It would seem that every day we hear of more pollutions, chaos and sufferings. It would appear to be, because the great collective believe it to be so, as part of our collective dreaming. Dreaming born out of largely unconscious dynamics, urges and power relations. That which is manifest is mirror of our mind, mirror of our emotional state and physical state. We dream out nightmares into being until we awaken.

Our sanity is being tested by our creativity, our creativity not born in balanced relation and love but a mix of curiosity, fear,  desperation, destructiveness,  and the love of power. The earth once pristine offered sanctuary amidst her wild beauty. Yet everywhere our kind has stepped, have we interfered with the natural order and wrought our own creations of destruction.

Coming out of the dark ages into scientific realizations and now consciousness realizations demands that we own our ability. If we do not start exercising wisdom born from experience, we rent our own demise. The way is clear...........choose to create sanctuary of lose our sanity.

Sanctuaries of sanity are needed which are complete zones/ spaces protected at a mineralogical, biological level, electromagnetic level, and sonic level. All life within must be held sacred and remain untouched or rehabilitated so that the minerals can serve their function as the strata upon which the plant world resides, which supports the animal and provides a rich tapestry of being for all life to co exist, where,  for us  we can come  to heal, reflect, learn and realize. In times gone by this function was served by sacred sites. SANCTITY HAS BEEN DEFILED.

National parks are not enough. They are sold off to mining explorations, or forestry operations, World heritage listings undermined. Collective agreements violated, action wrought with no consequence but for short term gain, no thought given to the decimation of species and ecological balance. Once gone the breath of a thousand years no longer transpires, the branches are gone which gave home to many.

Increasingly disease and  stress, are manifesting within us, within all species. We are constantly tuned in to the great grid umbilicus, the electromagnetic age.  For biological integrity and balance we need to disconnect from our devices and connect in to  at the biological level with other living beings, and the planets magnetic field, We are severing ourselves from it and believing if we acquire the knowledge we can go to other planets when this one fails us. We are out of our minds, behaving with insanity. Only insanity would sabotage the integrity of the whole. The corporate monster will permit us to bite off our own tail.

Our pollutions span the waters, the earth, the air and even the region of fire with the use of energy/ transformative power of the electromagnetic spectrum, and subatomic and nuclear force, and disregard oftentimes for spiritual teachings and truths. Our pollution is of the mind and emotions, the body and spirit. Mind is the correlate of air, emotion of water, the  body of earth, spirit of fire. Our pollution seeks  the ether, the force level of all things and penetrates the realm of sound. The cacophony deafens, irritates, drives us crazy, scares  away other life forms. Our symphony is changing, the voices of the living being replaced by machines and devices, Industry and mechanization. We seek peace, to retreat. Sometimes we go into these zones to stimulate, other times we seek retreat. We do not question what we hear, because it is normal to us, but we must examine the nature of that normal. What is it? Where is the balance of systems? IS it life supporting, or a son of Industry seeking to further conquer the world?

STOP- LISTEN!

WE NEED SANCTUARIES OF SANITY

SONIC SANCTUARIES

WHAT ARE WE HEARING?

WHAT CAN WE KNOW?

ARE WE LISTENING?

DO WE NOTICE?

Change is every day, some within our  control,  most beyond us, within this ceaseless movement we must create rest, we need to create space within and reclaim without. Sanctuaries of Sanity, places of repose, reflection where all can come, where all is sacred, where a global convention protects the Integrity of that which we are so rapidly losing, the FOUNDATION OR LIFE SUPPORT ITSELF.

And yet such a  planetary sanctuary begins with a reclaiming our own mind and body. Our body must become Sanctuary for our soul, not slave. A welcome home, not a place of torment. Our mind, one with spirit, at one with the greater universal being that permeates all. We must realize  we are the sanctuary and extend that sanctuary field to all life, lest we all fall together into the decimation of souls, of which there is no return, no return to the state of the garden where we were.  We would instead leave survivors to inherit the corridors of nightmares and scavenge amidst the waters of our old ways. We need no less that a COMPLETE REVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS, a turn around, to an enlightened humanity where we cast aside the toys of war, and the playthings of ignorance and grow into our becoming one with, again, in The Sanctuary of Sanity.

