten more photos of the finished 

bowls, they were really nice. One had a top with a dreamcatcher woven into it. 

You'll just have to imagine.....