Nine Women: Collages of Spirit-Collages of Self

Abstract

Collaging invites the twists and turns of meaning-making and insight. This Reflexive Inquiry illuminates the collages of nine artist women and celebrates the potency of harnessing Creative Consciousness through meditation, collaging, and dialogue. We aim for balance between juxtaposing evocative imagery, poetic rendering, responding with creative critical social justice understanding, and humility in this undertaking to evoke feeling and insight. The metaphor of the canoe crossing the river illustrates this journey. The fiercely powerful women in this inquiry were provided a pathway to heal from internalized injustices, empower themselves to take positive action, and discover a harmonized state from within.

Collage-making invites the creative twists and turns and unpolished juxta positioning of meaning-making and insight in the learning process of educational inquiry. As an arts-infused process, it offers a path to make tacit meaning vibrant to its maker and its viewer. Without filtering or diluting emotion, feelings reach out to resonate and reverberate through diverse images that span human and animal, landscape and sky, movement, and stillness.

Artists in Reflexive Inquiry

• Abbey: I’m curious, how did the following collection of collage pieces evolve?

• Indrani: They arose out of an effort to imbue wonder and wellness as an educational steppingstone into social work practice. In the place where I traverse the unmarked path of teaching through learning and learning through teaching spirituality in social work, I took part in the call to invite and evoke heightening consciousness; innate, deep-seated, far-reaching, relational, emotional, embodied, reflexive consciousness. This has the potential to lift precious participants out of isolation and anger into compassion and mystery. This ultimately achieves that which we as artists and educators strive for: pedagogical love, as bell hooks so eloquently professed (Biana, 2021), for self and other.

• In my own feminist spiritual quest, the academic and spiritualist within can no longer remain separate. I weave the esoteric teachings and practices I have learned from both Vedantic and Hebraic traditions, which share similar understandings and applications of human consciousness to liberate oneself. For instance, the tree of life is central in Kabbalistic philosophy and Kalpa-Taru, which means tree of imagination or wish-fulfilling tree is central in Vedantic philosophy (personal communication, Tulshi Sen, December 7, 2022). Over the course of a semester, I set out to understand how an ancient and embodied practice, which cultivated into Mahavakyam Meditation by a modern spiritualist (Sen, 2016), could carry students along the rivers of their own inquiries of self-awareness, resilience, and wellness. I then invited these artist–participants to process their learnings from this embodied practice through the use of collage-making. Emotional reflexivity and power-sharing are key in feminist arts-based research (Leavy & Harris, 2019). This means the praxis of research and being an ally is grounded in reciprocal relationships and arts-based designs that foster collaborative insights. In this spirit, I invited you, an emerging feminist artist–scholar and graduate student, to share in the embodied reflexive process of this project.

• Abbey: I’m delighted that you did. I wonder how such an all-embracing journey could be relationally contemplated and symbolized to illuminate the findings of this project?

• Indrani: The visual and poetic renderings that follow are the unfettered creations of the artist–participants, shaped only in design layout and punctuation. Image fragments intuitively pieced and placed together invite the creative contemplation for meaning to emerge, simmer, and coalesce. The symbolic representation of a canoe journey on the open river is used to further elucidate the findings throughout this inquiry. This woman-centered project illumines the power of finding self, finding spirit, and centering the social justice agenda.

• Abbey: Immediately, I think about how the canoe is relied upon intentionally by Indigenous peoples to carry persons across water between lands. I am humbled to be connected to knowledge keepers from Gitxsan territory. Matriarch Skii Km Lax Ha taught me and gave me permission to share that canoes were significant to trading both on land and water, a way of connecting to other coastal communities to sustain their nation economically. Men did not dominate, rather trade labor was shared equally. Yet, women were the keepers and observers in this process, and carried the necessary information needed to stay connected to neighboring communities (personal communication, Skii Km Lax Ha, January 16, 2023). Revealing this oral history provides a cultural foundation of the canoe for symbolic analysis and symbolic transport across the river of consciousness from the lands upon which we work and live and specifically where I live along the mighty Skeena River in northwestern British Columbia.

