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courtesy of Carol Abel
This is a potted version of the activities offered in the 2005 Advent calendar. The text in italics are the instructions/prompts on which to base your journal. The texts in the same font as this are my contributions. This will give you some idea of what you can expect to find in the 2006 calendar.
Join a free Caravanserai that will venture forth along uncharted parts of the Silk Road, in the cool of evening tonight.
Meet, with your bags packed with the provisions, at the 'Pilgrimage Well' (Lemurian Caravanserai Blogger) tonight.
We will be travelling with an assorted collection of donkeys and camels.
Animals are waiting for you. As you arrive you will immediately recognise some travellers and you will know the camel that has been allocated to you. You will greet it by name.
We are heading out in the cool of dusk and will arrive at the first Caravanserai in the early hours of the morning. Take the time, before the group departs, to describe the atmosphere at the Pilgrims Well.
This modern day caravanserai is heading for a creative Makkahs. A swift journey from Damascus to Makkah took thirty-four days. Hopefully we will find our Makkah by New Year's Eve 2005. One thing is for sure, no traveller will return empty handed.
- Apply to join the Caravanserai expedition that will set out on December 2 to discover uncharted parts of the Soul Food Silk Road.
- Be ready to leave at very short notice and to travel by camel.
- Pack your delusions in a tight drawn velvet purse.
- Begin to plan stories that would keep the Amazon Queen entertained for a thousand nights.
1. To mentally prepare yourself to let go and 'journey away from home for three months', in search of the Amazon Queen's Camp, complete the Energy Mountain meditation by Jane Tilton.
2. Cover a visual journal, 'pack your bags' and step through a doorway into the world of your heart. Make the doorway out of coloured paper, find an image of a portal that speaks to you or simply draw it in your sketchbook.
3 Try the Soul Food Rose Meditation and make a Map of Your Heart
4. Find the door to the Cave of the Enchantress and write a piece about the world you walk into. Read about the world on the other side of the door. Scroll to the bottom the page to begin reading. Check out entries from different travellers as they entered the world of the Enchantress.
Pilgrims gather at Pilgrims Well (Caravanserai Blogger). They are briefly housed in tents to freshen, check provisions and find their camel. It is a busy encampment. Everyone is expectant.
At dusk, roped four abreast, the column of camels shuffles in the darkness, out and across the rocky plain, each following the shadowy forms of the four in front.
The drivers and passengers intermittently doze in the saddle, jerk awake, and doze again. From a distance the swaying of lanterns and the faint accompaniment of tambourines mark the sweeping train. In the east the sky lightens. Camels gurgle, bray, balk, and stride on as tired as the pilgrims who are riding them.
Everyone stolidly goes on at the insistent command of the caravan leader. It is a sharp-eyed camel boy at the head of the column who first spots the tiny smudge on the horizon appearing then disappearing in the shimmering light. Pushing towards it the caravan moves onto the floor of a small valley, then forces its way up a steep ridge and stops. Everyone looks, their gazes awash with emotion.
The first of the caravanserais is in view. Make sure to mentally take in all the details of the pilgrims well and the journey to the first caravanserai. This trip has been uneventful. No bandits even approached the group. Use your senses to evoke a sense of time, place and emotion.
I'm packing again for another journey. This time it is to be a sort of safari but very unlike today's safaris where you are driven in jeeps from place to place. This one is to be a safari in a different time and a different place. The common element will be the animals, as we will be travelling by camel. This safari will be taking place in a very different world and I must pack accordingly.
This time I will take with me long flowing clothes to protect me from the heat of the sun and the cold of the night. I will probably also need a cloak, which can double as something a bit more comfortable to sleep on than the ground. I will need a notebook and some sort of writing implement, which I have put into a small saddlebag. I also have a water skin. I have decided to take a musical instrument with me; it's small and similar to a lute and may help pass the time. Most important though will be my eyes and my senses for this will be a journey for, of and to the senses......
It was a hot day in late Haziran (June) and the caravan of travellers wound, snake like in the dust, over a long distance with stragglers far behind the main body of the party.
It had been another long day. Each day the distance between the caravanserais seemed to increase although they were, in fact, situated at fairly regular intervals along the route.
