The Birth of Green

I know I've been shamefully absent here, and I plan to make up for that really soon, but there are a couple of projects going on that I'm struggling to complete...



(If you press the image, then hit "all sizes," you can see more detail, for example the scenes in the doorway, or the feathers...)

Story by Vesna:

Some people believe the Green always existed, born at the same time as the other colors.
Some people don't ever think about it. They would just say: "The color is here now, so why does it matter when it was born?"
Some people are curious.
For you, here, now, the story unfolds.

In the Kingdom of Artisania, there was a Black forest. In the middle of the Black Forest, there was a Blue castle. It was built a long, long time ago and it still exists today. 
Princess Zoe loved everything in the Blue castle: the Blue stairs and the Blue plates, the Blue rooms and the Blue fountains, the Blue flowers and the Blue birds. 
She was painting and she painted Blue even the things that were not Blue, like her brother's hair. She loved to drink tea from her Blue cup, sit on her Blue rocking chair and imagine the world outside of the Blue castle. 
For Princess Zoe the Blue was not just the color, it was fluidity, a movement, a life. For her the Blue was not a destination or a history or a decoration, it was a way to go.
 
Now close your eyes for the moment remember the Blue and step into...

The Yellow Sanctuary was not so far away. It was on the hill at the north side of the Black Forest. There was a Yellow brick road around it and the walls inside were painted Yellow. The hill was covered with Yellow dandelions. Goddess Vesna took care of the Sanctuary. She would give shelter to the travelers: make them Yellow sweet dandelion honey tea, give them clean Yellow blankets and plant a sunflower with bright Yellow petals in the garden to honor every visitor.
For Goddess Vesna the Yellow was not just the color, it was the Sun that she worshiped, a brightness, a warmth; a happiness. For her the Yellow was not a destination or a history or a decoration, it was a way to go.

One day Princess Zoe decided to go out and explore the Black Forest. She set out on the trip with a Blue backpack and she brought her Blue cup, because she felt something magical would happen if she did. That same day Yellow Sanctuary was visited by travelers from China. They came in search of the sweet dandelion tea, to please their Emperor who was keen to try it. They brought with them "Pai Mu Tan", White Peony Tea. To honor her new visitors Goddess Vesna set up festive Yellow tables outside and brought out new Yellow cups. She served teas with Yellow Honey and everybody was having a good time. The chatter from the crowd was echoing through the Black Forest.

The Blue cup led Princess Zoe to the Yellow Sanctuary, pointing the way like a compass. She joined the others in the tea ceremony. Goddess Vesna was very curious about the new visitor. She liked very much the Blue color that Princess Zoe brought with her. It was fluidity, a movement, a life of the Blue that blended so well with a brightness, a warmth; a happiness of the Yellow.

It was a magical day in Artisania.
There was a flow of the Blue, there was a ray of the Yellow and a new color was born, the Green.

For Princess Zoe and Goddess Vesna the Green was not just the color; it was a magic of friendship, a beauty of new discoveries, a never-ending joy of creativity.
For them the Green was not a destination or a history or a decoration, it was a way to go.



---Vesna

Notes from zoe: this tea seemed to me to take place in a dream-world. So for this painting, the two kingdoms are in the same place at the same time, which sort of de-solidifies things--through the doorway, you are seeing the yellow kingdom, pieces of it floating in honey, before time or space have put them in their "place."
The flowers in the windows are peonies. According to "a contemplation upon flowers," Asclepius, the son of Apollo, was physician to the gods. "Because of his great knowledge of herbs and healing, he was called Paeon, meaning helper. Thus, the early doctors were called paeoni because of their affinity with that early healer and because of the use of the peony plant in their practice..."
The association of peonies with the moon suggested it as a remedy for lunacy (an old name for the peony was Rosa Lunaria), as well as nervousness, epilepsy, and liver obstructions..." Peony root beads were strung together to ward off illness and evil spirits through the 19th century. So again, this garden Vesna and I are building is filled with remedies for insanity--the insanity of this world, that is, by the creation of a more magical one, one where many, many new things are possible. Here, the peonies creep in through the "window" in this indoor/outdoor space somewhere between the blue kingdom and the yellow sanctuary to drip their essence into the tea.

But I had an additional reason for adding the peonies. Vesna and Silvia and I have recently made some attempts at Remote Viewing, the practice of sending and receiving images telepathically. In her first attempt at "sending," Silvia focused on an image of white and red peonies from her garden, which I saw as bursts of bright white light. So here are her peonies--and here are the three of us enjoying tea together on some other plane...
--zoe