This interview took place on the occasion of Erin Loree’s first solo show at Angell Gallery, titled Midnight Bloom.
S.T: You undertook a residency in the Peruvian Amazon where you witnessed “inner states and transformation” through the natural world. How has that influenced you?
E.L: Before I left for the Amazon, I went on a silent meditation retreat where we learned and practiced Vipassana meditation: to see things as they really are. It is a way of self-transformation through self-observation and focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body. We learned to quiet and sharpen the mind so that we could feel the most subtle of sensations arising and passing in the body while openly observing our reactions and sensations. This helps you to understand, experientially, that everything in life arises and passes – that everything is impermanent. But in order for this understanding to be beneficial, one has to also have the wisdom of how to apply to his or her life.
It wasn’t until I was immersed in the natural world that I began to gain some wisdom and insight into the nature of impermanence. For the first time in my life I watched plants, insects, and animals come into being, expand and contract, die and decay. I had to surrender and begin to flow with life instead of pushing up against it. I saw that everything begins with a thought and our body responds, consciously or unconsciously. If you really observe its reactions, you’ll see that the body responds with fear, aversion, or clinging. This understanding that everything is always changing really alters a person’s fundamental view of life, dissolving the anxiety and skepticism.
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Read the full interview at artoronto.ca
