Silver Pines ~ Invitation to Surf

Neo-Shamanism is on the rise! This video artfully depicts a Soul Retrieval. Shamans work to uncover the spiritual form of an illness which can ultimately manifest as physical or mental disease. I love how the guy has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he gets an energy healing...tobacco is a sacred herb after all! The goal of Soul Retrieval is to heal imbalances and collect parts of an individual's fragmented soul that have been lost due to traumatic events, physical or emotional abuse, or addiction. The ultimate objective is to return a person back to a state of wholeness and well-being. Shamans use a technique called "sucking" to remove intrusions in the spiritual body. Spiritual parasites in this case are depicted as credit cards and such. Once the Shaman removes the intrusions or drives out the illness, a jewel is placed inside the man's wound thus restoring his power! A powerful and energetic stone, ruby stimulates the life force and brings the light of the Universe into the darkened recesses of the soul.

Olaf Hajek

Olaf Hajek

I'm always late, but I'm right on time!

I ordered the Feathers calendar from The Wild Unknown! Better late than never! I'm really trying to be frugal these days, but I might also NEED these Great Lakes Prisms containing beach sand, stones, feathers, driftwood and other natural wonders! Serious retail lust...

The Alchemical Dream: Rebirth of the Great Work

"The house of constipated reason must be infiltrated by art, by dreamers, by Vision. Find the others...find the others and then you'll know what to do"

Her Dark Matter

It's been a while since we've had one of little heart to hearts! One year ago next month my little sister finally died after 7 years of unbelievable suffering. Her death marked the end of a very dark period of my life. But amazing things are starting to happen, and life truly does go on! I've still been struggling against a myriad of negative emotions though, I feel stuck! During my blog hiatus I started doing these exercises to clear my creative channels. The focus was to release the energies that have been stifling my growth. Most of it was residual energies I set in place during a time when I wasn't feeling very safe in the world. Natural reactions to my personal experiences. But some walls were built quite consciously to ward off the evils long enough for me to gather my strength, find new spiritual allies and establish a stronger connection with the SOURCE. I created walls and boundaries so nothing could get in to harm me while nursing some very deep wounds. I had been hit from every angle! My Broken Dream (having to close my boutique), Love Lost (the worst relationship catastrophe up to date that left me with a mutilated heart). Not to mention one family tragedy after another! For a moment I thought the darkness would swallow me up forever! But I'm almost done healing...and my whole family is finally healing. Thank GOD(DESS)!!!


Mary Queen of Heaven, Most holy Virgin and Mother, whose soul was pierced by Sorrow, pray for us...

Even though the light is shining these days I'm still feeling tired and listless, depressed, sad, angry...sometimes all at once! I'm swimming against the current, but damn...this is exhausting! In addition to doing visualizations to clear my creative channels, I'm starting the Master Cleanse on the next Full Moon! Time to exercise the rest of these fucking demons...I need to move forward! I realize that even bouts of depression can be useful...a while back I wrote about the stage of Alchemy called NIGREDO.

Despair by Alex Grey

"In psychology, Carl Jung interpreted nigredo as the moment of maximum despair, that is a prerequisite to personal development. Nigredo is "the dark night of the soul". He says "Right at the beginning you meet the dragon, the chthonic spirit, the devil or, as the alchemists called it, the blackness, the nigredo, and this encounter produces suffering..." It brings the ego into contact with what it fears. The state of Nigredo is often caused by a traumatic experience, and signifies the natural period of despair. This is where the alchemist has to lose everything. He must give up all attachments and become like a child again. Everything has been destroyed in the fire...Nigredo is the corruption that must take place before growth, the chaos that gives birth to cosmos."


Helix Nebula "Eye of God"

I've been exploring this ideology a bit more lately. In fact something really interesting happened when I started typing this post. I googled "stifling my growth" because I thought I spelled stifling wrong. I could have used the spell check...well anyway an article titled "Dark Energy Found Stifling Growth in Universe" came up! I'm not going dive into quantum physics here...But my point here is that the expansion of the Universe has been slowing due to Dark Energy, Dark Matter. I immediately saw the correlation between this phenomena and my own so I did a little further investigation.

"We live in a cold and empty universe, in a time when energies are so low that we can no longer see what space contained in the fiery instants when the universe was born..."

The Universe is depressed! "AS ABOVE, SO BELOW" Humanity is also plagued with dark energy! "the corruption that must take place before growth, the chaos that gives birth to cosmos." The end is near and the Golden Age is almost here! As the Universe (GOD) works through his/her depression...we will work through ours! 2012 marks a shift in consciousness. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change." So does the expansion of our Consciousness = expansion of the Universe? vice versa "Elementary, my dear Watson!" Everything is connected...WE are all connected! WE are the agents of change!!!


Black Hole

Going deeper, Gaia, our Mother Earth Is A Living Entity! A living celestial body in a vast Infinite Universe. Scientists are finding that the earth is alive and is communicating like other living beings. The concept that life has to be associated with biology and organic chemistry is becoming an obsolete idea. All planets are living entities! So what about Dark Energy in the Universe? Black Holes, Supernovas, Gamma Rays...these are living entities too! "Black Holes; these massive and terrible intergalactic consumers, caused by the collapse of giant stars and feeding on the wastes of galaxies, are arguably the most powerful and destructive force in the universe." Just like the parasites in our dis-eased bodies and the demons and discarnate spirits (spiritual parasites) that feed upon our minds and souls! So go heal your bodies and wash your soul! Then go make LOVE in your neighborhood because it's time to clean up this mess! WE are the agents of change...



Related Writings: Trials by Fire and the Dark Side of the Moon

Stacey Rozich

Here's

Revisionings...

