MINERALARTS:

Stones Oracle: Eye Agate

It’s good to be working on the Moon Oracle again. Finished the first of the eight Stones drawings. These will depict various round white quartz and chalcedony pebbles in the geological environment where they are found (which is sometimes, though not necessarily, the environment where they form.) This one is for the First Quarter Moon…

ironwing

April 17, 2008

Scratchboard

Owl Eyes & Drum Bells

The two great horned owl nests that I pass on my morning walk are active now, with three young birds in each. I feel honored to have two nests so close to my house, and watching them has become a wonderful spring tradition. The young birds watch us with suspicion: Even this Needlespine Cactus (Echinomastus…

ironwing

April 16, 2008

Iron & Metalwork, Nature

Silver Hoard

I’ve been refining my forging skill with the Moon Metal. Silver holds more tension than my “comfort metals”, iron and copper. So working with it requires a mix of emotional intensity, fearlessness, and desire for change. In other words, I do it when old attitudes or routines don’t work anymore. I’m not really “at home”…

ironwing

April 6, 2008

Iron & Metalwork

Rainbow Lion

Rainbow Lion was my big project for March. The magic in this one is a bit more “white light” than my usual work, and it will be reassuring for me to get back to my stones and knives. But I found this colorful yarn when I was working on the Snow Lion, and it was…

ironwing

April 1, 2008

Cats, Iron & Metalwork, Needlework

Ashes and Rust

Today I have a Temperance story for the week of the Full Moon and the Vernal Equinox. In the Ironwing Tarot, the Temperance card is titled “Quench” and shows a newly-forged iron bowl being cooled in water, creating steam that melts the overhanging melting icicles. It is an image of completion, consecration, and all the contrasting elements that create…

ironwing

March 18, 2008

Iron & Metalwork

Desert Anemone

This is the desert anemone, Anemone tuberosa. It is a close relative of the wood anemone (A. nemorosa) of the Eastern forest, but the desert plant is more succulent and usually has some pink shading on the flowers. Today I gathered anemone leaves for a tincture. The active compound is anemonin, which slows the heart…

ironwing

March 11, 2008

Nature

Tibetan Snow Lion Doll

For this Moon, I took a break from designing oracles and took a commission for a shaman’s doll – this Tibetan Snow Lion, with blanket, iron bells and tent stakes, and shaman’s mirror. I enjoyed making him so much that I want to make another lion, but I’ll probably take my time about finishing that…

ironwing

March 4, 2008

Cats, Iron & Metalwork, Needlework

Desert Wildflowers

Wildflowers are beginning to bloom under the saguaros – golden poppies, purple larkspur and lupine, dark blue chia, yellow corydalis, and others. Many of them have close relatives in the eastern deciduous forest. In the desert, the show of color is all the more welcome because it happens only when there is sufficient winter rain,…

ironwing

February 26, 2008

Nature

Lunar Eclipse

Mostly cloudy today, but cleared up in time to view the first half of the lunar eclipse. Cloud veils are drifting in now, obscuring the red moon at totality, but we got a clear photo first, just as the coyotes began to howl. Molten silver in the moment before melting, when the metal is still…

ironwing

February 20, 2008

Nature

Slag Baubles

Last weekend we hiked in the hills south of our house, where grass, cactus, and thorny shrubs give way to agaves and desert oaks. A hundred years ago, there were several active copper mines in the area, and while hiking we see glory holes, ore piles, old dirt roads, and a shiny black heap of slag that…

ironwing

February 14, 2008

Iron & Metalwork