THE BADGER
The Badger is a fierce animal, very much respected and honored both in Northern American Native traditions and in European Celtic ones. A badger will not let go and will continue tenaciously to look for another way to tackle his/her goal, just like a good healer will not let go his/her search until the best solution is found for the person in need. Badgers have their homes underground, so that they can go to the roots of things, the good healer does the same and keeps looking until she/he can find the most profound reason for a dis-ease or a psychological issue.
We use the term healer in the very broad sense of somebody who takes care of a another person, be it a MD, a nurse, a psychotherapist, a physiotherapist, a masseuse, a spiritual healer. Whenever there is a person in need and somebody who takes care of her/him, that is a healer.
Sometimes the need is subtler and more profound than a simple medical intervention, the human touch is needed and it really is the Panacea that cures all diseases.
We believe all artistic expressions in their beauty, science for everyday life, spirituality, philosophy, food and the healing arts are beneficial to restoring that balance, health and sense of worth that each and every human being deserves.
We offer you THE BADGER, the persistent healer, all the articles come from experts in different fields, each person has his/her own idea of what a balanced life is, they are here to pass on information, give inspiration, receive your comments, suggestions, contributions. Each human being holds in his/her hands at least one of the keys, let's continue our quest!
THE BADGER YEAR 10 VOLUME 1
Dear Readers,
This is a special volume devoted in great part to the ARTS in all their forms. Over the years we have often mentioned artists from various fields who have chosen to live apart from the crowds to create more personal and deeply felt/needed work. This volume expands their presence, because our times are difficult and we need to remind ourselves of all the beauty humankind can create, so that we don’t allow ourselves to fall in the traps of power and supremacy over others.
Music, dance, theatre, painting, sculpting, performing…… All avenues are open in front of us, we only need to accept them in our experience, the rewards will be profound and life changing.
This volume is also the bearer of good news.
THE BADGER BOOKS starts its work with our first book: Evolutionary Wheels by Chiara Corte! It is a great development from a series of articles to a full book. We will present it in Glastonbury on August 7th, 2024. The book will be available both physically and digitally from that date onwards.
Antonella Vicini
THE BADGER Director
Lay out Antonella Vicini
Cover Artwork Chiara Corte
thebadgerquarterly.com@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/THEBADGERQuarterlyMagazine/
A Blessing F.Rico
Dancing Bees G. Rael
Per formance A.Vicini
Poetry R. Tagore
Voices from the Stars L.Bottagisio
Dancing A.Pintus
Performing D.Vici
CONTENTS
Contemplating our Age L.Perry
The Authors short bios and photos
Thanks and links to previous volumes
Adverts products and services we believe in
Chakras C. Corte
A BLESSING FOR TROUBLED TIMES
Francis Rico
So far, 2024 has seemed to be spiraling down on a direct collision course with the reality that our natural world can only sustain so much human craziness!
And frankly, as a big wave surfer, I was expecting that we would be tossed and tumbled by the massive crashing waves of energy that continue to disassemble the “business as usual” predatory exploitative trance induction systems and structures that have brought our world to this brink of extinction with multiple overlapping emergencies.
Instead…. good news!
We’ve entered into the honey-sweet waters of direct connection with the Vast Harmony of Creation And, along with this good news is even better news, including the best news of all!
OK – first the good news. We are being held in a gentle energetic basket of woven light – and here at a time when we most need encouragement and sustaining support, it’s here – it’s here now. Grandfather Joseph Rael – Beautiful Painted Arrow – shared this with us when he first “saw” the spiral cornucopia of beneficence intersecting with our galaxy. And how is this relevant to you?
First. You have a cosmic neurological system. What we call the universe, the stars and far-flung galaxies is all you. And, in our home galaxy, generating powerful waves of coherent unipolar energy from the Black Sun at the center, is your heart beating – beating with love on fire, beating wild and free with the life affirming love of life for life that can best be described in one word: YES!
You know this. We’ve moved into a clearing in our galactic spiral star system – and in our renewed direct connection, we’ve entered an ancient prophecy foretold relationship with light, with life, and with the Great Mystery.
Second. Waves of galactic energy that have been shredding the compromised systems that have held our “civilization” together have simultaneously been exceptionally coherent, well formed, and available to those who would “surf” waves of light – that’s my analogy for what’s possible. Another perspective, from our shared traditions, is that as we enter harmony with the flowing energies of Creation, Creation vast potential enters into harmony with us.
This is an art. Becoming an “Artist of Spirit” is learning not to struggle against what “is” but to become wildly creative and resourceful, and with minimal “effort” and maximum “artistry” - to catch energetic waves – to harmonize with energetic waves, allowing Creation to energize and carry our contributions and inspirations into being – with ease and beauty.
That’s the good news. And here’s better news. YOU are not being asked to step up to challenge the monstrosity of the aberration and insanity that has almost destroyed life on Earth!
Instead, you are being offered a blessing: the opportunity to turn to the center – to your center, to your heart, to the gift of your life, – and to find there the YES that is the eternal Source of you, and of all of us.
ALL of us want the same thing – love, Peace, abundance, well-being, fun, opportunities –essentially, we all want better lives for ourselves, our families, friends, and communities –especially for our children, and for their children.
That’s the key! Whether you have kids or not, within each of us is the original flaming life affirming love of the Great Mother for ALL of Her children – a love expansively expressed in Her first word: YES!
YES, to being, YES to each other, YES to caring, YES to collaboration, YES to creativity, YES to compassion.
And what could be better than that? Supporting you on this journey to YES are the creatures of Earth, in all their flying, swimming, hopping, running, jumping, deep diving, deeply rooted, buzzing, flowering, leaf fluttering rainbow iridescent shimmering – all praying that you and I will wake up to the irreplaceable precious beauty of life.
