By Janet Sellers
Will a painting class make your date fall in love with you?
When viewing or creating art, the brain’s reward system releases oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin, which can trigger feelings of pleasure and positivity. One study reported by Neuroscience News indicated that when couples play board games together or take a painting class with each other, their bodies release oxytocin—sometimes dubbed the “hugging hormone.” But men wielding paintbrushes released twice as much or more than the level of women painters and couples playing games, a Baylor University study has found.
Just as research has shown that art making or viewing increases the happy health hormones, research also suggests a potential link between sacred sites and increased oxytocin levels. Visiting these places can often trigger feelings of connection, belonging, and awe, which are all associated with the release of this “love hormone” in the body, potentially enhancing the spiritual experience at such locations. Creating artworks does this and is not location dependent but stimulates the levels, and the electrical and magnetic energies of sacred earth sites have the energy currents moving through them and to be accessed at these special places.
Many ancient and also modern cultures acknowledge sacred earth sites with placemaking and megalithic markers. While stories relate to these markers as art or myth, the science shows the facts involved. Whether we call them by ancient names or modern scientific monikers, the energies and benefits are still available, and we can seek and access them. That may be an additional reason for the markers, to show us where these are. Energy moves through our Earth and us and affects our well-being, offering us its benefits.
Positing a connection between art, sacred sites and health technology
Some megaliths appear as abstract formations, some appear as real-world creatures, and in Western cultures they have been considered decorative art forms or for ceremony and not related to a scientific use. But megaliths were used for astronomical observations, vital to maintain the continuity of harvest and crop. Other megalithic constructions are thought to be erected for funerary purposes, and served as individual or collective burial chambers; still others are thought to support health and healing, such as the Odin stone of Scotland, and Stonehenge of England due to its astronomical alignments.
Throughout the ages, we have been curious about the effects of these sites and the benefits of them as creative works of art that actually hold productive impacts with favorable influences for people and thereby cultures. While these impacts have been suppressed in Western cultures, indigenous cultures are more apt to avail themselves of the benefits. Modern scientific research is rediscovering some of the positive aspects of natural formations and art on human well-being as a therapeutic tool. Numerous studies have documented the positive impacts of nature exposure on various health metrics, including lowered cortisol levels, decreased blood pressure, and reduced anxiety.
We are lucky to have some amazing monoliths here in our area, such as Elephant Rock and Garden of the Gods. Elephant Rock has extraordinary and recognizable details of a mammoth or elephant, as if it were made as an intended creative work and not by chance. It could be interesting to learn more about the energies in such places. Our ancients were keenly aware and attuned to the Earth, creativity, and connectedness for well-being, and included sacred sites and sacred arts for beneficial connections.
We don’t know how they discovered sacred sites or art creation, but we have some reminders right here in Colorado. We can avail ourselves of these connections for our benefit and share them with others and our community. We can take an art class, visit our art galleries, and sign up for hikes or take a hike at the sacred places that are all around us. Sometimes a gentle walk in our pine forests is enough to restore us, too.
Janet Sellers is an artist, writer, teacher and speaker, specializing in creative endeavors for health through her indoor and outdoor murals, landscapes and nature art, and offers local forest bathing hikes. Contact her at JanetSellers@ocn.me.
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