\u201cThe kinds of sounds I began producing were sounds I never knew I had.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2017-issue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/priestess-oracle.png?resize=435%2C681&ssl=1\")
Painting of Rachel Rosenthal by Lauren Raine (1994)<\/p><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In 1987 I received my MFA from the University of Arizona, an experience that left me with questions that graduate school was not able to answer.\u00a0 What did being an artist really mean – personally, culturally, socially, and most importantly to me, spiritually?\u00a0 And so I began a three-year \u201cvision quest\u201d, travelling around the country to interview different artists.\u00a0 I was not able to find a publisher for my manuscript, and many of the interviews were never published.\u00a0 I think the time is now to share them.\u00a0 The following is an interview so kindly given to me by one of the premier interdisciplinary performance artists of our time, Rachel Rosenthal, in her studio in Los Angeles in the fall of 1988.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BIO:<\/strong><\/p>\nRachel Rosenthal was born to a prominent family that was forced to flee Paris in 1940 to escape the Nazi invasion.\u00a0 She came to live in the U.S., and as a young woman became part of avant-garde theater in New York, as well as dancing with Merce Cunningham.\u00a0 After moving to Los Angeles in 1956, she created the Instant Theatre, an experimental theatre company.\u00a0 Her pioneering involvement in the women\u2019s art movement also led her to become one of the founders of Woman Space in Los Angeles.\u00a0 By the mid \u201870\u2019s Rosenthal made a transition into performance art by developing autobiographical works about her life.<\/p>\n
Performance art is a re-definition of the boundaries of theatre and art that began in the 1960\u2019s.\u00a0 The boundaries are indistinct – and in some of Rosenthal\u2019s performances, the audience has been recruited as an active co-creator.\u00a0 Her autobiographical works Charm<\/em> (1977) and My Brazil<\/em> (1977) questioned the meaning of \u201cpublic\u201d and \u201cprivate\u201c.\u00a0 Intensely personal, the performance was a revelation for the audience, but also a spontaneous revelation for the artist.\u00a0\u00a0 Within this \u201cautobiographical porthole\u201d, as she called it, the \u201cocean\u201d becomes at last visible, a \u201craindrop in the ocean of time\u201d.\u00a0 In Rosenthal\u2019s work transformation was always a core dynamic and a central concern.\u00a0 As the story is told with its many layers and juxtapositions, a ritual or rite of passage<\/em> is also being performed – and thus the motion of expansion and evolution can continue to occur.\u00a0 In the 1980\u2019s Rosenthal shifted to more global concerns, although the autobiographical was always a thread woven throughout her work, as the personal is also the universal.\u00a0 The Others<\/em> (1984) reflected her concern for the mistreatment of animals, and Was Black<\/u><\/em> (1986) confronted the specter of nuclear disaster.<\/p>\nIn her later works, Rosenthal became dedicated to \u201chealing the Earth through the arts\u201d, and influenced by the Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock with his collaborator Lynn Margulis, Rosenthal produced a number of works dedicated to Gaia.\u00a0 She became the \u201cVoice of the Planet\u201d.\u00a0 L.O.W. in Gaia<\/em><\/a> and Pangean Dreams<\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0 speak with the voice of Gaia, Her long, long story, and remind us of our context as we live \u201cwithin the Body\u201d<\/em><\/strong> of our living and evolving planet.\u00a0 Rachel Rosenthal died in Los Angeles in 2015 at the age of 88.\u00a0 For more information about her life and her students and colleagues that continue her work:\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/www.rachelrosenthal.org\/<\/u><\/a><\/p>\nLauren Raine:<\/strong>\u00a0I was privileged to see your performance\u00a0<\/em>Pangean Dreams\u00a0(1987).\u00a0 What inspired the piece?<\/em><\/p>\nRachel Rosenthal<\/strong>: I\u2019ve done various works about the Earth.\u00a0 Some of them were about Gaia, and the problems we have created on the planet.\u00a0 Increasingly, I\u2019ve wanted to present from a very large perspective.\u00a0 In order to understand the Earth, you have to go beneath the surface.\u00a0\u00a0 The idea of continental drift and plate tectonics was the most exciting, sexy thing I ever heard!<\/p>\nI began to see it as a central metaphor for the formation of not only the crust, but also the continents themselves, and the kinds of societies those continents would eventually produce.\u00a0 I wanted to investigate the question of whether geology is truly destiny.\u00a0 Because it seemed to me we can use these geological events as profiles for a civilization a certain continent had developed.<\/p>\n
