Squid Angel Blessings: Fire Bowls and Fire Pits

I'm on a mission to "dominate" my yard this summer.  It's a big yard with lots of trees and flowerbeds.  The last few years parts of it have gotten out of control.  I have always loved bonfires, but now we have restrictions on when and how big we can burn.  Put that together with seeing  my neighbor's pretty fire pit the other night and that led me on a search for a lens about gardens and places to have a fire in them.  I found Small Patio Designs and then Fire Bowls and Fire Pits by the same lensmaster.  These are beautiful lenses that have me salivating and eager to get back out in the garden.

Squid Angel Blessings: Voodoo Veves

I'm a psychic medium and I started learning about voodoo from the loas (or spirits) themselves before I met this lensmaster, Voodoomama.  One day an old black man came into my consciousness.  He was funny and made me laugh.  He wanted me to call him Mr. Peanut.  It wasn't until several years later when I started spending time with Voodoomama that I ran across something that said that Papa Legba loves peanuts.  That's when I knew, without a doubt, who that "old man" was.  He is a trickster at times, and he sure "tricked" me with the peanut thing.

He is also the gatekeeper into the Otherworld.  If you want to communicate with any of the other voodoo loa, you have to start with him.  That seems to be one of my functions in life, too, and I was born on April Fools Day so it's no wonder we are connected, even without my being a voodoo practitioner.

Voodoomama has written a great lens about Legba.  You can see it here:  Papa Legba.  But the lens I've blessed for today is about the veves, or ritual symbols of voodoo.  Each symbols represents a different loa.  Learn more about them here:  Ritual Symbols of the Gods and Goddesses:  Voodoo Veves

Squidoo Angel Blessings: Paper Dolls and Tarot Art Dolls

Paper Dolls

When I was a girl in the 1960's I loved my paper dolls.  I still do, I guess, as my favorite part of being in the online virtual world of Second Life is buying and changing the clothes of my little puppet self (or avatar).  I also got to play with my mom's paper dolls from the 1930's and 40's.  The gowns were so glamorous!
A Paper Doll Childhood, created by KarenTBTEN, has a lot of useful links and resources as well as pretty pictures that inspire me to want to get out my old paper dolls and play with them again.


Tarot Art Dolls

I have long had an interest in tarot cards.  These days I access my intuition more directly but there is still something very alluring about these cards that are like illustrations without a written story.  I also love the relatively new fiber art form of making "art dolls"...dolls that don't always represent the human form as we know it.  So I was happy to find a lens about Tarot Art Dolls by MeltedRachel, one of my favorite artist lensmasters.  She writes about her inspiration, shows the initial sketch, the painting, and then the doll.  Cool!