• Indrani: The ingenuity of the canoe is that it is lightweight and can be portaged between waters. Vedic ancients knew that meditation, like the canoe, must be strong and light so the learner does not become too weighed down with excess knowledge on the journey. Mahavakyam Meditation was cultivated to support seekers in their own visions and quests.

• Abbey: Please continue to explain the metaphor of the canoe.

• Indrani: Each of us is on a quest to know ourselves authentically, unabashedly, untamed. That process requires healing from the emotional ruptures of social injustices. It requires traversing open and tumultuous waters: a foundation upon which we can sit and stand upon fluid seas. We need a canoe to cross to the other side of the riverbank. The four ancient Mahavakyam (great words) provide the strength and stability, like the canoe vessel, to keep us afloat; to still and silence us upon moving waters. Dwelling in the canoe supports us to concentrate on a habit of self-reliance, trust, and receptivity from the wisdom of the heart. Our journey also needs paddles—the means to steer and direct us to the opposite riverbank of understanding and recognition of our authentic creative self. That steering begins with a vision, a motif, an impetus, a spark. The fire to embark on a journey of reconnecting fragments of self together co-relate on the page. Collage-making brings that motif or intention into an imaginative state.

• Imagination first appears chaotic like the various chosen and cut images the collage maker has before them. But then, out of the chaos, out of a desire for healing and wholeness, a clear vision begins to emerge. Direction is given from within in the process of placing, situating, choosing, and gluing. In alignment with Sen’s (2016) four steps to visualization, when that vision is clear in the collage maker’s mind, the manifestation culminates. Conception to creation is how the motif becomes the reality of an art product. Prior to conception is the absolute consciousness where the spark arose and transposed from fire, water, air, and earth, into art. The completed collage piece is the reflexive embodiment of moving dynamically from consciousness to conception to condition.

• Abbey: What does this process have to do with social justice?

• Indrani: This entire project is predicated on a passion and drive to fight for women who have been silenced. This project allowed for seven women to carve out and listen to their inner voices, their feelings, their embodied reflections before and with one another. Then, as two women oriented to social justice, we were called to respond. In this embodied reflexive inquiry, we all created a space to ventilate the spiritual, the poetic, the prophetic; to honor our intuition rather than ignoring it. History has taught us to internally delegitimize our wisdom as women. This project destroys that falsehood.

• Abbey: Aqua and Violet’s creations reflect this journey of finding legitimacy in themselves so clearly . . .

A Work in Progress—Aqua

Don’t be afraid!

Take risks and explore more.

I have established connection

with the divine.

We get spiritually constipated;

and it’s important to open up.

So that’s me, jumping off a cliff into the ocean.

The ocean

is where I go when I’m meditating.

I feel like a mermaid now.

I’ve gotten there.

I feel comfortable with my individuality.

I’m fine:

just the way I am.

Nurturing myself

through self-care and fostering gratitude.

Inspired means . . .

still being curious about life.

Slowdown!

the meditation really helps with that . . .

clarity as well.

I channel my inner warrior

recognizing my strengths.

These Boots Are Made for Walking—Violet

I see meditation as journey. And connect it to mostly the universe.

That is my sense of what is bigger. And I really find galaxies are so beautiful.

I like the idea of stuff reaching up

into it

little paths here and there with nature mixed in.

The odd signpost along the way, to give some direction.

It has no border. I did that purposely.

Straight and cut would be my usual go to.

I’m not comfortable with having ripped edges but I also was sharing scissors.

I let go of my perfectionism here and it will just rip in a few pieces.

To me, it feels unfinished . . . .

but perhaps that is also a symbol or a metaphor it never is finished.

Work is always in progress.

