AUGUST FULL MOON #7 Gwen's Oracle Deck of "What If’s"

I, Gwen, took 2 calligraphy classes from Caitlin Dunden and observed that many calligraphers write on top of water colored paper.  I like using new techniques each moon and was excited to introduce watercolor and calligraphy to my contributions for Little Alters.  I would create for Marilynn only 1 card with the words “What If” and a simple, elegant border surrounding, no flourishes.  Then, I’d provide a story of what if’s that might hide behind it in the space. 

I thought it would be fast and simple to make. 

I worked every day on my calligraphy – learning to spend 1 -2 pages on just practicing letters before starting anything.   I stumbled because my body was healing, which meant lots of sleep and not enough time to create.  When I did create, nothing, I mean nothing, would come together like the vision that came to mind.   When the full moon came along with our little alters deadline, and then it went and yet still nothing would come together, I thought, “Should I give up? Should I say Sorry I’m not going to make it. And Cry Uncle?” Not finishing felt like letting Marilyn down.  Even though, there are times when it's really ok to say - I just cannot pull this together, I still felt like I was letting the whole Little Alter's team down.

I had a sense, a teeny, tiny, constant feeling to keep going. Even if all I was doing was to practice my calligraphy.  So, I would pick up the pen and write my what if’s.  If you’re familiar with Abraham Hicks, then you may have heard of the “What If” game, where you dream up your amazing life by asking “what if…” followed by stating a piece of the amazing life you dream of having.  I would like to be there, but I’m not yet in the phase of, “Oh I deserve this awesome life, so I’m dreaming it and I can really see it happen”.  I’m more at the phase of belief/dis-belief.  One my consider it, between cautious optimism and pessimism.  Before I can climb the ladder to enthusiastic belief, I need to explore the previous areas.  Sometimes, when we are low or unable to let go of fear, that means, vocalizing and acknowledging deepest fears.  Other times when we’re not so deep in the world of fear, but not quite yet wearing our rose-colored glasses, that means wondering if it could really happen.  And so, my What If’s live in that middle purgatory or middle earth.

• What if Amazing Things Happened? 
• What if he chose me? 
• What if I was loved? 
• What if I let go? (Oh my God I don’t know if I can do that!)
• What if my dreams came true? 
• What if I didn’t have to live like this? 
• What if I could? 
• What if I did?

One of the days I was writing my what if’s in hopes of creating my final alter project, I fell into deep anger and unhappiness. My What if’s landed in that dark, murky pool of fear and anger.

• What if I stopped talking? 
• What if I stopped communicating? Would anyone even care? 
• What if I didn’t try, didn’t care? 
• What if it never happened? 
• What if others stopped pressing their guilt on me? 
• What if I never made any new friends ever again?
• What if I never felt happy again?
• What if I was always angry?
• What if I hated everyone and everything?

And… that sort of helped break me.  Of course, there were lots of tears – anger, frustration, fear, sadness, loss, humiliation, confusion, and hurt.  Ok. So what if it didn’t get any better than it is right now? Ok. I’m there. And as Reba says, “When you hit rock bottom you’ve got two ways to go, straight up or sideways.”  I skittered sideways for a while. That was ok, but definitely hard.

And then, something magical happened about 4 days after the full moon. 

To continue reading, please visit the rest of the post on my blog: 

http://www.calmundertension.com/1/post/2013/08/little-alters-august-moon-my-oracle-deck-of-what-ifs.html

SEED MOON 1

The Pink Moon by Gwen Gyldenege

More can be found on http://calmundertension.com/blog.html

It's alter time again!! 

This month's full moon is known as the seed moon or pink moon. For some reason, I've been struck by the glory of a moon dressed all in pink. See it gets the name pink from the ground phlox that blooms this time of year. And this is one of my absolute favorite times of year to photograph. I love gardens in spring. I grew up playing among the azaleas, Andromeda, bluebells and daffodils. 

Sweet Ruthie by Gwen Gyldenege Clematis by Gwen Gyldenege

Coral Azalea by Gwen Gyldenege

I love the way the earth smells when she's laughing in flowers. Persephone does leave a glorious and fragrant wake as she returns from Hades. There is nothing like the delicious smell of blooming azaleas, Andromeda  and clematis all mingling with rhododendron an the warmth of a sunny spring day or lingering upon every dew drop following a gentle spring rain.

