Redamorphed

Redamorphed from Mano Sipowicz on Vimeo.

performed by
Danielle Louise Reddick & Mano Sipowicz
film & editing by Mano
special thanks to Bett Williams and her arroyo in New Mexico

Redamorphed is part of RED, a series of improvisational collaborations by the Painted Ladies - Danielle Louise Reddick
Mano Sipowicz
Michelle Vest
Saschia Ryder

Red Within Me

 




to see the full set go HERE

There is something about painting myself red that is so stimulating for me. 
The Painted Ladies painted ourselves red for the first time back in August.  We moved in the tall green grasses at one of the most Northern parts of the Santa Fe River.  I was so buzzed after that I needed to go back out and play some more.  I ended up back at the river again but further down stream.  I ran around like a maniac while I took pictures of myself.
It was that first day with the painted ladies, I was rolled up in a ball under a tree and I just had a strong sense of the red ball that lives inside of me; my very creative source that is fiery and yet round.  There have been times working with this color that I have felt almost over stimulated, it is a very humbling sensation to be tapped into.  And I am not always sure I am so good at productively channeling it, there are times it has ended up being channeled into neurotically facebooking.
Fear runs along side my red.  I feel like when I touch red I am touching something within me that has been forbidden, it seems a bit like a Pandora’s box, and then you put in the mix red of others and well a whole lot of potential lives there.  I have this assumption that red demands a kind of strength, like being able to ride a wild horse and I’m not sure I have the skills yet to fully take that on.  And yet dancing around the edges of a storm can actually be the most dangerous place to be.
Red demands that I show up with all of my capacity.  Do other colors do that, hmm, we will see.
Looking at these photos again, i think that day i was the wild horse with out a rider.

Friends Gone Red In the River

to see the full set go HERE

RED is a collaberation of the Painted Ladies,

in these photos

Danielle Louise Reddick

Mano Sipowicz

Michelle Vest

These shots were taken on the same day as the video “In The Valleys”, you can see HERE

While all these photos where taken by myself, we all went out with cameras that day.

It has been healing for me to be my own documenter.  To participate while I observe so I am not just objectifying.  And to take back that power of the eye, the one observing and communicating. If you have read my blog you know that I have identified in the past with being the silent dancer or the pretty girl that has nothing to say, the one who is only to be looked at but not talked with.  My being labeled as having a learning disability back in the fourth grade did not help with this idea that all I had to offer was my beauty there was nothing else of value in this person but my body.

This day out in the Santa Fe River felt like perhaps how it can be amongst women friends, a celebration of our beauty, our love for each other and ourselves. 

It is thrilling for me to see the shots where we catch each other photographing ourselves.  There is a way that this is a red act in itself.  Capturing women taking pleasure with each other with out the presence of a man.   So often this is seen as vanity or perverse, and here I hope others can feel what I felt that day, beauty that is felt from deep within, a celebration of beauty that then becomes sacred and shared between women rather than coveted or even hidden.  When I hold the camera I reclaim beauties value in this world. 

Radical Fairies

I did a search on Radical Fairies and came across this web sight http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~religion/newifo/religions/alternative/index/faeries/essay1.shtml there you can find some history of the Radical Fairy movement in the 70's and 80's, supposedly it started here in New Mexico, hmm.  

While this article is focused on gay fairies, i have met recent ones and they are not always gay, but yes very pagan.

The following poem was also on this web page by gay author Michael Rumaker, i like this very much!

"The Fairies Are Dancing All Over the World"

