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Artivist workshop
Alchemical Ritual As De-Colonial Repair
This series offered a personalized workshop series using ritual as de-colonial repair. The workshop walked community members 1:1 through a ritual using the 5 elements, physical
movement (embodied wisdom), personal objects + spaces, and sometimes public objects + spaces to generate soul retrieval.
Soul retrieval is a process of taking an inner hurt, an instance of separation from self and transforming this hurt into wisdom. It becomes dissolved into a source of nourishment and power.
It is about using ritual to compost and reorganize the barriers within ourselves that colonization has imposed. Separation from self, separation from other, separation from the land and the 5 elements. The rituals intention is to reconstitute this sense of connection.
This act alone allows the community to practice de-colonial repair by coming together in support of another community member’s healing, and resisting the individualistic view that people should go off and heal on their own.
I’m using the work of artist Alejandro Jodorowsky as a model. Specifically his practice of Psyhchomagic, in which he prescribed Magic Acts to participants as performative and alchemical healing. I am using Jodorowsky’s book Psychomagic as a reference as well as 7+ years of experience studying shamanic healing arts under the tootling of my elders and peers.