Occasional changes, new header

I like to muck about with the look of the site over time, as I hone in on the feel I want to generate for my visitors (although many seem to use the WordPress Reader and won’t see these little tweaks and changes). I hope the most recent don’t create a dissonance for those of you who do visit.

Tonight I replaced the header for the web version of the site and I think I’m getting closer to where I want to be with that, although the theme I use must have a filter on the header image that makes it a bit darker than rendered on my art manipulation program, so it feels more gloomy than intended. I may switch themes as a result as the only thing I am really invested in with this one is the reading time element. Except, I mostly do very short poetry that renders the need for a reading estimate moot. Everything is about one minute.

While the current art is mine, I would be remiss in not mentioning that the petroglyphic source material that served as the basis for the header art is estimated to be 4000-6000 years old and is located in the Alta area of Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. And, because I didn’t actually photograph the art myself, my work is based on the photograph of another (credit is given in the footer of this page). The reason for choosing this imagery has less to do with my recent detective work about my possible genealogic background and more to deal with my meditative spiritual journeying from about fourteen months ago. I cannot go into the details about those results, as a recipient of such gifts does not dilute their significance by sharing them. Suffice it to say that a reindeer spirit played a role in that exercise and the journey where I encountered the spirit occurred well before my DNA research into my absent grandfather’s ethnic background.

For the curious, the ancient carving is theorized to represent the transformation of a reindeer to a shamanic figure, and then back into a reindeer. I’ve been looking for images along these veins for a very long time, and finally found something that ticked all the right boxes for me.

For those of you who have not visited the site, the image is below. Thanks for your support.