Bees share this wisdom with us: “move away from thinking “ME” and move towards “we all work together to support and benefit the whole… that is where the Honey is to be found.”
The “Honey” and blessing of this year is a return to our original agreement with Creation: We care for Nature – and She cares for us.
It’s right here, right now. This is our moment to re-enter a state of reciprocity that returns care, reverence, and respect for life with an abundance of everything we could ever possibly need to survive and thrive.
Is there anything better than knowing that we have it in us to heal ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities, and our world? And, to celebrate and enjoy our lives as we do? What could be better than knowing that this is up to you? And, simultaneously, that we’re all in this together - so it’s up to us.
We know that gathering with family and friends, including everyone, and sharing the beauty of being and the gift of life by singing together directly invites the harmony and blessing of the Vast Self into our lives. And please do include a sweet prayer for our beautiful little planet Earth.
The ultimate moment of all living ceremonies is silence. So…. there in the center of your celebration – where deepening silence contains One beautiful flowering Presence…. that’s where we find YES!
Francis Rico
Teotihuacan, Mexico
DANCING BEES
Geraldine Rael
Today I am writing about the use of Corn Pollen during the Sun Moon Dance I facilitated in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, Memorial Day weekend in 2023.
A few months before the ceremony, something came to me to locate Corn Pollen oftentimes referred to as Bee Pollen. To be used at our upcoming Sun Moon Dance ceremony. I did not know how I was to use it as I’d never seen it used in our Ute or Picuris ceremonies. I looked everywhere for this Pollen, but I could not find it. I was very disappointed. At the same time, I realized it was not meant to be.
The night before the ceremony was to end while gathering and laying out needed items, I came across 2 small pouches of the Pollen!
As I was ending the Sun Moon ceremony, with Dancers lined up waiting for their first drink of water, I gave them each a pinch of the Corn Pollen to place under their tongue.
I said to them,
“When you leave this ceremony, you are now “pollinating” Peace. Wherever you go, you are the Bee.”
Before the ceremony ended a female Dancer whispered in my ear while I was doctoring a young woman at the sacred Tree. She pointed to an insect on the tree. I glanced over & nodded acknowledgment & continued with what we were doing for this Dancer.
As the Dancers were packing up their camping gear a Dancer called me over and told me that he’d had a vision of a Bee Kachina descending into the Dance arbour.
No long after the Dance was completed, I talked to the Dancer that brought attention to the insect on the sacred Tree. I wanted to know more about the insect on the sacred Tree.
She told me, it was a Bee
Bee Pollen medicine is working with the Divine!
Geraldine Rael
Eldest daughter
Joseph Rael
Beautiful Painted Arrow
P.S. This year also bee medicine has pollinated the circle of dancers. I gave some special bee garments for a dancer to wear, so that the dance could receive the pollination it needed, and all the dancers could be blessed by this special energy. It was a profound and intense moment.
PER FORMANCE
Antonella Vicini
Per - formance: beyond the form, for the form,
What kind of vision is needed to do a performance?
What kind of stamina, determination, will, vision is needed for a performance? What kind of message does a performance give?
All these questions were running around my mind while I was present at a performance, but there were no answers, because the answers belonged to the artist. Or, if I am honest, they belong to the people who are watching, living, feeling it and are carried away by the performance. Or none of these, they simply watch and clap at the end, because it is supposed to happen. Or perhaps they stay the same, but some people cannot remain the same, they are transformed.
And I honestly don’t know why, because this is not a show, it’s not a ballet, an opera, not a painting or a sculpture: it is a human being with an enormous amount of courage going blindly, literally so, to show who he/she is.
The performance I saw was all about being I am, I am what I am what I am. It reminds me of the Upanishads that always end with the sentence: Tat Tvam Asi (You Are This).
And what am I? Who am I? Where am I? When am I?
All these questions were swirling around my head while I was watching the performance.
There was a very clear writing I AM, therefore, I need to do my best.
I AM, therefore, I can tend to infinity.
I AM, therefore, I am a spiritual being in continuous evolution. These are the thoughts that I choose, that I have chosen in my life.
And the simple sentence I AM pushes me forward, it pulls me toward the unknown, towards the future, towards the present, towards the past, now.
I AM, I AM, I AM.
Who am I?
And this is a real question, and also: AM I?
All these questions are possible, all these questions are allowed.
The performance does not give us answers, it supplies even more questions.
For many years I had wondered what performances were about, I suddenly realized that performances exist to create questions.
Artists are the scouts of humanity, they go beyond the horizon, they find lands we cannot even dream of and, sometimes, it is impossible for them to tell us what they see, what they perceive, imagine, what they live; but they can supply the questions that will be our clues to find where they are.
This is their job, their destiny, sometimes damnation, this is what they were born for. We are all born for our missions, high or low it does not matter, as long as we fulfill it in the best possible way, then we have accomplished our Svadharma, our duty to our human race.
Am I? Who am I? I AM
This is an endless question.
I was literally touched, I was so impressed and moved that I had to leave the place quickly, because I needed time to reflect, to be in silence, to let the sounds, the visions reverberate inside me.
The image of this lonely person in front of a crowd, sitting in perfect silence.
Just I AM.
Such a profound and simple sentence.
If we take away all the ornaments, fringes, tinsel, personality, character, what emerges is the simplicity of pure being: I AM, WHAT I AM, WHAT I AM.
AM I? I AM.
This is a new horizon for me, I am deeply touched.
This is healing art, in the purest, most beautiful, most profound form and I am honored to have been present to it.
I am touched and convinced this event will change my way of looking at, feeling, perceiving and living art.
Thank you to the artist, the courageous woman who stood in front of us in silence as a tower of learning, as an ever-evolving spirit being. Thank you.
