Creative Projects

My creative project explores “the fecundating, magical action of the symbol on the mind” (Pietro Negri, 2001, p 91). In a sense this phrase perfectly encapsulates the aims and effects of the transformative material we have encountered on the MA, as the creative project is noted as ‘the heart of the MA’.

My creative project is called Zodiac, music composed and performed with additional poetry on the twelve star signs, presented on the 27th of September 2014 in St. Gregory’s church in Canterbury.

In this review I will set out my starting thoughts, hopes and values. Then there are two journeys that follow. One is through the ideas gleaned from my sources, in particular the Corpus Hermeticum, Ficino’s Three Books on Life and the thought of Ibn ‘Arabi. The idea of the soul making a journey from the divine realm to earth and back...

Alchemy is not merely a laboratory process to discover the elixir of life or the Philosophers’ Stone but was understood to also be a metaphysical process, concerned with the development of the soul. For my CP I decided I wanted to do a series of paintings working with the rich symbolism of the alchemical process that would lead to an appreciation of the stages of alchemy as stages of the souls journey to wholeness - of becoming a fully realised human being. In the course of doing this project I wanted to let chance happenings or synchronicities guide me to a certain extent. I found this approach to be liberating in that I could allow the paintings to come through me rather than from me. The paintings are meant to be meditated upon.

I’ve been interested in the relationship between these two concepts for some time – chakra therapy as a form of bio-energetic healing and the imaginal as a realm in which we can locate symbolic images that also have the potential to transform and heal us.

Petite Pandora - An Archetypal AdventureI wrote and illustrated a children’s story based on the ‘Fool’s Journey’ of the tarot cards, which sees the main character Pandora embark on a quest for self-realisation by facing the archetypal forces of...

The inspiration for my creative project came when Angela Voss introduced Ficino's 'Book of Life' and the idea of creating an image of the cosmos to contemplate in your home. I had a powerful reaction and decided to create my own version:

Dreams are strange things. Whether we regard them as prophetic, psychoanalytic or merely as the reorganization of cognitive material during sleep, the truth is that they affect us. We wake up drenched in cold sweat, laughing, panting or crying because of dreams. Once I was so scared during a dream that I woke up to the sound of my own voice praying a Hail Mary.

The inspiration for this Creative Project snuck up on me quite unexpectedly - rather like a wild beast in the forest creeps up on its unsuspecting prey. I’ve never thought much about masks before - other than being slightly alarmed by them as a child - so the unprecedented notion of doing a whole project on them took me by surprise.

“Sophia herself is not fourth to the Holy Trinity, but rather is the matrix of the divine creative power and as such is the bride of Logos or bridegroom.

A psycho-spiritual self-reflection tool that started the essential conversation that I needed to prepare for my own death.

The vesica piscis is an ancient symbol with many meanings in cultures all over the world. It often symbolises a portal or bridge between between earthly and transcendent realms. I decided to explore this symbol for my creative project, and made a painted, printed and sewn cloth with vesical designs for contemplation and meditating on. I also some other art works - they were quite different from anything I've done before. This was truly a journey of creative discovery and 'embodied spirituality' for me, which was very healing.