Scadding Court Falling Sky workshops introduced the art of Mystery Painting to ten young persons in downtown Toronto this summer helping them to navigate their way through these uneasy times – with plenty more obstacles coming their way down the road, no doubt. These classes, supported by the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research at York University, represent a tentative diagnostic probe into our human condition and what it might mean for teenagers living today.
Mystery Painting is a form of imaginative induction by which we turn a problem into symbol. It provides a means of connecting inner and outer worlds: the world of our daily life with the world of the spirit. This is a vitally important connection in an age where we find ourselves in mortal danger of disappearing in the blitz of cyber babble and banality that now passes for reality.
Scientists at the World Wildlife Federation tell us that we are now living at the onset of the Sixth Mass Extinction. Since 1970 animal populations have fallen 70% mainly due to climate change. Yet we live comfortably in denial, shopping our way to oblivion.
In a recent speech at the American Museum of Natural History, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued a stark warning. ”Our planet is trying to tell us something but we don’t seem to be listening. Not only are we in danger, we are the danger. But we are also the solution. This is the moment of truth.”
And dear beleaguered Dr. Anthony Fauci, who helped us steer our way through the corona virus pandemic, reflected on the lessons it taught us, offering this advice. “We need to understand that we’re all more alike than we are different, that we share common goals for ourselves and for our communities. We need to talk to one another again and we need to figure that out.”
In Falling Sky Studio sessions from May through August 2024 at Scadding Court in Toronto we addressed the issue of embracing empathy in ominous times by taking the opportunity to paint together and create stories from the surprising images we found there at the tip of a brush. We couldn’t have done it without the help of an artist with great organizational skills, Zia Foley, my very capable studio assistant.
Mystery Painting conjures an alternative to the world of gizmos and glitz that makes a mockery of any sense of intrinsic interiority remaining in us today. It is a gift from young people living during a time of civil war and the tsunami of 2004 who found refuge in the Butterfly Peace Garden in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, where they healed body and soul using art, story and theatre as their medicine. It allows us to discern what we really care about and leave behind what smothers and ensnares us.
By painting and creating stories from our original artwork we give form to a deeper reality than television or digital media platforms reveal. Working at both the personal and transpersonal level it gives us a window into our fundamental humanity and purpose in this world.
The simple but profound practice of Mystery Painting builds trust by nourishing a deeper sense of belonging in community. We learn to trust our intuition and delight in its capricious meanders. Though we experience vulnerability in summoning the creative spirit, we also enjoy sharing its surprising manifestations with others, exposing terrain never before traversed, the terra incognita of our own souls.
Poho
September 2024
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