The goddesses are alive and well as I enjoy both channeling and painting the goddesses for the Mythical Goddess Tarot. I want to share my experiences that I have had in painting this incredible deck and the progress we are making in its completion.I hope to engage a conversation with those of you who come to read this, to invite you to peruse the Mythical Goddess Gallery and to perhaps even buy an altar card or two and work with the images so you can experience their power and move your consciousness to greater Love and embodiment of these benevolent beings of Love and healing.
It seems I am finding an interesting path of healing as I continue to birth the Mythical Goddess Series, both for myself and for others who are working with the paintings or altar cards. I began this journey in September 2007 when I called my friend Sage Holloway and said it is time that we begin to work on this goddess tarot deck. And so we began meeting. And from these meetings we have given birth to the Mythical Goddess Tarot Deck... or at least 55 images of the 78 required to publish a full deck... hmmm, we aren't playing with a full deck just yet!
We began with the structure of the tarot as our guide to bringing forth archetypal energies. We began working with the four elements in the lower arcana and with the energy of the Divine Feminine to direct our visionary work and inquiry of Spirit. Sage is a seasoned intuitive tarot reader, and I a visionary artist who has been around the tarot... yet, we have both undergone a transformation as we have engaged consciously with invoking each of these archetypes and energies into our lives to work with.
I am doing more than illustrating a tarot deck. I am consciously engaging with the energies of the archetypes of the different goddesses, the focus of their energies within the structure of the tarot, and what wisdom they offer us in finding our path and experience of the Divine Feminine. Thus, I am having an experience in embodying their energy and wisdom. They are healing me in my own conscious mind, as well as life experience.
They have held me when I have come apart in relationship, and they have told me over and over that I am never alone. They have reminded me that Love is the only answer and that we must learn to focus on Love as the answer. When in pain I have called to them to guide me through the pain and to bring me relief. And they have always been there to hold me. They are more real than some people in my life, showing up with Infinite Love and compassion... for the human's journey is one of waking up and remembering that we are not this illusion or dream that has fear in it. We are the love. We just live in a state of forgetfulness most of the time!
With each goddess I paint, I feel more shift and love in my own life. The love is within me they tell me. It has always been there. As a human I have not always felt this because I forgot my true origins were Love. That is what the return of the Divine Feminine is about, opening to receive Love at the deepest of levels. Each goddess is an embodiment of some aspect of that Love's expression.
The lower arcana of the deck represents our walk in life as humans. It is the mundane journey. The four suits are represented by the four elements. The Seas suit is water and our emotional body. The Wind is air and the mind. The Earth is the earth and our physical experience. The Fire is transformation into Spirit. Each suit has duality, as we also have duality in our human experiences.
I began by painting the Seas suit as I learned to work with the structure of the tarot as my container for this journey. So I began working with the emotions, which is a good place for me. I am a Pisces and this suit is literally my strong suit AND my downfall in this life. As I began to work with the visioning of each card, I began to work with the qualities of each card and it brought me opportunities to embrace the duality in my life, of deep love, and later of entire depletion. I pretty much embodied the meaning of each card and painting as I worked with its energies. That is great on the positive part, but wasn't much fun when I painted depletion and got really sick afterwards. I had some healing to do there and I went right into the journey. Yet, in the long run I engaged in my experience so I could call in the higher frequencies of the major arcana goddesses.
The major arcana represents the Divine, thus is the Divine Feminine. The Goddesses of many cultures represent the 22 cards of this part of the deck. In January 2007 I began to bring forth the first goddesses through my intuitive painting process.
My first birth was Lakshmi. I had been painting diligently on the tarot deck and was in a major shift dealing with grief at a deep level in my life. I was praying for great assistance in knowing I was supported in all areas of my life, and was focusing a great deal on my financial support at the time as I evolved my own business as an artist and healer through my art.
So on a Sunday I decided just to paint without any agendas as I was tired of having to show up and paint for a specific reason. My healing comes often from showing up at a blank canvas to allow the inspiration and Spirit to just show up in form.
