PART 1

The Eastern Gate

THE EASTERN GATE OF THE WHEEL OPENS AT DAWN ON THE VERNAL EQUINOX.

The east's energies are about becoming new again. Beginning and returning, awakening, new growth, seeing things through fresh eyes, embracing the dawn and springtime. This is the time of early childhood and learning who you are. Spontaneity, playfulness, wonder, inquisitiveness, truth and creativity are all eastern energies. Question everything with a child's mind and curiosity. This is a magical time when all seems possible.

Face the eastern dawn and awake from the sleep of winter. Feel the rising sun illuminate your mind, body and soul. You are beginning anew, yet you retain the wisdom that you have carried around the wheel of life. The earth is coming alive with new growth and fresh promise.

Now is the time to turn outward to greet the day. You have completed the circle of the seasons and been reborn from the darkness of winter, bursting forth with the lively curiosity of the child.

In this season of light emerging from the darkness, we are fueled by the spirit — the part of us that is eternal. This light births creativity, and is manifested in art and writing. Through the exercises in the eastern section, we will peel away the layers of the ego to identify and clarify our soul. We will learn to see with fresh eyes and gain new perspective. We will begin anew and learn to trust our intuitive voices, harness our dreams and jump outside the constraints of time to manifest our creativity.

1

New Eyes

Make the common sights strange and the unusual familiar.

Your art will be found in the hidden corners and crevices of your soul. It won't hit you over the head, it will whisper your name. Learn to listen and see with fresh eyes. Expand your perceptions and invite your muse to join you in a grand adventure. Think of how when you are traveling to a new place, the time passes slowly compared to the return trip. You see with new eyes on the outward journey, and on the return trip your brain is editing those experiences. Time changes. Our routines can be very helpful for many things, but seeing with new eyes is not one of them.

When we become accustomed to seeing the same things every day, they tend to disappear. Our mind cuts out the familiar. We must train our mind to see again. Take, for example, water. How often do you encounter water in some shape or form during the course of your day? Many times, yet your mind doesn't register these encounters as events to remember.

Look at the page of this book or at a piece of paper. Do you see the cloud in the paper? Thich Nhat Hahn discusses this regarding meditation. The artist can see the cloud floating in the paper or the canvas. The cloud is necessary to produce water. The water is needed for the tree to grow and the paper comes from the tree. This exercise is twofold. First we will make the common sights and experiences memorable, then we will make the strange and unusual concepts more familiar. We are training ourselves to encounter our muse in both the most familiar and the most unlikely places.

Begin today by taking note of every time you encounter water. It is in your coffee or tea in the morning. It is in the shower and the bath. It is in the food you eat. All food requires water. It is used to grow the fibers to make many of the clothes you wear and to grow food for the cattle that produce the leather for your shoes. It is used in manufacturing plastics. It is everywhere. Notice and think about this for the day. Make yourself aware of the familiar. Think about how you will use this information in creating a work of art.

Now attempt to make the strange familiar by looking at something from a unique perspective. Open your eyes to the minute patterns around you to tell your muse that you are awake and listening. The muse will respond by revealing all kinds of creative ideas and patterns. Let's look from high above. Aerial or topographical maps that indicate elevation changes are a new way of seeing the earth. Think of these like vibrational lines or fractals. Fractals are never-ending patterns that continuously replicate themselves at an increasing scale. These same patterns are repeated over and over until they form larger patterns, but the same form is contained within the larger pattern. They surround us. When you begin to look you will see them everywhere, such as the center of a sunflower, the form of a cauliflower or the veins of a leaf.

Maybe math is strange for you, so begin to look at pictures of coastlines or satellite images of a river delta following its path as it flows into the ocean. This, too, is mathematics. Not as strange now, is it? Science and technology continue to bring new tools to the artist. Drone photography reveals incredible views from a fresh perspective, with artists today creating amazing video art by choreographing and filming illuminated drones at night to create patterns and movement.

2

Who Are You

Transform a blank canvas into a portrait to get to the heart of your identity.

MATERIALS

Panel or old
painting
Creative Paperclay
Ornament or object
to shape the
clay around or
wax paper
Unmounted
rubber stamp
or flexible texture
plate
Light molding
paste by Golden
Paper and pencil
Acrylic gel gloss
Paintbrushes
Palette knife
Scissors
Grafix Artist-tac
adhesive
Washi tape
Acrylic paints
DecoArt Metallic
Lustre cream wax
Water-soluble
colored...