How do others experience consciousness, intuition, intention, and the process of creating something from nothing , or something purely from the imagination or cognition, without any predetermined way to achieve this. The omniscient heart/mind and brain connection is a deep mystery. The Transcendent Journey explores the many ways of consciousness. The following three examples; a Huichol Shaman from Mexico, a professor emeritus of architecture, and a consciousness researcher of the ‘Field’ , provide insight into the mysteries of consciousness. ELIGIO CARILLO, A HUICHOL SHAMAN & YARN PAINTER, DESCRIBES CONSCIOUSNESS Anthopologist, Hope MacLean’s fascinating book, The Shaman’s Mirror, is about her experiences living with the Huichol in Mexico. The book contains her interviews with Eligio Carillo, a Huichol Shaman yarn-painter, wherein he describes the meaning of the special ceremonies and healing properties which are important to his work. In one long interview in Chapter 12, the “deified heart, huichol soul concepts and shamanic art” , Eligio distinguishes two prime capacities required for making his yarn paintings; knowledge received through the mind and knowledge received through the heart. MacLean asks, “Shamanism is in order to see?” Eligio affirms this and he explained, “…the shaman has to have the two powers to be able to make things, the heart and the mind.” He explained that the iyari [the heart] has to be “in tune when you are studying and you are in tune by means of…an electricity.” He continues with an explanation of kupuri which he states, “means energy, like electricity” and that the ”energy of kupuri blesses, or irradiates, a person’s entire body, including the iyari.” MacLean is curious about how so many designs come to Eligio. What follows is a very interesting description of the arrival of designs from one realm to another. Eligio describes a ceremonial process of receiving designs, and tells MacLean that many different designs come forth, “from the heart. That is, from the moment when a person learns these designs.” MacLean explains that a person learns these designs at night at a ceremony. Elgio states that in “one night…, you can be learning about this [visualising]. A spirit comes walking and it stays with you here, here it will stay. In the moment that you do this work, you [have the power and designs], and now it comes out of you like a recorded tape…”. MacLean sums up the Huichol aesthetic ideal which is “represented by an artist who has his or her iyari open. The artist’s iyari receives, and is charged with kupuri carried in this channel. If the artist also has a well-developed mind, he or she will be a good artist.” Later, the subject of meditation upon the colors in a sacred yarn painting is discussed. MacLean is trying to learn whether concentration or focused meditation upon a painting has an effect upon a person. Eligio says that as a person becomes more focused, that is power and a positive effect upon the mind. He states, “… such focus and meditation upon a painting gives a person more life energy.” The life energy of the painting is transferred to the one focused upon it. __________________________________________ MacLean, Hope, The Shaman’s Mirror, Visionary Art of the Huichol , University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 2012, pp. 206 - 207, 213, 219. PROFESSOR EMERITUS, CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER, DEPT. OF ARCHITECTURE, UCLA, DESCRIBES CONSCIOUSNESS The life energy of a pattern, symbol, painting, design, place, and space is something which UCLA Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Architecture, Christopher Alexander, has studied most of his life. Alexander is retired after 38 years lecturing at UCLA, and is Director of the Center for Environmental Structure, and Chairman of the Board at PatternLanguage.com He has designed many beautiful structures and homes which were built according to his theories concerning an understanding of space and the aliveness of space, even space that exists within the canvas of a painting or the space of a pattern design. In Alexander’s book, The Phenomenon of Life, The Nature of Order, Book One, he states , “I have expressed the view that space must be considered an almost living entity --- a kind of stuff which, depending on the recursive structures that are built up in it, becomes progressively more and more alive. Of course, it is unlikely that this way of understanding space could be undertaken within the confines of a method of observation that insists that everything is a machine.” He defines observation in this way, “..the space matter that I describe…has precisely the character that it is not machine-like, no method of observation that is obliged to pretend that everything is machine-like can possibly see it as it is, or acknowledge its properties.” What Alexander describes is a human experience and more than that, an experience of all living organisms. This experience of recognition of living space cannot be comprehended by, and most likely not respected by, artificial machines. I agree with this view; that the life energy of all living systems and organisms on this planet exists as a unique work of art in itself; a blend of all the hopes and dreams, all of the wonder, sorrow, joy and exultation possible by every creature, every plant, every tree, every living organism in the soil and on the earth, every feathered and fluttering wing of the air, all the scaled skins in the water and on lands, all the drops of water, all the molecules of atmosphere, the rain, the sun, the oceans, the lakes and the streams. It is a very special place, a place where we all live, a place that is the home to our collective life energy sent to us from the source. It seems best to be connected to all good natural energies which inform our senses in order to develop a deeper consciousness. __________________________________________ Alexander, Christopher, The Phenomenon of Life, The Nature of Order, Book One , The Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, California, 2002, p. 352. THE “FIELD” OF CONSCIOUSNESS DESCRIBED IN PHYSICS BY RESEARCHER, LYNN McTAGGART Consciousness researcher, Lynne McTaggart, offers these words regarding space, potential and the act of being thought about. “…everything in the future already exists at some bottom-rung level in the realm of pure potential, and that in seeing into the future, or the past, we are helping to shape it and bring it into being. This makes sense if we consider that all subatomic particles exist in a state of all potential unless observed--which would include being thought about.” __________________________________________ McTaggart, Lynne, The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, Harper-Collins, New York, N.Y., 2008, p. 173. THE TRANSCENDENT JOURNEY to be continued

ATAVUSIA JOURNAL OF DESIGN

May 25, 2025

J. Lee Morrison, Multimedia Creator & Author