On that day I went into my home studio and asked, "What?" And I was guided to pull a 36x36 inch canvas from my closet. As I looked at that canvas, I opened myself up as I do in my process and basically asked, "Show me, what?" I began to feel color and put one color after another onto the canvas in a conversation with my inner guidance. Once one color was down I would either feel or hear what color was next. I fluidly moved from color to color, shape to shape, knowing as soon as one stroke was done what came next. I was having a wonderful conversation. It went on all day. At the end of the day I picked up the phone to call Sage and tell her that I painted a Hindu Goddess but I wasn't sure who she was... perhaps she would go in the deck.
That night I put the canvas on the headboard of my bed and asked for her to bless me. The next day I was off on some errands and encouraged Sage to come over and look at her though I wouldn't be home. Sage let herself into the house and looked in my studio but couldn't find her. She didn't even know what size she was... Sage knew I had another painting she loved in my bedroom, so she ventured in to look at her and turned to see Lakshmi sitting on my head board.
I got a phone call later that day with Sage almost yelling into the phone, "YOU ARE SO UNDERSTATED! YOU HAVE PAINTED LAKSHMI, AND YOU GOT EVERY SYMBOL RIGHT!!!" I almost laughed as Sage told me this. I told her it didn't surprise me that I got all her symbols right, because she told me what to do! I just didn't get the name!
So this was the beginning it seems of the larger paintings of the major arcana Goddesses being birthed into my life, Sage's life, and now everyone else's lives who are working with them and their awesome energies. It was perfect that Lakshmi came in to work with me at that point. I am so very grateful to her. She is the Wheel of Fortune in the tarot deck and she is all about manifesting heavenly abundance on Earth. And I must say she has blessed me, as I continue on this path I grow abundantly not only financially but also in every other aspect. I have an abundance of love and support around me, and I am learning to allow it in. There has been an abundance of creativity and wisdom that have come with the experience of painting this series. I am called prolific all the time... and I must say, there is never a moment when there isn't an abundance of ideas to birth. I am working on feeling like there is an abundance of time... and I am learning that there is as I learn to balance my life with work and play.
Next came Crow Woman, who is Divine Law. She was another experience of a powerful being of Light basically blowing in onto the canvas and revealing herself. She is an amazing shapeshifter and one who reminds us that with Divine Law all balance is brought back to life. We must follow Divine Law first and foremost above man's law, as man's law does not know what true justice is.
My sense of it as I continue to work with her is that she is returning us to the mystery and magic of Creation. We must remember at the core of that mystery and magic is Divine Love. And from that place Divine Law expresses. We are all here to return to the knowing of our own origins of Love in creation. We are all here to release and heal our karmic ties and return to Love. There is nothing greater than to release fear and traverse the path to Love. Crow Woman has been an important guide for me since her birth. I know She is doing her best to teach me the power in the mystery of creation, and to trust that all that is mine will come to me if I will only love myself. From that place all returns as I heal my own karma and forgive myself for my part of any disharmony in my life. It is all about remembering Love.
Next came Shakti, who represents the Lovers card, which is Ecstatic Union in our deck. Shakti, meaning force, power or energy is the Hindu concept or personification of God's female aspect, sometimes referred to as 'The Divine Mother'. Shakti represents the active, dynamic principles of feminine power. In Shaktism, Shakti is worshiped as the Supreme Being.
The way she came to me in my inner vision was to work with the dynamic principle of energy as the kundalini rising, awakening both channels within the body into full enlightenment of all the chakras or energy centers. She basically showed me the Lovers card evolved with the Divine Feminine as the guide was to see the Beloved awakened within the Self, or Ecstatic Union in our own being. This is enlightenment, awakening of all our energy centers. I must say I haven't fully embodied all of Shakti, but I have understood that she is very important to my own journey of loving myself. There is no lover outside of myself that will make me whole. My grief and loss I dealt with in the loss of a relationship was to be addressed by seeing that the pain would go away when I realized the Love was within me, the Beloved lived within me. And so the journey began in greater depth to ask for this healing.... and it is progressing! yeah!
