Pythia, the ancient high priestess of the Temple of Apollo and revered Oracle of Delphi, implores us to this day… “Know Thyself”

When we can calm our minds and go within, objectively observe our interior mental and emotional landscape and look beyond outward appearances and ever-shifting circumstances, we can find wisdom and clarity of heart and spirit.

To the terrestrial and the celestial, the internal and external, the complexity of soil and the simplicity of stars.

To the deep inward nexus of manifestation, and the infinite vastness reaching out beyond comprehension.

To the tapestry of life, the eternally woven threads of mycelium and magic.

To the light, the dark, and the intricate communion of creation and decay.

"Humankind has not woven the web of life.

We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

All things are bound together.

All things connect."

-Chief Seattle (1780-1866)

We are becoming our greatest potential.

We are becoming healed and whole.

We are becoming expansive.

We are becoming powerful.

We are becoming golden.

We are becoming supernatural.

We are becoming our true selves.

This is for the ones labeled and burned as witches; for the ones raped and erased on their own indigenous land; the ones forced to veil their faces; the ones sold into slavery; the ones robbed of their childhood. It is for the ones stripped of their language, music, and dance; the ones who have been persecuted for their differences; the ones scarred by wars that were not theirs; the ones living in the shadow of abuse. For those whose body autonomy has been stolen, whose voices have been muted. For the ones whose connection to the Earth has been severed; for the blood that has been spilled and the countless names we will never know.

This is a mirror to the warrior spirit within us all: fierce, resilient, graceful, and true. We are stepping out of our victim stories and into our reclamation of personal and collective power, agency, and co-creativity. May we stand strong in our knowing, claiming our birthright of protest and defiance when essential, while embodying the wisdom of our learned experience. May we remember our power to make change where needed and possible, while accepting and surrendering to the ebb and flow of divine unfolding and growth.

May our eyes be focused, minds clear, boundaries healthy, and hearts steadfastly open.

If we get silent enough and open our hearts to wonder, we can hear the Song of the Makers amongst the stars of the night sky. This is the music of the primordial ones, timeless and vast, the ageless titans in a ceaseless odyssey of the void. In their wake floats creation, new galaxies and worlds birthed from their singing, effervescent and full of potential.

She, the Maiden, is in the liminal space of adolescence, no longer a child but not yet a woman; curious, whimsical, trepidatious, fierce. She is the Daughter of the Sun, but perhaps has yet to realize her strength, grace, and responsibility in the world. The playful clouds and stars of childhood’s innocence still remain, and yet in every moment she is shifting and growing, her fate entwined with her potential.

gno·sis. (nō′sĭs) n. Intuitive apprehension of spiritual truths, an esoteric form of knowledge. Greek gnōsis, knowledge, from gignōskein, gnō-, to know; see gnō- in Indo-European roots

We are healing the lineage of our fathers.

Generation upon generation of boys learning early to stifle their tears and to calcify their tenderness. Each child challenged to be the toughest in the crowd, hide his heart, and go to battle.

This inherited weight is normalized and internalized. Unaware of the tools of communication, compassion, and vulnerability that could elevate his unspeakable burden, he swallows his words and puts on a brave face.

The grief is buried, and stoically, each follows in his father’s footsteps, believing that silence or rage are signs of strength.

He teaches his sons to do the same.

Wars are waged, conquest mistaken for love, the feminine oppressed, the natural world dominated...

And here we stand now in a vast landscape of stone, each tender warrior straining under generations of story and antiquity.

This is the work before us in this life: to stand in our strength and be brave; then soften, listen, and open.

This is the work that will help repair the fissures in the tapestry of humanity and the world.

We are healing the lineage of our fathers’ fathers, and in doing so we are healing that of our sons’ sons.

Each creature that crosses our path is a reflection of aspects of ourselves; our body, heart, mind, and spirit.

This painted mirror offers four animals to represent these facets:

The snake reminds us of the rich depth and healing available when we traverse the underworld and face our shadow. It also encourages our discernment to choose somatically what is and is not for our highest good.

The lion is grounded in heart and courage. It invokes our fierce compassion, the brave warrior within, and the integrity at our core.

The owl invites our wonder and connection to spirit. It inspires our curiosity and ignites our innate wisdom.

The butterfly dwells in the between worlds, the liminal space of transformation. It tenderly alights on the mind’s eye as a guide for intuition.

They are us, and we are them. We are a part of nature, not apart from it.

The land is reawakening with the swelling of tree buds and the climbing sun. Green saturates grey, and levity tickles at the corners of his eyes.

He harkens a sweet relief of burgeoning hope after a dark season, as the composting stories of yesterday now nourish the sprouting seeds of today’s intentions to bring fruit in the seasons to come.

