A Spiritually Enlightening Online Magazine. September's Theme: "Relationships"
Volume 4 Issue 6 ISSN# 1708-3265

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Illuminations Aleesha Stephenson About the Cover Jeanne Cameron The Bookshop Chapter Five Jennifer Kusz All my Relations Toria Betson Building Bridges Not Walls Rev. Cheryl Jewett Impermanence Jacqueline Kramer The Kindred Bond of Universal Breath Dj Brown The Last Time Iain Pennington Loss of a Friend Dr. R.A. Myers David Suzuki PhD Wisdom Michael Levy Reclaiming Oneness A Conversation with Brian McClure, Creator of the Universal Flag Lexi Soulios You Are What You Love How Spiritually Healthy Are You? Vaishali Dial-Up the Girl of My Dreams Derek Wilken Lifetalks Dawn Baumann Brunke Being Mindful Janet Alston Jackson Pet-sense Jean Hofve DVM Walk Your Talk Aleesha Stephenson Wyrd Lynx John Sacelli Meditate a Moment Featuring: Aleesha Stephenson A Cry for Light Janet Alston Jackson A Sacred Sex Devotional 365 Inspiring Thoughts To Enhance Intimacy Edited by Rafael Lorenzo Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra Edited by Lance Dane Magical Motion - DVD Belly Dance with Atea and Friends Lord of the Rings Tarot Developed by Terry Donaldson

Nature Spirits

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we only will tune in."
-George Washington Carver

A face is a threshold; a doorway into the consciousness of another. These photographs, which have not been digitally altered in any way, show indigenous life masks (which I make) in natural landscapes. These images actually existed in nature; I use photography to document my work. It is my intention to co-create with nature using visual images which celebrate the life energies flowing through all beings.

Since childhood I have seen anthropomorphic forms in rocks, trees, plants and water. The images in these photographs have grown out of my passion and enchantment with Celtic and Native American Indian spirituality which honour all forms of life.

As an art historian working with flowers and plant material, I spent many years creating naturally inspiring environments in museums throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. At the same time, I began studying shamanism and herbalism with the Lakota and Navaho elders. This experience initiated a need to work directly with nature.

I began to see nature the way ancient cultures and indigenous peoples see it - that there is wisdom in all forms of life seeking to communicate with us. However, in our western culture, we have stopped listening.

On a trip to Crete, I used my camera to record images of my shadow cast against the rocks and sea; on summer vacations in Maine, the forms I saw in rocks, water, trees and landscapes inspired me to put a face on nature. Recognizing that a face is a channel into the natural world, I began making life masks and painting them to harmonize with their surroundings. There are now more than sixty masks representing most racial types and ages from 4 to 93.

I began this body of work at a time when I was in the midst of a difficult divorce; searching for my true identity beyond the obvious roles of daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, grandmother, artist, dancer, teacher etc. As the Nature Spirits evolved, from shaman, lover, animal and tree spirits to old crone, I began to see they were all parts of myself. They also taught me that when I do what I truly love, I learn a great deal about myself in the process. As Goethe said, "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it."

In my photographs, I seek to provide a medium in which the viewer can approach nature in a new way. Nature spirits represented by the masks can only communicate with us if we ask them. It is my hope this work will help the viewer see more clearly the physical, psychological and spiritual connections we share with our environment and that it will be part of our evolving consciousness as we change the way we connect to 'all our relations'.

Ho Mitakuye Oyasin
"I salute all my relations."
(Lakota)

Jeanne Cameron can be contacted via email. Her work can be viewed at Exposed Art.

Editor's note: The face in "The Woman Who Lives in a Thicket" is Jeanne Cameron.

Copyright (c) Jeanne Cameron 2006 "Birch Lovers"

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