G A L L E R Y
Intuition Play & Interplay by Jaimen McMillan Intuition is a word we have for the elusive ability to understand something directly, without the need for prior conscious reflection, reduction, or reasoning. To write about intuition then may seem counter-intuitive. This short essay will attempt, nevertheless, to shed some light on the elusive phenomenon of intuition by showing how one might engage with intuition in such a way so that it will not run away. Spacial Dynamics can offer some insight into intuition by looking at it as a spatial phenomenon. The discipline of Spacial Dynamics studies the spatial components of movements in sport, movement therapy, physical education, work-place effectiveness, and presence in a business meeting, for example. SD also studies less tangible movements such as sensing, perception, awareness, Jaimen McMillan and understanding. Intuition is one of these refined movements that are so subtle that it can be overlooked. What if this was because intuition does not happen where we are aware of it? What if intuition was a movement that took place outside of the body first, and we were then subsequently aware of it inside the body? If this is true, no wonder we would have a hard time finding it if we were looking for it in the wrong place. Our present western civilization has largely accepted the theory that the mind is located largely, or even solely, in the brain. Questioning this presupposition may open doors to new ways of knowing. This article acknowledges that the brain is incredibly important for self-awareness. But what if the major function of the brain is to mirror our activities, and then allow for self-reflection? A mirror is not the source of the activity it reflects. Looking into the mirror before we have done a new activity would be a formula for becoming jaded, perhaps even opinionated, because any observations would be based upon see-
Sculpting Light PA I NTI N GS BY VI CTO RIA TE M PLE
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olor and the creative process have been Victoria Temple’s passion for 50 years. In that time she has gradually learned to balance inner and outer perception, marrying these dynamic polar, but interweaving, worlds. Her guiding spirits are Goethe and Schiller and she paints in a flowing stream of inspiration from Rudolf Steiner, to Bepe Assenza, to Jennifer Thompson and Laura Summer, founder of the Free Columbia painting training in Harlemville, NY. Not exactly abstract nor an abandonment of representation, Victoria paints out of the inspiration of color itself. Trained as a high school art teacher in multiple media at the University of Washington in Seattle, Victoria subsequently spent many years working in the social justice movement in inner city communities in San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. Tempered but frayed by this experience, in 1991 her daughter, Molly, led her to the Waldorf school movement where she has served as a development director, painting teacher and parent educator. Victoria currently teaches painting to adults at Credo High School, northern California’s first public Waldorf high school which she helped found in 2011, and at her small studio in a horse pasture in west Petaluma, CA.
fall-winter issue 2014-2015
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