SACRED ART by Rowena Pattee Kryder
MYTH AND SYMBOL PRINTS, 1966-1972
In the early spring of 1966, after two years of Zen meditation, I was awakened with a kundalini experience so powerful that I did not sleep at all for more than two months. Walking all night, I was taken into a ddep vision of the whole earth and told to learn the archetypes of humanity. This was not a mere intellectual study, but a powerful psycho-spiritual awakening from within which did not let me go until the mid seventies when it all became more integrated.
During this time, I was plunged into a vast vision of patterns underlying phenomena. I was guided to study world myths and symbols, religions, literature, psychology, archaology, anthropology, and art in order to find traces of what I was experiencing within. What was needed was a map into the imaginal territory of the history of the earth and the human place within the greater cosmos. Joseph Campbell, who was little known at the time, was a great inspiration. To go deleper into the sources of the patterns I was seeing, I studied esoteric fields of Alchemy, Cabala, Astrology, Tarot as well as more academic subjects.
The sumie painting I did before was transformed overnight into symbolic, metamorphic, archetypal images. Almost all that is left of this period are Hand-Made Prints, which come in limited editions of 5 to 50. Some of these are still available because I gave up commercial exhibiting at this time.
I will divide them into mythic themes of Animal Spirits, Death and Rebirth, Goddesses, Cycles of Heaven, Heros and Kings and Shaman and Tricksters. Also available in very limited quantities is the "Life Matrix" which is a serigraph of a much larger wood-block print, no longer available.
ANIMAL SPIRITS
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Magical Animal |
Thoth: Heralding the Dawn |
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Inspired by the natives of New Ireland in the Bismark, Archipelago—a boat carrying souls to a world across the sea. Pacific Journey of Souls |
Shang Guardian Serpent Union:
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DEATH AND REBIRTH
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Dionysian Tree of Life This wood-block print shows Dionysius, the bachanalian dieity as a tree with potent symbols of serpent, goat, bull and lion. Dancing maenads celebrate life's inherent ecstacy. |
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Resurrection of Osiris |
Om Hrih Hum Tram Ah |
GODDESSES
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Coatlicue |
Sita-Parvati-Durga-Kali |
Sing, Primordial Mama! |
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Eleusinian Mystery Revealed |
Avalokitesvara |
Nut, Isis and Maat |
CYCLES OF HEAVEN
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Toltec Wheel of Heaven |
Babylonian Serpent of Eternity |
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Yin-Yang Zodiac |
Dog Star Cycles of Egypt |
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Atlas Holding Heaven |
Rama's Heavenly Flames |
Primal Split
HEROS AND KINGS
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Asoka, Buddhist Wheel-Rolling King |
Incan City of Gold |
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Beowulf |
Moses, hero of JHWH |
SHAMAN AND TRICKSTERS
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Fire Shine and Fire-Shade |
Sioux Sun-Dance |
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Siberian Shaman's Drum |
Rainbow Snake Shaman |
See PRODUCTS for the purchase of any of these prints.
"An eight-year self-study of world myths and symbols generated numerous artworks, her 1986 doctoral dissertation, and in 2000, the book Source: Visionary Interpretations of Global Creation Myths. In the mid-eighties Rowena received a vision that led her to create a number of exquisite and powerful shamanic robes. Subsequently, shamanistic ritual work has played a large part in her teaching and workshop facilitation.
“My church has been Nature and the Tao, more than anything,” she says, adding that her basic prayer is to chant the names of the twelve angelic orders—Elohim, Seraphim, Cherubim, and so forth—and then hear their response. “I want their vibrations to be one with my cells so that I can serve people and situations here to whatever degree I can. So that I receive that which is on high, and so that I can give to that which is all around me.”
"I met Rowena Pattee Kryder last year at the 21st annual conference on Shamanism and Alternative Modes of Healing. Her presentation and product display took my breath away: here stood a Wise One, a visionary, a magician, a 21st-Century Blake or Goethe. Yet she walks the mystical path with practical feet: there’s no difference between communing with the angels and learning a new computer-animation program when everything is sacred."
—Maxine Freed, PhD. candidate at Saybrook Institute in San Francisco