If you’ve lived in Japan long enough and tuned into the spiritual world here, you’ve probably heard of Ikuro, Sachiko and Takuro Adachi, the much-loved siblings who have been pioneers in the field of intuitive art for about 20 years. They are role models to a generation who are cutting through the illusion of pure material pursuits and instead seeking to live a path of evolving consciousness through intuition.
The problem is that if you don’t likve on a mountain top, are not a hermit, and have a family to raise and support, then living through intuition is rather scary at first. If you live in Tokyo, a city of 35 million, a busy architecture practice–as is the case of Ikuro Adachi, hold a senior sound enginer job at a major broadcasting company–as was the case with Takuro Adachi, then surrendering to the unpredictable nature of the intuitive world takes a great big leap of faith.
For the Adachi brothers, what prompted them both to catapult into the world of intuitive art was the sudden death of their younger sister, Sachiko Adachi. The story of her creative life and extraordinary last years of intuitive development can be read about in “To Live As We Are.” When Sachiko passed away shortly after her 47th birthday Ikuro Adachi began giving lectures in her place, standing in front of growing numbers of people who were intrigued by Ikuro’s way of explainting that living intuitive is a completely nature state of being for humans. It is, as he writes in “The Law of Undulation,” a journey of increasing our vibration, an evolution of spirit that brings us to study on earth.
This message eventually sunk in to such a degree that everything I experienced seem to come as part of this vibrational evolution, especially the difficult experiences. You look for confirmation that you’re doing the right thing while others around you watch from the sidelines at first. Gradually, tentatively, others try to follow.
Sachiko Adachi described herself in the last years of her life as a cosmic artist. She drew very clean, simple celestial images with pen and chakra color backgrounds that she programmed to have specific positive affects on the consciousness of an individual or a group.
Since July, Takuro and Ikuro are presenting an intuitive art workshop open to the public based on Sachiko’s approach which involved 3 principles: 1) What you’re drawing from the beginning comes from a place of not knowing 2) The seed for a picture comes in the form of a hint. A hint can be a color, a shape, sound or topic that is attractive to you. 3) From the hint you start to create and when your art is finished, a state of completion that you arrive as intuitively, you look and see contained a message.
The process is simple. For this intuitive art session, about 30 of us sat with various art supplies, lose paper or sketchpads in sizes of our own choosing. From our chosen medium, you wait till the inspiration flows. For those who prefer a trigger, there is Sachiko Adachi’s long horizontal picture book called “Intuition.” Flip up the pages to reveal solid planes of rainbow colors, each color marked with dots and curved lines to suggest cosmic activity. Voila. The art flows.
I participated in this three hour workshop keenly aware that my circmstances were not like the others in the room. I am the only non-Japanese in the room. I am the only particpant with two kids in tow, fully expecting to draw their own pictures and vocalize every step of their processes. I’m the only who is a practicing intuitive artist and teaching it for a living. And then there’s the social connection. Takuro is a dear old friend I hang out with, and with Ikuro, I have a wise loving avuncular closeness, mostly in the form of inspirational personal meetings held with Akihiko, my husband, almost from the moment Sachiko passed away.
That’s another story – how I arrived at Sachiko Adachi’s memorial service completely expecting I was going to volunteer at my friend Ai Yoko’s restaurant that warm night in June, 1993. Instead, the restaurant was closed. Close friends of Sachiko had gathered to hear a recording of her last lecture – the one that I would eventually be asked to edit for the English version of “To Live As We Are.” The impact that this book has had on my life as an intuitive artist would be hard to calculate. I had already begun to draw and paint for a few years before the manuscript arrived. But it was after I completed the book in 2000 that I began to reflect upon Sachiko’s message to future generations and assume that I had a role in delivering that message that went beyond the words. If anybody could create intuitive art, as Sachiko suggested, then I was the proof. A journalist turned painter. A mother with two small ones and little free time. If I could do it, anyone could.
Drawing means that you let go of expectations. By letting go, you have fun. You are clueless. The adventure begins. The surprises are certain even when the outcome isn’t. But still there are guidelines. A time frame. Choice of art supplies. A hint or a topic to pursue.
At Takuro and Ikuro’s workshop we were given the topic of birth. My birthday. An energy, a memory, an illustration, it didn’t matter what came out. As the pictures progressed I could see a development or growing organization in the physical body I have assumed in this planetary world. I drew picture after picture, not stopping although I was starting to feel tired. It wasn’t a feeling of pushing myself, but rather a feeling of being in a marathon. I was on track, cruising along on a journey , moving through page of sketchbook page , wanting to keep going in order to reveal the story of my birth.
I reached a natural point of conclusion after 11 pictures. Abstract art transformed into figurative art. And back to abstraction. I stopped when it felt to me like a full cycle had been reached. Please take a moment to enjoy seeing the series, with my thoughts about the process here at: Your comments as always are very welcome and appreciated.