Posted by Cliodhna
There once was a prince that lived in a kingdom of shadows and rain. The colours were shiny and bright when the sun shone and the dark and gloomy and grey when it was raining, which was often. He loved it when the sun shone and he thought how amazing it would be if the sun always shone.
He had a cousin who lived in a far away land and so the prince abandoned his kingdom to go and live with his cousin in the land when the sun never stopped shining and when it rained it was a relief and a joy.
This land appeared at him to be barren at first. With so much sun and so little rain there were very few plants and the plants that did grow were tall and prickly or small and stubby and the animals were thin and scrawny from lack of water and at first he missed the greenness and bright colours of his own land. He loved the warmth of the sun though and so he stayed.
He began to look properly at the land where he was, and he realized thought the desert looked empty it was actually full of life. When he looked closer there were subtle colours he had not noticed before, pale greens and purple pinks and slow growing dry lichen covering the rocks and tiny flowers that grew and died in a day and bright red ants and shiny black spiders with hourglasses in warning red on their backs and pale almost clear scorpions that looked as fragile as water but packed a punch in their curved tails. When it rained the desert burst into life and colour and bright green singing frogs emerged from everywhere by magic and the spiny plants gave forth huge flowers.
The next time he went home to his own rainy land he looked at it differently also and he saw all the colours he had not seen before. Colours that were beautiful, not grey and sad like he had thought before. Earth colours and greens and rich colours and dark brown mountain water from the rich peat lands and mosses a foot deep that were cushiony to walk on and when it rained they glistened and shone with life. He realized that these colours were a part of him also, he had grown up with them, they were in his innermost being and in his dreams and he loved them.
He remembered when he was younger not understanding colours, being afraid of them when he painted pictures and not knowing how to use them and being clumsy with them and he realized it was because he didn’t like his own colours and he was trying to use other colours. He had to understand and love his own colours before he could understand them and use them how he wished in his paintings. He began to use these colours and to look around him for inspiration for his colours and he became much happier than he had been before. Now he can be in his own land and love the colours there or be in the land of sun and heat and love the colours there also.
Posted by Cliodhna
I have created a new store at cafepress.com. It can be found here at www.cafepress.com/cliodhnaquinlan
They do all the printing and shipping and packaging and I don’t have to worry about any of it. Very Cool. That was the problem with Etsy, just so hard for me to get to a post office and forget about decent packaging supplies and then even finding a good printer to print high quality copies of my work. Now its all done for me! hooray! I can also order promo from them at wholesale prices.
I have a section specifically for clocks with words instead of numbers. I use the image to inspire the words and I love doing them. If you have any ideas or might want a specific image with your own words let me know!
I am getting some publicity together but finally the shop has some sections and blurb and looks like how I want it. I am sure I will tweak here and there over the next few months but I am getting very close.
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I missed one world one heart!!! I had this post written with this magnet below to give away and went to the site to get the link and low and behold the entries were closed because so many people had signed up.
Here is the link if you would like to go check it out and see the list of people taking part. You can leave comments on the posts to be entered for the draw on each blog. Its fun.
xx clio
Posted by Cliodhna
Green is the colour of life, it is the heart chakra, it is courage and the ability to change and be fluid. It is shining forth of the sun through the blue of the sky. I read somewhere once that the colour of the world when it was born was blue and it sent a shiver down my spine. I think I have changed to green now for a while. It heals me and changes me and now is the time to sit quiet and let it do its work. Be patient and allow the changes to take place, not knowing what they are or where they will take me. Maybe I will change back to blue afterwards or maybe I will stay green, I don’t know.
Added to this feeling is the awareness of being immersed in the world, surrounded by energy and part of it with no separation as surely as a fish is part of the water around him or better still a drop of water that contains awareness in the middle of the ocean being part of the water around it. I am the water and the fish; I am the awareness and the ‘I’ looking at ‘you’ looking back at ‘I’. Sometimes I have had these understandings in the past for a little while, maybe five minutes maybe half a second and maybe a whole day but they faded and I was left with the intellectual knowledge but not the connection. Maybe the knowledge of it spurred me to search for a surer connection to that timelessness. I have thought we get given gifts of knowledge, little glimpses into the possibility of what is ahead so we can work our own way back to it.
Well this time it doesn’t seem to be going away. I look for it and there it is; the deep understanding. I get stressed and annoyed or frustrated and I look for the connection and the frustration ceases or becomes smaller and I am back on track again. Very cool altogether, I like it. The temptation is to judge and push and try harder but somehow I know it’s time just to wait.
Posted by Cliodhna
First my newest embroidery. I was having artists block, feeling stuck, a bit down about my art, not going anywhere, not knowing what to do when I said Hey! I can do a picture about it. Because sometimes the best thing to do to get rid of a block is just do something, anything to get the energy flowing again. This image poped into my head and I got out the sewing machine and got to work.
Her hair is flowing looking for ideas and she has a paintbrush in her hand ready to paint and the colour green is good because its the heart chakra colour and that is where all the best images and art flows from.
