Over the last few weeks, I have (what it feels like) taken the big leap of change and started to homeschool my daughter Megan. She had just 4 days at High School of her choice and hated everything there was to hate about public schools. Megan is a sensitive soul and I've always given her the choice for home schooling.
Sooooo...... everything she is learning is through creativity of some sort and how you can be creative with every moment that comes to you. No matter what comes your way you can change it for the better. As she is 11 years old and coming into her teenage years soon, I feel this is important to learn now and hopefully something she will not forget completely while in times of heart ache and wild emotions. God knows, I wish I knew all this when I was her age!
I feel I'm just beginning to really know my little girl. I know it sounds crazy, but really, what time did I actually spend connecting with her soul and dreams. Every day now I can let her guide the day. Whether its art and crafts, natural science,the cosmos and stars, creative writing, book binding, doll making, watching music videos, playing music, designing clothes and there is still so much to explore!! Megan still loves to learn as much as she can about the world and maths is now becoming one of her favorite subjects as she has learnt where the possiblities are for using such a subject. Sciences especially! We have found an amazing book by Floris Publishers called 'Maths in Nature, Space and Time' I've ordered so many wonderfilled books from this publisher lately and our days are filled with learning and creating together.
A list of books I have already are listed at the end of this post.
Please let me know about any of you homeschooling or have been homeschooled yourselves. I feel that I'm starting over again with the things I should have learned as a child, but we never stop learning do we.
We hunted around a few second-hand shops for more cupboards and bookcases, and this is what we found!! I had to divide it in two with the bookcase separate. Our ceiling in just 1'' too low!
With all the books I already have on art, mythologies, fairytales, crafts etc. We should have a couple of years worth of learning ahead. But always looking out for more!
Megan will have her blog page up and running soon, so I'll let you all know about it soon.
I'm going to see if sales improve on these three prints with postage free for a while, and maybe add or change the prints later. Think I'll give it one month from now and see what happens.
This month ...still in August I know. I have been reading wintery tales and folklore and one of my favorites has got to be a Norwegian tale, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Even the title of this story brings amazing images to my heart and mind. Some how it reminds me of winter and the cold feel of the North wind. How did I ever miss this one as a child! The young girl in this story saves the prince!
I have seen many illustrations for this fairy tale and I wanted to try to capture the feel of the story as a painting. I have the perfect frame for it too. Chunky white wood with an inner frame of icy soft gold.
Shaman Flight.
Ok, so we all know that 'Santa' is a shaman in folklore, right? Usually the rein deer would fly with him after both eating the mushroom, 'Fly Agaric' . So if this mushroom did give the rein deer visions and altered states of their usual rein deer happenings, maybe they would see themselves as unicorns as well as the magical ability to fly! Anything is possible. In any case, shamans must know about the unicorn and all matter of magical, mythical creatures so who knows where the rein deer must have taken him!
Winter's Dream.
The inspiration for this painting is from the fairy tale of the 'Ice Queen'. Another tale I seem to have missed as a child but seem to remember images somewhere down the years. Winter is a time to go inward to a creative and meditive space of which I'm really looking forward to. This Summer has been so busy with all the running around and crazy fun. Autumn isn't far away. It will soon be time to slow down and dream those far away dreams.
We are into August already and the berries and fruit trees are ripening early this year. Soon I'll be getting ready to gather as many empty glass jars as I can for jams and pickles to last for the 4 or 6 months ahead. Already there are black currants, plums, crab apples, tay berries and in a couple of weeks the elderberries. Last year we make hedgerow jelly with rosehips, haw berries and black berries. Pear and cider apple chutney, and a few others that I can't remember the wonderful things we put in. The veg garden is growing in abundance and all around us countryside is bursting with wild food for foraging.
Sitting in the garden drinking mint and lemon balm tea from the wild knot of herbs, I wonder what adventures our family blackbirds have had this summer. Always meeting me at dawn with their song and never far away during the day. Their beautiful singing balancing the energies of the new day.
