Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kelly Curran. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Kelly, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
A few years ago I had a series of dreams about a Native American turquoise beaded sash. In the first dream I could see the sash but it was cloudy. In the second dream the sash was close to me and more clear. By the third dream I could see the sash under a glass case in an antique shop. Then one day on the way home from work I felt guided to stop at an antique shop. As I walked in I immediately got chills. I walked right to a glass case and under the case was the exact beaded turquoise sash from my dreams. I ended up doing an art installation at the Art Association of Harrisburg, in PA, that was curated by my best friend Rachel O Connor based off this piece.
There are 35 symbols on this sash, each tell a story of their own but together they tell one whole story. It’s a very old piece and was made for a bridal commitment ceremony. An elder in the tribe would spend time creating a beaded sash, infusing every symbol with love and intention and would usually sing over it. The sash as a whole symbolized the spiritual path. It would then be given to the bride to wear and was a very important gift as it guides the new couple on their journey towards a ‘good life.’ There are so many symbolic meanings here; UNION, oneness, co-creation, the spiritual path and the journey home. The Path is the great I AM of life. I felt so strongly that this sash was made for me by someone many lifetimes ago and that this sash not only told my story but the story of the spiritual path as a whole that every person could relate to. I also learned that this sash was the key to open the door for a new series of art for me. These symbols were inspiring a whole new piece of art, this installation! This is why the sash found me when it did, to serve as a major tool for a new series of art.
The symbols are seen as a testament that the larger essence of life imbues all things. They act as a language that bring concepts to mind that surpass words. Native Americans believed that all things are saturated with sacred energy, and that the object on which the symbol is depicted is spiritually charged. The symbols carried secret messages, some precise and others vague to convey knowledge layered with meaning and artistic expression. The symbols act as a universal guide to lead a good life.
I viewed the installation as the spiritual path, the great mystery, where one emerges into the light and takes a journey of their own. As people entered the room and walked around the perimeter they saw glass symbols, paintings, wood elements, and larger glass pieces all interspersed and infused with light and color. The symbols act as guides along the path. Power animals or plant spirit helpers empower a person with the traits of that plant or animal. Spirit guides protect and provide insights to problems one may be experiencing. Eventually you will reach the point where you entered the room and are back where you started. The great circle. There is a larger wood symbol in the center of the room with a circular mirror in the center. The symbol represents the Eye of God. I hoped people would look into the Eye, see themselves, and say, ‘I see you!’ Because what they will see is their own reflection staring back. And to my surprise it was the children that saw this show that did just that! The purpose of taking a journey is to attain guidance and knowledge from the spirit world and bring it back to earth. And that is what I wanted to convey through this installation.
This show helped me to organize my own spiritual experiences and look back on the whole of my life thus far and see that i’ve always been connected to some magical thread of light thats been guiding me. It’s never once led me astray and i’ve received so many signs on my own path. I quickly realized that I was walking my own spiritual path all the while working on this art show about the path. Making these symbols helped me to see how art can act as a portal to transport us to the deeper realms within so we can see more clearly what it is we need to see. In a way it was a remembering and a bringing forth what I remembered.
This art installation and the sash itself continue to inspire me to this day!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a visionary artist and a reiki healer. Ive always been an artist and from what I came to learn, I’ve always been a healer. As a child I remember being very connected and I also remember tuning much of that out in my teens like most sensitives do. Much to my surprise my healing gifts opened back up around the time I was 20. I came home from college to take care of my dad who was battling cancer. One day when I was with my dad I heard a voice that was not my own guide me to place my hands on him and to allow healing to come through. In that moment I re connected to my purpose and when I placed my hands on him I could feel the healing coming through. It was like having a light come on in a dark room. Ive since called this voice my angel of light. Although it was at the end of my dads life, we were able to have many meaningful moments before he passed, which as destiny would have it, was on my 20th birthday. Within a few weeks he started coming through in dreams and we’ve continued our bond ever since.
It was during this time I wanted to discover more about this healing work and that led me to receiving reiki sessions. I started seeing my now dear friend and teacher Rickie Freedman and her experience and classes opened me back up to my gifts and over the course of 10 years I became a reiki master myself!
It wasn’t until I discovered meditation that the visuals started pouring in and I really started to develop my intuition. I began to channel spiritual information during these meditation sessions and the visuals I receive I use for my own personal healing, inspiration for paintings, as well as helpful guidance for my clients. I realized during the past four years that how I learned to heal myself would be what I would come to offer my clients. During this time my art work also really flourished into spiritual work and my reiki practice shifted as well. The messages from spirit became the icing on the cake!
I currently offer Reiki sessions and sell my art and prints online!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Some may call this a Near Death Experience but either way, it changed my life. When I was in active labor with my daughter my dear friend who happens to be a medium reached out to me via text (she was tuning in to me) and told me “if you find yourself in any trouble, ask Mother Mary to intercede on your behalf.” After my daughter was born they discovered I was dealing with a retained placenta which meant my placenta was attached to my uterine wall. This caused me to hemorrhage and essentially start to bleed out. I was immediately rushed into emergency surgery that lasted close to 4 hours.
It was during this time they began to wheel me into the emergency room that I literally threw out a hail Mary. I remembered what my friend had told me and said with the highest intention, Mother Mary, please intercede on my behalf. And the next thing I remember is being in the emergency room and looking up three feet to my right above my head and seeing Mother Mary, my dad, a Native American spirit guide and two of my guardian angels. Mother Mary was stoic but also very compassionate. She was watching over me and felt very protective. She stood next to my dad and allowed him to do the talking. My dad began to tell me to focus on them. They appeared as if standing on a cloud all together. So I focused all of my energy on them. My dad then began to speak sentences and immediately following his sentence, the doctor doing the surgery would speak verbatim what my dad had just said. This went on for many moments. I had no concept of time.
