Aleksandra: Death Doesn’t Exist

Aleksandra shares her reflections on the meaning and process of death with Carol Sill. These ideas are based in her deeply devotional meditative experience, which has evolved over several decades.
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The Night for All Souls: Honoring the Dead

We consider ourselves hosts, and that our job is to create a sanctuary, and we call it “A sanctuary of beauty for tender feelings,” that’s how we think of it. This past week, we’ve just completed the fourth year of  this event, our mantra was, “Beauty is the bottom line.”

Paula Jardine talks with Carol Sill on Honoring the Dead

C: I’m talking today with Paula Jardine, at the Mountainview Cemetery in Vancouver, BC Canada and Paula is the Artist in Residence here.

P: That’s right. We’re in the Celebration Hall at Mountainview Cemetery. Mountainvew is a city-run facility, and I’m a city employee, which is pretty radical. We began this project and I worked very closely with a woman  named Marina Szijarto, an artist who is responsible for the visual elements of the event that we do here, which is called The Night for All Souls.

It developed as an opportunity for people to remember their dead, people who in particular we were thinking of people who don’t have a strong religious or cultural tradition to carry them through mourning and grief. So that was the impetus behind the project. I approached the manager. I was looking for a venue for a show of artist-made caskets and shrouds, and at the time they didn’t have a venue: this building didn’t exist. But he was interested in the work that I was doing and we talked for about two hours, and at the end of that two hours we decided that we would go ahead and do an event a week before Halloween honoring the dead. We chose those dates for two reasons. One is that universally – not universally, but in many cultures, this time of year is dedicated to remembering the dead and cleaning graves and bringing family together. And also, around Halloween is when cemeteries are under the most pressure. We felt that by having a strong sacred presence in the cemetery it would protect the cemetery a little bit from hooligans.

C: So as an artist, how do you evoke the sacred in this work?

P: Well, we begin with light. The act of lighting a light in the darkness is a very human impulse, and speaks to the core in all of us. So we began there. And then, I guess, by the way we do things and by being mindful in every aspect of what we do while we’re setting up the evening to invite the public. We consider ourselves hosts, and that our job is to create a sanctuary, and we call it “A sanctuary of beauty for tender feelings,” that’s how we think of it. This past week, we’ve just completed the fourth year of  this event, our mantra was, “Beauty is the bottom line.”

And this year, because we have this beautiful building that we can host people in, we’ve extended the event to last for the whole week. I have always kept the candles lit for the whole week but now we feel that we can truly invite the public to come and maintain this sacred space for the entire week.

C: When I was at the event on Saturday I noticed that there were a lot of children.

P: Isn’t that wonderful? I just think that… Well, this is a very traditional thing to do, what we’re doing here. And it seems to be something that our predecessors forgot to bring with them. That’s how I feel anyway. My background ancestrally is Polish-Romanian-Ukrainian, Eastern Europe. And this is very traditional in that, but it’s never been part of my life. But I’ve always felt the desire to have this. And especially for the children, it’s an opportunity for parents to talk to children about death during a time when there is, perhaps, less trauma. It’s not at a funeral, or somebody in the family hasn’t just died.

So we’re here in this gentle atmosphere, and it also instills in the children the importance of remembering who you are because of where you came from. Who has made you who you are.  Remember your grandpa, your great-grandpa, your great-great-grandmothers. And the ancestors are with us all the time because of who we are and our memories and stories, and for so many reasons. But to have a time, especially if you don’t have a family tradition in having a time to remember the dead is really valuable. And it just makes me so happy that we have succeeded in creating an atmosphere and a place where people feel comfortable and even inspired to bring their children.

C: There were so many candles. And music. Can you tell me more about that music and how it comes about?

P: The music is very important to me. When I speak to the musicians I’m very clear with them: this is not a performance. We’re inviting you to come and the sound creates the space, as much as the light and the physical objects. The sound creates a cushion, in a way, and also uplifts us, with the playing. And I believe that we’re playing for the dead as well as for the living. I think that – well, this is something that my mother’s instilled in me, that the dead like us to be in the cemetery, or wherever they are buried or laid to rest, because they like to be reminded that life goes on.

C: And when you had the tea gathering here, in this hall, when it was filled with people, and children, and beautiful cups of tea – all different kinds of cups, all different kinds of teapots, and the projection of water – there was a wonderful feeling of life, a strong affirmation of life.

