The Root Chakra

I starting taking an 8-month Creativity and the Chakras workshop with my friend, Jill Kelly.  We take on a project during the 8 months - mine is build a sustainable creative practice.  As part of the workshop (sort of an assignment for myself), I'm doing a collage or piece of artwork for each chakra.  That's the root chakra collage I did last month - full of food and nourishment, roots and bones, earth and family, heritage and home.

(If you're wondering what the heck a "chakra" is, it's essentially an energy center in the body which is associated with various emotional, physical, and spiritual attributes.  The wikipedia article is a bit overwhelming, but gives you a bit of an idea of what we're talking about here.)

The root chakra is located at the base of the spine or perineum, and is your connection to the material world and the physical body you inhabit. It is associated with the color red, survival, security, courage, family, heritage, fight or flight instincts, roots, bones, self-preservation and earth.  You get the idea.  

Here's the first root chakra collage I did, back in 2009, as part of preparing for a chakra collage class I taught.  It's a lot more food and nourishment and grounding energy (see the shoes??) than the other one.  

 

You might think that after doing one collage for each chakra I'd be done.  But I'm not.  You can see the similarities, the differences . . . each time I explore the theme, I get something different out of it.  The 2013 collage has more roots, more bones, and more of my own painting and drawing. 

Though apparently, no matter where I go, there's a bird.