Sagittarius Moon & Earth Cycles

Luna is full in the fiery, visionary sign of the archer, Sagittarius. Raise your sails as we head into this new chapter under her luminous light.

Sun & Moon, Night & Day, Dark & Light are examples of the duality within our selves manifested on our dear planet Earth and vice versa.

Like many of you, I tend to deep dive into subjects that come up in the collective consciousness. The reason for the dive is a profound sense of curiosity and search for truth.

The ancient alchemists viewed their art as one of transmutation, referring to consciousness or a substance, moving from a base form to an enlightened state. This applies to both psychological (internal) and scientific (external) aspects of the work.

We move from base matter to a more refined understanding and then go through the process again and again, like the cycle of the Phoenix and the ouroboros, in a constant loop.

These loops can be seen in our physical world as described above and through the three motions 

of the Earth:

1. Her spin on the axis within 24 hours, resulting in night & day
2. Her revolution, producing the four seasons
3. Her wobble, taking place approximately every ten of thousands of years. The wobble cycle has a few names, including the Yugas, originally described in the Vedas, and Greek Great Year by Plato. The current cycle is referred to as the Kali Yuga, the Iron Age.

"The Kali Yuga is an age of darkness, when we witness human morals and capabilities at their lowest point. The Mahabharata describes this period as when the “World Soul” is Black in hue; only one quarter of virtue remains, which slowly dwindles to zero at the end of the Kali Yuga. Men turn to wickedness; disease, lethargy, anger, natural calamities, anguish and fear of scarcity dominate. Penance, sacrifices and religious observances fall into disuse. All creatures degenerate. Change passes over all things, without exception."1

Sound familiar? The good news is that we are moving out of the Kali Yuga, which Indian academic Bibhu Dev Misra has calculated to begin at 2025 as we move into an upward cycle called the Dwapara Yuga, the Bronze Age. There is much speculation as to the exact dates, according to The Great Year documentary, the dates may fluctuate depending if we have a binary sun or not.

Artwork by Yoshitaka Amano

1 Bibhu Dev Misra

Memory of a Cosmic Heart

Memory of a Cosmic Heart is a comprehensive project by my husband Greg Spalenka that includes music, visuals and a theatrical performance. Ten years in the making with his buddy Rob Jacobs and a team of incredibly gifted song writers, musicians, and opera class vocalists who contributed their talent to the eclectic classical, operatic, electronic musical fusion.

The music is just about finished with a grand plan for a multi-media theater project in the future. The first step is to get the musicians paid and some income to finish up the production, thus Greg created a crowd funding campaign here. Every little bit helps, thus if everyone could just spare $15 we could make this happen with grace and ease.

In support of the project I am creating a fragrance inspired by the story and music. The main note will be rose, since the main theme of the story and music is the heart. At this early stage I am planning to add frankincense and sandalwood for higher consciousness but also am mindful not to recreate Vespertina.

If after listening to the early versions of the music you have suggestions for notes of the fragrance please let me know, as your thoughts and feelings are always appreciated.

Greg is currently soliciting thoughts on the initial cover images he's created, please head over to his blog and provide your thoughts on which is your favorite.

Strike a Pose

Greg has been featuring a few of his models and associated imagery via social media and his blog. Here are a few pieces where he used me as the model.

1. CU opera poster detail) for “Susannah,” an adaptation of the biblical story of Susannah and the Elders set in the 1950s in rural Tennessee.

2. As a Faerie. Sketch for the “Lotus Faeries” poster

3. “Lotus Faeries” poster

4. Blue Mage special edition, signed print inside The Art of Greg Spalenka book

Movie Monday: Epic

The 2013 animated film Epic, by Blue Sky Studios, is loosely based on the children's book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs by William Joyce. Why the marketing department at Fox choose to go with Epic as the title instead of The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs or just plain Leaf Men is difficult to understand. But alas, most marketing decisions are archiac to those of us who dwell in the land of imagination.

Writer/illustrator William Joyce has authored over fifty children's books, received an Academy Award for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore and three Emmys for Rolie Polie Olie.

Although the Epic film received mixed reviews from the critics, I thought it was absolutely wonderful, crafted with a rare beauty seen in American animation. This little gem, in my opinion does not contain the over stylization of humans and over the top songs, seen in so many animated features these days. The creators did add an annoying pop songsat the end—but at least one can turn the volume down when watching from the luxury of your home or device.

The critics main challenge with this viscerally rich film was that they'd already seen this story, citing Fern Gully and Avatar as examples. I read a few reviews which felt the characters appeared very "plastic-y and doll-like", where as for me they looked so much better than the plasticine-like characters that Disney churns out of their profit driven animation factories.

