Shamanic Pathways 05 - Totem artwork.

[moonvoice]

I've been doing totem artwork for a long time. As long as I have actually been doing art. Back in highschool, the totems I drew were less stylistic and more realistic, and I tended to focus on the skeletal systems of animals. I wanted their bones and that's what I drew. Consequently my art folio from way back then, has a lot of ram and cattle skulls in it.

When I was Wiccan, I continued drawing animal totems, though at this stage I didn't invite the actual totem animal energy to hang around me, or even come into my body. And back then, over 9 years ago, I drew most of the stereotypical favourites; frog, white buffalo, bear, wolf and so on. The process of drawing the animal totems made me feel amazing, and very connected. But the animals themselves didn't feel quite right.

I started drawing animal totems more seriously a few years ago. I developed a process that worked for me. Back then, it was a lengthy process. Firstly, I would see what animal energies wanted to be drawn. I'd do this by going for walks and holding my intent to draw an animal energy in my mind, and seeing what I saw, or opening animal encyclopedias up to random pages, using internet searches and databases and what have you. Over and over again, I was drawn to drawing Australian animal energies, or those of rare animals or animals under-represented as totems.

Then, I would try to commune or connect with the animal through meditation or even a more encompasisng form of trance-work / journeying. If I could connect with the animal, I would ask them if they would honour me by staying with me while I drew them, to add more 'authenticity' to the piece. So that, in essence, anyone who held a picture of an animal I drew could hopefully access the animal energy through that picture. The first animal that ever went from 'hanging around' me, to actually jumping into me was red kangaroo. Boy, that was a weird experience. I ended up rushing through my very first totem illustration of red kangaroo, because it was just too weird.

But after that, animal after animal after animal wanted to drop in. I could only really handle one at a time, at first. And certain animals had kinds of energies which made me want to, or actually rest afterwards for a few days at a time. And then something clicked into place and I could tap into many animal energies (with a few exceptions, some just don't want me to draw them), until finally I had drawn hundreds of animal totems, and given away, or sold many of those illustrations to those who wanted a deeper connection to the animals they cared about.

So these days, a significant part of my shamanic practice, is actually through my artwork. With almost all the animal artwork I do, particularly my 'as totems' series, there is significant time spent with an animal energy both during conception, the execution, and often for a few days afterwards. It is how I generally develop new relationships with animals, and nowadays I know I'm getting a good 'connection' to an animal's energy when I get four or five compositions and clear colour palettes dropping into my head.

Using my creative practices as a vector for my spirituality is a really fantastic way of 'living' the shamanism outside of soul retrieval and healing, and more ritualised practices. It's also a great way to give homage to animal totems, because with each finished product, I have a living piece of artwork that is both a signature of where an animal has taken me, and how I have processed that energy.

So for those of you who create, art, write, dance, drum, craft and so on, do you feel there's anything spiritual about it? Conscious or otherwise? Do you seek something 'more' than just the sum of the parts?

Comments

[bewylderbeast.livejournal.com]

This is amazing.

Prior to working with totemism, my artwork was devoid of joy. So much so, I just did not draw. But now that I have regular visitors (my body is a bit of a drop-in center!) I think my art carried their vibes across and I hope my drawings will eventually find homes with people who value the animals as much as I do.

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

So for those of you who create, art, write, dance, drum, craft and so on, do you feel there's anything spiritual about it? Conscious or otherwise? Do you seek something 'more' than just the sum of the parts?

Except for the fiction and some of the poetry, that would be a huge yes. Most of the time it's conscious -- I do a lot of stuff specifically about Paganism and theology. Other times, particularly with the poetry, it comes out of dream and other spiritual experiences but isn't necessarily directly intended to express that spirituality to others except in the sense that I'm talking indirectly about a spiritual experience or perception.

A lot of my sculptural art has been spiritual in the sense of making ritual objects for my work. This has included animal parts turned into ritual objects, a nine-strand beaded necklace, ritual containers for items, altars created through the arrangement of various found, bought or created items, or through ritual, decoration, and dedication of objects that are then intended to be used as ritual art.

I'm not nearly the artist you are with the visual stuff, but I do feel I'm a really good artist with my words, even when I'm doing nonfiction essays and writing books. The ogam book was the result of a very long spiritual process of exploration and working. It would never even have been started if it were not for my spiritual work and experiences.

