Part III Looking towards a New Paradigm in Art Participation

Hierophant

The well known quote attributed to Einstein, “you can not solve a problem on the level it is created,” is another way of saying that two seemingly incompatible options, through a transcendent principal, can be elevated to a complementary relationship. For our consciousness to grasp that we were not living on a flat plane but on the surface of a sphere, was to access a huge perspective change, akin to transcendent principal. Concepts in quantum physics today are altering our basic constructs of knowing, in comparable ways. 

There are opportunities in our lives daily which challenge us to expand conventional practices; understandings and visions beyond what our parents, friends and even society is rooted in. Ecological concerns alone have insisted on an understanding of systems that force our egocentric practices into a greater context of responsibility which most people refused to acknowledge. In this transitional time, how many people do you know who have been forced to step out of the standard medical model, to engage in the process of participating in deep personal healing? Encounters with different cultures, extreme challenges in and of nature and experience in other states of consciousness are reflected personally and through popular media, as preparation for the ‘raising of the ceiling’ of old beliefs.

It does not matter how imaginative you are, projecting a new perspective with all its encompassing implications is grounded in our experience of what we know. Science fiction writers exaggerate aspects of what is familiar to create unearthly places and life forms. There are facets of the new paradigm which many of us have been participating in for years, and yet the whole model is not yet conscious. My vision of the new cultural arts paradigm finds scaffolding in three components: first is a major leap in value which honors the cultural arts, offering participation for everyone, second, introducing a universal archetype to serve as guide for the unification of the third aspect, which is a structure of consciousness traditionally perceived in separate parts.

The value of cultural as an expression of society requires authentic connection and reflection of society with dialogue of standards, rather than being controlled by the experts. It would require early participation and education which would probably change the structure of the entertainment industry. Joseph Campbell spoke of the Hero archetype, no longer belonging to a few adventurers, but one we all need to explore individually; the same is true for the Shaman, an archetype which has collective significance in our psyche at this time. We are each invited to experience facets of the shaman-guide, seer, healer, holder of experiences outside of everyday life and artist, as an integrating archetype seeking the next edge of being.

Shaman is a Russian word describing a person among Siberian tribes who is a seer, healer, and medicine person. The word comes from the ancient Sanskrit, sramana, meaning one who goes beyond in order to know. This beyond conveys a universal schema of worlds which not only belongs to indigenous cultures, but in some form to most spiritual models, and to our psychological framework. I have experienced these worlds in several ways; as artist, nighttime dreamer, living in a Buddhist country and leading trance journeys into the subconscious. This archetype and the understanding of the psyche are central to art which serves the collective.


The three realms of consciousness which roughly correspond to spirit, ego and soul, are referred to as the upper, middle and lower worlds. In the new paradigm, personal archetypal guides like the Shaman/Artist lead us personally and collectively between these worlds. I suspect that they will overlap more and more as our awareness expands and the model of duality gives way to a new consciousness of wholeness.  Bill Plotkin, in Nature and the Human Soul, Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, succinctly describes them in relation to human developmental stages:
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Upperworld denotes transpersonal states of consciousness identified with spirit and characterized by unity, grace, bliss, transcendence, emptiness, light, enlightenment, the celestial realms, and pure awareness. This is where we disidentify from all personal and cultural beliefs, goals, desires, and attachments. The conscious self is transcended.

Middleworld is the realm of ego growth, which includes the healing of emotional wounds, the development of personal bonds, the cultivation of physical grace and emotional expression, and the blossoming of empathy, intimacy, and personality level authenticity. A healthy ego is skilled in imagination, feeling, intuition, and sensing, in addition to thinking.

Underworld deepens individuality through the discovery of our ultimate place in the world…through individual discipline such as trance dancing and drumming, council work, storytelling, symbolic artwork, soul-oriented poetry, and shadow work….It is associated with soul characterized by darkness, demons, the daemon, the subconscious, sacred woundings, dreams, the unknown or not-yet-known, shadow, death, and visions of personal and cultural destiny.

The shared purpose of transcending the conscious self (the upperworld), differentiating the conscious self (middleworld) , and deepening the conscious self (underworld) is personal development or maturation, which fosters cultural vitality and evolution which in turn promotes ecological and planetary vitality and evolution.

Our society has fostered an egocentric model of the middleworld which ignores or does not integrate the other two. The archetype of the traditional guides of these realms throughout history has been the shaman as priest/priestess, healer, seer and artist. But access to the upperworld and underworld is not specialized like it once was, it is the providence of us all. In these times with or without guidance most of us are activating our inner archetype shaman-like-guide in order to find our way to vitality, purpose and maturity in our lives.

The shaman as artist can be seen throughout art history. Many well known artists are given much deeper understanding in the light of the archetypal Shaman. Visual artists include: Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, Klee, Munch, O’Keeffe, Kahlo, Chagall, Picasso, writers; Nietzsche, Herman Hesse, Fedrico Garcia Lorca, Rainer Maria Rilke, musicians; Egberto Gismonti, John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Jimi Hendrix, and performers; Sha Sha Higby and Joseph Beuys. There are many more, dancers, movie directors, entertainers, leaders and popular-culture icons who are shaman/artist guides for the collective.

Traditionally the shaman goes into different levels of being in order to balance, heal and understand a greater perspective of the middleworld. Painting, as creative process, is a vehicle to this end, as well as, a tool for reflection and personal record, to expand individual and collective boundaries of the middle world. It is a way to dream the world into being, equal to creation mythology, which has held cultures together throughout time.  Anne Wilson Schaef in, When Society Becomes an Addict, talks about the peril of the middleworld being so isolated from the other two worlds that instead of using everyday life for maturation of ego, society creates a world of adolescent adults.

The art-making process in our painting circles is in the stream of art history, but is not defined by it. To think of it as separate from monetary value, and not reliant on outside judgment, gives us freedom and a place to be authentic. This does not mean that it is disconnected from the viewer, in fact, relationship to and participation with the viewer is important, because the dialogue that is established with the viewer is crucial to our health and vitality for ourselves and our world.