Wednesday, June 20, 2007

A Thread - Water

Mask in Progress: "THE RIVER FACE"


(Imagining a narrative for some masks in progress inspired by the Pueblo People's Creatrix mythologies of Spider Woman, also called "Thought Woman")

Masks are mounted on sculptural stands. Dancer(s) are interacting with the masks, which can be removed from stands, and held on poles, or be worn on face.
 
There is a simple Loom on stage. Long threads extend in various ways from the Loom. 





Voice 1:

At the very very very very very
small quantum level
it gets strange, very strange indeed.

It seems that particles, the playful dust motes of eternity,
can be both solid, and not solid
particles, and waves,
form and not form
Depending upon where the observer is,
who the observer is,
and what the observer is thinking
or being thought

Form, it would seem, has an identity crisis.

Voice 2:

Tse che nako the Weaver
Thought-Woman,
is sitting and thinking.

She thought about her two daughters
and together they created this world
and the four worlds below.

The spider, Thought-Woman,
named all things
and as she named them
they appeared. 
She is thinking of a story now
and the story I'm telling you
she is thinking
as I'm telling you


Voice 1:

Water, Dr. Masuru Emoto discovered,
Is talking to us all the time.
We can learn to listen,  he said,
by freezing water, and watching what happens.

"Water", he wrote, "exposed to the words "thankyou" formed beautiful geometric crystals, no matter what language. But water exposed to "you fool" and other degrading words resulted in broken and deformed crystals."

What's a word, but a crystallization of a thought?

Last night I wrote "thankyou" on my water bottle
with a magic marker. I am drinking gratitude now.

 (and snowflakes are dancing in the windows of my mind)

Voice 2:

Tsityostinako (sit-yost-tin-nako) the Spider
was called "thought woman" by Pueblo people
because her thoughts are always
becoming something.

From the four-pointed circle at the center of Her Web
Tse Che Nako is singing the world into being.
"Your father", she told her daughters,
"lives in the Sky," and then she taught her daughters how to sing.

"Here's a basket for each of you", she said,
"filled with seeds, and little pictures of animals.
Go plant what's in each basket
at the four quarters of the world, and
everywhere in between."

And that's how her granddaughters the Yellow Women
were born, 
and corn and mesquite and coyotes,
and that's how Sun Youth,
and Spiderwoman's grandsons,
and ravens, and wrens,
and eagles and mice
and how all this world
become populated.

Voice 1:

Grandmother Spider can be so small,
like a spider, and very difficult to see.
Each strand is so transparent
so invisible, you'll never see it
unless you look
in a certain way.

So small, and yet She is everywhere
always there, maybe, whispering in the wind,
on your shoulder, now, as you ask,
always there,
to help her grandchildren.

She is sitting in her room now,
thinking,
thinking about this story
I'm telling you.




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