This is the introduction to our special issue dedicated in great part to the arts, I am grateful for the artists who gave me their trust, time and attention in order to complete these interviews. All our lives are richer because of these exchanges, I hope yours will be as well.
Antonella Vicini
P O E T R Y
On the seashore
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead, and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds, the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Deathdealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby’s cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad, and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
My Journey
The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.
The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said, “Here art thou!”
The question and the cry, “Oh, where” ‘melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance “I am!”
Rabindranath Tagore
From Gitanajali, 1913
Images created by Antonella Vicini with Midjourney
ASTROLOGY AND MUSIC
Saturn and Neptune
Laura Bottagisio
In the sidereal space of the eternal infinite present there are frequencies and harmonics emanating from the First Substance which, intersecting in myriads of intersections and connections, create worlds in progress.
At first, they are invisible worlds, later some of them take on a material body of expression and enter to all intents and purposes within the limits of a space-time governed by linear time divided into three parts, past, present and future. This triple division is also reflected at a spatial level with the three dimensions length, width and height.
Our essence that has chosen to experience this material three-dimensionality has self-determined to submit to the concept of limit when it took on a physical aspect.
Astrologically the planet that personifies the concept of limit is SATURN.
From our terrestrial perspective it is the last planet visible to the naked eye, in fact you need high-tech telescopes and instruments to observe planets beyond its orbit.
Saturn is therefore the Door between the visible and the invisible, it thickens the invisible vibrations arriving from the edges of the solar system and gives them a form; at the same time, it destroys its structure when the form is now decayed and too old to work in raw matter.
It is a continuous movement, an incessant, vital, magical breath, operating at all levels and carried out according to the infinite cosmic cycles, from the shortest monthly ones of our moon to the most galactic billion years old different star systems.
Everything animate or inanimate, visible or invisible, has its own specific frequency and therefore emits a sound that can be audible or inaudible depending on its wavelength.
Within the 'established' limits of material reality, Life evolves itself through Form. When Form and Substance are perfectly integrated into each other, they vibrate in unison and can thus be informed by the music of cosmic origin, the Music of the Spheres. They return to the Source from which they started and, after having evolved according to the evolution of Consciousness, they merge again with the Primordial Sound that emanated them. We are part of this wonderful process!
Since the Cosmos is within us and we are the Cosmos, the notes of welcoming Sweetness and inflaming Ardor vibrate in space and belong to us. When we allow them to be active from the heart and pervade us until they touch the extreme limit of our physical body, the skin, then they take shape in our material reality, building the new foundations of the World that is resurrecting after all the Old has been destroyed. In this state, we are in full harmony with the Primordial Agreement, the origin of the Universe, which works to establish Beauty, Love, Harmony on all dimensional levels.
Maternal Sweetness and Paternal Ardor, united in a single agreement, create all the other harmonies of welcome and courage, protection and initiative, contemplation and foresight. This is how Life, unique and never the same, pulsates from the center and informs everything it creates of itself.
This eternal becoming is represented astrologically by NEPTUNE, the planet that personifies physical and metaphysical Music.
Neptune, in its domicile Pisces, represents the Wave without beginning or end, eternally at the service of Evolution.
Neptune represents the unfathomable, the formless, but at the same time it is the constant undulating movement with which the ONE propagates in space according to frequencies that are different, but they harmonize and aim at unison.
We are therefore crossed by the Sound of these cosmic harmonies (inaudible to the physical ear due to their high frequencies).
Such a sound, while coming from the Neptunian world of non-form, reaches the formal Saturnian world where it thickens and takes on infinite material identities.
This is the world of material reality, where we live with the specific identity we have chosen to assume. Falling into the world of Form, we identify with a physical body to experience an earthly life which, according to astrological principles, can only evolve according to the planetary model of its first breath. That moment is recorded by all our cells that, from then on, will be 'molded' according to those guidelines.
The Birth Chart is therefore the photograph of a cosmic instant that keeps evolving through our daily life.
As on the day you were granted to the world,
The sun stood to greet the planets, You likewise began to thrive, forth and forth,
Following the law that governed your accession. You must be so, you cannot flee yourself,
Thus, sibyls long ago pronounced, thus prophets, And neither time nor any power can dismember
Characteristic form, living, self-developing.
(From the Orphic Scripts by Goethe, translation Kirk Wetter)
Each of us is born with an unpublished musical score that reflects the celestial movements. It is a melody that cannot be performed by anyone other than ourselves, we are the creators of the events of our lives, of our miseries or joys, since they are produced according to the interpretation we give to our own original planetary design.
The Birth Chart becomes the matrix of every event we experience. Thanks to our 'being here' gifted by Saturn, the evolutionary wave of Neptune becomes a particle. Thus, Saturn and Neptune working together give life to our earthly experience.
This is magnificent!
The Zodiac Wheel of the Twelve Signs becomes the pentagram, the Planets are the musical notes, the aspects express the harmonious or dissonant chords that we will perform as our life unfolds. It is interesting to give voice to many astrologists who, when reading the Birth Chart show evidence of talents in the harmonious aspects of trine and sextile, while in the quadrature and oppositions they find Karmic aspects and, therefore, the dissonances to be rebalanced.
In the musical lexicon, each note has a particular and unique sound that reflects a fragment of the set of all the harmonics that arise from that note, and which resonate with those produced by every other single note, in an infinite and multidimensional symphony.
Just as a piece of music composed by a mind that is able to grasp this harmonic frequency, can convey the Beauty and Harmony of Creation. In the same way the Planets, in their cyclical dancing around the Sun, compose a celestial melody that constantly reaches us and, through our subtle bodies, it permeates us.
