Shaman Staff Walking Stick- Part 20- Final Section Completed and Project Completed-Photos

A note to readers:  This is the same post as yesterday.  It has been republished because I forgot to add the labels that the search engines use to locate the post.  A new blog post will appear on Wednesday.

I have been working on the final section of the Shaman Staff Walking Stick.  This section, at the bottom of the stick deals with a weaving pattern.  When I was doing research into traditional designs for this project, I noticed one pattern that kept showing up through many cultures.  Because of the ubiquitous nature of this particular pattern, it showed that many cultures considered that this was something important.  Therefore, the pattern seemed like a good choice to put on the stick. This pattern is currently known as the basket weave pattern.  

Bottom of the staff.

The basket weave pattern was also a good choice to place it at the end of the stick because it had numerous rows, which would still be seen as the stick wears over time.  It is decorative as well as keeping with the theme of transmitting information that is important to retain.  So, if the bottom of the stick wears down through use, the information is not lost.  The basket weave has so much importance for human civilization.  It created the baskets that carried food and seeds.  It is the warp and weft threads of the loom that allowed us to create clothing.  Some cultures used woven palm fronds to create walls and ceilings and mats to sit upon.  So yes, this pattern has a place in the theme of this art piece.

Upper portion of the staff.

Lower part of the staff.

The basket weave pattern has been with us in the form of diamonds or squares in contrasting colors for thousands of years.  It is seen in early traditional cultures, medieval cathedrals, Renaissance palaces, and in textiles throughout history, even on our clothing and game boards.  While I was working on this piece, I took some time to think about why this particular pattern is so prevalent.  Why do humans have such an attachment to this specific pattern?  Does it say something to us that we understand on some unconscious level?  I think so.  Think about the basket weave pattern for a minute: over and under, over and under.  Think of it in contrasting colors:  light overlaps the dark, dark overlaps the light.  This is the pattern of our lives.  Day overlaps the night which overlaps the day, which overlaps the night.  When we look at a contrasting pattern, we don't see this, but somehow our minds recognize the pattern as something familiar.

Free association also yielded some insights.  Art can take your thoughts to places where you might not otherwise go.  Although they are not totally relevant to the mechanics of creating this art piece, I thought that they were worth sharing. The diamond pattern of light against dark reminded me of stars shining at night.  How bright those stars must have been before electric lights came to dim the night sky.  The bright diamonds against the dark field also reminded me of a flash of light.  A flash of light is used as a signal.  A signal flashing, a flashlight being turned on and off in the dark.  Flash lights have a switch to turn on and off.  These days many electronic devices have a symbol on the power switch to indicate that this is the switch that turns the device on and off.  That symbol is an incomplete circle with a straight line running down from it.  The circular part indicates the off position, the straight line indicates that the energy is running through it.  On and off, a signal, a signal is a message.  What is the message?  Try this:  hold your hand stiff with the fingers pointing straight up.  Then release the muscular tension so that your hand curls down so that the fingers are circular and the index finger is next to the thumb.  In essence, you are making the current symbols for on and off.  Repeat this a few times. What are you doing?  You are waving a type of wave that is most often used to say goodbye.  One of the themes of this walking stick was that important information would be retained even when the people passed on.  The important information they want someone to have is on the stick: how to make things, what is safe to eat; and finally, the people are saying goodbye.  They have gone on, and this is the final message to the bearer of the walking stick.  Maybe that was important.  In early cultures, death by violence or accident was high as the group hunted or one tribe fought against another.  Many times they did not have time to say goodbye.  So perhaps that could have some importance.  Or conversely, the message could be mean that the past still has relevance in our lives and is signalling hello.  On the quantum level, all possibilities are present. I didn't really expect all that, but that is what comes of free association.

I am posting here a segment of one of the first blogs on this walking stick about the creative process used to come up with an idea for what to put on this walking stick:  it is basically a story that starts with a creation myth and goes on into shamanic concepts of past/present/future happening all at once and the manifestation of form.  It is a reminder to the shaman that he or she is the vessel that contains all who came before and all who will come afterwards.  The poem on this stick begins with the creation of the universe and ends with the manifestation of the bearer of the walking stick as the current form that will take those from the past into the future, that at this moment the past, present, and future are joined.  There is a pictorial story about the many forms that life took here.  The walking stick also contains the story of what could have been important to a very early band of hunter/gatherers as they moved about the land and the things that they created that advanced civilization.   So there you have it:  art and poetry on a stick.  The poem is below.


We began as the dust of ancient stars
Crossed time and space
We took form in this place
Living always with a hope for a better tomorrow
And now we are manifest in you
Here past present and future are one

Anyway, the piece is complete.  I signed my name on it the last day of November.  It took three months to complete the project.  As I wood burned my name onto the walking stick, the tip of the wood burning nib broke.  It lasted to the end of the project and not a second longer.  Somehow, it seems the way it should be for this project.  As always, it is hard to get a picture of the entire walking stick at once, so I am posting a couple of pictures that give some long views of the staff, even if it is not all in one shot.

Check back next Wednesday for a different project.