At Your Finger Tips

The world of Lemuria and  Enchanteur lies at the tip of your fingertips.
Head towards the light and follow the Serpentine Road towards Rainbow Beach.
Heather Blakey October 21 2009

Valley of Bones Cauldron

The Great Spinx dominates the Giza Plain. Latest theory has it that this was carved as a tribute to a Pharoah’s father, the likeness ensuring his immortality and restoring calm after his death.

If you travel the Serpentine Road and reach the Valley of Bones, deep in Lemuria you will find a huge skull that is a cauldron. It is said that those who manage to drink from it tell particularly good Halloween stories.

So as you can imagine there is quite a crowd gathered on these plains, singing amidst the bones.

Lemuria Awakens

As Winter’s Night approaches there is a window of opportunity. Enchanteur has been hibernating and Lemurian roads, villages, hamlets and residences have all been cloaked in silence. With the arrival of Winter’s Night, light is returning to Lemuria and, for those who are quick, there is an opportunity to slip through the portal and continue the adventure. It is a bit like the pause button has been turned off and the narrative has resumed.

Travel lightly, enter Lemuria and pick up where you left off, or start all over again.

The SS Vulcania, which has been in dry dock for months, will sail again in the lead up to Christmas, so those who are travelling the Serpentine Road might want to make haste and navigate those pathways.

If you are joining in make sure your blogs are listed on primary blogs such as the Vulcania, the Serpentine Road and Hestia’s Hearth.

Raven Warriors

Whenever a cry for help goes out, whenever someone from within Soul Food needs a defender, Raven Warriors come to the rescue
Heather Blakey
October 1 2009

Cabinet of Curiosities

There is no time like the present to rummage through a Cabinet of Curiosities, visit places filled with eccentric, quirky collections and to pull some old things out. Baba Yaga is an old friend who visits the Hearth from time to time. Do her bidding and you will be rewarded.
Heather Blakey

A cabinet of wondrous curios
A delightful collection
Objects,
Carefully placed
Lying, seeming unconnected
Next to each other
Evoking,
Triggering memories
Permitting the mind to
Wander to faraway places

Microscopes,
Scales, microtomes,
Drafting tools,
Cameras,
Magic lanterns
Antique candle powered projectors
Fine laboratory glassware
Vintage beakers, funnels, test tubes, crucibles,
Dessicating jars
And a one-off hand blown, baroque piece carefully stored

A pair of rare wax anatomical models
Crutches and callipers,
Arm braces,
Blood pressure meters
And first aid dummies
Antique botanical prints
Woolly mammoth hair
Coprolites,
Spiny trilobites,
Skulls, fish and ammonites stored in labelled draws.

Butterflies mounted in Petri dishes
An Atlantis Moth
Obscure,
Whimsical and wonderful
Packets of seed,
Very old taxidermy birds, in excellent condition
Hand-made pills,
Patent medicines and toiletries.
The scent of human breast milk, swamp water and sex
Stored in tiny laboratory vials

All combine to fill
A purveyors
wonder chamber of
creative stimuli

1. Sally said,

   September 23, 2009 at 8:00 am · Edit

   I love the picture and the words! I’ve been looking for something important not seen for many years and have found some curiosities of my own! Either the objects are curious or I am curious as to why I have them!!

   Reply
2. 

   Lori said,

   September 23, 2009 at 9:31 am · Edit

   My gosh! What a treasure trove of ideas. Hmmmm…. what can I do with coprolites?!

   Reply
3. 

   cronelogical said,

   September 23, 2009 at 11:47 am · Edit

   Places I’ve been
   things I’ve made mine
   a cabinet of life
   and a story designed. More than fun here. Fran

   Reply
4. 

   traveller2006 said,

   September 23, 2009 at 2:12 pm · Edit

   I just love these old cabinets of wonderment

My Shadow and I In Eldorado

My Shadow and I In Eldorado
by Heather Blakey
September 19 2009

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o’er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
“Shadow,” said he,
“Where can it be-
This land of Eldorado?”

“Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,”
The shade replied-
“If you seek for Eldorado!”

by Edgar Allan Poe

Red Serpent Energy

Cosmic Energy, Creative Fertility Forces
by Heather Blakey August 2009

After reading The Faithful Gardener I have been left pondering upon the creative energy forces that are at work in the vast universe that surrounds us, of which we are a cog in the wheel of life. Life is given, life is taken, the cycle continues as it has continued for billions of years. In uncertain times change is the only certainty. Be it Viriditas, Duende, Tao, Qi, there is a cosmic force that is available which drives creativity. For some, it is the Red Serpent. For others it is something else.

Placating the Serpent

The Devouring Serpent
by Heather Blakey August 2009

In a modern world where money has been on the ascendancy for decades, the serpent consumes everything, fattening itself, leaving a wasteland wherever it has been.

In Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes devotes a chapter to Hestia. She does not specifically name her but then she does not have to because the presence of this Goddess vibrates, just as surely as song lines sing, through every lyrical word that Estes pours like mulled wine.

In Chapter Nine, Homing: Returning to Oneself, Estes tells us that there are seasons to go home, to return to ones ancestral grounds. After touring Great Britain and Europe for six months in 2001 I felt a great sense of homing as I touched Australian soil, breathed Australian air once more. However, to home does not require an overseas jaunt. Unlike the Atlantic Salmon we do not have to swim thousands of miles to reach our ancestral space or to arrive at our soul home. All one has to do is cross the threshold , step through an outline drawn in chalk and claim space with Hestia.

Called Home
by Heather Blakey August 2009

The old ones have been calling and I choose to respond to their call. I come to Hestia seeking her support and guidance.

Reference: Women Who Run With Wolves: Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Chapter 9 Homing: Returning to Oneself.

Dance of Growth and Transformation

I made a hearth to welcome Hestia into my life, gathering containers and vessels that speak to me of creative transformation.
I ponder
vessel = woman = life
From the vessel that is the womb, having been sheltered, warmed, nourished and nurtured, life bursts forth

Hestia = cauldron = creative life

From the cauldron, in which my creative life is sheltered, nourished, protected, matter bursts forth
as we dance the dance of growth and transformation

Heather Blakey August 2009

Aspects of Hestia

The Virgin

Communicator and Networker

The Experienced Crone

I am exploring aspects of Hestia. Just as in the mysteries, Demeter unfolds as a Triple Goddess, so the little written about Hestia has three aspects. Demeter’s three facets incorporate Persephone and Hecate.

While the Demeter facet represents vegetative forces her Hecate aspect is seen in the dark chthonic forces, immanent, stirring deep within the earth. But what of Hestia? What aspects lurk here?

As I have my pencils in hand, as I sit drawing in a meditative state, I have been contemplating the aspects of Hestia, Red Serpent, Lady of the Fire, Web Builder, Wise One.

In his ground breaking work, The Great Mother, Eric Neuman acknowledges that “at the center of the mysteries over which the female group presided stood the guarding and tending of the fire. As in the house round about, female domination is symbolized in its center, the fireplace, the seat of warmth and food preperation, the hearth, which is also the altar.”

Invariably we will find Hestia in her above ground facet, tending to the fire, maintaining and preserving her hearth. But this is only one aspect. The challenge is to unravel others and create a more complete tapestry by the hearth.

Heather Blakey
August 2009