Creating the incubation chamber, including "furnishing" and "decorating" it has been a long process of prayer and ritual as well as the physical aspects of cleaning out and preparing the space before I put anything into it to do spirit work. It is still a work in progress and is still very much in motion both spiritually and spatially. At this point I don't know what it will look like when it's "finished" but the growth process has been really interesting.

[azhure.livejournal.com]

I know that for me, writing always has a spiritual component (no idea if that ever ends up being reflected in the stories themselves). It's about bringing forth *something* from the world.

[negani.livejournal.com]

This was nteresting experience for me to read.

Thank You.


For me, spiritual component in art is essential for the message the art has for me. But I like to recognise all components of the art in balance: spirituality, aesthetics, information (=bits of knowledge), and I'm now learning to accept emotions, too.

I feel that "spirituality" encompasses aesthetics, information, emotions and, well, everything. I just still tell them apart. Spiritual aspect is a kind of a "feeling" for me.

My examples

I once danced on a meadow. At first I followed dance forms I was currently learning, after twenty minutes I started "to surrender". The experience was amazing, I played with energies! I could stop and spin and run simply by turning my palms in the opposite direction. (Like I'd have jet propulsion in my hands.) In retrospect, I let out the playful aspect of me and it interacted with sorroundings.

I draw on the walls of my room. I draw what I need (I use symbols). If I try to rush the process, it comes out wrong (but more importantly, it feels wrong/makes me tired). I'm learning patience that way. ;) I am able to change the energy of the room with my wall painting. I probably don't paint much now because I need to sort out my life in other areas, with other approaches. I trust I'll come back to it eventually. I like the process of drawing, and I like the result. If I don't feel it's right, the result is usually still aesthetically appealing to me on some level, but it's not resonating with me.

When I sing at singing lessons, I'm not very successful with conveying the energy of the song. Teacher says I need to let go, let the song speak through me - I think I finally got that (right now. It might be like with you inviting the animal energy to hang around you; I should invite the song energy to go through me, instead I was resisting the song: "This is a spring inviting song, I don't have that energy inside me anyway, and I don't like that song because it's all ... fake.")
The opposite is when I sing at home. I don't use words. I sing what feels right and what I can (sometimes I can sing high notes, sometimes not). I don't know why sometimes I can't sing (technically) what feels right, but can sing (technically) what feels wrong.

I usually can't write good, but once or twice I drank some rum and just wrote what I saw, thought, felt. The result were ten or so haiku, and I still like them. They have a flow to them. I don't know about spirituality, though. They were honest, I guess honesty is an aspect of spirituality. Alcohol helped me accept that I have some very mundane things in my room, thoughts and feelings, that part of me is actually very ordinary.

[darakat-ewr.livejournal.com]

There is definitely a spiritual aspect of my drawings. I draw on the things in my life, the events, people, places, etc. Each of these things combine into my drawings of whatever they turn out to be. What I draw most at current are "faces" they are just faces, I make from what comes to me when I start to draw. I don't know exactly if I open up to something or its already there...
Sometimes I feel that the things I have drawn turn out to be spirits I have seen during the day, or ones I encounter all the time. Some of my drawings will have recurring characters and some of them have names and indeed personalities. I want to explore this aspect of my art and see were it leads.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

But now that I have regular visitors (my body is a bit of a drop-in center!) I think my art carried their vibes across and I hope my drawings will eventually find homes with people who value the animals as much as I do.

I never saw much of your previous art, but I will say I sense a real vibrance and dynamism to what you're doing now. And being able to hold Reindeer and Pigeon in my hands (particularly the Pigeon piece), I can really feel that too.

I also think, for some reason, it's easier to be more prolific when you're sharing the load with an animal energy. The animal energy itself might be draining, but it must be lending something of itself to the process, because I can do it over and over and over again. With other forms of artwork I can struggle a bit more to have anything approaching the same output.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I definitely definitely got that impression from your poetry, and poetry month - getting an example of that almost every day - was really amazing.

[mirrorred-star.livejournal.com]

I would have thought you'd been doing art like this a lot longer than just a couple of years. With a lot of the things you do, it seems like you've been doing them for years and years, you're that good.

I find that with writing fiction, I'm note sure that I could say there's something spiritual about it, but I definitely feel that there's more going on than just words on paper. I definitely feel that after a character becomes real enough to me, they develop some sort of independent existence, and that I owe it to them to finish their story... or at least that story that they started to tell with me.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

It's about bringing forth *something* from the world.

I like this description. :)

And yes, I do think it's reflected in what I've read of your work so far.

