Painting & Drawing through the cycle of the year with the Calendar of the Soul - FREE OFFERING!
It is easy to feel separate from the natural world in our high-tech, busy lives and it is easy not to take the time to connect with our inner worlds either. So, I have started to draw and paint to pay attention to and to connect my inner and outer worlds.
Each week, I use one of the simple prompts devised by artist, Laura Summer, to complement the weekly verses that follow the seasonal cycle of the Earth, from Rudolph Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul. You could buy a copy of her book or use the emailed prompts that I will make available to you.
Just to be clear! I am not an accomplished artist, but a dabbler, using watercolours and watercolour pencils or crayons or whatever comes to hand. You can use whatever media work for you.
This is not about the outcome, but the process of paying attention to, and connecting, our inner and outer worlds.
I would love you to join me!
We humans are part of this world
We tend to forget that we are part of a planetary living organism, Earth or Gaia, born into human form. Like us, the earth has a continuous cycle of breath, breathing into stillness, as winter approaches, and then out into the abundance of summer.
Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul
Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul is a series of verses, one for each week of the year. It provides a path for experiencing the seasonal cycle of the living earth and for allowing our soul ( or inner essence or identity as a child of God ) to resonate with the world.
“To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.” Rudolf Steiner
To connect through the verse for the relevant week is like looking outwards to sense what is moving out in the world, and inwards to experience what is moving in us, at the same time.
It doesn’t really work to try to understand the verse with our thinking mind, but we can read it or listen to it, then explore its energy and qualities and how these resonate with what we see in the world and what we sense inside ourselves.
Where are the verses?
The verses are available in many translations on this page and on this one. You can buy a book of the verses, such as the one by Owen Barfield, for a few pounds. You will find what speaks most clearly to you, if you explore.
Drawing and painting can help us explore the verses.
By drawing or painting you can provide an experience of inner movement in relation to the progress through the earth’s cycle.
You might choose to keep your work in a journal or a folder or to journal about what you experience. However, this is not about the end product but the process.
There is no need for artistic skill, just a willingness to engage in the process. You can use whatever media you choose to: water colour paint or crayons, pastels, oil crayons, graphite pencils, coloured pens.
I invite you to join me in drawing and painting the verses from the Calendar of the Soul🌳
There is no charge. Sign up below 👇🏼
Monthly Zoom art session:
On the first Sunday of each month at 3.00 pm GMT/BST, we will meet on Zoom, share the verse and the prompt, then paint or draw together quietly for 90 minutes.
WhatsApp Group for sharing:
When you sign up you will also receive an invitation to an optional WhatsApp group where we can share our artwork.
As Laura Summer suggests, our artwork is like the footprints we leave across a sandy beach. They are not perfect and we can still turn around, look at them and love them.
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