It’s up to us to tune into that frequency of Love, silencing the mind and listening with an open heart.
Sometimes, when we are playing our music, the sound becomes noise, and while the first arises from a regular and recognizable wave, the second produces irregular and broken waves.
Sound expresses a Value perceived by the psyche, one which has a profound influence on us. Noise fragments the psyche and creates annoyance.
This difference was well highlighted by Emoto Masaru with his experiments on the healing power of Water, of which we are made up of over 70%.
When we listen to musical pieces by composers capable of perceiving harmonizations of cosmic origin, their pieces bring our inner waters back into balance, thus producing healing and well-being in all our cells because, as Rudolf Steiner stated:
«The musician-composer unconsciously transforms into physical sounds the rhythm, harmonies and melodies which, during the night, he perceived in the temporary dimension where pure spirits (devachan) dwell, and which have remained imprinted in his subtle bodies. This is the mysterious relationship between music that resonates in the physical and listening to spiritual music at night. Physical music is but a copy of spiritual reality. As the faded shadow is compared to the living man, so the physical shadow-music is compared to the true spiritual music-light. »
Rudolf Steiner, The essence of music, Cologne conference of 3 December 1906)
Cycle of Saturn and Neptune
Neptune's cycle is 168 years, Saturn's is 30 years.
In their compound cycle they join every 36 years, underlining the stages of transformation and the times of the complete metamorphosis of the formal world in which the encrustations (Saturn), that do not allow the Wave of Life (Neptune) to flow in the density of matter, finally dissolve.
An interesting conjunction between them occurred in Aquarius in 1846. Antonin Dvorak, a famous musician and composer, was born five years earlier, in 1841. In that year the two planets were already communicating with each other in a privileged relationship, since they were in each other's domicile: Saturn, while approaching the conjunction, and when it transited in Sagittarius (domicile of Neptune) and Neptune in Aquarius (domicile of Saturn).
Conjunction Neptune and Saturn in 1846
Their conjunction in Aquarius has decreed, above all thanks to Sigmund Freud, the acquisition of the profound drives that condition our psyche and has activated the search for the dynamics that govern our inner world, from the most instinctual to the most spiritual ones.
It is very interesting to note that when Dvorak composed his ninth and final symphony in 1893 which he called 'The Symphony from the New World', Saturn and Neptune were in the two Air signs, Gemini and Aquarius, in a trine relationship. Transferred into the musical lexicon, the trine relationship can be traced back to the fifth interval, perfect harmonization within an octave.
Antonin Dvorak Birth Chart
Now, 36 years have passed since their last conjunction in 1989 in Capricorn, the two planets will reunite at 0° Aries in 2026.
It will be the beginning of a new activation, exhilarating, transformative, purifying, deeply connected to the Age of Aquarius in which we have just entered, to its new paradigms of Beauty Love Harmony which will lead us from the lower ego to the Higher Self.
Let's prepare now for our profound metamorphosis!
Laura Bottagisio
Edited
and Translated by Antonella
Vicini
DANCING
Part One
Interview with Alessandro Pintus
My first contact with dance happened when I was about 8 years old, via my sister, she was in the final show of her first ballet course, she was wearing a butterfly costume and I loved what she was doing. I went to see more courses and every time I was wondering why there weren’t boys there.
Slowly I discovered what was behind the dance: its culture.
For me dance is not just going on stage, but it is also a path to know oneself and the world: this is what has always attracted and fascinated me.
I started late with Butoh dance, at an age that is beyond our cultural expectations. I started in 1996, since I was born in 1972, I was 24 when I began on this new path.
Before then I had not done much in the dance field, except my encounter with break dance, when I was about 16 years old.
What I liked about breakdancing was its absolute freedom: we could dance in the streets. We used to do it together, we met, we placed some pieces of cardboard on the ground, just below the council housing where I lived and we just danced. The main culture then was hip hop, connected to the poor conditions we all lived in.
Whoever knew a step would teach it to the next person, so we shared our knowledge; our bodies were the place where the dance game was happening.
When somebody had a video tape, we watched it intently and worked on copying and re-creating those new moves.
So, this is how I learnt break dance, which has remained with me as a social experiment as an aspect of being together, having fun with the body, working physically.
Back then we also did things that were quite hard and demanding and then some fun things. Sometimes we went to places, and we showed our moves to the world.
But I've always liked the aspect of the performance up to a certain point. I enjoyed it, but I preferred what happened before the performance, the intense preparation. I did like the contact with the viewers, I especially enjoyed the connection with people, the understanding of feeling together even if some were looking and some were actually doing.
Then I grew up and went to university to study psychology where I encountered the theater. Then we started to stage Shakespearean theater in prisons, as well as juvenile prisons, therefore we worked for adults and minors and then also for social cooperatives in difficult situations.
They gave me the role of Caliban (who is a demon from Shakespeare's play the Tempest). The role didn't come easily to me, I didn't get the words, I didn't feel them in my body. The director suggested a film by Peter Greenway entitled the Last Tempest (1991) where there is a dancer who acts as Caliban, with a voice over commenting the events.
I loved the film and the idea, so I found my confidence again. I researched Michael Clark, the dancer in the movie, in his biography I noticed that he had encountered various dances, including the strange thing called Butoh.
At that point I was curious and decided to know more because I was very interested. Out of my first research I discovered that Butoh is a Japanese contemporary, dance, created by the founder Tatsumi Hijikata. He undertook his first Ankoku Butoh performance, Kinjiki (Forbidden Colors), in 1959, using a novel by Yukio Mishima. They were kicked out of the Japan Dance Society because it was too scandalous for the time.
I became interested in Butoh and participated in many workshops with Italian and foreign teachers.
