Description:
Here's another image from my Spirit Hand Series. It was originally titled 'Hand of Ceres', and dedicated to the Roman goddess of agriculture. There was a mix up at the publisher and it was titled 'Hand of the Seer' in my calendar. Since one aspect of this painting includes clear inner vision, this wasn't an issue. Like all the images in the Spirit Hand series, there's considerable material on the symbols and why I chose them, for anyone interested in the background of each painting. Here are some exerpts:
The reddish brown is fertile prairie soil and all that composes it; pulverized stone left by glaciers, the sand of primordial seas, decayed bodies of animal and plant matter and minerals.
The blue beneath the goddess hand represents aquifers, springs, hidden, deep flowing sweet waters: nourishing, refreshing, cleansing, purifying.
The small circular forms beneath the soil are nutrients, minerals, funguses, and the miniscule life forms vibrating around and within us yet invisible. For instance; paramecium, protozoa, and single celled bacteria, right down to atoms and sub - atomic particles.
The night represents the silent prairie sky, black and stretching on into eternity, studded with light, other worlds. It is the void, inconceivable distance, depth, silence between words, the fertile emptiness that is Truth. It could also be called Yin.
Within the palm of the hand is a brown bulb, symbol for the womb, stasis, gestation, waiting, possibility. Within is a self contained blue circle holding amniotic fluid, the primeval waters, the sky, wholeness and completion. It represents vibrant life and activity that exist and process while hidden from our direct view. The circle of waters is also a newly fertilized egg in the early stage of dividing cells, and a form of constantly self renewing energy similar to the sun or deep within earths core; star fire.
The waters hold a medicine wheel with energy radiating in the four directions, and resembling the nucleus with light at its very center. This is the same energy that illuminates the stars overhead. Theres a second, less obvious crescent moon (resembling the one positioned beneath the feet of the Virgin Mary and some of the early Sumerian goddesses). This is the feminine aspect of divinity, but also represents our mortality and the ephemeral, fleeting nature of all life. All that is born eventually passes away.
The green shapes inside the fingers are stylized leaves symbolizing growth, fecundity, life, health. I was thinking specifically of milkweed leaves because they're abundant on the prairie.
The yellow pathways running upward inside the fingers represent channels for the ever- renewing energy encapsulated within the medicine wheel. These channels are conduits alllowing the energy to travel from its source in the heart, out of the body and into the universe, and are also a pathway enabling energy to be felt or drawn back into the body.
The flames on the fingertips are manifestations of this energy; like a flame on the stove once a match is set to the gas.
When creating this image I was thinking of plants. Given time, they penetrate asphalt, concrete, granite. Intuiting light and warmth, fragile stems push upward out of the smothering darkness beneath sidewalks and streets and proceed to ever so gently break apart and crumble dense matter. I think healers and seers work in a similar way.
Text and image copyright Helena Nelson -Reed. Please don't use without written permission.
