[Art] I'm not asking you what your totem is.

[moonvoice]

So. Those who know my Wandsuna series, know I like to use animals and colours in said Wandsuna series to express other concepts, abstract emotions, people, or feelings, or other things entirely.

Those symbolic connections are based on very personal symbolism. For example, the fox isn't used because of its connection to 'Fox as Totem', and is entirely based on a personal relationship with fox and my encounters with it in 'real life.'

If you could represent an abstract or a concept through a colour or an animal in the Wandsuna mythology, what would you choose? How would you represent your self? And why would you choose that animal, colour, or something else entirely? Would different representations change what it meant? (For example, in the Wandsuna series, a leashed fox means something entirely opposite of an unleashed fox).

Just curious to see how people would build up their own personal symbologies. If you're not comfortable explaining why you'd use certain animals or colours to represent certain things, feel free not to. :)

Comments

This is "close" to a upcoming post of mine

[darakat]

I was thinking myself of writing a complete "guide" to the mythology in my artwork, so really is a topic I am thinking about a lot.

In Wandsuna I am certain I would probably be like a Purple something. I am not sure why I feel that though, maybe I can explain more when I figure it out.

Re: This is "close" to a upcoming post of mine

[darakat]

Well ok, Purple is like well to me its home, power, knowledge, place of worship, its thinking, magic and discovering mysteries.

[silverjackal]

This is not an easy question to answer! Quite obviously I'd choose to represent myself as a smallish, entirely unremarkable black-backed jackal. (And by the way, in response to your "not asking", I have *no idea* what my totem might be, I just like jackals. They're clever, quick, and adaptable, and I love the canid family as a whole, so... *shrugs*) Colours are more difficult to explain, because the meanings are subtle and complex. I associate a faintly purple-ish blue with myself personally. I always experience a marked favorable visceral reaction to the colour, whether in the form of a Tanzanite (gem), or looking at something like dark blue Lobelias (which are the same shade). Shades of blue are simultaneously peaceful and powerful to me. I'm also very comfortable with and fond of hues ranging through the greens (which mean life to me, including the reverse such as decay) and purples (which mean non-terrestrial/celestial/or abstract concepts to me). Red stands for vital forces -- fire, heat, magma, etc. (very obvious I know). I actually don't have positive associations with a lot of yellows (other than the colour of sunlight) or oranges or pinks. White is the flesh of the worm, death, decay, or absence. Black is non-existence, or the melding of other things. Brown is earth and silence. And if you asked me about some of these I might change my mind after considering them further... ;D

[shimmerhawk]

Interesting question! I already do this with Shimmerhawk, represent myself as a gryphon with color varying from white to nearly black with either pale blue-green or red eyes. I'm not sure how the Wandsuna mythology would differ from my personal mythology though, and how I'd represent things there. Your Wandsuna series seems to have very bright colors, and usually my personal symbols are in shades of grey with just slight splashes of color. It's such an interesting question, I just wish I could think of a better answer.

Purple makes me think of cleverness and opulence for some reason, otherwise it's such a wide open question that I don't know where to start. :)

[filhotedelua]

A blue swallow with only one eye.
The swallow live journeying, they don't have a place where they call home,but at the same time, they have a lot of homes. And there's a frailty about them at the same time the swallows can travel from Canada to Brazil only with the force of their wings.
Blue is a colour that make me think in "deep". You can fall inside the blue color.
And with only one eye because is the price you pay for wisdom.

(there's a band of swallows that are my neighbours during the summer, used to be a huge band, but since Katrina's year are few more than 50 birds. I don't know much about them except for observation, but I wait for the swallows every year,worried if the travel will be safe,hoping for a safe arrival and to see the ballet in the air)

[spider_fox]

Hmm, tough question...at first I would say I don't have a personal symbology(sp?), but as I think about it, I realize that there are symbols, beings, and concepts that carry heavy meaning for me. I just have no clue what they are right now, if that makes any sense XD;.

So I can't really answer the question (though I will be thinking about it!). But I do have one for you if that's allowed :)

Do the symbols/representations appear because of the meanings, or do you figure out the meanings for them later on? ie Did you "assign" the fox to a concept initially, or did the fox appear in your life and you later on figured out what the fox means to you?

