Gelli Plate – inexpensive and homemade

I’ve looked into purchasing a gelli plate because I loved the look of what could be done with them, but I found they were too expensive.  So I wandered through Hobby Lobby just looking, not for a gelli plate, but for something that could function as a gelli plate with the same properties.  I came across craft foam in sheets with adhesive backings in the children’s section.

Adhering two of the 6 x 9 sheets together added some thickness and give to a solid surface.  I’ve used mine over and over, washing it out in between, and keep getting great results.  It may soak up a little more acrylic paint than the regular and you can see that some of the paint remains on the sheets even after washing, but it still works great.  The price difference is worth it.

Here are some of the many backgrounds I’ve made with my inexpensive homemade gelli plate, the left side one used for a post honoring my mother, the right used as a base for a Document Life Project prompt, with the middle one still to be used

Here, the left shows 3 gelli plate with stenciling pages ready for journaling/planner for a Document Life Project set of pages and the right ready for use.

(And I still have four more sheets in the package.  I have used these for art journaling Document Life Projects,  Project Life backgrounds for photos, and background for SoulCollage works, even for making greeting cards.)

 

With Patience, Goals take Shape

As I wandered around Riversleigh forest these last months, in any one of my myriad forms, I occasionally came across various colored bottles scattered throughout.  Old, left over from who knows what event, tossed aside when finished, but, who would do that here?  Yet these were beautiful, in multiple colors, too nice to have just been discarded.  Perhaps they were left, on purpose, by fairies or some other beings.  But for what reason?

I gathered them into one spot, sometimes having to go back in a larger form in order to pick up and carry the bottle, not knowing what to do with them, but assuming I would eventually find a use.  One day, I also found some cut-glass sunflowers in the middle of a shrub which I added to my growing pile of vibrant glass.  However, I was a spinning spider that day, having dropped to that shrub from a tree, and couldn’t carry items of that size so I needed to shift into something larger.  As a dexterous raccoon three trips worked perfectly.  Then I found straight pieces of wire which I could drag to the collection spot, one by one, in my wolf’s mouth.

What to do with my assemblage of intriguing objects?  Originally all in one pile, I then scrambled the pile to see if an idea presented itself as to what I could do with it all.  Then I reorganized the pieces so like was with like.  Still no ideas but I liked the tactile feel of the smooth glass as opposed with the cut glass in conjunction of the straight metal wire-rods.

Becoming a ladybug, I flitted around the piles of prism bottles reflecting the sunlight, the three glass sunflowers looking like amber jewels, the tangle of wire like the old-fashioned pick-up-sticks.  Since rearranging the objects themselves elicited no ideas I thought perhaps a different perspective could come up with what to do with it all.  Idea!  Put it all together into a sunflower plant with a framework of the wire which would hold the bottle leaf/arms.  Then I painted labels on each bottle of my human goals, allowing for one bottle to be labeled “unknown”.

Later I found a small statue of Treebeard holding a pearl (left by a hobbit? ) and a brilliantly colored, graceful vase on the beach (what was it’s story? had it washed ashore from a distant land?).  Arranged together in a sculpture, they became a focal point in one of my secret groves.  A place to speculate on my future: who was I really beyond all the shapes?  where was I going?  what was I doing?   Much to ponder in these quiet times of Riversleigh.  ( I wonder if anyone in the future will find this as I found all the components?)  Patience was needed to wait for the final realizations to sink in just as patience was needed to collect all these necessary objects.  Was this the intent?  All  will be given you – wait and go with the flow.

(The human I cut out these images from a gardening magazine to make into a SoulCollage card relating to my Goals, and then journaled about the ramifications of those Goals.  Afterwards I scanned and made the card into a Project Life card and journaled further.  Also made a mind-map relating to my goals.  Very helpful to think in terms of how my Goals would evolve and take shape, just as the shape shifter me watched the slow process of discovering and putting it all together at Riversleigh.)