It is however an amazing journey in realizing there was much to heal that I was unaware of when my relationship broke up. The healing had to go far beyond the intellect and reasoning mind (the male, left brain, old paradigm), and it had to reach deep into the subconscious and lunar aspect, the divine feminine part of me that was wounded from earlier in this life and many other lifetimes. I had to allow the deeper healing of what was under the surface, at a pure energetic level beyond my conscious fear and ego. I couldn't reason my way through it and I couldn't make it go away just by thinking it away or being a workaholic (one of my own patterns that have made me ill in the past.) I had to break down and be quiet, go within, and let the love the the Divine Mother take me into her bossom to heal. Each painting has given me a direct experience with this unconditional, deep love of the Mother that allows me to be held.
The blessings have come as I have worked with these energies to heal myself, knowing there were many layers of healing to occur. Lifetimes. And now there is no better time, as it is the time on the planet to invoke these energies of the Divine Feminine and the Goddess to teach us compassion, self Love, forgiveness and strength in our own gentleness.
So Shakti was born as I traversed a very important time where I personally was asking to find my way into the heart of the Beloved that somehow lived within me. I had to find her beyond my mind's concept. I needed to experience her energy.
And with that said, I must say that each goddess brings a holographic gateway or portal beyond this time and space dimension. These paintings are the portal. Each one holds a pattern and frequency of energy. Shamans and healers of old have long understood that we can birth energy and frequency, pattern into our world through music, sound, dance, movement and art. Neuroscientists today are observing the changes in the brain that are created when people engage in creating these activities, as well as receiving these activities. Even in viewing art one can experience a feeling of peace... or aggravation depending on the art.
Art does heal and science is now proving what shamans and energy healers have known through out time. Music, visual art and movement all move us back to patterns of wholeness that get distorted in our human experience. They heal trauma held in the body and the right side of the brain. Left-brain linear reasoning will only get us so far, usually to a painful awareness that we are struggling with an unhealthy pattern that wants to persist. Art and moving into the right side, intuitive, and creative part of the brain moves energy into the place where trauma or a distorted pattern is held, and the art (i.e., visual, sound or movement) repatterns the energy to a state of harmony, or lack of distortion, to what is considered the original blueprint.
The paintings that are being birthed in the Mythical Goddess Series have been intended and evoked as portals to the Divine Feminine and the highest frequency patterns of healing and love. Each one holds its own pattern of that expression. Each one gives us an opportunity to connect to what we need at the time for our own soul's evolution. Just in viewing these images one can connect to the energetic pattern that heals the misinformation in our field of energy that keeps us separate and in conflict. These images anchor in the energy of the Divine Feminine and make it accessible.
Now that we have 36 images in altar cards, we are receiving feedback from others regarding the power of working with the imagery. Recently one woman bought all 36 images and picks a card a day to meditate with. She has been writing us about her experiences, with questions and comments to each goddess and what she has meant to her own healing process. I will share some of this at a near future date.
Before I close I am being guided to share some very important messages of Love. Please know that you are never alone. You are watched over by angelic beings and many beings who want to help you evolve and grow as a soul.
Please pray for love to be the center of your attention. Please call your guides and angels regularly asking for their assistance in healing, in being more joyful and radiant, and in letting go of what is not joy and love. Please forgive what has caused pain and ask for assistance in healing your own soul. These are the greatest practices we can take on in this time to heal the planet.
For as we heal we raise our own vibrations, we heal our family lineage and dna, we heal our culture, and ultimately that vibration of love and pattern of the god spark within each of us grows and we experience a paradigm shift. This is how we move into our own enlightenment, one loving thought at a time. Too, if you can, please look at how you can take up the practice of blessing others in your life, even those you don't know. This is a wonderful practice that sends loving thoughts out into the world. We all need blessings. Watch how they return to you in every aspect of your life. Watch how you lighten up when you bless others sincerely from the center of your heart. Don't feel sorry and pity people, bless them and remember that they are souls on a fantastic journey. Bless them and ask for love to be their guides.
For now it is time to go rest. Please check in for more installments of this journey, and please take time to post comments and questions to the site. We want your participation and feedback on how and if these images are helping you bring more love into your life, if they are healing, if they are inspiring and if they are somehow contributing to your well-being and how you can manage your life on planet Earth. I will continue to share the inspirational journey, channelings that come with the paintings, and insights for living more easily as a human on this journey.
Many, many blessings to each of you! With a heartfelt hug, much love and light, Katherine
