Choi Kyu-il: Seal Engraver

"Don't you think you should know where all that wabi-sabi came from?" asked Kang Joon-Hyuk, Korea's most creative and enthusiastic promoter and producer of contemporary ddfcultural arts, when we were working together on the 1990 Los Angeles Festival in Los Angeles.

Back then, I was completely captivated by my new (since 1985) study of  Chanoyu, Japanese tea ceremony with a master teacher/practitioner in Los Angeles Sosei Matsumoto. I could talk of little else to friends or any who was within 2 feet of me.

I must have been insufferable in sharing my then three (of a total of 8 to date) Japan  exploits with Mr. Kang. In 1989, a fabulous week of classes at the Midorikai program for foreign students in Kyoto's Urasenke school and visiting temples as part of the entourage of the grand tea master Hounsai, Sen Soshitsu XV, I took a trip northward to Kanazawa where I happened to be introduced to Nanen, a contemporary Japanese artist who carves stone seals utilizing kyujitai, the traditional pictographic shapes of Chinese characters. She was printing them in a variety of colors and gold leaf on various types of hand made washi, some of which were being converted into fans and lanterns. 

Here, however, was someone who knew how to capture my obsessive compulsive attention,   to get me to channel my enthusiasm toward a heritage that was and is in its own right superb without equal. He decided to introduce me to his friend Choi Kyu-il, an artist who is a stone seal carver, so we got in his car and drove to a nondescript neighborhood somewhere in Seoul.

Stone seals, used throughout Asia for their imprinting utility, figure into the full length and breadth of Korea's history, beginning with the mythic founder Tangun who is said to have descended from heaven to rule the people carry three stone seals. For centuries their creators have taken a backseat in the cultural hierarchy in deference to calligraphers. Choi prefers to be called an artisan rather than an artist.

Choi Kyu-il's brush paintings and seal carving.

The son of an itinerant pushcart worker father (and the usually under reported mother) Mr. Choi, then 67 years of age, had lackluster success at a number of small businesses following his college education. Most importantly, the family man of four children and an enterprising wife, was completely uninspired. At the age of 32 he tried his hand at seal carving, a solo venture informed by renowned books of Chinese calligraphy undertaken without "benefit" of teacher.

We entered the building from the sidewalk but immediately stepped down through a narrow corridor. Sunlight didn't seem to be a priority for this somewhat bent over man with a long white beard and hair. Stones in various sizes from palm-sized to those more like parking lot barriers, were scattered on the floor, leaning up against the walls and his work table. Also, there were lots of large sketches on white paper made with brush and ink.

Mr. Choi's "studio" was more like a quarry but in the basement of yet another 1950s concrete building that survived Korea's tumultuous 20th century of occupation and war, New and Old Village movements and general corruption. With the kind translation of Mr. Kang, I learned that Mr. Choi had a unique artistic practice. He carved but rarely printed his works on paper.

In my native enthusiasm, I recited the itinerary of my recent exploits in Japan, shared some photos of Nanen's work. It was pretty innocent, but in hindsight a bit rude to my hosts. 

Nonetheless, as one artist interested in another, Mr. Choi asked, "How fast does she carve?"

Speed is one of his well-honed faculties, and he exercises himself in other media, such as croquis, the rapid Western-style drawing technique. Only Choi uses brush and ink rather than the usual pencil or charcoal, and works on the floor. After "performing" a few female nudes, he handed me a brush and invited me to try. While I have seen more women's bodies in my life than he has, nonetheless, I was unsure where to place the first line and breathless when I called it quits ending, rather than completing the form. He beamed at the "finish line". Another "Ta-da!" He gave me his as a gift, along with a few others of lobsters and horses.

His fame spread slowly due to the fact that he is never sells his work, the stones themselves, and is reluctant at best to have them printed. His first exhibition was in 1985. His workplace, extremely cramped with stacks upon boxes upon crates of the soft "soapstone" used by seal carvers, resembled more likely his former construction supply store.

When one looks at a carving, whether it's the statue of "David" by Michaelangelo or anything before it or after, speed is not the first thing that comes to mind. Even Michaelangelo's fabled comment about just cutting away everything that wasn't David, doesn't seem to be relevant to Choi's process. 

Next, Mr. Choi took it upon himself to create his first Romanized image in stone by carving my first name into the narrow edge of a stone blank about 3" x 1" x 2", tiny by comparison to the seemingly baby boulders stacked everywhere in his workspace. Getting slowly up from his bench, due to a chronic physical disability, he took a thinner  tool and began to dig into what seemed to be his clenched palm. A cloud of white stone dust grew and spread over his hand. At once, he blew it away opened his palm fully to reveal a multi-lined poem scratched carefully on its wide surface. I almost wanted to shout, "Ta-da!"

