Stone Songlines

 I've been raving on about rituals to my friends, because formalised ritual is something increasingly fading from our society.

I've mentioned the term "formalised ritual" as I think there are a whole heap of other rituals going on at present such as Facebook updates, using mobile phones, catching up with friends over coffee, and so on.

My interest has been in rituals which reflect the energies around us - the Full Moon, the New Moon,

the Spring Equinox coming up on 23rd September (Autumn Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere), Harvest Time, celebrating puberty, birth and menopause, and so on.

Since I cameacross Jamie Ridler's Full Moon Dreamboard concept, I've been pursuing the idea of Dreamboards both for the Full and New Moons.

Last Full Moon, myself and two friends decided to create Dreamboards for releasing from our lives what we no longer need. Pat provided some lovely paper she'd come across in Singapore which is sort of feng shui oriented in that you write on it what you want to let go of, or what your dreams are, or whatever you have in mind, and then the paper burns easily to send your thoughts into the Universe.

Pat's Dreamboard (which her granddaughter absolutely adores)

So we started the ritual with writing down what we wanted to let go of and what we wanted to have enter our lives as a consequence of the clearing-out of old, stuck energies. At the end of the artwork for Pat and Sue, they burned their papers. I kept mine as I started my ownartwork but intended to take longer over my creation in line with Pluto moving from retrograde to forward motion again (more of this in my previous  blog).

This is Sue's Dreamboard

We had a great collection of magazines from which to cut out images that drew us, but that went right out of the window when we got started, as you can see with the two Dreamscapes above. 

What I love in this sortof ritual is how art can be so inspirational for those taking part and, also, how varied our creative output is, celebrating the great kaleidoscope of talent which illuminates and permeates all of us here on Mother Earth.