See yourself through these hands: The moving body as a portal to spirit possession. Working with ancient ritual technologies to create portraits of spirits, gods and mythic beings

Abstract

My creative, somatic and spiritual praxis combines the deep somatic trance work of authentic movement with ancient ritual technologies such as those found in the 2000-year-old Greek Magical Papyri. This article describes these embodied processes in and with wild nature places to facilitate visionary states which are recorded through poetic writings, and subsequently expressed in highly detailed drawings of ancient gods and mythic beings. I explore the nature of creative inspiration, not only in my own writings and drawings but in others’ artistic endeavours, that leads me to consider whether what is present in any great work of art is an indwelling animate force; a spirit or god. Working with this question, I am compelled deeper into this intersection of movement, creativity and spirituality, and from there, my life seems to become illuminated from within. Even as we all move through increasingly difficult times, we must continue to let ourselves be danced by something greater; especially for all those who cannot. We must continually open the seams to allow the movement of some vast majesty that we may never comprehend. Then we ourselves become a living work of art. As such, our lives become a ritual offering of beauty.