The fairies are dancing all over the world
In the dreams of the President
they are dancing
although he dares not mention this at his cabinet meetings
In the baby blood of the brand new
they are dancing O most rapturously
and over the graves of the fathers and mothers
who are dead
and around the heads of the fathers and mothers who are not dead
in celebration of the sons and daughters
they've given the earth
The fairies are dancing in the paws and the muzzles
of dogs larking in the broad field next to the church
The fairies have always danced in the blood of the untamed
in the muscular horned goat
and in the shining snake
in the blood of Henry Thoreau
and most certainly Emily Dickinson
And they skip in the blood of the marine recruit
in his barracks at night
his bones aching with fatigue and loneliness
and pure dreams of women
and his good buddy in the next bunk
They are most lovely in the eyes of the black kid
trucking in front of the jukebox
at the local pizzeria,
more timorous in the eyes of his white friend
whose hips are a little bit more calcified
with hereditary denunciation of the fairies
May the fairies swivel his hips
On sap green evenings in early summer
the fairies danced under the moon in country places
danced among native american teepees
and hung in the rough hair of buffalos racing across the prairies
and are dancing still
most hidden
and everywhere
In some, only in the eyes
in others a reach of the arm
a sudden yelp of joy
reveals their presence The fairies are dancing from coast to coast
all over dead middle America
they're bumping and grinding on the Kremlin walls
the tap of their feet is eroding all the walls
all over the world as they dance
In the way of the western world
the fairies' dance has become small
a bleating, crabbed jerkiness
but there for all that, a bit of healthy green in the dead wood
that spreads an invisible green fire
around and around the globe
encircling it in its dance
of intimacy with the secret of all living things
The fairies are dancing in even the Pope's nose
and in the heart of the most stubborn macho
who will not and will not
and the fairies will
most insistently
because he will not
In the Pentagon the fairies are dancing
under the scrambled egg hats
of those who see no reason why youths should live to old age
The fairies bide their time and wait
They dance in invisible circlets of joy
around and around and over the planet
They are the green rings unseen by spaceships
their breath is the earth of the first spring evening
They explode in the black buds of deadwood winter
Welcome them with open arms
They are allies courting in the bloodstreams
welcome them and dance with them

Walking in the river for my dad's healing

Last Sunday I entered the Santa Fe River with the intention to walk for my dad’s health.  He has prostrate cancer and will be getting radiation treatments.  Earlier in the day it came to me to make a healing wand for him using this piece of wood I’ve had for probably fifteen years.  This wood has a kind of face on it and branches like arms that can hold things.  For a long time this branch held for me a baby I had carved out of wood.

I figured maybe I would find a heart rock for it in the river.  My x is Native American and years ago she had taught me about entering nature to “find medicine” for healing.  It has been a very long time since I have done this practice consciously even though my walks in the river have probably been influenced by this old practice.

It was more like walking with my dad; I invited his presence to be with me and imagined how much he would enjoy being there.  After only walking for a bit I said out load with focus, “dad” and immediately saw out of the corner of my eye something on the ground.  There was something black and round sticking out of the rocks, I unburied it and discover a small mirror.  I have never found one of these in the river before; this was very exciting. I was not expecting to put a mirror in the arms of this wand!  It fit perfectly!

Now after a few days have past I am doubting the find of this mirror because it’s cracked.  I know all the usual metaphors for a cracked mirror and I don’t like them and certainly don’t want to wish bad luck on my dad or an inability for him to see himself clearly.

But it just seems to me when creating magic some times things are upside down and in that is the transformation.  Anyways, it is my experience in life that I actually see my true self better when things are broken and falling apart not when things are shiny perfect – too easy then for illusions to exist.  I’m ok with not always understanding the why of something, nature usually knows best.  And, I am open to hearing other ideas about this.

Here is all that I found on the walk

There has already been a cold spell here so there aren’t many flowers still out.  So when I came across this one it stood out to me as if it was saying, “Hello, come admire me.”  I haven’t been able to identify this plant yet but am curious if it has any healing properties.

After walking for nearly an hour, I was determined for this to be a long walk today; I spotted a bright green grasshopper in the sand.  I’ve seen these before in New Mexico but not yet in the river.  It was very still and I assumed it was dead.  I moved my hand close to it and it kind of leaned into it. “No, it was alive.”  In fact I realized it was laying eggs, its tail deeply buried in the sand.  I don’t know why I do things sometimes, there’s not usually a real conscious thought out process, this was one of those incidents.  It was as if I was playing like a child.  I lay down next to the grasshopper and asked it, “will you bless my dad’s healing wand please?”  And I put the wand down with the mirror facing the grasshopper.  It just felt right.  Then I remembered I had my camera and how cool to be able to share photos of this grasshopper with my dad as well.

After coming home I looked on line for the symbolic meaning of grasshopper and it actually feels appropriate, good luck (counter act the bad luck of the mirror), new beginnings, longevity, good health, fertility, good news…  well now all that is in the mirror for my dad, perfect.

Here's a video of a grasshopper laying eggs, mine wasn't doing all that pulsing movement, it really looked dead.

This was the first time walking in the river that it has gotten dark before I got home.  I took the following photos of the sun just barely showing threw the path of the riverbed and trees.