The scenery had almost become monotonous, fields of blue flax as far as the eye could see, punctuated by the brilliant red of the field poppies. The trees were scarce; a few stunted olive trees or cork oaks, which gave little shade. Women toiled in the fields in their voluminous multi-coloured trousers and long sleeved blouses that left little skin exposed to the glare of the sun. Goatherds with their flocks hung around the wellheads waiting for water to be drawn. Such activity had changed little over hundreds of years.
The landscape lay flat ahead of Selim but he could now just make out the towering shape of the next caravanserai. It reminded him of a huge ship sailing across the plains. He urged his beasts forward and, as if they sensed that food and water were near, with a jingling of harness they picked up speed and the wagons rolled forwards with a satisfying crunch over the stony track.
They could soon see other travellers ahead of them making their way towards shelter.
At length they reached the intricately carved archway over the double doors that would reveal their sanctuary for the night, doors that were high and wide enough to allow passage to the bulkiest of wagons and the most heavily laden camel.
Selim gave his name and the number of people travelling with him together with other means of identification from his merchant's guild, to the master of the caravanserai and they were shown to their quarters.
Selim had agreed to take me as far as this first caravanserai and now here I was - in a place I had often visited in my dreams for I had long wanted to travel the Silk Road.
The entrance gate towers high above me. Intricate patterns have been carved into the stone, patterns unlike any I have ever seen before. Islamic art forbids the depiction of the human face or animals, as they would be viewed as idols so the patterns are invariably calligraphic, geometric or based on plants. I walk through the archway and am temporarily blinded by the light as I emerge from the relative darkness of the entrance portal.
The caravanserai was a huge rectangular building with high walls around it, built for protection as much against the elements as against potentially dangerous raiders. Staircases have been built at intervals along the w alls so that a watch can be kept from the top of the w alls. There is room inside this particular caravanserai for several hundred people. All around the edges of the courtyard rooms have been constructed which serve as the separate bathing areas for men and women, the kitchens and the stables for the animals. Selim's people attend to their animals first and then settle down to look after each other. His group numbers several families and they have come from the east bringing loads of spices and sea sponges as well as richly woven carpets and pottery which would fetch good prices in the west. Before me is a scene of chaos. The noise is deafening, the stench is gut wrenching and there are people and animals everywhere. How am I supposed to find the rest of my group?
In the far corner of the courtyard there is a well with a rose bush growing close to it. There is a woman sitting on the edge of the well, deep in contemplation. She, too, looks out of place here. I will go and converse with her .....
Make a collaged cube - the link is on the first of today's calendar page.
Arriving
We have arrived at the front door of the first 'inn'. It is a modest abode that we are staying in. It is not at all like the caravanserai of Sultan Han Aksary where travellers often stayed.
There is nothing more pleasant or arresting than a door. The intriguing possibilities of what lies beyond or behind it has inspired many who use doors (bab) as a metaphor for both hope and denial.
The Silk Road was known for its tents and its nomadic past. Yet the Middle East is filled with an astonishing array of entrances of great beauty and variety.
This door, from Asir is exuberant in colour and ornamentation. The painting extends into the house over the walls and doors, up the staircases and onto furniture itself
The paintbrushes used to paint these walls were created from the tough hair found in a goat's tail. Blue came from the indigo plant. Red came from the pomegranates and certain mud.
Visit the first Lemurian Caravanserai, a modest abode in comparison to most, and describe the vista that greets you behind this door. Of course you can simply write using the door as a metaphor. Look around, using all your senses and try to evoke a sense of the time, place and people gathered.
Use some of the creative preservation ideas to help document and preserve your memories of this journey.
In line with notion that a picture is worth a thousand words and in keeping with the old show and tell of primary school days, everyone is invited to tell a story using some of the artefacts that are presented within these galleries.
Choose an image, take a seat in the Golden Bone Chair and, in the spirit of Scheherezade, tell a story of 1001 words.
The Caravan travelled in the summer and moved at night under the stars to avoid the heat of the scorching sun. The sky and constellations were the caravan traveller’s map and calendar. The changing constellations revealed the season. The new and full moon indicated the distance to the next serai (inn or shelter). Planets, stars, eclipses, comets and novas predicted profound changes and events in the world and in lives.
Night has fallen and the night sky is filled with stars. Pilgrims have settled into the first Caravanserai where we will be staying for a number of days.
