Visionary Artistic expression is catalyzed out of an experience that is out of the range of conventional language and illuminated as something central and essential. The individual becomes empowered by an unspeakable ideal that pulls his expression into transcendental domains. It seems important to focus on a few factors of the relationships involved in such a matter.
First of all let’s work with some ideas about individuals and their personal unspeakable encounters. What does it mean when an individual is stripped of his ability to render his experience into language or something the like? What truly is the situation when all current cultural models and belief systems become outdated at a single glimpse of the living unspeakable mystery?
What are these encounters? What kind of experience cannot be spoken, but could be some kind of central motif or quality to man’s journey through space and time?
For all of recorded history there has been spoken of an experience. In some ancient societies those who were affluent in the sojourn of such an experience, namely a shamanic figure, were considered as a king; Shaman kings. In later societies the Shaman is a central figure in the health, both mental and physical, of his tribe as well as taking part in public relation issues and looking into conflict and resolution. The practitioners of this style of shamanism claim to gain insights into patients and situations from direct knowledge imparted by the forest and the tribe’s ancestral legacy. If one were to entertain such a social model, even as a hypothetical situation, If it were possible to access and learn from the information of your ancestors or the living biological systems around you, this could catalyze immense ingenuity and intelligence as the storehouse of experience of entire lives would be available to the visionary.
This idea of interconnected generations is also reminiscent of the quality some call inspiration. In the case of inspiration a practitioner sets aside his ego and lets flow something older and more vitalistic through his body via paint, melody, dance or word. This inspiration, or outpouring, of deep insights has been attributed many names from God, Angels, Aliens, Deep Unconscious Mind, The planetary mind (gaia), the Collective Unconscious and the logos. The Logos is the inner voice of wisdom that flows mysteriously into the mind with its most indecipherable quality being its source. In my dealings when others tell me something like “I couldn’t tell if this was from my mind or a gift being inparted to me” which I have felt on many occasions, I often remark, That is precisely the place you want to be. You want to be expressing and receiving information and interactions that go beyond what you thought could be possible on these front. Terence Mckenna like to play with the idea “The Alien is real, but it is made of information…The Alien is real, but it is within us” This points to the fact that there is something within be it an intelligence or a connection to said intelligence, there is something within that invokes creative leaps and deeply insightful meaningful dialog and thinking.
In many societies information regarding such an experience was kept in silence and those initiated into this experience would only hint at its content. The Elysian mysteries are described as a process of mental transformation catalyzed by a ceremony in secret. (Such names as Plato, aristot….. have reportedly gone through)) These are some of the figures noted for early ideas of form and being, of looking into the essence of a thing, of examining the validity of face value.. I dont think we should look past this.. Some of the initiates, of this direct experience, were some of the developers of ideas of reason and thought forms birthing value into the philosophical endeavor. They seemingly were exposed to something beyond their current cultural understanding and spent the rest of their career finding new ways to thread the mystery through their dialog.
Among the Shipibo peoples, a South American indigenous tribal society, there is a great fusion of qualities and characteristics that permeate their lives and culture. The Shipibo people are an ayahuasca using people. Ayahuasca in short is a medicinal brew used by various shamanic peoples in south america and various other regions. Having consumed the healing brew unseen aspects of reality begin to unveil themselves. The Shipibo people report patterns of energy permeating every aspect of known reality. In this culture song and vision have been conceptually married. The incredible stitch work that they produce is to a song, what a script is to a play. They have so developed this technology that a Shipibo person merely looks at a piece of this stitch work and he can sing the piece. This is an example of a people who are bringing information out of direct experience and the relationship of the individual to the piece of art is expanded understanding and information transfer. The Book An Acoustic Phonetics of Shipibo-Conibo by Jose Elias-ulloa examines the phonetic content of the artwork itself and begins to derive an understanding of the ordering and linguistics inherent the patterned stitch work and the native spoken language.
From the time span of our recorded history the unspeakable ecstatic rapture experience has been regarded with great awe and respect to the extreme of becoming the central fulcrum of mystery schools of thinking. From the healing shamanic figures, to the great thinkers and philosophers of the past and into our current epoch this experience is held most dear and used as a tool of transformation and creative energy. In this current time with so many obstacles and struggles to surmount and so much at stake, namely the biosphere and its intense diversity, it Is more important than ever that we learn to step aside and let flow through you the wisdom from the mystery. Focus on positive vibes, gratitude and awe and let the much needed healing energy overflow into works of art, dance, relationship and life.