The images you see before you are a several photographs I took in one of my favorite gardens.  If you play in the garden, you'll find magic & faeries among the bright blossoms & rich evergreens or deep underneath the cascading blossoms of the Andromeda bush.

Purple Azalea by Gwen Gyldenege

What I find fascinating is how different the scents are from each of these flowers.  The clematis really smell like chocolate.  The andromeda like a heavy, syrupy honey, and the azaleas are sweet and bright, like a sibling to the summer trumpet vine or the springtime honeysuckle found enveloping every early spring night in Kansas City, Missouri as the days heat wanes and the earth sleeps. I would love to travel the world as spring comes alive in every place just to experience the scents.  What would it be like to be right smack in the desert when all those cactai burst open?  Or how about standing in a Moroccan garden among the roses?  Or sipping your morning espresso beneath an arbor crafted of gardenia? It'd be quite a glorious hedge.  What other amazing scents could you discover?  If only to bottle these and wear them.  I would definitely wear scents of Azalea, Andromeda, or Honeysuckle.  

Andromeda by Gwen Gyldenege.

Tulip tree by Gwen Gyldenege

Andromeda by Gwen Gyldenege

Tulip Tree, Evergreens and Spring Sun by Gwen Gyldenege

Wow, glancing over this post, I love how colorful it is.  And, I realized how truely me it is!  I love it!  Color is a wonderful thing. I lived in a land of grey once and now choose to live in technicolor how ever I possibly can.

Back to the moon. When I began sculpting, I didn't intend her for the Alter project.  After last month, I decided I'd just play a little and if it worked out, great. If not, then I'd have a fun art piece and I would have taught myself to sculpt a face in paper clay.  I've done quite a bit of sculpting with pottery clay, sculpey and fimo, but paper clay seemed too soft.  With inspiration and courage found from classes with Michael DeMeng, Clarissa Callisen, Patricia Hedegaard and the Halloween book by Mr. Glitterville, I embarked upon the journey.   

Well, it was a bit soft. But, I just kept playing and out came this magical moon face.  Then, instead of keeping her just a full moon, I decided that I wanted her to represent both the full and the crescent moon.  She could be waxing or waning, depending on which side you observe her.  I gave her a long pointy nose and a very pointy up-tipped chin.  I tried the pressed in eyes like shown in Glitterville, except with mine, I added them with flattened circles of of clay and created eye sockets, just in case I wanted to add a glass eye.


Then, after bone dry, I began painting. Thank God I'd been through Michael DeMeng's classes where I learned his layering techniques to achieve the most amazing painted surfaces.  It was not easy to grasp how many layers go into a surface to achieve depth.  And, might I add the patience one really needs to have.  I do like the look, but often avoid it because I run out of patience. Well, fortunately, I happened to find an extra dosage bottle of art patience in my medicine cabinet. For this moon alone, I believe there are ~ 7 layers just for the main color.  Then, there are many more layers in the eyes, lips, etc. The nice part about layers is if you don't like the look, paint over and start again. There are actually green, blue, purple, pink, and many other colors in there.   The more I painted her, the more she felt like an Italian clown, part of the Pagliacci or even a marionette. I think my style is beginning to emerge. How lovely!

I couldn't let the moon go up without a rich and colorful night sky behind her. While resting from a minor injury, I picked up my colored pencils. Had such great fun with them on the shrinky-dinks, but haven't found the look I want on paper.  I really like a layered, depth, but didn't know how to create it.  So, off I went in search of tutorials from the great world of bloggers. Not many, but I found one that showed putting red behind blue and blue behind red. Huh. It looked weird on it's own, but I figured it would be interesting to try in my favorite colors - pink and aqua.

I started playing with the colors at hand. I was tickled to see the rich sky colors I could create. Just like so many nights I've tried to photograph, but my camera just won't pick-up.  Oh glory me, this is really exciting. Now, I have a way to create night skies.  I've been dreaming of this. And, all because I sculpted this moon, and just played really, do I know a new way to make a magical scene. LUCKY ME!