Inklings Gone Wild

Pillow Case Skirt with Cat

Hey! I'm still here having creative inklings like crazy.  It's just I've been doing the documenting at Project Minima.  You know, since it's about that stuff.  

And I've been so single-focused, working on it everyday as much as I can - which is a lot!  Matter of fact, I'm just taking a break right now... 

So take a look when you have a chance!

Project Minima

Photo by Otto

I have to mention here that my creative inklings are also being realized in another project that I began last month. That's why The Book of Symbols images are slowing down and not appearing every single day.  They are sharing creative time with my Project Minima endeavors.
It's all good.

The Book of Symbols, Day 63: Lotus

Day 63: Lotus, 6x8 in., Otto

As a poetic image and visual icon, the lotus symbol evokes the realization that all life, rooted in mire, nourished by decomposed matter, growing upward through a fluid and changing medium, opens radiantly into space and light.  The mire and fluidity symbolize the grosser, heavier qualities of nature, including mind's nature.  The flower, beautifully multipetalled, symbolizes the array of subtler, more lucid qualities, with the golden hue, the radiance of spirit, as its center.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 61: Lily - revisted

Day 61: Lily, gouache, 8x6 in., Otto

Equally reflective of the vital source, the deep calyx of the lily shaped into trumpet, bell and chalice shoots up in every hue from the dark earth at springtime, heralding resurrection and renewal.  Highly regenerative, the lily surfaces even after fire or drought.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 60: Iris

Day 60: Iris, gouache, 8x6 in., Otto

It is the multicolor display of the iris that is responsible for its appellation.  Iris, meaning "rainbow" in classical Greek, was the messenger of the Olympian gods.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 59: Flower

Day 59: Flower, gouache, 8x6 in., Otto

Flowers are incorporated into ritual and sacrament the world over, as emblems of eros, beauty, perfection, purity, fertility, joy and resurrection. The simplest form of the flower with a radial shape is a natural mandala linking the flower symbolically with the wheel and eternal, cosmic movement around a mystic and orienting center.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 58: Garden

Day 58: Garden, gouache, 6x8 in., Otto

In almost all cultures and religions, the garden represents a sacred space, a uniting of the conscious self with its unconscious source.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 57: Yakshi - revised

Day 57: Yakshi, gouache, 8x6 in., Otto

The female Yakshi, in particular, is identified with the life of the tree...the tree draws its sustenance directly from subterranean waters absorbed through its roots and transformed into vital sap.  The sap rises, channeled and propelled up the central trunk of the tree toward the light.  As it reaches its apex, like a fountain it spills out and over into the many branches of the tree, bringing the tree to maturity in a canopy of foilage, blooming flowers and abundant fruit.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 56: Kabbalistic Tree

Day 56: Kabbalistic Tree, mixed media, 8x6 in., Otto

Perhaps the central teaching of this profound symbol is that there is a single structure that underpins all things...It is ultimately about the many levels, visible and invisible, that connect the primordial unity with the reality we experience every day.  

The Kabbalah teaches that this divine system has an order and a beauty of its own, and that by coming to know and align ourselves with it, we may promote greater harmony both within ourselves and in what is around us. 

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 55: Roots

Day: 55 Roots, gouache, 6x8 in., Otto

...The roots of an individual extend into layers of personal and archetypal ground.  The quality of such rooting, fostered by experience, mirroring and imagination, affects the capacity to thrive, generate new growth and creatively blossom.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 54: Palm Tree

Day 54: Palm Tree, gouache, 8x6 in., Otto

Considered a grass rather than a tree despite its tall sturdy trunks, a palm ripens its kernels enclosed in fleshy rinds (dates) or in hard protective shells (coconuts).

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 52: Olive Tree

Day 52: Olive Tree, gouache, 6x8 in., Otto

Olive trees perpetually renew themselves from their roots.  They resurrect after fire by sprouting new shouts and are able to grow back even if their tops and trunks decay...That is the olive - symbol of the quintessence that survives the dissolution of the old forms and renews itself from the roots up.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 51: Oak Tree

Day 51: Oak Tree, gouache, 6x8 in., Otto

Gathering strength throughout its span of life from acorn to spreading giant, the oak represents invincible, august strength.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 50: Tree

Day 50: Tree, gouache, 8x6 in., Otto

How we long to achieve the growth the tree fosters in itself, the reach and rootage, the sturdiness and balance between high and low, the way it meets each season, holding its ground, spare or blooming.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 49: Island

Day 49: Island, gouache, 7x7 in., Otto

Islands have ever harbored our conscious fantasies and unconscious projections.  They evoke escape, solitude, refuge or captivation.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 48: Beach

Day 48: Beach, gouache, 7x7 in., Otto

Psychological the beach evokes for us the daily experience of the slim shore between conscious and unconscious lapped and buffeted, shifted and changed, temporarily submerged and once again delineated in the tidal rhythms of waking and sleeping.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 47: Marsh

Day 47: Marsh, gouache, 7x7 in., Otto

The marsh continues to be an apt metaphor for those developmental transitions or temporary passages within a larger process where consciousness experiences itself in the muck between the permanently dissolved and the yet to be, a space of extreme potential and extreme vulnerability, vital, slippery, unpredictable and emergent.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 44: Salt

Day 44: Salt, prismacolor pencil, 7x7 in., Otto

The alchemists were aware of the paradoxical properties of salt:  it is necessary to life and poisonous; it enhances food and can make it bitter, it stings and it heals, it kills microbes and can destroy tissue.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 43: Cave

Day 43: Cave, gouache, 7x7 in., Otto

By providing a passage between this world and the underground, or between life and the land of the dead, caves evoke the primordial functions of the earth mother as both womb and tomb.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 42: Valley

Day 42: Valley, gouache, 7x7 in., Otto

The valley is associated with the earthy, the humble and also the womb as source, linking us with the Way and oneness; "Those on the way of the Tao, like water / need to accept where they find themselves; / and that may often be where water goes / to the lowest places, and that is right."

- Laozi