Figure 1: A photo taken on a walk in Castlemaine -Dja Dja Wurrung Country, Victoria, 2017. An image of a rich and diverse miniature world in a vast ancient landscape.

Eco-Mythic Arts: A Reflective Journey on Art, Myth and Healing with the More than Human World

‘All flourishing is mutual” (Robin Wall Kimmerer- Braiding Sweetgrass)

Over the years, I have often reflected on the intersection of art, ecology and well-being, and wondered how creativity may be deeply connected to how we relate to the more-than-human world. I began writing this series because I was curious about exploring creativity not only as self-expression but also as a way of being more embodied in the world.

 Two questions have emerged through this process:  

What if creativity is more than just what we do, but rather a deep expression of how we relate to the more-than-human world?   

What begins to shift in our inner and outer worlds when we start creating through reciprocal relationships with the land and beings around us, and with time?

While I don’t believe I have all the answers, I hope these questions may inspire new ways of seeing and relating to the world.

Somewhere deep in the marrow of my bones, I have always known that creative thought and imagination do not arise in isolation. Creativity is always forged in the relationship between ourselves and the living world, like steel is forged between hammer and hearth. It is also forged through our continued relationship with our ancestry, history and the materials we hold within our hands when we create. When we work with clay, pigment or even language, they become part of an unfolding process. How we create within these relationships on an ongoing basis is creativity in motion.

As a human, I have also long been curious about the unknown, myth, and magic that flows as a timeless current just beneath our consciousness. As an artist, I have wondered how I can create from this place. More recently, as an art therapist, I have wondered how art, ecology, and myth can promote and inspire deep healing for ourselves and our communities.

This is PART I of a three-part series that reflects upon these questions. It is a personal inquiry into my practice and community experiences, as well as an invitation to consider how eco-mythic arts may have much broader therapeutic potential and community impact. It is also an exploration into ecological awareness and mythic imagination. Ultimately, this is a gentle exploration into humanity, creativity and how we converse with the more-than-human world- that incredible interconnected web that includes plants, animals, elements, places, and all things animate and inanimate that exist both around us and within us.

Listening to the Living World

Sprawling deep in fertile soil, the roots of eco-myth nourish and give rise to possibility- a possibility of healing and regeneration.

We live in a time of rupture in our social and ecological well-being. In many respects, we are moving through a crisis that calls for us to re-examine how we relate to the world around us collectively. To move beyond the mindset of simply surviving, we need to shift from the idea of sustainability (maintaining where we are) to a more embodied understanding of regenerative principles.

Regeneration is about the ability to create anew. When we consider this in an ecological context, we can see that regeneration is fundamental to environmental wellbeing and to life itself. This principle is also important when we consider personal, cultural and systemic well-being.  To be able to envision a world where renewal and growth are possible, we need to consider our relationships to the more-than-human world.. As Robin Wall Kimmerer most beautifully and eloquently declares, "All flourishing is mutual." And, in her book ‘Braiding with Sweetgrass” she expands on this idea where she writes:

"Action on behalf of life transforms.  Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us." (p.23)

It is all a system of interdependence. Ecosystems regenerate through every element interacting together, as do our creative and cultural systems.

Eco-Mythic Arts- A Relational Process

Eco-mythic arts asks us to consider how we creatively engage in the world in an embodied way. As we change how we relate to the world around us, we may begin to recognise that new doorways also begin to open and that our artistic and community endeavours become more expansive. By actively engaging with the more-than-human world in a more participatory way, we are invited to really listen and understand that stories exist within the landscapes we live in and our traditions. It is a deeply animistic practice, ultimately believing that everything around us and within us has a unique ‘spirit’ or energy.  When we move into creating from this place, we may also begin to see that we are regenerating our communities and cultures.  This, in turn, moves us closer to environmental and ecological healing, as well as our own healing and transformation.             

PART I: The Roots of Eco-Mythic Practice

Figure 2:  Two black and white stones found on a beach in Bellingen Gumbaynggirr Country, Northern NSW, Australia, 2011. These stones are beautiful and imperfect. As the weather changes and they are tumbled in the ocean, they will continue to be reshaped over time.

I first encountered the term eco-mythic when I participated in a two-day workshop by Geoff Berry and Julie Lucy in 2015. This workshop was aptly called ‘Eco-Mythic Psychodrama.’ In hindsight, this is when the term eco-mythic first came alive for me, like a little ember in a fireplace which has continued to grow and inspire my interest in how ecology, art and myth intersect. Over time I have come to know this is not only an intellectual interest, but also as something deeply embodied - a way of experiencing the world through my body, my senses and my creative explorations.

Eco-mythic arts is a practice that weaves together our humaneness, our creativity, our ecological awareness and our connection with myth as a way to deepen our relationship with the living world. Its foundations lie in the converging fields of arts therapy, deep ecology as well as Indigenous ways of knowing and relating to the living world, where artmaking becomes a form of listening, storytelling and co-creating with the more-than-human world.

