Not wishing to rest on the laurels of having drawn all of the Decanates of the Zodiac, I began working on the Mansions of the Moon on the Kavad. These are somewhat easier, because I’ve drawn a good many of them before. But it’s still proving useful.
The more that I make these Mansions, and the images of the magical traditions generally, the more that I’m convinced that this is a tutorial program in drawing and image-crafting. It’s a clever process for teaching ideas and concepts, for teaching memory skills, and for improving visualization techniques. Yet at least in part, it’s a process for learning how to succeed as an artist.
I’m thinking that at some point, I have to develop my own list of visualizations, so that I can do a similar visual exercise with my students both exoteric and esoteric.
Via Flickr:
Because there are 28 mansions of the moon, they are traditionally divided into four septads or heptads (groups of seven. Here is the last septad: Mansions 22 through 28. Mansions 24 (lower left), and 26 (middle column) have figures that are too small for their frame, but the figures themselves are essentially correct in rough outline. More work needs to be done.
[…] suchlike materials, in various hefts and weights. Sculpture? Sure. Small cabinetry? Sure. Kavads? They were a little uncertain, but … ok, sure, we could work with that plan. But frankly, […]