The Sunday News
Tafadzwa Gwetai
MEDITATION can produce a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind. During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process may result in enhanced physical and emotional well-being. Meditation comes in many forms and is practiced in many ways. The process allows the mind to be clear of all worldly distractions and redirect ones energy to the self.
Artists of all genres seek this space when they are in their creative state of mind and in some cases before, after and during the creation process. This ‘‘space’’ that the artist visits can be conscious or unconsciously achieved. Painters, sculptures, poets and writers search for the inner self that speaks to them when they create. This inner voice that the artist find refuge in is their quiet place where all is at a state of balance. A form of achieving what is termed your ‘‘Chi’’ or ‘‘Feng Shui’’ from the East, a form of spiritual and mental balance. When artists create they get lost in a world that belongs to them alone and understood by only them. This place can become the arts sanctuary where they seek inner peace. When one is in those states of meditative balance artists find their true point of expression. This true expression is born out of a place that is pure of thought and pure of meaning.
The creation process is integral to the final product. The final art product is a result of deep inner search for a message that the artists will be desperate to release and share with the world. Poets, writers and musicians too undergo certain moments of solitude to come up with the lyrics and the words that captivate the viewer or listener. Words and lyrics have to seamlessly blend together for both relevance and meaning. As much as it counts for the painter and the sculptor the colours and form are not applied by coincidence but through a process of meditation. There is a stage that is termed being “perturbed” where the artist is in an unsettled and uneasy state with desire to release and express.
Art is a vehicle for meditation and self-connection. Most of us can understand that art provides an escape from sometimes harsh reality, to one that has peace and calm. But where does art’s healing potential come from? It impacts the state of our minds. Research has shown the power of meditation and the science behind it. One of the reasons it is so powerful is that it fosters self acceptance. Creating art is a type of meditation, an active training of the mind that increases awareness and emphasises self acceptance of feelings and thoughts without judgment and relaxation of body and mind. Similarly to meditation, art can help us tap into a deeper and more quiet part of ourselves. We enter into a state of flow and present-moment awareness. Artists experience a creative activity that has the potential to tap into a space of true consciousness of being, void of interpretation. In this space, there can be a sense of having no physical parameters, no body, or form to separate one from the other. A dream like state of consciousness where almost all sensory neutrons are disabled.
Art allows for true self-expression. The process of making art overrides the need for verbal communication. Creativity is its own language and enables humans to connect with one another and themselves on a non-verbal level. In therapy it can be an effective way of saying the unspeakable as is shown through the use of creative therapies with children. This also explains how we can be moved to the core when looking at a work of art, or even listening to music, without necessarily knowing the specifics about its origin. Art exists within its own non-verbal parameter and thus frees us up for unadulterated self-expression.
The meditation process is both for the artist/ the creator and for the viewer. Art is created with the agenda of arousing different types of emotion from the viewer and listener. Art has the ability to transport the viewer or listener to places that the mind can take them. When lyrics and words are read that have deep resonance to the viewer a complete circle of true appreciation and relevance is created. The meaning that is now bestowed on the art form thus justifies the whole process of virtual travel and how we escape. Paintings may depict settings that can draw you in and one can lose themselves in the creation as the image may have colours that are visually pleasing or the image of photograph transforms one to a place that either has meaning in the contemporary or has meaning from the past. The mind travels as a result of audio or visual stimuli. Artists and art are an incredible source of healing for the mind, spirit, soul and body.
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