MEDITATION IS A DISCIPLINE THAT IS MOST POTENT WHEN PRACTICED DAILY

This blog post should be read as a continuation of the one just before, entitled: “When life becomes poetry.”
Two weeks ago, on my way to the farmers market, I was approached by an older lady named Debra. Debra is a clairvoyant. She is a caucasian lady in her mid sixties, she has thin flat greyish hair that brush her shoulders, and a round jolly face. She intuitively appeared to be a kind and gentle soul. As I was walking on the sidewalk, she stopped me and began by asking me if she could ask me something. Of course, I said yes. Why not? Debra asked me if I knew about the new school designed for Indigo children that had opened on Vancouver Island. I thought that was interesting...although I know very little about indigo children...all I really knew is that indigo children are gifted. She said: I am clairvoyant, and I couldn’t help but notice from a few feet away how psychically gifted you are. I thought to myself...Well this is interesting... She was pointing to the front of my body, to the energy around and below my heart as if she was seeing something in from of my heart, and in front of my body...colours? textures? the psychic matrix that connect me to other mystical realms?
Right away, I felt comfortable opening my heart to her. I told her that I am an environmental activist, I talked about Dragon Tears, the feature documentary film I am directing, and the fact that I was born an angel, and have seen fairies on entheogens, or psychedelic sacraments. She spoke of indigo children, crystal children, and mentioned that crystal children have a crystal on their third eye, and are usually musicians. She asked me if I knew what I was. By that moment of the conversation I was a little confused. She saw that I was confused...She said to me: Your something really special. Your so creative, you are beyond indigo and crystals...you are probably an elemental.  I am a hamadryad, a tree spirit, also know as an elemental....the spirit that lives in a tree. Somewhere in the conversation she also mentioned that once she saw a unicorn jumping from one dimension to another! She also said she knew two people that have seen flying saucers. The conversation left me feeling flabbergasted, puzzled, intrigued and fascinated. We exchanged phone numbers. For the rest of the day I was wondering about my morning encounter...I already have so many questions.

​The “Painting dress” is an interdisciplinary artwork (2001-2011) interweaving hand sewing offerings, sculpture as prayer, performance art as a tool for healing,  as well as my personal journeys with entheogens into parallel dimensions, spiritual templates, and divine realms. The “Painting dress” is imbued with the psycho-spiritual and alchemical processes involved in the making of a magical object.  The “Painting dress” begins by hand sewing relics of performance art into a sculptural neo-shamanic costume, which is then worn in rituals.  The sacred object is imagined to be a cosmological map in the shape of a bird, which shouldn’t be too heavy to allow the soul’s inter-dimensional sacred flight. Elysian states of consciousness can be achieved through entheogenic sacraments.  These altered states of consciousness characterize ancient shamanism. According to shamanism expert Mircea Eliade, the first shaman was born from a bird and a woman. The neo-shamanic dress is a sigil, and therefore cannot be sold. The magical dress is worn in rituals. In these rituals, the psychonaut’s set and setting, immediate spiritual and physical environment, are intentionally crafted to create sacred spaces. These sacred spaces allow the psychonaut to penetrate states of ‘poesis’, the moment when life becomes poetry. 
           "Poetry is sacred.  Like alchemy, poetry associates itself with the primordial creation"
                               Andre Breton. Les données fondamentales du Surréalisme
              In May 2006, I received my first masters degree in fine arts film, video, and performance art from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, one of the five best art institutions in the United States. The day before my graduation ceremony, I was on 2CB and MDMA. I saw two fairies. This was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. This was the last mystical experience of a series of four that I experienced with entheogens between July 2005 and May 2006. The first mystical experience I had during that period was my angel birth, in July 2005, and the last experience was seeing these two fairies...
                The interdisciplinary artistic and creative spiritual processes involved in the creation of the “Painting dress,” as they intertwine with my supernatural experiences with fairies, symbolize teachings of universal unity through cosmic play, as well as being a metaphor for the revival of divine feminine spirituality celebrated by the fairy archetype. I have come to understand that I am an elemental fairy spirit. The fairy is a shapeshifter. This archetype is a symbol for divine inspiration, psychic abilities, as well as the neo-shamanic awakening of human consciousness. The fairy archetype is interconnected to the plant and animal kingdoms, to Mother Earth as a sentient cosmic beings, this archetype is associated with travelling within the multiverse, emerging ideas, music, play, idealism, and all forms of artistic expression, as well as with archaic forms of Water Goddess shamanism, water nymphs and dragon ladies of ancient China. This interdisciplinary artwork explores the limitlessness of the human imagination. The essential nature of consciousness is transcendental, ecstatic by nature, nonlinear, and infinite. The ability to navigate between worlds is a fundamental practice of ancient and contemporary shamanism.
              The “Painting dress” has been worn in the performance art for video “Eclamus bitus credo uin ubsurdum,” which translates from latin to the english title “There's a little bit of absurdity in everything.” This prayerformance was performed in Oakland, California, on August 15th 2015.  The rituals' intention was to establish a safe container for the souls' exploration of hyperspace. At the end of the ritual, I attained hyperspace through inhaling a good amount of DMT vapour. I had a mystical experience surrounded by friends who had participated in the performance. I remember being amazed by the ridiculously extraordinary magical weirdness of it all. I would describe having a mystical experience as a supernatural experience in which one is shown cosmic secrets, and in which consciousness undergoes a radical transmutation as to merge into the matrix of parallel dimensions. There is a radical ego death when one experiences the DMT threshold.
              This particular experience was filed with the amusing archetypal absurdity of the nature of existence. The latin title “Eclamus bitus credo uin ubsurdum,” (There's a little bit of absurdity in everything) was carved into the wood of the bar, one of the two rooms in which we were tripping on Psilocybin mushrooms, performing and shooting. This was the oldest bar in Oakland, California. That space was really strange and extraordinary, filled with unusual objects and furniture, mostly used for cinematic projects. I remember the magical power of the trance I experienced there, the extraordinary feeling of awe and calm.
                     This event was filmed by Reed Rickert. I used the video images in which I am having a mystical experience to produce the video artwork Neirika in the fall of 2010. I manipulated this footage with the visual programing language MAX Jitter to create special effects. The recurring imagery in which I am standing in trance, looks like a moving painting, with the structure of the image identical to the original footage except for two black moving dots. In the middle of the 40 hours of intense creativity as I edited the video, I looked at this puzzling video image and wondered what those moving black dots that surround me standing in trance could be...everything else in the image is identical to the original footage but there are these two distinct black dots moving around my upper body...what could that be? Finally understanding that those two dots were fairies was a stroke of genius.   Here is the video Neirika.  

Neirika is the music video for Seven from the album Auralei by Artemis Robison. http://artemis.fm/. 
Filmed by cinematographer Reed Rickert. http://www.thethirdrootmovie.com/​ 
This video art was presented in San Francisco at BASH Contemporary Gallery on May 31st 2015 as part of the exposition Dreams and Divinities, events for the Garden of Fernal Affairs. http://www.dreamsanddivinities.com/2015/03/events-for-the-garden-of-fernal-affairs/ “Neirika,” was also presented at the “Breaking Conference: A Multidisciplinary Conference on Psychedelics and Consciousness,” April 2nd and 3rd 2010 University of Kent, Canterbury, England.  
Highlighted in Highsnobiety by David Fischer in Music, December 22, 2010. http://www.highsnobiety.com/2010/12/22/music-break-artemis-seven/

IF YOU APPRECIATED THE ARTICLE & ARTWORK
MAKE A DONATION ​PLEASE ​