People travel to wonder

at the highest of mountains,

at the huge waves of the sea,

at the long courses of rivers,

at the vast compass of the ocean,

at the circular motion of the stars;

and they pass by themselves without wondering.

St.Augustine 399 A.D.

Dwayne Rourke & Teresa Wild

Our painting rituals usually begin by fasting from suppertime on the evening before the New Moon until the time we begin painting the following evening. During the day we shop for and prepare a sumptuous evening feast of finger foods.

We prepare the physical space for our sacred ceremony by cleaning it and tidying it. We tend to paint mostly by candlelight so we place new candles on all our altars. We bring in fresh flowers.

Once we begin our ritual, we smudge the whole space with white sage and sweetgrass, making sure to include our painting materials. Playing in the background is our favorite music as we take a scented and purifying bath. Upon exiting the bath, we dress in loose flowing clothes and move to our sacred ceremonial blanket.

We gradually open to a heightened state of awareness through an extended period of silent meditation, touch and eventually, sexual embrace. Our intention in taking this approach is to fully sensitize and honor our bodies as sacred vessels being asked to translate into concrete form potent higher dimensional energies.We are consciously inviting the serpent of evolutionary energy residing at the base of our spines to rise up through our chakras. This is a form of yoga specific to the second chakra and is known as tantra. It has been practiced in the yoga traditions of India for thousands of years.

Our final preparations involve reviewing whatever written materials we have regarding the hieroglyph and number specific to the date of our New Moon ritual as seen within the context of The Lightning Path. Some of this information is noted in a small journal set aside for these ceremonies only. We may draw a divination card or two from various decks and make note of this information as well. We then approach a prepared blank canvas with brushes and paint at the ready. We take turns at first but invariably we find ourselves working simultaneously as the details of the image reveal themselves.

We try to come to the process with total receptivity and openness, with no preconceived ideas of outcome. We keep in mind the Lightning Path hieroglyphic information for the current Moon cycle, through its keywords and symbols. Sometimes they show up directly in the imagery, but not always. We are constantly amazed and excited with the results which manifest over the course of the ritual which is often not complete for two or three days.

We very much consider what we are doing here to be a labor of Love and we intend to regularly share some of the results of our process on this website. In keeping with the nature of conscious lunar cycle attunement, we intend to post our documentation as soon as possible after each New Moon. We hope our documentation will inspire you in your own creativity.

Click here or the above image for documentation of our New Moon painting rituals.

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