Experience the breathtaking art and beauty of Renaissance Florence, Siena & Assisi along with their world-famous cuisine. Enjoy the natural beauty of Umbria including the stunning caves of Frassasi. Receive the heart-opening blessings of St. Francis of Assisi as we visit his hermitage and walk in his footsteps on Mount Subasio. Relax in the inspiring spiritual vibrations of the Ananda Assisi World Brotherhood Colony.

As we relish outward beauty we will also discover the beauty within, opening to the joy of our own flowing creative expression. In the studio of the Academy of Art, Creativity & Consciousness you will be guided in simple, yet profound creative processes that spark inspiration from within. Daily yoga and gentle meditation complete your restorative journey of expansive self-discovery!

Learn more~

* Contact us now if you are interested. As this is a special journey we insist upon an intimate group limited to 16 and we are already half full. $500 deposit holds your space, price guarantee of $2,080 if registered by May 15.

Email: dana@awakeningarts.com

We live in interesting times. Our fundamental paradigms of science are shifting and knowledge in every field is burgeoning. From cosmology to quantum physics, the world we live in has expanded by exponential proportions. Meanwhile, the old world is unraveling- socially, politically, economically, environmentally. We are not facing merely a change of systems, but a profound transformation of civilization itself. In these turbulent times a new vision is struggling to be born. We need precisely what the arts have to give; the capacity for profound insight, generative creative possibility, expanded vision, epiphany and revelation. In these transformative times we need our prophets and visionaries, our artists and troubadours, seers and mystics. We can no longer afford a shallow and superficial kind of art. For decades the Arts have pursued the ‘cutting edge’, a mercurial periphery of fashion and fad. The arts, hijacked by materialism and nihilism, must rise from these ashes to re-inhabit the spaciousness of the soul- a territory alone sufficient to meet the pressing needs of our time.

The role of the artist living in watershed times must be to awaken. We are moving from an age of matter to an age of energy. We are operating in a world that is fundamentally different than the world of our forebears. We must all learn to navigate in territories outside the boundaries of what we already know and this is the province of the Arts. Throughout the ages the Arts have propelled the human mind to territories beyond the confines of ordinary reality. Art has the power to penetrate to core levels of our Being, reaching below the surface to the primeval substrates of the subconscious and above to the highest levels of super-consciousness. Graced among our many human endeavors, the arts have a unique capacity to transport us past the confines of matter, time and space. Intuitive revelations, discoveries and inventions, ‘super-conscious’ solutions and inspired visions stream from this potent font of Being beneath the surface of Becoming.

In a decadent culture ‘originality’ is synonymous with breaking the rules, and ends in a contest of shock value. But true originality is ‘from the Origin’- that which springs directly from the Source. The ‘Origin’ is that empyrean in the human heart that intersects with eternity. This source is the font of Being within each individual, the fountainhead of existence where we touch “God, whose center is everywhere, circumference nowhere.” Mystic, seer, shaman and scientist meet at this confluence; the wellspring is within. When artwork springs from that deep fount, it draws from the same creative potency that exploded the stars into being. Connected with the highest Source within it transmits unswervingly both Truth and Beauty. Art that touches this origin reverberates in our soul.

‘Awakening Artists’ recognize that art has the capacity to transform consciousness- both personally and collectively. Around the world ‘troubadours of transformation’ are bringing forth a new renaissance of art, culture and consciousness. The Academy of Art, Creativity and Consciousness is at the forefront of this movement- a honeyed hive for artists of vision who will pollinate the future. At the Academy we approach the Arts from the ‘inside out’. We work from the source within to bring forth a mighty flowing stream of creativity. Students with no talent or experience work alongside practicing artists, together discovering the joy of this inexhaustible fountain within. The results are tangible; radiant smiles, laughter and childlike joy in the freedom of self-expression. When we open the aperture of the inner life we access a vitality and sense of purpose that reinvigorates our lives. When we activate the genius of our innate creativity we can apply it to every area of our lives- and to the transformation of the world around us. At the Academy we use all the modalities of the arts as vehicles for uplifting consciousness. In this soul-centered approach, we learn to act as channels for a Divine flow. This approach is simple- available to everyone regardless of skill or experience. It is also profound and life changing.

Artwork and text © Dana Lynne Andersen. Please contact Dana Lynne Andersen for more information.

Dana Lynne Andersen is the founder of the Awakening Arts and the Awakening Arts Network as well as the director of the Academy of Art, Creativity and Consciousness.

