PENTECOST 2016

This past Lent and Easter season I attended a class called The Mystic's Path. The Guide is Jewish but his experience is broader than that one tradition. Early on he gave us a copy of
"The Annunciation" by  Fra Angelico. Fra Angelico  painted this moment many times,as I have also. But I have learned something new from this master, and I wish in my interpretations of  The Annunciation I had inserted light as Fra Angelico did here, a beam of light emanating from God, here shown as a hand, mystical touch.


I would like to share another one of the gems we were given in this course, from the Book,
The Torah Commentary of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach

"Let me ask you friends, do you know how much light there is in the world? Unbelievable light. As long as the world is existing, there is so much light coming down from heaven.
It's unbelievable how much energy there really is. So what happens to it? sadly enough, most of it is just floating around. Nobody picks it up. nobody stops to pick it up...You know friends, a lot of people are ready to do everything good, but very few people have this depth to receive something....Then there is such a thing as kabbalas p'nei ha-Shechina, to receive God's Presence. God is here all the time, you cannot write Him out and you cannot write Him in.
The question is: Are you receiving God's Presence?"

An early Easter

https://www.stjames-cathedral.org/Prayer/jkblstations/learnmore.htm
Everyday of March was a step towards Holy Week and Easter. I have posted this link to a Seattle, Washington artist, Joan Brand-Landkamer, whose Stations of the Cross I have spent time with this past Lent. What I am most inspired about, is the inspiration she takes from the 20th Cent. French artist, George Rouault, who never created a set of Stations, but whose life goal was to paint a crucified Christ that would inspire the transformation of hearts.
I go to Artist's living and dead, to inspire my work. In Iconography, you trace from prototypes that are 'in the tradition' you are drawing from. Here is my Good Friday Easter Sunday Station that is inspired by the Ethiopian Icon tradition.

Crucifixion inspired from Ethiopian Tradition

February: celebrating Love

Where I live  February 2016 is delivering some very mild days, but the trees are still bare, stripped to their skeletal shapes. As I did not have one green, living plant in my apartment, I spent last Saturday shopping for planters,soil and green ivy,ferns and aloe, By the end of the day I had built another area for a shrine. February tends to be a time of staying in,for many St. Valentine reminds us to celebrate those we love. There is also an invitation to keep company with the Guest sitting in ones soul, 'in the midst of one's heart.'  Shrines help us to remember that Guest, to light a candle, to be united in rest and peace.

Sacred Art Workshop #2 : Baptism, the end of Christmas and the way in to a New Year

The  Announcement for the first Sacred Art workshop at St. Basil's was posted on November 23, 2015 in this Blog. We are meeting again on Friday,January 29 at St. Basil's in Rm 006, providing two time slots: 10:00-11:30 am and again at 3:30-5:00 pm to see which is the most popular time. If you would like to discuss another time possibility, please contact me at athomewsoul@gmail.com

This months theme is The Baptism of Christ. I have searched through many Icon traditions and Illuminated Manuscripts, and this image is the one we will be tracing and coloring.

                                                                                                         
       

The Baptism
Mesrop of Khizan
Armenian Illuminated Manuscript 1600's

Simplified sketch