I was captivated with the depiction of the wee fairy folk in the forest, particularly the leaf men and their arch nemesis, a Boggan named Mandrake. The lighting of the scenes, character textures and costumes, and the fantastical depiction of nature in all her glory, including decay. Perhaps the critics are correct, this is a story that we've heard told over and over again, but humans are dense, slow moving creatures who need to hear things over and over again, particularly when the subtleties of nature are competing various forms of technology and an onslaught of loud, gore driven media.

Illuminated

I choose to use the term "illuminated" for my botanical perfume brand for a variety of reasons. Some of you may have already heard, this story in some form or other. This post is for those who may not have heard the tale as of it.

It all started way back in August 2003 while I was juggling working as an illustrator, practicing and teaching aromatherapy and learning how to create pure fumes with essential oils. At the time I was reading quite a lot about the history of fragrance, specifically in Egypt , inspired by attending a class in Malibu with John Steele.

The three week long workshop took place in a small Austrian village, high up in the Alps, called Reichenau. The workshop, taught by artist Phillip Rubinov Jacobson, was titled Old Masters, New Visions. It centered on learning the secret, ancient painting technique called Mishe that had been resurrected by the visionary painter Ernst Fuchs. You can read more in depth on the subject here at the journal.

During the first week of the intensive we learned the history of the technique stemming from 14th and 15th century when artisans within the guilds of painting and alchemy shared their wisdom with each other.  I became aware of the sacred triad that existed between art, perfumery and alchemy. The unifying component within this triad being the prima materia, plants! Thus, the term "illuminated" as in illuminated manuscripts and the aspect of bringing to light the beauty of plant matter in pure fume popped into my head like a lighting bolt. It also was made clear that Greg's imagery would be perfect for the brand since he has a very old world, romantic quality to his work...besides the convenience of him being my partner.

Here are a few of the "illuminations" that Greg created to accompany my pure fumes, 

some of these are details of the larger pieces. We collaborated on many of them while others were

existing pieces which he refined or adjusted. Find prints for sale here on his site.

All images are copyrighted, please respect the artist.

Q for the oak

Lyra

Sierra

Aurora

Mellifera

Figure 1; Noir

Figure 5: Bois

La Dame Blanche

Fleurish

and my favorite...Chiaroscuro

There are a few more which I'll include shortly.

The Eyes of the Unicorn Auction

Ten years ago, my husband Greg Spalenka, illustrated his first children’s picture book “The Eyes of the Unicorn.” In celebration of its 10th Anniversary he has decided to do a one of kind auction that I thought I would share with all of you.

“The Eyes of the Unicorn,” is an enchanting, magical tale of a girl’s love, a hunt for a unicorn and the transformation of her friends heart. It was written by Teresa Bateman, and published in 2007 by Holiday House in New York. When Greg was commissioned to create the illustrations the goal was to bring a cinematic flavor to the book which was unique in the children’s market at the time, yet keep a classical foundation. The book found its audience, but it is now out of print.

This auction is an opportunity to own the evolution of the book’s imagery, and more! Go HERE to read more at Greg's blog and see the offerings or directly to bid HERE. The auction ends Sunday, Nov. 5, at 7:00 PM, PST.

We have decided to offer a percentage of the sale to a charity that works toward saving endangered Unicorns, but have not found one. For example the World Wildlife Organization doesn't have Unicorns on their list, go figure! ;-)

What would the scent of Unicorn be comprised of? I'm thinking sweet notes of flowers with woods, vanilla, honey, a bit of balsam and botanical musk. For the magical aspect we would need to make a special tincture or infusion that I will need to ponder. Please let me know if you have any suggestions on notes and also for the name. I'll be getting to work on this right away and offering a first edition bottle to the lucky winner.

One foot in front of the other

This journey of moving both the perfumery and our household has been epic! During the entire process I've been listening to a a book series proposed by my daughter Eve. Today, as I was driving from our little woodland house to my moms home in Encino, I realized that most of our personal experiences mimic iconic stories of heros/heroines. We all have characters in our lives that hurtle fire balls at us and a wizard/wizardess or two who come to help us as we attempt to refine ourselves into the wizard/wizardess. Personally I like the image of Galadirel as the powerful force that battles the dark forces with me, but Serafina Pekkala is pretty cool too. I'm sure there are others I could conjure given some extra time. Who do you envision coming to help you or yourself becoming? I really need to go check out the new Wonder Woman movie.

Ah, speaking of fantasy, Greg is currently at Comic Con in San Diego, find him in Artist Alley at table EE-24. He took the Divine Alchemy banner with him along with lots of original art that he has been threatening to burn in a bonfire in New Mexico. If you have always wanted to own one of his vintage original pieces, get it now before the burn!

