Happy New Year form all of us at Spiritualists International Magazine!!
There are few ways to reflect the true essence of our soul into the physical world, and Art, is one of them. Self-expression, though the arts, has been intimately entwined with the human experience throughout time. It’s no mistake or coincidence that art is so heavily present within all religious and spiritual structures. And it’s certainly a fact, that humanity has used art, to express its inner world in a way that has endured through the centuries. In many ways, the visual and musical arts have had an equal or greater impact on human history than written word.
Art is literally the creation of the spirit, and when it’s expressed with awareness, it can actually become a physical reflection of our inner divinity. This month, we kick off 2016 in an exciting and inspirational way, looking at Art, and its revered presence within the human experience. We want to be sure that art, in it’s many forms of self-expression, is recognized as nothing less than a miracle, and a divine gift bestowed upon humanity.
In a dominantly left-brain paradigm, in which far more focus is placed on logic and rationally geared concepts of study, we sometimes overlook and underestimate the presence of art in our cultures, and in our own being. We tend to even forget that art has played an equal, if not greater role, in the human story than its logic based counterparts.
We leave you with a meaningful excerpt from Aesthetics, which beautifully demonstrates the greater connection of art to our spiritual presence.
“Is there a special relationship between art and spirituality? There are many reasons to think so; indeed, there seems to be a rich web of relationships between the two. The arts have always been integral to religion. Sacred pictures, sacred symbols, sacred dances, chants, hymns and tunes have been used in rituals, in places of worship, and as aids to prayer and meditation in every religion. Judging by this alone, the arts seem to be natural vehicles for expressing or connecting with the transcendent. The great art of the medieval Christian west is religious art, as is that of the Orthodox Christian east. For Hinduism and Buddhism it is the same. Even religions like Judaism and Islam, which consider images of God idolatrous, use decorative designs to embellish places of worship and sacred texts. Outside of formal religious contexts, religion has traditionally been as integral to the arts as to the rest of culture. The arts in traditional cultures transmit the central beliefs and values of those cultures, and those beliefs and values have a strong religious or spiritual dimension.
But what of the arts in the modern, secular west? Have they also become secular? It is true that the vital center of the arts has moved away from institutional religion: it is hard to find great or even good mainstream religious art in the modern and post-modern west. Yet the connection between art and spirituality has remained. This was especially true for the pioneers of modern abstract art at the beginning of the twentieth century.”
http://www.rowan.edu/open/philosop/clowney/Aesthetics/art_spirit.htm
Join us all month, as our authors bring you the deepest insights, filled with inspirations to fuel your spiritual journey in a new way this year.
-SIM
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