Scratchy Moon (Against The Grain), a Moon Mandala, oil pastel & colored pencil, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Against The Grain (August Moon)
Yellow flower moon
the corn is in silken maize
8th moon, plum moon, hot moon
shedding summer feathers,
Red cherries turn to black,
the drying up moon —
After the berries ripen on the mountain
and the geese in chevron begin to fly
I’m dazed, standing here in human confusion
crying, what next?
-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, September 21st, 2008
-related to posts: The Many Moons Of July (Digging Deeper), winter haiku trilogy, Coloring Mandalas, Squaring The Circle — July Mandalas (Chakras & Color)
This mandala is a lovely accompaniment to the poem. Together they create an almost frenzy, dizzying energy of many promises (or potential disappointments) and transition. As the cliche goes, expect the unexpected!
I love the haiku-like feel of the poem.
Thanks for sharing!! Oh, and I love working with pastels, albeit they are pretty messy. lol 😛
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a~lotus, thanks – you captured the energy well – dizzying, promises, potential losses. And when you describe it that way, I realize that it’s not an energy I usually associate with the Moon. But August felt that way to me when I looked up and connected with her.
Yeah, the oil pastels are messy, aren’t they. That’s one of the things I like about them. When I work with them, I can’t really be doing anything else because my hands are covered with all the different colors. They also tend to get under the nails. I use a lot of scratching with the fingers. They are kind of like finger painting that way.
In August and September I introduced a new medium, something I purchased at the MN State Fair. They are a type of marker I hadn’t used before. Kind of fun. More to come on those later. 8)
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QM, I love the energy in this moon drawing. And the texture of colored pencil on pastel reminds me of scratch board. But what I love most are the colors and how you combined them. That yellow-green is one of my favorite colors, and it contrast well with the pink.
The last stanza of your poem is so raw and heartfelt. It’s powerful.
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ybonesy, thanks. I love scratch board. I like to get my fingers and hands involved in most all the art I do. I hadn’t realized how much that color is kind of a yellow-green.
I was watching the Moon a lot this month, trying to figure out her colors. They change so much, depending on where she is in the sky, what time of year it is, what time of day I’m looking at the Moon. It’s fun to track it over time. And keeps me realizing that Earth is not the only planet or sky body out there.
Funny, there was a show on the History Channel last week about Roswell. It really makes you think about all that stuff that went on in New Mexico in the 50’s and 60’s. The sky is so HUGE there. You can see almost every star. 8)
Some nights in the silent retreats, I would walk out of the zendo and into the gravel parking lot at Mabel Dodge (remember that sound of walking on the gravel there?) and just keep slow walking and looking up. The silence and the lack of external distractions in a silent retreat really open you to connecting to something bigger. One time I swore I felt the expansiveness of some kind of Higher Power in the Big Dipper.
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QM, was just visiting blogs and came across this shot of the September moon (LINK) on Robin’s (Bountiful Healing) blog. Thought you’d appreciate it.
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ybonesy, thanks for the tip. I just checked out Robin’s shot of the September moon. It looks so much like the blood red moon in Minnesota this month. Really great shot by Robin. Also love the ocean at the bottom of the shot. You can barely make it out.
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