In addition, I always try to bring in the violent and the dark, because that aspect is so negated, so pushed under, and it is creating havoc.\u00a0 What could be more extraordinarily violent than the Earth both devouring Herself continually and regurgitating Herself continually – which is what is actually happening? She is continually re-creating Herself.<\/p>\n
LR<\/strong>:\u00a0In your statement about <\/em>Pangean Dreams, you wrote: \u201csince all things are interrelated, and plate tectonics plays such a vital role in the life on the surface, couldn\u2019t our interference with that surface life affect the deep workings of the planet?\u201d\u00a0 You suggest that we are \u201csurface dwellers\u201d on many levels because we are unaware of the forces we are part of.<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: That is the big picture.\u00a0 Did you know, for instance, that they are injecting poisons very deep into the Earth?\u00a0 There is an area of waste disposal they call \u201cdeep injection\u201d disposal.\u00a0\u00a0 That method is so dangerous, to the water table and perhaps the equilibrium of the crust\u2026 we are doing some very dumb things, without knowing what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\nWe do the same thing with ourselves.\u00a0 We don\u2019t go deep, we\u2019re afraid of darkness, we are afraid of holes, afraid of anything that will take us away from the sun side.\u00a0 This is occurring on a global level.<\/p>\n
LR<\/strong>:\u00a0You have been called a \u201cshaman\u201d in the art world.\u00a0 Have you studied shamanism and other spiritual traditions?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: I did study shamanism.\u00a0 Shamanism is very close to how I feel about the Earth, and animals, and plants, and the interconnectedness of everything.\u00a0 The seamlessness of being, which is reflected in Zen also.<\/p>\nWhat I really like about it is that it is also so creative.\u00a0 Every person who drums and journeys can create, on a spiritual level, their own work of art.\u00a0 The journeys were astonishing and really connect you to the Earth.<\/p>\n
LR<\/strong>:\u00a0In <\/em>Pangean Dreams you use some truly evocative, almost primordial sounds, sung and chanted.\u00a0 I was shocked to hear your speaking voice after the performance because it is so soft in contrast.<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: The kinds of sounds I began producing were sounds I never knew I had.\u00a0 For decades I thought I had no voice at all, just a rather, small, faint voice.\u00a0 When I began to drum, I began to chant, and I became aware of vocal possibilities that just happened in trance.\u00a0 I\u2019ve incorporated some of them into my work.\u00a0 This exemplifies the range we each have, which we almost never tap into except on the most superficial levels.\u00a0 To me, the potential of each person on the creative levels of art, sound, movement and so on are\u2026 well, it\u2019s almost like manure for the Earth!\u00a0 Compost!\u00a0 You put it back in.\u00a0 Such creativity is healing and nourishing, and this is the best of us.<\/p>\nA group of Tibetan monks came to UCLA recently.\u00a0 In their chants they use a voice that actually is a chord, covering two or three notes at the same time.\u00a0 They create a resonance that is very potent.\u00a0 I had been creating those voices; I discovered them on my own, just by chanting them.\u00a0 I did not know that there was a Tibetan order using this as their discipline.\u00a0 If I can do it, anybody can do it.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a question of allowing the body to become available to channeling these forces because these forces are available to us.\u00a0 The problem is we\u2019re so skimpy and stingy, so timid about asking.\u00a0 The Universe is willing to give; it\u2019s there for the asking.<\/p>\n
When I work, I feel that \u2018seamlessness\u2018 very much, because half of the time I don\u2019t know where the ideas actually come from.\u00a0 They come in all kinds of forms.\u00a0 An idea can be formed in a sound, or in a very articulate kind of language\u2026 but it\u2019s all part of the same thing.\u00a0 This comprehension of holism is very important at this point in time.\u00a0 I think it is also very important to the planet for us to be able to think in those terms.<\/p>\n
