The Seeker as Weaver
Approaching Religion December 2, 2025 Rachel Denniston
The essay argues that seekers at the crossroads of esotericism and modern art operate as relational weavers, connecting visible and invisible, material and immaterial, self and other, public and private, and past, present, and future. It proposes a feminine praxis of seekership that merges recent scholarship on seekership with feminist theory, focusing on the social and psychic dimensions of relationality. Using the American artist Paulina Peavy (1901–1999) as a case study, it shows how her art-making and curating were guided toward collective social and spiritual change, resisting the lone visionary trope and instead highlighting her psychic and social networks as productive spaces for her praxis.