P: Yes. And I think it’s important for us to be together in a social situation, we hold and take care of each other by being together. And the tea… Brian Mulvahill and Ian Willie were serving tea that night, and they’re two artists who have devoted their lives to tea. And especially for Ian Willie it was important. His grandmother was buried here anonymously. She died on the Downtown East Side, and for him serving tea in her honor was a way to honor her and serving tea to all of these people and all of us being here…. I’m getting all of those “shivers of truth” up and down my legs right now… Yes, it’s a lot of deep deep feeling and conscientious action on the part of all of the artists who work on the project.

C: Thank you.

View the video of this conversation.

A Night for All Souls

Paula Jardine, artist in residence for Mountainview Cemetery, talks with Carol Sill about her work creating the remarkable Night for All Souls event, an inclusive community remembrance. It is described as “a family friendly sanctuary of beauty for tender feelings, with fires to warm us, music to uplift us, tea to refresh us and materials to create personal memorials for our dead.”  “We consider ourselves hosts, and that our job is to create a sanctuary, and we call it “A sanctuary of beauty for tender feelings,” that’s how we think of it.
This past week, we’ve just completed the fourth year of  this event, our mantra was, Beauty is the bottom line.

For more about this event, go to the Mountainview website.

Read the text of this conversation.

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Collage 911

This collage series was created in the month just before 9/11 and I put it up on slideshare a few years ago.

Here’s a bit more description for many of the collages included in the slideshow.

Emergence of the Serpent of Wisdom
This collage was the first in a series that literally burst through. I hadn’t done any collages since the 80s, and suddenly restless, I created a series with many dark images. Strangely, they comforted me. The series began in late August 2001, and the revelation of the serpent force was totally unexpected and unplanned. I had wanted to show only a window revelation into another reality, but the articulated being appeared. I felt it was a shamanic communication, so I followed that lead and created the series as shown here. They are like astral snapshots.

The Old Country
I envisioned this as a northern Scandinavian afterlife, where souls arrive to be transported to other levels. The ancient dolmen, the hanged man, the boat of souls in the crisp cold sky somehow connect me to my dad’s side of the family. Here the supplicant approaches the ruler of this afterlife.

From the Stars
Here the eternal feminine forces of moon and water bring messages to earth in a procession pouring downward like a waterfall. Priestesses bear golden bowls, cups fill to overflowing, the mysterious planetary forces beam into our lives

The Oracle
The masculine force of the oracle predicts the future. His realm is one of magnificent glorious interplay of form. He is embedded in it, and in all he sees. His companion spirits flank him on either side. They open their mouths to articulate his vision, and he speaks the words which predict the future.

Dolphins and Dolmen
On earth, tourists see dolphins on land, leaping in communication with the ancient dolmen. Unconnected, they can only observe. Magic is afoot.

Goose Girl in the Stars
Far from earth, a part of the great mother archetype looks after things. This young girl, tending geese with her starwand, is known for her “healing, performing miracles and teaching” while the magnetism of the earth remains in her view.

Mysterious Stranger
One of these things is not like the others. On the horizon, he sends his energy ball to glide along the path, while planetary storms brew behind. On the right, human remains lie folded in an ancient grave. Standing with him are the glittering saints. The stranger stands as one of them, but has he come from somewhere beyond, and far more primitive?

Near the End of Time
I had put together a collage before this one, but for some reason could not bear to complete it. Disturbed, I went instead to this integrated image of dangers unleashed into the world. As death extends technological dangers over a wasted sea, engineers in offices seem to map the complexities of disaster. Hope, in the form of the Buddha’s understanding, adds balance to a dark vision.

Miracle of Science
The virgin Mary is resurrected by scientists. Elevated against a grey moon, she is reconfigured by machine projections, monitored by banks of data controls. Believers with hands up grieve her death and pray for her. The resurrected self is a colourless figure, an overworked factory child.

Declaration of War
This hot blood red image nearly completed the series. I had hesitated to commit to it, and did the others in the series. Then 9/11 happened, and I knew then that the imagery had been true. I finalized this image of war. Mars influences the blood-covered demonic celebrant as he emerges screaming from the cannon. Warlike peoples march on the earth carrying kings as the hand fate has dealt is enacted. Red tentacles enter the scene and a beam from the cosmos glows like an evil eye, while the red volcano erupts and lava flows.

