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Across time and culture, masks have served to imbue power, transform identity, and connect people with each other and with their sense of the divine and the spiritual. The shaman uses a mask to communicate with or take on the identity of an animal spirit or helping spirit. During a performance, a shaman would seek the help of or take the identity of the spirit — sometimes changing identities several times throughout by changing masks. In communal ritual, masks are used as part of a broader social function to achieve a benefit for the group. Masks are also an important aspect of storytelling, whether an oral tradition or a theatrical performance. For many cultures, these uses are fluid and intermingled.

The “Rainbow Man” mask featured in this post is a shamanic mask that I crafted twenty years ago. I wear it when holding ecstatic body postures. Specific body postures reappear in the art and artifacts of world cultures, even those widely separated by time and distance. Anthropologists discovered that people who assume these yoga-like postures report strikingly similar trance experiences. The first time I tried a trance posture, I got a clear image in my mind of how I should craft a mask of my face, paint it, and use it in my shamanic work. Wearing the mask enhances my trance experiences.

Shamanic mask making is a very ancient art of bringing out your inner or spirit self and embodying it into a mask form. Crafting a spirit mask of your face can be a very empowering process — one that enables you to see into the deeper realms of the self. The process reconnects you with your deepest core values and your highest vision of who you are and why you are here. Summoning the energy of the true self, you then channel your discoveries into painting and adorning your mask of personal transformation.