[kayre]

Maybe I'm going backwards, I'm starting from my favorite creatures and working backwards, figuring out what I see in them that I like so much.

Great Blue Heron-- grace, beauty.

Pileated Woodpecker-- wildness, strength, power.

Eastern Bluebird-- fun, freedom.

Pine squirrel, chipmunk-- cleverness, tenacity.

Great Horned Owl-- mystery, danger in the dark

Northern Oriole-- music!

[spider_fox]

Northern Oriole-- music!

Not the female when she's being banded, lol. I had the joyful experience of listening to a perfect imitation of nails on chalkboard by one.

Personal Symbolism Wiki

[perzephone]

Hrmmm, you provoke my thoughts.

Bears, aside from being my personal totem, to me should always represent 'good' medicine. Strong medicine, working medicine, but medicine that does not kill the patient to heal. Chemotherapy drugs are strong and can have good outcomes, but they are not 'bear' medicine. Neither is the surgeon's scalpel. I'm also not referring to how medicines are abused - antibiotics are bear medicines - not the doctor who over-prescribes them or the patient who insists on them for every little sniffle. A caged bear - a patient is afraid of the medicine, afraid to heal. If it is a moon bear (the kind most often trapped and tortured for dubious 'medicines' like bear gallbladder or bear paws) - something has contaminated the medicine or perverted it. Kind of like what happened to heroin and cocaine.

Antelope, especially pronghorns, represent sacrifice. The sacrifice of the One to save the Many. Willing, intentional, knowledgeable sacrifice. Horses are the tools we see every day, tools that are immediately available to us, tools that want to be used. I could probably build a Tarot deck around horses.

Colors are harder. A misty blue border would indicate that what is being seen takes place in a dream. Yellow is sickness - the deeper the shade, the more serious the sickness. Bright new grass-green is love, matters of the heart, yearning and longing. White is death, red is life. Black is always that which is hidden.

[gone_fishing]

Hrrrmmm. I think I would be a black something. I really like wings, in general, whether on birds, or on people, or on beings that normally shouldn't have wings. I like black wings. Idk.

I like cats. And owls :P Annnnd... I'd probably have a black winged unicorn represent myself, and I have no frikking clue why. o.O

[sidheblessed]

The first image that came to my mind? A crowd of people talking, dancing or otherwise interacting, all in similar colours, with some bushes behind them. In among the bushes, there'd be a lynx watching them. Behind the lynx, maybe there'd be like a glance of this wondrous world with purples and pinks and silvers and all kinds of sparkles, but the people can't see it because the bushes are like a barrier between the lynx's world and the people's world. So it'd be like the lynx watching the people they can never join from the relative safety of their own world.

[toeknuckles]

Hmm...toughie!
I think what I'd represent myself as changes depending on where I'm at.

But right now, I think I'd be some sort of shorebird. In blues and greys. Something almost washed out and unremarkable.
I can't even explain exactly why (i have the dumb right now), but I just feel it. So...that.
Haha, wow, such an articulate answer from me!

[goddess_incarnate]

This is a hard one! In terms of colors, I definitely prefer the cooler ones, especially blues. The only warm color I like is pink and the occasional red depending on the context. I don't think I really resonate with any specific animal, although I do really love snakes and felines! I don't think I have a symbology honestly, I don't really feel connected to anything. Or rather, the things I resonate with (if at all) are things like ideas, material objects or maybe natural landscapes like the desert. Even in my dreams, the constant symbols are more along the lines of "mentality" (ie: I'm always being chased in my dreams) versus anything physical (ie: animals, specific places, etc).

:/

[azhure]

It feels like I should say raven to this, but yanno, I think an ibis is more appropriate somehow.

[redsixwing]

If it were me, I would want to use a riot of color to represent a whole bunch of different things, but I'd probably end up in a limited palette anyway, because that seems to be how I roll more often than not. Relation of color doesn't necessarily indicate relation of concept, though.

I'd use cracked parched tan for desertion, both a play on desert soil and on the outcry, the longing, for what is missing. If there's water in the cracks, invert it; instead of longing and desertion, a refilling of empty spaces, a soothing cold, even if the soothing or filling is not actually what's needed.