Let’s Rock
The world is tilted, off kilter. Waves crash and buildings topple, while Tibetan shamanic dancers tell the tale in movement. Above, in a pavilion, a rock band pounds out the tune. It is a cosmic unbalance, and world rocks to find equllibrium.

Most of these images can also be viewed individually here on Flickr.

Lee Crowchild on Spirituality (Part 2)

Lee continues his discussion of the need for young men’s rights of passage, the importance of ceremonies and walking with death.

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Amazonian Medicine

“An older friend who I respect a lot suggested I go to Peru, and I went, for working with medicine men in the traditional Amazonian fashion. I would say it was a kind of desperation that moved me to go to the jungle of Peru. I certainly didn’t go there for fun and comfort.”

Conversation between Andrew Jordan and Carol Sill

C: Today I’m talking with Andrew Jordan here in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Andrew has been involved for many many years in a deep spiritual search. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions first, Andrew, just to get started. How did you get started on the path? What happened?

A: I would say it started when I was a child. I’d lie on my back in the field, look at the sky and start to pray.  Actually, the environment was pretty rough. I was in Communist Romania, and my parents were pretty anxious people. I was an only child and I found comfort in looking at the sky and praying, even though it was against my parents’ teachings and against my schooling – school’s teaching. Both school and parents said there’s no God, but I found comfort.  So that’s where I would say I started.

C: Since then your path as led you through several windy twisty passageways. Which would you like to talk about this time? We have many opportunities to talk so … why don’t we talk about your trips to Peru?

A: That was in my early 50’s, I was quite an adult at that age.  I was diagnosed with cancer and conventional medicine looked problematic, so I was looking into alternative medicine as well as conventional medicine. An older friend who I respect a lot suggested I go to Peru, and I went, for working with medicine men in the traditional Amazonian fashion. I would say it was a kind of desperation that moved me to go to the jungle of Peru. I certainly didn’t go there for fun and comfort.

C: How long were you there?

A: I was there for about 15 days, and the  I continued working with shamans in Canada and the United States. But that fateful trip was 15 days.

C: You said that “fateful” trip – can you tell me something about that?

A: Well, it’s kind of paradoxical in the sense that that which is really interesting can’t be talked about, and that which can be talked about is not that interesting – it is said better by poets and crazy people. Nevertheless, my eyes opened up to possibilities and realities that I didn’t know existed. That was in the deep dark jungle, in night rituals with shamans, with smoke and drinks of various brews. A ritual, arduous rituals that involved ordeals, physical ordeals.

C: So when you came back to Canada you continued to do some of this work. How has that changed your heart? What has that done for your sensitivity?

A: I have to interpret that because I don’t really know.

Knowing that kind of horror and fear, or experiencing an ordeal of that kind, I would say taught me some of the subtler meanings of the word ‘humility” – just experiencing that, I don’t know, nothingness, or that so-called fear or dread of God – these are just words I heard others say, or in scriptures and I’m borrowing them because they are closest to describing what I experienced. So I learned something about humility. That’s the first thing that I would say.

The meaning of mortality has shifted for me. What I thought mortality, death, was is not the same since. It’s hard to describe, but for me now death means shift, like changing channels rather than a finality. Not the end of the show, it’s more like changing channels, which is a big big change in going along in my life. That’s a big change – thinking of death as changing channels rather than turning off the machine.

There’s no such thing as turning off the machine in my mythology, my current mythology, post-Peru mythology. There is shifting channels, but you can’t turn off the machine. It goes on.

So if it’s a horrific place, and you can’t turn off the machine, that’s hell. If you’re in love, and it’s forever, that’s heaven. So if I can learn to navigate intelligently between the two, then I’ve got something. How’s that?

C: That’s beautiful.

A: Praise the Lord.

C: I think this is great for a start, for a first conversation. I’ll talk to you again in a week or two.

A: That would be wonderful.

C: And maybe we can talk a bit more about the Kaballah…

View the video of this conversation.

Andrew Jordan, Peruvian shamans, & a cure for cancer

Andrew Jordan speaks about his experiences with Peruvian shamans seeking a cure for cancer.

“An older friend who I respect a lot suggested I go to Peru, and I went, for working with medicine men in the traditional Amazonian fashion. I would say it was a kind of desperation that moved me to go to the jungle of Peru. I certainly didn’t go there for fun and comfort.”

Link here for the text version of this conversation.

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