MayDay Parade 2007
Section 1 Leaders:
Soozin Hirschmugl
Daniel Polnau
Mark Safford
Water –
The Primordial Ocean
From whence the first point of activation (i.e. material and physical creation) comes.
Water is a wellspring of the creators’ healing essence and is available in all aspects of life.
Water is Balance, Harmony, Wholeness. Water is complete but separate from all in creation.
Through water we can see, sense, and feel the breadth and depth of the Creator.
With water we can swallow, digest and manifest
life, and have eternal access to the
Creator and creatures of the Universe.
~ Elder Atum Azzahir,
Powderhorn Phillips Cultural Wellness Center
Our mysterious Sea Serpent is based on traditional Chinese dragons, a mythical creature of great power in Chinese culture and folklore. For the third year in a row, we are so fortunate to welcome guest artists from Taiwan for MayDay! Dragon dancing teaches us the strength and grace of dragons, and to work as a unified team.
MayDay Parade 2007
Somos Agua - Sunday May 6, 2007
Masanari Kawahara
Parade Section 1: Water/Agua
Water is ancient and new
Mild mutations as manifestos of time
Exquisite
architect of the principles of life
Before memory, there was water. The water that covered the earth in primordial times is the very same water that feeds the planet and its inhabitants today. We begin the Parade with an homage to the wisdom of Water as the original source of creation.
Two
ancient snapping turtles, witnesses of time, lead the way.* These ancestors
carry the histories of humankind on their strong shells, and support the
Earth entirely, according to many cultures' creation stories.
Powerful serpents represent the entwining ebb and flow of tidal currents. Within them thrive fish, snails and denizens of the deep.
The spirit of water
is embodied in jellyfish, living beings that are but a few cells thick,
which pulse with the heartbeat of the sea.
These creatures move boundlessly through their fluid world, as imagination seeps and surges through our minds and through time and space.
Water is the conduit of creativity. Swim in the waters of oceans, rivers, and your imagination. Swim in the liquid dreams of life!
~ Soozin, Daniel and Mark
*Salute to Big Ben, the gigantic snapper who lives at the bottom of Powderhorn Lake.
You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean spines?
The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out in the
deep places like a thread in the water?
I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its jewel
boxes is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the
petal hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light and
untied its knot, letting the musical threads fall from a
horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.
I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
on the timid globe of an orange.
I walked around as you do, investigating the endless star,
and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.
~ Excerpt From Enigmas, Pablo Neruda, Trans. Robert Bly
Photos on this page by Liz Welch