  

Choi is said to profess never to repeat a knife stroke, believing that each movement has a life of its own. Thus it is easy to see this otherwise reclusive artist feeling content as a social being. It took him 12 years to develop his technique of il do il wek, or "one touch, one stroke" through which he calls into being Chinese characters in no less that 36 different styles, including those reflecting ancient Chinese oracle-engraved bones. He has worked with hieroglyphic forms as well as narrative images of nudes, Korean farmer dancers, and whatever else pleases him. 

He proudly showed me a low table top upon which as assembled 27 stones, the face of each were over 6 inches square, of the character for "travel" carved in myriad layouts. Each was a stunning, animated image;
together
they promoted great
movement despite
their
 collective weight.

I found his work hanging in one of Insadong's tiny tea rooms, a bartered exchange, I was assured by my friends. One of his works, the entirety of the Kumgang Sutra, (Vajrasamadhi Sutra) encompass 1,111 stones, 6 cm X 6 cm, when rubbed required 11 large, uncut sheets of paper. He has also done other sutras and many poems of his favorite Korean and Chinese poets, but few have been seen by the public.

Kyoto Journal #60 (2005)

Jean Michel Basquiat's Taenghwa

  

Jean Michel Basquiat's image (top, left) reminds me of the warrior / knife-riding general spirit Janggung (right) from Kim Keumhwa's shrine at Keumhwa-dang on Kangwhado, S. Korea and another (below, left) the mudang ancestor Seongsu daeshin from Yoon Yeosul's book Searching for Origin of Folk Religion -- Painting of Shamanism. (원형을 찾아서 토속신앙의 巫俗畵|, 2004, Seoul: ICOM).

 

Coincidence? Perhaps, but I am more than ever convinced that Basquiat "saw" spirits. 

Perhaps he thought no one else knew their identities. How wrong he was!

Here's another set, including Kim Keumhwa  (right) officiating at a gut ritual featuring the Taegam, spirit of a government official. I particularly like the piece by Basquiat (left) as it illustrates the layering of costumes that a shaman may wear in the course of transitioning from presenting one spirit in quick succession after another. 

 Below you can see many "antique" taenghwa, spirit paintings, in Kim Keumhwa's pantheon. For more information about Korean shaman painting, please see my review of God in Pictures in Korean Contexts: TheOwnership and Meaning of Shaman Paintings
by Laurel Kendall, Jongsung Yang and Yul Soon Yoon in Kyoto Journal. (Honolulu. University of Hawaii Press. 2015) in Kyoto Journal #90 (February 2018).

For more information about Jean Michel Basquiat, I am happy to direct your attention to the wonderful resource Artsy! 

GOD: THE OFFICIAL PORTRAITS

Portraying a likeness of "God" in any form, much more so anthropomorphic renderings, has long been prohibited -- and that vastly debated --  in Jewish tradition, based upon an interpretation of the "graven image" commandment. Islam picked it up; other traditions, who fear idolatry or that such a likeness might steal the soul from the person have related mandates. Not so when it comes to Korean Shamanism.

Unlike most books about Korean shamanism in English language primarily focused on the lives of shamans (mudangs) and their ritual performances, God in Pictures in Korean Contexts: The Ownership and Meaning of Shaman Paintings by Laurel Kendall, Jongsung Yang and Yul Soon Yoon, discusses the creation and utility of the physical materiality of ritual artworks (taenghwa), and the rising number of institutions (a few museums and their curators and conservators) and individuals (dealers and collector of ethnographic materials) who have opened up the market for these objects.

This relatively small, illustrated and well-considered text is described as “both a study of material religion that takes seriously the use of paintings inside Korean shaman practice and a study of the circulation of shaman paintings from sacred to secular space, exploring the motivations and activities of dealers and collectors, a subject of interest in museum and material culture studies.”

Koreans for the most part have yet to romanticize their past, given the century of cultural and political devastation during the majority of the 20^th century. Kendall[1], an American anthropologist who has many books about Korean shamanic culture to her credit, is chair of the Division of Anthropology and curator in charge of Asian Ethnographic Collections at the American Museum of Natural History and president (2016-17) of the Association for Asian Studies. Yoon established the Gahoe Museum[2]  for his folk art collection in the Gahoe neighborhood north of Insadong in Seoul, and previously self-published the predominantly bilingual (Korean – English)  Searching for Origin of Folk Religion – Painting of Shamanism[3], full of colored imagery of a multitude of spirits and brief explanations of their identities. The former curator of the National Folk Museum of Korea, Yang now operates a Museum of Shamanism, also in Seoul, as a place where shamanism may be observed in practice. The most frequent visitors to these establishments, Yang notes, are shamans themselves who express pride and wonder at what they see there.