The Key in Riversleigh

It was one of those lovely winter days when I was lying on a branch of a tree, content to have shifted into a small female human and be hidden – or so I thought.  Suddenly the raven flapped down beside me and squawked.   I took it to mean “hello” so I responded appropriately.  She muttered as she reached under her wing and pulled out a small key on a string with her beak.

Extending it forward towards me, she nodded and murmured.  I tentively reached out and she nodded in response.  A key!  Whatever for?  As if she could hear my thoughts, she replied, “It is the key you will need as you travel in a variety of ways and many places.  Use it wisely!”

I was already in this realm of Riversleigh, so it wasn’t for me to get in.  Where might I need this?  Always more questions than answers.  As I mulled this over, the raven flapped her wings and took off for places beyond my sight, so she didn’t want me to shift into a raven and join her.  I clutched the key in my palm as I fastened the string around my wrist for safekeeping.  Settling back down to once again to resume my time of being small and hidden, I pondered the nature of things appearing when you least expect.   What was next?

Healing the Wounded Child

My time in Riversleigh has helped me get further along in my journey of healing my wounded Inner Child.  It has been one of the aids along the way: others include spiritual meditation, processing and mulling, art therapy using SoulCollage and Project Life, writing and journaling including memoir, Soul Food and Riversleigh activities, SoulCollage and Project Life.  My Wounded Child, depicted in the lower left of this SoulCollage card, has been able to transform and access into the upper right part of the card.

Writing the SoulCollage “I Am the One Who” has assisted in the verbalizing the process after much meditating and mulling.   Riversleigh has been a place of retreat for me to mull in between adventures.  It has symbolized the quiet silences in the spaces between activities.  I have stayed in Riversleigh even as others left: as a shape shifter I could adapt and blend into whatever was happening and whomever was there.

The quiet time has been necessary, but then there comes a time to be with others again, to share in each others’ lives and appreciate the growth patterns we all have undergone.

Riversleigh Revisited

There seems to be more activity of late at Riversleigh.  For quite a while nothing much went on other than various animals, birds, fish and insects living their lives.  As a shape shifter, I am equally at home moving from squirrel scampering up a tree, to hawk catching the updrafts, to a fish in the stream, to a wolf prowling the tundra, to a turtle burrowing into the ground for winter’s hibernation, and so on.  Occasionally, I would transfer to the barest hint of a human, sitting and observing the beauty of nature and its inhabitants, and the patterns of life.

Picture from “Meditation Masters” Facebook site

The freedom to do whatever I wanted and to be whatever I wanted was exhilarating.  All forms were possible.  And all forms were pleasing as each expressed a different part of myself and my Inner Child.  During this time I often reminisced about the days when Riversleigh was more fully occupied and inhabited, and how I interacted within the parameters of those people.  A rich realm, filled with unlimited potential for all – truly a blessing!

Transformation

“We fear that we are inadequate, but our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves: “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?”

Actually, who are you not to be these things?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people around you won’t feel insecure.

We are all meant to shine as children do.

We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically releases others.”

– Marriane Williamson from ‘A Return to Love’ –

Shivering, she darted across the snow, her feet making no indentation in the white crust glossed on like a final coat of icing during the last freezing rain.  She had been hiding in the woods, trying to keep warm and dry, afraid to enter the rambling house whose lights beckoned with such welcome and warmth.  Hesitant, not sure if she had anything to offer, she hesitated, watching as the doors of Riversleigh opened to invite in others as they arrived. 

A gust of wind pushed her physically and mentally toward the entrance wreathed in lights.  The door was chinked enough to allow her egress, so she slipped in, unnoticed.  Scurrying along the wall, she followed the scent of delicious food into another room.  People moved to and from the table, placing items on their plates.  She was able to move unnoticed, checking out one morsel after another. Memories wafted to her along with the fragrances of baked cookies and other treats, laced with wisps of music drifting from an even different room, punctuated by the chatter of adults and the laughter of children.  Chocolate, walnuts, pumpkin, cheesecake, apple pie, fruitcake-all satisfied the palette and the expectations of Christmas.     

