The Life Within Art
Scroll to the very bottom for 5 soul-stretching prompts to deepen your encounter with art, and the takeaway to carry with you.
Artistic expressions tend to organically weave themselves into being. A painting, a poem, a melody…each begins as thought, color, or sound, but harvests its intention into multiplicity and momentum until it becomes something entirely of its own, alive, breathing with its own essence and spirit. Then, it transcends its physical form, and those who truly see or hear what is alive in a work of art become part of its unfolding life, carrying forward the artist’s intention. From there, every intense gaze, every thought, every curiosity or contemplation cast upon the work keeps it alive, reshaping or reaffirming its meaning across time.
This is why particular works of art seem to outlive even the moment of their creation. Van Gogh’s Starry Night, for instance, once met with indifference and even dismissal, but now breathes in the minds of millions each year. Or think of Rumi’s poetry, penned in the thirteenth century, still rippling across time with a relevancy that feels so utterly present and connected. These works refuse to be fixed. They evolve as each generation brings its own questions, longings, and interpretations.
Personal Encounters with Art
When I think of encountering an expression of art, I return to the moments that have breathed new life into my own spirit. Yes, at first thought, the museums I have walked through hold extraordinary works, those pieces preserved and celebrated for centuries, and I deeply value them. However, upon digging deeper into my memories, I've found that my favorite encounters have often been those that were hiding in plain sight: works created by living artists whose genius might not be fully recognized until long after their lifetime.
One such artist I admire is Hania Rani, a remarkable musician whose performances feel like entering her stream of consciousness. In this video, Hania Rani – Live Performance, her music carries crystalline clarity and yearning, evoking a contemplative, almost otherworldly, and alien quality. It seems to rise from the deepest part of her being. You can tell that as she plays, she does so from a sense of urgency, and there is a factor in her own expression that dominates her whole being.
Listening to her, I’m reminded of other artists whose work evokes a similar sense, such as Nils Frahm, with his minimalist piano pieces that sound like the inside of someone’s memory; Agnes Martin, whose nearly silent canvases hum with meditative stillness; and Arvo Pärt, whose Spiegel im Spiegel stretches time itself. There’s something in the presence of such work that stops us, opens us, rearranges us internally.
Soul-Making Through Art
When I listen to Hania Rani’s sounds, over and over, I think of “soul-making” in action. As James Hillman suggests, soul-making is not limited to moments of beauty or pleasure but to experiences that deepen, complicate, and enrich our lives. Art, in this sense, invites us into those depths. I find it timeless, which gives it a new taste with each listen, and it has become part of what crafts my own soul.
Returning from the Depths
What strikes me most is when Hania comes “out” of a song, as if being spat back into her chair or into present awareness, emerging from something.
At this moment, “the return” is essential. It reminds me of what Carl Jung called the transcendent function: the way unconscious material rises, reshapes us, and then releases us back into the world, having changed us.
Art can serve as a bridge for this process, a medium through which something beyond language finds expression, is conceived through the vessel of our own beings, and released into the material world.
In The Archetypal Artist: Reimagining Creativity and the Call to Create, Maria Antonia Wood, Ph.D, notes what Joseph Campbell observed: “that artists, even while surrendering to inspiration, do not completely lose themselves in the experience. They return from their descents into the unconscious…sometimes called journeys into the spirit world — with boons of insight for the collective…” (Introduction, 3).
Joseph Campbell might call that moment of listening an experience of aesthetic arrest: when time falls away, the ordinary dissolves, and the work of art holds you completely. He draws from Aquinas’s ideas of integritas (wholeness), consonantia (harmony), and claritas (radiance). These qualities cause us to stop, be struck still, and experience the miraculous in the ordinary.
And maybe this is what art ultimately offers: not answers, not solutions, but a moment of contact with something larger than ourselves, and with that results a widening of the aperture of our soul.
5 Prompts to Enter the Life of Art…
When was the last time a work of art stopped you in your tracks? What did it evoke?
What piece of art, music, or writing has lived with you the longest, and how has its meaning changed over time?
If you could ask the artist of our universe one question, what would it be?
What does “aesthetic arrest” feel like in your body? Can you describe the moment when the world fell away and you were completely immersed in art?
If your life itself were a canvas, what colors and textures would this season of you hold?
The Takeaway :･༄
A thread to follow…
Every encounter with art is a return, a leaving behind of what we know, and a reemergence carrying what we didn’t expect. The work leaves its fingerprints on us, whether we notice them or not, and reminds us that to feel deeply is to live widely.
With love,
Keila Shaheen
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