Beltane at Flying Pig Expressive Arts Ranch

The wild revelry of Beltane this year was filled with families, horses, Maypoles and magic. Ceremonialist Coleen Renee and Flying Pig Expressive Arts Ranch steward Nan Doolittle hosted a wonderful May Day celebration on Nan’s enchanted land in Ellensburg.

About Nan Doolittle’s Flying Pig Expressive Arts Ranch:

The Flying Pig is dedicated to providing a safe and supportive environment in which individuals, families, and communities can fully express themselves in healthy and creative ways via the Expressive Arts.

The Expressive Arts are expansive and limitless. They consist of multiple arts modalities, including creative writing, visual arts, movement and dance, music, storytelling, poetry, ceremony, drama, mythology, and play.

Weaving together many of the expressive art modalities mentioned above, our multigenerational group honored the holiday with passion and glee. Historically,  Beltane marks the beginning of summer on the ancient turning of the seasonal wheel. It was a time to “feed” the land for a rich harvest, and  the King and Queen “came” together on the land to bless the growing crops.

As part of the celebration we were honored to have Nan’s two horses Red and Fox partake in some of the rituals, offering their solid presence to be adorned with paint and handmade wreaths. The gentle reverence everyone brought to decorating of the horses was incredible. There is something deeply sacred about the alliances horses make with us, and the power of that connection was a reminder of our true kinship with the earth and animals.

A large portion of the group was one big extended family, grandparent to wee ones.  Watching them all interact, I was reminded of how community is meant to work, all the members seamlessly flowing together to tend to the children, engage with the joyful project at hand, and ultimately enjoy each other.

The Maypole was a beautiful communal effort, and these photos will tell the story better than words.

Beltane’s passion bit me, and I have been so caught up in my next project it took me a couple of weeks to sit and write this post. Here is a teaser image of my happy productivity.

Big Blessing on Beltane’s  inspiring energy, and to all the projects we are feeding to come into their fullness.

On a practical note, Nan has a wonderful studio space for rent on her property in the rolling farmlands of Ellensburg, so if you need space to create, email her at: nanadoo@kvalley.com

Desert sojourn with Joshua Tree magic domes

I am in love with the desert. It offers a vastness, and a silent beauty that is totally unique. It is not an easy lover, demanding great focus, attention and surrender to meet its passionate embrace. It is also subtle, the entry into its mysteries requiring a quiet study of its paradoxical delicate intensity. If you hang in there while it kicks your ass, you may receive its enchanting, elusive gifts. Texas and New Mexico were my desert initiators, and although I am residing in the arid portion of  Washington state now, a part of me still yearns deeply for the southern desert lands.  I just spent a fascinating week going from the surrealistic facade of Palm Spring to the otherworldly Joshua Tree. Both environments feel like a dream to me. One irrigating itself into erotic abundance controlled within an inch of its life, while Joshua Tree, on the other hand, is filled with a band of bright, shiny outlaws. If Palm Springs is the wealthy, St. John wearing matriarch, Joshua Tree is the “Steal this Book” rebel who wants to blow it all up and then dance around the flames. All the southern California people were incredibly tan and wore glorious, garish clothing and accessories that could seem clownish in the staid pacific northwest. I LOVED every minute of it, and strutted my own Technicolor feathers.

My soul sister, Lisa Starr, has literally planted herself in the Joshua Tree soil. Lisa and I met about seven years ago when we both went on a transformative pilgrimage to the Hopi lands with our teachers Maria and Lynda Yraceburu. That trip was my gateway to moving to the Southwest, and my life has never been the same. Two and a half years ago Lisa and her partner Gabriel began the ambitious project of building a sustainable life in the desert through creating cylindrical, earthen structures. Their homestead, Bonita Domes, looks like an organic outgrowth of the land, these ancient feeling dwellings speaking to the soul. I was blessed to sleep in one of the two pods they rent, and when I crawled through the magic little arched doorway, my little girl was sparkling with delight. It is the neatest fort ever. Nestled in the cool, golden adobe walls, protected from the heat and the wind, I was profoundly held and taken care of. Because the outer environment can be so harsh, the comfort of these solid earthen structures is even more pronounced. It is a true sanctuary in the desert.  Lisa also makes sacred drums, and offers classes in creating your own elk hide instrument. If you are in JT, go stay with Lisa and Gabe: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/499485

Enjoy the mix of photos from Palm Springs and Joshua Tree. The bull snake pictured came in my dreams the night before, and then revealed herself in the compound that morning. I also saw my first desert turtle. Way cool. I will end with a quote from page 21 of the photography book, Crimes and Splendors: Desert Cantos of Richard Misrach. Yes, it is one of the places I also feel most alive.