• Indrani: Collage and meditation are examples of embodied reflexivity. They are also acts of social justice in the classroom because they are accessible regardless of intersectional identity. When paired with collaging, Mahavakyam Meditation can especially elicit insight, increase concentration, broaden perspective, integrate unresolved traumas, and transcend internalized negative emotions, and limiting perceptions of self (Margolin, 2014). Sarah’s collage, which includes both an upside down and a right side up individual, side by side mid-flight against a backdrop of mountains, illustrates this point.

Changing Perspectives—Sarah

Changing perspectives,

a man upside down and in the same situation a man right side up:

do I want to feel depressed; look negatively or do I want to feel positive and grateful.

Learning to fly

on my own.

When we meditate daily, it takes us to a place    where we see what is important.

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer

we didn’t know if she would survive.

Now: it’s a second chance.

This meditation helped me to feel grateful and brought me back to what is important.

I like this feeling of pure happiness.

• Indrani: As a reclaimed, recovered, renewed writer, I am appreciative of how Sarah’s Changing Perspectives might also relate to Mem, the Hebrew letter that symbolizes an upside-down individual who sees from a different paradigm or perspective. Sarah reflected on the ways Mahavakyam Meditation expanded her understanding of moving her entire life and culture from her home country. Before this meditation and visioning practice, she felt extreme loneliness and disconnected from urban Western culture. Sarah longed for her extended family and cultural ways of knowing. In her canoe, Sarah found the inspiration to paddle forward to the other side of the bank where relationships re-flourished and isolation vaporized. She reconnected with family after years of disconnection. She connected with classmates after struggling to feel a part of her cohort. Sarah was also intensely worrying about her mother’s illness. Through meditation and visioning her mother’s well-being, she cultivated acceptance, strength, and a way to connect to her deep-seeded self. Simultaneously, her mother went into remission. This is why she committed herself to making this meditation a daily practice, and eventually introduced it to her mother. Reportedly, they still meditate together.

• Abbey: Brilliant. Themes you have drawn from the collage data supported your transformative research objectives in moving the needle for feminist, spiritual, and critical social needs. As a social worker, as a woman locating myself as a researcher, and as an emerging artist–scholar, what really draws me to your work and why I celebrate it is its synergy with embodied social justice.

Tea’s collage demonstrates a tenant of social justice as well. Her choice of the words earned it struck a nerve for us both, as if her worthiness and deservedness for serenity was not an inherent birthright.

Time for Peace and Mindfulness—Tea

Meditation taught me that I need more calmness in my life that I blocked.

I think of meditation with travelling, cuz I love travelling.

I feel like this window and the sky reminds us to be more aware of what surrounds us and be more mindful.

We feel boxed in but:

Once you open up the window   you can let yourself be free.

The reason why I put the animals and space and that sense of connection is because I think meditation allows you to be more connected:

to everything that is around you so that is what drew me to those pictures.

I wrote a mini poem:

Take a moment. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Let your mind and brain guide your next adventure.

Let your soul be around that which makes you happy.

If you feel boxed in, let go. Let the sunshine and a ray come in.

Open yourself to that which you want. Be around that which makes you happy.

Indrani: For Harry, not only did the meditation help re-vision her goals for serenity, but the act of collaging reflected back to her the capitalistic, patriarchal society she was succumbing to, and the sacrifices to self she was making to achieve this externally imposed notion of success.

The Climb—Harry

I used to be spiritual. Spirituality is nature.

With the people that are floating, meditating. They are at peace.

After we meditate, I feel lighter,

Close to space  and the galaxy-

a connection to something more.

That is what I envision for myself in the future.

Currently I’m those people           that are on the climb.

My vision board is a story of myself to move from the polluted city life into more.

I want to research my own culture,

hike the mountain with my sister, fix the garden at my house.

• Abbey: Anna was puzzled at first why she could not steer herself upon the water in the direction she wished. Through introspection, she came to understand that she was being weighed down by the judgment and criticism she carried for others. After realizing she was focusing on these negative thoughts and spinning in circles, she decided to carve a new canoe of kind-heartedness and whittle new oars. Anna then steered in the direction of her vision, honoring other in both personal and professional relationships. Paddles are the vision that she changed toward others. Vision can be consciously carved as we drop into our deep-seeded self with reflexive collage and meditation.

