Scents, Spirit, and Connections

I’m taking a bit of a shortcut in this post and stealing it from our Inside the Enso blog. It’s a new offering from the online residency program called The Enso Circle that Michelle Belto and I began building together at least ten years ago and is now opening its ninth term in January. You can subscribe to the blog without being a member of The Enso Circle. It’s designed to give you an idea of some of our discussions with the Artists-in-Residents – like this one on Sacred Scents!

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SCENTS FOR CREATIVE PRACTICE AND SACRED SPACES

Scents and aromas have been part of sacred spaces for over 5000 years. Originally, perfumes were used in sacred shrines in conjunction with burnt offerings. People burned precious scents such as frankincense and myrrh on their altars. Soon, people began using these rare perfumes on their own bodies and associating scent with spiritual experiences.

Creating a sacred space with the assistance of essential oils, incense, and natural scents is a personal and customizable practice. The scents you choose, the rituals you incorporate, and the intentions you set all contribute to the unique and sacred atmosphere you want to create.

Here are some cross-cultural versions of sacred scents that have endured:

Copal Incense: Copal incense is a resin incense that has been used in Mesoamerican rituals for centuries. It is known for its strong, earthy, and slightly citrusy scent. Copal incense is typically burned on the altar to purify the space, create a welcoming atmosphere for the spirits, and to help lift the prayers and messages to the spirit world. The aromatic smoke is believed to be a bridge between the two realms, helping the spirits find their way.

Below is a very short video about how to burn Copal resin incense from Quetzalcoatl Music Guillermo Martinez.
Source for Copal

Lavender Essential Oil: Lavender’s name traces back to the Latin verb “lavare,” which means “to wash.” This essential oil provides spiritual protection by metaphorically cleansing your spirit. Lavender essential oil has the potential to dispel feelings of depression and aids in regulating our emotional well-being. It is the go-to choice for meditation due to its calming and soothing properties. Lavender essential oil is a valuable tool for enhancing your meditative focus and achieving a deeper state of inner tranquility. Sprinkle one or two drops on your altar cloth or use a mist of 20 drops of lavender oil to 2 ounces of water as a purifying mist.Source for Lavender Essential Oil

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Hand-gathered Smudging Bundles for Purification of Spaces

Smudging with sage or cedar is a centuries-old ritual deeply rooted in Native American and Indigenous cultures. It involves burning bundles of dried sage or cedar leaves and using the fragrant smoke to cleanse and purify a space, object, or person. Sage is often associated with purification, clarity, and wisdom, while cedar is believed to offer protection and grounding energy. The ritual is typically performed by lighting the bundle and waving it gently, allowing the smoke to waft through the area while setting intentions for cleansing negative energy and promoting positive vibes. Smudging is not only a practical act but a spiritual one, fostering a sense of balance and reverence for the natural world.

You can make this even more meaningful by gathering your own plants for smudging bundles. You become part of the sacred process from beginning to end.  Here are directions that we wrote for you about how to make your own Smudge Bundles. They take about two weeks to dry, so practice mindfulness and patience.

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More subtle than music, ephemeral in nature, scents enhance, inspire, cleanse and renew on the deepest level of human consciousness. We’d love to read your comments and observations about how you use scents as a creative enhancement in your own  work.
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One last note: If you think you might be interested in applying for a 12-week Enso Circle residency, please take this link and we will get right back to you – applications for the new term open on December 1.

Broken Shards repaired — and Ireland Paper

For longer than I care to remember, SHARDS has been down for a technical glitch that I could not, for the life of me, figure out. But I finally dug out some rusty old tech-brain solutions and found the broken setting. Whew! Like Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), the cracks are finally stuck back together . . . after several frustrating months.

So many cool things happened during SHARDS’ down time – major things, like Shannon Weber‘s workshop, the Wax & Wildflowers Exhibit with the IEA here in San Antonio, and the amazing experience of teaching in Ireland with Michelle Belto. I will eventually work backwards to talk about all this good stuff, starting with Ireland. Today I’m giving you a link to a video showing a technique that I taught in Mulranny – read on.

The amazing Lora Murphy of Painting with Fire had invited us to teach at an Art Retreat at the Essence of Mulranny., on the wild West Coast of Ireland during the last week in July. The place is indescribably beautiful – sky, sea, cliffs, sheep – Celtic fairy tale stuff.

My part of the workshop involved creating a figurative representation of the Irish Goddess Aine. We collected objects and made collage paper as part of the preparation.

I called this collage paper “Ireland Paper” because it reflected the beautiful colors of the Irish countryside which you can see, below, out the studio window..

Lots of people have asked about how we created this effect, so I made a video for you yesterday on how we did this Ireland Paper. And this will be a reminder for those of you who went along with us to Ireland. The technique does involve hot wax, so if you haven’t worked with encaustic before, do your homework on encaustic safety if you decide to try it.

How to make Ireland Paper

But wait – there’s more! Below is a link to a video showing more of the creative things we did in the workshop to construct our figurative sculptures – wish you could have been there!:

VIDEO: Offerings to Aine: a Workshop in Mulranny, Ireland (Lyn Belisle)

It’s nice to be back – thanks for reading SHARDS!!

 

Put your away your toys

File this post under “Studio Tips” – I just found an amazing storage solution for my mixed-media toys!

It was totally accidental. I was at IKEA after we got back from our trip looking for a folding chair. You can’t get to that department without going through the children’s furniture section, which I normally just rush right through. All of a sudden, I spotted this:

Even better, when I looked beside the pile of bins, there were some frames for toy storage that the bins fit in!

“Dang,” said I. “This looks like the kind of storage system we had when I taught high school art – bins for supplies.” IKEA had both white frames and natural pine ones. I picked up the natural pine one and six white bins. I took them back to my studio, and the frame was amazingly easy to put together – 24 pegs, six screws, twenty minutes tops. And look!

But wait, it gets better. The next day (yesterday) I went back and got two more sets of bins and frames and stacked them on top of each other on the other side of the work table – check this out:

This is a game changer! I have trouble with conventional storage systems because I work in clay, fiber, paper and wax and little bitty pieces and shards which defy categorization. These bins are perfect! They keep things separated but accessible, and I can pull them out when I need them. Plastic bins of my stuff! Hooray!

And may I add, this is an incredibly affordable system? Each unit costs about $74 for the frame and six plastic trays. So I got all of this for a little over $200. The white frames are even cheaper – $39. You can also get colored plastic trays and metal mesh trays.

Here is the link to the IKEA page that has these toy storage system:

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/toy-storage-20474/

They even has one that looks like a Japanese Tansu Chest (well, sorta). This is the white frame with larger colored bins, but you can mix and match:

So I know not everyone has an IKEA close to them, so I checked to see if these can be shipped, and they can. Delivery costs may vary, but it’s still a deal.

So bye for now – I’m off to play with my toys – and I promise to put them away when I am finished with them.