Yesterday, with ego bruised from my failed technical
experiments with walnut ink and stamping, I spent some time away from the
studio and instead worked in the kitchen.
I was making one of Barefoot Contessa’s recipes for baked chocolate
pudding. It called for some fresh
vanilla bean. As I peeled away the seeds
and pulp of the bean I was put in touch with the magickal allure of the Goddess
Gaia. It was over a decade ago that I discovered
Goddess Spirituality. Over a short time,
I came to realize the power that the divinely feminine goddesses would have on
my life. For nearly a decade I wrote a column for “Sage Woman,” magazine and
this column was a vessel at the time for my spirituality, now that shift has
moved more towards the garden, artmaking and writing books and articles. I mention the garden because I see and
experience the Goddess and goddesses in nature most prominently. When I hold and smell any of my favorite
herbs I am immediately put in touch with earth goddesses and earth elementals.
My work as a magickal herbalist is deeply spiritual and tied to the divinely
feminine faith I hold dear. Some herbs
are great facilitators for the journey into the spirit realms. I will get into many of those later but for
now I want to pay homage to vanilla--an expensive herb to purchase in bulk but
well worth it because of its intensity, scenting, flavoring and staying power.
I actually use vanilla beans more in my botanical blends, particularly the winter
and spring potpourris, than in cooking, though when I find a recipe that calls
for it in my kitchen I am happy to use it. Vanilla is musky and deep yet it is a
sweet-smelling herb as well. It has a nice balance of yin and yang as well as
male female energy. Its appearance is
phallic and it holds countless seeds, suggesting fertility; yielding promise. Deeply earthy, transcendent burnt umber in
color, this is not only a great herb for putting one in touch with Gaia, the
earth goddesses and elementals, but the earth gods as well. This ATC featured
today is the usual 2 ½ by 3 ½ inch foundation, on which I’ve created a tribute
of earth goddess Gaia with a focus on her ability to inspire and sustain
creativity using collage. After working
the vanilla, with the recipe, which came out fabulously, I returned to my
studio for several sessions of work with the walnut ink and stamps. This time I had much more success with the
new materials partially because of experimentation with both mediums. The other
element that really helped was the fact that I make contact with my beliefs and
spirituality—all through the little seed vessel, we call vanilla.
When I first became a blogger it was difficult to know if I had readers and visitors coming to my blog. I’d post and be met by the sounds of crickets. Then, I branched out into the world of the blogosphere, a world I didn't know really existed. From my ventures, I met a lot of interesting bloggers. I've started following and commenting on numerous blogs, for you see, prior to my outings, I too was out among the crickets. Lurking about but seldom saying anything. A fellow blogger I've met through my journeys around the blogosphere is Melissa Maygrove . She had the brilliant idea to have a Follow Fest , where we share about who we are, what we do and most importantly, how you can connect with us further. It is my intention through joining Follow Fest, that I’ll connect with many more readers and people interested enough in what I do to want to learn more by following. So, here goes my entry for the fest. Name: Stephanie Rose Bird Fiction or
Your work is so beautiful... found you via CED and i'm so glad i did. I'll be back.
ReplyDeleteHAPPY NEW YEAR Stephanie! xoxo
Pauline:
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! Just taking a little break from my studio right now, have been continuing my 2 editions of ATCs. Will check out your blog as well! Loving the notion of CED (Creative Every Day) so far.