I go through cycles with art. i want to paint big and loose for a while and then small and detailed. I want to do pretty purses and colourful nice things and then i want to express meaningful truths and deep meaning. I like the flow of paint and then the texture of fabric. I like writing and then thats not enough and I want to draw. I lose all inspiration and get lost in doing other work for a while. Like being a waitress for a few months or being a secretary and pure logic, organizing files and putting sense onto chaos. Then it is time to toss the order and explore the unformed and possibility again.
In the Toltec work that I do it says we are all artists that we create our lives every second, every minute, with every thought and word and choice we make. So when we create a piece of artwork or a meal or write we are extending ourselves outwards into the world to leave form on how we are as people. So for me being a secretary or a waitress or working in a shop is not abandoning my art but it is exploring me as an artist and my life as I am creating it right now. and if you think, but I am not an artist look around you at your life and see what you have created. Even the fact that we are here and have existence is a huge act of sorcery. Now if we could only stop taking it for granted and worrying about the little stuff (whats that quote.. don´t stress the little stuff.. and remember its all little stuff)
I finally got pictures of the beautiful spider outside our house. I had thought she had made her egg sac and died but no. Yesterday I saw her legs sticking out from behind the brick and then looking closer her black shiny body. You can just see a shade of red on her belly (she is hanging upside down) from the hourglass mark. She is a BIG spider. Not as big as those hairy wolf spiders but large enough and more threatening looking.
One of her babies and an egg sac. There have been two egg sacs that have hatched but apparently they eat each other and she eats them so they are lucky to survive.
as one more picture of the valleys from around here. I have sooooo many cloud and sunset pictures. This one is from early in the morning when the clouds haven´t lifted yet. Wonderful looking from the outside and grey and misty from the inside.
Posted by Cliodhna
green is clean
and trees are green
but thats a josh
cause trees don’t wash
A brief nugget of deep wisdom for ya’ll, from my younger years, there are others but I think one is enough and it ties in with the theme of green.
After thinking about how green it is here in comparison to where I have been I took photos of my parents wood. Its not very big as woods go but it is a beech wood and is airy and light and the air beneath the leaves glows green.
The wild garlic takes over from early march to mid july and is wonderful to look at and smell and very good to eat. It has a subtle flavour but one that is quite distinctive.
Enjoy the greeness! it is quite a feast for the eyes, I tell ya…
Posted by Cliodhna
I was on a yoga and meditation day on saturday down in Claire just beside the burren in a place called the Holywell. Amazing place. I said to a friend, the grass is so green here in Ireland! and she smiled and said You sound just like an american. I laughed, its true, americans generally when they come here at some point will say exactly that.
But it is true about the grass,, coming from where I have been living in mexico, high desert, where the plants struggle for water and the cattle and horses are bone skinny and are constantly cropping close little brown spiky tufts of grass, to come here is to marvel at the greeness and the softness of the ground. I was scrubbing for wild garlic in the wood yesterday and was amazed at the depth of the moistness and softness. Old leaves and moss and returning to earth mulch. In mexico I learn to see the subtle colours and little signs of life and signs of water and new buds on a tree stand out from miles away. Here there is no stopping it.
On the car front I bought a 1998 Ford escort, metallic blue, reaaaaalllllllly cool! the first day it was home I kept taking sneak peeks out my window just to look at it. Insurance was bought yesterday and I am collecting the owners papers tomorrow so i can tax and register it. and then there will be no more excuses!
On an art front, not doing a whole lot right now, I am missing some permanent studio space what with coming here and then for the last while in mexico being in transit between old guanajuato and new chihuahua. (more about that later) But I have one commission from the parents for an embroidery for a 50th wedding anniversary, a commision for a childs mural that needs to be discussed and talked about, a craft competition to enter for and a gallery to find. Lots of doing things in front of me. Ok, off to bray to apply for a new passport and call into the fabric store and oohh and aahh over their wonderful things…
love and light ya’ll !
Posted by Cliodhna
Crow makes a wish and brings it to the sea.
It is a wish for companionship or for knowledge, he can’t quite decide.
But it is a definite wish for something
and so he takes a piece of sky, he takes a piece of the skies love for the sea,
and he drops it into the waves.
The sea swallows it in a rustle of sand and his wish is gone.
He waits by the shore hoping in his heart for a friend
and in his mind for the answers to the questions he asks himself constantly
This was a story I wrote a few years ago, its doesn’t really go anywhere but I still like it. There is more to come. Blue baby arrives and grows wings but I think I will let it tell itself instead of trying to guess where its going. I am having fun painting them.
I found a blog I thought I had lost its called the Mud Girls Blog and it is a collective of women who build cob houses and straw bale houses and I was enchanted at the pictures of the sweetest house I have ever seen
check it out!
This is the inside and there are more photos on the blog. Its beautiful, round corners and little hidden things. It is a gnome house, (do you ever notice the way some people are gnomes or elves or something but just don’t come from the same place the rest of us do? I know a woman in Galway and she has come straight out of the limestone of the burren).
Their home site is here if you want to read about cob building and ovens.
Now for something on the other end of the spectrum but still in harmony with our environment and still beautiful have a look at this building
It cleans the air and its wonderful to look at. Read the post about it. Its a cool site, called the Green Geek
