MAJ LETH CONNECTING TO THE HIGHER SELF!(2)
MAJ LETH, from Denmark, shared with us last week, her thoughts and feelings about art and continues this week. Welcome back Maj, for this most enlightening article and your honesty and sincerity in answering my questions.
No. 7) Under what conditions do you work best?
This question I have to answer compared to my surroundings. Where I am living. Cause living as an artist is 24 hours a day. When I was young I loved to be a part of the Underground in Aarhus, (the biggest study-city in Denmark). I needed the culture-life around me. Other artists and creative dynamic persons.
Now I need to be in peaceful surroundings. And always living next to the sea. The wind is maybe the breathing of the Universe, but the sea is the breathing of Mother Earth to me. It is clearing my thoughts and brings the healing energy I need to be in contact with the soul-energy. As a supersensitive person I have the gift to connect and open to the soul-energy, but on the other hand “Noise” disturbs the connection.
In Denmark I live only a 2 minute walk from the sea and have a view of the sea view from my
window. I can not have better conditions for painting than that. In Spain, Frank and I also live in a peaceful and beautiful area in the mountains on the east coast. Frank is an action-painter, working on huge canvases, so he is working in the atelier with a lot of space and music around him. I mostly like to sit outside, in the shadow under the roof. I need the silence, so the music of the nature can reach me. The sound of the wind, the birds, a butterfly.
In the evening and night we can work side by side in the living room, while we are listening to music. I can not work in the atelier. Weather Frank is working there or not. Like I couldn’t work in my old atelier in Denmark. Maybe because I feel I go to WORK then. And painting is not work to me. It is a necessity. I paint where I live and live where I paint. In some way I am maybe even addicted to painting, because I get restless if I do not have my canvases and paint around me. Like I get restless if we have guests living for a week, without the possibility of painting.
No. 8) Does painting help you connect with your higher self, whatever that may be for you?
Dearest Michele; I could write a book about that, and a lot of people already did. But actually it is a question that can not be put into words. Only YES. And even behind that there is a NO. But these two anwers are not opposite, and not in the middle like Maybe. The question can only be answered by experience.
The higher self belongs, to me, in an area without words, an area outside words, beyond words, behind words. Words belong to an area of dualism, analysis, theories, interpretations. Words always go on distance to the subject/object it is talking about. Dualistic. To put words into feelings, experience, deepness,,, is to create a distance to the closeness it actually belongs to. Every gifted poet knows that and open that world in confrontation between them, and paint with words in the area between the words themself.
Pictures, paintings, dreams, yes, even music is a visual language. It belongs to the senses, the basic language in the body. In the point where the visual language touches the deepness in the soul, the higher self is activated. In pure expression. The ego is left behind and a universal language is taking over.
Sokrates/Plato said that everybody has a body, most people have a soul – but only few a spirit. I think that everybody have a possibillity to open their soul and reach their spirit. To me as a super-sensitive person it was always there, even if I did not want it and fought against it to be like “normal” persons. In my statement, I had and have no options. I have learned over the years to use it as a gift instead of fighting it. I have always had a connection to my higher self, – and actually I think the most deep pain in my life belongs to that part of me, – TO have it and a wish to NOT have it. When I accepted it, I started to paint in another dimension. I am sure that people can learn to connect to their soul in a pure way and reach their spirits… through meditations, paintings, music etc – and in that way connect to their higher self.
You asked me if painting helped me to connect to my higher self. My answer is YES cause I am connected to my higher self and I do not think it is possible for me to paint without… My answer is also NO, cause I am connected to my higher self no matter what I do. I even paint that conflict. How it is possible to protect myself in a world with a deep connection to my higher self.
An Ego can protect oneself, and an ego can raise to soul and spirit. In moments. In periods. To me it is the opposite way around. And actually it is painful. The Ego can make choices. But to be a supersensitive person in deep connection with the soul and higher self/ spirit is not a choice. To me the painting does not help me to connect to the higher self, but helps me to ground the higher self. To transform the spirit, energy, power, movements into a touchable deepness.
I am very happy for this question, cause I have heard so many people,-even other artist,-
express that it is an arrogant point of view,- to be specially gifted as an artist, with special connections to the deepness in the higher self. It IS a special gift, but only if we see it and accept it. Otherwise it is hell.
Everybody can learn how to paint. Everybody can learn to connect to their higher self. But some of us really can not disconnect, and feel the pure freedom in painting cause of that. And that is not arrogance. It is simple reality
No. 9) How do you feel about creativity in the public school systems?
Creativity can be shown in many different kind of ways and be a part of every subjects. The most important is that the teacher in every different kind of subjects bears in mind to use both sides, both parts of the brain (left and right) in the process of teaching and the process of learning.
I was working 5 years as a teacher in Denmark. Teaching in art-production, literature and psychology in the 10.class/level. The way we do it is to make team-work between teachers in creative lessons and theoretical lessons – and then make projects, where the students have to connect these different kind of way to express the subject.
No. 10) In your opinion-what could be a simple solution to improve creativity in public school systems?
I used the idea behind Howard Gardners 7 type of intelligence. If we were working with a theme, I asked the students to describe the theme with their type of intelligence. One could make a poem, one a song, one a painting, one an analysis in words, one an interview etc. When we had finished the project, – everybody shared the product with the rest of the class and in that way they supplied each other.
Every child is creative in some kind of way. It is amazing to study how they build up a play, a game. Alone or with others. But year by year in the public school- a higher level counts more theoretic lessons/subjects than creative, so they forget to use that part. My experience is that no matter which kind of intelligence type the students personally relate to, then they automatically connect to the opposite way of thinking by being given the freedom to express in their own way. And the way they can supply each other creates amazing results.
No. 11) What are you hoping to teach and show the public through your art ?
I am sure I do not want to teach people through my paintings. I can teach people to create a painting, but I can’t teach anybody to be an artist. I can use painting as a tool in therapy – to teach people how to open to their inner world. But I do not have any ambitions on teaching people through my paintings.
Painting opens the deepness in my soul and I hope that my art work create an opening in and to people’s soul, touch their inner world and stories, and connect them to their own beauty of BEING. Being a human being, being a soul with a universal mind. It is ALL about soul connection and SOUL COMMUNICATION to me.
Once again, Maj, thank you so very much for the way you have shared so generously with us, your thoughts and feelings. You’ve made me realize that maybe the word I should use in the last question is convey rather than teach. No matter the word, I feel you do it and most graciously as well! Keep well, my friend. Be blessed!
TO THE READER :
You are cordially invited to visit Maj’s links below to see more of this amazing artist’s work.
Your comments are truly appreciated, thank you so much. Enjoy! And please do not hesitate to share this article on Facebook or other places to ensure your friends enjoy it as well!
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Comments
hola
Recibe saludos desde Guadalajara, Mexico
Feliz año nuevo
Gracias por mandarme por Face Boock fotos de tus pinturas y yo las comparto con todos mis amigos a los que les gusta el arte.
tambien pinto un poco, pero me gusta promover la cultura y el arte,
ojala algun dia vengas a mi pais a exponer tu arte, felicidades
Lixi
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