“Desert are generally seen as a zone of passage rather than as a place of habitation or extended study. Their inhospitable climate (intense heat and cold, glaring light, and lack of water or shelter) and vast scale discourage cultivation, or even lingering observation. Misrach, however, acknowledges that he enjoys working in there. “it is the heat,” he told editor Melissa Harris, “the feel of the earth, the rich solitude and silence, and the remarkable scale of everything that makes being there so deeply fulfilling….Physically and mentally, that’s where I feel the most alive.” 

The Oracle of Initiation divination deck is 7 years old today!

juicy altar for today. divination reading when off iphone! 

Box Car Graffiti looking like a Franz Kline painting

These hipstamatic images are so abstract and interesting. The faux tintype lens and “film” makes for interesting focuses and shadows. The top image looks like abstract impressionist painter Franz Kline’s work. Not bad for a boxcar in Ellensburg behind the Goodwill. A funny Franz Kline story. My parents had the same Franz Kline poster in their apartment when they got married that my husband had almost 30 years later. I think they all were separated at birth. Funny to see the sixties image of my groovy parents with a current image in your home. I guess that Franz Kline poster had staying power. Like the Farrah poster?  Oh, I just looked up the poster and the original is $1400.00 on ebay!! wow.

Franz Kline poster from 1958

 

The Oracle Awakens, Infinite Permission embodied

Infinite Permission creators Mellissae Lucia & Wendy Mulhern

Deeply transformative initiations take time to integrate. So I am finally settling in to share about a pivotal event a couple of weeks ago. On February 2nd, my Oracle awakened through exploring the themes in the new book, Infinite Permission, by Wendy Mulhern and myself. It was the coming out ball for this new work questioning all of our ideas about identity, purpose, body image, and personal liberation. With a band of brave explorers we created a container filled with dance, ritual, music, divination, poetry, and my shrouded Oracle awakening on her high seat.

From Caryn Love, dancer, dreamer, and temple maker the night of the performance:

Great job…It all came thru real, right on and in truth.  Glad I was able to witness.  No more masks required for any of us!

And more the next morning from Caryn:

That was magnificent! It was really magnificent last night to watch and witness friends and all of the depictions of the truth, and it was even more magnificent this morning to feel it running back in to me, and nudging the evolution of my conscious today. Bless you all.

No more masks required.

This was a big step for me to publicly, and openly, channel my Oracle of Initiation cards. I have done this privately in ceremonies, in workshops and divination readings, and to write the messages of the cross-cultural guardians in the Oracle book, but never for an unknown crowd. Wendy invited me to collaborate on her first collection of poetry because she saw the same “raw honesty, surrender, and receptivity” in my Painted Body ritualistic photography series as is entailed in her poetry writing.

The Painted Body process in the New Mexico desert was my fiercely honest, receptive surrender to embodying my own infinite permission. I was alone, and nude, dancing with the elements as the camera captured the dissolution of my “Self.” It was my descent into full-bodied erotic freedom that is feared and vilified in our fractured culture.

Publicly coming out as a living, breathing Oracle was my next step in trusting my own journey of getting out-of-the-way and allowing Spirit to work though me. The event was the circling around again to the beginning when I did not trust that I would be met in my artistic and spiritual processes, grappling with my fears about safety and protection, and insecurity about how I would be able to show up. This Infinite Permission event blew through all of those feelings again, and then offered the deep satisfaction of being met and showing up fully and authentically. Such a gift.

The inspiration for the Oracle upon the “high seat” is from my Norse shamanic heritage. The Scandinavian Sami diviners, the volvas, would travel the land offering their services as a vessel between the worlds. The process, sedr, as it is translated from the old texts has the volva sitting on a chair upon a table shrouded. She has a staff in her hand, and in the four directions sacred singers carry her back and forth between the worlds. This has always been deeply inspiring, and I saw myself in the position when visioning the event.

