March Challenge....

at The Cupboard Trilogy Blog....... and a little story for you all.....

This months theme is "Mother"  Which if I still made cards would be nice and easy.. but I don't.. so it wasn't as simple as I first thought....

I decided to make a Journal spread in my Goddess Journal... about the Ultimate Mother of all... Mother Earth...

I based my idea on a painting I did in Moonshine last month with the Fabulous Effy.... where we all painted a Wolf Moon, with a Goddess embracing a full moon and a  wolf howling.....  I loved that lesson so much, it was an obvious Brain_jump to doing Mother Earth embracing the world....

I sketched her out holding a heart, and with her hair in the rough shape of a heart to keep the love theme going with her, and then because I am beyond useless at Geography, I googled to get rough placements of all the countries....

Well, You will never guess what I found...........

The pencil sketch to your left is the idea I had... the colour image on the right is one I found on the web and comes from a blog called Hope On Earth.

Now I am telling you all this, because I belong to a group on FB called Stamp out Stamp Theft... and there are sadly far to many cases of an image being blatantly used by someone else and passed off as their own work....  some of it is appalling in the amount of copying done.. and then sold as original.....
So I wanted to explain what happened here, as I would hate for anyone to stumble across the image as I did and assume I lifted the idea..... Which I didn't, but I could see how somebody would think I did.....

I had a chat with the girls in the group, and we decided to go ahead with my blog post and to explain the whole thing as an example of how ideas do occur to more than one person! :-)

So... my finished journal page.... I used my favourite technique of Gesso, Watercolour, Gesso and lots of pencil work... I wanted her to look fairly distressed and grungy as a mini statement from a personal soapbox of mine about the amount of abuse the earth is getting on a daily basis, yet Mother Earth is still holding on to us and loving us despite all we as society do to destroy her.....  That is true Mothers Love.....

The poem I wrote around the edge is taken from Earth Medicine by Jamie Sams and is a fabulous book full of poems, sayings and rituals for all phases of the moon in a year following the teachings of the Native Americans......  I adore this book!

Right...enough waffle..... here is my page..... and see you all soon xxxxx

“Spark of inspiration,

Light my spirit’s fire,

Let the joy of creation

Be my heart’s desire.

Let me flow with the music,

Let me dance my dreams alive,

Let me sing my deepest feelings,

Until the whole world thrives.

Exploding into expression,

My joy takes many forms,

Leaving the tears and sadness

For the warmth of tender arms.

Hold me, sweet Earth mother,

Soft against your breast,

That I may share the ecstasy

Of my creation’s best.”