Hi! I’ve been thinking of Alaska today.
I’m SO EXCITED because I have 3 friends from the same family who are becoming CZT’s (Certified Zentangle® Teacher) today!!! It’s the last day of the 4 day CZT-31 Seminar with Maria & Rick and Zentangle staff, in Providence, Rhode Island. Two are my students and are sisters (from Alaska) and the other is their niece (from Colorado). Mary and Tina have taken numerous Zentangle® classes with me so I’m thrilled that they are really loving Zentangle. I’m also excited because Tina lives down south around Kenai and there are no CZT’s there. It’s way too far away for me to cover! It will be nice to have some CZT’s I can talk to in Alaska 🙂 When I became a CZT in 2014, there was only one CZT in the Anchorage area, but she wasn’t teaching. So I’ve had to learn and struggle on my own. I’m very fortunate that I am a member of the CZT Facebook group and have formed many lasting friendships. It’s a loving and supportive group who have helped and guided me so much! I could not have done it without them (love you Brenda)! Tomorrow my 3 friends can join me!
When I attended my CZT Seminar, it was held in Providence Hotel. Now Seminars are held at the Biltmore Hotel. I spent one night there before transferring to Providence Hotel and joined the other CZT’s (here I am looking out my window at the Biltmore Hotel).
Every CZT Seminar is special. One highlight of my Seminar-17 was when Martha’s two boys got up and taught us a tangle! They were so awesome!! I don’t even remember what the tangle was because I was watching them 🙂
At the end of Seminars, when you receive your CZT Certificate, you get to put on “the Zentangle® Graduation Cap”! Here I am with mine but it was sooooo heavy it was falling off my head and someone captured that lovely and oh so attractive moment! LOL!!
Welcome Mary, Tina, and Ella! Congratulations on becoming Certified Zentangle® Teachers!! CZT 31!
♥ Donna
Dream catchers are arts and crafts of the Native American people. Traditionally dream catchers were made from willow branches bent into rings or oval shapes and sinew for the web. Feathers decorate infants and children’s dream catchers, but all dream catchers are embellished with totem animals, beads, and small stones. (I love to embellish!) The ring is believed to represent wisdom, strength, and unity.
One legend tells of an elderly spiritual leader who had a vision of Iktomi, the great trickster and searcher of wisdom. He appeared in the form of a spider and spoke to him. As he spoke, the spider picked up the elder’s willow ring and began to spin a web. He spoke about the cycle of life and and many lessons. The ring represents the cycle of life, for as we come into life as infants and grow into adults, as elderly adults we must be taken care of as infants, thus completing the cycle of life.
When the spider finished, he had spun a web inside the ring and told him that when the dream catcher is hung above ones bed, good dreams will float through the web’s holes and down the strings of beads and feathers, placing good dreams into your head while one sleeps. Bad dreams are caught in the web and tangle up in the web & beads and stones and with the first rays of daylight, they evaporate and disappear. Pretty awesome don’t you think!
Wishing you good dreams and peaceful sleep.
