Deborah Bryon
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Soaring |
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Hummingbird |
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Winged Being |
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Birdman |
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Apu Wes Caron |
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Transcendence |
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Pacha Tuscon’s Shadow |
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Artist Statement Faces of the Winged Beings Deborah Bryon It is time for the voices of the ancient ones to return. The vision of the Apus is a return to the land. They have been the keeps of the ways of living, an evolution of a new collective. (Conversation with Dona Alahandrina, Altomesayok, July 2011) This body of work is my reflection of encounters with the Winged Beings, while studying with Altomesayoks, Inka shamans living in the Sacred Mountains of the Andes in Peru. The “Winged Beings,” or Apus, are the mythic representations of collective mountain spirits. They are different from angels because they are part of the living earth – not heaven. “In ceremony, the Altomesayoqs have acquired the energetic capacity or power to call the Apu mountain spirits into actual physical manifestation. Through their capacity to contain energy or hold space, they serve as a gateway for the aspects of the spirits to emerge. They enable others who are present to enter into direct dialogues with the Apu spirits. The voices and energetic quality of the aspect of the Apu that appears reflects the temperament of the Altomesayoq who is serving as the gateway. While sitting in ceremonies with different Altomesayoqs, I observed the energy and the voices of the Apus shift from one of sweet benevolence to one of booming force depending on which Altomesayoq was performing the ceremony.(“Piercing the Veil: Lesson of the Inca Shamans,” Bryon, 2012.)” Engagement at the mythic level became understood using symbolic imagery. For me, painting has been a process of recapitulation, a way of circumambulating around memory to deepen meaning, shape-shifting energetic experience into physical form via implicit knowing. Website: http://lessonsoftheincashamans.com/ |