The Grass Dance Spirit Series: Perceiving Sacred Clearing and Harmony
Updated: Oct 7
When a longtime friend fell in love with one of the first iridescent paintings on black paper, he shared that it felt like grass dancing energy. This opened a door to an entire exploration of this sacred tradition. We dive into the Grass Dance Spirit series: iridescent work on black watercolor paper, sharing the lines, forms and energy of grass dancing which symbolizes clearing negativity, bringing harmony, and preparing sacred space. Meet the longtime friend who sparked this journey and the wellness coach who lives with these pieces daily.
I work intuitively, and sometimes a friend's perception and vision opens a door that emerges organically and subconsciously, and leads me to new exploration and growth. When Chip named the grass dance energy he felt in one of my early iridescent paintings on black watercolor paper, something shifted. I began researching this sacred and ancient tradition, understanding its profound spiritual significance. The grass dance is one of the oldest dances in Native American culture, performed by Plains Indians as both a practical and ceremonial act. Dancers trampled grass to prepare sacred ground, to bless the earth, to clear space for healing and gathering.
But beyond the physical act, grass dance carries deep spiritual meaning. It symbolizes clearing away negativity, bringing harmony, and preparing sacred space for healing, both individual and community. Each movement is a prayer. Each step is a blessing. The dancers move with the grass in the wind, fluid and grounded, resilient, never breaking, always bending with grace. The elaborate ribbons, fringe, and multi-colored adornments of the grass dance regalia sway and billow with every motion, each strand becoming a blade of grass dancing in the breeze. The dancer and the regalia become one unified expression of wind and earth, color and movement, sacred clearing.
The choice to work on black watercolor paper became essential. The darkness creates contrast for the iridescent watercolors and mixed media, the golds, ambers, crimsons, teals, and purples shimmer and glow against the void. Light emerging from darkness. Energy made visible. Clearing made tangible.
From Chip:
"I think of the dancer as an intermediary between Father Sky and Mother Earth and the dance as our relationship with and lived experience between them. Helps me to feel both free and grounded simultaneously. The dancer treads lightly, purposefully and respectfully on the face of the Mother as though suspended from the Sky. Like the dancers are weaving space. When I experience it I feel secure in uncertainty and have faith that Mother and Father have 'got this.' It reminds me that we, in our multiple combinations of masculine and feminine are in the right place at the right time. Relax, pay attention, share love and respect. DANCE! Stay in the dance."
When Chip shared these words, he planted the seed for learning about this deep symbolic dance, which has evolved into this entire series. He saw and felt the energy in these pieces, how they could hold that prayer, that blessing, that sacred clearing of space. His observation wasn't just aesthetic. It was spiritual recognition and a message to me.
From Angela:
"Grass Dance Spirit was the piece I loved the moment I saw it. What first drew me in were the colors: predominant blues and subtle purples, colors that have always felt like a part of who I am. Then I fell deeper into the subtle rainbow woven through with the gold arch, softly shimmering against the dark. The flow drew me even further in.
For me, it was a visual of life: patterns and asymmetry that have their own kind of beauty, coming together into something that makes total sense, exactly as it should be, even when it wasn't in our plan. A reminder that life gives us everything. That letting life unfold and trusting it can be even better than what we envision for ourselves next.
What moves me most is feeling Jessica's voice woven through it. This is clearly a piece of how she sees and speaks to the world, and that connection makes me treasure both the artist and the artwork."
Angela hangs her print in her wellness and health coaching space, a room dedicated to helping others clear, heal, and transform. She understands that this work does more than decorate. It clears. It blesses. It prepares sacred space for the healing work she does.
As the series has evolved, new pieces have emerged. Grass Dance Spirit Woman honors an important evolution within the tradition itself, historically performed by men within Plains warrior societies, now increasingly embraced by women as well, carrying the same earth-honoring spirit into a new generation.
This piece brings the ceremonial energy into full embodiment. Grass dancing has historically been a male dance within Plains warrior societies, but more recently, women have embraced this sacred tradition as well. A woman dancer, arms flung wide, caught at the peak of motion, her entire being radiating the sweeping, fringed energy of grass dance. At the center, a face emerges, an expression of total surrender to the movement.
If you are creating a space, whether home or work, which evokes clearing, healing, wellness, or spiritual practice, the Grass Dance Spirit series speaks directly to you. These pieces don't just hang on a wall. They bless the space. They prepare sacred ground. They remind everyone who enters that this is a place where negativity is cleared, harmony is cultivated, and healing is possible.
The series currently includes Grass Dance Spirit and Grass Dance Spirit Woman, with more to come. Each is available as a signed, limited edition iridescent giclee print on luminescent paper, in multiple sizes.
Visit beyondtheyeart.com to explore the full series and SHOP this series and other signed, limited-edition fine art prints.
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