What Is Integral Art? Part 3: The Role of the Artist
with Ken Wilber and Elle Nicolai

The artist is many things to many people. To some he is a shaman, shining a light in the darkness of unmentionable Mystery. To others she is a healer, restoring harmony and balance to our lives while rekindling our flickering joy. And to others still the artist is a time-traveler, reaching beyond the periphery of the present moment and pulling ribbons of the future back into this world. This is what has made the artist so critical to our ongoing cultural growth for tens of thousands of years: the simple fact that we need to see something before we can act on it morally or study it scientifically. And it's the artist's job to help us to see new things—enacting newer. wider, deeper realities that often did not exist until they first materialized in swathes of ink, oil, and song. Art can be a great aesthetic and moral beacon that reminds us of who we are and all we can be, a gateway to new dimensions of beauty and new ways of being—splattering layer upon layer of meaning upon the empty canvas of our lives....