CATHEDRAL IN ICE

This painting is based on a vision I had in Greenland:

Ilulissat, Kallalit Nunaat (Greenland), Friday 22 August 2008   4 a.m.

I sleep like a log until something wakes me at 4 a.m. The Spirit of Greenland is calling me: “You have always wanted to visit Greenland, but the truth is that I was calling you! On the way from the airport you noticed a flock of sea gulls gathered on a melting ice floe in the harbour. You felt tearful as you heard the spirits say: this is an endangered continent. I am shown an image of Knud Rasmussen (the great Arctic explorer)  setting out with his dogsled. Here is a man who truly loved Greenland. Who added nothing to the landscape and only took from the land what he truly needed. He took great pride and joy in this continent. HIs dogsled took him into uncharted territories.This is how Greenland should be visited!

Look out of the window at the icebergs in the bay! You will see portals in the ice. There are whole worlds in that ice that no one has ever seen! I walk across the frozen ice sea and enter one of those portals. There is a cathedral deep inside that iceberg: a huge sacred space, half under water and half above. I see polar bears, dolphins, seals, whales and all sorts of polar animals. All are white. This is where the spirits of the dead animals live on  

The polar bear cubs that didn’t make it through winter, the animals that died a natural death, or gave up their lives in the Hunt. Their spirits live on in this sacred enclosure made of ice. A space not visited by humans, not photographed by tourists. A sacred space of eternal beauty: a CATHEDRAL IN ICE!

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Imelda Almqvist

Imelda Almqvist teaches shamanism, sacred art and internationally. 

Her book “Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit For Life”, Using shamanism creatively with young people of all ages was published by Moon in August 2016. 

http://www.shaman-healer-painter.co.uk/

https://imeldaalmqvist.wordpress.com/

Imelda is a presenter on Year of Ceremony with Sounds True

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