corimagua

-Segment taken from “The Holy Alternative: Art as Medicine, Ritual, and Environmental Activism“,

 by Katie Clancy and Emily Moore.

Deep in the backwoods of our bodies lives a wild creature that we call Soul. She is a mystery, a mystical myth that slips between the shadows and sings out through our dreams. She is faster than the speed of light, the very spark that ignited the Big Bang. Prophetic visions, irrational images, and guttural emotions–She speaks to us from within the dark pools of our subconscious.

But the engine of daily life drones into us, and we often stop listening. We forget, it seems, how to turn towards and listen into the forest. Instead, we get drunk on distractions. We funnel noise into our inner ears with fancy headphones. We stay stuck to the bright screens instead of gazing up to meet another’s eyes. 

It’s as if we are being hypnotized by a mysterious force: It keeps us taut, controlled, confused; it suffocates us with a belief that we are isolated. We toss and turn in the night, wake with a sense of anxiety, an impending doom that taunts and tells us that we are lost, that we have no home. Our bellies bloat, our bones grow brittle from poor nutrition. Why are we so tired? Why do we feel so disconnected from our bodies? Why do our brains eat themselves, and from where is that insatiable hunger churning?

This is a critical moment to heed the call of our Soul. We are confronting what Carl Jung describes as the true religious experience: when the unstoppable bullet hits the impenetrable wall. It’s time to break the spell and return back to the wilderness.

From the deeper chambers of our bodies, an uprising surges. Soul’s voice grows louder. Her song fills us with an equally intense amount of terror and ecstasy. But eventually we realize that we have no choice. Our inner warrior heart will not settle with mediocrity. We must march inwards, towards Her rhythm, blind riders moving into the unchartered psyche, to find Her again.