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shona.collaborationswithnature
Oct 31, 2023
In Diving Into "DAKINI PATH"
I have been thinking and feeling a lot around the river of blessings lately and making some artworks with the idea. Connecting drops of water 💧and drops of golden nectar. Yesterday sitting in a prayer room watching a 'fake' butter lamp flame I saw the drop become the flame 🔥. It was a lovely realisation that this form contains both these elements and their characteristics of fullness, fertility and promise with passion and transformation. Up and down simultaneously in the heart of compassion.
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Oct 02, 2023
In Diving Into "DAKINI PATH"
Today as we set out on the new DAKINI PATH - An Integrative Pilgrimage to VAJRAYOGINI in the Contemporary World - I glanced down at my table to see the refraction of light through my glass of water. I thought ohhh could this be an expression of the Vajrayogini's subtle body? I took a photo and had a play with it. Blessings
🙏
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Aug 30, 2023
In Subtle Body & Therapeutic
I see I am just like the shimmering sea
I love sitting on a high cliff watching the sea in it's perpetual flux in any weather. Today I was thinking about the subtle body and there is was below me - reflecting perfectly my inner sense of the subtle body. Thank you Vajra Dakini for this teaching!
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Aug 28, 2023
In Diving Into "DAKINI PATH"
Today was the last gathering for this Dakini Journey and it was so uplifting! We shared our experiences and the creative projects inspired by them. I was astonished and deeply moved by each of our different experiences and expressions in poems, as story telling from the opera to japanese tea ceremony, as artworks and as installation performance! EMAHO! It was so deeply delightful and nourishing being transported into these dakini worlds of silence, monsters, earth elements and whirling dances.
I want to thank all the dakinis who were on this sacred journey - together we make more magic for the benefit of all beings! What a great way to 'finish' this joruney as we 'begin' another in the NEW DAKINI JOURNEY coming up. I am so grateful and excited to keep exploring Dakini with Khando La's new book and all the wisdom and fun she, Dakini and the Sangha brings to this path and lineage.
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Jul 20, 2023
In Journeys & Retreat
During the recent Cho Retreat I offered this artwork and poem for the Tsok feast as i wasnt able to attend in person. So i would like to share it here with an additional connection that I have made with the shadow art image.
I have found this image very compelling since it was created and i couldnt quite put my finger on why. Initially i connected it to the Celtic Selkie myth. Yet there was something here being revealed but what was it? During the final Kakyabma - Pervading Sky transmission and commentary I was seeing this image in my mind as we 'imagined' the Cho charnel ground. My skin laid out on the ground and a hungry ghost coming in to feed (or having fed, leaving), connected to my actual body through my feet. Suddenly it made deeper sense.
Shona speaking the poem
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Jul 20, 2023
In Meeting the Dakini!
i just had an encounter with a dakini in a bikini (i think) at the beach. She was 77 and as spritely and soft as a child and wise and kind like a mother. We had a chat about being loved and loving and she told me ALL of me was loved - at which i started to cry.... we talked about Jesus and Buddha being inside us. We talked about stillness and deep listening and the all knowing that arises from there, inside us. She called our encounter a 'divine encounter' and told me the rocks that we had both chosen to sit were a healing place. We parted without any attachment and a scent of silence . Afterwards i felt lighter and needed to be quieter. I have been running around alot - inside and out.
Later at home thinking about Buddha nature and the stillness and safety of that i saw in a different way how really being in the present moment fully awakened is the mechanism how we can help all beings at once. The present is the infinite - i dont have to run around to help, being still in the present moment is the miraculous key to helping everything. I suppose this may be called Ultimate Boddhichitta? I think this dakini in a bikini allowed my heart to crack open a bit more and then this thought could be understood more deeply. I will try not to forget it. Feeling deeply grateful for another dakini surprise in my life. EM A HO I love that Dakini ryhmes with bikini and often think about it haha!
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Jun 04, 2023
In Diving Into "DAKINI PATH"
Well after mixing up time and missing the 1st sharing meeting I thought to share this way instead of my very visceral experiences this week of entering Ratna Dakini in the form of cave visits in Northern Spain and Vajra Dakini making her presence loud and clear as the shaper of the earth and the endless current of manifestation which we are swimming in together. The Palaeolithic ochre dot marks of our ancestors spoke to me as a metaphor for the infinite current of creation. I am working in a real river trying to spontaneously play with the currents and revealing the dots that also appear within its flow - the small vortexes of 'solidification' appearing out of a fabric of ripples. It's been an astounding connection to make.