In 1999 I came to Tuscania, in the Etruscan countryside, where a workshop had been organized for Min Tanaka. He came to Italy for two weeks and wanted to work with Italian dancers, so we lived and worked together to create a show that came out of our daily preparation.
His very famous company Maju had just closed, Min Tanaka moved to the Japanese countryside and carried out a way of working that included agriculture and dance.
In this way I met Min and worked with other students, eventually we brought our work on stage to a theatre in Rome. Our show was entitled 31 June, due to a mistake made by the teacher, but we all liked it, it was a no sense title for a no sense performance.
That work changed my life entirely, it gave me the chance to touch an intimate, deep soul aspect of my life that I had never managed to contact before.
When he returned in 2000 to do his own production with the new company and brought a show, about Francisco de Goya The Vagaries of War, to the French Academy, the show was entitled "A beautiful day in Goya's garden". I was amazed at the show, afterwards I went to compliment him. He still remembered me and asked me: “When are you coming to visit me? The next workshop is in January, I want you to come”.
Two months later, I was there. From that moment, my adventure began, it led me to Japan several times to work with Tanaka and live the life of a dancing farmer.
We got up every day at 4.30 – 5.00 in the morning, we went to the fields where we did a lot of physical work, this immediately put us in contact with nature and ourselves. Later, in the afternoon we worked with him.
Min Tanaka was a very serious teacher, very strict, with his human defects and vices, yet he never disappointed me despite his human aspects.
Students, especially western ones, tend to identify with and idealize the teacher. I think that is the biggest mistake, it is a form of wounded narcissism because people don't have the courage to take the teacher's work as an example for personal development, but they interpret it like a kind of ideal and, in my opinion, this leads to failure.
Min has always worked on the group, and he worked on the individual through the group, (differently from other teachers who gave more space to the individual performance).
Min developed the single dancer through a work of great self-sacrifice in feeling like a plural body.
You could notice this when you were working in the countryside: if you don't work together, if you don't feel together, the field cannot be carried out by a single person; therefore being and staying together is a journey with others, sharing life, space and time in this way.
I owe him a lot and I greatly appreciated his honest severity. He criticized us a lot, especially when we were slacking and didn't realize what a great opportunity, we had to be there all working together. He always scolded us for the fact that we were wasting time chatting, because the social aspect was important, but he insisted that we should pay attention not to fall into distractions, because that time would never come back.
In fact, it was like he used to say: because, between 2007 and 2008, he got tired and upset, especially with the lazy Westerners, who had gotten worse and worse over the years. He realized that the generations were changing, when he first started out, he really had some very committed people with him, then little by little more slackers arrived. I arrived in 2000, maybe halfway through this process.
He got bored and closed the laboratory. Now he is a cinema actor, for example he can be seen In Wim Wenders’ movie Perfect Days, where he's a tramp dancing in the parks and doesn't say a word.
I arrived at Butoh in this way, I tried to carry on the work and develop it because I believe it is the greatest teaching I can share as a man and choreographer.
Min Tanaka worked with the creator of Butoh and his main student, with her he created the countryside school. When the founder died, she left the school and started, like so many did as well, her own school teaching Butoh in Japan and abroad to people with very different cultures and sensitivities.
Min continued his work in the countryside, forming a new company.
When I first arrived there, I realized that there was something that had a lot of energy and a lot of history, I noticed also that there was also a sincere desire to renew.
So, I found myself living there in a moment of openness and freshness. We worked hard but with a lot of pleasure and we grew up a lot enjoying this great opportunity.
I think there was no teacher in the world, in that period, who would host you in his house, who would give you a job, feed you good food and give you the opportunity to be in the dance, with the dance from morning to evening. I don’t know if we appreciated it enough.
These are the experiences and teachings that I have brought back with me and that I have continued to carry and teach it around Italy and Europe.
Alessandro Pintus
Edited
and Translated by Antonella
Vicini
NOTES:
The second part of this long interview will appear in the winter volume of THE BADGER.
Butoh (Hijikata's Ankoku Butoh) is a thought, a philosophy, a way of being in the world, a process of knowing the things of life and the universe. Butoh is not a technique that can be developed according to a system. It is a personal and individual evolution, a process to go back through the body to what is "primitive" in ourselves. We need to abandon our habits and traditions and look behind them, to find something new. Butoh has never had and still does not have a fixed and well-defined way of expression. Indeed, it has always rejected any temptation to build a "system", it has never taken on a defined form, it has not opened any school. We don't intend to communicate something using the body, but to let it show its truth.
(quote from Alessandro Pintus’s website: http://www.alessandropintus.com
You can also find videos of his shows: https://youtube.com/@alessandropintusnoncompany?si=jgHllRgJNDkKOtM9}
The Photos for this part of the interview with Alessandro Pintus are from a specific performance. The story is inspired by legends of the Sardinian tradition, older than the Christian Era. The first version of OROS was represented in 2003 in Tuscania (Viterbo). The 30 minutes long video performance shows the result of ten years work between the knight Francesco Caponetti, the dancer Alessandro Pintus and the Tolfetano horse Brio. Original music by Carlo Fatigoni and Marcello Duranti. Photo By Chiara Caponetti
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y__qi_t-IE
PERFORMANCE ART An Overview
Donatella Vici
Premise
Talking about performance art (the artistic discipline born in the 60s) my desire is to share and, if possible, convey my personal "position", right today.
THE BEGINNING:
Perhaps the best thing is to start from the beginning.
I have always been in love with art since I was very little, an attitude, a passion, a fixation, I don't know but, something that has accompanied me throughout my life until today, I have been interested in and have worked in many areas both in ancient art and certainly in contemporary art, which is truly the closest to my heart.
My first attempt with performance art was in 1992, the event was very successful, but only in 2017 did I start performing again.