He is the steadfast and faithful masculine who upholds the endless cycle of slumber and awakening, birth, life, death, and rebirth. While aged and wise, he exudes a playful sensuality and mischievous lightheartedness. He tends to the wild and fertile feminine, and together they spiral in an eternal dance of unbridled creation, timely decay, and graceful rebirth.

The Green Man is awakening…

This piece is in contemplation of ideas and reality, where they intersect, the ways they shift and evolve, and how it is very much up to our own vision and interpretation to discern what is real and what is just an idea. Concepts become form, and form eventually dissolves into memory.

Especially during these strange times, I feel that a state of curiosity will serve us well, and to remember that there is truth and illusion in everything we see. If we hold our convictions lightly and remember our childlike wonder and untamed wildness, we may yet remember how to fly!

Embody your vulnerability. Soften, listen, open, yet do not renounce your power. Your focus, determination, protection, provision, and leadership are needed now more than ever. Your strength and your tenderness can alchemize each other into gold.

Please continue to step up and stand tall. Roar your truth when needed, bare your heart always, and stay strong.

We are the children of God, facets of the universe and sparks of the divine fire of creation.

May we remember our own divinity. May we be empowered and heart-centered, and cultivate a new era of healing and wholeness for humanity.

May our hearts be our guide, and burn passionately with love and compassion.

“The Kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:21

Mary Magdalene was said to be the beloved of Yeshua, his equal, and his greatest supporter in his mission of teaching the Way of Love. She was the feminine embodiment of presence, pleasure, purity, and power.

As an Essene priestess and initiate into the lineage of Isis and the Way of the Rose, she was highly trained in the Egyptian mysteries of healing, alchemy, and Tantra. Over the centuries her name and holiness were distorted and slandered, and she was labeled a whore and sinner. With her descent from honour, so did womankind fall under heavy handed persecution and oppression.

After Jesus’s death and resurrection Mary was said to have fled Palestine for Egypt before settling in the south of France, then perhaps also traveling into the Isles of Scotland. Mary was pregnant and birthed a child, Sarah Tamar, who carried the bloodline of the Christ forward into the present day. Some say this bloodline is what the true Holy Grail refers to. Her womb, the chalice, literally holds the blood of Christ.

Within Christianity, Mary Magdalene was known as the “Apostle of the Apostles”, and in 2016 the Vatican issued a formal apology for demeaning and slandering her for centuries, intentionally omitting her words and perspective from the gospel. July 22nd was dedicated in her honor as her holy Feast Day.

In recent years we have witnessed her consciousness growing stronger, and with it the rising of the divine feminine.

As the sacred mother and divine lover, she urges us to reclaim our sovereignty, embrace our sensual nature, remember our erotic innocence, and to pave a new path of embodied leadership. We are remembering a way of living in alignment with nature, reawakening our intuition, and returning into a heart centred way of being. We are coming back into balance with ourselves, each other, the earth, and all beings.

Through this we will find the union of divine masculine and feminine within us, and embody ourselves as whole and holy.

~Lila & Autumn Skye

She is our innate unabashed inner-child spirit.

That part of ourselves that is confident but not arrogant; uninhibited, innocent, unfettered, free.

At the center of our own universe, we naively assume that the strange theatre around us is purely for our own awe and amusement.

We are not ashamed to stand tall, speak our truth, be seen, and shine!

Before we learn the double-edged subtleties of self-consciousness, restraint, conformity, and self-imposed limitation, we believe only in potential and imagination.

This painting is in honour of the elders, the ancient ones, the carriers of story, the weavers of time.

It is in gratitude of their wisdom, their presence, and their magic.

The elders have largely been forgotten, and the time has come to remember them. Return to the feet of the grandparents, the old-growth trees, the mountains, the water.

Get quiet. Listen. Respect. Have gratitude. Protect the sacred.

Sophia is the feminine manifestation of god in physical form. Some teachings say she is the Holy Spirit of the Trinity. 

She is the embodiment of the sacred in nature, the interconnectedness of the spiritual and material realms. Earth and heaven.

“Sophia” translates from Greek as Wisdom or Knowledge.  It is Knowing. A deep rooted intuition.

“Wisdom is a knower in you. Not something that you know, something that knows you.”  -Jungian analyst J Gary Sparks

The “middle way” or “middle path” speaks to a pivot point of balance, a union of polarities, a harmony of opposing forces. It is a state of equanimity and peace spoken of in the teachings of Buddha and echoed throughout many other mystical traditions and philosophies.

It is a practical way of life, avoiding the extremes of self-denial and self-indulgence, eternalism and annihilationism.

I have been feeling these extreme and polarizing times, the swinging of the pendulum, the fire, the water, the rage, the compassion.

And, I am witnessing that when fire and water come together in perfect alchemy they create life.

And so I have been seeking to ground into my equanimity and neutrality, and strive for balance and perspective. I am inquiring and listening so that I may understand the big picture, while staying rooted and aware of the subtleties.