Myth can be understood in more than one light.  On one hand, it may be seen as a collection of archetypes and symbols that often appear in our folklore, stories, and dreams, which is very accurate, and I do briefly explore this.  However, in the context of this work, I often speak of myth as an evolving and timeless thread. This thread stretches back through history but simultaneously exists in our present and is woven into all human existence. When we dance, make art, partake in symbolic rituals, share stories or dream, we actively continue to weave this thread into the tapestry of our existence. It is an energy that we can feel in our bodies and it is ever changing and emerging into new forms that hold echoes of the old.

Myth is a felt sense and a storied thread that continues to influence us personally and collectively. It is a deep narrative that flows beneath our conscious knowing, never static but alive in the world around us.  When we consider myth like this, we may begin to understand how it can shape us and how we may relate to the world.

Myth as a Living Current: A Personal Reflection.

Figure 3: A Selkie statue and necklace (made of Paua shell) gifted to me by a friend who has since passed. These items continue to help me remember my connection to her and perhaps something deeper than we can see, 2023.

My maternal family originates from the Orkney Isles. My relative captained his own wool clipper ship in the late 1800’s and landed in Geelong, Victoria (Wadawurrung country). For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with Selkie mythology, which comes from my ancestral homeland. Selkies are mythical seal people who, when they remove their ‘coats’, appear as humans on land, but when they replace their coats, become seals again and return to the sea.

In essence, these mythic tales invite us to consider what it means to return to our true inner selves and move more authentically through the world. They speak to a type of longing, that human yearning to return to a place we truly belong.  These tales also reflect the pull between the real, more concrete world, and the unknown. For me, the Selkie myths mirror a tension that I can sometimes feel between my inner world and my outer reality- a threshold of sorts, like the edge where the ocean meets the shore.  Whether these stories carry any truth from years gone by or are fantasy, they do carry a certain deep symbolic truth that can reflect much about our personal and collective psyches at any given time.

These stories also remind us that myth is not bound to time or place- it is a living current and can appear within our lives when we most need them. It is a symbolic language that invites us into a relationship with the more-than-human world. It is here where creativity can become a threshold space- where ecology, myth, and humans meet- a place that resides between body and land, land and story, ancestry and imagination, and matter and spirit.  There is a term in ecology I love called the ‘ecotone’. This may reflect to what I am speaking of: 

In ecological terms, the 'ecotone' is a particularly dynamic space between two ecologies as they meet. Here, there is often an increased richness in biodiversity, a space where flora and fauna from both communities blend but also a space where other species (not common to either community) can exist.  It holds a huge possibility as it essentially allows a flow between the two communities (Personal reflection, 2021)

As a practice, eco-mythic arts compels us to be part of a reciprocal conversation with the more-than-human world.  It has its own language, sharing with us a language of seasonal cycles, weather patterns, geographical landforms and material agency.  It also speaks through colour, light, shadow, texture, smell and form. When we begin to listen, we are invited into a relational process that reflects the intelligence of ecosystems.  It also allows us to tap into the deep current of ancestral traditions and wisdom and reminds us of community resilience.  Art is no longer just outcome-based but becomes a recognition that human creativity is never separate from the broader web of life—both seen and unseen.

Figure 4: Using leaves, herbs and string to create a besom (or little magical broom). This was created during an Equine Therapy professional development workshop– Wedgetail Therapy, Launching Place, Wunrundjeri Country 2024

From Myth to Practice: Relational Art Making with the Living World

Eco-mythic visionaries like David Abram write in-depth about the need to reclaim a relationship with nature.  His writing is beautiful and evocative and invites us to ask:  What becomes possible when we engage with the living world as participants, not observers?  When we creatively engage with the living world in both a participatory and relational way, we can tap into the underlying and ever-evolving intelligence and spirit of place and all its animate and inanimate beings.

When we consider it like this, natural materials like leaves, sticks, and feathers become active participants in the artmaking process.  Instead of being passive tools, they become beings with their own forms of intelligence and story.  Making art in this capacity- whether it be through visual arts, dance, sculpture or sound- we can begin to recognise that the process is always a two-way conversation and a reciprocal exchange with the broader web of life.

Across cultures and generations, myths have long served as stories of meaning-making and vessels for healing.  When we reconnect to myth through art, it can also remind us that we are not alone in our struggles.  Eco-mythic art can become a type of ‘soul’ medicine and invite us to expand our creative practice outward, which in turn can help heal ecology, culture, and community connection.

When we view creativity and the artmaking process through this lens, we may also ask: How can we create a rich and meaningful creative practice where healing is not just about survival but also about thriving?" In his book My Grandmother's Hands, Resmaa Menakem says, “The body, not the thinking brain, is where we experience most of our pain, pleasure, joy, sadness, and fear. The body, not the rational mind, is where trauma lodges” (Menakem, p. 23). In this way, he highlights that true healing from trauma requires somatic engagement, patience and attunement.

Like an ecosystem in ecology, it is well recognised within trauma-informed therapeutic circles that trauma healing is a nonlinear process.  After a fire, a forest evolves into something new. It is not precisely the same.  Similarly, as we heal, we evolve into something new.  This is regeneration in action and extends beyond individuals and into the realm of how we interrelate with the world around us.  

