art heals

photo by Melissa Rivera (2010)

   Last night, as I was sleeping
   I dreamt ~ marvelous error! ~ 
   that I had a beehive
   here inside my heart.
   And the golden bees
   were making white combs
   and sweet honey
   from my old failures.

                  ~ Antonio Machado 

For me, our 3 Sisters Village journey is about creating a hive and embracing the nectar of life. About healing and connecting with ourselves and our tribes through soulful art. About story as salve, music as medicine, and movement as meditation. About weaving the many, varied and sometimes paradoxical threads of our being. About sharing our whole selves, the full tapestry of our experience. 

As the anthropologist Angeles Arrien writes, "every culture has ways of maintaining health and well-being. Healers throughout the world recognize the importance of maintaining or retrieving the four universal healing salves: storytelling, singing, dancing and silence. Shamanic societies believe that when we stop singing, stop dancing, are no longer enchanted by stories, or become uncomfortable with silence, we experience soul loss, which opens the door to discomfort and disease. The gifted healer restores the soul through use of the healing salves."

For me, story, drum and dance have been alchemical elixirs. Reading and listening to Clarissa Pinkola Estés' mythological tales, frame drumming Layne Redmond's reclaimed ancient bee priestess rhythms, and dancing Gabrielle Roth's 5 Rhythms, I explore the wilderness of both body and psyche and embrace the dialectic of my fractured and ecstatic heart.  

{UPDATE: We are buzzing at 3 Sisters Village, crafting something special for you. Look for our announcement next week.}