About Zangmo Denise Alexander
In my own inner journey I have experienced very clearly how creative activities together with mindfulness practice and methods from art therapy can lead to increased insight, creativity, healing, enjoyment of life and an increased sense of purpose and connectedness.
Art activities have been part of my own inner exploration for the past 30 years, leading me through psychotherapy, art therapy, an exploration of the perennial wisdom at the heart of the world's spiritual traditions to find my own personal path, which is rooted in Buddhism, yet still rejoices in the richness of all the different traditions.
This has been such an enjoyable way to explore, express and discover myself at ever deepening levels. Feelings and experiences which I cannot find words for can easily be expressed through art, craft and digital photography. I can then choose whether I want these deep parts of myself witnessed by sharing them with others, or whether they are to remain private.
Initially I began by working alongside art therapists in mental health and also having Jungian psychotherapy, where I connected with different aspects of my mental experience. My inner male - or animus in Jungian terms, the inner critic, joker, wise woman, dark lady, trickster, animals and dreams were explored visually and through words. After a while, these became less powerful and I began exploring bodily energy through BodyMind therapy. In Art Therapy I explored relationships and emotions, along with inner experiences of light and energy. I went on Healing courses and became interested in the use of colour in healing.
While doing a BA in Painting, I began to explore how colours could reveal form, leading me to a sense of the phenomenal world arising out of non material luminosity. I studied the art of Christianity, Hinduism, Taoism, Shamanism, Islam and Indigenous Cultures and visited India and Nepal. This led to my dissertation on The Symbolism of the Centre in Religion and Sacred Art, which compared similarities in symbolism and belief in different spiritual traditions.
Following this, I felt the need to explore meditation, and my search led me to study Buddhism, as in looking closely at the nature of mind and the nature of suffering, for me it picked up where therapy left off. I began to learn traditional Tibetan Thanka Painting from nun-artists, and also to ponder how I might bring meditation experience into art practice in a more contemporary way.
In 2005 I decided I would do an MA in Fine Art to properly devote time to exploring ways of integrating creative and spiritual practices in a focused way. I explored ways of integrating my interests in meditation, self awareness, mindfulness and Buddhist themes such as impermanence, compassion, notions of self and identity and renunciation with creative practice using photography, digital film, text and performance, and was surprised and excited by the potential offered by this approach, both as a creative practice and in how it could be used in teaching and art-as-therapy work with people.
Aware that many people are not interested in learning Buddhism, but may be interested in and could benefit from the mindfulness aspect of Buddhist psychology, I did an 8 Week Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy Course through the University of North Wales Centre for Mindfulness Research at Bangor in 2007. This helped me explore psychologically based, western, secular approaches backed up by medical research for using mindfulness in my own art and teaching work.
Following graduating from the MA Fine Art with a distinction for a short film 'Letter To My Mum', I have developed my research into the Inner Journeying Through Art course starting this autumn in Norfolk UK.
My short digital film (5.20 minutes) in the MA Show, Letter to My Mum is an autobiographical piece exploring social, spiritual, feminist and psychological themes, inspired by my mum asking me why I want to ordain.