Helen Martineau's Blog

The second cycle, ages 7-14   When the baby teeth loosen most children feel that something new is in the air. It is. And it involves more than physical events. The coming of the second set of teeth marks the etheric cycle or second birth. The etheric – prana, chi or life body – is what gives the life to the physical. The invisible etheric weaves through the earth’s flora and fauna. Without these forces any physical form isn’t alive. The etheric is characterised by movement and rhythm and relates especially to the rhythms of life as  kairos  or the timely season.    A child enters a new life season at around seven years and the etheric forces begin to flow in a new way. Children develop new energies, more vivid imaginations, memory and a sensitivity to the world through an emergent feeling level. T hrough the inner rhythm of their own being   they become awake to the rhythms of the world, of day and ni...

  My grumble today! The Arts Party of Australia has a great suggestion - that in innovative, integrative education, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) needs to become STEAM to include the arts. If anyone cares to look, practising artists, in all fields, work integratively with those STEM areas, so why is the 'A' losing traction in schools? Are we heading towards a Terminator society where mechanistic thinking rules? The arts (including humanities) speak to  thoughtfulness about our place in the wider world and the implications of our actions, past, present and future. That's important! The 'A' areas are not lesser, soft options, lacking rigour and discipline. The thinking involved is creative and imaginative and this is vital for innovation in all fields, but is learned through thoughtful creative activity explored most intensely and openly in ... yes, the arts.

How can you be original? That’s a question visual artist Abbie Heathcote was asked at the 2017 Castlemaine State Arts festival (March 17-26). Her heartfelt response included the unexpected. Here’s a paraphrase of what she said : Find what enlivens you and put all that life and feeling into your work. It lives there, and when viewers come to the artwork they absorb the feeling and they are enlivened. This is a potential outcome from any activity we undertake. When artworks are created with love and commitment to truth they certainly touch a viewer with their life and originality. Imagine the beauty and richness to be discovered from such a relationship. Meaning grows from that. Stephen and I spent the weekend at the festival. If you don’t know Castlemaine, it is a country town in the central Victorian goldfields region. It’s rocky, dry and still speckled with gold. There was so much to see and hear, including a powerful opening night dance-drama by kids from Castlemaine ...