Full for the moment, she moved into a secluded corner to sit and relax, even as she took note of some things being different.  Her mind drifted back to that first Christmas in Panama, which wasn’t her idea of what Christmas should be.

What did I learn from that Christmas that has helped me deal with change ever since?  Does that Christmas in Panama and this one in Riversleigh have any similarities?  She thinks it is mostly about finding patterns leading to transformation.  The ability to transform what is to what might be, and what one expects to what one actually has is so important.  The journey I took that first Christmas from being sorry for myself to gratitude for what I had, and then sharing some of that abundance with others transformed the day into a real Christmas in any climate.   Mundane transformation occurs even after taking individual ingredients and stirring them into a cookie or a cake or a meal or of taking material and creating clothing; creative transformation occurs when taking words and making them into poetry or memoir or when taking individual colors and images and making them into art.  One can influence the transformation of how most people view death to allowing for dignity and transformation in trauma; or moving from the grief of loss into grateful healing and wonderful memories.  And the transformation of dying into transformation itself. 

 

Transformation is where we release one identity and allow for another identity.  It challenges the essence of “Who am I?  How much can I give up and still be me?  Am I really giving up a part of myself or am I expanding myself to encompass others with different identities, religions and cultures, physical and emotional traits, human and non-human:  in other words, ‘throwing out the borders of my tent.’   This transformation does not make you less than you had been, but more of who you really are.”   

Transformation can also be changing one’s physical shape to fit the occasion, thus allowing for the next new lesson to be learned as one walks in another’s shoes.  Each transformational experience releases us from the focus of ourselves to identifying with others, whoever they may be.  And the ages-old transformation of  having reached the darkest day to moving towards the light, even while recognizing that in this world of duality, what is Christmas Winter Solstice in one location will be Christmas Summer Solstice in another. 

Riversleigh appeared to be a place where interesting things might happen.  And the guests looked extremely intriguing.  Maybe she did have something to offer.  She had been enjoying being involved in Soul Food Café and its many activities, as well as doing SoulCollage cards, and now combining the two.  A shape shifting character had emerged on its own, one who travelled on the various journeys that seemed to be versatile enough to intrigue readers.  

She glanced down at her tiny paws and thin tail, twitched her whiskers, darted among the feet of some people as she ran under the settee.  She might stay here for a while as she was.  There were good things remaining to eat after a party in this house.  But she will have to watch out for any cats or other critters that might like to nibble on a mouse.

(reprinted from January 2009)

Transformation

“We fear that we are inadequate, but our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves: “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?”

Actually, who are you not to be these things?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people around you won’t feel insecure.

We are all meant to shine as children do.

We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically releases others.”

– Marriane Williamson from ‘A Return to Love’ –

Shivering, she darted across the snow, her feet making no indentation in the white crust glossed on like a final coat of icing during the last freezing rain.  She had been hiding in the woods, trying to keep warm and dry, afraid to enter the rambling house whose lights beckoned with such welcome and warmth.  Hesitant, not sure if she had anything to offer, she hesitated, watching as the doors of Riversleigh opened to invite in others as they arrived.

A gust of wind pushed her physically and mentally toward the entrance wreathed in lights.  The door was chinked enough to allow her egress, so she slipped in, unnoticed.  Scurrying along the wall, she followed the scent of delicious food into another room.  People moved to and from the table, placing items on their plates.  She was able to move unnoticed, checking out one morsel after another. Memories wafted to her along with the fragrances of baked cookies and other treats, laced with wisps of music drifting from an even different room, punctuated by the chatter of adults and the laughter of children.  Chocolate, walnuts, pumpkin, cheesecake, apple pie, fruitcake-all satisfied the palette and the expectations of Christmas.