The Deep—Anna

That green aura I feel in between my eyebrows whenever I meditate-

pulsating green . . .

Twisting Woods Strength.

Follow your heart.   Circling mystery.   Magic.

Enlightening story.

Allow    for    space.

Make peace a priority.

Find the answers.   Enjoy the beauty.   Unending Space.

Horizon of possibilities.

Zen. Green aura. Passion. Help. Light.

Spirit prayer and guidance.     Hope and Imagine.

• Indrani: Lila shared that her canoe journey strengthened her presence and engagement with clients. Before this, as a social worker, she was overwhelmed with clients’ complex mental health needs. A once seemingly impossible quest through choppy waters, Lila now pushes through gracefully with her oars fortified by patience and calmness. Lila’s ability to attune herself to her clients makes her practice more justice centered. This attunement allows her to listen and meet the needs of a population that is often marginalized in care provision due to historic and ongoing stigma of people living with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder in the mainstream medical system.

Awakening—Lila

This collage is my internal

challenges and realizations I have

gained.

A woman holding herself

and that woman signifies me

learning to love myself

and be with myself

and accept myself.

The mountain has a ladder.

the balloon is my human brain

it signifies my climb to knowledge

and my growth.

Swimming opposite the waterfall to depict:

the challenge of making peace with my anxiety.

Meditation has helped me calm my mind

and bring

my self-awareness.

I’m practicing visioning and see:

auras and sparkles everywhere.

• Abbey: Similar to your work with women in processes of mental health recovery (Margolin et al., 2017) ¹ and Kidd et al.’s (2014) work with racialized women, the process of analyzing the collage data has started many a conversation. Like any good critical and creative academic discussion, this inquiry (canoe journey) has allowed us to portage on our own and then return to designated meeting points where we continue along the river of writing.

• Indrani: Eloquently put. Furthermore, for individuals who have been marginalized and their voices silenced, the very act of creating is an act of liberation as it is often the first time expressing what has previously been denied. This occurred for Sarah, who suffered discrimination and racism since arriving in Canada, and for other participants who endured poverty, precarious employment, and gendered violence. Do these connections spark any personal reflections for you?

• Abbey: At one point in this creative project, I found myself absorbed in a 1977 archived publication of Heresies where authors Meyer and Schapiro discussed the term femmage defining works of women that honor our historical social and cultural context by piecing together leftover scraps with the goal of creating a new whole to make meaning for ourselves (pp. 66–69). Women, like other historically marginalized groups, have harnessed the tool of resilience to yield newness, progress, and change. Collage inquiry has provided me an opportunity to harness my own resilience as I come into my identity as an emerging artist–scholar. I stand with this project in celebration of feminist, arts-based research as a building block for the social justice pedagogy I’m building my practice on.

Connecting the Dots—Abbey

I started collaging the summer before I returned to school for graduate studies in social work. Since then, a box of collage materials sits next to my desk. I first engaged with meditation alongside my classmates and professor, Indrani. When I was called to aid in this project, I felt immense privilege, a feeling that emerges when I am also free to engage with Mahavakyam Meditation. Periodically, I’ve felt like an imposter in academic and creative spaces, but the word trust emerges through my meditation and visioning, trusting that I have legitimacy as a queer woman in these spaces. It is intentionally displayed in the middle of my collage, at the core of my journey into self, surrounded by a deep purple which has been a color reoccurring lately in my visions. I honor and trust the infancy in my career in social work, meditation, and art-based research spaces. I am the young girl in the grassy field equipped with love surrounded by the wholeness of the wonders around me, beyond me, before me, and all to come. I am manifesting abundance and collaboration to make positive change. Bees remind me to take care.