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[ebonhost.livejournal.com]

Keeping in mind that I'm not shamanistic and seem to be going through a flux state currently in spiritual matters... I'd say a lot of my art has a certain energy to it. Depends what I'm doing, of course, but I don't consider much of what I do 'lines on a page' as I do consider myself influenced by a muse. I also consider cooking to be highly spiritual, actually, in working with the energies of plants and animals.

[lunar-amaranth.livejournal.com]

My writing isn't deliberately spiritual, per se...but I always put some thought into the pervading spiritual atmosphere of whatever world I'm writing about, and I usually end up setting my characters against that atmosphere (which gets them to really think about it). Any real religion I do portray, I try to present it as fairly and accurately as I can. (Stories that exalt Goddess-worship and slam a shallowly disguised Christianity, in particular, really get my hackles up. With the popularity of the occult on the teen book shelves right now, these sorts of stories are, alas, all too common). My own personal philosophies wind up on the page in some form, but I try to present them as one option out of many. Life is more complex than right and wrong, good and evil, and I try to reflect that in my writing.

Other than simply telling a good story, which has its own merits, I really try to get people to step back and look at their own preconceptions about life. I make it a point to never have a character face a scenario where he or she only has two options, especially if those options echo a good-evil dichotomy. It is far more realistic (and interesting) to give them three or four viable choices, and still have the possibility of everything falling to pieces. I also make my villains very sympathetic, for two reasons: because I believe an "evil" person is still a person and has reasons for what they do (sometimes good reasons), but also because I believe that what they do is still wrong. The tragedy between evil=victim of life and evil=condemned is one a lot of people probably don't think about.

[apocalypsegrrl.livejournal.com]

So for those of you who create, art, write, dance, drum, craft and so on, do you feel there's anything spiritual about it? Conscious or otherwise? Do you seek something 'more' than just the sum of the parts?

Absolutely. In fact, for me, I would say the very basics of any creative process is spiritual. Whether I'm trying to sew a shirt or working with clay or writing something, the very first step is being gifted with the image of it in my mind. Being able to make a physical representation of it that has the same effect on others as it does me, is like the cherry on top. Even if the piece itself isn't supposed to be "spiritual", I see the work of it as being sacred in its own right.

[forest-choir.livejournal.com]

Being a photographer, I try to shoot in a way that conveys the "spirit" of a place. At times, I can actually feel the land still around me as I click the shutter...as though the denizens of the land are watching.
It's a very odd experience, but a very welcome one. :)

[zuki-san.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely!

My primary mode of 'worship'..hmm, not sure if that's quite the right word, is improvised song and melody. Spiritual activity certainly takes that form quite often. I've had a rain song/sky song/thanks-be-for-the-rain-song for a long time.

I'll sing it over and over again, working my needs and thanksgivings of the moment in as need be between the more repetitious 'traditional' parts. I also have a slightly younger simple chant/melody, that I use as a sort of centering/focusing/decision-making song. I think I might also have a song for love, or rather for the relationship with my beloved.

I'm slowly working on developing more songs and melodies, trying out combinations of note and syllable and word in different circumstances. I figure, what sticks and stays constant over a course of months is something to keep. So far, I have one that's related to my rain song, more focused on cleansing/purification.

But I'd like songs for sun, for earth, for the grove I'm working on developing a relationship with, etc. (I did improvise a long performance when I first went to formally introduce myself and ask to open up a relationship--hoo boy, that was quite the experience!).

Dancing. This is something I'd love, love, love to get more into. I've known there was something potentially sacred and estatic in dance for a long time, and I've long discussed and considered working dance into my spiritual practice. I loved the concept of shapeshifting and trance through dance from as soon as I knew anything about them at all, and it's a skill I really, really, want to learn.

However, logistics (location, privacy, thinking a broken ipod was a setback, procrastination) have often been a setback. I get the feeling the grove is eager to see more song and dance from me however, and I'll be in the area often enough this summer that such is very possible from me.

[zuki-san.livejournal.com]

....after writing this up, I realize it's not precisely on-prompt. Let me see if I can address it better:

Somewhat to my chagrin, I don't do a lot of creative-product-making. I like to consider myself creative in my thinking and my tendencies to create and consider ideas, etc, but I don't do much work. However, I think there is something very special in the process of creation, especially in that idea of losing yourself in the act of creating/performing, etc.

I'm far distanced from my childhood experiences with dance and singing, but when I do these things for myself, I try to put my heart into them.

