Angels and Meditative Thoughts

 

"Angel of the Timeless Garden" ©Mary Montague Sikes

Angels have always intrigued me. Over the years, I've been inspired to paint them, but I never knew quite how I wanted to portray these magical, celestial beings. Sometimes abstract elements attracted me, but the results didn't seem quite right. Then, I began making a Christmas card each year, using a newly created, realistic pastel drawing or watercolor/acrylic painting of my special angel.

For several years, I worked in mixed water media, often using Yupo for my ground and applying the beautiful and intense Robert Doak watercolors to it. Sometimes I put the paint on canvas instead. I have loved the results.

"Steadfast" watercolor ©Mary Montague Sikes

 When I read Conversations with Angels by Judith Marshall, it occurred to me that my paintings on Yupo make an important connection with the universe. With these paintings, one can become "locked into the universe". One can focus on meditations to connect with spirit guides and guardian angels. These paintings were the device I'd been seeking in my readings and in my art.

In her book, Marshall describes how to visualize for a meditation to meet your guardian angels. I like the idea of sitting in a quiet place and meditating in this manner. Except I put up one of my paintings on Yupo or I pick a page in my new Artful Angels little hard cover book for the coffee table.

This is the poem that came to me in my meditation vision for the World Healers Conference in 2013:

Charm is not a vision nor a feel.

It is music in the universal sky.

The night turns vivid green

And your journey is not far away.

 

Your travels aid knights of vision.

You heal with color and light.

Your thoughts are set to lure

So inside the beauty lingers.

 

I like to watch the sunlit sky

And by that means the truth does bind.

Follow close and follow hard

Hear the sounds of birds and flowers.

 

Animals touch the universal star

And lead you through the journey home.

Do not wait.

Touch it now!   

©Mary Montague Sikes                   

Much of what I see or hear in meditation is poetic. Try focusing on a painting and see if you have a poetic response to color and light.

My book, Artful Angels is available from Amazon.

 

 

Being a Baseball Fanatic

Mark McGuire signing for me

 "You're just a baseball fanatic," my mother used to tell me.

She was right. As a 10-year-old, my love for the St. Louis Cardinals began, and it has never ended. Over the years, I followed the team with Stan Musial, Enos Slaughter, and Red Schoendienst, listening to late night radio as the signal bounced cross-country from KMOX, the voice of St. Louis. I dreamed of studying journalism at Washington University because I truly wanted to be a journalist and I wanted to be in St. Louis.

But life took its own turns. I kept listening to and watching the Cardinals, but I also graduated from high school and college (not in St. Louis), had a family, played tennis all day long every day during the summer months and almost forgot about baseball.

But not quite. 

At the end of the 20th Century and in the beginning of the 21st, my passion for the sport elevated almost to fanatical once more. Perhaps it grew because I started following Mark McGuire's home run record chase in 1998. I remember watching "Big Mac" approach breaking the record while we were barricaded in a room in a scary part of San Juan, Puerto Rico. We were stranded in the city during a holiday when all the rooms were taken. We eventually found a room in a hotel unlike anyplace we ever stayed before. What a calming relief to get to see my team play with so much on the line for Mark McGuire.

Tony La Russa at manager's party

Not long after that, we discovered baseball spring training in Florida. It was a joy to see players up close, chat with them, watch games, and attend the manager's party arranged following selected games at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida. That was a dream come true. In the photo, I became the little 10-year-old girl again in 2007 during spring training following the team's World Championship victory in the 2006 World Series.

That spring training was one of a series we have attended every year. Next February, I hope COVID-19 will not put an end to the unbroken string of years in Jupiter.

This year's World Series ended last week. Soon after, Tony La Russa, Cardinals Hall of Fame manager for many years,  came out of retirement and signed as manager of the Chicago White Sox. That was the team where he started his managerial career many years ago. I began remembering past times and longing for spring training to begin. 

Then, I became concerned the team will not look the same. Cardinal catcher Yadi Molina might not be there. 

If that happens, the little girl in me will be sad. But as in all things, baseball teams change. And I will still be a fanatic. Even in late fall and winter.

TV announcer Al Hrabosky, Yadi Molina (middle)

Intrigue and Glory - the U. S. National Parks

 

Canyon Changing Light ©MM Sikes

Over the years, my husband and I have visited numerous national parks. When we were first married, we took a crazy bus trip across country to California. It was a real adventure, and it featured our first visit to the Grand Canyon.

We spent a night at the famous El Tovar, and I recall standing near the canyon edge outside the lodge and marveling at the colors far away on the other side. I marveled even more at the light changes as sunset approached. At the time, I didn't know that the El Tovar was a famous National Parks Lodge. I was disappointed because we had to share a bathroom with others staying there. However, I later discovered you have to book a year or two in advance to get a room in the El Tovar.

Often, when we travel to Sedona AZ, we take a side trip to the Grand Canyon and to El Tovar. We have driven around the canyon, north to south. When our two oldest children were young, we took them there on a cross-country trip. The venturous little girls frightened me when the got too close to the edge of the canyon.

©MM Sikes

The photo on the right was taken from an airplane window during a more recent visit to Arizona. The Colorado River winds through the canyon walls.

The Rocky Mountains and the National Parks associated with them fascinate me. When I attended art graduate school, my graduate thesis show was of Rocky Mountain paintings. Over the years, I have drawn and painted many scenes from those glorious rugged mountains.

Grand Canyon Wall  ©MM Sikes

 

 

 

This pastel painting is a study for a large 7-foot long acrylic painting I created of the Grand Canyon.

Painting the canyon is an addiction. I will paint it again and again.

And write about it, as well.

 

 

 

"Canyon" pastel ©MM Sikes

 

Listen to the Sounds

Spirit Visions ©Mary Montague Sikes

“Listen to the sounds of birds and flowers.”

A few years ago, when I was planning my program presentation for the World Healers Conference in San Diego, California, those words came to me in a meditation. During that conference, I gave a demonstration of how I create meditation paintings for people who request them. Those words helped me plan my part of the event.

Words often have meaning beyond the obvious, so sometimes we need to stop and think hard before we speak or write. That is especially true for me when I am painting or creating intuitively.

“Listen to the sounds of birds and flowers.”

If you live in the woods, like I do, you hear the birds a lot, especially in the early evening. Do we pay attention to their chirping or agitated cries? If we listen closely, perhaps we would learn to understand what they are saying. Some people, especially birdwatchers, study the sounds of the birds and have learned a lot doing so. It is interesting to read that birds learn songs from their parents, usually the father. Often bird calls are designed to claim their territory.

Flowers make sounds, too. Some plants emit high-pitched cries when their branches are cut, or so I have read. I haven't heard a flower or plant cry out, but I believe they do, in a pitch too high for us to perceive. 

"Spirit Visions", my watercolor painting on canvas, is the cover art for my book, Spirit Visions Soul Songs. I've included it here because I think of the sounds of birds and flowers when I look at it. 

Study the painting and perhaps you will hear them, too.