I feel deeply honored to have been invited to share my most developed work yet, the PanGenitor shrine at Beloved Festival this year. I aspired to express things usually seen with the eyes closed in a form that was visible to other beings. Not just any other beings, but those who really appreciate such an offering, each in their own way. The process of creating the shrine was a synchronicity-enhanced delight as was the response to its presence.
The fabrics were created over a span of time, some during the spring, some shortly before the festival itself. I was assisted in putting them together as an installation by Jake Theisen, a friend with whom I had not had a chance to talk at length for quite some time. This made the construction phase a relatively effortless joy, with two minds worth of ideas as to how to make it happen.
Once the moss and fern-bedecked enclosure of fabrics suspended from a hexagon of posts was complete, we felt that the thing that it was meant to contain was yet to arrive. We wanted an altar-piece of antlers, bones and skulls. I knew that Treigh Love would have these because she is awesome that way. I called her Wednesday night to see if she could bring something like that and she did not get the call because she was at that moment working on putting together the perfect answer. She arrived the next day with a sculpture/artifact composed of three sets of antlers and various bones forming a prehistoric demi-god type icon. It looked exactly as if created specifically for the PanGenitor Shrine even thought Treigh had never seen it. Emergent blessing of spontaneous synergy.
Once people arrived, i delighted in seeing their interactions with the space. Although I gave multiple concept-tours of the shrine, i mostly tried to stay out of the way of each person having their own experience of it. A wide range of moments thus ensued. Some sat alone inside while others lead energy practices or had focused personal exchanges.
My own solitary time there involved dancing in circles while staring into the designs of the fabrics, listening to the thought streams thus released in my skull.
I wrote some of these down with the intention of leaving them as little scroll-notes around the shrine to stimulate people’s contemplation of the images. However, i eventually decided that I did not want to put words on a sanctuary that was created to be open to the forces that it represents…sunlight, plant-life, animal life, the breath of the planet. I shared the ideas when guiding people on mind-tours of it, upon request.
The most striking story that I have heard thus far came from a lady who had grown up on the land that hosted the event. As a girl, she had been standing of the very spot where the shrine placed and when from the forest there came bounding an elk that stood there magnificently for a moment and then wondered away, leaving her awestruck. When this lady saw the antlered constellation erected at the very spot, she was strongly moved to tell the story to Elliot and it was then told to me. What a confirmation of the sense of something inspiring these cooperative creations that is beyond any individual ego.
If you spent some time with the PanGenitor Shrine and would like to share your experience with it, feel encouraged to comment. Thank You All.
This is my favorite picture of Krampus at the moment because it looks so much like a Tarot card…like an unknown Greater Trump springing up out of the meme-detritus of collective culture. At first glance, the Krampus imp is almost like a xenomorph bursting out of St. Nick’s chest. At second glance, it looks like they are lovers. The third glance becomes a gaze gradually revealing a potent iconography.