Holistic Healing 2023 Art Calendar

Holistic Healing 2023 Art Calendar*

This page is meant to go along with the art calendar I designed and printed for 2023! Below are descriptions of the art for each month and how it ties in to the “Holistic Healing” theme of the calendar. Art in general has and continues to be a huge party of my health and wellness journey. (This calendar focuses on visual art, but poetry, music and dance are just as - if not even more - therapeutic for me. Maybe future calendars will feature those other mediums!) From experience I know that the actual process of making art, as well as the content of the art both contribute to its therapeutic and healing properties.

Table of Contents

• Cover: “The Pure Light Within You”
• January: “Aquari Tetrahedra”
• February: “LEGO Asclepeion”
• March: “Digits of Pi”
• April: “Pachamama and Liberation”
• May: “Chalk Mandala”
• June: “Illuminated Shadow and Distillery of Light”
• July: “Free Spirit”
• August: “Camping Trip” and “Impregnated with Light”
• September: “McKinney Falls State Park”
• October: “Hopi Prophecy Fulfilled”
• November: “Connecting with the Roots”
• December: “Starseeds”

Cover: “The Pure Light Within You”

Above art: “The Pure Light Within You”, photography and digital collage/effects

Above art: “The Longtime Sunshine Song Mantra”, photography and digital collage/effects

The art on the cover “The Pure Light Within You” is from a series of four self-portraits that go with a beautiful traditional song called “The Longtime Sunshine Song”. My favorite version is a recent one from Amrit Kirtan. Here it is on Youtube. I bought her album “Sacred Circle” in about 2010 while in college. It was before my conscious spiritual awakening. I believe the album did a lot to open me up to that path of my life.

In about 2017 I created hand positions to go with each line of the lyrics. I use this often as a sun salutation mantra, saying the words and matching the movements as I great the sun daily in prayer.

January: “Aquari Tetrahedra”

Above art: “Aquari Tetrahedra”, pen and digital color

I made this illustration after a sacred geometry drawing class with Nadi Hana at GalacticRoseGeometry.com. Nadi led us through drawing the 2-dimensional 64 Star Tetrahedron. I drew mine in light pencil and then added a unique design in pen. Then I scanned it and added digital color!

Sacred geometry is a core part of my belief system and a foundational language I use to relate concepts together. It is so fundamental and universal that it connects different philosophies, cultures and worldviews together, including physics with metaphysics, mathematics with psychology, and science with religion. Sacred geometry was a significant part of helping me through my Dark Night of the Soul initiations, where I was questioning everything and looking for a way to make sense of reality. Some of my favorite visionary geometers include Nassim Haramein, Jain108, Robert Edward Grant and Ken Wilber. They’ve had a huge influence on me and I highly recommend looking them up!

I play with sacred geometry to explore and accentuate different fundamental concepts. For example, this particular piece is inspired by the astrological Age of Aquarius, which is foretold to bring a reclaiming/rebalancing of feminine energy in the world! The petals of the central flower burst through and penetrate the little tetrahedrons around the edge. Certain shapes and forms in sacred geometry tend to represent certain archetypes, like straight lines for masculine energy and curved lines/circles for feminine energy.

February: “LEGO Asclepeion”

Above art: “Asclepeion”, LEGO bricks

I designed this LEGO building based on the “Asclepeion”, which were holistic healing sanctuaries in ancient Greece. The idea behind this project was to make an enclosure for a working essential oil diffuser. I made a whole post on this project you can read here. The page includes more photos and a couple videos showing the essential oil diffuser working!

March: “Digits of Pi”

Above art: “Digits of Pi”, digital illustration

I made this as part of an art contest to commemorate Pi Day (March 14 = 3.14, Pi = 3.14159265…). It shows approximately the first 1,000 digits of pi all spiraling out from the center. The spiral form is related to the January theme of sacred geometry. The spiral depicted here is an archimedes spiral, which has equidistant concentric circles. This evokes the simple mathematical form of pi as the ratio between the circumference and diameter or radius of a circle (pi = circunference/diameter). This type of spiral is also very useful for fitting in the numbers in a tight space. Nature - the best source of healing - features spirals based on the Golden Ratio/Fibonacci Series.

What is meaningful to me about this art piece is that pi has a simple geometric formula but the numbers spiral off the page and into infinity. Pi is an irrational number, meaning that its decimal digits go on FOREVER and NEVER repeat. So this art piece is a little snapshot of inifinity. It reminds me of the Big Bang, with the source of the cosmos emanating out from a singularity in the middle. It is both simple and complex, with chaos in the order and order in the chaos.

April: “Pachamama” and “Liberation”

Above art: “Pachamama”, pen and watercolor

Above art: “Liberation”, pen and watercolor

These were both very intuitive/subconsciously-done drawings with no thought about the outcome before drawing them, like I do with my intuitive drawing sessions.

Pachamama was drawn for Earth Day, depicting Gaia (Earth) as a conscious being much like ourselves. Like us, Earth senses and feels and weeps like we humans do. While Earth weeps it also sustains life. Making this I thought of the pain and suffering Gaia endures to support human life as we evolve our consciousness. Like a sacrificing mother, Gaia endures the pain to support us and love us unconditionally. I hope Gaia and humanity both survive.

