Wooden Stamps and a Dryad

 Yesterday I received a beautiful new set of wooden block stamps in the shape of various spirals, including the druidic triple spiral or 'triskele'. I sometimes see this symbol written as 'triskelion', which I gather is a Welsh form of plural. I wonder which is correct?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to using these beautiful stamps in my mixed media art.

In other arty news, I've been working on an air-dry sculpture of a dryad or tree spirit. Her face was made using a silicone mould, and the rest of her is clay smoothed onto a wire and foil frame. Here are some photos of her progress so far:

Today I completed Exercise 2 from Bardic Booklet #3 - Sensing the Aura. Not much to report. It feels like an exercise that bears repeating, perhaps many times as part of regular meditation.

Exercise 3 from Booklet #3 - Personal Associations with the Four Elements

Completed - most of my associations are not unusual, although I do associate Water with both East and West. This is because I live in the center of England, in easy driving distance from both the East and West coasts. I have a stronger personal association with water/sea in the East due to this being the nearer coast and the one I've visited most often, but a stronger cultural association with water in the West. This is due to having absorbed elements of Paganism since my teens.

Some personal associations:

North - hard work, strength, hardiness, working class, countryside, cold weather, ancestors, sincerity

East - Sea, childhood, memory, dreams, freedom, swimming, wisdom, holidays, leisure

South - Prosperity, middle class, business, cities, warm weather, technology, movement, naivety, fear

West - Water, Ireland, America, excess, routine, entertainment, religion, sunset, ageing

Exercise 4 from Booklet #3 - Previously completed.

I'm saving Exercise 5 and 6 from Booklet #3 for a later date.