Early last Spring I started painting the Celtic Festivals and have finally finished all 8. I love the colours of the seasons here in the UK. The warm bronze and rusts, golds and earthy browns of Samhain to the gentle yellows, greens and violets of Ostara. I will soon have all of these ready for prints and I'll be making card sets for the 'Wheel of the Year'.
I've been thinking lately of a book to create of the inspirations for my work. I need your help.
What would you most like to see in this book, paintings, illustrations, fairytale, folklore, tree moons and goddesses? Information on animal totems and meanings? Ideas of sacred, healing gardens for your own use and meditations? All of this and the 'wheel of the year' associations and the tree ogham.
Here are a few illustration for this book. Looks like I'm gonna be busy for a while, but I will keep you posted on my progress.
When the sea mist rolls in from the cornish sea, there is a deep feeling of mystery and magic. Filled with stories of mermaids, shipwrecks, myths and folklore. The salty waves unchanged and our footprints in the sand have other stories to tell of this time, one day to be a myth too.
Sea Witch. Amanda Clark 2011.
Secret Cove.
Ancient megalith stones. New secrets unfolding all the time. Who were we then and how much of the old wisdom have we lost.
Upon Rough Tor. By Amanda Clark 2010.
Beautiful colours of Rocky Valley near Tintagel. If you follow the path here you come to an old mill and 2 labyrinths carved on the stones of the valley wall. Then follow somemore and you reach the ocean.
If you follow this same path the other way, you can walk through the most enchanting wood I have ever seen to the sacred place of St Nectan's Glen. A sacred waterfall.
' The Picture Parlour' art galley in Boscastle. A beautiful little gallery. They have some of my original paintings and prints for sale. There is also a 'Witch Museum' in Boscastle.
Glastonbury Tor at Summer Solstice 2010. There is an art gallery in the town. Glastonbury Art Gallery also stock my work.
While in Cornwall, we spent alot of our dreamy days on the beach. Trebarwith Strand is one of my favorites.
The sea was still icy cold from the winter and I could just bring myself to paddle up to my knees in the waves.
The rockpools were so deep with the most fantastic colours of blues. My little girl Megan managed to get a wetsuit and imagined herself a seal or mermaid on the rocks then jumping into the pools.
Waterfall and stream running into the waves of the Atlantic.
Waves of the Atlantic Ocean at Sunset.
Dancing waves rolling in.
Running in the pools and watching the sunset as the tide goes out.
Gull Rock in the distance. I imagine a wonderful place for mermaids to dwell.
This is such a magical place for inspiration and some stories say, a healing place for the heart.
A set of burgundy paintings and panels of paintings that are on show in my solo exhibition. Shire Hall, Bodmin, Cornwall. Just a sample of the paintings for this Exhibition. Starts tomorrow and ends 27th May 2011.
We were hanging the paintings on the last day of our holiday. Every day was beautifully sunny except this Saturday, which turned cloudy with heavy rain....much needed for my poor garden!
Many of these paintings are inspired from my time in Cornwall....such a magical place.
I'm making my way to beautiful cornwall this weekend getting ready for my solo exhibiton at the Shire Hall in Bodmin. We are staying in a wooded valley, surrounded by bluebells! Exhibition starts 1 May until the 30 May. If you are around that way, please come and see! There will be larger mystical landscape paintings on canvas as well as my smaller pieces of work.
If the bee disappears off the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than 4 years to live. Albert Einstein.
We are going to keep honey bees this summer, our garden and hive is nearly ready. I have planted all the favorite flowers and herbs that I could have the space to fill. Even our lawn is going to be a wild flower mini meadow. We have apple trees, plum, greengage,grape vine, pear, berry and many flowering vegetables that the bee can have a love affair with. It's so exiting to hear of so many others that are taking up the protection of this wonder filled creature, and to think without the honey bee here with us on this beautiful Earth, we may not exist, nor much of any of Mother Earth's creations.