*a note to long time readers...some of these may seem redundant, but I need to put this all into perspective...please bear with me!*

Aside from my home organizing plans, I'm focusing on tying all the loose ends up in my business. I'll be offering a third line of jewelry in my etsy shop soon! A project that has been stuck in the works for far too long. I've completed all my prototypes via lost wax casting, now I just need to come up with the funds to put this line into production. I'm not going to tell you too much more than that. However, you may remember me sharing my soulful artistic collaboration with visionary artist, Steve Quenell a while back. Steve brought my vision to life in this amazing collage that embodies the spiritual driving force behind new line of jewelry. I would love to do another collaboration with Steve! He just gets it! Since ancient times, Shamans and Witches have worked with the spirits of nature for healing, survival, and knowledge. That's were I'm going with all of this.



My first collection, Supernatural Specimens, started off as a way for me to artfully catalog natural items found in Occult stores, Botanicas, and Nature. Items still used by modern witches and contempory shamans as remedies or cures in the same way magico-religious practitioners of indigenous cultures ones used them. The origin of Magico-Religious Power is universal...and timeless. It is the spiritual force called Mana, commonly interpreted as "the stuff of which magic is formed", as well as the substance of which souls are made. Mana is in people, animals, plants and objects. The entire universe is alive and interconnected...everything possesses a personality and individual spirit/soul/force. Shamans and Witches have a deep relationship with Nature and can identify the positive spiritual powers in plants and animals and create charms, amulets, and medicines that aid the owner in some way. (And in some instances of course, negative spiritual forces can also be used to cause harm.) This tradition is especially valuable in a time of crisis between humanity and nature. If we can learn to rediscover the way of the shaman, it may make a critical impact on how we live. Naturalist and Ecologists might study the relationships of living things to their environment differently. How we live individually and collectively can and will effect the future of the Earth and it's inhabitants. The future is in our hands...



Anyway...my Butterfly Specimens are by far the most popular. Catbird NYC is all sold out and just placed a second wholesale order with me! However, in my shop I'd like to focus on offering more of a variety of specimens. I'm also adding a museum specimen style tags to accompany each one...



In offering my second line of jewelry, a vintage/antique collection of folkloric hunting charms that I call Black Forest Relics, it was also my intention to point out that our society is suffering from the loss of connection to nature. Black Forest Relics are a kind of Memento Mori to remind people about our current deforestation crisis: the tragic loss of the world’s sacred forest sanctuaries and the plants and animals it protects. The word "relic" denotes a supernatural object (usually a bone or other such) venerated because of association with a saint or martyr. Black Forest Relics are infused with the magic of the forest, the mythologies of the animal and a sense of imminent mourning...each one sacred in it's own right. (BTW, I just added some new ones to my Etsy shop!)



Aside from the relics I sell in my Etsy shop I also have a contact list of dear and loyal clients that collect these and get first picks! This collection has been wildly popular which has been both a blessing and a curse! Not only has the marketplace been flooded by grotesque reproductions of folkloric and taxidermy jewelry, but they are being offered with no regard to the sanctity of the animal used in the creation of the jewelry. You might remember my epic post on this topic HERE. Also, I had originally intended to donate a portion of each sale to the World Wildlife Fund. Unfortunatly, I was contacted by them and they basically said "no thanks!" This was really disheartening but I'd still like to donate to a smaller grassroots non-profit organization...any suggestions? ! The following is the email sent to me by the WWF:

"Please note that to communicate that you are making a donation to us based on sales, we require a licensing agreement. This entails a minimum annual guaranteed donation of $25,000 and registration as a commercial coventurer in four states. At this time we are not interested in a licensing agreement due to conflicting efforts with another jewelry line which is exclusive. I certainly appreciate your desire to donate to WWF, but there are a million rules and regulations around this costing both time and money. We do not feel as though the financial benefit to us outweighs the legal and marketing work involved on either one of our ends."

Anyway, my next line of jewelry is an protected species project called Woodland Echos! It will feature many (7 so far) protected species and recycled metals, but that's all I'm going to say for now! I will mention a project that provided me with much inspiration though! Chicago artist, Jenny Kendler teamed up with another amazing Chicago artist, Molly Schafer, to create limited-edition art prints of critically endangered species. The project is called "The Endangered Species Print Project" you can view this series on the WEBSITE! I featured the environmental art of Jenny Kendler previously in my Cabinet of Curiosities...check that out HERE. And below is the "the romanticized, quasi-prehistorical" art of Molly Schafer!



So yeah, I've been thinking a lot about my Master Plan...big tings ah gwan!

Tending the Soil and the Soul

I'm back from the Underworld...been gone so long I don't know where to begin! I really needed some quite time, time to clear my head of internet distractions (as pleasant as they are). Every year about this time I feel the need to put my life into perspective. ~Mission Statement~ I did a little soul searching and wrote the final draft of my script for 2010. (Improvisations to be expected) 2010 in Numerology is a 3...a crossroads number! All the brave little seeds I've planted over the past few years are about to start blooming like wildflowers come Spring! (That's why I needed to get on top of my apartment painting project and cleaning and organizing tasks!) I'm also nursing some new, tender hopes for this year and planting new seeds. More about all that later though! Anyway, did you see the new, magically delicious video for 'Broadcast and The Focus Group' yet!?





And did you hear that something mystical is about to happen in Brooklyn, NY!? OBSERVATORY and Phantasmaphile's Pam Grossman are proud to kick off 2010 with VISION QUEST, a group show of neo-shamanic art, starts TOMORROW, Saturday January 16th through February 21st! (Pam, I'll be there in Spirit!)