There has long been a link to hearing, listening and prophecy and the failure to take heed. Native prophets, Christian mystics, nature mystics, daoists, Buddhists, all speak about relationship too. He who has ears let him hear. (I use the translation given not politically correct adaptations), Jeshua (Jesus), knew even then that hearing , perception, attention and comprehension are selective, albeit within a varied time, culture and worldview. Truths are eternal and translate down the corridors of time. He knew that people choose according to their context/ culture ‘what’ to give their ears to.

The fact that the ear is linked to the limbic system , to survival in it’s most primal form, has been viewed as late as an evolutionary throw off, something we are beyond ,in our sophisticated technological age, by virtue of cognitive capacity and mind over matter rationality. But the body does not lie. Yet, we ignore these auditory signals all around us at our peril. There exist tales of the gods bringing great destruction because the cacophony of man grew too great in times before, it was making even the gods crazy.

Lack of, disappearance, excess and cacophony are just as important to take head of as are lions, in the jungle, corruption in the cities or violence in the hearth.


I invite you to explore aspects of this in upcoming workshops 

1.       ‘Music and Sound in the Healing arts- What you need to know’. June 28 St Kilda

2.       ‘Healing Persons, Healing Communities Healing Planet’ July 26 St Kilda

Please check the ‘What’s on’ tab under ‘Workshops’  in coming weeks at   www.creativetherapeuticencounters.com.au

Sincerely with love Catherine

THE SONIC SANCTUARY LOGO ABOVE IS THE NAME OF MY AMBIENT MUSIC LABEL WHICH WILL FEATURE ALL MY SELF RELEASED MUSIC, AVAILABLE SOON, SEE LINK BELOW 

http://www.catherinemeeson.com/

“Seek and ye shall find...the kingdom of heaven is within”.J.C

We live in an age where ‘globalization’ is becoming the norm, and we are calling ourselves ‘global citizens’. Yet, among-st this amazing sense of expansion, we have a dissolution of relation because barriers, values and boarders have changed. We can now travel the seas from land to land, migrate co mingle- live in other countries. While we are benefiting from the great diversity of species, practices, cultures and ways, at the same time we are losing aspects of both our personal  and collective histories as we move from land to land. We are  also being affected in our body bio magnetically, as our roots sever in one place and need to be re established. Our roots and needs  are influenced by what we ingest as far as  food types that come from specific geographical regions, that the people have evolved with over thousands of years. This poses short term and inter generational concern  for migration. Of course these things always change with migrations, we’re got people from Africa moving to Australia, England to America, China to Canada, Alaska going to Europe and so on.  We take our foods with us, , we import/ export. What once contributed the stability of our foundation to planet, of our knowing and our place, in relation to the plants, the animals, the water, minerals and ores, the lay of the lands, all the old lores and ways of knowing what to do, all that is in danger of being lost completely as the elders are dying our who possess that knowledge. Much knowledge of the ancient ways has been lost to the progress of the technological era, but we fool ourselves if we think this age old knowledge is no longer relevant, we are but humans living in a larger domain of relations .

The old lore is being replaced by Industrialization, high science and abstraction, virtual reality and so forth and we are becoming increasingly disengaged from the body, disengaged from the senses and our ways of knowing. We are five minute microwavers and genetic modifiers. I am not saying that technology is bad and all of Industrialization is a bad practice, it’s that we need to  re- evaluate and take action on all the issues related of these things, with a great immediacy, in light of what we are now coming to know. And what we are now coming to know is that the relationship between all things are very delicately bound, that Indigenous people and all wisdom traditions teach us about the fragility of relationships and the sacredness of  relationship.

