Artists Avenue: Sacred Feminine

[themify_box style=”gray, shadow” ]Artists Avenue is a new segment in our webpage for local artists to share their passions and concerns, whether serious or humorous in hopes of opening a dialogue with the community and fostering the growth of the arts in the region.  The opinions shared by the artists are not necessarily those of The Art Avenue or The Art Avenue Gallery.  This will be a monthly column and if you would like to contribute to our blog, please contact:  info@theartave.com[/themify_box]

I strive to create balance, as an artist, in the pieces that I create.  The balance that inspires my work is rooted in the idea of the sacred feminine, as I’ve begun to realize, from the Virgen de Guadalupe to the illuminations of Hildegard von Bingen. But what led me to this realization?

The sacred feminine is a concept akin to the Asian Ying Yang. It is those qualities female in all of us, males included. This feminine principle is a connection to the natural world, to Earth, and ultimately to all realms being the source of life, balance, and love in the universe that we inhabit, spiritually and physically. The sacred feminine reminds us to remember our interconnections, our oneness with the universe. We are not separate from creation and therefore each other.

Hildegard von Bingen’s “viriditas” is a great example, meaning literally “greening power” or the power of life that animates the universe. In her “Egg of the Universe” illumination we see the universe in a womb (the womb of God for her). There is not a differentiation here between male and female but a cosmology that tells us that we are all one, we are all connected.

The Virgen de Guadalupe is another example of the sacred feminine. In the Mexican tradition she appeared to Juan Diego on indigenous ruins, ruins of the mother deity. The concept of the earthly mother, Hildegard’s viriditas, is inspired by the sacred feminine with indigenous roots. The former becomes the latter and finds expression still as one and the same.  It is this connection to the world around us, to the fecundity of the earth, that unites both the male and female, the ying and the yang.

As I look back and around and become aware of the images that are important to my art it occurs to me that the sacred feminine permeates. Balance is inspired by consciously recognizing this principle, and when I get lucky, flowing the subconscious of the sacred feminine to imbue my work with the power of that principle.