I totally experimented with trying to get movement in the background by using a fan brush. It is really difficult and I only did what I could and have left it to finish later because I was stuck.
In the meantime, I decided I would tell you some history about the jingle dancers.
Every tribe that dances the jingle dance has their own beginning stories. But they all go like this: It is said that there was a little girl who was very ill and nothing was helping. Her father prayed hard, and when he fell to sleep, he dreamed of a dance that would heal her. In the morning he told his wife how to make the dress he saw in his dream. They collected the cones (eventually using the tobacco tin lids that were metal and curled perfectly into a cone.) and he dreamed that there needed to be 365 on each dress plus one for the dancer or the dress-maker. He also dreamed the steps. When they finished the dress, the women jingle danced and the little girl was healed. It was called The Medicine Dress.
Before a jingle dancer dances, they carry Tobacco in a loose tobacco pouch as it is a healing medicine. As she dances, the tobacco dances out of the pouch and blesses the ground.
Still, today, someone dreams the design of a new Jingle Dress, although he number of cones does not change, the design and colors do. The dance is a prayer of healing, a prayer for healing.
It is said that the dancer that carries the most medicine is a girl who has been very close to death, herself, and/or healed by the jingle dress. And, if a male is healed, all the women in his family must help make a Medicine Dress for a young girl in the family to dance the jingle dance. The protocols vary with tribes.
The dance is quite intricate in that the bottom of the moccasins must never show as the dancer dances in a snake pattern. This is symbolic in that the snake pattern reminds all to shed one’s skin, to renew oneself. While the girl dancers, all in attendance pray in unison, especially the elders, for the purpose of the dance to happen and healing take place for that person/those persons.
As we move through Covid, so much global healing takes place and many tribes and healers are working very hard to help heal the earth and its people. We, too, have a responsibility to think all the way out to Mother Earth with our prayers and thoughts, wishes and dreams. Women are said, by the Elders, to be the ones who will heal the earth and its peoples. We are here to make a difference way beyond our ken. Our divine energy has been so forgotten about but it is there and available to us to use. May we all remember this and begin using our feminine energy to heal the earth and each other.
I am not sure I captured movement. but, sometimes, a painting is going to go that way.
Much love, sisterfriends.
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