Artists as Channels of Subtle Energies

Episode 35

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I have been reflecting on how artists are mediums who channel subtle energies, similar to intuitive or psychic mediums.

As artists, we are mediums who channeling energies into whatever form or container we choose or are called to, whether that is stitching, painting, dance, theatre, cooking or anything else. I believe there is a deeper reason why we call them “art mediums” and see that they are intimately connected to spiritual mediums or psychics-people who channel energy or may deliver a message of some kind from a loved one who passed.

For me, these deep experiences of channeling energy have been through poetry and through holding old textiles from Japan, India and Africa…old weathered textiles. I find that if I am in a contemplative and meditative state, I start to pick up on subtle energies inside the materials and then start to communicate or have a conversation with them.

I start cutting the fabric and forming it into a book and begin stitching and entering a very slow conversation with the materials, this deep energetic conversation. For example, I was working with this beautiful Japanese mosquito netting called kaya one day. I was holding it in my hands and just sitting with it, quietly in silence, running my fingers over it.Then I started to sense a very soft and subtle vision come to me.

I felt like I was looking through a keyhole into an old home in Japan some time in the past. The home was dim, there were no lamps or lights, just subdued natural light. I could hear the sound of the trickle of water, it sounded like a fountain. Then the keyhole kind of started to expand a little bit and I could see a little bit more of the room and I started to sense the fabric that I was touching had been hanging in this room for protection from mosquitos. It was almost like I was looking into the room from the perspective of the fabric, like if it was hanging up.

Then I saw a woman, she was crouched down and wearing a robe or kimono. I felt like she was alone in the house, there weren't any children, and it was very quiet. I couldn’t see her face, just her back and her hands, she was doing something with her hands, possibly pouring tea or mending something.

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