Full for the moment, she moved into a secluded corner to sit and relax, even as she took note of some things being different.  Her mind drifted back to that first Christmas in Panama, which wasn’t her idea of what Christmas should be.

What did I learn from that Christmas that has helped me deal with change ever since?  Does that Christmas in Panama and this one in Riversleigh have any similarities?  She thinks it is mostly about finding patterns leading to transformation.  The ability to transform what is to what might be, and what one expects to what one actually has is so important.  The journey I took that first Christmas from being sorry for myself to gratitude for what I had, and then sharing some of that abundance with others transformed the day into a real Christmas in any climate.   Mundane transformation occurs even after taking individual ingredients and stirring them into a cookie or a cake or a meal or of taking material and creating clothing; creative transformation occurs when taking words and making them into poetry or memoir or when taking individual colors and images and making them into art.  One can influence the transformation of how most people view death to allowing for dignity and transformation in trauma; or moving from the grief of loss into grateful healing and wonderful memories.  And the transformation of dying into transformation itself.

 

Transformation is where we release one identity and allow for another identity.  It challenges the essence of “Who am I?  How much can I give up and still be me?  Am I really giving up a part of myself or am I expanding myself to encompass others with different identities, religions and cultures, physical and emotional traits, human and non-human:  in other words, ‘throwing out the borders of my tent.’   This transformation does not make you less than you had been, but more of who you really are.” 

Transformation can also be changing one’s physical shape to fit the occasion, thus allowing for the next new lesson to be learned as one walks in another’s shoes.  Each transformational experience releases us from the focus of ourselves to identifying with others, whoever they may be.  And the ages-old transformation of  having reached the darkest day to moving towards the light, even while recognizing that in this world of duality, what is Christmas Winter Solstice in one location will be Christmas Summer Solstice in another.

Riversleigh appeared to be a place where interesting things might happen.  And the guests looked extremely intriguing.  Maybe she did have something to offer.  She had been enjoying being involved in Soul Food Café and its many activities, as well as doing SoulCollage cards, and now combining the two.  A shape shifting character had emerged on its own, one who travelled on the various journeys that seemed to be versatile enough to intrigue readers.

She glanced down at her tiny paws and thin tail, twitched her whiskers, darted among the feet of some people as she ran under the settee.  She might stay here for a while as she was.  There were good things remaining to eat after a party in this house.  But she will have to watch out for any cats or other critters that might like to nibble on a mouse.

From Triton to Yaga (16)

 

Before she knew it, she was riding a black mare, galloping over the verdant hills, her own satchel and the talisman bag received at the stables, deployed across her shoulders.  I wonder what is in the talisman bag?  There wasn’t time to glance at more than the package of dream seeds lying on top of other items.  This mare sure is in a hurry, the way she nickered, pulling at my arm until I mounted and gave her reign. I would have liked to ask a few questions to get a better idea of what this trip is about.  Something mentioned of Dream Masters and Baba Yaga.  Now there’s a combination!  What a sleek, almost iridescent black horse.  Her coat shimmers… well taken care of.   Reminds me of both “Black Beauty” and “The Black Stallion,” two books from childhood that completely enthralled me.  I don’t even know what her name is… another thing yet to be discovered.  I hope she knows where to go and isn’t just running for exercise.  Always needing to trust… always not knowing where the path leads and what one will learn… another lesson coming up.  The last she remembered, she had been playing in the ocean with a delightful turtle, an old friend of hers from her life as a mer-maid, newly returned daughter of Triton.