The workshops that I like to hold are nurturing an open arena of questioning, of discovery ,of reflection and realization, where processes are provided, and  prompts given  for you to explore this  intrinsic relation. The answers aren’t given. We explore symbolic  and symbiotic relations, through resonance, through empathy and through relation to, through contemplation. Using all of our senses, using the physicality of the body through movement, through touch. We’re using our sense of knowing and tapping ancient instinctual knowing through hearing and listening, exploring at deep levels. And then we are expressing vocally our inner worlds  through pictures and words, how we feel about these things. So  an ‘Environmentally Aware  Creative Arts Therapy’ is one that explores relationship between all things, between person and place, how the health  and state of one, affects the others, via the arts, via Creative process work/ or therapeutic practice. Vie embodied practice. We look at how we are using resources? What resources we are using?. We look at the whole concept of reduce reuse recycle and how we can be more ecologically aware? And  developing innovative practice that goes beyond the medical paradigm of a sick person in a normal society. Looking  at persons within cultures within society, within places. Because you can’t extract a human being from the context that they come from. If you take a person out of the place, the place is still going to travel with the person, in the form of customs, biology (i.e dna)  culture memory and associations.  If you put them in a new place they have got to learn to relate to that place;-  they don’t know ‘its ways and means’.

We adapt, but we don’t recognize the loss. We don’t take the time to acknowledge what it is, from where we come from, that helps to make us who we are. This loss includes the relation between a community , a community of life on all levels. The human, the animal, plant, mineral. Our definition of community has regressed in ‘concept and being’. It does not embody totality at all. We think loosely the community is the place where we live and the social structures available to our consumer mindset, or a community of interest. We need to bring those  four kingdoms back into alignment with  the natural order, as far as conducting ourselves within them.  Because unless we do conduct ourselves in a more appropriate manner all the castles are going to fall down and there won’t be a kingdom to support us, the foundation Yesod will not support us. Yesod will not support life because we have debased it. We fail to recognize the importance of foundation, Earth. And we fail to recognize that we are part of the earth. We are still embodied on form on earth. We are watery mass. We are air consumers, dependent upon right atmosphere. Our spirit, the spark of creators fire within, (the elusive creator). We have a role here as caretakers, we have a role here as incarnate beings to develop our souls, to yearn towards the greater path of enlightenment always in thought word and deed. What if this were taught in schools? Earth Ethics  101 in equal measure with math, English, the arts and sciences. We would grow a culture of care, of wisdom, of relation; such a culture would return the balance of life and restore the sanctity of all things. Sadly we are said to be living in the 6th great extinction event right now. (See http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/28/the-sixth-great-extinction-a-silent-extermination/ )

So an Environmentally Aware Creative Arts Therapy is a forum for exploring intrinsic relation, via creative process 21.2.2014, end voice transcript.

Transcript 2.

An ‘Environmentally Aware Creative Arts Therapy’ is one in which the relation between person and place is understood, because the people are part of a place and the place provides us with food, with the raw materials necessary to live a life, the ores, with the animals that we eat, the plants, and the medicines. All these things are part of place. The landmarks that inform our histories and mythologies of our events; all are intertwined. And now, in this age of mass migration, we don’t have our familiars anymore, those things that act as symbols as conveyors of information and wisdom, that have been staple for hundreds and also thousands of years.  We create suburb place names like Endeavour Springs where no watercourse lay. Without familiars we become lost in a foreign sea, and so what we are needing to do, is to re-establish that link between person and place . To rebuild re recognize and evolve our relationships.

An Environmentally Aware Creative Arts Therapy takes elements of the natural world around us and uses them as a guide to process, as a guide into those symbolic worlds, into the instinctive, into the genetic and ancestral memories, that we all carry. Into those areas of knowledge which are forbidden, in the shadow and  into the light. An  ‘Environmentally aware creative arts therapy considers our mode of living and then it questions the validity of our mode of living and the social norms,  do I need these things?. We aim to consider their life beyond ourselves?, What will happen to them, my tools, my resources after I have used them?. Is there a way I can do my journey and explore my process while minimizing my impact?. So what tools and resources can I use to achieve that goal? We do not have all the answers, we are endeavouring as well, and this work, this exploration is born out of the reflections of that endeavouring, or bringing to conscious awareness. If we do not ask , it is merely unconscious practice, it is ‘a norm’. But does the norm serve? How can it better be applied?.

As we are finding out  through many current fields of study, of both the arts/ humanities and sciences, the links between the many, many, levels of social environmental and economic functioning and the links between cultures and places are both growing and diminishing at the same time. New fields are growing, old ones are becoming  barren, yet what is becoming barren, is the statistically high probability of  the loss of thousands of years of ecological relation and symbiosis.  The product of aeons of growth.  Whilst things can change, ecology books, history books etc that inform us  about what was here;  what we are losing is really not beyond our control, our ability to intervene and create change. We can reflect, and take action upon, but it must be immediately. So my aim is to convey this stream of thought and to encourage as much conscious reflection in therapeutic practice as possible. Both site specifically, using elements of place to aid process work  and using those materials generated by humanity which we use in service of growth and healing.

