Color and Chakra

This morning.  Finishing three baskowls.  Thanks to Mo I’m visualizing chakra colors now in their evolution.  
Third Eye

Open Heart

 

 

Grounding

 

No sun. No shadows. But a lovely cool breeze and lots of crow conversation.

More on Blue…and a Family Portrait

On Earth Day I was thinking about blue.  Still am.  And wanted to also share two comments to that post–comments that help me understand this pull to the blue side….

From Mo in Australia:  The longing for blue by Rebecca Solnit in A Field Guide to Getting Lost—

“The world is blue at its edges and in its depths. This blue is the light that got lost. Light at the blue end of the spectrum does not travel the whole distance from the sun to us. It disperses among the molecules of the air, it scatters in water. Water is colorless, shallow water appears to be the color of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scattered light, the purer the water the deeper the blue. The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance. This light that does not touch us, does not travel the whole distance, the light that gets lost, gives us the beauty of the world, so much of which is in the color blue.”

And from Grace, somewhere in New Mexico:  “Here, the first people call the Rio Grande the Blue Mother.”  I love that expression…the Blue Mother.  And because I name each bowl, I’m borrowing this… Blue Mother.

It’s overcast today.  Wet from earlier rains.  We were digging around outside, moving Santolina that was growing where a wall is coming down.  Supervised.

Still Capturing Color

Turns out my cell phone gives more accurate color, at least from this end.  I appreciate so much all of you who have given me technical suggestions.  Suggestions for capturing correct color–and scale.  And saying this, I realize that  even though what I see here looks pretty accurate to me, what you see may be entirely different.  That makes me cringe, but so be it.  Because, well because at least I have to know that what I’m sending forth, regardless of how it’s interpreted, looks authentic at the get go.

In a way, it’s like that game–a bunch of people sitting around the table–one whispers into their neighbor’s ear–whispers something–and so it goes–person to person until it arrives again at the beginning.  And you know the rest.

Mountain Iris

The Jawbone of a Beast Meets “The Shopping Place”

Today’s Offering at the Shopping Place

OK. I’ve had a few questions about the bask-owls–and the answer is– Yes, the baskets and bowls I post here are for sale.  To hopefully facilitate things, I’ve added a 3rd page to this site–“Shopping Place.” I’ll put new items there as I can–right now it feels like a very clumsy system…and probably won’t include everything–but I’ll try it out for a while and see how it goes. I’ve spent way too much time setting this up this morning — would much rather be chasing spirals.

But here.  This is what really excites me–scraps of linen, muslin and silk–overdyed in alkanet.

And the jawbone of a beast.  Uncovered yesterday while investigating one of the flower beds at this new house.  Horse?

Indigo Sky and Bask-owls

Probably more dips in the dye vat would have darkened the cloth before I wrapped rope– 2 dips is all it got and the color is pretty pale. Still as I look out at the day–the row of forsythia blooming across the road, in front of someone’s forest–I’m so taken with the sky–an indigo sky feathered over with a dusting of wispy clouds. I love this sky. Love the comfort it suggests. Captured here in cloth. And speaking of bowls–baskets–my conundrum as what to call them is resolved. I’ve decided on this–bask-owls.

Today’s bask-owls:

Lessons in Dy(e)ing

I love saying this —dyeing. Because, well because it lends itself to a wonderful play-on-words. Dyeing. Dying. Love that both are so illustrative of transformation. Both so potentially beautiful. And I also appreciate that with each, intention is required to achieve the results I see in my mind’s eye. Intention and discipline.

I’ve played around this week with dyeing rope bowls. Dyeing rope wrapped in white cotton and also dyeing rope bowls without a fabric cover. Madder, alkanet and indigo are the three dye baths I’ve managed to concoct. I don’t know what to think about the bowls. Not sure it’s a good medium for this experimentation.

Anyway, these are the bowls to date. The purple is alkanet, orange is madder, and indigo is the lighter blue. The navy blue is indigo overdyed with alkanet.

Looking at the last two images, and this one (commercial cloth commercial dye)

reminds me of another aspect of this process I LOVE. Being able to see this initial spiral each and every time a bowl begins. And then following it until the rope runs out. Complete.

Momentum. Inertia. Resistance. Change.

I captioned this post Momentum. Then thought, “Perhaps ‘inertia?'” so googled “inertia” to be sure I understood how I was thinking about it–and the definition has bowled me over for several reasons:

The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavours to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line.”

Bowls me over because of that one phrase: “power of resisting.” I’ve been pondering resistance in other forms–not physical forms as in this definition–but thought forms. Emotions. Reactions. Old programming. Any and everything that arises and feels like a flow deterrent. Any and every thing that disturbs my “wah.” I know I didn’t make that up–this word “wah.” But again, I just googled its spelling and can’t find it. It was a common concept in something I read years ago. A novel probably and “wah” as I interpreted it, broadly referred to tranquility–an unfettered state. Can anyone help me with this reference?

So anything that disturbs what I’m calling my “wah” creates what I’m also referring to as “resistance.” And paying attention to this–to resistance–has preoccupied me for the last few weeks. In the past I’ve struggled with it–or more aptly–against. Made resisting resistance a career. To be overcome. But suddenly the irony of “resisting resistance” becomes almost laughable. So–the practice has been NOT resisting but simply acknowledging. Allowing room for it to be without globbing onto it and making it all pervasive. And noticing how this simple shift reduces the charge. Fine tuning. That’s all.

When I sat down to post, I was stunned that it’s been a month. A few weeks I thought. But the momentum of thoughts and creation hasn’t translated to blogdom. Still, here’s what I’ve been doing. Bowls taking precedence for a while over slow cloth. I’ve placed a lot of them down town at Woolworth Walk and at a local market in W. Asheville. Constantly having to rephrase my thinking from “no one will buy these” to “they’re beautiful and will find good homes.”

Here are a few recent ones. Bowls with lids:

and a larger bowl, inside outside:

and several from this morning–moving back and forth between color and neutrality:

So. A month of momentum focused on bowls and recognizing/allowing resistance. And one more thing–the cloth that earns the title “slow.”