On Monday, July 14,2014 I will be a guest on The GR Healing Fountain, airing live at 5pm EDT; 10pm BST.  LINK  I hope you will join me!

My theme is The X in Extra-Sensory. It’s not easy to define. Like the X-Files, or the X-Factor, the X in Extra-Sensory stands-in for what can’t be quantified or explained. But we can feel it. That’s the key. Because Everything emits a feeling. And maybe first we have to become aware of ourselves as feeling bodies before we can allow ourselves to feel the energies of the life around us. Ourselves as feeling bodies, like the Jennifer Beals’ character in the movie Flashdance where she says:

You walk out there, and the music starts, and you feel it. Your body just moves. There’s something inside of you that just clicks and you’re gone. It’s like you’re somebody else for a while.

On the radio show I’m using songs and a video from Flashdance to illustrate feeling through dance. It’s much easier to watch a dancer feel the music than it is to watch a painter feel the colors and texture of the paint. You might look at their art work and not see what they are on about or what they were feeling or what they want you to feel.

With music it is easier. Sound is vibration. Vibration is a Frequency. Jennifer Beals’ character tunes into a Frequency. She gives herself totally to the frequency. She feels it through her body, through her toes. She allows it to take her over. She surrenders to it. She surrenders her mind and goes with the feeling. She lets go of her ego. She allows her body, her instincts, to guide her.

My field is visual art. I have been writing and speaking for years about the art process, especially in terms of higher consciousness, as the practice of art does nothing if not increase self-knowledge and self-awareness. It’s important, especially now, as our culture becomes more visual. The power of visualization is a crucial factor in our increasing realization that all is perception.

I used to have a website and a radio show called Art and Ascension. That concept wasn’t easy to define either. But art takes us to another plane both as creators and observers. Whatever the discipline, art involves body, mind, heart and soul.

The “X” in Extra-Sensory is what it takes to feel the expression of energy. To feel energy being expressed. This happens through the arts. Any of the arts. All of the arts. To create art is to transmute denser matter, lower thought-forms, onto the higher planes of love/wisdom, compassion and understanding. (I know that’s a mouthful, but I had to put it out there. I promise I will go into more detail another time!)

oil by Nancy Wait (edited)

Meanwhile, what might be simpler to absorb is how imagination leads us into the higher dimensions. Places we experience mentally that are less dense. Fields of awareness that are lighter, where we access the intuitive plane. Think of it this way: works of art “step down” higher states of awareness onto the physical plane.

Art might be considered the portal into the world of Meaning and Significance.

Whether you are painting reality or dreams, visions or emotional states, you are creating a different reality. One that’s about seeing, and the power of seeing. And maybe even figuring out exactly what we do see.

I believe that art can take us to places in the psyche that are inaccessible any other way. I believe we grow and expand in consciousness when we can express our deepest selves through art. For it is there we dispel the shadows and bring through the light of understanding to those hidden areas.

I am currently writing a memoir about my life as an artist in the 1980s. It is the story of a woman’s life in and through art – which I think is important to hear as women artists tend to be overlooked. The book is actually Volume Two, a follow-up to my first book, The Nancy Who Drew; The Memoir That Solved A Mystery. I change the title of my second book on a regular basis, but maybe the most recent title will stick. Maybe this is the one that gets to the real heart of the matter.

My Journey To The Sacred Heart.

Because I do describe a journey, and it’s a journey through painting. And in the end what it led me to see was,

Betrayal is sacred when the heart can encompass the whole.

I call it the memoir that solved a mystery because through the writing (another art form) I discovered, had a realization and came to terms with, the fact that I remembered a previous life. The facts of my life this time around have done nothing if not assist me with this recall. The message is simple and hardly new—yet bears repeating. Everything happens for a reason, and it’s up to us to figure out why we drew it to us.

Meanwhile, I hope you’ll tune into the Healing Fountain show on Monday, July 14th — or catch it in the archives. I’ll leave you with a few lines from the song in Flashdance called, She’s a Maniac.

Locking rhythms to the beat of her heart / Changing moment into light / She has danced into the danger zone / When the dancer becomes the dance