A sacred and adored feminine princible long through the ages, the honey bee has been on the Earth for around 20 million years.
There is a legend told that the bee was to have been created from the tears of Ra, the father of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. Mead or honey wine is the Ambrosia of the Gods. In Greece bees were thought to be the surviving souls of the priestesses who served the Goddess Aphrodite.
Aphrodite, the Goddess of love, called herself 'Melissa', the Queen Bee, and her priestesses were called the Melissae. See the link below for the wonderful book 'The Shamanic Way of the Bee. http://www.sacredtrust.org/the-shamanic-way-of-the-bee.php
The Melissae, were accompanied by priests called ' Essenes ' - meaning drones, which are the male bees of the hive.
The honey bees were Aphrodite's sacred creatures who Pythagoreans worshipped, created their endless perfect symmetry of the hexagons, and this suggested the underlying order of the Cosmos.
Demeter is also known as the 'Mother Bee' for she governs nature's cycles of life.
A Poem by Pablo Neruda.
Let the wax raise green statues,
Let the honey drip in infinite tongues,
Let the ocean be a big comb and the Earth a tunic of flowers,
let the world be a cascade, magnificent hair,
unceasing growth of Beedom.
Clay faces singing lullaby's for the bees and crab apple blossom in the garden.
Bees have been believed to have secret knowledge and are divine messengers. Celtic cultures say that bees have the secret wisdom of the soul and the 'Otherworld'. They made a drink called 'Mead' - a honey wine that was drunk to bestow the gifts of wisdom, creativity and immortality. Indeed a mythical drink!
The Melissae were said to be prophets and oracles that entered a trance by taking a secret recipe which included honey and pollen.
Here is a swarm of honey bees being introduced to their new home by a lady called Heidi. My partner went to Heidi's beautiful Kent home for a course in Natural Bee Keeping.
Our new bee hive! Nolan makes these to order and I can also paint them for people. These are Warre Hives.
Is this a bee's eye view?
For to the bee the
Flower is a fountain of life
And to the flower a bee is a
Messenger of love
And to both, bee and flower
The giving and receiving is
A need and an ecstacy.
Kahlil Gibran.
Power Animal - Honey Bee
Power Honey Bee's wisdom includes, love, cooperation, giving back to the Earth, sweetness.
This totem also says to forgive yourself and others, have compassion. Honeybee carries sweetness to those in need of love. Sit beside a field of blossoming clover-and listen to the humming mantra of love's fertility.
Loren Cruden.
( The Spirit of Place )
The message of the honey bee tells us to go get your dreams, you can make your dreams a reality. You can create anything you put your mind and heart to.
Some of the favorite plants for the Honey
bee;
Spring- Old species of tulips, snowdrops,violets, crocuses, forget-me-nots, dandelion,helleborus,and trees; hawthorn, blackthorn,hazel,lime tree,oak,willow, sycamore, and all fruit trees and bushes.
Summer - buddleja, anise-hyssop,bergamont (bee balm ), melissa, catnip, red clover, heather,majoram,thyme,joe-pye weed, motherwort,milkweed,poppy,basil,borage,clove-pink,germander,horehound,lavender,mints,nasturtium,alliums,sunflowers and all daisy shaped flowers.
Coriander is useful - helps the bees rub off mites.
Sage can be a spring cleanser for bees. A feed of 5kg of honey with a tea brewed for 20 mins in 5 ltrs of water, 14 tsps sage, 4 tsps thyme, 4 tsps chamomile. warm this to around 65. c.
To help with the bee's health, it's important to have growing in the garden, anise-hyssop,catnip,purple loosestrife,majoram, motherwort and mint.
These help with honey production to feed the bees throughout the winter months. Ivy is also good to have around for pollen in late Autumn.
Well, I will let you know when we have our bees and hopefully a few photos of the wild flower mini meadow! I will be raising a glass of honey wine to the bees while sitting out in the garden, watching them collecting their gold. Here's to the Honey Bee!