With gratitude to the Dakinis.
Endlessly Giving and Receiving.
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shona.collaborationswithnature
May 01, 2023
In NEW Dakini Journey
Sometimes I recognise when my art making process aligns completely with the teachings of our lineage and I am taught in a direct and experiential way through this creative act - it is quite phenomenal and very exciting when it happens! Making a new work in a different medium opened me up to this teaching of how forms evolve and dissolve out and back into the vast spaciousness through Buddha Dakini. The first image was the first work in the pair and originally the only one i was going to make. It is called SEEDING and is made from moulding Japanese paper over the seeds and seed pods or the 2nd work (called RECEDING) and as empty pockets of air with a thin translucent form they 'appear' from the white spacious background, half formed in the rocess of becoming a solid . And then the second image is called RECEDING since once a form is solid it is already changing back to vast formless space. I deliberately used the form of a droplet referring to a droplet of timeless awareness nectar - and so it was! I spent hours digesting and thinking and feeling how this was revealed to me - it was so enriching. I hope it can speak to you too !
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Mar 10, 2023
In In the Charnel Grounds
Today in the Dendok Chikma Cho practice with KL and the sangha I had this feeling of flowers bursting from my heart as we were guided in meditation into Prajnaparamita. Suddenly (and momentarily) I felt an outpouring of joy and compassion. This is the image I had in my mind in a very rudimentary drawing. May all being benefit 🌸😊💞
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Feb 25, 2023
In Meeting the Dakini!
I found 3 fragments of driftwood walking along the beach. I 'saw' that they could fit together and form this passing-cloud / sky-dancer / dakini. I have been posting little 'episodes' of her movements on social media and it was just today that I made the connection to the 3 principles of practice, Renunciation, Bodhicitta and Wisdom. I have called her PUZZLE and her attributes have been that she is totally at ease in any environment and responds to what is there with non-attachment. She has become a bit like a personal avatar for me. A teaching tool. I have her 3 parts in a bag and every now and then I take her out for a walk and place her in random different natural situations. Sometimes she finds aids like wings or puts on a hat for fun or flips upside down or spins her head around. She is very versatile, curious and responsive to any place she finds herself. I called her Puzzle because she is a bit like a jigsaw and the nature of Dakinis is quite puzzling. She has become a bit like a yidam for me. This way of connecting the teachings is 'serious fun' for me. Please enjoy some of her antics of embodied wisdom as she flips and flits and lounges in the aspects of the 5 dakinis ! Her play continues !
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Feb 05, 2023
In Subtle Body & Therapeutic
In todays SBT experience we explored Fox dakini and energy. The fox is often referred to in mythology as a trickster, using its cunning, alertness, sass and focus to turn things around or upside down! This attribute aligns with Coyote energy too. We discussed other manifestations of fox such as jackal, dingo and wolf. It is so meaningful to embody the animal. Feeling into the way it moves creates a sense of being the animal. The human aspect dissolves a little more - i LOVE this. So being a fox today and tapping into its alertness and awareness of its surroundings I spotted a little Coyote sculpture from Mexico on the shelf behind me. Also its the anniversary of my mum's death and I am beginning slowly to see her very dakini-like qualities. She had red hair at one stage and was as energetic, flighty and focussed as a fox! Here is my coyote/fox/mum addition to my altar at present. Reminding me to look with attention, be a bit crafty and leap around with glee.