LR<\/strong>:\u00a0What is shamanism?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: Historically it is one thing.\u00a0 Contemporary views and practices are a bit different.\u00a0 It is an Earth and magical spiritual discipline predating any of the organized religions.\u00a0 Usually, shamans are found in small communities.\u00a0 A person, man or woman, emerges as a shaman in different ways, either individually or as descendants of a family of shamans.\u00a0 They may learn the teaching from their elders, but many are also spontaneously called to the profession.\u00a0 Usually, that call is painful and has to do with illness, some kind of trauma, an accident, whatever.\u00a0 Because of this experience, new kinds of perceptions spontaneously emerge.<\/p>\nA shaman is one who has the skill to move between worlds, at will.\u00a0 This is, I think, something to be made very clear: the shaman is not someone who is possessed, who like many mediums or \u201ctrance channels\u201d is unconscious.\u00a0 A shaman has the skill to go wherever she or he wants to go and can switch transpersonal realities at will.\u00a0 They have the ability to make a bridge.\u00a0 If a soul is lost, or ill, they will make the journey to heal in some way.\u00a0 And some of them are not healers.\u00a0 Some of them are just magicians who manipulate other forces in ways that are sometimes very self-serving.\u00a0 It depends on the person.<\/p>\n
LR<\/strong>:\u00a0How do you relate this to art?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: When people ask me \u201care you a shaman\u201d, I always say no.\u00a0 As for the artist being a shaman, well, semantics.\u00a0 Some may think so, some may not.\u00a0 Those artists who feel they are acting as \u201cgo-betweens\u201d may feel themselves to be within that tradition.\u00a0 Sometimes that is what I feel – like a go-between, and I facilitate from that stance.<\/p>\nLR<\/strong>:\u00a0Many artists I have spoken to talk about some process outside of themselves that occurs within their creativity, an interface.<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: That\u2019s what I mean by a go-between or a facilitator.\u00a0 A person who interprets the chaotic and unformed forces, putting them into a form that can be absorbed and shared.\u00a0\u00a0 Because there is always the face of the Medusa and people must protect themselves against that.<\/p>\nLR<\/strong>:\u00a0The Medusa?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: The Greek myth of the Gorgon.\u00a0 Those who looked at her turned to stone.\u00a0 This was a metaphor for looking into the abyss, and not being able to handle it.\u00a0 Turning into stone means you go into a deep depression, you cannot function in the world; you are immobilized by the horror and the awesomeness of it.\u00a0 When Perseus slayed the gorgon, he cut off her head and put it on his shield, which he then gave to Athena.\u00a0 She carries the shield with Medusa\u2019s face, but in a way that changes it, takes away its destructiveness.\u00a0 We are always doing that, somehow shielding ourselves.<\/p>\nWhen people come close to the abyss, something in them instinctively tells them to stop.\u00a0 Some people don\u2019t stop, like Baudelaire who consciously went into madness, or Artaud.<\/p>\n
LR<\/strong>:\u00a0A journey into the abyss, sometimes self-chosen.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t the idea inherent to this that by making the journey, when you return there is an important transformation of some kind?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: That is the myth of the Hero.\u00a0 You are a Hero if you can make the journey, gather the treasure, and then come back.\u00a0 If you get stuck, if you stay there, you are not a Hero.\u00a0 The journey has to be the return as well as the goal.\u00a0 So make the journey, but always leave yourself the thread of Ariadne, in order to come back safely.<\/p>\nLR<\/strong>:\u00a0You say, \u201cGaia is constantly giving birth to Herself and devouring Herself in a circular dance\u201d.\u00a0 Are you speaking as well about the transformational nature of our lives?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: Pangean Dreams<\/em> is a metaphor on all levels: a metaphor for a personal history, for an emotional history, and certainly for a continuum of change on the physical and metaphysical level.