Kiymbah shrouding the Oracle

Below are some of the intimate moments from the creation of this event.

Big love to Virginia Carhart Haedt and her exuberant explosion of joy from the poem  Epiphany; Bruce Haedt with his soulful Soul Retrieval piece; Maryann Schumacher and her soaring vocalizations; Kiymbah Tytania’s glorious headdresses & costumes and oracular wisdom; Kenny Telesco’s powerful force claiming All I Want; Edward Mulhern’s indigenous drum beats accompanying the Painted Body slide shows, and his AV wizardry; Sarah Zabel as stage manager extraordinaire; and Will Sugg, guardian, sacred crown creator, and dedicated video man. And big love to all who experienced this magical undertaking with us, such a beautiful coming together. 

To order the Infinite Permission book go to: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-author=Wendy%20Mulhern&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AWendy%20Mulhern

All images copyright Mellissae Lucia 2013

 

Infinite Permission Art, Poetry and Oracle Event in Seattle this Saturday, February 2nd, 2013

Join us this Saturday, February 2nd, to celebrate this season of returning radiance; gathering as we once did, entering the temple of story and dance, of mythic retelling and oracular wisdom through experiencing the new book Infinite Permission by Wendy Mulhern and myself. 

Exploring the confluence of the tender and revolutionary ideas in Wendy Mulhern’s poetry with the fierce and shape-shifting Painted Body ritualistic photography work of Mellissae Lucia, we shall craft a collaborative event embracing the spirit of instinctive freedom.

Portions of the program will be interactive performances speaking directly to your questions about self-authority and embodied knowing. This is a unique opportunity to explore the issues we are all grappling with in a sacred collective container.  It is time for all of us to share our brilliance; we need each of our voices to guide us into the New Reality.

Along with Wendy Mulhern and Mellissae Lucia, the event will feature fellow artists and apprentices to the mystery Virginia Carhart Headt, Bruce Haedt, Maryann Schumacher, Edward Mulhern, Kiymbah Tytania, and Kenny Telesco as magicians of ceremonial delight.

When: This Saturday, February 2^nd, 2013

7:00-9:30 PM

Where: Queen Anne United Methodist Church

1606 5th AVE West, Seattle, WA 98119

How: $15.00-20.00 at the door, $10.00 with the purchase of a book

To see more of Wendy’s poetry go to: http://www.wendymulhern.com/

To see more about Mellissae Lucia’s artwork got to: http://www.oracleofinitiation.com/

 

 Body Rapture

Let the body rapture

lead you out

beyond the tentacles of words

beyond the weights and measures of the mind

the body knows it loves, it doesn’t care

about constraints of boxes and conditions

doesn’t need permission

doesn’t need directions

has its own affection

makes its own connection

precisely tuned to every move and glance

The body rapture knows

love is pure enough to move you

in the deep perfection

of the dance.

 

Poem ©2011 Wendy Mulhern

Cowgirl Bling Bling with Hipstamatic Double Exposure

My inner cowgirl is very happy. Here are some groovy pictures of sacred rodeo adornments, ropes of many colors, horse talismans, the sacred manly trucks, and even Bling Bling skater shoes and cowgirl boots with Benjamins on them from one of the local Feed Stores. Hip Hop meets down home. I took these with my double exposure Hipstamatic app. I am so addicted.   

TinType Heaven without the chemicals-Landscapes and still lifes

More Hipstamatic Tintype app fun. Read the previous post with more text and portraits!! http://mellissaelucia.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/tintype-heaven-without-the-chemicals-portraits/

TinType Heaven without the chemicals-Portraits

I have now died and gone to artistic heaven. When I was living in Santa Fe I went to a photo review show where the artists accepted into that years process were sharing their work with the public. I met Keliy Anderson-Staley and fell in love with her mystical and compelling tintype portraits.  The process is super old-skool, with its hey day in the civil war era. Fellow photographer Sally Man has also made her career hiding under a black cloth as she patiently exposes tin and glass plates through antiquated camera lenses.  I was in NYC a few months after the show on a family art pilgrimage and made an appointment to have her shoot me in her studio in Long Island. Her huge artists warehouse was covered in graffiti, and the entire day was magical. It was so hot a few of the plates didn’t even turn out. Ever since seeing those enchanting images I have wanted to do the process myself. The challenge is I am chemically sensitive and would never survive as a classic dark room photographer. And then comes Hipstmatic, one of the new loves of my creative life. They just came out with a Tintype app, and I have been going NUTS. The first five are mine, the last two were the ones taken on that muggy day on Strong Island a few years ago. Enjoy and look for the landscapes and still lifes up next.

