Pomo Dancer & Prayer for the Gulf

I was working on paintings for Sebastopol's first Pomo Honoring month during the weeks of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Even before I took time out to paint specifically a Prayer for the Gulf, my concern for the beings of the Gulf waters was spilling into my work.

In Dancer & Pelicans (acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18") I depict a young dancer sending healing energy to the Gulf, where the pelicans visibly benefit from the power of her dance.

Weeks later, when the spill had been capped & the painting was on exhibit at Sebastopol Gallery, the dancer saw this painting of herself. Tears came to her eyes as she told me that all summer she had been offering her dancing as prayer for the Gulf: its waters, its creatures, its people. Which brought tears to mine.

The pathways of healing are mysterious. I'm reading Nassim Taleb's book, The Black Swan, about the "impact of the highly improbable." He mentions the possibility that our most important heroes are unknown, because their obscure work has actually prevented the disasters where more standard heroes shine.

I'm certain that Rose's dancing is heroic, & hope that at least some of my paintings are a force against disasters that never happen.

Watercolor Image about Healing Pomo History

This watercolor painting, Black Wolf & the Pomo Girl, arose in the mysterious way that images in the Blue Coyote series arise. First the title, then a wondering what it might look like, how to paint this request from the unknown.

It isn't until after I've painted it, giving my best effort to bring it forth accurately, that I think about what it means. Often, as with this one, I'm puzzled by the elements, coming forth uncensored, with a life of their own.

Black Wolf has come to me in healing meditations as a spirit who releases what is painful, toxic, or no longer needed. The Pomo girl is dressed in the traditional tule skirt. I see her as someone who lived in the brutal times when Europeans & Americans were killing her people & destroying her land.

Black Wolf comes to release her bitterness and suffering, so that the Pomo people of today can be happy & at peace. They are by the ocean, the place where way-ya, spiritual power, is renewed. Night signifies the other side where the dead dwell, the hiddenness of Pomo history, & the creative unconscious.

The two gulls witness the dance of Black Wolf & the Pomo girl with calm approval. One is adult & the other a juvenile, showing that what is happening is good for coming generations.

May it be so.

Painting Pomo Dancers & the Speaking Land

The Pomo Project began with a Pomo dancer's response to my art work. Most traditional Pomo culture available to experience today, at least as a non-Pomo person, inhabits the beautiful dancers, dance songs, & regalia.

So naturally I'm painting dancers.

Armando Williams saw something in my work that he trusted. He has a beautiful way of holding confidence in me & the other artists. He helps us learn Pomo medicine, then believes that what we bring create comes from spirit.

I both love this approach & tremble within it. How can what I do be right? Ah. Relaxing into the mystery & trusting. Oooh. Hard work, & joyous.

This 18 x 24" acrylic painting, Dancer & Swallows, is actually painted over an older work. In the flush of a relationship that later fell apart, I painted my dear one & me sitting romantically among the wonderful skimming violet-green swallows of the Laguna de Santa Rosa. After things ended badly, I gessoed out the figures, leaving the swallows ready for some better purpose.

The twist that Armando's faith allows to emerge in my paintings is something I see in the Pomo dancers' ceremony, feel in their rhythms: that dancing keeps life healthy, heals the earth, invigorates our sacred relationship to other life.

This dancer's movement & prayer helps the swallows be abundant. Their abundance helps her dance.

This isn't something any Pomo person told me. It's something the land speaks. I'm attracted to Pomo & other native people because I hear the language of the land in their seeing & doing. Like everyone, I've starved to hear the fact of conscious land spoken aloud.

Essie Parrish watercolor study

Preparing to paint for the Pomo Project involves a lot of research. Some of the most fascinating aspects of Pomo history & culture involve healers or dreamers of the Maru tradition.

Essie Parrish was a Maru dreamer of the Kashaya people up on the coast. Our library system has old VHS videos of her dancing & leading her people in dance. The costumes & flags come from her dreams.

I was very moved by stories of her evolution as a healer & the power of the dancers she dreamed.

This is a watercolor study, 10 x 8", showing her moving in time. Often my process of painting is like dreaming while awake. The 4 stars came like that, honoring her powerful gifts to her people.

Thunder Woman & the Pomo Boy

One of the challenges of working on the Pomo Project is to integrate what I learn about Pomo culture with the inner process of mystery that drives my painting.

Watching traditional Pomo dancers, I'm amazed at the beauty & depth of ancient spirituality. Sometimes it's the little kids that really get me. One small boy just blew me away. Of course, I imagined Thunder Woman dancing right along with him. Thunder Woman is the spirit of Native uprising who's been showing up in my work over many months.

This charcoal drawing, 15 x 11", is a study for a larger painting.

Native Youth Dance Group

One of the joys of being part of the Pomo Project is attending events with dance performances. Joe Salinas' Native Youth Dance Group practices every week at the Sonoma County Indian Health Project in Santa Rosa. When I attend their practices, I'm inspired by the dedication of adults who come week after week to sing for them as they learn the age old dances of their people.

When I attend celebrations where they & sometimes other dance groups from farther away give their talents to the people & to the earth--I'm just blown away.

Ancient healing light shines from their faces, ancient healing sounds radiate from their feet & the voices & clapper sticks of the singers. I believe the earth is renewed--I know I am.

Pepperwood

Even before I met Armando Williams, I was becoming friends with a pepperwood tree on a nearby bike path. I felt the tree extending care & protection.

When I learned that pepperwood is the principle medicine of the Pomo, I focused more attention on that tree and other pepperwood trees as I met them.

Now a sense of pepperwood spirit infuses all my work on the project, as well as all my prayers for myself & my family. Of course they're showing up in my paintings.

A while back I heard my friends David Barnett & Jim Wilson playing recorder music by John Cage. This left me with an irresistible urge to paint rust/green lines on raw canvas strips. I gave in, adding pepperwood leaves I'd painted & cut from fine polyester & heavy paper. I made 2 of these strips, 45 x 6" & 43 x 6".

Next came a patchwork of canvas, plus one patch of screen & one of wool batting, stitched together with embroidery thread. Since the pepperwoods were in bloom, these painted & cut leaves include flowers. Medicine, 28 1/2 x 25".

The other two images here are simple watercolors, each 9 1/2 x 7". Bohem Trunks was painted in a dense thicket of pepperwood at the Kule Loklo village at Point Reyes, my fingers numb with damp cold. New Growth was painted on the bike path just a few days ago, when I was appreciating how the flowers come first, then weeks later the new leaves.

As time passes I love these pepperwood trees more & more. I hope these paintings nourish their spirit as they continue to nourish ours.