Category Archives: Goddess Emergence Project

Jun25

Goddess Readings: NunGeena

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Goddess Readings: NunGeena

The first of my Goddess Readings using the goddesses from my upcoming oracle deck. NunGeena revealed herself to be the energy today. This is Her brief story followed by my insight.

Baiame created a beautiful earth, resplendent and ready for man. Marmoo, in his jealousy set out to destroy it. He created a plague of insects that ravished all the living things. Leaving, seemingly nothing left. Baiame came to NunGeena. She had some flowers hidden away. Marimoo’s army wouldn’t dare come too close to her or her flowers. From these flowers she fashioned a bird. Baiame breathed life into it and it began to eat the bugs. Nungeena gathered her maidens and they too began to create birds. Birds of water and birds of heaven. They were hungry and they ate and ate until balance was restored.

Today many of us find ourselves “plagued”. What we once had is being eaten away. We are losing our jobs, our homes, our cars, our health, our relationships. We are left with seemingly nothing. But we do have something. Hidden within each of us is a flower, a gift, a light, a seed. It is in a place that no one can touch. It is time for us to re-examine our resources. It is time to stop looking at what has been lost but assess and accept our situation. Look at what is left. With what we have, allow Spirit to guide us and use it to create. From a flower, came a bird. A bird of beauty. How can beauty save the world? It was hungry. It eats and eats and eats and eats and clears away the destruction. It picks the hate, the fear the doubt and eats it. We are hungry for beauty we must fill ourselves with that. Create. Sometimes we are asked to do the spiritual thing, not the logical thing. We are asked to caste aside doubt and create even when we cannot understand how it may help or how it can cure or how it can stop the destruction and loss. Sometimes we must do the magical thing. We are never closer to god or the goddess when we create. This is the Dreamtime. All things are possible. If we don’t like this reality we must create a new one. Create, breathe, trust. It is the nature of the bird to eat. Don’t judge your resources, use them. Use their nature. Use the nature of the beast. Work within the nature of creation and magic happens.

Jun10

Starting Sedna

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Starting Sedna

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She’s been roughed in and I’ve been staring at it like this for too long. I suppose we creative types go through this… blocks, feeling uninspired. Although really tired today, I’m picking up my brush again now and I’m going to get cranking. I’m ready to move and create. Finally. I can’t wait to hit it with some color…those northern lights are going in. :)

May17

Baba Yaga

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Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga

When I worked with Baba Yaga, she stripped so much away. Acheulean asks me to go back, and back and back. Back to the foundation, back to everything that was and is, stripped of the distractions and confusion. Back to the beginning…ending…beginning….shortly after painting her we were forced to move. I rid myself of many many things. It was emotional and dark. Still living the effect of my prayers to Baba Yaga…the bone mother…Achulean asks me, no tells me, to begin again. Literally we are now starting over.

May13

Kali

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Kali

Kali by Kate Henriot Jauw

Kali, although fierce and I think misinterpreted by Western minds is an amazing Goddess to me. I stayed true to her original Hindu symbolism, with the exception of the four arms. This is because I want women to identify with her. I want them to be able to relate to her on all levels.

Her symbolism is great. At first glance, she obviously depicts, death and destruction. But Her name means Time. She devours time. And she denotes freedom.

In Tantric texts She is called “She Whose Essential Form is Sexual Desire”

To understand Kali, one needs to face fears and not avoid the forbidden.

Kali’s hair is always a mess, wild and free. (I know how she feels) It’s never depicted as bound or styled because she is free from convention, uncontrolled nature. She is not bound or limited to a male consort. Her tongue is in the act of tasting and consuming..enjoying…all the world’s flavors. Her blackness symbolizes her comprehensive nature, in her is dissolved illusion, fear, ignorance.

The severed arms represent karma. She shows that through her, Karma can be overcome. Her devotees are cut free from karma and are able to begin anew. Two of her hands are shown in the Mudras, She offers blessings of compassion and fearlessness. The other hands hold a sword and severed head. These symbolize the destruction of ignorance and the beginning of knowledge. The necklace of severed heads represent the sounds of the alphabet, traditionally there are 50 of them, I took liberties. From sound, reality is manifest…and Kali is the power behind that.

May2

The Acheulian Goddess

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The Acheulian Goddess

The Acheulian Goddess

Kwan Yin

Lots of stuff happened when I worked with the Acheulian Goddess. As I mentioned, I researched the hell out of her, but when it came time to bring her to life, I realized I had to abandon all that I thought I knew. The same goes for my life. Everything I thought I knew has just gone out the door. We’re starting at the beginning. And it’s been tough, still is. With the Achulean Goddess demanding that I let everything go, even though I don’t know yet how it all comes back together I decided to ask for a little (well, alot) of mercy. Which brought me to Kwan Yin.

Kwan Yin has a couple of stories and many different spellings of her name. She is a bodhisattva who hears the cries of the world. Hopefully she has heard mine. We’ll see!

As I was painting her I was thinking about the culture from which she originates. There is wealth associated with Chinese deities; wealth, luck good fortune. And although Her key words may be compassion and mercy, I was focusing on abundance.

Kwan Yin is teaching me that abundance is effortless. That there is a flow and it comes from a never ending source (her pouring water). She doesn’t practice compassion, She is compassion. She doesn’t show mercy, She is mercy. Just as She doesn’t have abundance, She is abundance. And that is what I need to be. Read the rest of this entry →

May1

Working with the goddess

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Working with the goddess

Whenever I work on a new goddess, I live their energy and explore that archetype. Whether I want to or not. Erzulie was rough. And now Isis, She’s a pretty tough chick.

After seeing modern and historical depictions of her I thought of her as this queen, poised and elegant. When I dreamt of her She scared the crap out of me. She was real. She was down and dirty. She was assembling body parts and looking at me in a way that told me I had better watch and learn, that I needed to do this too.

Pulling all the pieces together, reassembling them animating them, breathing into them new life. In the same way She brought life to her husband. When I first dreamt of her, I thought I understood what she was saying. Now as I paint her, I am learning all over again.

A couple of weeks ago I woke to intense neck and shoulder pain. What I later believed to be a whole lot of “stuckness” in my life that manifested physically in order to better get my attention. It got my attention. Read the rest of this entry →

Apr30

Erzulie

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Erzulie

My Erzulie is changing quite a bit. She’s a strong one. I’m finding it difficult to be in her energy. There is a sadness. There is a strong maternalistic side existing with an amazing independence. A fierceness and determination cuts through the sadness and creates propulsion.

I think of her single-minded purpose to free and to feed her people. Her drive to do what is right regardless of outcome.One of the outcomes being that her people turn against her, mistrust her and cut out her tongue. She has a great power that must have made others very wary. It was ok as long as it worked in their favor but what if it was turned against them? What would happen to them if they were discovered to be not as true or as honest as She? Her strength and courage must have made them feel inferior.

Regardless of their fears and insecurities, regardless of their choices, She did what she knew she must. As a mother would do for her children.

But the sadness of knowing you are doing everything you can, doing everything right and somehow it still isn’t enough can be thick and weighty. I am in that heaviness as I work on her portrait.

In my painting She will no longer be turned away from the viewer, but facing forward, facing fears, tired and determined. The baby too, will be seen. It’s important to see the children, to see for whom it is we fight. The background has gone from pastoral to a ruined city. The lighting has changed too.

There is a revolution coming and some say She started it. I say She will finish it.