Wednesday, March 30, 2011

THIS PERFORMANCE

· Who is honored? It is a way for us to honor the person from the society who has died while simultaneously drawing attention to the coming of the spring and growing season

·         Who are the players? Women of all ages. 
·         How are they dressed? To be determined (?) … gold/earth tone outfits with gold/metallic/mirror accessories. Each woman wears a headdress made of mirrors with the length and amount of mirrors corresponding to the woman’s age
·         What is the intent of this performance? to honor the deceased member of the society and show her becoming one again with the elements. It also provides an opportunity for the younger members of the culture to learn how to make the seed bombs that are used in the ceremony

5 comments:

  1. I think this is all the information? Let me know what I need to change/ if there is something wrong :)

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  2. I didn't realize we were honoring the dead? I thought it was a celebration of the planting season and that we were encouraging fertility and growth in our harvest....

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  3. Yeah, she's not dead... yet. I think what Rachel was talking about was a "rebirthing", a metaphysical rebirthing, I suppose, into a light form, and that we do this "rebirthing" to the oldest (and therefore wisest and closest to a personification of light) person. It's like Teyyam, I guess, where you have a person being a god. Since we find light so significant, we incorporate that into our ceremony by having a personification of light at our ceremony.

    We are recognizing the importance of light and celebrating the start of the beginning of the planting season by making seed bombs (or, dancing around pretending to make seed bombs). This is what I got at least from our meeting, :).

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  4. Rebecca: I like that interpretation of the re-birthing process. I was a little confused about that would work, but I think the Teyyam like ceremony sounds good.

    Other than that, everything looks great!

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  5. Is this a little closer to what everyone was thinking? I tweeked it a little. let me know!


    • Who is honored? It is a way for us to honor the person from the society who has died while simultaneously drawing attention to the coming of the spring and growing season. The heart of the ceremony though is based on the concept that the deceased is not actually dead, she is simply transforming into an alternate form of energy.
    • Who are the players? Women of all ages.
    • How are they dressed? To be determined (?) … gold/earth tone outfits with gold/metallic/mirror accessories. Each woman wears a headdress made of mirrors with the length and amount of mirrors corresponding to the woman’s age
    • What is the intent of this performance? to honor the deceased member of the society and show her becoming one again with the elements. It also provides an opportunity for the younger members of the culture to learn how to make the seed bombs that are used in the ceremony. In the eyes of the society, the woman being honored has not died; she is simply going through a process of transformation. Her spirit is going from being contained within her human form, to growing with the plants, and eventually it becomes a light source. The community does not view the death of one of their members as a loss, or even really as a death. They view it as a total rebirthing; the spirit of the woman transforming from its humanly form, into a more earthly form, before finally becoming its most natural state (light).

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