As we learn from these scholars’ thoughtful reflections, taenghwa, painted portraits of iconic images of  the pantheon of spirits that populate the back walls of gutdang / shindang (ritual or spirit rooms), are not simply reflections of ubiquitous characters from cultural history (judges, saints, military and civil officials, venerable ancestors, spirits of the mountains and sea, etc. embellished with other auspicious symbols including the elixir of life, mushrooms, turtles, dragons, the seven-star constellation, pine trees, bamboo, a body of water in forest, tigers, etc.), but are potent catalytic partners with the officiants in the ritual outcome. The authors postulate there is a “triangulation among shaman, god and painting.” These painted, seemingly folk art-like 2-dimensional works on paper were created by artists (not usually the shamans themselves) for the express purpose of the shaman’s engagement with the painting’s “gaze,” thereby to enable the spirit to be present in the ritual space/time. In short, they reference taenghwa as “divine prosthesis”.

Strung together from their tops into a multi-paneled montage behind an altar, often overlapping each other until only the faces are visible, in the ritual they form the wall behind the altar table festooned with offerings. The shamans’ costumes (changed often during the long rituals) and props are echoed in the uniforms and other paraphernalia used by officiants who seek communion and their mystical intercession in the course of multiscene productions. At the end of the ritual, unless affixed to the back wall, the taenghwa will be removed and stored until the next opportunity.

While some taenghwa looked brand new (and may have been newly commissioned by the shaman through a patron’s generous donation for the ritual service) they can also be “antiques” weathered through use (unfolding, hanging, refolding for storage etc.). In some rare cases, I have seen full murals affixed to walls where various highly stylized portraits, including women in traditional “male” roles, share a common landscape in the background. Interestingly, I have seen several images created by Jean Michel Basquiat, an extraordinarily talented American artist who died young, that are remarkably similar in character to the taenghwa of the Hwanghae-do tradition! Please refer to another article in this blog:  Basquiat's Spiritual Portraits. 

GOD’S PICTURE : PICTURE OF GOD

To twist a Zen metaphor, these are not necessarily the moon’s reflection in a pond on a dark night, but the very presence of the moon itself. Here is an example:

In 2000 I had the opportunity to be the guest of Kim Keumhwa, Korea’s naramansin, in her home and to travel with her group, Seohean Pungeoje, the Society for the Preservation of West Sea Rituals, from Hwanghae-do. Toward the end of the second of four weeks, Songsaengnim took me to Gangwha-do, the island near the DMZ off the West Sea where she now has a culture center. We stayed for two days at a small retreat center at the base of Manisan mountain that was operated by some kind of institute dedicated to Dangun, the mythical founder of Korea and a Sanshin / mountain spirit of the highest order. I was baffled by her effort to pay homage to a large, framed (glass, metal) painted image of the mountain spirit (a wizened old man with a tiger and young attendant) that was up a pathway on the north side of Manisan Mountain peak, when we could actually at minimum address the spirits of the peak in front of us. It was not an original painting, nor did it seem to be an old artifact, yet she carried offerings (fruit, candles, incense and water) and adorned the ledge in front of the image. She began to chant and invited me to share her homage through bowing and offering incense. Later we hiked up to where the Chamseongdan (altar) is sited, where Dangun is said to have offered sacrifices to the heavens.

ARTISTS AS LIVING TREASURES

Shamans come by their taenghwa in several possible ways. Of course, Hwahghae-do shamans have to have been endowed through initiation, vision, dream, etc. to make the connection with particular spirits. Then it is the matter of securing the artwork. Since the earliest days (before printing presses!) paintings have been produced by dedicated artists (usually not the shamans themselves) from a shaman’s description of a vision. Unlike many painters who also may paint images for Buddhist temples, traditional Hwanghae taenghwa painters maintain a singular clientele among initiates of that charismatic lineage; they do not sign their work. 

I was very happy to learn more from the authors about the lineage of artist An Sung-sam (pictured, I'd be happy to ask for permission from the source of this image, but it won't reply.), whose late son An Chong-mo, and now granson (don't know the name) have carried on his vocation. Their great/grandmother was a Hwanghaedo shaman, like the elder An’s colleague Kim Keumhwa. An Sung-sam was one of three (with Mansinnim and Choi Eum Jon, the late ritual jango drummer) deemed to be important intangible cultural assets of Korea. However, the authors state that, unlike venerable brush paintings and calligraphy of the Japanese Zen tradition, “No shaman painting has yet to be designated as a national treasure.” Facing the decline of the marketplace, the artists who are personally regarded and have the reputation of being endowed with a spiritual connection, may likely disappear.

Judging from the styles of Songsaengnim’s taenghwa, several artists were responsible for creating them.The oldest ones seemed to be painted with tempera on cardboard or brown kraft paper (a material that was produced industrially in Korea after the war and was as much rendered into paper bags as it was as a surface for Dansaekhwa artists of the Minimalist movement); the ones permanently mounted on the walls in her shrine rooms in Seoul and Gangwha-do were more likely acrylic and enlivened with the addition of gold leaf in some areas. The now deceased elder An was also responsible for many of the hand-painted tissue paper elements that adorned Kim Keumhwa’s altars for rituals and in her permanent altars in her private shrines. Some seem quite old, but it is hard to know their age, etc.

