Hawks and Burning Houses

Earlier today I was sitting here and a movement outside caught my eye.  I looked up and it was a hawk diving down into my yard!!! 

I watched for a moment then ran outside, as quietly as possible, with 2 half naked kids and golden retriever puppy in tow (lol, can you be more noisy?)  but of course it was already gone and there was no evidence of why it was there.  I noticed the hawk hanging around a lot sometime last year I think and lately I hear it all the time when I go outside, though the trees are so dense I usually can’t see it.  I wonder if it has a nest in one of my trees?  I did notice the squirrels aren’t all over the place like the usually are lately.

New Card 7 of Disks

I have finished a new card, the 7 of Disks!

(this is what I posted to my newsletter, old news to anyone reading along here!)

 

http://www.mary-el.com/sevens.html 

    I was working on this sketch for the 7 of disks, the raven friend of Odin, Muninn, which mans ‘memory’, when I was very impressed by the mental image of not just a raven but the wings forming 2 mountains on a horizon and the head of the creature the rising Sun.  I saw it walking with flames and sparks flying his feet as they hit the ground and in its hands were 7 coins; 4 in one, and 3 in the other.    

Dreams of Wolves and Ravens

 I had a few very strange dreams last night (now the night before, I am finishing this post the next day).  In the first there was a spirit so I did a ritual and brought it partly to manifestation.  It was a rottweiler named Sieg Heil (apologies to any Germans who may read this or anyone else it may offend!!) .  The only other people who could see him were children and babies and then other animals could as well.  At first I thought he was great, a beautiful animal and gentle with me but very protective - I especially remember thinking that.  Something started to go wrong when he ‘covered’ Haiku.  I had to pull him off.  He continued to get more and more aggressive but I couldn’t seem to come to grips with it, I still thought he was nice until he finally threw me off a balcony into a pit.  I tried to grab a ledge but he pried my fingers off and I fell.

7D III

The above is a video for the song Ian suggested was like the 7 of Cups and turned out to be a song I had been listening to the whole time I worked on it but never put 2 and 2 together!  (This is an acoustic version)

 

7 of Disks Chemical Wedding

 

I’m working on the 7 of Disks right now but felt like chatting a little bit too.  I am putting an aura like thing around the coins, presently. 

I was thinking about a news blurb I saw where artists were creating this huge painting of the White House for the RPG convention, wow it was awesome.  It was huge.  The painting was flat on the ground and they were walking on it using wood to make straight lines, they put it down then used brushes with long enough handles to hold while standing up then they went along the edge.  It looked very nice.  Gawd, I love art.  I love it so much I feel like I could explode from it.  Why?  I don’t know. Life is way way way too short.

Hey!  Look what I just figured out how to do!  I can add video, mwahahaha, things will never be the same!  Ok, this is the movie  that Bruce Dickinson did!!!   Still lovin’ on Bruce!

Moving Earth

I’m dying to work on the 7D but things just aren’t working out!  It’s ok though, I am coming to terms with the ssssslllllllooooooooowwwwwwwww nature of this process.

The last time I worked on it, oh sometime last week, I came across an anomaly.  I was working on the 7 coins and the symbols to put on them when it occurred to me, hey!  what about Adam and Eve (as symbols, of course)?  Now, the Hebrew spelling for Eve is Heh Vav Heh, which is just a Yod short of the tetragrammaton, the 4 letter name of God.  The conflict for me comes from the 3 letters being ones I would associate with Air, Water and Earth.  BUT the 3 prime elements would be Fire, Air, Water and earth is made from a combination of those - so how do you get a proper trinity without Fire?  Drove me wild! 

Solar Eclipse

Its 7:15 am and a few minutes ago I watched the totl solar eclipse live on the news.  Wow!  That’s one of the most awesome things I have ever seen!  Someday I will see it in real lfe, I will hop on a plane and go to wherever it happens. 

Maybe a week or two ago one of the kids was asking me about why I believed ….argh I can’t remember exactly how they worded it, but, yes, why I believed.  All I could come up wth was how perfect some of the things in the Universe are and the solar eclipse wa my biggest example, how the moon is the perfect size and the perfect distance from the earth and sun to perfectly align like they do. 

7 of Disks II

Rex is sick so I missed my turn in the office Friday night but got in there a few hours yesterday.  I spent a lot of time drawing feet and hands and then when it was time to clean up and go I realized I liked my very first quick sketch the best so it was all for naught anyway!

I did have a good time deciding what to put on the 7 coins though; I decided on the 7 classic planets, of course.  Then, they had to be divided between 3 and 4, spirit and materia.  I did it like this:

7 of Disks I

I had another vision last night.  I was working on the sketch for the 7 of Disks.  As I have mentioned I planned on making an old Raven, but was having some trouble figuring out how to depict an old raven, lol!  As I closed my eyes to see it I was overtaken by a powerful image.  The raven wings were there, outstretched and their blackness filled everything below their shoulders.  There was no head, but instead it was replaced with a glowing sun rising or setting, as though the shoulders of the wings were the horizon.  You could just barely see the feet below and they were walking with strong intent, is the only way I can think of putting it, and where the feet met the earth they threw off fire.

7 of Cups complete

The radical idea worked out!  I basically sat down with a prepared board and just went for it.  It felt great!  I really like how it came out.  I felt like I was calligraphy or Chinese brush painting at first and that is about the consistency of the paint I was using WITH stinky, toxic, wonderful, odoriferous turpentine from my beloved pine and fabulously poisonous cadmiums and nary a fan blade turned nor a widow sill creaked.  Bliss!

At one point I had a lot more detail in the water and moon and sky but brushed it out; it seemed to call for simplicity.  Then I had the brush in my hand to begin smoothing over some of the rough edges of the wolf but I looked at it and said, no, leave it as it is.  It was done.

I have a lot still to write about this card but its late and I’m tired.  It has been a hectic week.  So far I am really happy with it.