To Divine is to See

ME: What is the point of prayer and meditation?
OLD WOMAN: To bring you closer to the Great Mystery
ME: So I can understand it?
OLD WOMAN: No so you can participate in it

Richard Wagamese, Embers. One Ojibway’s Meditations. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, p.75


‘the hand is an index to the rest of the body and psyche’

Sam Dolbear, Hand That Touch This Fortune Will, London: MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE, p.16


‘Indexing is a first interpretation of a book’s body’

Laurent Berlant and Kathleen Stuart, The Hundreds, Durham: Duke University Press


To Divine is to See is an intimate performance is about intuition and other manifestations of what I call ‘illegitimate forms of knowledge’. These ways of knowing, which often bypass the rational, the cerebral and the productive, have sometimes been termed feminine and moon-like. Henry Bergson who developed intuition as a method, defined it as entering into an object rather than moving around it, which is what he considered thinking. Charlotte de Mille describes intuition as a ‘fringe’ reaching for the extremity of thought. To be intuitive, the intellect needs to be reversed and traversed.

As a way of reaching this within me, I have been experimenting with oracles, tarot, meditation, Bach’s flowers, breath and enneagrams and have been reading about the history of magic, consciousness and witchcraft. In this journey, I am inspired by Jonathan Burrow’s 52 portraits, Yayoi Kusama’s moons, Wangechi Mutu’s collages, Jennifer Lacey’s Extended Hermeneutics, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s tarot readings, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Valentina Desideri’s Sensing Salon and Silvia Federici’s feminist writings. I have been keeping a public diary of influences and thoughts on this project on the Instagram account @soma.psychic.

Core features of the heart way of knowing are softness, quiet, deep listening, connection and attention to the subtle. It is firmly rooted in ethics and wellbeing. The work does not aim to divine the future but, through shared introspection, allow for new ways of hearing inside and between. There is rhythm and repetition, as these allow further seeing. This performance ultimately enhances the sense of intimacy between the audience-participant and I, opening up, dreaming and creating different possibilities of relation. Intimacy is ultimately healing. As Rebecca Coleman writes ‘a method of intuition does not “uncover” intimacies but invents ways of becoming intimate’.

The work is being developed through residencies:

Cove Park, 31 January to 02 February 2024
The Work Room, 28 October to 02 November 2024