Emerald flower mandala
Acryl on paper
Acryl on paper
Friday, December 19, 2014
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Spectral colors
Spectral colors
The familiar colors of the
rainbow in the
spectrum
– named using the Latin
word for appearance
or apparition
by Isaac Newton
in 1671 – include all those colors that can be produced by visible
light of a single wavelength only, the pure
spectral or
monochromatic
colors. The table at
right shows approximate frequencies (in terahertz)
and wavelengths (in nanometers)
for various pure spectral colors. The wavelengths listed are as
measured in air or vacuum
(see refractive
index).
The color table should not be
interpreted as a definitive list – the pure spectral colors form a
continuous spectrum, and how it is divided into distinct colors
linguistically is
a matter of culture and historical contingency (although people
everywhere have been shown to perceive
colors in the same way. A common list identifies six main bands: red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Newton's conception included
a seventh color, indigo,
between blue and purple. It is possible that what Newton referred to
as blue is nearer to what today we call cyan,
and that indigo was simply the dark blue of the indigo
dye that was being imported at the time.
The intensity
of a spectral color, relative to the context in which it is viewed,
may alter its perception considerably; for example, a low-intensity
orange-yellow is brown,
and a low-intensity yellow-green is olive-green.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Friday, April 18, 2014
Friday, April 11, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Amulet
Amulet
An amulet (Latin amuletum) can be any object but its most important characteristic is its alleged power to protect its owner from danger or harm. Amulets are different from talismans as a talisman is believed to bring luck or some other benefit, though it can offer protection as well. Amulets are often confused with pendants—charms
that hang from necklaces—any given pendant may indeed be an amulet, but
so may any other charm which purports to protect its owner from danger.
Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words in the form of a magical spell or incantation to repel evil or bad luck.
The word "amulet" comes from the Latin amuletum; the earliest extant use of the term is in Pliny's Natural History, meaning "an object that protects a person from trouble".
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Dreaming
Dreaming
Dreaming is a gateway to infinity…the sophisticated art of
displacing perception from its habitual position in order to enhance and
enlarge the scope of what can be perceived.
- Don Juan Matus
Don Juan Matus was the Yaqui Indian, and leader of a lineage of seers
from ancient Mexico, who taught Carlos Castaneda, Florinda Donner-Grau,
Taisha Abelar and Carol Tiggs his lineage’s arts – dreaming was among
them.
Dreaming – the act of shifting perception awake or in sleep – is
honed and perfected by living impeccably with self-responsibility,
ethical treatment of self and others, the keeping of our commitments,
and the following of our life’s purpose.
According to the seers of our line, dreaming is not enhanced by
simple technique or scientific measurement, but rather by the accrual of
a particular type of energy – dreaming attention energy – the energy that accompanies our energetic twin or double, called in our tradition, our energy body.
The gathering of this special type of energy is a daily affair. Since
most of our attention resides in our waking state, the honing of this
particular type of energy body attention in daily life nearly guarantees
a transfer of it to our dreaming sleep.
For example, persons complaining of unwanted sensations or
visitations in their nightly dream need look no further than similar
situations in their waking state. If you are oppressed in your sleeping
dream, for sure you feel oppressed in your daily life. And the
redirection of your attention in your waking state from overwhelmed to
conscious action with your energy body, gives you not only the best
opportunity to create and live your best life, but also the dreaming
attention, strength and courage to amend your dreaming sleep.
Florinda Donner-Grau best illustrates the reaching of her energy body
while waking as she describes her letting go of her usual habits of
judgment and criticism to let infinity help her write her college
entrance paper. She called this phenomenon, ‘dreaming awake,’ and says:
I sat at the table and spread out the
pages all around me. Right under my watchful eyes the entire structure
of my paper emerged, superimposing itself on my original draft like a
double exposure on a frame of film.
And Carlos Castaneda similarly describes how redeploying his
attention away from himself, his self-importance in daily life, gave him
the energy to make the journey from normal sleeping dream awareness, sueno, to heightened sleeping dream awareness, ensueno.
So the tools to dream – awake and in sleep – lie right in our very
hands, in normal awareness, on this side of the veil that often
separates us from heightened awareness.
Mandala amulet
Sky Mandala amulet
Intending from Completeness
For seers, our ability to intend is our magic.
And it is far different from our usual act of ‘wishing’ than we might first imagine.
In the course of our daily doings, we courteously and even sincerely ‘wish’ friends and loved ones “good health,” “good morning and night,” “a good vacation,” “good luck.”
Yet often we say these words casually, not from our deepest selves, and sometimes even with the hope that our friends won’t ask us for more involvement.
For seers, intending comes from our deepest selves – our silent, knowing, compassionate, dreaming selves – which when hooked to infinity and directed, sends a vibration into the world as complete as the being who sent it and as vast as infinity itself.
Finally, glowing with the light of our own fresh action and solutions, we will intend the same forward. In other words, from our completeness, we will intend completeness to others.
Mandala necklace
Persian flower Mandala necklace
Mandala necklace with print of original Mandala painting.
This necklace is amulet too.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Egyptian amulets
Ancient amulets
All cultures have some form of good luck charm, like the rabbit’s foot
or four-leaf clover. In Ancient Egypt, charms were known as amulets and
were usually in the form of plants, animals, or sacred objects. They
were thought to provide protection against evil or danger, as well as
bringing good luck. These ornaments or jewelry were even placed with the
deceased to ensure they had a safe afterlife.
Mandala amulet
Flaming Mandala amulet
I was told beforehand that there was no possible way of knowing what my individual threshold might be, and that the only way of finding this out was through direct experience. This is exactly what happened to me.
Following don Juan’s suggestions, I had persisted in forcing myself to remain silent, and one day, while walking at UCLA, I reached my mysterious threshold. I knew I had reached it because in one instant, I experienced something don Juan had described at length to me. He had called it ‘stopping the world.’ In the blink of an eye, the world ceased to be what it was, and for the first time in my life, I became conscious that I was seeing energy as it flowed in the universe.
I had to sit down on some brick steps. I knew that I was sitting on some brick steps, but I knew it only intellectually, through memory. Experientially, I was resting on energy. I myself was energy, and so was everything around me. I had canceled out my interpretation system.
After seeing energy directly, I became conscious that although I was seeing for the first time in my life, I had been seeing energy as it flows in the universe all my life, but I had not been conscious of it. To see energy as it flows in the universe was not the novelty.
- Carlos Castaneda
Sunday, January 26, 2014
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