Category: Eco Guardians

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PAUSING. REMEMBERING.

Painted by Donna Alena Hrabcakova‎

PAUSING. REMEMBERING

September reminds me of the days where one had the leisure

to jump into a pile of leaves 

carefree no worries about the existential crises of NOW.

Wind brings in the random dance of the falling ones 

turning into a kaleidoscope of magical hues.

My favorite being brilliant red and burnt sienna

Taking my breath away. 

PAUSING. REMEMBERING.

The cycle of Autumn presents herself in Her own timing.

I feel the rhythm within myself changing. 

What I see before me. 

Remembering why I am here. 

What my purpose is.

Are you re-remembering yours?

Painted by Donna Alena Hrabcakova‎

PAUSING. REMEMBERING.

Those whom passed in the summer and knowing it is a new season without them. 

I like to think an Ancestor will fly into my crabapple trees and visit. 

It happened for awhile this summer a beautiful red tail hawk hovered in my tree,

which seemed like minutes or hours all colliding. 

Our eyes truly connected.

I knew it was someone whom loved me once so much. 

I knew it was true. 

PAUSING. REMEMBERING. 

This Labor Day I reflect on the meaning of why I create. 

What purpose it serves and maybe it doesn’t move but only a few.

I am not needing to be famous.

I only want to be heard.

Connecting to the trees the leaves the intercommunication of the living planet

telling me it is time to release what no longer serves me. 

I feel the quietness moving inside me. 

The need for more psychic silence for the soul.

I don’t question it because it happens with every turn of the seasons. 

I must make the time to create and set boundaries that will not be interrupted.

These are the Sacred Hours of the Day.

PAUSING. REMEMBERING. 

I carry on one foot in front of the other and know each step holds the imprint

of my mother and father 

my grandmothers and grandfathers 

my great grandparents 

the beautiful lands they left in Eastern Slovakia. 

Each step 

Each word 

Each brushstroke is telling 

me this. 

Lest I forget. 

I do not want to forget. 

Autumn embrace me with all your narratives.

Let me be one vessel that carries it all back into the dirt and soil 

full of purpose 

communicating to all whom will listen.

Stories buried and released in the awakening that lies ahead. 

In Lovingkindness, Donna Alena 

THOUGHT FOR YOUR ART: What is your mission statement in your art?

Let’s think about why we create and what are we hoping to communicate in the forms of art we manifest or are given to us from Sources unknown.

What is your part in the collective unconscious of stories, storytelling, novellas, films, music and how you live and express yourself?

I am listening. 
Tell me your statement and I will begin my also. 

PAUSE and REMEMBER. 

These are my words today. 

OUR ART IS THE CEREMONY to heal ourselves and so many.  

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ECO GUARDIANS

I love to look at the journey of my paintings for it is an utter surprise, an alchemy of process.  I am in a subconscious state when I paint, I do not sketch out ideas ahead of time I just let the brush be my guide.  I suppose it is being a Visionary or a Soul Artist unsure of what the result will be but trusting in the process.  I see all the symbolism in my art reflecting on the world and what seemed to call out to me most was the word: ECO GUARDIANS.  I was not sure if this word existed but upon my searching I found the words being used in the Maori Tradition: Kaitiakitanga. This means one whom is a guardian, protector or conserver.  This traditional role is important with the Maori Peoples.  They help shelter the lives and species around them.  They help foster and preserve these traditions generation to generation.  This role means speaking to the land, the waters, the air, the sea and all forms of life as a living entity and one that connects us all.  ALL of these entities have their own individual sovereignty. This ideology knows that we are not greater than the animals, planets, trees, we are part of the fabric and web that we share intrinsically together.  We co-exist and must survive together in a language of sacred reciprocity and respectability. 

