The Metaphorical God of Good/Bad?

When I was down in Byron Bay last weekend for the Byron Bay Writers Festival a painting of a magpie on a branch of a monstera deliciosa plant with a halo behind its head caught my eye.
The original painting was priced at $900, so I asked if there were prints of the painting for sale and yes there were, two different versions of the same work of art.
One version was the original white background and the other had a red and white spotted background similar to a mushroom skin I thought.
I liked the shamanic connotations that these prints represented to me.
The white background print to me represented the everyday world of the ordinary rational world and the red background print reminded me of the hidden/occult shamanic world of the here, but at the same time beyond that overlaps this world we live in.
The red and green print is also an excellent metaphor for trying to describe the hidden world to those who can't see ... or choose not to see it.

For those of you who are colourblind, the
meaning of life is staring you in the face:-)

Try explaining the colours red and green to a colourblind  friend who thinks you are pulling his/her leg when you talk about being able to see things that they can't comprehend.

Or sight to a blind person who has never been able to see in their lifetime. 

Monstera deliciosa

"The specific epithet deliciosa means "delicious", referring to the edible fruit, while monstera means "monstrous," in reference to the sheer size that this plant can grow to--over 30 feet in many cases.

The fruit of the Monstera deliciosa

Common names include fruit salad plant, fruit salad tree (in reference to its edible fruit, which tastes similar to a fruit salad), ceriman, Swiss cheese plant (or just cheese plant), monster fruit, monsterio delicio, monstereo, Mexican breadfruit, locust and wild honey, windowleaf, balazo, and Penglai banana.

The names in Spanish (costilla de Adán) or Portuguese (costela-de-adão) or French (plante gruyère) refer to the change of the leaves from entire to fenestrated (comparing it in the first case with the ribs of Adam and in the second with the hole-filled gruyère cheese).

In Mexico, the plant is sometimes referred to as piñanona."

We had a monstera deliciosa plant growing on a backyard of my childhood home and my parents prized the fruit that would grow on it.

Me not so much, in fact not at all.

When I asked the artist's partner about what the gold disk represented, he told me it was meant to be a halo as the magpie was a god of good/bad, the mystery was meant to be that when the bird appeared to you, you never knew whether it was to tell you something good was about to happen, or something bad.

I've always seen the magpie as good personally, as I have yet to be attacked by one and I seem to get along fine with them.

I have heard of children losing an eye to magpies during breeding season, as that's what they are going for when they swoop at you when they see you as a danger to their young.

Which is ironic when I have raved on about shamanic vision overlaying the ordinary world that we live in.

The magpie prints reminded me of the old Chinese story of good luck/bad luck.

Interestingly, I just listened to the latest podcast at 'Future Fossils' which pretty much touched on the themes that I see in the magpie prints - 

FUTURE FOSSILS 0037: EXCAVATING THE FUTURE WITH “PAISLEY-ONTOLOGIST” MICHAELANGELO AKA VOID DENIZEN

This week’s guest is “The Ungoogleable” Michaelangelo, who all-embracing creative life is as difficult to describe as he is to find via conventional web search.

“You were a paleontologist, originally. I’ve always considered myself a ‘paisley-ontologist.’

A paleontologist will excavate the soil in search of fossils and a paisley-ontologist will excavate the present for fossilized perceptions.

So I’m always looking for these kind of nuggets, linguistic impressions or etymological traces that lead us from the present into this sort of timelessness, or this subconscious of words and symbols.

I look at the world as a sort of Rorschach Worship Workshop…”
The Ayahuasca Monologues - Michaelangelo

How about a red/green Rorschach test?-)

LAILA PAGE

Laila's art really resonates with me on a deep level, and I know I'll be buying more art from this artist who is tapping into the super-conscious whether she knows it, or not.

Check out Laila's art at her Facebook page, because if like the Libra in me of the other side of the cusp I was born on, I think you too will want to hang some of her art on your walls.

UPDATE: 10th September, 2017

These are the framed prints hanging on my living room wall.