\u00a0 It\u2019s such a great image, Pangaea.<\/p>\nBut ‘transformation’ is a tricky word.\u00a0 What are you transforming into?\u00a0 Change for the sake of change is not so interesting. \u00a0What we need to understand is that we have come to the point of mastering our own evolution.\u00a0 We are not going to evolve physically much more: the evolution is in our minds, in our consciousness.\u00a0 We need to investigate what kind of responsibility we hold\u2026 not only does that mean we are evolving, and we have choices, but it means that we are also transforming in context with our planet.\u00a0 We are the central dynamic of change for the planet as a whole now, not simply another species.\u00a0 So our responsibilities are all-encompassing.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I want people to start looking at.<\/p>\n
LR<\/strong>:\u00a0What is Gaia?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: Gaia is a convenient archetype.\u00a0 It has to do with several things.<\/p>\nOne is the archetype of the Earth as a Goddess, which comes from ancient Greece and far beyond.\u00a0 The other is the contemporary ecological hypothesis of Gaia, which is that the Earth is a living body, a self-regulating system, and biologically She creates optimum conditions for all life to exist.\u00a0 If you accept that hypothesis, which I do, you then see that the body of the Earth is a very fragile being.\u00a0 One being.\u00a0 There are no borders, no boundaries – just one being with different cells and organs and metabolism.\u00a0 Gaia is a personification of the Earth as a living body.<\/p>\n
In my personal spirituality, I think of Her, the Earth, as a Goddess, as the Great Mother – because that is the easiest symbol for me to wrap a concept around.\u00a0 In reality, I do not believe in a personal Deity.\u00a0 Even though I pray to Her, I don\u2019t believe she is saying \u201cOh, there\u2019s Rachel praying to me, let\u2019s pay attention!\u201d\u00a0 The prayer or the invocation is really to align me to the Earth, to put myself in the magnetic field, to be in contact and in harmony.<\/p>\n
This is a simple way to do it.\u00a0 To name something is to make it accessible in some way.\u00a0 I do that, but in truth, I could very easily avoid any anthropomorphic personification of the deity.\u00a0 For me, when I look at this (holding up a NASA photograph of the Earth from space<\/em>) I am looking into the face of the Deity.\u00a0 This is the totality, the globe, that incredible consciousness we live in.<\/p>\nI remember reading some comments from astronauts and cosmonauts.\u00a0 They said things I\u2019ve felt for a long time.\u00a0 Apparently, for these people, the experience of seeing the Earth in space changed their whole outlook on everything.<\/p>\n
LR<\/strong>:\u00a0They literally got the big picture?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: They literally did!\u00a0 It saddens me that those who need to get that picture will probably never go into space.\u00a0 They have to get it some other way, and that\u2019s why in my own very small way I want to create this kind of art.<\/p>\nLR<\/strong>:\u00a0Why is the metaphor of Gaia so important to us?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: Because we are living\u00a0in\u00a0the Body<\/em>.\u00a0 Not\u00a0on\u00a0the Body<\/em>, but\u00a0in\u00a0the Body<\/em>.<\/p>\nAnd what we do to the Earth we are doing to ourselves.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easier for people to anthropomorphize something abstract.\u00a0 That is where the metaphor of Gaia comes in – it is easier to think of a mother, a nurturing parent.\u00a0 By giving a name to it, you can talk to Her.\u00a0 That\u2019s the purpose.\u00a0 Otherwise, you are lost in abstractions, and lose the emotional content of the issue.\u00a0 It has to reach us on a gut level.<\/p>\n