Other shamans, especially younger ones with less notoriety, may resort to patronizing shops specializing in ritual paraphernalia where they may acquire mass produced taenghwa with images “typical” of the geographically-specific ritual styles. I once visited such a shop in the neighborhood of KimKeumhwa’s home. I was very careful not to be too interested in the goods in as much as my obvious presence in the  otherwise no-tourist environs might be cause for embarrassing gossip that I might be shopping for shaman “power” tools; this would cast negatively on my host.

DECOMMISSIONING PAINTING

Perhaps some of the most interesting narrative in the book relates to what happens when a shaman ceases to use/need/want a taenghwa or when the taenghwa no longer wants to be part of that shaman’s pantheistic community:

“The god takes up a seat in the painting, but not always; the god inhabits the painting in the shrine but sometimes departs; the god agrees to cohabit with other gods in a shrine but sometimes refuses.”

The shaman is left with no other choice than to remove the taenghwa. Given their materiality, what is the appropriate way for a shaman to decommission / dispose of them. If the images have / are spirit, what becomes of it? “For most of the 20^th Century, shamans generally followed the traditional practice of burning old and tattered paintings after ritually reanimating them,” the authors note. When the paintings of the first Korean shaman I met – Los Angeles 1990 about who I wrote an article for Kyoto Journal – had been destroyed in a flood (they were packed up, not used), the remnants were burned. The ashes were carried by us into the local mountains where we discarded them in a wooded auspicious spot, “Think of your mother,” she admonished me, with no explanation given. Unlike calligraphy scrolls used in Japanese tea ceremony which may be centuries old and are valued accordingly to their longevity, Korean shaman artworks are extremely fragile and were not meant to necessarily be employed forever, much less collected.

Again, the authors recount fascinating stories about certain mischief (or worse) caused by improperly discarded or abandoned taenghwa. “The god operates miraculously or problematically, through a de-animated and hidden painting.” Do they have a “half-life” of empowerment?

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD?

The authors address the more recent attempt to commodify taenghwa works and explain the complexities of another triangulation of dealers, collectors, shamans, less often the artists who created the works.   

There is well-considered discussion about the ways that a “collector’s lens” might distinguish what is desirable as an image, what Korean cultural qualities can be conveyed through this art form, etc. 
Of course, there is great interest on the part of scholars to study ethnography and to have material works with documented provenance can be of great value, as the authors’ own professional affiliations attest. One doesn’t see many shaman paintings displayed in Korean museums, and certainly not in the National Museum of Korea!


Very few museums outside Korea collect or display works of “art” created for and used by shamans. In addition to AMNH, USC’s Pacific Asia museum is a notable exception as a result of the efforts of Yeonsoo Choi, then assistant curator, and has welcomed Kim Keumhwa to demonstrate a sample of her rituals in conjunction with the donation of some objects to the museum’s permanent collection. No doubt the provenance of Kim Songsaengnim’s objects will vault them into a higher “value,” nonetheless, will they command the same level as Basquiat’s works? 

 This brings us to the notion of the independent, private collector of material cultural artifacts who may have to resort to working with dealers with connections to shamans and never actually meeting the artist, who may be alive. The primary collectors of Korean shaman painting are themselves Korean with a “bent toward nostalgia for a not-to-distant rural past.” Much like the romancing of provenance that a collector of Japanese ceremony utensils might show in the course of the ritual or in a display case, the shaman paintings have an “object biography”. Yet again, the history of Korea would not be very kind to the paintings, much less the shamans themselves who were persecuted. Ritual spaces were usually erected in situ and quickly dismantled, with the various paraphernalia, including elaborate wall-sized arrangements of icons, packed up and sometimes even abandoned.

Imagine my surprise a decade ago when I entered a Korean “antique” shop in Los Angeles’ Koreatown[4] when I spotted a colorful tempera painting on cardboard of an old man with a tiger and young boy; it was hanging by fabric strings from the back of an abandoned dining room chair amidst other disparate furniture. “Buddha!” said the proprietor, an oldish man in a worn golf jacket and a baseball cap, noticing my interest and figuring that I was an uninformed Caucasian woman. “Ah, Buddha! Nice Buddha. Umm,” I replied, knowing full well, however, that it was not Buddha, but a taenghwa  of Sanshin, a Korean mountain spirit, rendered for a shaman’s shrine. I retreated back into the shop as nonchalantly as I could, knowing that any interest that would inflate prices. I eventually found 10 other abandoned portraits of other traditional Korean shaman spirits rolled into a bundle with their strings hanging out jammed on a shelf next to empty picture frames. I made a mental commitment to this Sanshin that I would liberate him (and a trio of fortune-telling mudangs) from this soul-less place, if only to make it possible for their true identities to be reinstated.