By Donna Alena Hrabcakova

My house is full of what seems like 200 paintings or more over the last two years.  Images of shamanic birds, horses, Indigenous Peoples, plant life, bears, Ancestors, Spirit figures, fires, water ways, sacred landscapes and so much more come alive in their own narratives.  I feel I just show up but know I am never alone.  I just finished writing about INTERCONNECTEDNESS and have been contemplating on this relationship of being an ECO GUARDIAN for days now.  Can a lake, river, sea life, plant species, a pack of wolves or whales be a part of our subtribe of humanness? We are all connected and one thing I see over and over in my paintings is we are not alone.  When I picture the children being all alone on the Border I wondered whom would comfort them in the night? I dreamt of a large red makwa Ojibwa bear that held the children so they were never alone despite the fact that employees were not allowed to hold the children at the detainment shelters.  This to me was heart breaking. I decided to create a narrative that no one would suffer not even animals if they were alone through my paintings.  Being a guardian means one respects all of life and comforts them to the best of their ability. Even the art we create can have protective boundaries.   I pictured those whom were abused in an exhibition I was in called THE LONG RED LINE: ONE BILLION RISING in Chicago focusing on the voices that had been silent. The atrocities were happening world wide yet I created a narrative where red bears, spirit birds, Zulu Warriors, birch bark trees comforted the night sleeper and held all their truths and sorrows.  I felt if I could change the narrative of such pain maybe it would comfort someone on the planet.  Surely the role of the ECO GUARDIAN cherishes all life and helps to alleviate suffering in even one life. If this is what it meant then surely one persons’ pain abated would not be in vain. 

By Donna Alena Hrabcakova

Spirit Horses went through the fires of California, the Amazon, Siberia, and places all over the planet in my paintings warning of the fires to come.  They brought rain and allowed the water to dissipate the pain of all that was being burned.  ECO GUARDIANS brought the best healing they could in the situation and a source of resurrection.  Water Protectors were brought more springs of water flowing at their feet.  Taos Deer Dancers performed the dances that would help the coldness of winter to bring forth the right ingredients of light and warmth for a new growing season. Meanwhile the New Ancients, the ones originally on the cave wall paintings brought forth hope in the dire of circumstances that in the waning hours of the sun and moon the planet Earth might be able to keep breathing and surviving.  

By Donna Alena Hrabcakova

How can artists be ECO GUARDIANS? First of all you can not be afraid to protect the innocent.  Safety is an illusion in these times but we must step up.  We must validate what is right through our voice, our paintings, our poetry, our songs, our spoken words, our actions.  I am re-writing a new narrative, it is not naïve or sugar coated.  I am well aware of what is happening keeping up with literature, news, writings reflective of the times. I also know we are hungry for solutions, for ways that beauty can dispel the pain and sorrow.  Books, paintings, films and so many forms of art can explore how can we take care of all the planet and ourselves. The time of being guided by the ego is over.  Deceased.  We must care for one another or we will not make it.  Our very breath and lives depend on it.  Extinction of landscapes, plants, animals, water and so much more is real and we know that with acute awareness from the devastation of the burning of the Amazon now. I challenge all of you followers to take a good look at what is happening.  Do not deny it. I want to see what creative solutions you come up with in your processes, dreams, day dreams, and flights of fancy.  Sink your bare feet into the earth if it is warm and feel  the breath of the Mother, in her winds, the trees, the whispers of signs given to your eyes and ears only. She is speaking to us all the time.  Let us write this new narrative. Are you wanting more to this existence? I urge you to join me as an ECO GUARDIAN.  Can I count on you? Let me know what you thinking, writing and creating. 

We are in this together… In Lovingkindness, Donna Alena

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INTERCONNECTEDNESS

I laid in bed meditating on the last few paintings I created (with assistance from my subconscious helpers) on the AMAZON and the FIRES.  I asked for guidance what these paintings were about and what they were trying to communicate to myself and all of us.  I heard the word very loudly in my minds eye, INTERCONNECTEDNESS.  I thought of what the ravages of the fires meant in the Amazon with millions of acres burning, Siberia and all over the world currently. I knew since we exist on a living planet this effected us all because it is all energy and ripples to where ever we live on the planet.  I felt so deeply that my heart was hurting, what is this doing to us psychologically? The death of so many species of life discovered and undiscovered, animals, bird life, Indigenous Peoples and the changing of their narratives, stories retold, insects, the dependency of interspecies.  We are connected intrinsically.  Do you feel the burning of the Mother in some way? How? Does it effect you? Do you feel hotter than usual? Is your anger or grief manifested in some level unexpressed? Do you notice the disconnectedness we feel around us to avoid talking about what really matters now, how we continue to live on a planet that is burning, flooding, getting hotter and hotter year after year? Do you feel the avoidance? Do you see it with more acting out and violence? And, meantime shallow discussions continue, and we don’t address the core of what really is happening as denial feels so safe or at least it offers an illusion of safety that these events are not taking place? I cannot and refuse to live in that place of complacency and denial. 

