Art As A Spiritual Practice

I'm always walking a path. This is especially true of my art. It's always a work in progress/process, because I can never really reach a point where I can say, “That's it. That's all there is to know and do. I can't go any further.” Because there is always more to do, to know, to understand, to explore. And this is deeply locked into my spiritual journey, as the more I know my art, the more I know myself. Unless you only work on a surface level, your art is a very personal and deep expression of you, of what you are, of what you are becoming. I can't separate my artistic journey from my spiritual one because they are one in the same. Maybe other people can, but I can't. The Journey Is The Destination This journey is like a river—it twists and turns, rushes and recedes, floods and even sometimes dries up—but it is always flowing forward toward some unknown destination. Or maybe there really isn't any destination, because the journey itself is ...

Most spiritual and esoteric traditions have studies that focus on the breath. That is because the breath is everything . Think about it. If you stop breathing, what happens? You die.  But what if you only stop breathing for a short time? Well, you die just a little. Or more specifically, your body can seize up and stop functioning at an efficient pace. Systems will start shutting down and you will experience problems in doing things. One problem that I have found in myself, and other artists I have talked to, is unknowingly holding our breath when confronted with some sort of problem or decision. Surprisingly, when things become difficult, we often do the opposite of what we need to do: we hold our breath instead of deepening our breath. When we hold our breath, our muscles tend to tighten. This can cause various problems. Besides making our movements stiffer (especially fine motor skills), tightened muscles can restrict the blood flow, which then affects ...