Pray to the Moon: Public Animas Ceremony Part 5a: Art. Let It In. (And make it an offering.)

Friday, July 25, 2014

Public Animas Ceremony Part 5a: Art. Let It In. (And make it an offering.)

Continued lessons from the Public Animas Ceremony: An Invitation to Passion.

Rapture.
Offering Art Bowl by Moma Fauna.

Art makes everything better.

I cannot express how much I value the presence & utility of art in ceremony as an expression of devotion, gratitude & spirituality as well as a magickal tool. I also feel that art, whatever the form, is the quintessential offering.

Art also enhances ceremonial "energy" (I actually dislike that terminology, but what is the alternative?) by bringing with it the collective emotions, effort & expressions of the artist(s). Each art piece acts as both an energetic amplifier & battery.

I suspect I already mentioned this somewhere previously, but I have always found the most potent & moving ceremonies to be those that include an element of surprise -- something unexpected that breaks the participants out of their hum drum & presses at their imaginations. I know for certain that I already mentioned the importance of aesthetic in ceremony. This is where the Offering Art Bowls came in; to bring another layer (in concert with costuming, music & dance) of wonder & beauty to the ceremony, as well as to channel the energies of the artists who created them.

We asked eight different artist friends (professional, amateur & students) from various ends of the Earth to participate in this event through their own personal rendering of Passion. Eight wooden bowls cast off into creative, caring hands. Eight wooden bowls to return in their own time, but yet still in time for the Summer Solstice.

In a phone conversation, one of the artists, also something of an animist, mentioned that he felt that these bowls being together for this final time, each complete in itself & yet also being part of a collective was the ultimate Offering. Because this was their final gathering, never to be together again as a Whole, the Offering was even more potent, perhaps even more of a sacrifice.

And it is true, the Bowls gathered together again, only for this ceremony & were then auctioned off to support another ceremony someday in the future when someone else has a Vision -- a sacrifice. I have to concur, it was difficult to see them part ways, they were a beautiful Whole:

Animas Ceremony: Offering Art Bowls

What pleased us as much as seeing all these Bowls return & show their diverse images of Passion was the comments from the artists who all unanimously expressed a gratitude for being asked to participate in the process. Some said they were grateful for an inspiration or motivation to get back to to making art. Some, more often the professional artists, expressed a gratitude for the process of considering the nature of Passion & the ideas, discussions & internal dialogue that this provoked. Gratitude for Offering, a cyclical reciprocity -- this is what really works.

I could go on & on about the various parallels & divergences of the Bowls, or about what I expected & what actually was, but that, I think, is best left for each individual observer. So, instead, I will simply present the Bowls, (in no particular order) as individuals & a Whole. (The artists, including their artist's statements, will be discussed at length in part 5b.)