Depicted on high mountain cave pictographs, the Chumash saw the stars as powerful, competitive sky beings that affected human life and the balance of the universe.
Rituals and Traditions
WilderUtopia celebrates world culture with a frame of environmental sustainability. Our inspiration sources from ethnically-based indigenous arts, myth and storytelling, as well as dance and music, played out in the rituals, customs, and traditions of the many peoples of the planet.
David Swallow Jr: People Connected Through Spirit and Sacred Places
David Swallow speaks of a new era, learning from the prophecies of Crazy Horse. After a large flash lights the sky, charcoal and ashes fallen to cover the Earth, new grass will grow and the waters clear, and God’s children will play together. Follow the spiritual leaders into the sacred places for guidance, to experience a land without modern-day illusion. In the spirit world we are all connected, the fire that generates life without end.
Shoshoni: Grizzly Bear Song
Shoshoni Elder Oldhands performs a song given to him by spirit to bring awareness to the struggle of our relatives the Bear Nations, to stay alive in an ever shrinking World. It was the Bear people that showed us how to use the Earth’s Medicine. It is their Wisdom that can save us. All My Relations
Bear Dancing into Autumn: Hunting the Big Dipper
In a blending of an Iroquois and Cree legend, with autumn approaching, four brothers had the same dream for four nights. They saw a vision of themselves tracking and killing the monster bear. Believing the dream to hold the truth, the brothers followed it into the sky.
Warao of Guyana: The Origin of the Pleiades
A myth from the Warao People who inhabit the rainforests of the Orinoco Delta of northeastern Venezuela and western Guyana. The term Warao means “The Boat People,” referring to their intimate connection with water. Here a hunter takes on an ogress in a story of the origin of the Pleiades.
Haitian Healing Pilgrimage: Saut-d’Eau Waterfall
For more than a century now, Haitians have trekked to the picturesque grove where, legend has it, the Virgin Mary – or Erzuli Dantor – appeared in the middle of the 19th century on a palm tree near the 100-foot waterfall and began healing the sick.
Life and Death: Lakota Spiritual Practice
Lakota spiritual leaders speak about dealing with a world out of balance, life after death, and overcoming drugs, money and emptiness. Lakota history and the Seven Sacred Rites are discussed.