From incantation comes gesture; from gesture, the objects and utensils for offerings.

Their forms and arrangements create the ritual aesthetic. (Mookerjee 1998:10)

ADORNMENT OF THE BODY – THE FULL CIRCLE

WE ARE NATURE THEREFORE WE WEAR NATURE…

The adornment of the human body can recount its own interesting narrative of the way in which we have arrived at a time when we can consciously accept an all-encompassing oneness with Nature, the Earth and the Universe.

When early human beings walked the earth, symbolic amulets were believed to contain, within themselves, the power required of them. Oppi Untracht, a prolific researcher of jewellery, writes: "The motivation for amulet use stems from a distant time, when humanity's concepts about the surrounding natural environment developed in relation to a common belief in animism, in which nature as a whole, and all natural phenomena, whether inanimate objects or living bodies, are thought to posses life-vitality or be endowed with material or immaterial souls." (Untracht 1997:88)

It is important to realize that these amulets or items of adornment contained the very essence of Nature itself. This was emphasized by the amulet’s shape or form as well as the material of which it was made. Erich Neuman (1949:195) writes: "In earliest mythologies, in ritual, in religion, and in mystical literature as well as in fairy tales, legend, and poetry, gold and precious stones, but particularly diamonds and pearls, were originally symbolic carriers of immaterial values. Likewise the water of life, the healing herb, the elixir of immortality, the philosophers' stone, miracle rings and wishing rings, magic hoods and winged cloaks, are all symbols of the treasure." Embedded in all of these mythological objects was a sense of contact with that which human beings felt was the 'bigger whole' of which they were part.

THEN WE LOOKED UP TO THE SKIES…

After these very early stages, there came a time when "humans not only became more aware of the fact that they are conscious but also started to place their conscious will in opposition to nature." (Steyn 2016) From then on body adornment was increasingly linked to specified religious concepts and rituals, and became an important part of the communion between an exalted transcendental god and his devotees.

WE KNOW WE ARE NATURE AND WE PLAY WITH HER BEAUTY…

Today, however, many people across the world are experiencing a henosis, evolving to a greater appreciation for the idea of pantheism. It seems as if the concept of an ineffable male God has lost its appropriateness and disappeared from countless people’s lives. We have arrived at a juncture where we no longer have to worship this all-rational celestial God, who may be forgiving, but severely punishes those who do not adhere to his vast multitude of rules. Nor do we blindly have to revert back to accepting the Mother Goddess, with her nurturing but fearful nature.

ART IS TRUTH AND BEAUTY…

Art seems to often be bound up with the vague, the plural and the indefinable, - that which might describe the deeper layers of human existence, outside the realm of everyday functioning. I feel that jewellery, as a highly personal art form, is endowed with the essence of the mystical. (It seems to inevitably become a symbol of the individual.) As I also believe we still yearn for contact with an 'omnipresent' element, I will venture to say that jewellery has become an expression of the bridge between ourselves and this 'divinity' or 'world spirit'. For a long time a divine connection implied contact with a 'greater, outer presence'. Today, in modern times, this presence lives within us, literally within our bodies, not without. Our need to connect is now directed undeviating back at the body, rather than away from it to a transcendent being. An awareness of the body has now caused it to fold back onto itself, like a Mobius strip.

The function and appearance of jewellery substantiates the relationship of human beings with Nature, which previously used to be unconscious but has now become a conscious awareness of the undivided unity of which they are part.

As an artist I agree with Bernie Neville (1992:39), who writes that "the postmodern mind's mode of dealing with reality is inclined to be aesthetic rather than rational, more comfortable dealing with images than with ideas, inclined also to give direct subjective (even mystical) experience a validity that it seems to have lost some time ago." Writers such as Lasch (1989:118) also feel that post-modern aesthetics is a "doctrine, which opposes the subordination of the image to the dictates of narrative meaning...”(1989:39)." Instead it uses the "…uncoded and semicoded libido in the unconscious to produce a literature and fine arts that breaks with the formalism of modernity(1989:40)" and aspires "...to the real, the material, to sensation." (1989:41). Post-modern aesthetics thus liberates the artist so that his or her artwork "operates from a position of sensation." (1989:42). In tune with these writers, I propose that art's goal has in many ways become to entice the senses, and in this way it endeavors to purposefully and consciously involve the body and its various pathways of perception. Mookerjee (1998:65) also suggests that "[l]local myths, legends and art-forms have harmonized the unknowable and the known in a relationship so close and intuitive that the difference between god and world ceases to exist. This identification does not depend on any doctrine but on involvement of all senses, and on the arousing of particular kinds of emotions and aspirations in the hearts and minds of the worshipers."

I believe the use of objects of bodily adornment has therefore become increasingly personal as well as subtle, and the need for such pieces to be identified with 'help' from outside has become redundant. I nevertheless believe that this aspiration, even though greatly changed, plays an important role in the assimilation of the concept of embodiment. One might say that the term, 'the adornment' of the body, may now be replaced simply with 'the worship' of the body. We do not adorn our bodies; we adore them. This is, however, not an egotistical or ego-bound act, but a process of connecting with the body and a deeper sense of 'self'.

SPIRIT VESSELS (ON OR OFF THE BODY)…

I would like to create a collection of 'spirit vessels'. These will be containers that can be worn on the body, but may also be purely objects of beauty to cherish. They will be made to contain a spirit / an idea / a thought that the wearer might hold dear. Some of these containers will purposefully have holes pierced in them, reminding us that what is inside can easily slip away. They will be made to touch, to rub. Reminiscent of the mythical lamp, rubbed to let the genie out, or of prayer beads to be caressed and counted, the pieces will have tactile sensation as an important feature. They aim to unlock an intuitive desire to keep something safe and whole. Their shapes will remind us of the old fertility goddesses, but in a new and modern interpretation, with a sense of divine simplicity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY


• Fonda, M. 1995. Examining the new polytheism: a critical assessment of the concepts of self and gender archetypal psychology. PhD dissertation. Ottawa, Ontario: University of Ottawa. Accessed July 2016, at: https://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/10152/1/NN07873.PDF

• Lasch, S. 1989. Sociology of postmodernism. New York: Routledge.

• Mookerjee, A. 1998. Ritual Art of India. Thames & Hudson Ltd; New Ed edition.

• Neuman, E. 1949. The origins and history of consciousness. New York: Pantheon Books.

• Neville, B. 1992. The Charm of Hermes: Hillman, Lyotard, and the postmodern condition. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 37:337-353.

• Steyn, Kobie. 2016. Searching for Soul. MomoHealth. Accessed July 2016, at: http://www.momohealth.co.za/images/PDFs/Do%20we%20dare%20to%20dream.pdf

• Untracht, O. 1997. Traditional jewellery of India. London: Thames and Hudson