ALL EVENTS LEAVE THEIR TRACES: Australian creation god is burned into my psyche

WANDJINA. He came out of the galaxy. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for the IMAGINATION! Hallelujah for images and stories that cross cultural boundaries and time! And Hallelujah for symbols and signs that speak TRUTH to us even though we don't "read" the language.

I am a traveler, and some of the symbols I have imbibed during my travels have become a part of me--even all of me.  

All events, 
in their passing leave traces, 
burned into images, imprinted on surfaces, 
ingrained in memory. (see source  of these words below)

 

DREAM TIME. Wandjina's mouth is shrouded in clouds and mist. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Wandjina continues to be present in my life as a repetitive image. He joined my psyche the third time I visited Australia and has brought me comfort through his ongoing appearance in my meditative drawings. What began as an urge to quench my desire to "study" this spiritual image from cave drawings in northwest Australia by drawing it repeatedly until sated, has continued until finally becoming a part of my pscyhe, seared into my memory.

Here is just one aspect of what he represents to those in Australia who continue to draw his figure on cave walls and now on canvases to sell to tourists. (see the source of my poetry below).
 
HE, WANDJINA, 
came out of the galaxy, 
the ONE beyond our understanding, 
and created all life from the body of MOTHER SNAKE. 
Traveling across HER BACK, 
he made the mountains and rocks, 
the trees and shrubs, 
animals and humans. 
WANDJINA is beyond our understanding, 
his mouth is shrouded in clouds and mist…
 

CREATION. He made the mountains, trees, shrubs, animals and us. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Who am I? Who are you? Do you agree that all the events in our lives leave their traces? What have your life experiences made you? What do you think about me? How can a 55-year-old Army Brat, form ESL teacher, wife of a scientist, and artist, have an Aboriginal spiritual symbol burned into my psyche? 

In addition, I have drawn Wandjina on the surface of my Chinese homework from my 20's. By merging these two periods in my life, I am continuing to redefine myself. I am learning to speak RUTH (aka Halleujah Truth).
 
That's Coffee With Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me. Tell me something about symbols or signs that speak TRUTH to you! What events have left their traces on you?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: (SOURCES) This quote was a part of the 1993 Chris Handran’s essay for Susan Faraday’s “Remember Me,” an installation at the Institute for Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia, 2001-2002) Information about Wandjina was found in the book, Yorro Yorro: Everything Standing Up Alive, by Mowaljarlai and Jutta Malnic.
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DANCE CHURCH: ANOTHER IMPROVISATIONAL ACT OF THE SPIRIT

DANCE CHURCH: MOVING WITH WANDJINA. (art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for DANCE CHURCH! In my small community of Decatur, Georgia, DANCE CHURCH takes place on the second Sunday of every month. Local citizens gather together, bringing music, objects for an temporary altar, and the SPIRIT to MOVE!

Since I have dedicated myself to MOVEMENT for 2013, I journeyed out to DANCE CHURCH on this second Sunday in January and was enlivened!

LIFE OF THE CREATIVE SPIRIT: PERSISTENT CHANGE LIKE THE SEASONS

TUMBLING IN THE SEASONS OF CHANGE. ( Wandjina Art and photos by Hallelujah Truth, creative mind and spirit dedicated to creativity!)

Hallelujah for the PRACTICE! Fifteen minutes of CREATIVITY every day! Hallelujah for the seasons that bring CHANGE. I believe in PERSISTENCE, REPETITION, and NONJUDGMENT—not good, not bad, just is! Right now, the persistent green leaves of a long hot summer here in Atlanta, Georgia, are transforming themselves into reds, yellows, and oranges before leaping off their trees! My daily image making possesses similar transformations. Let me speak about my ARTISTIC process at the CHANGE of seasons as temperatures here in the southeastern part of the United States soar dramatically from the high 60’s (Fahrenheit) to close to freezing temperatures at night.

WANDJINA DRAWING DAY 1,  OCTOBER 28, 2011

On this first day of November, I have completed the fifth daily drawing of a solo Wandjina, the northwestern Australian Aboriginal CREATION GOD. I explained in a previous blog that I have allowed this CREATION GOD to represent an aspect of my psyche that is associated with the masculine qualities of assertiveness, action, and logic. Generally, in my morning drawings, I draw Wandjina only after I have rendered Hallelujah Truth, representing my creative feminine self. Five days ago, after I had been drawing for 27 continuous days in black micron pens sans color, I felt an INTENSE NEED to do SOMETHING DIFFERENT, and Wandjina asked to be drawn in watercolor pencils!

DAILY MICRON DRAWINGS October 23, 2011. Hallelujah with cat companion and parts of her psyche! Wandjina stands on her shoulder on the right.