Make yourselves comfortable and enjoy your surroundings. Le Enchanteur is dressing as Scheherezade tonight and will host an evening where pilgrims take a seat on the Golden Bone chair and tell a story.
Travellers should check out the Artefacts provided and use one of them to show and tell a story that will amuse the gathering.
Post this, together with the image, or a link to the image, on the Lemurian Artefact blog or caravanserai blog
Who is she who stands at the window
In a pensive mood,
staring into the eyes of her lover
as she drinks from the bowl of discovery
and he tells her of worlds far away?
Could she plot her own life's path on the globe
or take sail, free as a bird, on the great blue deep
or read her future in the book of knowledge?
He looks into the depths of her eyes -
have I brought her to this, with an unborn child in her belly
and she to depart on the morrow?
May Fortune smile kindly on her.
And what of the child?
But she is ignorant of all this and drinks to her own destiny.
Bottle a Story
This is not quite unbottling emotions but check out the sea symphony and considers making a message or story in a bottle. Sarah Boland, of Pop Fiction fame, showed students her first books, which she bottled and sold at a craft market. She had special labels made for the bottles, rolled up the stories and popped them inside. What a neat idea!
cathartic writing and art techniques - guided imagery.
Caravanserai
On the roads, in the ports and in the Holy Cities there was always something to buy and sell.
The merchants of Damascus and particularly Cairo used the relative security of the Hajj caravans not only to sell at retail to the pilgrims, but also to transport funds and goods wholesale to Makkah. Additionally, the merchants would meet in the Red Sea ports with agents from India, China, South-east Asia and elsewhere. The caravans would bring European textiles, foodstuffs and a notable amount of coinage and return laden with spices, drugs, coffee and Indian textiles. Returning pilgrims were often weighed down with various objects of piety such as prayer beads, often in such large quantities as to suggest the intention of resale to the folks back home.
This all affected the culture. A Tajik from Central Asia, for instance, might bring a rug to sell in Makka, which might be bought by a North African pilgrim and transported back to Morocco. There, weavers could inspect and perhaps copy the workmanship and design of a craftsman thousands of miles away.
A peddler approaches the Caravanserai offering spirit teapots for pilgrims travelling with this caravan.
Will you be adventurous, buy from this salesman and meet your spirit guide? Share your experience of 'unbottling' on the Caravanserai blogger.
1. Wear something colourful: I have a jacket that I bought for three dollars at Brisbane Chinatown. It’s a completely whacky garment, green, blue and purple and trimmed with lace. It has huge pockets into which I can fit pencils, paints, a sketchpad – I call it my Mad Old Lady Artist jacket and when I put it on I effectively remove myself from any association with the mundane world. I have permission to simply create and not worry about clocks, deadlines or daily cares. Dress like a Gypsy and you can feel like one.
2. Create your Gypsy hideaway. Pamela Stevenson bought her husband Billy Connelly a gypsy caravan so he could hide away and write his scripts in peace. Gypsy caravans are snug, creative little nests where everything is usually handmade. Even if you are not the crafty type, cosy up your art corner with a colourful crochet rug, bright cushions and flowers.
3. Excite your imagination with a pack of tarot cards or a crystal ball. Gypsies pack up and move on at a moment’s notice. Give yourself permission to be a gypsy and let your imagination wander far and wide. Learn about new places and people so you can bring them into your art, pack up your notebooks and pencils at a moment’s notice and go somewhere you haven’t been before.
4. Live like a Gypsy without leaving home:
Brew some gypsy tea
Hang your washing over lavender bushes to dry on sunny days in your garden.
Dance to wild gypsy music.
Fall in love with the Gypsy Wizard, a magnificent stallion that can take your wandering soul anywhere.
Learn how to weave your own basket to hold your art supplies,
Make a flute and learn to play simple tunes.
Make and furnish a miniature gypsy caravan
Camp out in the garden one night with some friends and tell ghost stories around the campfire.
Make a beaded doll (following Megan's instructions)
"Solitude renews the mind, just like a walk in the woods or the park. Nature sustains us. Where would we be without trees? Colours also resonate to different parts of us -- see which part of the body the colours relate back to on the photos to the right. Colour healing is widely known to be affective. Call back your solitude and go within, or explore outside, taking a good look at the colours around you. The flowers seem to beckon. Call back your colours. Which colours call to you? Look at the different chakra colours and see them reflected in yourself. The results can be quite amazing. Note them down in your journal and do a collage with your colours in any medium. You may decide to keep a colour diary. And repeat often, results can change with different times.... it’s all part of the same journey, the path of the heart."
