Yellow Leaf Press

Spider Woman's Hands - second edition published!

2010-08-21T14:05:00.003-07:00

"What might we see, how might we live
if we saw with a webbed vision?
The world seen through a web of relationships
- as delicate as spider’s silk,
yet strong enough to hang a bridge on."

Catherine Keller

I finally finished my second edition (much more comprehensive) of my limited edition art book

SPIDER WOMAN'S HANDS - Weaving a Webbed Vision

and published it (with my other books) on Blurb.com. It is $35.00 to $50.00, depending on whether it is purchased paperback or hard cover, image wrapped.

It's been a long time coming, the result of about 10 years of fascination with the native American "legend of the Spider Woman", and five performance events and community arts projects. I hope Grandmother Spider Woman is pleased with it, and I await (and invite) others to whom she also is important to write to me, and contribute to this continually evolving book.

" The new myth coming into being through the triple influence of quantum physics, depth psychology and ecology suggests that we are participants in a great cosmic web of life, each one of us indissolubly connected with all others through that invisible field. It is the most insidious of illusions to think that we can achieve a position of dominance in relation to nature, life or each other. In our essence, we are one."

Anne Baring

"What is the new mythology to be,
the mythology of this unified earth
as of one harmonious being?"

Joseph Campbell

Excerpt: In indigenous cultures, cultures with oral traditions, stories don't end after two hours in a theater, or when we turn off the electronic box. Even today, when we talk about “spinning a good tale“, like the hands of Spider Woman, we’re participating in something that keeps spinning and evolving, generation into generation, from the waking world to the dreamtime, back into the past, and forward into the stories of those who are yet to come. In various native arts, a spider and womb motif is ubiquitous: because Spider was the first weaver, bringing order and form, balance and symmetry to primal, formless chaos from within herself. From her essence she spun the strands that became the first stories that became the world. The Navajo (who call themselves the Dine`) revere Spider Woman (Na'ashje'ii sdfzq'q) for teaching them how to weave. To this day, an infant Navajo girl will have a bit of spider web rubbed into the palms of her hands so she will become a good weaver. Wool rugs often have “Spider Woman's Cross” woven into the pattern, representing balance, the gestalt of the four directions. Navajo weavers also often leave a flaw in the work - because the only perfect web is that of Grandmother Spider Woman.

"May we all rub a bit of spider web into the palms of our hands".

Welcome to Yellow Leaf Press!

2009-05-14T23:05:00.004-07:00

It's fall in New Mexico and the brilliant leaves of Cottonwood trees float in the Rio Grande, like golden coins winking at the sky. It's been my pleasure and privilege, complements of new technology, to be able to publish four books that span over 30 years of my career as an artist, writer, community arts facilitator, and occasional mystic. These are limited edition, beautifully illustrated art books I'm proud to offer.

With the new print-on-demand technology a spectrum of unique, rare, and innovative works have become available to collectors that never would have been possible before. Whether they achieve wide distribution or not, they exist to be enjoyed now and preserved for the future, thanks to innovators like blurb.com

Lauren Raine, 2008

The Masks of the Goddess

2009-04-21T20:23:00.006-07:00

THE MASKS OF THE GODDESS - a 7 year project.

to order: Preview the book at Blurb.com

I began my project in 1999, when I made 20 multi-cultural masks for the Spiral Dance, an annual event held at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco by the Reclaiming Collective in honor of Samhain. Making the masks meant considerable research for me - exploring the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe, or imagining, from archeology or medieval alchemy, what the face of the Sumarian Goddess Lilith might look like, or Inanna, or Sophia. I wanted to know how these stories were conversant in my own life, and as I worked, I began to understand why certain Goddesses had always been important to me, such as Hindu Kali and Tibetan Tara. In psychological terms, I found I had internalized two universal archetypes of the Great Mother: the "Dark Goddess" and the "White Goddess". But this did not do justice to the intimacy I felt.

In 2000 I deepened my understanding of mask traditions by studying with Ida Bagus Anom and other Balinese master mask makers in Mas, and there I extended the series with a number of collaborative works, which were exhibited at Buka Creati Gallery in Ubud. As the project has evolved, producers and cast members have contributed writings, performances, insights and little miracles to the story of the masks, filling them with energy. No artist could ask for more, and I'm privileged to offer this book in 2009, documenting this 10-year project, and the women and men who dance the Goddess back into the World, and have brought Her many faces into the hearts and imaginations of many.

Included are writings, interviews and excerpts from M. Macha Nightmare, Mary Kay Landon, Ann Weller, Elizabeth Fuller, Brooke Medicine Eagle, Grey Eagle, Erica Swadley, and many others. And wonderful photographs by Peter Hughes, Thomas Lux, Ann Beam, and Ileya Stewart.

To learn more about Stories of the Goddess, visit the "Masks of the Goddess" section of my website. All of these stories are in the book as well.

AVAILABLE THROUGH: BLURB.COM

EXCERPTS:

SARASWATI
Patron of the Arts

Love is Saraswati's river
flowing through our lands.
She will feed the rice fields,
She will accept our woven offerings.
She will bear our ashes
and the fires of Kintamani
to the sea.