Speaking of characters, the garage sale was good but a really odd experience due to some of the very eccentric personality traits that descended at the event on Saturday. Ben mentioned that "garage sale people are a different breed", yea, no kidding! Thing is, I go to garage and estate sales hunting for vintage treasures, and I am definitely not part of that breed. However in the end we were able to get rid of things make some bucks to help this journey we are on and also meet lots of my moms neighbors.

Next on the task list is donating items for a tax deduction and/or  listing others on venues such as Craigslist. I began the process of listing items with my four original, vintage Emeco chairs. After taking the photos, writing the listing and putting it up I'm feeling sorta done with selling furniture and other stuff online. I prefer to donate the stuff and move onto teaching about the plants and pure fume. If your interested in the Emeco chairs, keep reading, if not I'll catch ya later with another update soon, probably with dates on live, local classes.

The Emeco chairs are light and extremely cool, Greg and I decided to sell them since we are planning on going for a more classical type style in Santa Fe. While typing out the description I learned quite a bit more about the chairs and the company that have made me fall in love with them again!

The legend of these simple, sturdy, humble chairs begins with its founder Wilton Carlyle Dinges and the creation of the Electrical Machine and Equipment Company (EMECO), still located in Hanover, Pennsylvania.

Originally created in 1944 for US Navy submarines and warships to withstand harsh conditions such as salt water & air as well as an occasional torpedo blast. The story goes that Dinges tested the strength of the chair by tossing them out of a sixth-story window! By using salvaged aluminum, which was plentiful in 1944, Emeco perfected a 77-step proprietary process which yields aluminum three times stronger than steel resulting in a chair so durable that it has an estimated life span of 150 years.

The chair has survived seven decades of the military’s need and now is a fixture in restaurants, hotels, offices and film. Emeco’s all-aluminum chairs and stools come with a lifetime guarantee and tested to withstand 1,700 pounds of weight. Besides the aluminum is completely recyclable.

Images:
Divine Alchemy and Spalenka paintings ©GregSpalenka
Serrafina Pikala screen shot

Visions from the Mind's Eye in Thousand Oaks

Greg will be doing a presentation and signing of The Art of Greg Spalenka, Visions from the Mind's Eye at the Thousands Oaks library tomorrow, Saturday.

Learn about his professional art career in publishing and film. Hear what it takes to create illustrations for the most prestigious publishers on the planet, and designing for the film industry.  Copies of the book will be for sale.

Movie Monday: Lucy

This evening on my way back home from the perfumery and picking up groceries I stopped by the library to see if I could find an interesting film to watch this evening. Although I was hunting for Kingsman, I quite happily came across Lucy by Luc Bresson.

If you are a lover of sci-fi/ fantasy and french films, like me, you may recognize the name Luc Bresson from "La Femme Nikita" (1990), "The Professional" (1994) or "The Fifth Element" (1997). I picked up the film based on the trailer back in 2014, if I had remembered that Luc was the writer director I would have been even more anxious to see it! What had me since last Spring when I became conscious of the film was the tagline "The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity. Imagine what she could do with 100%."

As you know from reading this blog or my presentation at Bastyr last year or perhaps being one of my students, I am very much into accessing higher realms of consciousness. In my foundation year at Otis Art Institute, freshly and happily out of the confides of Catholic high school, I was a very hard working, focused student with the aim to be a hyperrealist illustrator like Gottfried Helnwein. In order to accomplish this feat I needed to get my drawing skills up which was accomplished by a teacher recommending Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain. That book accomplishment the task of shifting my way of seeing and thus heightening my draftmanship skills and got me super interested in how the brain works, which has stuck with me ever since. Thus the Matrix and Limitless being some of my favorite films of that genre.

Lucy has elements of the two films just mentioned and has subtle connotations to the re-emerging Gnosticism ideas of matriarchal culture. Clearly, Mr. Besson, has a since of this based on his pattern of choosing females as his heroines, particularly in the Fifth Element where

The story begins like a similar hero tale of an unsuspecting human who obtains super powers by accident The difference here is that the human happens to be Lucy, played by the beautiful Scarlett Johansson alongside Morgan Freeman co-starring as a brilliant brain scientist.

I found the film highly entertaining and wish it didn't end so quick! In the meantime I'm still searching for ways of expanding my consciousness. How shall we scent Lucy? Hmm, I'll choose Vespertina, since that is the perfume designed for the super hero who uses about 20% of her brain with the fragrance containing essential oils related to elevated consciousness.

Musing the Goddess

This weekend marks the Summer Solstice, honoring the height of power of the Sun and one of the longest days of the year in our Northern Hemisphere. Wise and ancient civilizations that revered nature and inhabited the Earth during the Golden Age tracked the sun and heavens. These ancestors created huge monolithic sites all over the world, some quite famous and others more recently understood like Adams Calendar, a 75,000 year-old stone calendar considered the cradle of humankind in South Africa.