Make a Mnemosyne Snow Dome
Even if you do not physically make a snow dome make the effort to design one for your visual journal. Fill it with a scene that is etched into your memory and then write about it. Include your piece on the Mnemosyne Stream blogger here on the Silk Road. If you are not a member contact Heather Blakey to join. Links to pieces will be archived here on this page.
Learn about Remembrance Balms and discover positive suggestions about dealing with loss, particularly as the time approaches when so many families are together.
Remembrance Balm Suggestions
Choose an area of your yard in which to create a memory garden. You may already have a garden that will suit this purpose. Make your own stepping-stones to remember those who have departed from your life. Or purchase statues or garden decorations to represent the one you want to remember. Remember to think about your connection to the person and what would best represent that connection. It may be an animal, a garden gnome, a saint, or even a Japanese pagoda.
Collect photos and put them on display in a special area of your home. You may want to choose just one photo, but get a wide frame and use it to attach items that relate to the person you are remembering, such as a bird feather for a bird watcher, a dog bone for a dog lover or if it happens to be a dog you are remembering.
Write a letter to the departed person, even if it can never be delivered. Write anything that comes to your head -- things left unsaid, feelings, memories, etc. Keep the letter in a special place you can return to for re-reading during days when you are having a hard time. Or burn the letter and scatter the ashes in a significant place.
If you are a crafter, just the act of creating can be a remembrance balm. The completed item will always hold your loving thoughts. If you knit or crochet, you may want to make a scarf or wrap to put around your shoulders when you are feeling sad. The warmth and softness will remind you of a gentle hug.
If you have a blog or website, create a memorial page or entry. Include photos and fond memories.
Light a candle, real or electric. Choose a scent that is reminiscent. Let the candle burn (attended, if real) for a few hours or throughout several weeks. You may wish for it to symbolize the warmth of your love being sent out to someone far away. During this time of the year you can often find electric candles meant as window decorations. Some are often rechargeable.
Plan to celebrate the Day of the Dead whenever is appropriate for you. This Mexican celebration traditionally falls on November 1st and 2nd, but you can borrow the ritual to make your own remembrance balm any day. The essence of the holiday is to celebrate those who have died and to remember the continuity of life. One part of the celebration involves creating an altar to honour those who have passed on. The altar is decorated with items that would be attractive to those remembered. These decorations may include favourite foods, flowers, an article of clothing, a diploma, . . . anything that may have brought the person great joy. You can make a mini-altar using a shadow box, a shelf, or a photo box. You can find miniatures of objects to include in your altar if you are limited by space. Every time you see your altar, remember the good times and the qualities of the person that made you smile.
Enjoy a traditional C19 bath
Note: The process described here is for men but can easily be modified to suit all travellers. Use this as a guided imagery and after you have 'snoozed' complete a piece in your journal.
Arriving at the hammam's entrance you pass into a quiet, steam filled world.
After walking down a narrow passageway you come into the meslakh (reception room), with its central, often octagonal fountain of cold water, in contrast to the heat from which you have come.
Divested of all you stood up in, wrapped from head to food in towels you clatter over the slick marble floors, passing through a series of small rooms, each much hotter than before, where little jets of gurgling hot water induce the profuse sweating required before the hammam ritual can begin in earnest.
As the heat becomes progressively more intense, servants remove your robes, one by one, until you are left with a loincloth. Opening yet another small door, a servant ushers you into the dim heart of the hammam, the hararah, a steam filled chamber much hotter than any before. Overhead a masonry dome, pierced with small glass openings, admits narrow shafts of sunlight down onto a faskeeyah, or fountain spouting steaming hot water. Laid out on the wide octagonal marble perimeter of the faskeeyah are your fellow bathers, prostrate, sweating, some worked upon by equally sweaty masseurs. Here, amid the what-have-you of humanity, the masseurs are not above calling out sly asides to each other about the bodies in their grasp.
Emerging silently in his bare feet from a steam cloud and looking like a wrestler your mukeyyisate - your masseur - advances.