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Oct 24, 2022
In NEW Dakini Journey
I met Ratna Dakini when i created an artwork for an environmental art prize. I didn't win that prize but the bigger prize was in the emergent encountering and creation of her. As I played with images of an ephemeral artwork i made on the beach around a rock a figure appeared - howling and/or singing. I imagined 'her' singing and howling out all of creation, replenishing and restoring the earth. So she became The Songstress - Rhythms for Regeneration. I felt her power ad capacity for nourishment and destruction as I made her. When i had finished the artwork I saw reflected back to me Ratna Dakini. Pics of the process end to beginning
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Oct 16, 2022
In Subtle Body & Therapeutic
A few days ago i made this 'artwork' carving out two meandering lines through the layer of discarded waste deposited onto the beach from storms. It wasn't until later when i was playing around with the images that i made the connection to the body mandala and the subtle body mandala! I work intuitively and non-conceptually when i make works in Nature, using what I find available to me at different times and locations - in everyday life. Here are the images which brought to life (for me) the pranic channels inside/outside our bodies as realms and deities of the subtle body or inner dakini. Also an image of the original large scale line work in situ which then i realised was like a charnel ground where i had chopped or sliced through the layer of detritus to reveal the golden nectar pathways underneath. For me this was such a profound and viseral experience and teaching from my 'artwork'. Today in our class I had these visuals of my and universal subtle bodies in my mind and it really expanded my experience. I hope it resonates and benefits you too !
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Sep 25, 2022
In NEW Dakini Journey
This week in the SBT KL described a position we were in as 'leaning forward with your heart dripping its nectar onto the ground'. I felt that image as a reality expressed through my body and it stayed with me the whole class. Resting in awareness at the end I had this vision of multitudes of dakinis and/or golden nectar pouring out of the heart centre. Here are my 2 very quick drawings of that imagination/feeling. One on the earth, the other in the sky.
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Sep 25, 2022
In NEW Dakini Journey
Last week I visited the state Art Gallery which has quite a good Asian Gallery and an exhibition called ELEMENTAL. I was excited and surprised to see a large Vajrayogini displayed as the initial image/manifestation at the entrance to the show! The first 'artwork' was this incredible 21st Century adaption of Buddhist teachings in the form of a video game video "The Great Adventure of the Material World" - by Lu Yang. Astounded and entranced I watched it and highly recommend it - not the usual 'form' of teachings - it must be the Dakinis at work! Here is a link for the video : https://vimeo.com/673837345 ps. I am not usually attracted to the 'gaming' genre - this is amazing though....
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Sep 21, 2022
In NEW Dakini Journey
I came across this image of a sculpture "Outpouring" by an Australian artist Sue Ferrari and was struck by how it resembles the image I have in my mind of Golden Nectar Tea Offering I participate in with the DW group on Mondays. How beautiful an interpretation of the imagined vision I have of transforming 'ordinary tea' into 'timeless awareness nectar' and what a useful tool for visualisation! Dakinis come in many forms!
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Aug 01, 2022
In Journeys & Retreat
Recently during the Troma Nakmo Retreat, Khandro La spoke about imagining Vajrasattva Father Mother Union as white figures but crystalline clear white. I had been playing with creating a 'natural' representation of Stainless Clear Light, as it is part of my new refuge name which I had received from KL the day before, and was very excited about. I was surprised that the image I had created the day before with the Sun, seemed to me to fit perfectly the description of Vajrasattva Heruka. This is a less conceptual and abstracted form - yet it seemed to resonate. Please enjoy and utilise if it calls to you. Blessings and thanks Shona (Drime Osel Lhamo)
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Jun 25, 2022
In Subtle Body & Therapeutic
I wanted to share the pre-dawn outlook which inspired my SBT class focus on Buddha Dakini this morning. Such immense beauty 🙏
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Apr 26, 2022
In Meeting the Dakini!
All the dakinis visited my backyard a few days ago - literally pouring in a shower of rainbow light. What a blessing to experience this! During the 5 Dakini Practice I particularly love the part where you visualise all the dakinis returning into Buddha Dakini in the centre and becoming a light shower but I never imagined it like this before 😍💦🎶 - so grateful
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shona.collaborationswithnature
Apr 04, 2022
In Journeys & Retreat
I was inspired by Dan's beautiful art expression post of Machik Lobdron in the 'Meeting the Dakini' category to share some of mine too. This first one is of a feeling/vision I had whilst practicing the 5 Dakinis. It is my heart opening and expanding with billions of pink lotus petals ( but this is just a quick pencil drawing to capture the feeling of it). What a glorious feeling - i hve it on my fridge as a reminder. Thank you for the teachings Khandro La! What a gift you offer us.
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shona.collaborationswithnature
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