Hallelujah Truth (me the blog writer) has been PRESENT to my FEELINGS, and CHANGE is pressing against my breast and rumbling in my stomach. I don’t know what is NEXT! So dear FELLOW PILGRIMS, I repeat, repeat, and repeat. I meditate as I RECREATE the familiar. I focus on BEING and not judging. I yearn for SURPRISE. I wait, breathing in and out, conscious of my body as I draw.  Inhaling at the rate of a slow metronome, I patiently wait for DISCOVERY and am ready when it visits me!

WANDJINA DRAWING DAY 2,  OCTOBER 29, 2011

WANDJINA DRAWING DAY 3,  OCTOBER 30, 2011

WANDJINA DRAWING DAY 4,  OCTOBER 31, 2011

WANDJINA DRAWING DAY 5,  November 1, 2011

At this moment, the day after HALLOWEEN, I am struck by how much my Wandjina look like the skeletons I have seen gracing my Decatur neighbors’ doors and hanging from their trees along with other ghoulish creatures of witches, aliens, and jack-o-lanterns. How is that the image of a CREATION GOD’S head looks like the skeletal remains of a human skull? Wow! From DEATH comes LIFE and more!

THE CUTTING EDGE OF CHANGE: Decatur Halloween Skeleton 2011. Notice the similarity to Wandjina's face?

GAMBLING? What do skeletons have to lose gambling their lives away? How about you? Changing seasons give us pause to consider the transience of our lives. What do you want to do with your life before you become food for the worms? (Decatur, Georgia, Halloween 2011)

For me, HALLOWEEN seems to be a boundary day on which we the LIVING flirt with the DEAD—those who have lived. Bravely and in the name of FUN, we dress in costumes (disguises) and go out in the darkness to meet other SPIRITS! We do this at the end of the fertile summer and its HARVEST and on the verge of winter and its DEATH. Hallelujah for the CYCLES of LIFE! The green leaves cycle into brown after being a vibrant orange, yellow, or red, turning into mulch from which new things will grow. We humans die, leaving skeletons, remnants of what we once were. Wandjina creates life while emerging from rituals performed thousands of years ago in one of the oldest human cultures. What is HUMAN? What is SPIRIT? What is DEATH? What is BIRTH? What is CREATIVITY?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know that by establishing a practice of “doing the work” of the SOUL, that I am on the JOURNEY, one which is rewarding and filled with CHANGE! That’s Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me SOJOURNERS! Tell me how your SPIRIT is processing the CHANGE of seasons? What is happening in your CYCLE of LIFE right now?

THE TREASURE. My spiritual art journey provides a richness beyond measure. I am living the reflective life, which allows me to enlarge my SPIRIT! Hallelujah! (Decatur, Georgia, Halloween 2011)

HALLELUJAH EMBRACING CHANGE. The rituals practiced during Halloween invite all of us to contemplate body, mind, and SPIRIT. We are changing all the time, just like the seasons.(Decatur, Georgia, Halloween 2011, photo by Alice Teeter)

SURPRISE AWAITS US! If we look close enough at what surrounds us,  our perception opens and we see fairy wings with ferns on skeletons! Have fun thinking of REBIRTH here! (Decatur, Georgia, Halloween 2011)

THE CREATIVE PILGRIMAGE: JOURNEY MATTERS MORE THAN DESTINATION!

As the 2011 academic year starts at the Georgia Tech Language Institute, I find myself on a JOURNEY with a new set of fellow PILGRIMS—international students—enrolled in my CREATIVE writing/blogging class. How exciting to open worlds of new possibilities to these brilliant and amazing students from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Spain, Turkey, Venezuela, UAE, Senegal, Colombia, and Korea!

I am inviting them to use my language—English—in a fresh and different way. We are leaving behind the usual academic rhetorical structures taught at the GT Language Institute and venturing into the unknown—to see what we can IMAGINE and CREATE!

Think how challenging it is to summon forth the UNKNOWN in your first language! Now, ponder expressing your CREATIVE ideas in a different language! What happens in your brain? What happens in your heart? Courage must be employed! SOULFUL COURAGE!

What if you were to CREATE with the JOYFUL EASE of a CAT NAPPING, I ask my students? Today, during a “free” writing exercise, one of my students exclaimed, “I like losing control!” (We are using Natalie Goldberg’s six rules for writing down “first thoughts” from her book, Writing Down the Bones.)

Michele Cassou in her book, Life, Paint, and Passion: Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous Expression, advises, “…go where it is easy. Easy means ripe. Go where you are attracted….While you work on the part that is easy, other parts will mature in you, and they will be ready and waiting. You move step by step, from the easiest to the easiest.”

For me, HALLELUJAH TRUTH, joyful ease of CREATING comes from repetition. As a visual artist, I return to familiar images. I repeat images again and again, as if I am picking apples from low hanging branches of an apple tree. Cassou writes, “Your painting (for my students—WRITING) is like an apple tree. If you want to eat fruit, you look for a ripe one, one that drops in your hand when you touch it….Remember: Every apple will be ripe in its time; do not rush it.”