The mukeyyisate motions for you to lie down on a towel he spreads on the marble platform beneath the steaming fountain. You are now ready to submit to the onomatopoeic first stage of the hammam ritual, the taktakah, the cracking of joints. Each limb of your body is wrenched first one way, then another, a process designed to make your joints supple. The pulling and cracking of fingers and arms is followed by similar work on your neck: a twist left, crack, then right, crack, yet done with great skill. Next your ears are twisted and made to crack. Your masseur sits you upright and next jams his knee against your back and pops each vertebra: crack... crack... crack.
Another attendant advances and begins to rub the soles of your feet with a kind of rasp called a hager el hammam. The scraping of your feet sends you into shrieks of laughter. Finally, using the perfumed white fiber of a palm the mukeyyisate starts to lather the flesh and rinse the sea of foam with ladles of hot water, repeatedly thrown.
Twisted, manipulated, washed and wrung out to perfection you are led to the hammam's last vaporous chambers, the maghtas. A steady stream of hot water pours down from the dome overhead into a deep plunging pool. This is the climax of the hammam's hidden glory.
After all the rigor of the hammam's ritual to recline in deep hot water, overlooked by such beauty is a delight of delights. When you finally emerge all aglow, a servant of the bath quickly re-swathes you from head to toe in turban and towels and you are led back to the retiring room and placed upon a mattress and cushions amid other swathed figures and given coffee or fruit juice to sip on. It is a good time to snooze.
Outside, back in the dusty world of Arabia you clamber back on your camel, ready for the journey to Alexandria.
Extract from Joys of the Bath by John Feeney. Printed in Aramaco World March 2004
The 'old town' of Suakin was an island city in the harbour of Suakin, built of coral, and it is now abandoned crumbling ruins. Old Suakin was a very grand pretentious city in its day, with impressive town gates and many minarets mosques and opulent palaces. Suakin was the main port of the Sudan, before Port Sudan superseded it.
Suakin is first mentioned in early 10th century by the South Arabian scholar al-Hamdani, who describes the port as an ancient location. Sawakin, the town's name in Arabic literally means 'dwellers' or 'stillness', and suggests the haunting of jinn. According to one legend Suakin serves as a prison to which the prophet Sulayman ibn Daud - known in the Old Testament as King Solomon - banished demons, and the town's name derives from sawajinn, a fanciful plural of the Arabic sinj or prison.
Whatever the origin, it is certain that Suakin is truly a mina min zaman, a port of old, whose beginnings lie far back in time. Its sheltered harbour, connected to the Red Sea by a long, narrow channel, was the finest anchorage on the African Red Sea coast between present day Quseir in Egypt and Massawa in Eritrea, both ancient moorings themselves.
At dawn the caravanserai snaked its way into the old market town of Suakin. Overhead there's a high whistling cry, the familiar call of whistling kites.
As the sun rises, in the lapping of the wavelets at the old sea wall, one can almost hear the voices of Suakin's past: the Egyptian of Pharoah's officers, the classical Greek of Ptolemy's seafarers, the Arabic and Hindi of the Red Sea merchants, the tribal tongues of West African pilgrims bound for Makka, the Portuguese of European explorers, the To Bedawie of Osman Digna's dervishes and the English of Kitchener's embattled soldiers.
These are only some of the languages that once rose above the sounds of loading and unloading at the wharves of this island town. Today few voices mention this remote seaport, whose name, Suakin, nonetheless hints at the mystery of the past.
Take the time to set up a stall in the old market town. This is the perfect place to acquire some unique artefacts for Christmas. Bartering and trading on the Caravanserai blogger is highly recommended.
For more market ideas make sure to check out the Lemurian Archipelago Sunday Market Place. It has long been a favourite destination for Silk Road Travellers.
After experiencing the sites and sounds of the market place, and witnessing the sale of exotic goods, we are taking a boat ride, across the shimmering Red Sea, to pick up the old Frankincense trail towards Makka and on to Petra and finally Alexandria.
The Hadramis grew rich in the frankincense trade's heyday, controlling the flow of the resin to the Greeks and Romans who craved it. The frankincense trail depended for its existence on the camel, domesticated by 1300 B.C, probably first in Arabia. Meet at the quay at dawn tomorrow.
