Tools For Transformation
Workshop Series

In these workshops, artists and non-artists journey to the center of their own creative source and, using a variety of media and techniques, develop personal objects that will be permanent reminders of their discoveries to take with them out into the world.

The philosopher Heidiger stated that “A person is not a thing or a process, but is an opening through which the absolute can manifest.” Each one of us is an original opening, or gateway, through which the absolute can manifest. Native Americans say each of us is “Original Medicine”. The Japanese say we are a walking star on a giant star. And when we act upon that authentic wisdom we have, the world is changed.

Each workshop will involve part meditation, part storytelling, part exercise in paper and clay. Media will include: canvas, willow, hardening medium, wools, cordage, paint, beads and fetishes, sand, paper clay, rattan, waxed linen, stones, and more. Techniques will include lashing, skinning over, laminating, stitching, sculpting clay, wickerwork, twining. There will also be a sharing discussion on the symbology of embellishments.

Participants can choose one or all of the following workshops:

The Medicine Shield
In times past, from the knights of the Round Table to Native Americans and other people in the world, shields gave protection in battle. Many times they performed an additional or even a different service: they made a personal statement about the maker. Decorated with symbols, dreams, animal guides, maps, or other things of personal importance, the shields would be placed outside the maker’s lodge as a way of describing them.

The Secret Shields of the Women of the moon lodge spoke on an intuitive level of a woman’s talents and inner strengths. These shields were never shown to the outside world, since each one represented the sacred inner space of its maker. Each woman revealed her inner self to her sisters in complete trust, but never showed her total face to the outer world. This was to protect her creative force.

Today, the Medicine Shield can be all of the above. It is an expression of the unique gifts about you on your current life journey. It can speak of a new level in personal growth, or it can illustrate the next mountain you wish to climb. Or an important incident--a turning point--in your life can be illustrated symbolically.

Blessing Sticks, or Personal Mapping Sticks
Prayers have been sent up and out to the universe for thousands of years by people the world over. From Catholic rosaries to Buddist Thangkas to the Prayer Flags of India and Tibet, from the Gratitude hoops of Africa, to icons, ceremonial circles and personal statues of ancient Europe, to willow wands and tree people of the Celtic people to Prayer sticks of Aborigines, North and South American Indians, and many others, including our own ancestors, people seek their own ways to send prayers to the universe and to map their lives.
In this workshop, students will choose their own shapes and sizes for blessing sticks and decorate them with a variety of media.

Portable Medicine Wheels
The ways in which a cross-cultural Medicine Wheel can bring us back to wholeness will be presented in the first half of the workshop, which will begin with a Medicine Wheel ceremony. Then students will make their own portable Medicine Wheel kits, to include: painting and decorating stones they have brought , making a small prayer stick or prayer arrow, making tobacco ties, and more.

Tiponi
This adaptation of a Hopi tradition will help measure your progress through life by calling in more power as you construct two Tiponi, or spirit containers. In one, you will honor your past achievements; in the second, you will set down your dreams--making the unreachable stars reachable. Instructions will be included for conducting a personal Tiponi ceremony at home.

Masks of Power
These masks are made to assist the wearer cross over false barriers to face a time of truth, whatever that may be in their lives. Casts will be made of their own faces on one day. On the next, the faces will be painted and embellished with personal symbols and “hair” and other media will be added. The masks will then be ready to be worn during a journey of discovery or vision quest or to hang in a sacred place as a reminder of one’s personal truth and power.

Miniature Pouches
A pouch serves as a constant reminder of one’s spiritual journeyings even while you are enmeshed in the everyday world. Students will construct a twined pouch, to be finished at home. There will be a discussion of spirit bags, what goes in them, and when they are worn.

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