POST SCRIPT

As noted above, in some cases the taenghwa are formally affixed to the walls. David Mason’s extensive research into the mountain spirit images enshrined in Korea’s temples, shrines, rock faces and even real and artificial caves, grottoes is unsurpassed. Both his book Spirit of the Mountains: Korea’s SAN-SHIN and Traditions of Mountain-Worship (1999, Elizabeth New Jersey and Seoul Korea, Hollym. Editions in English and Korean languages) and ever-evolving website www.san-shin.org provide great insight into the artistic techniques and imagery as well as significance of this particular spirit’s presence throughout Korea. The artists, for the most part, remain anonymous, but the images are beloved by Buddhists, Taoists, NeoConfucianists and Shamanists alike. He notes, in addition to the mountain spirit, major Buddhist temples’ have a shrine buildings that often includes Samshin, three spirit shrine, that includes images of Chilseong and  Doksong, the Seven Stars / Big Dipper and Lonely Saint, respectively. His book explains the symbolism and relationships within spiritual hierarchy.

Other sources of information on the topic:

Yoon Yeosul's book Searching for Origin of Folk Religion -- Painting of Shamanism. [원형을 찾아서 토속신앙의 巫俗畵|, 2004, Seoul: ICOM] has excellent images and is mostly in Korean language. His Gahoe Museum is well worth a visit, as is Jong-sung Yang’s Museum of Shamanism which functions more as a living laboratory of Korean native spirituality. An extensive article may be found at the first issue of the Korean Art Society Newsletter, as well as an earlier article that I wrote on this subject.

My article about the late Dr. Zo Zayong for Kyoto Journal #36, 1997, (reprinted ) explores the work of this artist / collector / scholar / author and architect whose life was filled with the profound beauty of Korean spirit imagery. His Emile Museum in Seoul and later moved to become the basis of Samshin Hoegwan Songnisan near Po’un was a huge collection of works on paper, in stone, wood and other materials. Most of the collection was sold to the Samsung Leeum, I’ve been told. Dr. Zo was also a patron of the local villages who still worshiped their resident spirits and often helped them create new iconic works to this end.

---

[1] This link goes to Professor Kendall’s lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXbvj4tg7TM

[2] www.gahoemuseum.org

[3] https://books.google.com/books/about/Searching_for_origin_of_folk_religion.html?id=xolLQwAACAAJ

[4] -- Korean Art Society Journal. “Don’t Buy the Buddha!”. Vol. 1 (2009)

Searching for Sanshin: Interview with Hiah Park, Lover of the Mountain God

Originally published Kyoto Journal, No. 25, 1993, and subsequently in Mountain Spirits of AsIa  (Shambhala, (Bolder CO)

Hi-ah Park Manshin*, Korean shaman, specializes in ritual dance. Original artist, healer and teacher, she works at the level of the primordial state through ecstatic trance. Skilled in the healing arts, she communicates the needs of humans to the spirits and oracles of the spirits to humans.

I met Hi-ah Park during the 1990 Los Angeles Festival during which she participated in a multi-cultural program about spirit and art, along with several native Americans and a bevy of Buddhists. I had heard a report that the Native Americans earlier had tried to cancel their plan to do several sacred ceremonial rituals at this program if TV cameras or newspaper photographers were present. What is ritual for, she remarked, but to engage the spirits on behalf of people. “Sharing the experience of rapture I have nothing to hide.” She seemed a wise, old person, though she looked only 40. She told me she had “died many times.”

The night of the presentation, she “performed” several dances of a traditionally longer kut, ritual, going into a trance and deftly wielding a sword and a rainbow of flags before an altar resplendent with dogk, the many-layered Korean rice cake, fruit, sticks of incense and other offerings placed on the altar in front of a gilded statue of Buddha.

Out of whirlwind of colorful costumes, loud drums (native American and Korean), cymbals and gongs, and some 200 people dancing ecstatically, the “performance” stopped into complete stillness. It was the trailhead, the ken,  keeping still, of the I Ching , that great mountaineer’s bible. The buzz of mountain-top seeking mind dissolved into silence, then plunged through formless ecstatic trance, leaving no footprints, taking the memories, too! It was as if a weather front moved in and blew the clouds away.

At that point all I knew about Hi-ah Park was that she was born in Seoul and is considered the finest Korean traditional classical dancer of her generation. The first woman to be admitted to the National Classical Music Institute and into the esteemed ranks of Court Musician, she gave by any standards an exquisite “performance”, but this was not just a dance recital on the second floor of a downtown Buddhist temple. She literally went a giant step further.

