SNAKE MEDICINE FOR MY BIRTHDAY: Integrating, moving, changing, drawing!

PARADE OF AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHERS (art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for Birthdays! Hallelujah for inspiration from others! Hallelujah for a format like blogging which allows us to develop an online community to share our birthdays, art-making, and ideas.

For my birthday (today September 9, 2013), I decided to conjure an array of American oystercatchers and some other natural elements from the Georgia coast. A trick or method (which word do you prefer?) that I developed long ago was to start each art-making day with the familiar--a known place.

It is by being in the familiar zone where I am comfortable that I can jump into the NOW, the UNKNOWN, the CREATIVE twilight of conjuring something NEW. Therefore, I began my drawing today with BABY NEW SOUL, Hallelujah Truth, and Alligator.

Earlier in the morning, I had checked my calendar, We'Moon 2013: Gaia Rhythms for Womyn, for any tidbits of wisdom surrounding the date of my birthday. On page 139, I saw a photo of a snake with this poem underneath it:

MAGIC OF SNAKE MEDICINE. (art by Hallelujah Truth)

Snake Medicine

Snake medicine is with us.
We can pretend our skin is not shedding,
we can attempt to remain underground, curled up and quaking,
we can refuse to digest our life and suffer indigestion.
Or we can embrace the magic our our transmutation--
Chew on our life, swallow and savor it,
slither out of our skin and leap out of ruts with passion,
swirl into new experiences and dance,
then feel the sun on our skin and dream

--Gloria Rohlfs 2011

How glorious are these words! Thank you Gloria Rohlfs! Of course, 2013 is the Chinese year of the snake! I decided to invite this snake medicine into my drawing today and repeat the other animal images (started several days ago--see the first blog), but I would draw them in a different way. My goal was to integrate the snake medicine while beginning to feel the raccoon "spirit" and see how I might relate these ideas or energies to that of the American oystercatcher. 

Voila! I offer you this image with parading oystercatchers and a raccoon straining yearnfully towards them. A snake watches the parade from below. Thus, dear Pilgrims, on my 55th birthday, I have journeyed farther along on my adventure of creating characters for an animal conservation story about the Georgia coast. And I have succeeded in conjuring BOUNDLESS JOY (see yesterday's blog)!

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me and tell me what you think of my approach to creativity! Or better yet, share your approach to creativity!