As i took these shots i heard the words "rise up dad, rise up"

to see the all the photos from this walk go HERE

I don’t know really why, but since finding out my dad has prostrate cancer I’ve been thinking a lot about how my dad is so beautifully feminine.

Actually I sometimes weep with a deep sense of knowing and gratitude that I get my goddess wisdom and love for the feminine from him.
I talked to him a bit about it, I’m never sure over the phone how much he understands me because of his hearing aid, but I think he got it.  I told him that I sometimes wonder if he was born in a different age if he would have been a radical fairy.  I described to him how they meet out on the land together.  He said, “well sometimes I have felt jealous of gay men, that they can dress so freely.”  I explained that in this new generation a man doesn’t have to be gay to dress like a fairy.  He seemed to really like this and went on to talk about growing up and how there was just one way to dress as a man.  He grew up in Chicago’s Polish town, his parent’s Lithuanian immigrants.  It was a big deal for my dad to enter the field of psychology.  My mom’s father used to harass him for being in a sissy profession.  And my mom told me that part of the reason she was originally attracted to my dad was because he wasn’t like her own father, that my dad was soft and gentle.  But ultimately she said as she aged she wanted more of a man for her husband.  They divorced when I was twelve.
There are times when I have felt that my masculine self is more feminine than my feminine self and that my feminine self is more masculine. 
This can create some confusion.  But recently I’m starting to appreciate this internal “freakishness.”  And I even brought it up to my dad because we started to talk about the masculine feminine thing and was there any connection to what was going on with his prostrate.  He expressed how he sometimes feels like he is too feminine and can’t access his male self.  I appreciate this, I have felt this myself as a wanting access to more of myself.  And I have also gotten really down on myself about it like my father was in this conversation and like our culture has taught us to believe that somehow we are “out of balance and sick.”  But in that moment talking to my dad some new wisdom came to me and I know now I was not just talking to him but also myself.  I told him that perhaps the cancer is not from needing to balance your masculine and feminine self, maybe you’re actually the balanced one and the rest of the world is out of balance.  Maybe the cancer is here to tell you to celebrate your balance of masculine and feminine, rejoice in all that you are!  There’s that broken mirror talking threw me.

I don’t think it is just a coincidence that I have recently started to let my masculine self show itself to others, well, even to myself.  Along with all this feminine energy in my early childhood came a kind of repression of all things masculine.  So ultimately denying that masculine within my own self, and he was there and he did go into hiding.  So it has been a bit frightening to reveal him to myself.  And like my father this inner masculine self has its own unique expression of what it means to be masculine.  It seems to be more like a line with masculinity on one end and femininity on the other.  And it seems my masculine self is probably just over the middle line towards the masculine side, probably the same for my feminine self, just over the middle line but on the feminine side (but not yet ready to reveal this closeness to the masculine).
Whew I’m getting tired of using those two words, is any one else tired?  It still feels a bit confusing.  And may I say it can also be confusing in the arena of dating, and especially after ten years of celibacy and five years later still confused about what I’m attracted to.  I’m guessing though, that the more I allow these truer expressions of myself to be felt and seen the less confusing it will be. 
“As I heal myself I heal all my ancestors ten generations in each direction” (each direction of that masculine feminine line also).  This is the medicine of the broken mirror, we are all connected and mirrors of each other and yet not each other but our own unique expression.

Found this heart rock on my walk with the Ditch Witch

curious about that little baby heart on the side...

I have entered the Santa Fe River again, and the River has Responded

Sucking Rock Finding Water from Mano Sipowicz on Vimeo.

It has been almost a month since I was at the ocean dancing (go HERE to see more about that).  Why did it happen this day, this last Sunday….  The night before had been Very Red on a club dance floor with a beautiful woman.  And Sunday itself, I had a movement warm up in Randy Millers “Soul Motion inspired class,” connected to breath again like I had at the ocean with the waves.  It was also a very emotional day, meaning lots of crying and confessions and feeling exposed.  By the afternoon I just new, I NEED TO CONNECT TO BLUE.  As I started to prepare, clouds gathered outside, as if nature herself was egging me on to come play; it had been perfectly sunny before that. 
A friend asked me later, “what is blue?” 
“Blue for me is the ocean and waters of the earth and sky.  I know oneness in blue, some would call that god.”  I had been longing to connect to that again and today was the day.