Most CREATIVE JOURNEYS are like driving on the interstate. Mile after mile, everything looks the same—gas stations, restaurants, and signage. Then, suddenly, when you are ready, you EXIT the familiar interstate and you ENTER a specific place—one with its own peculiarities.

And so it is with the drawing/paintings I have on today’s blog. Both paintings have Hallelujah and Wandjina connected by a green-leafed vine. They are similar in the repetition of imagery but different in execution, color, and overall mood. I CREATED both with the JOYFUL EASE of a CAT NAPPING because the “process” or JOURNEY is more valuable to me than the “product” or DESTINATION. I am a believer in delightful subtle discoveries.

I would like to give my creative writing students the gift of this JOYFUL EASE as they write in English! FELLOW PILGRIMS, I ask you to join us on this CREATIVE JOURNEY for the next 6 weeks! In the words of Michele Cassou, the creative process is “never tedious or tiring because there is no need to force anything. Depth resides more in surrendering to spontaneity than in hardworking struggle.” HALLELUJAH!

(This Hallelujah image was done more than a year ago. The "discovery" in this drawing was the appearance of the green vine, which is significant to me. I feel that I connected with a deep part of myself--in this case--Wandjina. The  Hallelujah image at the top of this blog entry was done within the first two weeks January 2011. I had my coffee with Hallelujah, my allotted morning time to create, and so I repeated this image again and found it very satisfying!)

REVERB10: HALLELUJAH FRIENDSHIP: WE ARE NOT ALONE

Hallelujah for FRIENDSHIP! During 2010, I deepened many “human” friendships and have written about them in my blog, Coffee with Hallelujah. Today, in response to the prompt challenge for REVERB10, I am posting a Hallelujah Truth image, one that is populated with my “imaginary” friends or fragments of my psyche.

Each morning during 2010, I sat down with my coffee, watercolor pencils, crayons, paper, and micron pens. NO WORRIES—I accepted whatever image came to me. I was not concerned about “invention” or “novelty.” Instead, I invited images to reappear as frequently as they would like.

While entertaining Wandjina, Green Mother, Turtle, Snake, Spiral, Crocodile, Wallaby, I met new characters: Rabbit Ears and Leaf Head. Sometimes, I consciously invited images to join us. For example, during the month of March, I was tutoring English to Tenzin Norbu, a master Thangka painter from the Norbulingka Institute in Dharmsala. In exchange for the tutorials, I attended a Saturday art class at the Carolos Museum at Emory to practice Thangka painting. When Tenzin Norbu left Atlanta, he gave me a book with grid-lined images of Buddha. For the mornings that followed, I began my Hallelujah drawings with one of these images of Budhha. However, Buddha did not linger to have coffee with me in the mornings or become part of my psyche.

The three images that grew closest to my SOUL in 2010 are Wandjina, Wallaby, and Green Mother.

Each time I draw Wandjina, I am reminded of the BALANCE to my feminine nature. With his masculine energy, Wandjina gives me strength and force to take ACTION, to be BRAVE!

Wallaby reminds me of my VULNERABILITY. I hold Wallaby close and protect him. In doing so, I choose to be vulnerable but with scrutiny. Being open does not mean getting slammed by “soldiers of harsh reality.”

Green Mother emerged from the images I was drawing as a reflection on my female Muslim students at Georgia Tech. After repeatedly drawing women wearing hijabs, I found Green Mother. Green Mother became an abstracted form PULLing me into the UNKNOWN—part of the GREAT MYSTERY in my LIFE.

If I had to pick one FRIEND that I have gotten to know this year—it would be HER—GREEN MOTHER—GREAT MYSTERY. Our friendship has been gradual but deepened each time she appears in my drawings. Hallelujah!

1st Anniversary of “COFFEE WITH HALLELUJAH”: Making Time for Creativity Each Day

 Out of CREATIVE GRACE, Hallelujah entered this world a little more than a year ago. She flowed from my imaginative womb singing YESes to each artistic possibility. Hallelujah has been celebrating my SOULFULNESS with the joyful ease of a cat napping, stretching every inch of my BODY into SPIRIT and IMAGE.

 At this one-year anniversary, I am still HALLELUJAH-ing! This Hallelujah persona has not only informed me and been fun—but SHE has also S T R E T C H E D me. The principle of “Coffee with Hallelujah” is that if I have time for a cup of coffee each morning, I have time to DRINK in my SPIRIT as well. I have time for fifteen minutes of CREATIVITY.