LR<\/strong>:\u00a0In that sense, there is a degree of hope?<\/em><\/p>\nRR<\/strong>: There is a degree of hope, if we hurry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Copyright, Lauren Raine (1988) <\/em>Lauren Raine<\/strong> is an internationally known artist and mask maker. She is currently serving as Artist in Residence\u00a0with\u00a0the Society\u00a0for Ritual Arts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"iawp_total_views":78,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-papers"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Painting of Rachel Rosenthal by Lauren Raine (1994)<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n BIO:<\/strong><\/p>\n Rachel Rosenthal was born to a prominent family that was forced to flee Paris in 1940 to escape the Nazi invasion.\u00a0 She came to live in the U.S., and as a young woman became part of avant-garde theater in New York, as well as dancing with Merce Cunningham.\u00a0 After moving to Los Angeles in 1956, she created the Instant Theatre, an experimental theatre company.\u00a0 Her pioneering involvement in the women\u2019s art movement also led her to become one of the founders of Woman Space in Los Angeles.\u00a0 By the mid \u201870\u2019s Rosenthal made a transition into performance art by developing autobiographical works about her life.<\/p>\n Performance art is a re-definition of the boundaries of theatre and art that began in the 1960\u2019s.\u00a0 The boundaries are indistinct – and in some of Rosenthal\u2019s performances, the audience has been recruited as an active co-creator.\u00a0 Her autobiographical works Charm<\/em> (1977) and My Brazil<\/em> (1977) questioned the meaning of \u201cpublic\u201d and \u201cprivate\u201c.\u00a0 Intensely personal, the performance was a revelation for the audience, but also a spontaneous revelation for the artist.\u00a0\u00a0 Within this \u201cautobiographical porthole\u201d, as she called it, the \u201cocean\u201d becomes at last visible, a \u201craindrop in the ocean of time\u201d.\u00a0 In Rosenthal\u2019s work transformation was always a core dynamic and a central concern.\u00a0 As the story is told with its many layers and juxtapositions, a ritual or rite of passage<\/em> is also being performed – and thus the motion of expansion and evolution can continue to occur.\u00a0 In the 1980\u2019s Rosenthal shifted to more global concerns, although the autobiographical was always a thread woven throughout her work, as the personal is also the universal.\u00a0 The Others<\/em> (1984) reflected her concern for the mistreatment of animals, and Was Black<\/u><\/em> (1986) confronted the specter of nuclear disaster.<\/p>\n In her later works, Rosenthal became dedicated to \u201chealing the Earth through the arts\u201d, and influenced by the Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock with his collaborator Lynn Margulis, Rosenthal produced a number of works dedicated to Gaia.\u00a0 She became the \u201cVoice of the Planet\u201d.\u00a0 L.O.W. in Gaia<\/em><\/a> and Pangean Dreams<\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0 speak with the voice of Gaia, Her long, long story, and remind us of our context as we live \u201cwithin the Body\u201d<\/em><\/strong> of our living and evolving planet.\u00a0 Rachel Rosenthal died in Los Angeles in 2015 at the age of 88.\u00a0 For more information about her life and her students and colleagues that continue her work:\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/www.rachelrosenthal.org\/<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n Lauren Raine:<\/strong>\u00a0I was privileged to see your performance\u00a0<\/em>Pangean Dreams\u00a0(1987).\u00a0 What inspired the piece?<\/em><\/p>\n Rachel Rosenthal<\/strong>: I\u2019ve done various works about the Earth.\u00a0 Some of them were about Gaia, and the problems we have created on the planet.\u00a0 Increasingly, I\u2019ve wanted to present from a very large perspective.\u00a0 In order to understand the Earth, you have to go beneath the surface.\u00a0\u00a0 The idea of continental drift and plate tectonics was the most exciting, sexy thing I ever heard!<\/p>\n I began to see it as a central metaphor for the formation of not only the crust, but also the continents themselves, and the kinds of societies those continents would eventually produce.\u00a0 I wanted to investigate the question of whether geology is truly destiny.\u00a0 Because it seemed to me we can use these geological events as profiles for a civilization a certain continent had developed.<\/p>\n In addition, I always try to bring in the violent and the dark, because that aspect is so negated, so pushed under, and it is creating havoc.\u00a0 What could be more extraordinarily violent than the Earth both devouring Herself continually and regurgitating Herself continually – which is what is actually happening? She is continually re-creating Herself.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0In your statement about <\/em>Pangean Dreams, you wrote: \u201csince all things are interrelated, and plate tectonics plays such a vital role in the life on the surface, couldn\u2019t our interference with that surface life affect the deep workings of the planet?