I have since come to realize that her life mirrored that of an intimate of Sanshin. As Canda explains in Korea Journal, Sanshin is a “tangible, specific and personal entity,” evident to human senses through vitality, power and mystery of the physical landmass as well as in dreams and visions. This, I was to learn, this was Hi-ah Parkʼ s history. His observation of Sanshinʼs “having awesome natural power in service of sacredness and wisdom,” became her destiny.

* A mountaineering “sports” term usually refering to trying to get to the top of a mountain and back down on ego strength alone. Sort of “the tao be damned”. At best youʼ ll get callouses.

* Manshin is a title of respect identifying a mudang, Korean shaman  For centuries manshin had been openly persecuted, their practices disrupted and shrines destroyed, their artistry desecrated to entertainment. The prevailing religious and social order forced the practice of shamanism “underground”. It is still considered a curse to suggest that someone would grow up to be or to marry a mudang.  That one of Koreaʼs most acclaimed artists, an American citizen and university lecturer became a mudang has had impact in Korea as well as globally.

After a number of years of quiet reflection, Hi-ah Park decided to fulfill her destiny as Manshin, to put her art in service of the spirit and the people who seek her out. She currently works in Europe and the USA, teaching through performances, workshops and lectures, including many prestigious universities and mental health centers.

Whether clad in Manshinʼs colorful robes performing a formal kut to the accompaniment of changʼgo, hourglass drum, and cymbals and gongs, or in a simple flowing white tunic dancing to the sounds of steel cello, bow chime, Chapman Stick, Mongolian drum or a wall of gongs, HI-ah Park shows us how the shaman warrior climbs the mountain, and dances atop the peak in mu-a , ecstasy.

What was your earliest memory of Sanshin?  From very early childhood, I loved mountains. My memory of childhood is playing in the tiger cave near my neighborhood. Often there, I lost time and space while my family was looking for me. One day I climbed into the mountain deeper than usual, as if somebody invisible being was guiding me into the unknown world, and I found the big tree surrounded by piled with lots of stones. There unknowingly I bowed to the ground after respectfully gathered stones top of the piles. Definitely that was my first encounter with Sanshin .

Of all the Sanshin in Korea, why do you think you are relating particularly toTangun?  During my illness before my initiation, I had several visions. In one, I saw Tangun, the Korean heroic founder of the nation who later became Mountain Spirit, sitting in a meditation posture within a yurt and wearing a red hat and robe. As I gazed at intensely at that figure, we became one; then I saw myself sitting as Tangun. This clear vision of Tangun convinced me to visit my homeland after an absence of 15 years. I didn't have any specific plan for my visit. However, from its start, everyone I met and everywhere I visited turned out to be connected somehow with shamanistic practices. I was introduced to Kim Keum-Hwa, a well known Hwang-haedo manshin  (a western province of Korea) viewing a video of one of her shamanic rituals. I couldnʼ t believe my eyes: I saw Kim Keum-Hwa wearing the same red robe and hat I had seen in my Tangun vision of week prior.

A week later I was introduced to her. When Kim came into the room in her house where I was waiting, we both shuddered. She told me she had the sensation that her spirits wanted to talk to me. She brought divination table and started to pronounce oracles: "Rainbows are surrounding in all directions. The fruit is fully ripe and can't wait anymore!" She told me I was lucky to have surrendered to the spirits’orders and to have come to her. Otherwise, she said, I would have died, like an overripe fruit that falls onto the ground and rots. Kim continued to explain that I had disobeyed two times previously and, consequently, had to go through unbearable pain and loneliness and near-death experiences. She warned that I should not resist anymore--the third time, there is no forgiveness. It was absolutely essential that I undergo the naerim kut without delay. On a more positive note, Kim told me she saw double rainbows stretched around my head, celestial gods surrounding on me. She said that warrior in me was so strong that I would want to stand on the chaktu, sharp blades. She predicted that, in the near future, I would be a famous shaman, and I'd travel all around the world. Then she set a date for the initiation--June 23, 1981. In less than two weeks, I was transformed into a new shaman.

Did you have personal desire to be a shaman? When I began studying shamanism in 1975, I had neither wish nor the intention to become a shaman. I initially considered the whole process solely as an artistic endeavor, yet everything I encountered along the shamanic path seemed to create a thirst in me for spiritual fulfillment. I became a manshin after I was called to the profession through sinbyong, or initiatory illness.

What is the symptom of shamanic illness? I began to suffer from tedium and loneliness, without knowing any meaning to my life. My interest in mundane affairs and domestic chores waned completely. I suffered unbearable loneliness and longed for the mountains.

I spent many nights weeping endlessly or dreaming of impending death. In my dreams, I was imprisoned in the under world and chased by wild animals. For about nine months, I endured sleepless and restless nights, until I had an incredible, lengthy dream of an ancient royal funeral procession. My insomnia stopped right after this mysterious dream. I was happy without any specific reason. I felt elevated into the air, as if somebody was lifting me. After this funeral dream, my dream scenes started to change into lighter, celestial ones.