As I drove to a more secluded place in the Santa Fe River is started to drizzle as I have only ever experienced in Santa Fe.  It is the kind of rain that brings out rainbows, as if angels are crying soft tears to heal our open wounds.  If you blink you might miss it or think it was your own tear.  Sky of extreme colors; dark Shiva blue clouds next to the whitest white that one only encounters with god and then Virgin Mary blue sky filling it all in. 

Nature was responding to my longing or was I responding to her movements?

Moving in nature with a camera is a strange balance for me of authentic somatic movement with a strong visual witness presence.  Not quite the same as it was moving on the beach in California with no camera.  There, I spent a lot of time in restful movement, actively observing nature, taking it in with my whole bodies response.  But today it was easy to tap into that somatic remembrance.

I didn’t know this day, that it would actually be the somatic movement of sand that would help me to reconnect with blue water.  I had forgotten how much time I had spent being with the sand; watching it as it shifted down the side of a hill.  One pebble touched by wind, it would shift, and then another, and then a whole group tumbling after it, as if they did not want to be separated and yet not clinging.  As I watched this movement of the sand, my body could not help but to also move.  You will see in the video a kind of twitching movement, which is the sand shifting within me.  With out purpose I found that movement again on the side of the riverbed and that shifting in my body sent me to the ocean that lives in my own body.

And I am grateful for this day!

Three days later it rained a bit harder and I went out with my camera to capture sound and motion.

Last night it rained so hard that it snowed in the mountains and this morning the river flowed full and then down to a trickle at least till noon.  And in that trickle I walked with the Santa Fe “Ditch Witch.”   She is going to do a spell for me, for this creative adventure that started this summer when I quite teaching Nia because I was having three migraines a week, spent a month in migraine hell and slowly started to hear the whisper (with the help of my brother) within my own self, I’m an artist and then with some bashful giggles saying it out loud to others, “I’m an artist.”  It is this phrase that the ditch witch is blessing with my intentions, river findings, and her extraordinary wisdom of time being an artist herself Erika Wanenmacher.

To receive the blessings from this Santa Fe River, from this place, I must enter her with my whole self, with touch, breath and movement I offer my self to her in gratitude for the gift of her that is also me that is also the ocean that is also god.  As I gift her I gift myself, as I gift all those that have helped me to arrive at this moment!  Thank you !

Rock,   rock is just larger piece of sand.  This day I sucked on sand till I found water.  Isn’t there water in rock? 

Diversity Within My Own Self

These are all self portraits or as i like to say self play.  this used to be called Moods of Mano, but in honor of today's “LGBTQQIA Spirit day Wear purple in remembrance”  i have changed the name.  Acceptance of diversity in others begins with self acceptance, and this is my creative way to practice that, celebrating of all my different faces, desires, moods, selves.  To see the full set on flicker go HERE

Mr. Red has more to say

“And for those of you that are late bloomers in the freak department, it’s never too late to be all that you never thought was possible, be what you see in others and feel envious of, be what you project onto your spouse or lovers or god or goddesses. 
My self, I’ve been hiden in caves and under rocks for too long, I almost forgot I was human.  But I kept seen this woman walking threw the arroyo with eyes open as her heart, I couldn’t help but follow her one day.  And I saw her, dancen there with some other friends; they had painted themselves red, red like me!  Why would they make themselves look like that?  And they were celebraten, the color red, and laughen, laughing so hard I saw tears splash from their eyes.  And then I heard a sound I hadn’t heard since I was a child, giggle, I giggled.  A giggle from my own mouth.  Later that night, I came out with the moon and took off all my ragged brown baggy cloths.  I needed to see for myself, what was I hidden for so long?  Flesh, skin, bones, 10 toes, two hands & feet, ‘yup I’m human.’ And in that moment I new, bein human is all that is required, in fact that doesn’t even mean I need two hands & feet, but I sure am lucky to have them and I plan on usen them, want to touch everythin and everyone with them, yes my feet too. 
And I think this woman Mano, we’re gonna get along just fine.  She thinks the caves I’ve been hiden in are some kind of goddess temple.  To see her look at this dark danky place, oh my, her eyes glaze over and sparkle, she’ll walk right up to a big bolder I had found too hard and drape her body over it, just lie there breathen.  Sometimes I think if I’m quiet enough I might be able to hear what they’re sayen to each other, the bolder and her, I know their talken.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to see what she sees in those caves, but I sure did like her red lampshade, never seen such a beautiful thang.  Seemed like a perfect hat for my coming out photo shoot, my own little celebration.  Actually shared it with Mano, real nice to have someone to share with now.
And well that’s the point that I was trying to tell you.  You never do know who your going to meet in a dry arroyo, so get out there.  They don’t have to be wearen the same hat as you.  In fact they may like your hat more than you did and maybe you like theirs more than they do, why not trade, ha, a red hat for cave.  Seems like a good exchange to me.
Real kind of you to listen, appreciate it a lot.  Been a long time with out words so I might sometimes say to much, I apologies beforehand if it all gets too borin for you just get up and walk away, I wont be offended.  Have a good night now.  Heard something about a dance on Friday night, Mano and I might go together.  Don’t tell her though, I haven’t asked her yet.”