 Artmaking as a Catalyst for Change

Within a Western neoliberal context, art can often be viewed as a commodity to buy, sell, or admire. However, as many know, practising art can hold far greater potential. Considering art and artmaking through an eco-mythic lens also has the possibility of reshaping how we consider expressive arts as a healing modality, not only on a personal level but also more collectively, as well as how this can emerge and change with time.  

Considering the Impermanence of Nature and Systems

Here, we may consider how art can be seen not as static but as something that can morph and change with time (both physically speaking and how it is received or witnessed). I have long been inspired by a well-known land-based artist-Andy Goldsworthy, who creates sculptural forms from natural and found materials within nature.  In contemporary art-making practice, he is often considered an early pioneer of eco-art and creating in relationship with the land. 

One beautiful aspect of Goldsworthy’s work is that his sculptures are ephemeral or transient in nature. By leaving them in their natural surroundings, he invites the landscape to continue to engage with them through cycles of decay and growth as well as with time and even the changing geographical landscape (e.g. erosion). Allowing his sculptures to change and decompose (indeed centralising this change in the process) can also invite us to think about this process in a larger systemic sense. If we think about systems in flux and impermanent, we can see them as a more participatory process than a purely extractive agreement. 

From a social, cultural and economic viewpoint, this can help us shift perspectives and begin seeing that we can create together for a mutually beneficial outcome rather than it being an extractive or exploitative process. When we create from this place of reciprocity and ethical awareness, we begin to resist some rigid structures and expectations. In this way, art becomes more than just a product, it becomes a way that we can mutually thrive- together.

Figure 5: A personal land-based installation shaped like a nest and created with leaves, sticks, and found objects, Fairfield, Wurundjeri Country.

Reconnecting to Landscapes through Sound and Myth

Through her sound project ‘Away with the Birds’, artist and composer Hannah Tuulikki collaborates with the mythic undertones of landscapes and the more-than-human world to create an incredible series of sound and musical compositions.  Through this project, she "explores how the landscape shapes and is shaped by cultural practices, and how bodily engagement with place can unlock deeper, ancestral ways of knowing." In publishing this into the public sphere, she invites us to reconsider how our human experiences and our stories are deeply intertwined with place, history and ecology.

Ecological Imagination and Cultural Transformation

David Abram expands on this idea in his books ‘Becoming Animal’ and the ‘Sense and Sensuous’.  In these, he invites us to consider how we sensorily relate to the world and how this engagement is a key to reweaving our relationship with the more-than-human world. He critiques the disembodied, abstracted ways in which we’ve come to engage with the earth and instead invites us into a more intuitive and participatory way of knowing.  Inspired by his philosophy, eco-mythic arts become a way to reawaken ecological imagination, which I believe is necessary for cultural remembering and transformation.

Being in Relationship to the More-Than-Human World- My Own Practice

During my studies (Masters of Therapeutic Arts Practice- MIECAT Institute, Melbourne 2017-2021), I found that Abram’s writings deeply resonated with my lived experience of embodied perception.  In a ‘make-believe’ letter I once wrote to him (as a way of reflecting and processing my thoughts), I expressed how reading his writing momentarily allowed me to remove my ‘Westernised glasses’ and immerse myself in a world where I felt everything to be alive, interconnected and in relationship- for shouldn’t this be how we exist in the universe?  When reflecting on David Abrams perspective, I started to reimagine myself as part of the broader web of life and I began to reimagine myself as belonging to the land rather than being separate from it. 

Figure 6: A moment of stillness and sensory attunement. For me, creative practice allows me to explore my embodied self in relationship to the world around me.

For me, creative practice is a way to explore how I relate to the world around me in an embodied and relational way.  Through my own creative practice, I am becoming increasingly inspired to create art in relationship with the more-than-human world..  More and more as I work with natural objects or even explore digital art as a medium, I consider the materials in my hands as co-collaborators.  I have always loved collage as an artistic practice, and I notice that I am increasingly drawn to layering – not only with materials but also as a way of layering meaning and as a mythic conversation between worlds.  I have begun to explore this idea more through my new artistic base, www.liminalwilds.com.au

At its core, eco-mythic arts are not a technique or framework but a way of being in reciprocal relationship with the living world. It asks us to slow down, to listen deeply, and to create from within this space.  When viewed like this, myth is not just a story but a doorway into possibility.

In PART II, I invite you to explore how practising eco-mythic arts can inspire and inform not only ourselves but also our communities and our culture.

Next: Part II – Art as Offering

Return to the full Eco-Mythic Arts series →

I would like to acknowledge Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, Robin Wall Kimmerer, David Abram, Hannah Tuulikki, Andy Goldsworthy, Geoff Berry and Julie Lacy for their continued inspiration.  As artists, thinkers, healers and writers, they are the change-makers the world needs right now- particularly in the fields of ecology, art, philosophical thinking and wellbeing. Through them, I continue to be inspired to view the world with eyes that are more open to possibility. For more inspiration, go to Kindred Voices    

References:

Menakem, R. (2017).  My grandmother's hands: Racialized trauma and the pathway to mending our hearts and bodies.  Las Vegas, NV: Central Recovery Press.