Embodied in the Garden - Digital print by Rob Burton

The poetic couturiers of religious traditions (theologians, prophets, mystics) are master stylists with clever techniques for fitting and shaping their most cherished abstractions onto the thick, meaty body of life in (as we often glibly name it) “the world.” As someone who is fixated on the daily art of costuming I have an eye for a certain kind of metaphor. I’m a collector of a particular sort of confession: that the spirit, spirits, or spirituality work like fabric. That spirituality acts in the manner of a textile—it can get intimate with our skin without ever, really, fusing. It can brush up against us like a sumptuous shred of velvet. Or, perhaps, it scrapes at us like raw wool. Maybe the myth of the perfect fit corresponds to the apocalyptic hope that, one day, the most elusive curves of truth will be revealed.

But what bothers me about most of these metaphors is they’re terribly out of date, out of style. They fit, today, like a lifeless frock. Or, perhaps, they’re like whale-boned corsets that leave no room for movement. More to the point, spirits tend only to move like textiles, to work like textiles. And they reject the crude, brute weave of even the finest silk as something too literal, too objective, too much of this world. An actual cut of fabric is too much a thing, itself. It is not an object relevant to the world of spiritual things. Spirituality travels above, outside of, the industrious textile. Fabric, itself, is spiritually irrelevant.

Some examples, perhaps, are in order.

There is, of course, the famous New Testament passage from Romans 13. The Apostle Paul puts forth the challenge to don the spiritual armor of light—to make a garment of the lord Jesus Christ. He does not mean, of course, that Christ is a thing you can pick up and put down, zip up or unbutton. Instead he means only to utilize the language of costume to make this spirited force more approximately tangible. The cloak that is Christ is better (more powerful, more eternal) than your favorite pair of jeans. As an application of this model, I gesture toward the life narrative of 4^th century Saint Syncletica. We, readers, are meant to admire this rich girl who had the discipline to turn her eyes, entirely, from the sumptuous weave of multicolored garments all around her and clothe herself, instead, in nothing but her own humility.

Feminist theorists Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ have, in a more contemporary register, deployed the metaphorics of fabric production to illuminate something about feminist spirituality as cultural work. Together women alter the social fabric of ancient intellectual and religious disciplines. Plaskow and Christ use the figure of weaving to describe this women’s work—toying with the old stereotype that it is the network of women who weave (or hem, or mend) the garments that shroud us. But this remains, too, a metaphor that speaks to specific social struggles and configurations. And, by and large, the intellectual work of 20^th century feminist spirituality has little to do with the social production and distribution of actual textiles, fabrics, or garments.

This is, I think, a shame. For it is right through the weave of fabric that the most pressing spiritual questions we face today are passing.

If, in another era, the most pious option was to be as indifferent as possible to the act of daily costuming, the same ethic no longer applies. We are today zipped up and tucked into garments marked with the labor of fingers that met this fabric in a sweatshop. Fingers that, most likely, were undercompensated for their work, allowing us the privilege of paying next to nothing to hide our nudity. And we are, increasingly, aware of this. Our hems and seams are backstitched with human pain. How can any vision of a good life refuse to take this weight that sits on our shoulders (or wraps around our thighs) seriously? It is too easy, now, to toss a garment off, to throw our fabric away. Which is, perhaps, why it makes less sense—ethically—to do so. The Trans-American Trading Company, which operates out of Clifton, New Jersey, reportedly processes 70,000 pounds of used clothing in its factory every single day. Each year, the company claims to ship 17 million tons of American textile refuse overseas. The life cycle of some of these garments will be extended, through further human adventure and creative re-use. But most will end up in landfills, destined to spend centuries in the expenditure and decomposition of their synthetic fibers.

The life cycle of garments, of fabric, is not spiritually irrelevant. Our garments are witnesses to, testimonies of, destructive waste and injustice. I won’t deny that there’s something sensible, something inspiring, about the antimatter of a spiritual veil that turns against the rich seductions of glamour. I have a penchant to flitter toward anything shiny and pretty, like a moth around a bald light bulb. It is helpful, I suppose, to tell myself that these attractions are all meaningless, transient, unnecessary… all just passing away. But the life cycle of a garment is not meaningless. It is, rather, a site where meanings—which tailor our spiritual lives—are produced. The era in which we simply fabricated spirituality is, I think, over. We look now, in moments of contemplation, into the folds of the fabric that hides us.

Article from Frequencies: fabrication (of spirituality) by Beatrice Marovich published in Frequencies.

