Nectarian Art : Deep Ecological Vision

By Daniel Mirante
originally written for www.lila.info

'Nectarian' is a word I propose to describe a current within visionary or spirit art, it evokes the work of the birds and bees as they pollinate, sip nectar and distill honey from the flowering plants of primodial Gaia. It describes the rich symbiosis of life, that everything that exists, lives. And all that lives, is One.

The hummingbird is the quintessential symbol of the Nectarian form of art. The hummingbird, the magically high-frequency flying gem of a bird, is seen as a portentious power animal, a gatekeeper of the secrets of the forest in indigenous shamanism. Its shining and shimmering visage conjures up the colour and boundary dissolving modalities of shamanic, transpersonal experiences. In Brazil the hummingbird is called the 'beija-flor' - kisser-of-flowers. This beautiful poetic term describes the deep sensuality of the intimate engagement with Nature that is envisaged by Nectarian art.

Nature is the originator of language and by observing her flows we come into awareness of the cycles and patterns that govern our lives. Observance of nature is the progenitor of metaphor, and metaphor is the foundation of poetry, myth, shamanry and visual art. In a sense, nature is all that we know because it is 'Every-thing'. Our entire brains and minds are Nature and generated by nature to interface with nature. Nature is everything, the Kali-like wrath and the deep sweetness.

The Nectarian vision encompasses all of nature - which is not to say it excludes civilisation or machinery, but that it qualifies in its vision such cultural artifacts as expressions of Nature. The Nectarian vision explores an all-encompassing fertility circuit in which beings can intimately couple with the cosmic and Gaian processes in non-dual ways. In the Nectarian vision nature is not a creation apart from spirit. We already live within a Spirit realm, a spiritual wilderness that completely transcends the division between inner and outer, imagination and reason, consciousness and matter.

Nectarian art is distinguished as a distinct current within visionary art by its insistence of an anchoring within bodily and Gaian relatedness. Nectarian art often includes the re-affirming of oneness with the human mind and body and the great evolutionary tree of life, or 'hypersea' as biologist Lynn Marguilis called it. This means that species both similar (eg. dolphins, monkeys, cats) and dissimilar to ourselves (such as plankton, bacteria, and stellar bodies such as spiral galaxies and stars) are commonly included in Nectarian art.

Water and elemental mysteries are also prominently evoked in Nectarian art. The biogenesis of creatures from the crystal realms of water, and this continuing inseperable connectivity with the ocean is a common motif, as is the flow of magma from volcanoes. Hawaii has been a prominent motif in a lot of grass-roots Nectarian art.

Much visionary art purports to represent transcendent spiritual dimensions which are full of high saturation patterns, linguistic codes, esoteric symbols and glyphs. Nectarian art represents these spirit-glyphs in their immanent form, subtly informing the flowing patterns of water, bark and leaves, as well as the gothic-organic geometries of the human body, in the divine natural subtleties of colors and tones that nature effortlessly composes. Esoteric abstract geometrical systems of mystical thought are de-emphasised in Nectarian art, it does not depend upon an esoteric tradition for its interpretation, although the more ecologically connected participant would likely find more to appreciate in sympathy.

Rather than representing the 'exclusive divinity' of human self-hood, the Nectarian vision is selfless as a flock of birds, as wolves and deer in the chase, or a primordial tao shamaness riding the clouds. Observing the current of life on this planet one senses a vast and selfless process of intelligence, a vast metabolism, which is at the same time a vast sentience of cosmic drama, storytelling, and experience, which flows completely beyond our rigid and fragile categorical orderings.

Nectarian art affirms our journey on this planet as something to be celebrated, rather than something to seek 'transcendence' from through some kind of mental spiritual development. It is thus similar to the left-hand path of tantric yogi's. It is also similar in this sense in its celebration of voluptuous poly-amorous sexuality, woman, child, community and nurturing energies. We see such celebration in the work of Mark Henson, who's psychedelic tantric paintings are reminiscent of Chola dynasty bronzes and tantric indian temple sculpture. In such a vision Desire is part of Divinity and cannot be seperated. "Before God was Kam (desire)" - The Vedas.

The 'modern' (heh) art establishment overlooks such art, for such an institutionalized mind finds Nectarian art embarrassing it in its lack of self-conscious irony and its unchecked enthusiasm for the experience of wonder. Despite this, many of the great artists throughout history have been Nectarian in orientation.

Nectarian art is vastly informed by dialog with plant teachers and fertile ecosystems. It is thus fundamentally shamanic and in its purest sense bioregional - reflective of the forms, traditions, and cycles innate to ones lands. Though it is true that 'every part contains the whole' tapping into ones locality one indeed finds 'the all'.

Nectarian art includes within it Romantic and Naive traditions. There is a summoning forth of an ideal of nature which is uncontaminated by radioactive wastes and dioxins. It honours, even worships a pre-industrial nature which is pristine, crystaline. Thus some of this art constitutes an 'Earth prayer', bringing a remembering of natural mysteries to the forefront of artistic meditation and again affirming the inherent wonder and complexity of natural phenomena as both inspirational and instructional.

In an age of climate chaos and an increasing awareness of both the beauty and fragility of ecological complexity, Nectarian art serves as a 'medicine culture', a prayer, affirmation and celebration of 'the real', the infinitely deep and ornate planetary jeweled garden in which we live our lives.

Some notable Nectarian artists :

Mark Henson
Maura Holden
Pablo Amaringo
Jarah Tree
Frida Kahlo
Gauguin
Van Gogh
Samuel Palmer
William Blake
Breugel
Gaudi
Csontvary
Henri Rousseau

And many many more.