First, I am an artist with every fiber of my being. I know the writers, artists, musicians, creators of gardens, novels, poetry, films, dance, storytelling can be a catalyst of change.  I would like to think as we get our work in the public domains that we can change the narratives.  We can write the truths, is it uncomfortable? Yes. Painful and even traumatic? Yes.  But we no longer have the luxuries of denial.  We depend on one another.

We are INTERCONNECTED.  What happens to humanity through devastating events trickles into our fields of energy.  We needed these plants, animals, people, villages, communities, stories to be a part of the Universal Narrative as they burn what does that mean to you and the place you live on the planet? Do not think the area you live in is not a possibility of future events?  This home is a living organism and it will keep having it’s evolution.  We absolutely cannot escape that.  I think at this time on the planet we are dealing with what is true and what is not. Climate change at the most intense and dire levels are being recorded now.  This is true.  There is a chasm between honoring and offering sacred reciprocity to the planet and honoring ourselves and others in a good way.  Do no harm. You ask how we can do that?

One small ripple of extending kindness is a start. A kind word.  Reaching out to someone in need with no concern of how it will benefit you but how it will help your neighbor.   Recycling, being conscious of your water intake, composting, zero waste, eating no meat, gardening your own organic foods with no pesticides we know of all these possibilities. Living in respect of one another and the planet is a act or prayer of gratitude.  Having deep conversations with others about these issues helps.  Reading literature and books that guide in changing the narrative helps.  Creating a painting of contemplation helps.  I know we are all so busy but what if we chose one thing to volunteer our time to weekly?  One hour or two? Giving back to a cause or agency you strongly believe in? I love teaching art classes to high risk students or working on creating safe environments for others to gather and share conversations with. Painting is always my medicine. Listening to your dreams and intuition, it rarely steers you wrong.  

AIRIA OF THE AMAZON, RAIN MEDICINE, ELLORA OF ECUADOR, and THE CHILDREN ON THE BORDER all came to me without premeditation. So many of my paintings do, I say this humbly as I do not know the magic that will enfold till I start the process.  Our paper, our canvases, music sheets are bursting to translate messages. This will be the new planetary language.  It is a new language we are learning through interconnectedness, one of co-existence.  We have no other choice if we really want to make it.  Our lives count on it.  Our breath and all that lives and breathes on this planet counts on this.  It’s beyond the stage of urgency which leads me to the next topic of being ECO GUARDIANS. I am still in the process of writing this entry.

Thank you for consideration of these words. 

I must write them.  I am asking you to please contribute your storytelling and narrative to this piece.  I want to hear from you.  I am counting on you.  Till we meet again…

In Loving Respect and Kindness, Donna Alena

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HOPI WOMAN WITH YELLOW SNAKE PROTECTRESS OF THE EARTH

I have laid in bed thinking of all the paintings I have done since Blair died. My beloved. At first I thought the bulk of my work was about losing him so quickly and unexpectedly. I was devastated beyond all words and the only healing that worked for me was painting.  I have been in my studio painting continuously since his passing 2 years ago.  When I am not working, I paint; it is my healing medicine.  What I realized was this was my ceremony for grief.  Along with the grieving process, I grieved for the United States, the devastation of global climate changes at such a rapid rate and the pain of our leadership and where we were headed.  I realized in the process I was painting about the Mother Earth and all the events that were happening at an exponential rate.  I was grieving at such a deep level and my dreams became more and more prolific and vivid.

This is a painting that came to me in my dreams.  I saw a Hopi woman going through the earth with a large yellow serpent as if she was a Guardian of what was to come.  I asked where she came from and heard “Guatemala.” I had this dream before the insurgence of the refugees from Central America were heading this way at such a devastating rate.  I saw her as a HOPI woman, and she was on a journey to Texas and New Mexico.  This was before the detainment of what was to happen in Texas and on the border.  I was told in the dream she was protecting the pathway of what was to become before us.  Then, the detainment camps happened, and the pain of the suffering and deaths of all those trying to leave Central America escalated.  It is not easy to be a visionary in these times but our roles are so important.  I know the artists are needed with such urgency.  I feel this deep in my art and dreams. 

This Hopi woman speaks of the moment of catharsis.  Please write your stories, poetry, paint and pay attention to your dreams.  We are at the crossroads and the time is now with urgency on every level.

My next post will be on Eco Guardians and being a Warrior in these times.  

Thank you so much for reading this and for your journey with me. 

What will your write, paint, create today?

Love and Undying Hope,  Donna Alena