 

Previous to that she had been following her father as he moved into deeper waters.  Going from being afraid of him to recognizing her kinship with him, she felt she was on a roller coaster of emotions.  When the opportunity arose to play with Tico the Turtle when he appeared, it was exactly what she needed and wanted.  Growing up in the deep, she had frolicked with many turtles, fish, dolphins, even sea horses, as she learned the variables of the ocean and how to understand each interconnection with the other.  Her father ruled this area, keeping out undesirables by appearing ferocious, as Guardian of the Deep.  His seemingly evil appearance and ways were meant to weed out those wandering too close but who were not ready for the next step.  Those able to stand their ground and extend love regardless of his appearance–in spite of his appearance–were ready to be allowed on to the next level of experiences.  Those unable to overcome fear and extend love to something appearing bad were turned away.   

 

She had passed the criteria, not recognizing the monster as really being her long-ago father until that point.  Then she remembered more details of her time with him, her mother and siblings as mers.  Delighted to be on her way to see them all again, she allowed herself to be sidetracked when she saw Tico.  He had grown into a large sea turtle, the many years of existence and experience showing in his shell, now covered with various scars and abrasions, and his eyes, soft and loving and all-encompassing.  He had been such a wise teacher, even then much younger and smaller, yet someone who helped her learn patience and trust, all necessary to being able to find a quiet spot and quietly listen to, first her outer world, then her inner worlds.  Her father tended to be motivated but too critical and her mother loving but too dependent; Tico had helped her forge the best qualities of both parents.  He knew how to motivate others in a loving manner which she responded to best.  She had had dreams of him over the years she was primarily a human being, knowing him to be a great teacher and mentor, sharing his wisdom even in dreams or what might have been true-seeings, but never totally recalling from whence she knew him.  Her heart swelled to be with him again.

 

 

After time spent catching up, on her part (he knew all that happened with her over time), recognizing their means of communication was not verbal words but sounds and thoughts, she moved to ride on his back.  He wanted to take her somewhere.  As they swam, he conveyed that, once again, she was not going to remember it all, since she needed to go back and further experience the human condition.  There were still necessary experiences waiting for her.  But she would not be alone, and many of the associate traits of these other dimensions and worlds would still be with her, multiplied.  Learn, grow, know all as One!

 

The gentle sway of riding the turtle in the ocean somehow transformed to the more bouncy riding the black mare, bareback no less, over uneven terrain.  Here she was on her way to the Dream Master and Baba Yaga—what would she learn now?

 

 

 

Meeting Triton (15)

 

Settling into a steady swim with broad sweeps of her powerful tail, Thalia moved quickly over the ocean floor strewn with shells, little fish seeking food, a discarded can here and there previously tossed onto the beach by someone careless and taken out with the tides, pieces of beach-washed and eroded glass of various hues from old soda and beer bottles.  She wasn’t exactly sure where she was headed so she ranged along the shoreline a bit, looking for something that would show her the way.  There was enough of the human in her to be annoyed at people throwing things away rather than recycling or at least placing into garbage bins.  The fish part just observed the objects as part of the landscape.  Until one gets caught in a plastic ring holding a six-pack of cans togetheror swallows a metal tab from a can.  None of us seem to be really aware until us, or someone we love, are hurt.

 

She entered a current leading away from the beach, a current of warmer, faster moving water.  Deciding to follow that for a while, Thalia changed direction with a flip of her tail and her fins, and basked in the warmth of the water.  She could see lights flickering in the distance and assumed it was the play of sunlight on the surface, reflecting down.  But she could discern colors in the light as she approached, colors becoming increasingly vivid and tantalizing.  The colors of the rainbow!  Here is where the rainbow intersected with the sea.  How beautiful!  But the other fish seem to be avoiding the area.  I wonder why?  It would be like my time of riding the rainbow to Rainbow Beach.  All that color and light surrounding me, embracing me.  Dare I risk it?  Will it be the same or is there a problem? 