\u201d\u00a0 You suggest that we are \u201csurface dwellers\u201d on many levels because we are unaware of the forces we are part of.<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: That is the big picture.\u00a0 Did you know, for instance, that they are injecting poisons very deep into the Earth?\u00a0 There is an area of waste disposal they call \u201cdeep injection\u201d disposal.\u00a0\u00a0 That method is so dangerous, to the water table and perhaps the equilibrium of the crust\u2026 we are doing some very dumb things, without knowing what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n We do the same thing with ourselves.\u00a0 We don\u2019t go deep, we\u2019re afraid of darkness, we are afraid of holes, afraid of anything that will take us away from the sun side.\u00a0 This is occurring on a global level.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0You have been called a \u201cshaman\u201d in the art world.\u00a0 Have you studied shamanism and other spiritual traditions?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: I did study shamanism.\u00a0 Shamanism is very close to how I feel about the Earth, and animals, and plants, and the interconnectedness of everything.\u00a0 The seamlessness of being, which is reflected in Zen also.<\/p>\n What I really like about it is that it is also so creative.\u00a0 Every person who drums and journeys can create, on a spiritual level, their own work of art.\u00a0 The journeys were astonishing and really connect you to the Earth.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0In <\/em>Pangean Dreams you use some truly evocative, almost primordial sounds, sung and chanted.\u00a0 I was shocked to hear your speaking voice after the performance because it is so soft in contrast.<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: The kinds of sounds I began producing were sounds I never knew I had.\u00a0 For decades I thought I had no voice at all, just a rather, small, faint voice.\u00a0 When I began to drum, I began to chant, and I became aware of vocal possibilities that just happened in trance.\u00a0 I\u2019ve incorporated some of them into my work.\u00a0 This exemplifies the range we each have, which we almost never tap into except on the most superficial levels.\u00a0 To me, the potential of each person on the creative levels of art, sound, movement and so on are\u2026 well, it\u2019s almost like manure for the Earth!\u00a0 Compost!\u00a0 You put it back in.\u00a0 Such creativity is healing and nourishing, and this is the best of us.<\/p>\n A group of Tibetan monks came to UCLA recently.\u00a0 In their chants they use a voice that actually is a chord, covering two or three notes at the same time.\u00a0 They create a resonance that is very potent.\u00a0 I had been creating those voices; I discovered them on my own, just by chanting them.\u00a0 I did not know that there was a Tibetan order using this as their discipline.\u00a0 If I can do it, anybody can do it.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a question of allowing the body to become available to channeling these forces because these forces are available to us.\u00a0 The problem is we\u2019re so skimpy and stingy, so timid about asking.\u00a0 The Universe is willing to give; it\u2019s there for the asking.<\/p>\n When I work, I feel that \u2018seamlessness\u2018 very much, because half of the time I don\u2019t know where the ideas actually come from.\u00a0 They come in all kinds of forms.\u00a0 An idea can be formed in a sound, or in a very articulate kind of language\u2026 but it\u2019s all part of the same thing.\u00a0 This comprehension of holism is very important at this point in time.\u00a0 I think it is also very important to the planet for us to be able to think in those terms.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0What is shamanism?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: Historically it is one thing.\u00a0 Contemporary views and practices are a bit different.\u00a0 It is an Earth and magical spiritual discipline predating any of the organized religions.\u00a0 Usually, shamans are found in small communities.\u00a0 A person, man or woman, emerges as a shaman in different ways, either individually or as descendants of a family of shamans.\u00a0 They may learn the teaching from their elders, but many are also spontaneously called to the profession.\u00a0 Usually, that call is painful and has to do with illness, some kind of trauma, an accident, whatever.