But before sharing my experience as a performer, I think the time has come to include another theme, another very intimate and immaterial research path: my spiritual quest.
Who am I? What is the profound meaning of my life?
And the Divine? How can I integrate all this into my daily life?
In fact, I have no difficulty in testifying that although spiritual interest had appeared in me since childhood, many years had to pass before I myself fully understood that the two paths of research that have always accompanied my life (spiritual and
artistic) in reality were a single path in an absolutely indissoluble and interconnected unity of which I myself have only become aware in recent times.
In 2017 was the first time since 1992, when I felt the urge to get back into the game using my body, being reborn within me, taking up performative language as a means of expression and deep investigation for the concretization of my feelings.
The title was “Present Immobility”. The theme was therefore the double concept of absolute immobility combined with the concept of presence.
I put myself to the test in that occasion and was helped to cope with those rather difficult conditions by my experience with yoga,
I had practiced kundalini yoga for many years until I became a teacher of this discipline, this allows me to access meditative states of immobility, silence and presence wherever I am, a truly indispensable ability in almost all performance practices.
It was on that occasion that I experienced for the first time its strength and power of transmission in artistic contexts,
A very important source of Inspiration for me was also Ildegarda of Bingen*
“Opening doors of passage towards the mystical or towards the inner self is also the task of art”
Since she was a child she had visions, the saint in adulthood explains very clearly: “The visions that I saw, I did not perceive in a dream or while sleeping, nor in a state of frenzy or with bodily eyes and ears and I did not perceive them in hidden places, but I received them according to the will of God while awake, observing in the pure mind with the inner eyes and ears in open places.”
Those were the lucid visions that formed before her and that she is forced to transmit to men, and she transmitted them using all the means at her disposal, of which the most sublime for my sensitivity are the artistic ones, her miniatures, her music, her songs, etc.
For me, in fact, the key question, at this point, is how art can make up for the shortcomings and limits of logical/rational thought, leading to the creation of something new through which, otherwise inexpressible, perceptions are expressed. Only art can be placed in this limit between ineffable and speakable, between discursive thought and perception, but how?
As far as I'm concerned, since the beginning of my artistic practice I have always created my works following visions (even if I'm not sure if I recognized them as such at the beginning)
Such visions could appear to me in a dream, they were rich in details and very clear, or they could suddenly appear without a particular reason linked to the moment of that day, in which case I stopped and remained in silence I entered a contemplative state that could last a certain time until the vision was clear and precise, this led me to a sort of internal exaltation and profound joy.
I must add that once the vision was formed it was firmly planted within me, it took very deep roots and could not be erased, it threw me into a state of creative urgency for realization that passed through me and made me restless until the moment of birth of the work, thus realizing the vision itself, then this fulfillment pacified me, so the vision could gently fade away and remain a happy memory.
I want to add that my life, which has been quite difficult, has often forced me to postpone the realization of my visions for long periods, sometimes even decades. This involved an internal work of accepting the state of creative urgency and developing a mastery of coexistence with this state to maintain balance and harmony even in these uncomfortable situations for my creative drive which had to remain dormant or in a potential state.
One thing is certain: the planning that I then develop for the creation of each of my works, whether it is an installation, a video, a sculpture or a performance, always originates from a vision.
Therefore, FIRST COMES THE VISION, i.e. THE VISUAL IMAGE, WHICH COMES FROM THE OUTSIDE, THEN COMES THE THOUGHT AND THE RATIONAL MENTAL PROCESSING.
Over time I must say that, by deepening my process of inner awareness, my visions have become more precise and directed.
In the first years of my artistic activity, I worked on myths in an unconscious way, I would say, I was guided by interests, cultural experiences, psychic life experiences, but everything was not experienced by me in awareness.
Taking my creations back into my hands and analyzing my life during the first lock down period, I had the chance and the opportunity to retrace my entire journey step by step in the light of a different awareness.
I therefore discovered with great emotion and amazement that the themes I had addressed in my first works I had then continued to deal with, broadening and deepening them until I reached an interaction and a synthesis between artistic research and profound spiritual dimension.
The two paths intersect, they're melted! This realization has brought me to a state of unity and inner peace and to more clearly identify my role in the world.
To visualize the figure of a performer in my opinion it is useful to compare him/her to a tightrope walker, he must constantly keep himself in balance, a subtle but necessary balance between all the different factors already listed, to let the message flow, supporting one's vision with naturalness and harmony.
Of course this is my personal point of view, what I would define as part of my poetics and the reason why in recent years I have combined this way of expressing myself with the other disciplines that I still practice.
Donatella Vici
Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini
In the next article I will continue my exploration of performance art.
NOTE:
*Hildegard was a Benedictine nun and mystic who lived in Germany from 1098 to 1179.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjTzuNyc0FA A short video about one of Donatella performances.
In the next pages you will see some photos about one of Donatella’s installations
CONTEMPLATING OUR AGING PROCESS!
Lida Perry
Aging is no accident.
It’s necessary for the human condition.
It is built in our physiology; it extends beyond fertility and our muscular usefulness and sensory acuteness.
We need to grace this process with creative ideas and speak to it with the intelligence it deserves.
Aging is an invitation to revisit our life, to discover our character.
As James Hillman affirms:
“We need many years to develop a character, it has been forming your face, your habits, your friendships your peculiarities and the level of your ambition and its faults.”
There are many themes worth exploring during our maturing time:
Our Lifeline:
Our lives have been enriched with events, relationships, and losses. All these experiences have affected and forged who we are.
Identifying traits that have been resources (values, qualities), and obstacles that we encountered in our development and the perceived negative elements in our character is a process that can bring us to understand some of our life’s choices.
