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