Enchanted vessels

Enchanted vessels 1, mixed media

Yesterday during the first singing lesson I’ve had in months, my art, singing and Tai chi came together in a beautiful resonating whole.

My teacher was speaking about letting the sound move up my spine, and I connected this to the chi energy we work with in Tai chi. When I sang as if I were doing the slow meditative movements of my tai chi, I entered the same centered flow that sometimes happens in doing the form.

When my teacher then asked me to imagine the sound coming from the bowl of my pelvis, everything came together .  In Tai chi the movements originate from the tan tien, the body’s center of gravity just under the navel. Making the sound from there was very powerful and created a bell like resonance that moved all through my body.

And the next piece of the puzzle was the realization that in most of the art I’ve done in the last years the bowl form or vessel as been central theme.  Bowl, center, container, woman, pelvis, womb, earth, receiving, singing bowl, garden bowl 10 garden bowls filled with music…..enchantment, interiority.

And ‘Water, Fire, Love’, where the bowl symbol was linked with fire and light, was a gift to a particular young doctor whose specialty happens to be focused on the pelvic area of women.  
But I hadn’t made this connection when I chose the piece for him- or rather when the piece seemed to choose itself.