Let’s make medicine crafts together! Let us sit together and put our hands to the making of good medicine for our practice and our world.
2021 brought us such a wonderful year of making medicine crafts to benefit our homes and families, our friends and neighborhoods, our individual and ceremonial practices. If you have missed any of the meetings or would like to review, the videos of many of our zoom meetings are attached. Thanks to Antoinette Yarrow Cabral, we have a very special video of her medicine plant teachings in meeting #5, as well as an accompanying pdf document. Enjoy these videos as you put your hands to crafts during these precious winter months, good time to be making medicine!
In 2022, we will offer a 3-month series of meetings, one meeting per month. Signing up for the series will welcome a steady group of participants, an email list to which we can send updates and answer inquiries. We will meet after the New Moon so that our energy is building. Plan on 2 hours for each meeting so we have spacious time to make significant progress on our medicine crafts, ask questions, and share our findings.
Next Meeting, May 7th 2022
On our Saturday, May 7th meeting of Sunray Medicine Crafts , we will be making medicine shawls which will lead into a discussion of regalia more generally.
What you’ll need to start on shawl-making is a piece of fabric that is 60″ in width, or close. That would be 58″ once hemmed. Fabric that is 48″ – a common width- is not wide enough. You’ll want a square of fabric, and if you want to get a head start you can hem each edge. Turn under each edge .5″ twice and machine-stitched the edge. You’ll want that doubled-over solidity to set your fringe into.
We’ll show the Ywahoo clan stitch, so some embroidery floss and needle will be good for that. If you don’t feel ready to put stitches on your shawl, you can always practice on some other item.
We’ll also show how to fringe a shawl using a needle with a blunt tip and a big eye. Here’s a good picture of one: https://www.crazycrow.com/dance-shawl-fringe-and-supply/shawl-fringing-needles. You can order spools of fringe from Crazy Crow trading post. The spools are 1800 feet of fringe, which is just enough to fringe all four sides. You can fringe with all one color or more. https://www.crazycrow.com/dance-shawl-fringe-and-supply/shawl-fringe-spools. Feel free to email info@sunray.org with any questions as you consider your materials.
Meeting 1, March 5th, 2022
Materials needed: sage and cedar. You want prairie sage (Artemisia Ludoviciana), not culinary or white sage. Here is a picture, and also where you can order some: https://prairieedge.com/all-products/sage-1-2-pound-bundle/. Flat cedar; we’ll use the needles, not the woody part. Here is a picture, and also where you can order some: https://prairieedge.com/flat-cedar/. If gathering your own plant medicine, make sure to leave a prayer and an offering. You may be able to find sage & cedar wands already made up at a local store; taking those apart could get you the plant medicines you’ll need.
Optional: A grinder (coffee or spice grinder) that is dedicated to smudge-making makes this easy, but is not required.
Meeting 2, April 2nd, 2022
On our Saturday, April 2nd meeting of Sunray Medicine Crafts we will be making medicine bowls, possibly to use on our shrines. I am so looking forward to making bowls because I have never done this! We will be explorers together. I do have a beautiful bowl that was made by a Sunray craftsperson many years ago with Grandmother Spider in it.
Unless you have access to traditional clay and a kiln, what you’ll need to obtain is “oven bakeable clay.” Sculpey is the most popular and recognized brand, but there are others, easily obtained at many art/craft stores or online. On our meeting day we will mold and sculpt and bake, chant and dream on designs. The clay, once baked, can be painted, carved, drilled, sanded.
Sunray Medicine Crafts
3-month series in 2022
Meetings: Saturdays after New Moons March 5, April 2, May 7, 2022
9am Pacific / noon Eastern / 4pm Germany
Allow 2 hours for each meeting
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Video recordings of previous sessions will be posted here as they become available.
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Tutorial videos for Meeting #6: Gourd Rattles
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At Sunray Meditation Society, sacred ceremonies such as ceremonial new moon fires, meditation practices, and healing celebrations are neither bought nor sold, in contrast to workshops and other teachings where registrations are offered.