Art and the Spirit

Have you ever looked at a painting, watched a play or listened to a piece of music that has moved you so deeply that the experience has taken your breathe away, perhaps even reduced you to tears?

The ability and the desire of the artist to create something tangible that can be observed and translated into a profound, often spiritual experience surely brings the creator closer to the audience. The artist, by the very nature of their business has the key to open the mind and the spirit to new possibilities. Whilst it may take a particular form of artistic reasoning to perceive and translate the spiritual into a physical or a visual art form I don't believe that the rest of us are capable of nothing more than passive observation.

For many of us the very nature of our lives, our responsibilities and our inherited social and economic values can narrow our field of vision and our perception. So if at times we feel that our lives are dull and limiting there is surely a need to escape for a while through art, carnival, dance and oratory. A need for us to observe art and at times to join in with the dance, to sing our own song and to let out spirit soar. There will be times when art touches not only our reasoning but also our emotions. We see and we feel but sometimes words are not enough because that inner, spiritual experience is unique.

If we take that moment, standing in an art gallery or sitting in a performance space, and we make of it what we will, we begin to create our own possibilities. We move closer to art, to the vision of the artist and to our own unique spirit.

Freya Leigh Randle

© Hypno4Health 2008