How we age, the patterns we regularly perform show our character at work.
Minds like fresh ideas:
The mind is naturally curious, inventive, transgressive. As we age, we are advised to keep mentally active to delay the decline of brain function. Minds that work build brain cells. Hence the expression “Use it or lose it.”
Do your ideas of older age need replacement? Like a hip, or a knee.
Do you need and want to let go of the regrets of what might have been, feelings of loneliness and unfulfillment?
Courage to Change:
Courage and curiosity are essential to our aging events.
Courage to let go of old ideas, shifting the significance of the events we fear. Curiosity can drive us to go deeper.
What is the significance of memories, images that come unsolicited in our quiet moments, in our dreams? They whisper advice, disapproval, disappointment, and they can inspire. They help us trace threads through our life, connecting the events so that they can help us in this way.
Observe the fullness of our character. Do we know the impact of our own character on others? What is left of us after we are gone is character.
The image was shaped from the very beginning; it persists and endures all along the events of our lives; it remains constant.
Legacy, Lasting and Leaving:
Lasting expresses the instinct of preservation, wanting to last, to go on and on. Is leaving a defeat, as leaving can mean only one thing: dying.
What is dying?
Dying is a commitment to hanging on to those attitudes that have preserved you so far.
The transition from lasting to leaving is psychological.
It is not we are leaving, but our attitudes and interpretations regarding the body and the mind, that have outlasted us and their usefulness.
They no longer sustain us, not because we are old, but because they are old.
Emotionally, are you touched to tears by someone’s kindness or do you offer help to someone who’s troubled? Instead of accepting kindness as a trait, you diminish it “I am getting soft in my old age? or my old age makes me utter vicious racist judgmental remarks, instead of seeing them as traits of character?
It’s a challenge to find the value in aging.
Aging is so embedded in a number that it’s hard to believe that for centuries later years were associated with vitality and character.
The old were respected elders, a depositary of customs, and legends, expert in skills and offered voices in the communal council.
Can we delve into this process and reclaim our voices, our vitality, our wisdom and rediscover the meaning in our lives?
I believe we can.
Lida Perry
If you are interested in joining a Contemplating Our Aging Group, We have organized a meeting group for women over 65 starting in September 2024.
THE BADGER PRODUCTIONS is happy to invite to this new online course. The goal of these meetings is to solicit thoughts to facilitate our understanding of our later years in a profound way.
It will occur over zoom monthly for four months.
Together we will explore:
Our Lifelines
Our Fresh Ideas for our Minds
Our Courage to Change
Our Legacy Lasting and Leaving:
To register contact thebadgerquarterly.com@gmail.com
In this short video Lida talks about the Ageing Process and the course she has organized and leads. https://youtu.be/Vt0rkXJWczQ
CHAKRAS Integrating the Shadow
Chiara Corte
Oh, you Shadow, my sister!
I love you.
I'm sorry for rejecting you by believing those who said you were wrong, believing that you were wrong.
Please come back to me, forgive me.
Together we can do great things. If you only came back to me, we would be one. We could join forces, combine our creativity and better serve the common good, in the light.
The shame and guilt that generated you are no longer there, we have grown up now, please come back to me.
Thank you.
When the Shadow comes out of the darkness it is ugly, dirty and evil, it acts secretly, it lacks control and tends to destroy everything beautiful you have created. It hurts the people you love, ruins the most precious relationships and is so quick to act that it always surprises you and you realize it a few seconds later or a few centuries later...
You check the ash into which you have reduced everything around you with horror and amazement.
Your mouth is dry with regret.
Sometimes not even that: numb and blind you continue your path paved with mistakes and pain, and you cannot even see it.
Now, (after this long evolutionary path along the chakras).
When the Shadow comes out of its darkness and is invited, it is welcomed, cleaned, identified, understood, this is the magical moment in which we can draw on its pure strength, on the new energy that we had deprived ourselves of when we had pushed back that part of us in the underworld.
Even the Shadow has its reasons. Perhaps its reasons date back to an ancient past for which there are no longer any reasons, probably they go back to an era from which we are very far away today, certainly we are not anymore in the same conditions we were in back then.
Everything works together for the good, the re-unification of the parts is now possible, integration will make us whole, spherical, radiant again.
The Integration of those lost parts is a ritual, a celebration, a party.
This is how I celebrate:
Sitting in Siddhasana, I place my hands in Namaskara Mudra, the palms are joined by the fingers at the junction of the wrists and the pressure is minimal but sufficient to firmly maintain contact.
The wrists lower to the level of the elbows or the center of the sternum. I turn my attention inside and wait.
When the moment seems appropriate and the aspect of my Shadow on which I am working is clearly present to me, I open my left arm and bring the back of my left hand to the ground next to me, I recite the above invocation and wait for some second. The right palm remains patiently in Namskara Mudra.
Then inhaling, slowly, the left palm returns to the center.
Breathe
Then my right palm comes away and I extend my right arm until the back of my right hand touches the ground.
I listen to the passage of the healed energy from left to right, from shadow to light and thus activate the pranic circulation also in these two left - right directions at the same time as the front - back activation as learned in the previous phases.
I enjoy the moment returning to Namaskara Mudra and breathe calmly
I try to visualize or physically perceive the presence of all the pranic currents activated simultaneously in my body, I consider my success when I grasp my new sphericity, my heart centre is activated and I feel the joy of celebration for the newfound sister: my shadow.
I bow with my forehead to the ground in a gesture of gratitude.
Then I get up and go to my life, I am now dressed in my new spherical happiness.