I already represent myself in art as a gryphon, much like Shimmerhawk. Alternately, a goshawk, which I think would probably be more appropriate in Wandsuna. It is much less.. obtrusive.

Hooding the hawk, or putting on a bell and jess, would completely change its meaning. Blindness rather than vision - intentional turning-away of attention, even - warning sound instead of silence.

I build symbolism off of real experiences (like pretty much everyone), but the way object becomes symbol is not straightforward, and meanings are often double-edged.

[hrafn]

I wouldn't even know how to answer what my totem is if I were asked. Or even if I have one.

But anyway!

I don't know that there is much specific in the Wandsuna series that really speaks to me on the level of personal symbology, although the landscape in "Universal Language" would come pretty close to something like home/peace/rest/longing. (I think that may be my favorite artwork of yours ever.)

I would probably represent myself as a lone bird in a tree, overlooking the landscape. Probably a raven, though any silhouette that was more-or-less passerine in shape would do (and I think in many ways, I have more affinity with chickens than any wild bird, but they don't seem like they'd belong in this sort of painting. They are too cheerful and active. Maybe that's just my current mood speaking.).

Green is peacefulness/rest, but of the energetic kind, and also life. I don't know that I really associate much of anything to other colors, though I definitely have preferences in what I like to look at or wear.

I keep coming up with sentences I can't finish, because I don't know what I'm saying.

I think I would have to approach this backwards: figure out what I wanted to express with the artwork, and then figure out what colors/figures best represented it. When I do occasionally think about busting out my watercolors, it's because I feel like I want to do more semi-abstract landscapes: wide open plains, distant mountains, that sort of thing. *points to icon*

I don't even know what all the stuff in my dreams represents, and that is an overwhelming fertile mine of Stuff.

[nachtrabe]

Hrm... this is a nontrivial question, really.

My personal symbolism... For myself I would use as a raven (either corvus corax or possibly a corvus coronoides), who's feathers gleam toward an iridescent blue in moonlight. The imagery would be cool or even cold--something out of a cool spring night.

The why... is more difficult and requires some thinking. The colors are the ones I look at and immediately think "me" and have been for years. My heraldic colors in the SCA have always been sable, silver, and azure and the raven has always been my personal identification and image (see also, I use the name "Hrafn" on Weaving Wyrd). The colors were also the color template for my first pagan essay website. But as to why...

The "cool" colors and feeling is easiest to explain. I have always thought of myself and been described by others as "cool" or "cold." Sometimes as a bad attempt at an insult (e.g., "a hard drive has more emotions than you") and sometimes as a compliment (very tolerant and able to "keep your cool"). I am also personally uncomfortable and tend to stress in hot temperatures, but in cooler temperatures--even cold temperatures--I feel much more at ease (possibly because I'm too focused on shivering to worry).

Blue for me is the color of the open sky and the open sea. Especially as it fades to black (another of the colors in my list). It is the color of freedom. Of reaching toward the unknown, even if that unknown is unattainable, it is the reaching for it and slowly becoming it. It encompasses our darkest elements while providing space to hide them. Blue is the smell of salt and the feel of a cool breeze on a clear day. Blue is

Black is the color of the infinite and the unknown . Where blue reaches toward the unknown, black simply is the unknown. Where blue is the thin line of atmosphere between Earth and Space and the water that covers the Earth itself, Black represents what is beyond. It represents the deepest parts of the ocean, the areas that we have spent less time on than on the surface of the moon.

Silver would be the color of revealing. Light reflecting off the moon and of the stars, instead of the harsher light of the sun (yes, yes, raven is a sun bird, but my nick is "night raven" -.-) Revealing, and causing the raven's feathers to glow.

Ravens are, of course, black but with a variety of color when placed under the right light. They are also scavengers that are not normally picky about what they find but are very intelligent and capable of picking apart problems. They also are widely misunderstood and get very anxious about new circumstances.

*rambles*

[donnalotus]

Definitely not an easy one to answer! I'd have to go Bear though :) lately it would be "hybernating" bear with all the sleeeeeping I've been doing.

[donnalotus]

errrrr hibernating*

[burningbright]

Hmm. Interesting thoughts.