The two real-deal Tintype photos of me above are copyrighted by the creator Keliy Anderson-Staley. See more of her amazing work at: http://www.andersonstaley.com/index.html.

I especially love Keliy’s couples! My Hipstamamtic app does not do face recognition for both people in my images, as the real ones do. oh well. Go see her glorious work for what is possible with this seriously righteous process.

12-12-12 to 12-21-12 the reunion of Aphrodite and Pan

My Aphrodite collage photo transferred

We are in changing times. That we know for sure. There can be deep unrest and doubt during these shifts, and it takes a lot of focus and dedication to hold ones center. When an old paradigm is dying, the ringing death knell can be epic. As tragedies arise from the lack of integrated love within, they push us to stand stronger to reclaim a place where violence is not glorified in the media as a way to keep us paralyzed and unconscious in our collective terror. Shifts can be homeopathic in nature, the symptoms of the poisons are accelerated right before the breakthrough into healing. We are definitely in the accelerated portion of the program.

Falling into the rebirth of our New Reality. Illustration by my father Dick Weiss in 1970.

And re-member, we are on the edge of a new renaissance, a New Reality of connectiveness that most of cannot even imagine. Many, many ancient prophesies are aligning at these times to alert us to the metamorphosis we are undergoing, the re-union of the masculine and the feminine into sacred balance. We have been living the imbalanced patriarchy for a long time, the disconnected, greedy, violent, aggressive, controlling, unemotional aspects of the wounded masculine that has crippled both men and women. We have lost the divine dance between the grounded, honoring, protective, motivating, co-creative aspects of the male psyche that merge with the expansive source of the flowing female intuition that births great beauty and miracles.  This merging reaches beyond the romantic to realigning our friendships, families, and the culture at large.

Delicious Pan with my water-colored owl wings in a photo transfer.

As a way of calling in the New Reality, may we imagine the joy, sensuality, adventure and passion that Aphrodite and Pan share frolicking in the wilds, loving and creating from their expansive hearts. Pagan goddess Kelliana offers musical accompaniment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oCQiB7FBzo

Below is a cosmic perspective on this re-union, if you want the woo-woo portion of the program. I have also included some of the altar images from a gathering of wise women I attended as we divined and manifested between this powerful portal of 12-12 to 12-21-12.

During this gathering of women we used my Oracle of Initiation divination deck along with many others, and in using multiple sets of my Oracle decks, twice out of twelve Oracle cards chosen the same pairing of cards emerged. I had wondered if that might happen, and it did! We got card 40. Conduit, and card 17. The Gateway of Initiation: Surrender, both twice. Those are very auspicious cards, calling each of us to be vessels, channels of the new light within, as we are invited to offer control and receive freedom as we navigate the initiatory turbulence to embodying our divine essences. I see it all as surfing, so find your centered shimmy on your board and lets ride the waves together into our true divine selves.

40. Conduit from the Oracle of Initiation.

Lauren the channeler offers the cosmic perspective on 12/21/12 from the Pleiadian High Council:

“They explain that our (December solstice) sun…what they refer to a father God… is aligning with the Milky Way core…what they call mother God…to create the long-awaited (merging) event that, according to the Mayan calendar signifies the end of a 26,000-year cycle and the (collective) birth of a new world age. Because I have no background, and therefore framework for astrology, the unseens politely dumb down the information just enuf for me to grasp by intimating that father God will make sex to mother God on that day to consummate the sacred union necessary to birth our physical new world.

Apparently, this (tantric?) merging of male and female energies in the galactic “womb of creation/cosmic birth canal” will create a convergence of (duality) timelines into unity, or “ALL time”, where we (humanity) will open to receive central galactic intelligence thru our sun that will be responsible for our migration from duality to unity-consciousness.”

entire article from Lauren: http://thinkwithyourheart.com/3966/rising-of-the-new-sun-121212-122112/

Blessed return of the light, in ways we cannot even imagine.

12-21-12 quarantined with a cold and messing around in my little magical creatrix cave.