\u00a0 Because of this experience, new kinds of perceptions spontaneously emerge.<\/p>\n A shaman is one who has the skill to move between worlds, at will.\u00a0 This is, I think, something to be made very clear: the shaman is not someone who is possessed, who like many mediums or \u201ctrance channels\u201d is unconscious.\u00a0 A shaman has the skill to go wherever she or he wants to go and can switch transpersonal realities at will.\u00a0 They have the ability to make a bridge.\u00a0 If a soul is lost, or ill, they will make the journey to heal in some way.\u00a0 And some of them are not healers.\u00a0 Some of them are just magicians who manipulate other forces in ways that are sometimes very self-serving.\u00a0 It depends on the person.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0How do you relate this to art?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: When people ask me \u201care you a shaman\u201d, I always say no.\u00a0 As for the artist being a shaman, well, semantics.\u00a0 Some may think so, some may not.\u00a0 Those artists who feel they are acting as \u201cgo-betweens\u201d may feel themselves to be within that tradition.\u00a0 Sometimes that is what I feel – like a go-between, and I facilitate from that stance.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0Many artists I have spoken to talk about some process outside of themselves that occurs within their creativity, an interface.<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: That\u2019s what I mean by a go-between or a facilitator.\u00a0 A person who interprets the chaotic and unformed forces, putting them into a form that can be absorbed and shared.\u00a0\u00a0 Because there is always the face of the Medusa and people must protect themselves against that.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0The Medusa?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: The Greek myth of the Gorgon.\u00a0 Those who looked at her turned to stone.\u00a0 This was a metaphor for looking into the abyss, and not being able to handle it.\u00a0 Turning into stone means you go into a deep depression, you cannot function in the world; you are immobilized by the horror and the awesomeness of it.\u00a0 When Perseus slayed the gorgon, he cut off her head and put it on his shield, which he then gave to Athena.\u00a0 She carries the shield with Medusa\u2019s face, but in a way that changes it, takes away its destructiveness.\u00a0 We are always doing that, somehow shielding ourselves.<\/p>\n When people come close to the abyss, something in them instinctively tells them to stop.\u00a0 Some people don\u2019t stop, like Baudelaire who consciously went into madness, or Artaud.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0A journey into the abyss, sometimes self-chosen.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t the idea inherent to this that by making the journey, when you return there is an important transformation of some kind?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: That is the myth of the Hero.\u00a0 You are a Hero if you can make the journey, gather the treasure, and then come back.\u00a0 If you get stuck, if you stay there, you are not a Hero.\u00a0 The journey has to be the return as well as the goal.\u00a0 So make the journey, but always leave yourself the thread of Ariadne, in order to come back safely.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0You say, \u201cGaia is constantly giving birth to Herself and devouring Herself in a circular dance\u201d.\u00a0 Are you speaking as well about the transformational nature of our lives?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: Pangean Dreams<\/em> is a metaphor on all levels: a metaphor for a personal history, for an emotional history, and certainly for a continuum of change on the physical and metaphysical level.\u00a0 It\u2019s such a great image, Pangaea.<\/p>\n But ‘transformation’ is a tricky word.\u00a0 What are you transforming into?\u00a0 Change for the sake of change is not so interesting. \u00a0What we need to understand is that we have come to the point of mastering our own evolution.\u00a0 We are not going to evolve physically much more: the evolution is in our minds, in our consciousness.\u00a0 We need to investigate what kind of responsibility we hold\u2026 not only does that mean we are evolving, and we have choices, but it means that we are also transforming in context with our planet.\u00a0 We are the central dynamic of change for the planet as a whole now, not simply another species.