Cave Painting

First, of course, you need a cave wall.

I found some cans of old varnish on a trip to the skip; the mahogany is so wonderful, it near enough breaks my heart. It's old, too, very dense, reminds me of slow amber and the colour is just unbelievable. I'll never find that varnish again, not from that company, a long time out of business, nor in the exact state it was in so that's kinda precious and rare in and of itself.

Perfect for the wall of my cave, though.

Once you have a cave wall, what would you put on it?

That was very interesting. I had to step in that frame of mind that I was living in the cave, and that I would see this in fire's light and every day I passed by it, in and out.

You'd only put special things on there; and even though a cave is obviously a great deal larger than my little canvas here, there is still the sense you would never waste the space you have and you'd only put special things on it.

There is always the "fear of the blank canvas" and in this case it was exacerbated by the fact that I really liked my cave wall as it was and didn't want to "ruin" it; still, bravely I got my gold pen out to make the first marks.

What was it? Amazingly enough, it was a little Starman right in the top right hand corner. A man with a star on his head. Dedicated to the first record I ever bought with my own cash, Starman by Bowie, in 1972.

Up until the point where the Starman arrived, I'd seriously thought I would be doing pictures of antelopes and crocodiles, the usual stuff you find on a cave painting.

Turns out that if it is your cave, and you live in the 21st century, you put stuff on your cave wall that is meaningful to you.

Good things, as well, things you love, things that are relevant and important.

Who would have thought ...

I was thinking in the direction of the Starman and that time and then I smiled and put a teensy little Starship Enterprise (B!) near him on the top right. Then a few little horses - my young aspects used to draw horses all the time. Schoolbooks were covered in thousands of them ... leaping, rearing ... running away ... jumping over fences ... :-)

At this point, my younger son arrived and made the comment that an area of the cave wall looked like an elephant. I drew it on to commemorate the person and their comment.

This also made me think to lighten up a little, not take this so seriously. This is my cave wall; it should be intriguing, interesting but also happy, joyful, playful. Life sucks when it becomes work rather than play; and when you play in earnest, the Gods tend to smile at you and play along, happily.

So this was the state of play and I left it for the day. As you do, when you pass by your cave wall (which I put in my den where I watch TV, relax, often eat and pass through many times a day) you keep wondering what else there should be.

And then it occurred to me that there was this clear central space and something should be in there ...

Something that kind of takes charge of it all, the spider at the centre of the web ...

Meet ...

The Lightning Woman

The Journey From Vision To Symbol

	Well, we don't have the original vision, obviously, but that's where it starts. The eye is a misnomer as is the word, "vision" because a proper vision has six sensory modalities and is fully autogenic - you are THERE and you see, hear, scent, taste, feel and sense everything 1st person, lucid, awake and aware. Everything starts with the vision ...
	We do have a little something that gives us a reminder or indication of the vision, which is the little drawing I made after the fact. It's a reminder, nothing more. It gives a sense of what has happening.
	Now we can turn our point of view around so we're facing her squarely on and simplify the drawing to the main events.
	We can stylise the drawing further; bring in the bones she is casting, show the power that was sparking from her hands and hair.
	We can stylise it further and add more information about the magic.
	Then we can tidy it up and we have a primal magic symbol that evokes the spirit (energy) of the Lightning Woman.
	And if we wanted to put the symbol around the place, carve it into trees, into stones, or share it with folk who might not be adept at wielding chewed stick and red earth mixed with animal fat, we can give them this instead.

Simples, as the meerkat would say ...

So that's where we're at with the next step of the cave painting ...

Once the Lightning Woman had taken centre stage, lots of other things just happened.

Three Mirrormen - can't live without those! lol - and various other things. I do draw straight on it with metallic markers but there's also this primal thing still going on, making various shaped marks with pieces of plants, wood, stone, amber and the two trees had their branches made with a brush made from the tip of my pony tail. Very satisfying.

This is happening over days and nights; I see something, do it, then leave it alone again as it settles down.

That's the state of play at StarDate 65842.4 ...:-)

To be continued ...

Here is the completed Cave Painting. 

The Lightning Woman - Journey From Vision To Symbol