Evocative images by Amelie Anke Merzbach

http://www.1giantleap.tv

Find out more about the amazing ‘1 Giant Leap’ and their project ‘What about me?” here.

Join us for a trip of a lifetime!

             As we travel to the most beautiful sites of Italy

                          we will also journey within…

Experience the breathtaking art and beauty of Renaissance Florence, Siena & Assisi along  with their world-famous cuisine. Enjoy the natural beauty of Umbria including the stunning caves of Frassasi. Receive the heart-opening blessings of St. Francis of Assisi as we visit his hermitage and walk in his footsteps on Mount Subasio. Relax in the inspiring spiritual vibrations of the Ananda Europa World Brotherhood Colony.

As we relish outward beauty we will also discover the beauty within, opening to the joy of our own flowing creative expression. In the studio of the Academy of Art, Creativity & Consciousness you will be guided in simple, yet profound creative processes that spark inspiration from within. Daily yoga and gentle meditation complete your restorative journey of expansive self-discovery!

A journey of Art and Spirit, a pilgrimage of beauty within and without;

Rejuvenate your spirit in ‘La Dolce Vita’ of Italy.

RESERVE YOUR SPACE EARLY! As this is a special journey we insist upon an intimate group limited to 20.

Guided by Dana Lynne Andersen MA, director of the Academy of Art, Creativity &  Consciousness in Assisi. Dana, a renown spiritual artist who has taught and exhibited on three continents, is known as an inspiring, knowledgeable and nurturing facilitator.

Cost including lodging (charming, comfortable, modest & very unique)+ most meals (including very special & memorable meals!), transportation (within the trip), museum entrance fees, special program fees, all art materials and inclusive of all workshop instruction is Euro 997.

For further information please email dana@awakeningarts.com

Places can also be booked through Fine Art Surrey or contact info@fineartsurrey.com

First the Void

Second the Seed

Third the Emancipation of the Image

Forth the articulation of the Syllable

Fifth the Fullness of the Void

Hevajara Tantra

Where East meets West and the thresholds between cultures bring together a unifying of the inner concerns of the soul and transcendence embodied in the material form there is the potential for dynamic creativity that transpires the conventions of western philosophy and thought in a lightness of inspiration. The work of Sohan Qadri tapped this fertile ground in artworks that arose through deep meditation and are vibrant with the essence and warmth of his Indian origins. Qadri’s work developed over a long creative career that lasted from 1932 to 2011 during which time he was well known by many of the influential artists in the West including the Surrealist painter René Magritte, Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll, and architect Le Corbusier. His work, recently featured in Resurgence illustrating articles on the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore,  resonates deeply with Tagore’s verses and prose resonating with the poet’s vibrations of universal harmony, wholeness and integrity in colour, texture and “lustrous bubbles of energy.”

Purusha VI, 2008, Ink and dye on paper by Sohan Qadri

Sohan Qadri with his painting liberates the word meditation from its fashionable taste and brings it back to its proper origin, uninfluenced by Western propaganda, misunderstandings and corruptions. – Heinrich Böll (Nobelprize lit. 1972, Köln)

Oil on Canvas by Sohan Qadri

Sohan Qadri can be described as a Tantric painter – a modern Tantric painter to be sure. Born in 1932 in Punjab, India, Qadri began his quest for his true self through Tantric yoga and spent long periods of time silently meditating in remote temples in the Himalayas and Tibet. His isolation propelled his urge to paint. He received his MFA in 1960 from the Government College of Art in Simla, India, but soon discovered that academic trappings were not for him. Shortly after his first exhibition in 1965, he left India for the West. In Qadri’s work, there is a tranquil coexistence of binary opposites – male and female, known and unknown, physical and spiritual. Although he clearly has Western influences, such as Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, his work is uniquely Eastern. Heinrich Boll, the 1972 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, has said that Qadri, “with his painting liberates the word meditation from its fashionable taste and brings it back to its proper origin uninfluenced by Western propaganda, misunderstandings and corruptions.” His paintings are monochrome surfaces with structural effects that, in their repetition, convey the rhythmic expressions of color energies. The vibrations created by these energies are endless and break the boundaries between the inner space of the image and the external space of the viewer. In their pulsations, the colors allow for a meditation in which those who experience space seek to become space itself. As Qadri has said, “The narrowness of space has posed as a great problem to me. Phenomenal life can hardly be lived within a few known dimensions.” Qadri’s work has to be experienced; the viewer must surrender to the work. In front of his work, the viewer is confronted with the silence within himself. The work does not direct; one must direct oneself. This intuitive experience speaks all languages and knows no formal boundaries. Suneet Chopra summed it up by saying, “With its dispersion of and concentration of energy, it far excels expressionist abstractions whose aggression is their main force of attraction.”

