I was recently interviewed by a mentor of mine about my creative process. This was a tremendous honor for me to be asked to do this, and in spite of being nervous about speaking on video, I felt like I could talk and talk for hours. (In fact, I can because I am a Gemini)! Though we spoke effortlessly and nonstop for ninety minutes, I have extreme esprit de l’escalier and eight hours after it was over, I remembered many things that I wished I had said about channeling and creativity.
*Luckily, I have this journal that three of you read, so I am using this as a place to discuss what I missed and left out, if you are interested.
My dear friend Amy (who has an incredible podcast about the creative process called The Starling Creative) introduced me to this quote by neo-expressionist painter Philip Guston:
“When you’re in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics…and one by one if you’re really painting, they walk out. And if you are really painting, YOU walk out.”
This has been so true of my experience while channeling my art. When I am in channel, ‘I’ - my ego, my hang-ups, my judgements, my victories and failures, the collective accumulation of my art education and experiences as a painter - are not present. This is very much an, ‘Elvis Has Left The Building’ situation. My intuition always cues me in when I need to get quiet (or get moving) to listen and receive messages - and once I am in channel, even my intuition makes an exit. In this state, I am able to receive visions and travel to other worlds and dimensions. Pretty trippy!
This is a difficult thing to describe though, as art is a visual medium and trying to provide explanation in the construct of verbal language can neuter it and rob it of it’s magic. The closest thing I can relate it to is the shamanic process of communing in the spirit world through mastering states of trance. I learned of a teaching called the Way of the Hollow Bone, in which a healer becomes a clear, pure conduit for Spirit. By shifting their state of consciousness with trance, they are able to remove their ego/identity, thus becoming an open channel for Divine energy. This is similar to the way in which I create channeled art. When I am in channel I become a bridge between two (or more) worlds - receiving and relaying messages from the realm of imagination and the Unknown. Of course, my hands, eye and the skills they produce together are the tools used to bring this information back to us, but my rational mind is completely removed from the process.
After being initiated into the Akashic Records, my guides told me to visit the Halls of Amenti for seven days in a row - and to bring a gift. Each day was different, and each day I received a tool from one of my past lives that I could use during this lifetime. During one of my visits, Hathor appeared to me like a universe of stars but shaped like a woman. She blessed me by taking my hands, and I watched as my own hands transformed, filled with the blinking light of the cosmos.
Journeying and achieving altered states of consciousness are very important aspects of my spiritual and creative practice, but I am not in a trance-like state when I am channeling art. I am conversational. I am able to weather interruptions and take breaks. If someone - I’m not naming any names here - were to run into my studio with no pants on, yelling ‘the toilet did something to ME’ whilst my bathroom floor floods, I would not only notice, but would spring into action immediately. When I am working in my flow, I am able to hum along without fatigue because I am not using my own energy to create. That said, I am human and as such occasionally find it challenging to remain in channel (thanks, brain-raccoons), so there are times when I drop out and just need to walk away. When this happens, I take a moment to meditate or go for a walk - for as long as it takes for me to get out of my my head ( and my own way).
Channelled during the Harvest Moon, paying close attention to what I sow and reap. Our monsters bring vital lessons as we evolve and shift - we may be tempted to ignore them, hoping that they will just go away - but they are here to help us, so pay attention when they show themselves to you.
I do have a specific technique I use to get into channel that I learned from a teacher of mine, and it is one which I have used reliably for some time now. However, as I have said before, I believe everyone has the ability to channel and I don’t believe that there is only one way to connect to Spirit/Source/God/The Universe/(use the name that resonates with you here). I also believe that the right teacher (or teachers) will appear to you when you need them…and really good teachers will want you to become your own best guide. I am always happy to share the names of those who have taught me so much, but I will say that this is a deeply spiritual and personal decision and my advice will always be for you to first trust your intuition when you ask for your teacher to show up for you - they always do.
If you are here because you have seen my art and it stirred a response in you - be it positive, negative or some curious place in between the polarities - you are likely responding to a keycode of remembrance, a sigil or symbol which resonates with you, a calling and blessing for you on your path, or perhaps a mirror in which you see yourSelf. My channeled work is created to reach the eyes of those who are the addressee’s of a message from the Divine, to aid in a shift in consciousness and assist in the alchemical transformation of initiation and awakening. Of course, you may also just see it and like it, and that is great - but I invite you to look more closely and discover what kind of mystery is being revealed to you.
My drafting table (and altar) :: organized chaos