I made this web site as a term project for an Graduate level Anthropology course on Signs and Symbols. The main goal of this exercise, for me, was to walk away as much as possible from the typically structured and overly analytical academic writing style for which my abilities are quite developed, to instead work on another style of writing - and therefore another way of thinking - that is more emotive, associative, freewill, and mostly, creative. I wanted to experience a writing flow that followed our thinking processes more accurately, therefore recognizing the constant communicative association between affect and intellect, holistic and analytical thought, rational analysis and intuitive insights.
This site is a web-novel that relates the journey of my spiritual and artistic awakening as it unfolded during an intense two year period. It started with a crisis, a state of complete disequilibrium brought about by the inevitable result of my overconfidence in the intellect as the only reliable means of knowing and understanding. Through a series of events, realizations, and profound healing stages, I came to understand what I, as all humans, seek the most: to exist in all my dimensions, to be who I really am. Many people helped me through this recovery process by giving me guidance and mostly, love. I am very grateful and I thank them from deep within.
The future of science and of academia is one that recognizes the coexistence of many worlds and of many ways of knowing. In the future, wisdom will once again be acquired in the intermingling of worlds, of the rational/scientific one with the intuitive/spiritual one. As an academic that has personally experienced other ways of knowing, I now have a profound mission: to help stop the overspecialization of only one of our ways of knowing - rational thought, and actively participate to the emergence of a new equilibrium between science and spirituality. Such an equilibrium will teach us to respect all forms of life and understand that if we approach things with love instead of with a cold, objective and dissective rationality, they will gladly give us all their secrets, thereby giving us the means to reverse the destructive path we're presently on.
That said, I invite you to make my journey yours - as we all share the common characteristic of being on a journey. Any comments, suggestions or questions you might have are most welcomed, so send me a line if you have something to share.
Julie
Guénette
May 25th, 2002