 

 

 

She circled around and around the area where the crayon-lights penetrated the water, watching the fish as they approached.  It was almost as if there was a barrier: they would swim up to a point, then turn around and dart away.   The colors sparkle!  It looks as if the light-crystals would penetrate into whoever or whatever was in its path.  Light therapy!  Let the body be immersed in colors of all hues to help heal and become whole.  But there is also a hum, a sound, emanating from the rainbow.  Light and sound therapy!  So each organ and body part takes what it needs to move to the correct vibration, whether of light or sound or any combination it needs for wholeness and wellness.  Each being knows what it needs.  This would allow each part to receive the frequencies necessary for its growth.  Synergistic!  The whole is equal to more than the sum of its parts.   The merging of sound and light—what could be better?

 

Thalia edged into the whirling mix of colors and sounds, arching this way and that to be sure all parts of her were exposed.  She wound up automatically twirling in the encounter, not sure what she was seeing or feeling or hearing.  Closing her eyes momentarily, she gave herself up to the experience.

 

Once again she was riding the rainbow.  But this time she was not only riding the rainbow ever upwards through the ocean, she continued the ride into the air as the rainbow curved around the earth, then up into the heavens.  It was all part of her, one with her.  She was that and that and that as she encompassed all things.  She rose so high she was now coming back down, around the earth again, and then up through the earth and emerging into the ocean again.  She was back where she started, but was no longer who she was when she started.  She recalled the quote by TS Elliot: …the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

 

 

 

 

Then suddenly, the colors and sound disappeared.  In their place was darkness and silence.  She waited, holding on to the sense of wonder.   The smell reached her before she could see what it rode on.  A putrid, disgusting, overwhelming smell of fumes and sulphur and noxious toxins.  She recoiled reflexively as her gills reacted to the smell of decay and corrupting flesh.  The darkness thickened, shimmered and took on a hideous form.  Was this the Triton she heard about?     Half man and half fish?  Exacting a price to allow anyone to pass to the Island of Mudjimba?  She remembered pictures from mythologies, teeth bared, grotesque smile. The better to eat you?   

 

 

 

The smell and sight was so overpowering, she wanted to recoil from him.  Not just odious, but a sense of evil emanated from him.  The hell-fire red eyes added to the sense of evil.  Was this Triton?  Or something else?  Much worse?  The smells became suffocating, and the baseness, the heaviness of his presence seemed to drag on her.  Repelling–yet drawing her as a magnet of negative pole draws one of positive pole.  Lumps all over his face and body, maybe tumors?  Black, sharpened teeth.  Arms outstretched as if to welcome but seem more ready to envelope and annihilate.       

 

And yet?  She knew she was that, too.  She needed to relax her fears and extend love to this creature, whatever it was.  A few deep breaths, a remembrance of the rainbow experience and the connections to all things, “this, too, oh Lord.  I am that.”  She could feel the love fill her from Grace, and pour out of her, from Grace.  She reached for the black crystal in her hair and offered it to him, in love, in connection.  His aura altered as he graciously received the crystal, and held it close to better see.  Thalia could observe the crystal first enhancing the red fire from his eyes, but then changing it into many colors, like the rainbow, and finally, into sparkling white light.  

 

His appearance changed.  Long seaweed-rope hair, crystal ocean-blue clear eyes, human upper body and arms with green fish tail.  Still strange but more familiar.  His words bubbled out:  Sirrssle…welcome home!  You’ve been away for a long time.  We’ve missed you.

 

 

 

What do you mean?  Who are you?

 

I am your father, Sirrssle.  You disappeared many, many tides ago.  We could find no trace of you.

 

My father?  How can that be?  You now look familiar, but…

 

I gave you this black crystal when you matured to the egg-laying stage, to protect and remind you of your ocean origins, no matter where you travelled.  And now you bring it back to me.  I am the Guardian of the Deep.  Those who are frightened of me in my other form, flee.  Those who can accept or even love, are allowed entrance.  You have returned to your family, from once upon a tide.

 

But I am human now.

 

You did not appear human as you swam here.

 

I am able to shape-shift.

 

Can humans do that?  I didn’t know that.