Besides observing the stars and living in harmony, the main unifying thread of these civilizations is that they followed matriarchal principals. Todays modern culture is locked into a patriarchal system which is focused on gross matter. The matriarchal based societies mentioned above flourished. Both PhD Carmen Boulter and Dr. Leonard Shlain have examined these Goddess based civilizations revealing that they lived in balance and harmony with each other and nature.

Keep in mind that a society based on Goddess principals doesn't shun men, its the energy between the two dualistic principals that these scholars are referring to. Matriarch/patriarch, feminine/masculine are contrasting dynamics also known as yin and yang, light and dark, etc. According to the Indian cycles of time termed as Yugas, also known as Ages of Man, they fall and rise. In the current stage of this great cycle we are toward the end of the period known as Kali, the Iron Age. In 2025 we officially enter the new Golden Age, which is known in our culture as The Age of Aquarius. In this phase the Goddess rises and brings with her the enlightened balance of mind and heart where nature is honored and the human once again becomes empowered with full use of their brain.

In keeping with this theme, my husband, Greg Spalenka is having a solo show of new and old work at the Cornell Winery this Saturday evening. The name of the show is "Musing the Goddess" featuring
new mixed media creations and some classics that celebrate the Goddess in all her mysterious and divine glory. Some of these are large pieces (up to 6 feet tall) with gold and silver leaf.

Saturday, June 20, 2015 – 7-10 pm

7:30 Lecture – 8:30 Book Signing – 9:30 Drum Circle

The festivities will include a multi-media lecture on Spalenka’s art career in publishing and film, a book signing of the newly published, “The Art of Greg Spalenka, Visions from the Mind’s Eye” (Titan Books/London), a Drum Circle (bring your drums!), and other special treats.

All images ©Greg Spalenka

Mythic Worlds 2015

On Wednesday of last week Greg and I hopped on a plane into Seattle, Washington where we were picked up by Julie Baroh of Krab Jab Studios. While driving from the airport to the hotel I noticed that on the floor of the back seat next to me was a portion of one of Virigine Ropars dolls. I hadn't realized that I was going to have the opportunity to see her. The doll above is titled H21.

Virginie, like Greg and I, was one of the fifteen invited artist guests to the Mythic Worlds Convention that was due to take place over the weekend. Virginie and her friends David, Yoann and Claire had arrived extra early from Brittany to teach some classes and explore Seattle a bit.

Meanwhile Greg had an Artist as Brand workshop sponsored by Tara Chang Larson at the Krab Jab studio that took place on Thursday and Friday. Krab Jab is located in the Old Rainer Brewery Building which is now filled with live work lofts and several other types of businesses including an artisan chocolate shop called Frans.

Mythic Worlds, previously called Fairy Con West, felt like a mini version of Comic Con with a very woodland myth vibe. The cosplay was pretty spectacular with many artisan vendors who supplied the crowd with all the items that woodland creatures need for the evening masquerade balls. This fellow above seemed like he was the perfect mascot for my ivy perfume Hedera helix.

Unlike Comic Con, Mythic Worlds is very rooted in music with a Shadow masquerade ball on Friday night, a Light masquerade ball on Saturday night and a concert on Sunday night. During the day the music playing in the exhibit hall was Loreena McKinnett and similarly inspired sounds.

As guests of the event Greg and I each had a booth as well as presentations and a workshop. The class I led on Saturday titled Discovering Scent: Aromatic Energies and the Four Elements. I had a surreal moment at the start of my presentation when I looked out at my audience who was comprised of ladies dressed as fairies. Auspiciously there was a fairy for each element!

Our two booths were side by side and pretty simple, I had brought my two pop up banners with my little domes sit up on the table. We brought the Chiaroscuro banner that is normally in the workshop in Agoura, which serves as a nice backdrop for photos. Julie lent me a some horns to display my lockets which worked perfect in the context of the show.

Greg with one of his favorite models Jessica Lough (Figure 1: Noir).

On Saturday, as I was assembling all the essential oil samples for my presentation, George R.R. Martin (author of Game of Thrones) arrived with his wife Parris. They were headed up to the Cascade Rooms to hear a presentation titled "Why Are Strong Women in Fantasy Still A Surprise?" with Holly Black, Laurell K Hamilton, Charles deLint and Deborah Schneider.

We packed up our booth just as the show ended and zipped to the airport just across the street, but first we had to get a photo with our beautiful and talented friends from Brittany.

Favorite perfumes at the event seemed to be a toss up between Sierra Solid Gold and Q (the tree fragrances) and perhaps Chiaroscuro.

Although I was not able to take photos with my Canon because my battery died I did occasionally breakdown and use the I-phone, hope you enjoyed this little window into a Mythic World.