 In one of unforgettable dream journey, a white unicorn with wings took me through the Milky Way to an incredible, infinite space of deep, jet-dark indigo. In that place, I heard a deep and resonant voice ask me, "How are the people down there?" I still remember clearly the conversation with that invisible voice and the ecstatic feeling I had. Then the voice told me I had to go back to teach the people love. I felt boundless joy and, at the same time, sadness that I had to go back. Without any sense of waking up from a dream, I found myself in my room. For a while, I was obsessed by this visionary dream and felt very connected with that other reality. Although I couldn't understand it, the other space was so clear that I now felt as if my waking state was the dream.

Why do shamans have to go through shamanic illness?  I believe that it happens because a persons spiritual body is starving from a lack of inspirational creativity. The initiatory sickness allows her to escape from the world and withdraw into the darkness, in order to experience her own rites of passage. In order to become a shaman, the person must go through years of introspection, personal torment, and progressive spiritual development. Without understanding the stillness, one will never understand the spirit world.

How do you come out from sinbyong?  By reaching the point of mu a , ecstasy, the death of ego. Ecstasy is a sensation which is encountered in our hearts. It is seeing and hearing with the heart, rather than just with eyes and ears. It is also a flame which springs up in the heart out of longing, to see and to become one with its truth (God). Atop this mountain there is such clarity that there is no duality.

What place did Sanshin have in your initiation ritual?  In the preparation for initiation ceremony, I had to climb up to the mountain to receive the Mountain Spirit early in the morning by a purifying bath in a cold mountain stream. My Godmother and I had ascended the mountain north of Seoul. She asked me to climb up a steep, rocky cliff to get a branch from a pine tree. This task was the first test of the day. I did as she requested, performing the task necessary to receive Sanshin. We spoke as little as possible.

At the mountain altar I offered rice, rice cake, three different kinds of cooked vegetables, fruits, lighted candles and incense and makghuli, home made rice wine.

As my Godmother chanted and beat a small gong, I held up the Sanshin dari , a long piece of cloth called minyong , white cotton bridge, through which the shaman receives the Mountain Spirit. My body started quiver uncontrollably, a sign that the Spirit was entering me. I completely surrendered to the Spirit, turning off my internal dialogue, and entered into inner silence. I sensed light coming from every direction, and I started to feel drunk with the Spirit in me. It was dramatic close encounter with the separated "Lover" at long last. I felt the ultimate completion of my primordial self before separation. I knew that the spirit loved me and forgave my long resistance to accepting it. Bathed by the light of Spirit, I felt clean and reborn. I practically flew down the mountain to the town in the valley below. I returned with my Godmother to her house which would become the site of all-day ritual that was to come.

Could you describe some more details about the initiation? Korean term for initiation is "naerim kut .” This aspect of the ritual is concerned with the descending spirits and identification and presentation of the deities which have already made their presence known through possession of my body.

At the initiation ceremony, the minyong was placed leading onto the upstage portion of the house as a bridge between the heaven and the earth. To test my psychic ability and to determine if I could identify the deities who had descended on me, my Godmother and her assistant shaman, who serves as a messenger, sat at the end of the minyong, in a sense ending in heaven. A straw mat was placed downstage. Each question asked by the head shaman was repeated by her assistant. Instead of answering the questions directly, I began dancing. Then, kneeling down on the straw mat, I answered the questions orally. The dance seemed to heighten the trance state so that my answer came without thinking as if I know everything already.

The first question was, "If you become a shaman, through which gate will you enter?

I started singing in an occult nature, previously unknown to me. Again I danced until possessed and knelt down to wait for the next question.

"Which spirit is entering you?" she asked.

I answered, "Elwol Sung Shin and Okhwang Sangchae, spirits of the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Jade Emperor, are entering."

"Then reveal your true nature and find the symbolic paraphernalia of these deities," she ordered.

I stood, and walking upstage, grasped the Il wrol dae , sun and moon stick, a pine branch which I took from cliff at the mountain, bundled together with a bronze mirror and covered with a white long sleeved gown, the costume of the deities.

After I danced, she asked me another question, "Which spirit did you received this time?"

My reply was, "I received Sanshin , the spirits from the High Mountain and Sa Hae Yong Wang Nim, from the Four Direction Deep Ocean."

Why did you receive it?, she asked.

"I obeyed the order from Tangun, the founder of Korea. He has told me to help infertile couples, to counsel parents and their children to love each other. Through him I am guided to heal sickness and help those in poverty to find prosperity. Lastly, he advises me to engender love and respect among all people." Acknowledging my remarks, the head shaman invited any other spirits that might be present to enter me, and the Deity of the Seven Stars, Chil Sung, Big Dipper; Taegam Nim , the Spirit of High Nobility; Chosang Nim , Spirit of Ancestors; and Obang Shinchang Nim , Warrior of the Five Directions, came through.