Chiara Corte
Article and Artwork
Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini
By CHIARA CORTE
AUTHORS
Antonella Vicini
Writer and editor of THE BADGER, author of Talking with Gods, Sages, Fairies.... (a novel published in 2014). Steeped in classical and indological studies, I have spent all my life learning from people as well as from the ancient texts that keep revealing their immortal, thus contemporary teachings. I am happy when I can share new visions and face new challenges. I am a professional rebirther and trainer (since 1987), Reiki master since 1991, stress management and leadership trainer, writer and visionary. I also lead workshops on shamanic journeying and soul healing. I am deeply grateful to all my teachers and elders. Badger Medicine Spirit
Geraldine Rael
I am a Native American woman of Ute and Pueblo descent, I am the oldest daughter of Joseph Rael, Beautiful Painted Arrow. In the Winter of 2018 my Fathers gifted his Sacred Dances, to me in order to carry his Visions into the future, the way he intended: “After the seeds have been planted, Mother Earth and Father Sun wake them out of their dream time that they may become.” As his eldest daughter of his lineage, I will do my utmost to keep his Visions, as he set them forth: watering the seeds so carefully and lovingly sown through his Dances, his living art and his teachings. Many blessings.
Laura Bottagisio www.laurabottagisio.com is an astrologer and seeker. She started studying astrology at the beginnings of the 80's with Lisa Morpurgo, she later worked with the Cosmos Institute of Milan, where she learnt about the theory and practice of Vibrational Waters. She has attended seminars with gerard Athias and Jp Brebion on new medicine and bio analogy. She shares her discoveries in her blog. She also creates tableaux with recycled materials, in this way she creates images out of emotions and inner worlds.
Lida Lodi Perry
https://www.facebook.com/lidaperry?ref=profile Lida was born in the North East of Italy (Vicenza) after graduating from a teacher Institute she came to the USA, where she continued her education at the University of Massachusetts with a degree in Psychology and later a Master in Social Work. She worked for many years at a drug clinic in the local hospital. In 1984 she went back to Italy to work with abused children as a director of a residential facility. She moved on to work as a supervisor and Psychologist at Milan Cancer Institute where she is still consulting, while having a successful private practice as psychotherapist. She was also cofounder of the Rebirthing Institute with Antonella Vicini, she became a Reiki Master in 1992, she is still active with the local and international Reiki community.
Francis Rico
www.shaman.zone.com
Musician, feral shaman, and author Francis Rico combines ancient and modern wisdom assisting clients, students and fellow adventurers in awakening to the gift of their lives. His book, A Shaman's Guide To Deep Beauty, shares stories and lessons from a lifetime of dedication to the shamanic pathways and teachers of indigenous wisdom traditions. As a guide to the world's sacred sites, Francis brings insight, humor, and music along on every journey. His home lies in Northern California, where he shares the beauty of the wild coastal mesas, cliffs, and ocean.
Chiara Corte
is a Reiki Master of Usui Shiki Ryoko system and a Reiki pratictioner since 2005. Yoga teacher of Yoga Ratna school since 2003 and yoga student since 1990. Naturopath of Jean Monnet high school in Bruxells since 2012. In 2006 she published “Yoga and Dance” Editoriale il delfino, Milano. She is the author of several specialized articles in different magazines. Currently she teaches yoga in Italy and in France (since 2001). She also teaches Italian language, literature and History in Italian high school (since 1998). In 1994 she obtained the license for teaching disabled people. She completed her MA in Precolombian American Ethnology in 1991.
Thank you for reading our magazine, our tribe of committed Badgers is growing steadily
Thank you!
I want to thank the new and old authors who have added their voices and experiences to this great adventure, so that we can be better heard and received. Our next issue will be online at the December Solstice 2024
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https://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_june_2017
https://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/march_2017
https://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger__year_3_volume_1__januar_633706ba22eabb
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https://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_june_2016
https://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_march_2016
http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_january_2016
http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_october__2015
http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_june_2015
http://issuu.com/antonellavicini/docs/the_badger_year_1_volume_2
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THE BADGER PRODUCTIONS present SPEECHLESS?
NO MORE!
Speak in Public with Joy
The Natural Speaker
We are all natural speakers; this course will support the rediscovery of your innate skills and your real voice
The world needs your clear voice, whatever your occupation or level of study, being able to communicate and be understood in public situations has become the norm at every level of education and in any job.
From shy to shining, from silence to fully express yourself in a confident and professional manner, these are the goals for our beginning course in Public Speaking. Whether you are still in school or looking for your first job, adding your voice as an asset will make you stand out, because you will be a Natural Speaker.
In our 10 online lessons we will discover: the power of stance with our body and breath the scope of our vision with our mind the strength and resilience in our life with our emotions the deepest values that identify us with our spirit. All these approaches applied to communication techniques will make you a Natural Speaker. Watch our trailer video:
QUILTING AWAY
Quilting is the art of creating very colorful quilts, using small pieces of fabrics stitched together preferably by hand, in different colorful and amazing patterns.
My Quilts are stitched and quilted by hand to assure a more precise assembly and even thickness. It takes time to create a quilt: for a single bed at least 3 months are needed.
A quilt can be a very precious gift for a wedding, a special occasion, or for a significant person. Visit my Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/lidaperry/?fref=ts
BEAUTIFUL PAINTED ARROW
VISIONARY ART CARDS
THE PATH OF THE RED ROAD
A Powerful Tool for Transformation
Through these beautiful and unique cards Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) shows us the Path of the RedRoad. A great wisdom teacher, Joseph Rael, imparts a personal message to each of us in the individual revelations of the cards.
Beautiful Painted Arrow (Joseph Rael) helps us understand through the blending of two languages, two separate realities, that we each come as a gift to life. . . . His use of sound in the practices he offers is very illuminating and special.”
Brooke Medicine Eagle on “Beautiful Painted Arrow”
www.millichapbooks.com