Text quoted from the Sundaram Tagore Gallery.

Amala IV, 2008, Ink and dye on paper, by Sohan Qadri

“I did not want to confine myself to one place, nation or community. My approach to life has been universal, and so is my art.”

Sohan Qadri

Puskara II, 2008, Ink and dye on paper by Sohan Qadri

Sohan Qadri is represented by the Sundaram Tagore Gallery …for more information and to view his work please visit the gallery website here.

Sohan Qadri’s own website with information about the artist and a comprehensive gallery of his works here.

Angelika sings and Paramjyoti swirls

On the 16th of June 2011 a significant cultural event took place sponsored by the Academy of Art, Creativity and Consciousness of Ananda Assisi, a performance of sacred music accompanied by sacred dance. The two inspirational German artists Angelika and Paramjyota created a magical atmosphere inside the “Temple of Light”, the temple of the Ananda community, in front of an enthusiastic audience. Angelika, singer and songwriter, travels throughout the world sharing her healing music, sang bhajans and other chants of which words were mantras from Hindu, Buddhist and Christian traditions. During the evening she sang some of her own songs both in German and in English. Her voice is pure and touches profoundly the hearts of all; the public were so enchanted by Angelika’s music and voice, that many thanked her personally at the end of the concert.

Angelika in Concert

During the performance, another German artist, Paramjyoti Devadasi, a well-known sacred dancer, accompanied Angelika’s music with her dance which she calls ‘Dance of the Heart’.  It’s a combination between modern dance and the old traditional Sufi dance performed by the whirling Dervishes. The two artists, who have never performed together until now and met only the day of the event, were in complete synchrony with each other and created a magical atmosphere of total purity and divine holiness. Everyone was touched, inspired and the sensibilities of the performances lifted hearts and  consciousness.

Devadasi & Angelika performing at Ananda Assisi.

The two artists also performed on the 18th of June in San Biagio, a small comunity with a Wellness Center, not far away from Ananda, in an old monastery. The place is sacred itself and the two artists once again gave an unforgettable performance of pure sacred art, coming directly from the heart. The audience was once again profoundly touched by Angelika and Paramjyoti, by their unique way of performing, by their total devotion and simplicity. Angelika also involved the public in their music, asking them to sing along with her, which the people extremly enjoyed. In this way the typical scenario of having an artist separated by the public that gives a performance to be listened to by a passive audience was disssolved. Every one sang with Angelika and became a participating artist themselves. At a certain point, the singer asked the public to stand up and do some specific actions during one song ( embracing each other) and sing at the same time. This created a sense of intimacy throughout the audience. Paramjyoti performed beautiful swirls during Angelika’s chanting and brought a divine elegance to the whole atmosphere. Here below you can see a picture which shows Angelika in the foreground singing and Paramjyoti whirling in the background.

Devadasi dancing on Angelika's music

The concert ended in a peaceful, pure and meditative atmosphere and the audience was without words. The people were touched and uplifted and it was dificult to leave the place because of the divine energy which had been created in that monastery.

Angelika finishing the song and Paramjyoti in Namaste

You can share a piece of the nights ethereal magic by watching the video of ‘Dance of the Heart’ below.

The Academy of Art, Creativity and Consciousness of Ananda Assisi aims to facilitate transforming change through creativity and promoting inspirational art in bringing creative joy to life.

Text © Mihai Huber and Academy of Art, Creativity and Consciousness

Don’t miss this amazing workshop!

Mandala: the Sacred Art of Centering Your Self

Where: Academy of Art, Creativity and Consciousness, Ananda, Assissi Italy.

When: 3-8 July 2011

Mandala is a Sanskrit  word that means “circle”, signifying the primordial shape that represents wholeness, completeness and unity. In many cultures, and throughout time, the Mandala has been used as a template for sacred art because it represents the centering of the self in alignment with the cosmos. Carl Jung used the Mandala as a powerful therapeutic tool, a way of accessing more profound levels of our being. In this week we will explore many varieties of this sacred form, including principles of sacred geometry, the Yantra and the labyrinth. In hands on creative play, each participant will be guided in a process of inwardly centering deep within themselves, while outwardly creating their own unique Mandala. We will also together create a meditative labyrinth, using the template from the Chartres cathedral.