Mr. Red Photo Shoot

I met Mr. Red in the Santa Fe River.  He was shy at first.  But yesterday afternoon he showed up at my studio and wanted a photo shoot.  He said, "this is for all the teens out there that think that they are freaks and that there is no hope.  I want you to know there is a place in this world for you.  This world is upside down.  It is your very uniqueness that makes this world alive, beautiful, interesting.  Some day this very freakishness will be your asset.  Go ahead were a lamp shade if that's what tickles your fancy."









To see more of this photo shoot go to FLICKER

Spotted Mr. Red in the River Today

Looking for Mr. Red from Mano Sipowicz on Vimeo.

To see more about Mr. Red go HERE

Shadows of Mr. Red in the Santa Fe River - first sightings

Sept 12th 2010, to see more photos from this series go to FLICKER

How do I enter the river after being at the ocean? A metaphore for a lot more...

How do I enter the river after being at the ocean?
And not even really a river because it’s dry right now.
And it stinks in some places like someone’s septic tank is overflowing.
And there are mounds of garbage everywhere.

How did I ever see beauty here?

I want to lie in the sand here but I am distracted by the thought of some biting insect finding me so I don’t follow my impulse to rest there.

I go home and cry and wonder if I will ever feel the soul of the Santa Fe River again.  That riverbed that runs behind my house, it had been refuge and inspiration during this past summer.  It was like it had run threw my home and body and surcharged me with its energy force. 
Now I have come home after being away during the fall equinox, I didn’t get to go threw that transition with my earth here.  I feel separate from her.  I am feeling very fall feelings.  I feel like something has died inside of me.  I am afraid of this feeling of internal death because it has been with me for so much of my life already. 
I don’t understand coming home to this after feeling so alive and connected to ocean and creative source in California.  I remember telling ocean, sunset, rock, wind, sand, “you are here” as I touched my heart and belly tears trickling down my cheeks, “you come with me, I am not separate from you.”  And I thought it would be so.

Everything I have written above…(some part of me is frightened to say this)… I could replace the words…
River for partner, ocean for guru/god

I remember touching my guru’s heart and my own at the same time when it was time to leave her, crying and with a demanding tone to my voice I would say, “you come home with me here!”  And I thought it would be so.

How do I enter intimate love after being with Universal love?
How do I love my partner after knowing divine love with my guru?
How do I come home to this body after knowing home in Spirit?


I WANT TO KNOW!

I have failed at this before, these transitions…
I remember coming home after months of traveling with our guru, after months of being absorbed in her Shakti Love Vibration.
My partner and I, we didn’t know how to do it?  I would go numb and feel agitated by her humanness and mine.  All I could do was watch tv.  I died inside each time we separated from our guru, I also separated from my self and the one that I loved. 
This went on for over ten years.  (and there are other layers to this story)

It is because of this failure to love the one that I loved that I feel so stubborn now about knowing the ocean in the river, knowing beauty where it is hard to find beauty, knowing god in my self and in all those that I see. 
I feel stubborn about yelling at the angels to let me land, “Release your claws from my shoulders, I know longer want to be carried.  Release me here on this earth, let me love as a human loves and in that, and in that I become divine.”  I am not looking for angel’s wings, I am looking for my feet, and my feet dancing with other feet.
This is my practice, and right now the only way I know how to practice this is threw some creative expression, my art keeps me connected to my heart, my heart is my ocean of love.
I have experienced beauty & love in this river before; that is the truth I need to hold on to.
Now, river means my own self.

This is my river, The Santa Fe River New Mexico.  To see more photos go HERE

This last time i went out to the river, i was greeted by this lovely display of hearts right where i enter the river bed, felt like someone was purposely mending my heart. For more river heart rocks go HERE