Hence, the EVOLUTION of a SPIRIT—or TWO! Both the Aboriginal Creation God and I have evolved together in my daily drawings and paintings. Wandjina has captivated me since 2006 when I first went to Australia and spent hours in various museums around that vast continent. Last year in May 2009, after journeying to northwest Australia with my Chiboogamoo, I started yearning to draw Wandjina—to internalize his cyclone eyes, lightening rod hair, non-existing mouth, and whites, blacks, ochres, and siennas.

East of Broome and outside of Derby, I absorbed the work of the Mowanjum artists in their gallery and tourism center. Many of the Aboriginal artists are just now learning or re-learning the images from their Dreamtime stories that are painted in rock shelters throughout the Kimberley. The more than 200-year British occupation and subsequent Christianizing of many of the original inhabitants did create a temporary “memory” loss or gap for some Aboriginals. However, a 30-40,000 year old culture is not easily forgotten.

The POWER of their DREAMTIME is communicated in the intensity of the Wandjina, snakes, owls, turtles and other nature images—no matter the artist’s skill level. So Hallelujah has spent the first year of her BIRTH being PRESENT with Wandjina. The paintings you see here are my first attempts to FEEL my way into this ancient symbol of creation.

As the year progressed and I drew daily, Wandjina’s simultaneous earthiness and spirit informed Hallelujah. She began to wear a sienna and white skirt and a blouse with black or sienna and ochre spots. At times she sprouted lightening bolts for hair. HALLELUJAH developed a relationship with Wandjina and never journeyed without him. Wandjina began to represent THAT WHICH IS NOT HALLELUJAH—OTHERNESS! I petitioned a male DEITY-or-ENERGY to be my constant companion.

On my return to Australia this past summer in June 2010, I was able to study more aboriginal art. Imagine my surprise when I witnessed a contemporary Wandjina in the Australian Museum in Sydney! The artist had fashioned Wandjina in blues and greens, elongated his body, and had him emerging from blackness, staring at ME! I gasped! I was staring at the GREAT MYSTERY once again! Wandjina exuberant and athletic, catapulting out of the spirit world, witnessing ME!

This image resulted: a bluegreen athletic Wandjina reeling in the universe with Hallelujah who looks like an action hero, no less and no more than Superwoman! Also  present here is a female figure shroud in green, MOTHER of the GREAT MYSTERY, another important figure that evolved from my daily drawings last year.

 Hallelujah to the EVOLUTION of CREATIVITY! Happy Birthday HALLELUJAH!

FELLOW PILGRIMS, give yourself permission to CREATE. Observe your world. Seek what is TRUE to YOU. Find YOUR TRUTH. Discover that YOUR TRUTH IS OTHER PEOPLE’s TRUTH. There is a universality that connects us altogether. There is an ocean of US-ness, the collective unconscious.

 Make time for coffee with YOUR HALLELUJAH!  For now, Hallelujah asks you to wish her Happy Birthday. Soul Blog with me. Support me in my journey and tell me how to support you in YOURS! Seeking FELLOW PILGRIMS….

BLOGGING IS SOUL SHARING

HALLELUJAH is looking for signs of similar intelligence in this vast blogging universe. A few days ago, a Fellow Pilgrim greeted her and gave her the nickname “HAL,” asking permission first, of course.

 

I am pleased to find this kind of nicknaming intimacy in cyberspace. I should like to nickname my new friend, “SEE” because of her emphasis on LOOKING and DISCOVERY and TRANSFORMATION.

 

I like the way SEE begins by looking at the physical world encompassing the self and moves inward, filtering her perceptions through her EMOTIONS. Even though she observes her emotions changing each day, she still looks into the mirror and sees her physical self—somewhat the same day to day. The QUESTIONS arise between 1) What is SEEN, 2) What is OBSERVED, 3) And all that is UNKNOWN.

 

WHAT IS THE SELF?

 

WHAT IS THE SOUL?

 

WHAT MORE CAN WE KNOW by going on a PILGRIMAGE? By doing our ART? By blogging our thoughts?

 

HALLELUJAH!

 

Blogging is answering my need for a language to NAME and DEFINE my EXPERIENCE.

 

Here in this image, “Riding Mother Snake,” (which again is only a portion of the entire image because of scanning limitations), Hallelujah is traveling through space and time on the back of the female snake manifested from Wandjina. From her belly sprang the waters of the earth. She is responsible for the land formations, the seasons, the tides, and changing winds. Hallelujah WANTS to EXPLORE with and LEARN from this great maternal force.

 

Notice how Hallelujah is also accompanied by Wandjina, who can float freely in the universe? I love his male energy and confidence! He represents the other half of my psyche—my wonderful ANIMUS! I am cultivating his companionship, and he is proving a strong guide!

 

That’s Coffee with Hallelujah! Blogging can be soul sharing. Hallelujah is putting her feelers out for like-minded souls, fellow pilgrims to talk to her about their own journeys. Please blog and tell me about your way of soul journeying.