What other occasions have you encountered Sanshin?  After I teaching summer school of 1977 at UCLA, I retired to an avocado ranch located deep in the mountains. I left all worldly affairs behind, obsessed like a lover longing for the mountains. In the mountains I could feel the presence of something indescribably different, an exotic apparition, the spirit of which one can not find in a human, a beautiful, bewitching spirit which embraced with boundless joy. I journeyed to Yosemite, Mt. Rainier, Death Valley, and other places like the Grand Canyon. In Canyon de Chelly I was led by endless double rainbows to the White House cliff dwelling with its ancient kiva, subterranean ritual chambers. As I emerged from a ruined kiva a sudden thunder and lightening storm attacked me mercilessly. I fainted onto the sand, and in total surrender I offered myself to the spirits present. I awoke with the most incredible orgasm I have ever known, basking in the most luxurious ecstasy. The sky was replete with rainbows and the reflections of rainbows reaching every horizon. The mountain breeze passing through the canyon seemed to be coming and going in the rhythm on an inaudible chant. As I flowed into that chant my soul ascended as flying unicorn, higher and higher into the sky. At last I was free and flying with such a feeling of exhilaration and joy that I wanted to cry, for I was experiencing the ecstasy, for which I had been yearning so long.

How has the initiation influenced your dance?  Since my initiation, my understanding of dance changed completely. The inseparability of art and spirit became essential for healing myself and eventually it has helped others. My teaching and performing is at the level of the primordial state, mainly achieved through ecstatic trance. By integrating breath, sound, movement and theatre, I set the stage for the transformation of the audience and society.

How has Sanshin influenced your decision to work globally?   Transformation is a fundamental concern of the shaman’s ritual. One important function of ritual is that it makes you a member of the tribe, of society, and hopefully a member of the global community. Today it is especially important to return to tribal integration in a global sense. I’ve been traveling a great deal since 1988 sharing Tangunʼ s doctrine of “Hong Ik In Kan”, to be of benefit to all sentient beings, to engender love and respect among all people. Sanshin cannot afford any longer to wait on a lonely mountain top.

What is Sanshinʼs message?  The nature and message of spirit is beyond mental condition; it is bliss of pure energy, pervading everything, mua / ecstasy. The Spirit, which is formless, speaks through me in ecstatic dance. Spirit is shy, but sword is sharp. It teaches us a powerful but direct process of purification. Through ecstatic dance, sound and breath meditation, it cuts through fear, conflict and confusion. Fear is transformed into plentiful, universal love, and suddenly, we understand that our lives are about much more than suffering; it is also about experiencing rapture. This only works for those who are willing to confront their dark side and surrender to the primal spirit.

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SITE-SPECIFIC SANSHIN  Over 70% of Korea is mountainous and many of the “most famous” sacred peaks are in the northern part of the peninsula. Perhaps most notable is Mt. Taepaek (Myohyang-san in Yongbyon, north Pyongan Province), the spot chosen by heavenly god Hawan-in for his sonʼ s, Hwan-woong, earthly abode.

Tangun, founder of the Ancient Chosun Empire and considered the first Korean, was born near a sandalwood tree to a patient, obedient bear-woman and Hwan-woong in 2333 BCE. He established his capital in Asadal (old name of Pyongyang) in Paegak-san where he eventually died, aged 1908 years, and became Sanshin of Mt. Kuwol. Other peaks sacred to Tangun are Mani-san (on an Island in the mouth of the Han River) where it is said he established a rock altar, and Paektu-san (Mt. Whitehead).

Centuries ago you could find a cozy wooden hut, with thatched straw or tiled roof situated deep in the mountain. Today, anthropomorphic images of Sanshin appear everywhere fine arts and tourist memento are found. Scrolls and screens depict Sanshin as a stately old man with a long beard leaning on a tiger, his messenger. The tiger, even the one playfully rendered as the mascot of the Seoul Olympiad, is also said to be Sanshin and Tangun. Sanshin icons were once prepared only for religious worship exclusively. To this end they were found only in the mountain spirit shrines in the samsinggak, three spirit hall, behind the golden hall in the Buddhist temple compounds, shamansʼ houses or at the ceremonial grounds of shamanic ritual.

CAVEAT If youʼ re really looking for Sanshin in Korea, particularly Tangun, choose carefully whom you tell. The three “Cs” which have been dominating the political and social order north and south -- Confucianism, Christianity and Communism -- donʼ t want anyone to find him, his being the national ancestor with all implications that this powerful identity implies. And given the state of the world, you shouldn’t be to surprised to know that Tangun has been spotted outside Korea.