Artist as Psychopomp – Tune in Mon July 11, 2011 – Monty Taylor – Living Consciously

First, here’s a new word to add polish to our vocabulary: psychopomp. According to the dictionary, a psychopomp is a guide that conducts the uninitiated Soul between realms of consciousness and different stages of cosmic reality. In Jungian psychology, the psychopomp is a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms. It is symbolically personified in dreams as a wise man or woman, or sometimes as a helpful animal. In many cultures, the shaman also fulfills the role of the psychopomp.

We don’t always expect to find psychopomps in the field of art and literature, but consider this perspective:

When looking at art throughout the ages, a little interpretive trick is to look for the character in the painting or sculpture who is holding a staff. This is the esoteric symbol showing that the figure in question was serving as a guide to a destination of fuller self-realization. In art of ancient times, Hermes is often seen holding a staff or cadeusis to identify him as such a guide. After all, Hermes (Mercury) was the only Olympian that could go from the heights of Olympus to the depth of Hades(different levels of consciousness) without restriction. He was the Divine Messenger that could communicate with every level of human psychic evolution. Later, in the art commissioned by the Catholic Church, the Saints and even the Christ were depicted carrying staffs to portray them as guides to the Heavenly Realms.

But who left us the legacy of these messengers? It was the Artist! It is important to remember that people could not read and write as a collective society until very recent times. So, it was the symbolism in the art of temples, cathedrals, and sacred places that conveyed the message.

This week I will have as my guest the visionary writer TRACI L. SLATTON, who steps into just such a role from the unexpected realm of the written word of fiction. Using written language the way a painter of the Renaissance uses crushed pigments of meaning and fine shading of emotion to transport us into time, both past and future, she celebrates the immortal voyage of the Human Spirit. Her latest books take us to the brink of what we think we know about time.

Traci Slatton’s works share a theme of linking the worldly perception of our existence to the transcendental. Her novels have been translated into over seven languages. Her recent books “Piercing Time and Space” and “Immortal” foreshadowed the current release of her most recent novels “Fallen” and “The Botticelli Affair”. They bring us into a world of insight and our relation to the endless cycles of time as we know it. After all, 2012 is rapidly approaching!

Traci Slatton is married to the pre-eminent sculptor Sabin Howard, whose widely-collected bronze sculptures champion the ideals of the Renaissance and their role in connecting us to the value of classical esthetics in our present reality.