Next thing I know I pop out of my body and become one with God. I was absorbed by God. My first thought was, ‘God, you DO exist!!’ with out my body I felt great!! I still had the same personality but with out all the baggage, with out all the STUFF. I felt humor and joy and love and an overwhelming sense of peace. It was the first moment of my life I truly surrendered to God, and it took leaving my body to do so! I fully trusted in God and knew God has my back and loves me unconditionally. All my life I felt distant from God, almost abandoned by God, but now I knew the truth. We are never abandoned by God. We are God and God is us. God was not a man or a woman. God is. And God allows us to have choices and free will and never judges us.
I then began to thank God for my life. There was no thinking – about anything, I just experienced the moment and my being responded in accordance to the present moment. And in the presence I felt thankful. I thanked God for being an artist and allowing me to take care of my Dad and I then said that if bringing my daughter into this life was the last thing I did that I was at peace because bringing her into this world was the greatest gift I could have allowed to come through me. There was no sadness at any of this. I was completely surrendered, completely at peace.
Then God showed me my path in life. I essentially had two parts split in the middle (it appeared that I was in the middle during this experience; this experience I came to call my grand re set) God said, you’ve done this first part which consisted of developing the art. God then said, the second part you have yet to do, it deals with healing. It is available to you if you choose to go back. (I found that part to be really interesting and there was no judgement if I choose to stay or return but the feeling was that God had laid out a whole second part to my life and it felt exciting to feel into the second part)
Then God said, are you at peace with everyone?
Immediately a line of people, 1000’s of people lined up. From a man I saw once on the street to every person id ever met or made eye contact with. (I now believe this is because we are all connected) and the line moved really fast, beyond fast. I didn’t have any ill will towards anyone or any karma that needed to be cleaned up. But the line slowed down as it got close to the people I see on a regular basis, my husband, my daughter, etc.
When the line got to my husband I was shown his future if I choose to stay in heaven. I saw that he would have a difficult two years but that he would be the most amazing dad and eventually he would move on with his life and experience joy again. From that perspective I only wanted him to be happy and I only wanted the absolute best for him, there was no judgment.
Then time stopped as I got to my daughter, my light, who had just been born. I had spent a moment with her on my chest – that was all. A moment is all we needed. We made an instant connection, she even placed her hand on my chin as if to fit us together like a perfect puzzle piece. I saw that her life would be difficult in her twenties if I were to choose to stay in heaven, she wouldn’t understand the situation and blame herself. It wouldn’t be the truth but it would have been what she believed. This is when I saw that my decision would have a great impact on her, and it was my choice.
I then pictured myself holding her hand as she grew up and saw us holding hands all throughout her life. I saw her as a toddler, youth, young adult and I was right there next to her holding her hand, being a guide, being an earthy witness to her journey, being right there with her. I saw that we had an amazing connection, full of love and laughter and play! In that moment, a primal divine feminine energy- came from outside of me and welled up into my being, it felt like my own inner warrior, and I heard myself say, “I am Poppy’s Mom. I choose to stay.”
In that moment, I popped back into my body.
An interesting thing happened. I felt all the pain again from being in surgery and I knew I was going to be sick. I said out loud “I am going to throw up!” The doctor said, ” you shouldn’t have to throw up”. I thought that was a very odd thing to say. Since I was laying flat I needed help to move my body upwards and once I sat up I began to violently throw up. ( I now believe that this further validates my experience of being out of body because it seems to be the jolt back into my body that made me sick)
After this whole ordeal was over I was able to hold my daughter again.
This was only the beginning of my healing journey. In many ways I am still working to heal my nervous system and body from this trauma. It took me a long time to process what happened. I did many paintings about this experience but it took years to process and move through.
As hard as this experience was, and as hard as I’ve been working to become healthy again, I believe it came as my great re-set. I re established my connection to God and the spirit world. I knew I had a whole new part of my life to open up and that took years of sitting in meditation to discover. But what happened was, I found my faith again, my trust in life and trust in myself. My spiritual gifts opened back up one by one and I started my healing journey. I realized that the same way my guides were helping me to heal me was the exact same healing I would come to offer to others. I now connect to my guides every time I do reiki and channel information from the spiritual world. My guides send me signs and symbols and I simply say what I see. This work is so exciting to me and I get to connect to my dad and other ancestors in such a beautiful way. The information they bring through has been inspiring and healing on many levels. Every day I get to sit with a client and do Reiki is a great day!
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I want to remind people of their goodness, both through my art and healing work! I want people to know there’s a whole world within and we can all tune in and that it is an honor to be here! I also want people to know that they are never alone and that God never abandons us.
I once had a dream where a great storm had come by and we all went into a large building and we each had our own safe rooms to rest for awhile. It was dark in there and we were all alone. But it was a time of great reflection and renewal. We learned about life. The storm passed and we all came out. But we all had a room in a house. Someone said- have you seen what so and so did with his room? We all went to look. This person had transformed his room into everything he loved. People came to see it and loved being in this room. The room was special because it was born of pure love. In that moment as I was contemplating his room I heard a loud booming voice say “break through the rules and time and establish everything” I woke up from the dream.
This dream speaks to us as a collective and also me personally and addresses the last few years of emerging from a cycle of life of going inward and bringing forth what is within. We all have a room to fill and we can choose what we fill it with. It filled me with great hope for the work I’m establishing and for what we all came here to do and be. We can’t forget how magical this life really is!
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