Even as the world around us erupts into furor and confusion.

Even as we allow our tears and laughter, affection and grief.

We can remain in at peace in our innermost centre and be witness to it all.

May we dwell along the middle path, that nexus of delicate balance, the pivot point on the scale of polarities.

May we dwell along the middle way, and our minds and hearts be at peace.

When we dream there are no borders or limits, there is barely a concept of you and me, there is levity and mystery. When we dream we communicate in symbols, our breath whispers of lullabies and nonsense, our eyelids heavy with the weight of our hopes and fears. When we dream the edges of real and imagined are blurred and we swim in the inky pools of subconscious and memories. When we dream we are dancers, fliers, giants, explorers, warriors. When we dream there are boundless possibilities. When we dream, we are together…

We are healing together. The told and retold stories, tender wounds, ancient scars, fragmented parts of our being; these can all be loved back into wholeness. Like the Japanese pottery technique of Kintsugi, when we not only accept but have gratitude for the broken pieces of ourselves and each other, we can turn them to gold. It can actually be stronger where we have been repaired, and something new and beautiful created by our care and honouring. All of the experiences, the loves, losses, hurts, hopes, betrayals, grief, faith, have taught us and brought us to where we are now. It has all shaped our uniqueness and flawed perfection. Most often it is our vulnerable open hearted relationships that hurt us, and likewise it is most often there where we find our healing. We are called on now and in every moment to honour our path and our past with gratitude and reflection. Every relationship, every connection, every heartbreak, every new layer of healing and hurt and healing again. Even the deepest wounds can be loved, the most tender places in us held in care for our selves and each other, and in time repaired and made beautiful by our compassion. This is the transmutation into gold. Pain into love. This is the ebb and flow of love and loss and our inevitable return to love again. This is the Alchemy of Us.

Unlock those places in you that long to soar.

Be brave, dear heart, open and let go.

Allow your spirit to be stirred by the rustle of feathers and the beating of wings.

Let the wind lift you and the boundless skies embrace you.

You are safe, you are free.

Let go.

Live with wild abandon.

In the darkness of the earth, a seed dares to crack open. Against all odds, without logic, and in struggle against gravity, that seed sends a tender sprout out and up. With persistence it bursts through the surface of the soil, and the warm sun greets the sprout’s newness with eager and unconditional adoration. Fortifying in strength and stature, it grows and stands taller, and eventually it becomes brave enough to form a bud. This bud is tiny and shy at first, but with the earth’s stability and the sun’s encouragement, the bud slowly unfurls it’s gifts, petal by petal. When we are brave and share our gifts and encourage others to do the same, together we are a garden. 

The word Pietà is italian for "pity", however it carries much more meaning, history, and potency than that simple definition: Pietà is a term used for a piece of art portraying the Virgin Mary holding and mourning over the dead body of Jesus, as in Michelangelo's famous marble sculpture in the Vatican. In this painting, the Whale symbolizes the innocence, wisdom, selflessness, and sacrifice of Christ. The woman cradling the whale is the Holy Mother, the life-giving Ocean, desecrated and dirtied, yet still pure, nurturing, and strong.

Pietà speaks to the greater archetypical story of grace, love, sacrifice, forgiveness.

We need not close our eyes to the pains of the world, for they cannot be healed if we chose to ignore them. Instead, we witness, eyes and hearts open, and through acceptance and compassion we transmute the shadow into light, the hate into love. Through this attention and intention the tightly sealed flower bud of our potential blooms into a fully realized blossom of expansive expression.

This storm is tumultuous, it comes in mighty waves of intensity, and raw gusts of force. It can be terrifying at times, and may bring up our fears, our old traumas, or our fight or flight and survival instincts. It shakes us to our foundation, rattling the windows of our heart, tempting us to let the chaos in and to succumb to the fury of these troubled times. But we are steady and calm. We are witness to the crazy and the confusion, and we hold our inner peace, steady and true. Our compassionate heart is a beacon of light in the raging storm.

Mourning Due is a prayer for rain, for balance, and for healing. It is in reverence of water, and in grief for the environmental crisis that we have perpetuated through our short-sightedness. I pray that we remember that it is water and the sacred cycles of nature that sustain us, and it is the same water that courses through our veins and flows from our eyes.

We are in the midsts of acknowledging how our actions have brought us to this point, and we are beginning to feel deeply our remorse, and choose differently how we live on this planet. It is a process that many feel is overdue and not happening quickly enough to right the wrongs. However, I believe is not too late! In fact, I believe in perfect and divine timing. This painting is not in despair, it is with hope and in faith that we can and are changing the course of our journey. The tears are flowing, and we are shifting our focus towards wholeness and healing, for ourselves and for the planet. To do so we must be willing to shine light on the shadow, and make changes in our actions and industry. The healing waters are within us. Let the tears flow....