 

They can if they focus and are able to move beyond themselves and what they think is their identity.  Most don’t.  But I don’t look like you.

 

He held up a polished piece of glass, now a mirror.  She could see herself, no longer all fish but now a meld of fish below with green scales on a fish tail with human features.  Well, not exactly human—my face would be considered ugly by human standards. My long, rough rope-hair looks rather coarse and ungainly, and is such an odd shade of brown with green highlights.  And my skin is really slightly scaly with protrusions that I thought were tumors on him.  No, I would be considered ugly.  But somehow he…father? Doesn’t seem so ugly now.  He seems natural, like a mer-person.  Pre-Atlantian or future earth… or both? 

  

 

 

Come. 

 

He swam off, to who knows where?  She hesitated, looked in the mirror again, then followed.

 

Thalia had met the Triton, and he was her.

 

 

 

(see also:  http://enchanteur.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/meeting-triton/#comments)

 

 

 

Where the Clouds are Hung for the Poet’s Eye (11)

 

Emerging from the Mouseium into the bright sunlight, Thalia noticed not many people were around.  Maybe they take siestas here.  I’m exhausted and need to mull over all I’ve experienced so far on this walking tour.  It’s not only hard on my aging body and feet but also on my emotions. Time to mull this over and rest.

 

She ambled over to where a great oak shadowed a bench next to an abundantly flowering garden with a spring-fed bubbling pool.  Happy to rest her feet by sitting and her emotions by zoning out to allow for mulling as she enjoyed the lovely flowers and ferns, she plopped down.  Need to get these shoes off.  They’re great for walking but don’t let your toes move.   She leaned back, wiggled her toes and breathed deeply.  Looking at the cotton candy white clouds against the azure sky, she watched a bird far away dance among the fluff.  Hard to tell what kind of a bird.  Is that a seagull?  Maybe Jonathan Livingston Seagull?   Neil Diamond sang some great songs with fantastic words in his album recorded years ago.  “Where the clouds are hung for the poet’s eye.”  Anything to do with Thalia—muse of pastoral poetry?  And “I sleep, and I may dream…”  Maybe it’s an eagle?  An eagle’s eye view…up among the clouds…I sleep…I dream…

 

Rising on strong wings, she felt transformed once again.  The air felt invigorating as it raced against her face-that-wasn’t-her-face because what she saw and the way she saw was very different from usual.  Moving, free, light, ever upwards into and through the misty clouds… hung in the sky for the poet’s eye.  More like a bird’s eye view here.  How incredibly beautiful!  She had a sense of purpose, of having been set on a mission to travel.  She couldn’t remember what but just followed what seemed to be right, or maybe instinct.   She rose above the level where some other sea-birds were flying and thought again of the book she read back in the early 1970’s, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach where Jonathan learns everything he can about flying, but his lack of conformity distances himself from the other seagulls.  He then meets two gulls who escort him to a place way beyond where all the others are flying in conformity.  He meets the wisest gull who teaches him that to move instantaneously anywhere, he needs to begin by knowing that you have already arrived.  We are already where we want to be.  Perhaps that is how I can change forms so easily—just by knowing where I want to be or rather, who I want to be.  And Jonathan learned that in order to be really free one must learn how to forgive. 

 

She seemed to have been released by something? someone? to take this form at ocean’s edge and now flew over mountains and rivers and valleys.

 

            

So exhilarating!  To be able to view so well at a great distance, without glasses, much better than glasses could ever be.  The details… the distance…  What’s that in the distance?  It looks like a classical temple but it’s all hazy.  I sort of see it, but sort of don’t.  Maybe when I get closer.

