Etiqueta: Inspiration

We’ll bloom next year

This is a youtube channel about a bonsai sensei and his student. They discuss trees and their behaviours in a small, contained scale, which makes it easy to read into metaphorically and find parallels to human behaviour. This particular video is about the azalea bonsais that didn’t bloom this year. Satsuki means azalea in Japanese, which also happens to be my middle name.

Mariachi in times of Covid-19

I saw this video of groups of mariachis serenading health workers at a hospital treating covid-19 patients in Mexico City. I thought it was a beautiful and powerful image. It made me feel hopeful.

Mictlán

In Aztec cosmogony, the xoloitzcuintle –a black, hairless dog– is responsible of carrying souls along the river of the underworld. The underworld, or Mictlán, is divided into nine different realms, each a part of the process of shedding your possessions, body, and heart to eventually become your essence and meet the god Mictlantecutli to become one with everything again. This journey takes four years. 

– In the first realm, if you are kind to dogs in life, the xoloitzcuintles will guide you through the Apanohuacalhuia river, where Xochitónal, the giant iguana lives. This is the border between the world of the living and the dead. However, If you were not kind, you will get lost, become a shadow, and have perpetual ear pain because the air next to the river is cold.

– The second realm is the place where mountains collide, and in order to cross, you have to do so at the precise time, or else you get crushed by them. 

– The third realm is where you have to walk along a mountain trail made of sharp obsidian. The wind is very strong here and sheds you of your possessions. 

– The fourth realm is a frozen area with sharp rocks and it always snows.

–The fifth realm is a region of strong winds and no gravity, so souls are at the mercy of the direction the wind takes. 

–The sixth realm is a broad path where invisible hands shoot sharp arrows to your body.

–The seventh realm is where wild animals open your chest and jaguars eat your heart. 

–The eighth realm is where the Apanohuacalhuia river ends, and the souls have to cross nine deep rivers of the state of consciousness, in order to get to the other side of the valley.

–The ninth and final realm is a foggy place where souls can’t see, and their tiredness makes them reflect on their lives. Here souls become one with everything and stop suffering. Then, they meet Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacíhuatl, the god and goddess of death. 

Psychopomps

Psychopomps literally translates to “guides of souls”; it has greek roots and refers to creatures in different cultures responsible of guiding the newly deceased to the afterlife. Some are depicted as anthropomorphic entities, dogs, horses, or birds.

Kelpies

Ben told me about kelpies and I found the Scottish mythology surrounding water and death very, very interesting.

«Kelpie scares man»/»The Kelpie» (1913) by Herbert James Draper

In Scottish mythology, kelpies are aquatic shape-shifters that haunt rivers in the shape of horses.

“The kelpie may appear as a tame pony beside a river. It is particularly attractive to children – but they should take care, for once on its back, its sticky magical hide will not allow them to dismount! Once trapped in this way, the kelpie will drag the child into the river and then eat him. These water horses can also appear in human form. They may materialize as a beautiful young woman, hoping to lure young men to their death. Or they might take on the form of a hairy human lurking by the river, ready to jump out at unsuspecting travelers and crush them to death in a vice-like grip. Kelpies can also use their magical powers to summon up a flood in order to sweep a traveller away to a watery grave. The sound of a kelpie’s tail entering the water is said to resemble that of thunder. And if you are passing by a river and hear an unearthly wailing or howling, take care: it could be a kelpie warning of an approaching storm. But there is some good news: a kelpie has a weak spot – its bridle. Anyone who can get hold of a kelpie’s bridle will have command over it and any other kelpie.”

Zugvögel

This is a piece I heard at the Aberdeen Sound Festival composed by Carola Bauckholt, who is a German composer. The piece is called «Zugvögel», which means «migratory bird».

Masks and Death

An anthropologist friend of mine shared this gif, and I was not sure where the masks where from because a lot of Latin American folk art share considerable similarities. I found the source and realized it is part of an Apple Brazil ad made with the iPhone 7’s portrait mode around Carnaval time. It got me thinking of the tradition of masks in Mexico, and how they usually depict demons or spirits. I’ve put masks on characters I’ve illustrated before, where death is involved.