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RED
OCHRE – Hematite
Red stone, pink cliffs,
dark pebble with iron at its heart.
Life, blood, remembrance,
sense of the sacred, inspiration, birth of creative power.
I leave my handprint
on a stone beside a painted glyph of my new name. |
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YELLOW
OCHRE – Limonite, Goethite
Flames in sunlight.
Wind-polished metallic brown geodes filled with ochre.
The Road, diligent preparation
and ritual, confidence.
I fly the spiral path,
wrapped in a net of golden feathers, trailing a braided rope of fire. |
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GREEN
CLAY – Glauconite, Celadonite, Volkonskoite
Leaves, caterpillars, lichens.
Bubbles in pondwater, shadows in the deep forest.
Embracing Earth, speaking
to the land in small secret places.
I shape a sacred vessel
while the cool wet earth sprouts tendrils around my hands. |
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WHITE
EARTH – Chalk, Kaolin
Egg, bone, shell, flint.
Old turtle shell full of quartz pebbles. Light at the edge of the forest.
Revealing what is hidden
under tangled roots. Truth and doubts.
I wear an antlered mask
of clay and ashes to see into the earth with the eyes of snails. |
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BLUE
OCHRE – Vivianite
Mussel shell, fossil mammoth
ivory, fossil snail filled with blue dust.
Winter, Ice Age, Iron Gate,
transformation. STORY & ART:
Blue Shell Woman
I cross the Oldest River
on glacier gravel to claim a flute made of bone and iron. |
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BLACK
EARTH – Charcoal, Charred Bone, Black Shale, Magnetite, Mn Oxides
Burned roots, petrified
wood, iron meteorite, desert varnish, tar-filled geode in oily clay.
Death, emptiness, dark moon,
test or symbolic destruction in preparation for rebirth.
I am a lodestone in a
black mirror of oil in a cage of charred bone under a burned tree. |
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PURPLE
OCHRE – Purpurite, Mn-rich Clay, Metallic Hematite, Cuprite
Earthsmoke drifting from
fallen leaves, delicate cup fungi sprouting on burned ground.
Trance. Living, travelling,
and seeing in two worlds.
I claim the seer's gift
of fragrant smoke. |
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COPPER
EARTH – Malachite, Dioptase, Gaspeite (Ni, not Cu)
Ancient bronze, malachite
on a boulder, moth eyes, foxfire.
Divination, ancestral knowledge,
rebirth in a new form.
I become a cold phosphorescent
glow in an ancient lamp. |
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TURQUOISE
- Azurite, Chrysocolla, Turquoise
Windy heaven, round sky-colored
pebble, mountain bluebird in clouds.
Peace, clarity, resolution.
I wrap myself in a healing
cloak that grows room for other life. |
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PINK
EARTH - Pipestone, Pink Clay
Wild plum flowers falling
on rose quartz, tiny white feather in a rhodochrosite snail fossil.
Compassion, heart of the
Earth Goddess, comfort and return to the source.
I journey through windy
pink clay canyons, and find Her at the center of the maze. |
