The Green Man and the Goddess Part 3
April 5, 2014
"The Green Man & The Goddess: The Artist Archetype" the third of ten Art Rituals based on the Life Force Wheel series of exhibits. Surrounded by the powerful artwork of the exhibit, each Art Ritual in the series invokes one of ten Archetypes, activating the spiritual power of the visual, literary and performing arts and bringing the audience to an inner landscape of the human spirit, healing energy and mystical experience.
"The Green Man & The Goddess" uses music and mask, dance and drum to powerfully invoke Nature, the original Artist Archetype. The performance springs from an extraordinary mask entitled Green Man, Steven Blaine Adams' artwork in LFA's current exhibit Life Force Wheel: The Witness & The Artist. The Art Ritual was created as a response to the powerful archetypal energy in the mask. While creating the mask, Steve spontaneously chanted a simple melody, which Cathy McManamon has used in creating the musical score for the performance, accompanied by singer-instrumentalist Kat Kidwell. Steven added a magical costume for his embodiment of the Green Man, and Joan Forest Mage dances the Goddess. Other artwork in The Witness & The Artist exhibit is also featured in the performance, including Mariela de la Paz's The Toad and Colleen Koziara's Alchemical Door
The evening begins with the audience being led in a meditation on the featured artwork, accompanied by the melody softly chanted and played on flute, psaltery and drum, leading us deep into the spirit realm. The performance will then enact the Green Man and the Goddess joining the forces of the masculine and feminine to bring life back to the Earth in Spring.
The Green Man is the embodiment of all nature, including the animals and the Green World. Often depicted with Stag horns, the Green Man is an ancient and primal god; he could be called the oldest creature in the world. With great dignity and majesty he emerges from the Earth each Spring, the time of new beginnings, hope, cleansing and healing. The Green Man awakens Nature, drawing down the solar energy and re-fertilizing the earth at the time day and night are of equal length. He is the breath of life, transporter of thoughts and quickening of the imagination, whispering the secrets of the soul and its interconnectedness to nature.
Nature is embodied in the Goddess. She is the principle of eternity within the changes of the seasons and the death and rebirth of the year. The union of Green Man and Goddess, masculine and feminine, is the essential act of creation.
The Life Force Wheel is a spiritual teaching based in ancient, universal wisdom, received through inspiration by modern shamanic practitioner Joan Forest Mage, based in a deep awareness of our unity with all beings. For more information on Life Force Wheel, please click here. Life Force Arts Foundation is currently presenting Life Force Wheel, a year-long, six show series of art exhibits and multiarts presentations exploring the deep Archetypes of human existence.
In the Life Force Wheel, the Artist is the person who expresses what s/he thinks and feels. The Artist has the craft or skill of formulating what s/he is experiencing into a statement in words, dance, music, visuals, etc. The Artist apprehends energy from the Otherworld and fabricates it into an expression in this world. The Artist is aligned with Spring Equinox, the sprouting energy that pushes the first hardy plants out of the earth, coming fully formed out of the ground. This is the energy of creating and manifesting. The keyword for the Artist: Expressing.