1. To get into the mood go and hug a tree, sit in your favourite grove and write and write and write about those gentle giants who have protected you. Stop and ask an old tree for some directions, to guide you as you travel down the writing path. Listen to the whispering words amid the rustling leaves.
2. Use some of the photography of Monika Roleff to kick start a piece of writing set within the sanctuary of the Golden Seed Grove.
2. Caravanserai travellers should take a moment to sit in the shade of the sycamore and reflect upon their month long journey along the famous Silk Road.
After visiting the old market town of Suakin, which is not far south from Port Sudan, we are crossing the Red Sea and picking up the old frankincense trail into Makka and will travel north towards Petra and Alexandria where our creative makkah lies waiting.
"Who is this coming up from the wilderness
Like palm-trees of smoke,
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
From every powder of the merchant?"
"Till the day doth break forth,
And the shadows have fled away,
I will get me unto the mountain of myrrh,
And unto the hill of frankincense."
Buy some frankincense oil for your oil burner, inhale the sweet perfume and allow your spirit to rest for a while.
Using the imagery provided (www.travel-images.com/saudiarabia5.html) maintain journal entries that record a journey from Suakin to ancient city of Petra, a journey that includes Makka and the religious scholars' town of Medina.
Take the time to walk the cobblestone streets of Medina, making sure to stop and look at jewels of Turkish architecture.
Note scholars sitting cross-legged scrutinizing rare Islamic texts.
Linger at the lively markets filled with precious stones, prayer beads, incense burners, carpets, flat bread and Medina dates.
Browse the perfumeries and soak in the intoxicating 'perfume of the gods'.
Then create!
Visit The Creativity Portal Playground for inspiration - try your hand at printmaking and rubber stamp making (http://kids.creativity-portal.com/d/projects/printmaking/)
Write a grave tale
Late at night, when all is seemingly quiet in the caravanserai, a figure is seen passing the well. Use this image to give life to a new Arabian Nights tale fit for Scheherezerade to tell the Sultan.
Seeking the grail
There was a flapping noise, as of wings, at the window and the carpet sailed in and drifted down to land at my feet. Carefully sewn into the pattern was the invitation to climb aboard to be transported to the Sheikh of Araby’s masked ball.
What excitement - the chance of fly on a carpet of my own!
I carefully sat myself down in the middle of the carpet, which rose a few inches into the air as if to test the weight of its passenger. Seemingly reassured it passed through the window once more and out into the dark of the velvet night sky embroidered with thousands of diamonds twinkling across the heavens.
We sailed above oases and ribbons of silver rivers before arriving at the turrets and minarets of the palace. Gardens with tinkling fountains surrounded it and heady aromas of incense rose into the sky. Intoxicated by all this, I was already entranced by my surroundings when the carpet delivered me safely to the wardrobe room where I was left to choose my costume.
In keeping with the exotic theme of the caravanserai, I decided upon layers of filmy fabric wound around my upper body and hips. Jewelled slippers adorned my feet and a harem mask hid most of my features, leaving my hair to cascade freely around my shoulders. A jewelled collar and crown completed the outfit.
I made my way towards the music and the smells of food. A banquet indeed had been set before us, with cool sherbet to slake our thirst. The walls were inlaid with patterns of mother of pearl and there were beautifully patterned blue, white and green tiles covering almost every surface. Lanterns hung from the walls casting odd shaped shadows on the floors. Dancing girls with bells on their hands and feet swayed to the music of pipes and stringed instruments. The other costumes were as varied as the characters on this journey. Brilliantly coloured silks shimmered wherever I looked and light glanced off the jewels, silver and gold. Singing birds in the cages added to the music.
I immediately recognised the Sheikh of Araby, a tall, dark-skinned character with very dark eyes and a dark beard and moustache – a handsome enough looking guy but I didn’t altogether trust him even from my vantage point at the edge of the room.
I watched as he danced each dance with a new partner until it was my turn. In truth he was an excellent dancer and managed to steer my two left feet around the room without making me feel too much of a complete idiot. My gauzy costumer shimmered around me as we danced and I felt like a queen, for a few fleeting moments. From the corner of my eye I could see the amazon queen casting furious glances in my direction but le enchanteur seemed happy enough. After this I was glad to seek the cool of the night air on one of the terraces. I looked up into the sky and thought about how I had come to be here, on this journey, and here in this magic place. I should make the most of this evening as we would be continuing our travels soon enough and our paths would take us away from all this opulence.