There is a snake that I saw in the local zoo a couple times but can't seem to find now, and I don't remember what kind of snake it was; large and black but iridescent, color like the rainbow sheen of oil. It would represent my Jungian shadow, hidden id, all the buried thoughts and urges that get too often suppressed, repressed, demonized - and yet are beautiful too, in the right light. Sometimes it would be a velvet-scaled heavy constrictor with oil-iridescence and dark eyes, sleepy shadow; sometimes a sharper-headed slender thing with bright cold-gold eyes and fangs, venom, pain-hungry smiling.

Blues and coppers for myself, default. Bold teal, brilliant blue, shining copper for the bright times, joy and life and summer. Gray-blue and muted copper and storm-blue for thoughtful times and winter. Storm-blue and gold for autumn. Feathers.

Phoenix is my symbol for myself and has been for years, though my interpretation of the nature of that symbol and why it's there keeps changing. Ashy gray-blue hint-of-copper bird when it's nearly time to burn, dulled colors, unkempt. Burning and gold and amber-to-red and the intense blue of the heart of the flame, a pyre, towering fire, a hint of bird-shape, formless and raw. Teal and copper and redgold and bold feathers in the sun, height of brightness, aurora of flame and light, trailing peacock-feathers. Silver-blue-silver and moonish-gold-copper and quieter shining in the moonlight, autumn-night. Eyes that are blue, muted or unmuted or sky-bright or graybluestorm depending on situation/mood/surroundings.

The green/blue/goldish shimmer of labradorite, transformation, in the background or clutched in claws or curled within it like an egg or just an egg of labradorite in a nest of cinnamon and myrrh.

Gryphon, earthy and hawk/mountain-lion, browns and tans and prairie. Protectiveness, hissing shrieking rage, fire in his chest, the mountains in his bones. Warrior and anger and defender.

Water would be prevalent as a threat and a promise, a well to trap you, the silent stillness of a pond with the shadows of hungry sirens beneath, waiting to lure and drag you under, currents in the salt of ocean to knock you off your feet and drown you in the depths. Water would be uncertain and unforgiving, overwhelming. Swan might show up, blue-black like unconscious/subconscious, emotions kept too long at bay, eyes dark and liquid like the siren lake, wings that can break your bones.

[lupagreenwolf]

Hmm. The foxes are actually what jump out at me the most when they pop up. Fox has a very different place in my life than Wolf, and while I can't really come up with a description beyond Wolf : Fox as Totemism is to : [insert some other magical/mythos system], it's like putting on a difference face, if that makes sense?

[tsukikokoro]

> If you could represent an abstract or a concept through a colour or an animal in the Wandsuna mythology, what would you choose?
I would represent Endless Potential in a green chameleon with yellow-green diamonds on its back. I'm not particularly color-oriented, but I feel green can represent opportunity and health. Yellow-green for that blend of energy, motivation, and ambition. Diamonds, because I often associate that with reptiles, and a reptile's environmental sensitivity is important in alluding to conditions that need to be met to Make Things Possible. The chameleon, unsurprisingly, represents and unfixed state, an animal capable of transforming into any color. I also think a chameleon would fit right in, aesthetically, with the Wandsuna style.

> How would you represent your self? And why would you choose that animal, colour, or something else entirely?
It's hard to answer this well, because I feel like I have many selves. I would have to represent myself in a scene. I would be a mouse with a zipper running from its belly up to its throat, stationary, in a large room with un-zippered skins along the wall. There would be a polar bear skin, lined in dark red-pink material, a song-bird lined in teal, a raptor lined in black, a boa lined in orange, a doe lined in brown, a brown-furred gray wolf lined in pink. Why a mouse? I feel I am small and meek. I am running through the maze, because I am cheese-obsessed. I need other people to not step on me, and I need to not be where I can get stepped on. On occasion, I might be a mouse wearing a teal collar with a small bell. The other animals I have identified with in the past, or identify with at other times. The mouse needs the zipper, because it is a skin, the same as the others. As for the lining, the color they always use for muscle makes me think of authenticity and flesh-connection. Teal has been an attractive color since I was a young girl, reminding me of voice. Black for its connection with death. Orange for its wild fire and intensity. Brown for its roots/ancestral roots. Pink for companionship.