Clay Embodiment & Active Imagination

Meditation and channeling on change for the earth and all beings rooted in love, gratitude and reverence for this earth and each other as nature beings. The tarot card pulled for this piece was Ace of Pentacles a card of the earth.

I love when I read something, which guides me somewhere else… and conversation with another human that suggests a topic or practice that aligns but I do not know about. Then I read about it, and learn that I have been doing that very thing.

I learned that I was using clay as a therapeutic medium to hold my trauma, pain and understanding of myself as a woman, mother and human in the systems that want me not feel; before I learned a yoga practice rooted in collective justice, our beings as energetic beings and trauma informed care. I learned that I was practicing energy channeling and manipulation before I learned Reiki. I used this combination of practices in my yoga movement sessions to process emotions before I learned about somatic healing practices. I combine all of this into my practice with clay now, as a mother, ever stuck in the process and not in a production mode of creation. I just learned about how this is called clay embodiment as a therapeutic art practice. I just learned about Active Imagination a process coined by Jung that is deeply aligned to the space I go when I am in this meditative state of being with my body, the sensations, the breath, the clay and listening to intuition guide my movements and form the clay. Some practices are dedicated to a specific theme in my life, part of my body, part of my ancestry in this way that I am tapping into an active imagination practice while holding the clay. It is also an energetic practice of channeling the healing Reiki energy into the clay, into the past, or the thing, or the pattern, or the body part.

I have been contemplating going back to school for a Master’s Degree in this field, as it is how I practice and teach art. I do not think I need another degree or certification, but I long for the community, alive with creative potential and freedom to be uncertain that school provides. I love leaning into the vast expanse of that which I do not know. I long for a dedicated studio practice that feels difficult to achieve as full time single mother, support for children in and after crisis and incessant domestic tasks of keeping household functioning, safe and stable for three individual not smaller than me humans.

Triangle shapes were impressed into the outside of the clay, with a selenite crystal. The bowl was placed under this tree where the meditation and creation took place. I believe in change for humans that values a reciprocal relationship with the earth and each other.