Soon, too soon, the time came to climb aboard my carpet and be returned to my room. Silver ribbons still glowed down below and the stars still twinkled in the night sky. The carpet landed softly in my room allowing me to return to earth and then flew out through the window and away, up like a piece of ash up into the skies. Like Cinderella at midnight, my silks and jewelled slippers gave way to more mundane garb.
I climbed into bed, to sleep, perchance to dream …..
1. Set out to the House of Baba Yaga.
2. Design some Soul Hands for yourself and set them to work to complete all your unfinished projects.
3. Make yourself a box or altered book to store Sheba's wisdom in. Go on a treasure hunt to find the answers to some of the hard questions.
4. Sit and interview Sheba. To do this imagine that the Queen is sitting with you. Introduce yourself and ask some questions. As you do, make a note of her answers. Be assured that you will be surprised by how revealing this interview is.
5. Instead of going 'to confession' to confess your sins, sit in a confessional box and tell your maker about your 'successes'.
6. Meditate and contemplate what is possible.
7. Create an altar
8. Where would we be without archetypes - beings who have a thousand optional faces and no definable identity at all? The Queen of Sheba is everyone's idea of a fatally voluptuous woman; it helps if she is veiled, so you have to imagine what she looks like. Learn more about Sheba and consider how to access parts of her. Let the voice of Sheba be heard in your work.
Find a god, goddess or other historical character and read about their ascension into legend. Usually the facts are loose, and in the case of the deities, often several stories exist. Take the one that catches your fancy, and write a story about it, as though you were there when it happened. Allow your imagination to roam free.
Make a collage based on the story you wrote. An interesting collage technique is to "google" your main theme, and follow various links as they pop up. For example, when I was searching for information on Larenta, came across the moth Larentia Clavaria, so I threw that into the image, as well as the dice, which figured prominently in one of the origin myths of Larenta, as well as in my fictional tale. The googling technique leads to sort of a free association process for collage work.
Create an altered book for your own birthday or for your unbirthday if you feel like making a book for the sake of it.
Healing from your ancestors
receive guidance from those long gone.
Here are the five simple steps toward honoring your own ancestors:
1. Find a picture of a relative who preceded you by at least two generations.
This means anyone in a grandparent’s generation or before. It can be a photograph or a painting.
2. Take some time to study the picture.
Look at the person as if you are seeing time or her for the first time. Study the features. Look into the eyes. Note the shape of the mouth or nose. Note what the person is wearing. Note his or her expression, the way the person holds him- or herself.
3. Thank the ancestor for giving you life.
Say this out loud and, while you do, note how you feel. At first you might be self-conscious, but after you’ve let go, see what feelings are stirred.
4. Create a small shrine dedicated to your ancestors and keep it in place for awhile.
The shrine might be on at bale or small shelf, or part of a larger dresser or shelf. Include in it more than one photo or other likeness, if you wish. Find other objects that will remind you of one or more of your ancestors--notes or letters in their handwriting, a piece of jewelry, an article of clothing that’s been handed down to you.
Include whatever feels right to you--flowers or candles, which seem to be a universal symbol of light, life, and remembrance. Use your own creativity to develop a place that stirs your memory.
5. Spend a moment each day at this shrine.
No need to do anything special. Simply take the time to notice and remember. So often the pictures that we place around the house become invisible the more we see them. Perhaps you might spend some time at your shrine right before going to bed. Of course, note the dreams you have after doing this.
The THROAT chakra corresponds to the thyroid gland and has ancient color associations with a spacious sky blue. When the throat chakra is open and the energy is free and unblocked, powerful communication is possible. Self-expression is the hallmark of the throat chakra, so creativity, too, is under its aegis.
You may want to wear a blue scarf around your neck today to honor your ability to speak up and speak out, or place a photo or picture of a clear blue sky where you can see it and be reminded of the heights from which creative inspiration seems to descend. Celebrate the many ways in which you express yourself. Take some time today to simply breathe in and let the air out as a sound that expresses what you feel: a groan, a laugh, a sigh, a clear, strong note.
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