“Teach me the ways to dissolve my smallness, and receive the divine vastness, as it beckons me to unfurl my joy.” -Aryze

“Liberation” is sort of an inversion of “Pachamama”. It puts humans as the centerpoint and depicts humanity supporting and giving back to the Earth, holding up our mother like Atlas, all with profound Joy.

May: “Chalk Mandala”

Above art: “Chalk Mandala”, sidewalk chalk

I walked through an outdoor shopping center one day and saw chalk set up outside a store for anyone to use. So I spontaneously made this mandala. It’s just a reminder that art can be made anywhere, with anything, for any reason, for any duration of existence.

June: “Illuminated Shadow” and “Distillery of Light”

Above art: “Illuminated Shadow”, pen and watercolor

Above art: “Distillery of Light”, pen and watercolor

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” -Carl Jung

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” -Rumi

Like April’s art, these were both intuitively/sunbconsciously drawn.

For me, “Illuminated Shadow” conjures memories of “The Tower” card in Tarot. The Tower represents a structure in one’s life, that with fire or lightning symbolizes that it’s time for that structure to collapse. The structure usually represents an element of the shadow, like a limiting belief system or addiction. For me this art represents how connecting to the Earth’s energies - the natural rhythms of life - illuminates our shadow and transforms our darkness into a beautiful multicolored prism.

“Illuminated Shadow” represents phase 1 of the healing journey - individual awareness and transformation. “Distillery of Light” represents phase 2, where we learn to work in cooperation and harmony with others also aligned with the light. With a little help from the hand of the Creative Force/God, we learn to harness raw light potential into beautiful collective works of art.

July: “Free Spirit”

Above art: “Free Spirit”, digital and algorithmic illustration

I made this art to go with a metaphysical insight I had about the connection between freedom, structure and the present moment. Here is the post with a simple explanation. Someday I may elaborate on this idea!

August: “Camping Trip” and “Impregnated with Light”

Above art: “Camping Trip”, digital photo collage

Above art: “Impregnated with Light”, pen and digital color

The title of the first art is a play on the word “trip”, inspired by sacramental entheogenic journeys I’ve taken while tent camping. The legs and tent are mine from a photo I took, with extra effects added to symbolize/simulate those consciousness-expanding experiences.

“Impregnated with Light” is a recent illustration I made during CoSM art church. The theme for that moon was “sacramental culture”. The art represents what entheogenic journeys are for me: being infused with the light and love of higher consciousness/Source/God.

September: “McKinney Falls State Park”

Above art: “McKinney Falls State Park”, digital photo montage

McKinney Falls State Park in Austin, Texas is the site of some of my most profound experiences communing with nature. Nature has always been my primary healing balm and source of inspiration!

October: “Hopi Prophecy Fulfilled”

Above art: “Hopi Prophecy Fulfilled”, Digital illustration

This art is inspired by the great Hopi Prophecy, fortelling the reunification of the 4 Nations of Earth. I love that it transcends the mainstream narrative of certain cultures being victims and certain cultures being perpetrators. Of course there are many ways to improve how people are treated at personal and systemic levels and cause less suffering, but I believe that the mainstream politically-correct narrative is quite biased, one-sided and closed-minded. Below is an excerpt of the prophecy from the Bahai Library site:

“At the beginning of this cycle of time, long ago, the Great Spirit came down and He made an appearance and He gathered the peoples of this earth together – they say on an island which is now beneath the water – and He said to the human beings, “I’m going to send you to four directions and over time I’m going to change you to four colors, but I’m going to give you some teachings and you will call these the Original Teachings and when you come back together with each other you will share these so that you can live and have peace on earth, and a great civilization will come about. … To the South, he gave the yellow race of people the Guardianship of the wind. They were to learn about the sky and breathing and how to take that within ourselves for spiritual advancement. They were to share that with is at this time.

To the West He gave the black race of people the Guardianship of the water. They were to learn the teachings of the water which is the chief of the elements, being the most humble and the most powerful. When I went to the University of Washington and I learned that it was a black man that discovered blood plasma, it didn’t surprise me because blood is water and the elders already told me the black people would bring the teachings of the water.

To the North He gave the white race of people the Guardianship of the fire. If you look at the center of many of the things they do you will find the fire. They say a light bulb is the white man’s fire. If you look at the center of a car you will find a spark. If you look at the center of the airplane and the train you will find the fire. The fire consumes, and also moves. This is why it was the white brothers and sisters who began to move upon the face of the earth and reunite us as a human family.”

November: “Connecting with the Roots”

Above art: “Connecting with the Roots”, colored pencil

This art is based on one of the most profound songs I’ve ever heard: “Let It In” by Ayla Nereo. It speaks to my soul so deeply. It beckons us to tune into the deepest parts of ourselves and live our soul’s purpose with courage and adventure!

Here’s a Youtube playlist I made with multiple powerful versions of the song.

December: “Starseeds”

Above art: “Starseeds”, digital illustration

I made this art to go with a poem I wrote in a poetry group I attend. You can read the poem and view a morphing version of the art here!

END

Thank you for traveling through the year with me! I hope some of the art and reflections brought you peace and/or joy 🙏🏻💖🎨

Healing is different for everyone, and this is primarily a log of my own healing journey.

*“This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” 😁

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