My practice seeks to acknowledge landscape, whether urban or ecologically intact, as a place to engage in dialogue and relationship.

I was born into a family of European descent, with almost exclusive exposure to Western anthropocentric culture, but I have always felt a different affinity to nature - more as kin.

Philosopher Richard Tarnas in Is the Modern Psyche Undergoing a Rite of Passage? (2001) describes the necessity for Western people to explore the “wider epistemologies of the heart” due to the radical limitations caused by the Cartesian division between self and the world within the modern mind. Tarnas suggests “we need ways of knowing that integrate the imagination… the intuition, the aesthetic sensibility, the revelatory or epiphanic capacity…the capacity to open to the other, to listen” (2001). Enhancing empathy with nature is both key to overcoming the subject-object barrier and furthering the development of my practice.

In meditative actions outdoors, I sit and clear my mind. I open my imagination to explore the landscape without industrial infrastructure. Through the throbbing pulse between moments of incoming competing thoughts, the spirit of the land speaks to me. Sitting (west, 13/01/12): a Northern Flicker pauses at eye-level 15 meters away, small woodpeckers in black, red and white surround the giant, flying branch-to-branch, swirling, encircling, dancing to the bird god, and then disappear.

Through art I translate these experiences, engagements, and dialogues. In Plant Spirit Medicine, I build relationships with the spirits of plants so that they will help to heal people.

My practice seeks to acknowledge landscape, whether urban or ecologically intact, as a place to engage in dialogue and relationship.

I was born into a family of European descent, with almost exclusive exposure to Western anthropocentric culture, but I have always felt a different affinity to nature - more as kin.

Philosopher Richard Tarnas in Is the Modern Psyche Undergoing a Rite of Passage? (2001) describes the necessity for Western people to explore the “wider epistemologies of the heart” due to the radical limitations caused by the Cartesian division between self and the world within the modern mind. Tarnas suggests “we need ways of knowing that integrate the imagination… the intuition, the aesthetic sensibility, the revelatory or epiphanic capacity…the capacity to open to the other, to listen” (2001). Enhancing empathy with nature is both key to overcoming the subject-object barrier and furthering the development of my practice.

In meditative actions outdoors, I sit and clear my mind. I open my imagination to explore the landscape without industrial infrastructure. Through the throbbing pulse between moments of incoming competing thoughts, the spirit of the land speaks to me. Sitting (west, 13/01/12): a Northern Flicker pauses at eye-level 15 meters away, small woodpeckers in black, red and white surround the giant, flying branch-to-branch, swirling, encircling, dancing to the bird god, and then disappear.

Through art I translate these experiences, engagements, and dialogues. In Plant Spirit Medicine, I build relationships with the spirits of plants so that they will help to heal people.