Formless,
she neither takes nor gives:
we impose these significances
upon the flowers we cast in her.
From birth to death,
Saraswati's river
sustains us to the sea.

I Made Sura Warini
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The Latin word for mask is persona. And masks are all about circles, the round of changing personae that encircle our souls. We’re all made of many personalities, wearing, in the course of our lives, many life masks. Our faces are dissolving before our eyes daily, through time and space, the "I" we bring to each passing experience and role. And beyond the last mask is the mystery of spirit. How can we dance more lightly with the mask that is ever changing? One way is to observe well what masks we create for ourselves, and respect the power of the masks we wear, becoming self-aware shape shifters within the mythic conversation that is taking place all around us. "

Valerie James as "Sophia", 2004

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Grandmother Spider Woman is the divine Weaver in many Native American creation stories. Her web is a shining web of spiritual, human and ecological relationships. When we do ritual about Spider Woman we are weaving ourselves into the Great Web of relationship, strand by strand, story by story. "

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pomona was among the Numina, guardian spirits who watched over people, places, or homes. The Numina were, in essence, the holy spirits of place, from which the word "numinous" derives. Pomona protected and inspired the abundance of the fruitful gardens and orchards. She had her own priest in Rome, called the Flamen Pomonalis. A grove sacred to her was called the Pomonal, located not far from Ostia, the ancient port of Rome.

All Images and Text are Copyright Lauren Raine, Thomas Lux, Peter Hughes, Ann Beam & Ileya Stewart.

Spider Woman's Hands - Weaving a New Web

2008-11-08T05:31:00.013-07:00

“What might we see, how might we act, if we saw with a webbed vision? The world seen through a web of relationships…as delicate as spider’s silk, yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.”

Catherine Keller, From a Broken Web

Spider Woman in Native American mythology is the great weaver who spins the world into being with what she imagines. Also called "Thought Woman" (Tse Che Nako), the story of Grandmother Spider Woman has many profound meanings for our time. It is a quontum vision of the world - a way of seeing "with a webbed vision".

$50.00 plus shipping. Available in hard cover from:Blurb.com Bookstore

SPIDER WOMAN SPEAKS.....

You don't need to climb a mountain
to get the big picture!
All its snaking rivers and twining roots
Are inside of you!

All those threads
come right out of your hands
and right out of your hearts
and just go on forever

into the Earth,
and into each other,
and into all your stories

into everyone you'll ever know

all those who came before you
and all those who will come after you.
All One.

A House of Doors

2008-11-08T04:11:00.015-07:00

A HOUSE OF DOORS
~Open Poems~

1971 to 2004

by Lauren Raine
Felicia Miller
Joanna Brouk

Available in hard cover from:

BLURB.COM BOOKSTORE

I don't believe we can know who we are without re-discovering those people who had a lot to do with who we were, and who we became. In 2004 I found a treasure in an old cardboard box. A collection of poetry written by myself and my friends some 35 years ago when we had the good fortune to be young in Berkeley in the halcyon days of the early '70's. Many of them I illustrated. I'm delighted to publish these poems and art finally - and to add to the mix over 30 years of poems that reflect my journey since. Joanna, Felicia, thank you. Wherever you are, we were beautiful.

FOR THREE WEEKS

the cool moon
bound by occult cords
moves
through the houses
of memory and sleep
distills night in a bowl

But on the night of the full moon
what is mirrored
in a still pool?

Felicia Miller (1972)

IT WAS ONLY
three strands of hair
falling across an eye half closed
a flash of green light, curtain of eyelash,
a snapshot in my memory book

where you exist still
the moment unlost
expanding, weightless

All images and text
copyright
Lauren Raine MFA,
Felicia Miller Ph.d.,
and Joanna Brouk

(2008)

The Artist's Oracular Cook Book

2008-11-07T07:45:00.017-07:00

~ Divine Recipes for the Muse ~

"Art is food for the Soul. Bon Appetit."

In the summer of 2005 I was blessed with a residency at the Artist's Enclave at IPark in Connecticut. At the time, I was exploring my own version of the Tarot, and playing with the idea of Divination cards. It's an IPark tradition for each resident to contribute a special "cocktail recipe" when they leave. And so, in the course of that magical summer of art making, The Artist's Oracular Cook Book became my contribution.

Ask the Muse a question and then pick a card. It works for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Available in hard cover
with dust jacket or image wrapped from: BLURB.COM BOOKSTORE

More than you can imagine is possible.

The most important
ingredient

is believing
that it's possible.

When the Sun is shining - Play!

in the dappled play
of light and shadow,
the amazing rainbow
~palette of color ~
the purple taste
of grapes, of lemon grass,
pearls of raindrop epiphanies
strung on a shining cord,
iridescent gleaming words
crystallizing
on a pristine page......

A Feast!

Take good care of your work.
Nurture your creativity.

Protect the children
of your imagination.
Avoid people
who talk you into being smaller
than you really are.

And anyone or anything
that wounds your enthusiasm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All images and text copyright Lauren Raine MFA 2008