This is of course ‘an ideal level’,. Unless one can make ones paper, or paints, the cost effectiveness and practicalities will be a  challenge at this time, so what we can do is look to, where and how things were produced that we use and their point of origin and their origins sources?. Raw materials  such as acrylics  are synthetics, paper is largely non sustainable forestry etc. ‘Creative Arts Therapies are supreme in adaptation, improvisation, and making do with what is available.’ It taps into our instinctual tool making ingenuity, our problem solving creative response. We all have these skills, but for many they just lay dormant.  The aim is to generate awareness, and do what we can,  not evoke guilt- to expand our caring, our therapeutic practice for the circle of life considering what will come after’.

An ‘Environmentally Aware Creative Arts Therapy’ also recognises that in healing, the role of the healer is not just to work with persons at the micro cosmic level; - we have community, communities of interest and of all life. Person within family, family within culture, culture within nation.  All of those levels are made up of complex relationships, the grand tapestry of earthly life, yet not confined to earth, they also be solar systemic, for the moon and sun and gravitational pull of the planets governs life on earth. They must be addressed, all of these relationships. We are not going to get results on a holistic scale, when we talk about a person’s being  mentally ill, bla bal, projecting “ it’s her, it’s him, it’s not us. , Where as, what is really going on is within  the whole.  We can no longer be isolationist or  reductionist. It’s the whole that needs healing, the cultures of denial, broken so progress can be made. It’s the whole that has problems, and we are aiming to heal this separation, aiming to heal the hurt of the collective. The hurt of the collective manifests as a symptomatology  in the individual. So by working on the individual, we heal the collective, by working on the environment, the foundation, and the structures inherent within it, we heal the circle. But in that, we must come to recognize that we are facets of brilliance that is an  individuated soul essence, and that there are forces of collectivism, that are the bedrock of civilization and without dealing with each of those areas; -  there will be no healing, we need to take a global holistic look.

Image google search  Attribution - freelyassociating.org360  the thinker

ARTS ECO THERAPY HEALING OURSELVES AND THE PLANET AT FETE LA FROG

© Catherine Meeson Creative Therapeutic Encounters

On 23rd March I was able to contribute to a lovely grassroots festival called Fete La Frog, which was a collective celebration of Environment, culture, the arts, Healing and positive change. As always happens with small festivals , the atmosphere was warm, family friendly and pro active.

I held an Arts Eco Therapy themed workshop for Healing Ourselves and Healing the Planet.  This is an area I am most passionate about, for healing cannot occur without considering the greater relations  of which we are a part in the dynamic  flux of life. The elements which make us all up, the Earth, the Air, the Fire the Water, are teachers in process. Artefacts of nature serve as tools of awareness, for resonant practise and reflection for persons own healing and also serve as doorway to invite action for reciprocity in the larger world. For , we seek healing for ourselves, but what of the world around us? We can’t stop with just ourselves, not once we gain understanding and a greater empathy for all beings. Not once we know how things are related.  We are not talking about a level of scientific understanding of facts and statistics and clinical methods, but the intrinsic interwoven nature of the very fabric of existence, our relation to and with.

The workshop space was  in a lovely progressive chapel, we worked on the floor in front of the Organ pipes . A while ago my son was given a globe light of The Earth, which was a beautiful centrepiece for the space, and we shared a collection of earthly artefacts, things from water, air, earth,  and fire; we have to settle for a candle symbolic of the greater spirit indwelling; for fire. Through tactile sensing and reflective practise people are able to find the message in the moment on their journey, and express in given media . For me, holding the space , it is about creating openings for people, and awareness, providing the tools and prompts for exploration.  I am thankful to the participants and hope the process was able to serve their  journey and the prompts will continue to inspire thought and action about  the reciprocal nature of healing  and relating and how we might branch out into community to offer service for healing the Earth as well as Ourselves.