I'd love to learn some kind of drumming. I love, love, good rhythym and percussion, and a good performance can trance me right out without much effort. But lessons and drums cost money, and dance and song are free, so I haven't explored that much yet.

[fire_my_spirit]

So for those of you who create, art, write, dance, drum, craft and so on, do you feel there's anything spiritual about it? Conscious or otherwise? Do you seek something 'more' than just the sum of the parts?

A lot of the craft and artwork that I do that has that sort of bend began a few years ago when I started keeping an altar. When I was growing up we always had days when we would decorate for each holiday, and when I was trying to figure out how to express the new spiritual ideas I was thinking about, I turned to the same sort of process, finding decorations that I both liked and which symbolized things I should be thinking about that season for my altar. When I would look for things to put on it I would see all these statues and the like and I would think to myself, "I want one of those. I could buy one. But I can make one, so I should." Instead of buying altar cloths, I get appropriate fabric and hem it up. Instead of buying fancy pentacle plates, I make my own. This way I'm not only putting my own energy into the altar, I'm also making something no one else has.

I've continued with that sort of work because it's my way of meditating. The best example I have is when I was making sketches portraying Hades and Persephone toward the end of last year -- none of it lead to finished artwork, at least not that I'd consider, but it did lead me to a better understanding of the story of the two of them and what it meant to me, because I was always thinking, "Persephone should look like x here, because y -- you know, come to think of it, z." It's a way of thinking things through and finding things I should know.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

It's awesome that you have so many different creative outlets through which to express your spirituality, or your connectedness with the world around you. :)

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Yeah I definitely think there's a spiritual aspect to your artwork as well. It will be really interesting to see where your art takes you.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I haven't been doing art like this that long at all. I mean... I probably really got into about 6 months to a year after I got my DeviantArt account, and that was only three years ago. Scary stuff.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Ooo, cooking, I didn't even think of that. How long has cooking seemed like a spiritual activity for you?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I like that you try and give your characters multiple choices, instead of just a didactic 'good/evil.' It reminds me a lot of Miyazaki and the way he tells his stories. This sort of thing is far more common in places like Japan, than it is in Western story-telling.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Thats a really beautiful way of looking at it, imho.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I very much like your photography, and I like the idea of trying to convey the spirit of what you're portraying. It reminds me, adversely, of the many Indigenous groups that loathe photographs being taken of them for just that reason; they don't want their spirit preserved or taken. Images and photos have so much power, and in some Indigenous communities in Australia, it is sacreligious to show photos of the dead for some time once they have passed, with the thought that doing so might actually call back restless or recently deceased spirits.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

The idea of creating more songs and melodies to suit different spirits and experiences is a really fitting one, though maybe I see it that way because I empathise so much with the idea - having different drumming beats for different spirit helpers / perevrjni and so on.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of finding things through a creative avenue, even if you're not necessarily focused on creating a 'finished product.' Sometimes my writing feels this way.

[apocalypsegrrl.livejournal.com]

Thx. It's not something I ever really get to talk about to people because so very few can even imagine it being that way.

[forest-choir.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! *blushes*

I understand what you mean about spirits being taken in photographs. I try to be as spiritually calm and balanced as I can while I'm working. If something disturbs me or doesn't "feel" right, I don't photograph it.
That's also probably why I'm not as comfortable with portraiture as I am with landscapes. I can speak to the land and its spirits...sadly, I'm not as good with humans.

[ebonhost.livejournal.com]

When I stopped viewing food as fuel and actually started to get very experimental in my cooking. I became more aware of what I was putting in my body, and thus more aware of the spirits of the plants and animals that go into my food. (So probably a few years.)

I didn't even notice I was doing it at first- for me, a -lot- of the spiritual stuff I do is so natural that I take it for granted, if that makes sense. (As in, I don't have to expend effort to 'reach' a spiritual state, it's as much a part of my life as my right arm.) I actually noticed I was doing it when Lupa made a post about something similar.

[tigressmin.livejournal.com]

My writing used to one of biggest expressions of my spirituality. I less of a 'creation' energy when I wrote, and more of a 'telling'. As if these stories, no matter how skewed or warped by my own perception was a 'telling' that I just had to share. I couldn't stop writing, it just kept pouring out of me and there was no way to ebb the flow.

Now I wish I could tap back into that energy, I really do. Reading about your own experience inspires me. I do hope I can one day get back in touch with that energy and begin the 'telling' once again.

[mirrorred-star.livejournal.com]

I think that's about as long as I've been on LJ, roughly since I finished undergrad. Very scary.