SnakeBathDance

>> ONLY 3 DAYS LEFT!! SEE THIS ZEN BOOK OF HOURS PROJECT MAKE ITS GOAL AT http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/834546273/the-zen-book-of-hours?ref=live

A proud member of the MakingChange Team
and the European Street Team at Etsy!

Here you'll find prints and cards of all images: paintings and the Zen Book of Hours series (see also its own shop for the originals: www.ZenBookofHours.etsy.com ).

ZEN BOOK INFO:
These little paintings are part of a larger project. The series is inspired by an earlier work, Zen Pine Needles, in which I painted many small watercolor portraits of individual pine needles. It was a Zen exercise to get me through some tough times, finding the deep love in those little things we overlook in our daily rushing lives. Here we are in tough times again, and this path is a way through the maze.

For this project I’ve undertaken to make a new painting for each day, again a portrait of some little botanical detail that’s commonly overlooked. The palette will change with the seasons and at the end I’ll publish a fat little book, each page containing one meditational image for the day. That will be the Zen Book of Hours.
This is a modern version of the Medieval Book of Hours, a tradition of handmade illuminated books containing prayers and illustrations for each day, or seven times a day (the Hours), in order that the owner could pray in concert with monasteries throughout Europe.

In this case the calligraphy is Nature’s, without human words.
The resulting book will be a way in which the owners, scattered through the world, can be mindful in concert with each other and these Garden Sprites in further years. These little paintings are themselves seeds.

"SNAKE BATH": is the direct translation of Schlangenbad, the little town in Germany where I live most of the time. Me and the snakes.
For more than a thousand years it's been a healing place ("bad" or bath/spa), with hot mineral springs bubbling through the steep little valley on the edge of the Rheingau. The Romans brought their temple snakes, Äskulapnatter (Zamenis longissimus), and they went native. It's the only place in northern Europe that these snakes live. These snakes are depicted on the medical symbol, caduceus, from the temple of Äsklepius, student of Chiron.

EURO SHOPPERS: Please see my Shop Policies section for payment in Euros. I'll make it easy and familiar for you.

A PROUD MEMBER OF THE ETSY "MAKING CHANGE" TEAM.