\u00a0 So our responsibilities are all-encompassing.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I want people to start looking at.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0What is Gaia?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: Gaia is a convenient archetype.\u00a0 It has to do with several things.<\/p>\n One is the archetype of the Earth as a Goddess, which comes from ancient Greece and far beyond.\u00a0 The other is the contemporary ecological hypothesis of Gaia, which is that the Earth is a living body, a self-regulating system, and biologically She creates optimum conditions for all life to exist.\u00a0 If you accept that hypothesis, which I do, you then see that the body of the Earth is a very fragile being.\u00a0 One being.\u00a0 There are no borders, no boundaries – just one being with different cells and organs and metabolism.\u00a0 Gaia is a personification of the Earth as a living body.<\/p>\n In my personal spirituality, I think of Her, the Earth, as a Goddess, as the Great Mother – because that is the easiest symbol for me to wrap a concept around.\u00a0 In reality, I do not believe in a personal Deity.\u00a0 Even though I pray to Her, I don\u2019t believe she is saying \u201cOh, there\u2019s Rachel praying to me, let\u2019s pay attention!\u201d\u00a0 The prayer or the invocation is really to align me to the Earth, to put myself in the magnetic field, to be in contact and in harmony.<\/p>\n This is a simple way to do it.\u00a0 To name something is to make it accessible in some way.\u00a0 I do that, but in truth, I could very easily avoid any anthropomorphic personification of the deity.\u00a0 For me, when I look at this (holding up a NASA photograph of the Earth from space<\/em>) I am looking into the face of the Deity.\u00a0 This is the totality, the globe, that incredible consciousness we live in.<\/p>\n I remember reading some comments from astronauts and cosmonauts.\u00a0 They said things I\u2019ve felt for a long time.\u00a0 Apparently, for these people, the experience of seeing the Earth in space changed their whole outlook on everything.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0They literally got the big picture?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: They literally did!\u00a0 It saddens me that those who need to get that picture will probably never go into space.\u00a0 They have to get it some other way, and that\u2019s why in my own very small way I want to create this kind of art.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0Why is the metaphor of Gaia so important to us?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: Because we are living\u00a0in\u00a0the Body<\/em>.\u00a0 Not\u00a0on\u00a0the Body<\/em>, but\u00a0in\u00a0the Body<\/em>.<\/p>\n And what we do to the Earth we are doing to ourselves.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easier for people to anthropomorphize something abstract.\u00a0 That is where the metaphor of Gaia comes in – it is easier to think of a mother, a nurturing parent.\u00a0 By giving a name to it, you can talk to Her.\u00a0 That\u2019s the purpose.\u00a0 Otherwise, you are lost in abstractions, and lose the emotional content of the issue.\u00a0 It has to reach us on a gut level.<\/p>\n LR<\/strong>:\u00a0In that sense, there is a degree of hope?<\/em><\/p>\n RR<\/strong>: There is a degree of hope, if we hurry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Copyright, Lauren Raine (1988) <\/em>Lauren Raine<\/strong> is an internationally known artist and mask maker. She is currently serving as Artist in Residence\u00a0with\u00a0the Society\u00a0for Ritual Arts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"iawp_total_views":78,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-papers"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In 1987 I received my MFA from the University of Arizona, an experience that left me with questions that graduate school was not able to answer.\u00a0 What did being an artist really mean – personally, culturally, socially, and most importantly to me, spiritually?\u00a0 And so I began a three-year \u201cvision quest\u201d, travelling around the country to interview different artists.\u00a0 I was not able to find a publisher for my manuscript, and many of the interviews were never published.\u00a0 I think the time is now to share them.\u00a0 The following is an interview so kindly given to me by one of the premier interdisciplinary performance artists of our time, Rachel Rosenthal, in her studio in Los Angeles in the fall of 1988.<\/em><\/p>\n