Tea steeps in blue mug
reach for candle, strike a match
circle of warmth spreads.
Her artworking
on compassion and spirit,
the psyche within the cosmos,
beyond modernity
its “empathy versus abstraction”
In Western historical abstraction,
such a feminine-matrixial dimension
was unimaginable
Art, ritual and trance inquiry invite an interrelational entrance into fascinating liminal spaces of knowing, not knowing and being. When the entrance is related to a place, geologically and sacredly, the voice of the Earth can emerge and “inmerge”2 with the inquirer. Listening to the voice of the Earth while in the writing inquiry process I awoke to becoming the Earth, answering the call of poets; Hélène Cixous, who beckons us to become “the earth of writing,”3 and Marna Hauk who illuminates Earthvox or the Earth’s voice through dreaming and writing of/with/for/as the Earth’s voice. Because of this I capitalize Earth when it appears throughout the book, acknowledging my place as an earthling.4
This book offers methods of inquiry and learning to engage a rematriation that includes grieving for and with the Earth our m/other. New old ways of reclaiming and regenerating human arational abilities are introduced through teaching and practicing art, ritual and trance as inquiry processes (not requiring drugs and/or paranormal or psychic abilities). The arational, drawing from poet philosopher Jean Gebser,5 is a form of knowing that includes the body, emotions, senses, intuition, imagination, artmaking, the mystical, spiritual and relational, alongside the rational. The arational viewed from the Western rational perspective , has most often been confused with the irrational, thus disqualifying it as a valid and significant site of learning. The arational has historically been acknowledged and valued within mystic traditions , and by artists.6
Through inquiry focused artmaking this book journeys into the arational, numinous experiences of place, ritual, trance-based inquiry and learning. Introduced through a lens of a/r/tography as ritual, the reader is presented with art, artists, theories, and art/trance practices. Within a/r/tography as ritual the spaces of trance and ritual open up artistic inquiry , extending, deepening, and integrating what is revealed in the process. Interweaving learning, unlearning, and making, with place and sacred space7 a/r/tography as ritual is where one’s existence is opened up rather than closed down.
Art and sensual spirituality are the heart and circulatory system of the book, trance-formation is the taught practice, and ritual is the holding vessel. Throughout the book “found poems” embody academic thought co-poetically. They are “poems found in the environment, composed from words and phrases in previous existing texts.” Original words may be altered, omitted or changed. The source of the text is in brackets below the poem.8 Haikus are planted as earthling seeds at the start of each chapter sharing a moment of ritual taking place during the writing process.9 They are offered as a sacred Earth-based reflective pause for the reader to remember the rich soil found in their own daily rituals.
Sensual Spirituality
Blood and bone,
prayers and praise,
sinking into the mystery of
all our cells
a dancing exegete.
Here is the call to dance
a sacred space for
embodied inquiry.
(found in Celeste Snowber10)
A sensual spirituality returns one to embodied ecsta...