 

She finally approached right near the beam of haze, like a cloud extending down to the ground, encompassing what she thought was a temple.  Should I enter the haze?  Why not?  Just like the gar in the tunnel, this eagle needs to enter the unknown ahead.  Here goes…

 

 It was like she was standing still, the view around here didn’t change, just the view directly below her.  Like she was treading water somehow, but this was air.  And here was another eagle who came in from the opposite side.  A voice boomed:  Well done, my two eagles.  I, Zeus, released you so where you came together, one from the East and one from the West, there would be the omphalos, the navel of the world. The lines of force all come together here at the cleft from which emerges the sacred pneuma.  Watch and see what I, Zeus, foretell as the future of this sacred place. 

 

Caught in the vortex of time and space, she could only watch and wonder as the images flew by: chasm in earth with vapors escaping; sacred space for Gaia with goddesses Themis and Phoebe as the oracles; then sacred to Poseidon “Earth shaker,” the god of earthquakes and later-child of Gaia; Apollo arrives around 8^th century BC and expels the snake god Pytho, the serpent of Gaia, but Apollo honors him by maintaining his name for his priestess (Pythia) and for his games (Pythian); as Apollo is god of music and arts, the games held every 4 years incorporate music and the arts along with athletics; presiding Pythia priestess delivers oracles; fire destroys temple during First Sacred War about 590 BC; landslide saves Delphi from Persians about 490 BC; other Sacred Wars where control is taken by various Greek city states; 4^th century BC the  Macedonians seize it and save from Gaul invasion; Romans conquer in 189 BC; Sulla sacks site in 86 BC; Nero carts off statues in 51 AD; then the site sits neglected for many, many years after treasures and stonework are pillaged; earthquakes, dust and time cover the site; people build over and make a more modern village; French begin to dig in 1861 and find artifacts; the Greek Department of Antiquities move the village in 1891 to allow excavation; the French continue to dig and reconstruct buildings and a few columns as they unearth remains; studies show evidence of the presence of ethylene, a potential hallucinogen found at the temple location emanating from the chasm and fissures leading into the adyton (“do not enter”) sacred space where oracles were transmitted, as well as other surrounding areas.

 

 

But at the same time, she could also see nearby areas undergoing similar change: an amphitheater, seating 5000, being built in the 4^th century BC, restored in 159AD and later by the Romans; a stadium, seating 7000, well above the theater built in 5^th century BC with the four Roman pillars of the Triumphal Arch remaining; the comings and goings at the Castalia Springs tucked into a ravine, first a simple spring then a Roman fountain house then ruins; the Gymnasium built in the Greek classical period, rebuilt in Roman times, then a monastery; then ruins.

 

Also the Athena Pronoia Temple, “the Marmaria,” with earliest occupation as a Mycean cult center; then Temple Athena destroyed by a landslide 5^th century BC, replaced along with other structures; the circular, marble Thalos with 20 slender Doric columns built between 380 and 360 BC, falls to ruins before three columns are reconstructed in 1938; many tourists come.

 

Finally a modern museum built in 1902 where many of the ancient artifacts and statues are on display including the bronze Charioteer…oh!…I’ve seen that…spinning, stopping…haze lifting to show the way Delphi looks now from an eagle’s view… head spinning… clouds floating by… close eyes…

 

She woke with a start.  That dream?  Was it a dream?  It was from my world.  My world’s history.  My feet feel rested even if my head still is spinning with all the images and history in the passing of time.  But here I am in the Lemurian City of Ladies. What is the connection to the Delphi of my world?  Only way to find out is to follow the guide book and walk there.  Great scenery being an eagle, but now I have to rely on these two feet to move.

 

She looked at the clouds drifting by a moment with affection and nostalgia, pushed herself up from the bench.  A small sign next to the bench caught her eye:  “THIS AREA CONTAINS NUMEROUS SMALL FISSURES LEADING UP THROUGH THE LIMESTONE OF THE LOCAL GEOLOGY.  VAPORS POSSIBLE.” 

 

She smiled, and followed the path.

(see also http://cityofladies.wordpress.com/2008/07/04/where-the-clouds-are-hung-for-the-poets-eye/#comments)