About
To live a rich life, we have to be in contact with
our inner world
- Carl Jung
Annie Mathew-Patel
After many years of serpentine paths, I realize that the spiritual journey is always at Its beginning.
I believe in Art, Truth, Beauty with capital letters. The route this life has created included many winding roads, backtracks, detours and a giant step off of the beaten path - many times. Travels and Travails. But always with the Light at the end of the tunnel. Aiming to BE the Light in the dark tunnel.
I created this website as a space to honor both Art and Spirituality. A place to find the Vedic concept of Rasa (flavour or taste of the aesthetic experience) that cannot be put into words. I aim to connect the Earth to the Sky, Art to the Soul, the self to THE Self.
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American-born with South Asian ancestry, I also believe it is time to live more holistically connecting East and West, Inner and Outer, Left-Brain and Right-Brain and on and on... As above, so below.
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In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
Born on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi, educated on the shores of the Great Lake Michigan and finding refuge and retreat at the edge of the Ethereal Pacific Ocean, I have lived many lives.
Wearing many hats (quite a few witch's hats at Halloween!), some of my terrain has included life as a Fine Artist ( I'm rejuvenated after a good outdoor painting session), graduate work in Virtual Reality (at a place called the C.A.V.E. which I find very symbolic now), and a Research Assistantship in Artificial Intelligence (also a fascinating segue). However, a few jobs in art and technology found me quite burnt out and uninspired.
And then I revisited the world of tactile and service-oriented art as an Art Therapist with SE Asian refugees suffering from PTSD as well as touring Chicago Public Schools as a Visiting Art Instructor introducing the children to Art, Design, Sacred Geometry, and the spiritual and historical relevance of India through Art. I was getting closer to combining my interests and passions with a desire to somehow give something back to society. I found much satisfaction in these seva (service) vocations but at the same time I continued my education with constant esoteric studies, art workshops, spiritual retreats as well as certification in Reiki and Hypnotherapy.
I look back and find some pattern among the chaos. Throughout my life there has always been a strong love and passion for Art, Math, Astronomy,Mythology and most of all Spirituality. Of course that led to exploring Astrology and the marriage of technology/design with the deeper and more profound elements that can only be created by going deeply within.
With this background and collection of experiences, I created Sky Reflections. As you read more about them, you can see that it is a combination of the technical details that I adore - the mechanisms of time and space and the finely designed glyphs and symbols - with the more esoteric meanings of spirituality and our ever-expanding need to Know and understand ourselves and our Self.