My collage captures my values for social justice represented with pictures of community working hard in cultural and queer liberation. In social work, reflexivity is understood as a pillar of feminist practice and research, defined as a “re-examination of power” in the [research] process (Leavy & Harris, 2019, p. 103). Given that I often meditate in the context of my social work practice, I often visualize how I will honor those who broke ground for me in my own research and career aspirations. Participation in this research project is an example of one of the ways I can and will continue to center feminist, arts-based research in my work.

This process has helped me come full circle in deconstructing my unseen concepts of self. Collaging my meditative experiences allowed me to cut, stick, and glue the literal pages on which I wrote about how I would make meaning in my life and where I began to shape my social work practice to align with my values and belief systems. Meditation reminds me of delicious moments of introspection and serves as restorative acts of self-care.

• Indrani: Thank you for that brave positioning. Here is my collage . . .

Strength to Shine—Indrani

Mahavakyam Meditation attunes me to my oneness with the world. It balances me and gives me courage. For years, I longed to share this joy and peace I felt with others but did not feel ready. We began and ended each meditation by chanting OM (Aum)—a Vedic sound symbol for everything manifest and unmanifest in the world (Radhakrishnan, 1953/2011). Turquoise reflects the beauty I felt in this group and a color that comes in my meditations. In this women’s group, we empowered ourselves and each other to search within. The flute player serenading his love is an embodied expression of the romance played out between my mind and my soul. The dolphin is me blissful, humbled, resting in the assurance that this work is exactly what I want to do with my life. I witnessed, in myself and others, a reclaiming of voice (the bird squawking loudly) for self-acceptance, self-determination, and self-creation in the face of external realities that impose unwanted limitations. The butterflies are each of us, metamorphosed, from crawling beneath to soaring above what we previously believed possible, seeing our visions below as realities already attained (Margolin, 2014, Reprinted with permission).

• Abbey: Stunning. Our artistic journeys through reflexive collage, meditation, and visioning demonstrate how dwelling in creative consciousness invites expanded understanding of self and new liberating, loving, and nourishing perspectives are invited to arise. This inquiry aids in the movement of feminist research and adds to the “major vehicle for identity politics and correspondingly, social change, including influencing public opinion and policy” (Leavy & Harris, 2019, p. 102). Each of us as social workers, researchers, professors, and community members will move beyond this project through this life with reclaimed and renewed voices to make change.

• Indrani: Yes. This project, in ensuing transformative, passionate, and liberating reflexivity, is not the first of its kind. Validity grows with each contribution of artful inquiry in bolstering the holistic health of individuals and families (Jay et al., 2022), and harnessing the power of individual and collective to build toward social change (Clover, 2011; Margolin, 2014).

Women are still silenced through patriarchal and heteronormative structures and ways of being that exist and extend into academic walls, which are some of the longest historically oppressive places that we have in our society. Similar notions are echoed in Yuen’s writing (2016). Through this work, much like Butler-Kisber and Poldma (2010) and Margolin (2014), we find that collage and Mahavakyam Meditation are ways for women to reclaim voice and be in public space while having their experiences legitimized as worthy.

• Abbey: This inquiry has been a celebration of feminist arts-based research, collage, and meditation. I am energized at the thought of new destinations these canoe journeys will uncover. Do you have any closing thoughts?

• Indrani: This embodied reflexive inquiry illuminated the collages of nine artist women—participants and researchers—and celebrated the potency of harnessing creative consciousness through meditation and collage-making. These quests into reflexivity with each other exemplified the power of arts-based feminist research. Their unique collages captured themes of strength, resilience, beauty, inclusion, power-sharing, and conquering internalized oppressions. Stripped of normalized social expectations, we embrace meditation and collage to access a creative state where thought and emotion arise from the deep wellspring of creative consciousness.

The sturdy lightweight canoe of Mahavakyam Meditation and collage are processes and practices that can be whole-heartedly relied upon for artists, scholars, and learners to carry themselves across tumultuous waters toward the other riverbank of their own vision.