History
After years working as a professional costume designer, stylist, and visual artist, I was asked by a friend, an entrepreneur on the cusp of personal and professional change, for help with styling. Our sessions included many practices that I have used for years as part of my interdisciplinary visual art, namely: divination, meditation, and shamanic practice. Our meetings were so revelatory and moving and the results so sustainable, that I streamlined the practices in order to offer them more widely. (Read testimonial here.)
Purpose & Benefits
I wanted more clarity about the purpose of this styling work and I journeyed for the answers. In a vision, I asked my guide, a young doe, for insight into the purpose of styling. She quickly brought me to the edge of a small lake, and I could see through a clearing in tall grasses, a white crane, pristine, standing at the far bank. I then began to see clothing appear around the perimeter of this lake, mostly hidden in the trees. Much of it was green and difficult to see, and so I looked more carefully. It was certainly there, just well camouflaged. Then appeared certain red, diaphanous silhouettes. The crane chose one of these brightly colored garments and draped it over his head and eyes: “The purpose of styling is shape-shifting. It is to give new sight.”
The process of style is not primarily one of identity or of how you are seen. It is rather, how you see. In shamanic tradition, shape-shifting is the ability to change form and in so doing, to take on the vision or perspective, as well as the power, of the form you inhabit. This ability enables you to choose your vision. You can use perspectival shifts to move into greater alignment with your purpose.