Deep-States, Spring Cleaning, Rough Edits, & the Prairie-Ice: Content Taxonomy

This spring, Prairie-Ice Production entered a deep-state of self-organization. Last year we added the Subtitle, “Deep Access” to reflect the intensity and motivation for both Prairie-Ice Documentaries. We also reorganized financially and eliminated the debt that accumulated from 8-years of self-funded and in-kind production. Nearly 20 trips to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota added up to quite a significant problem. Glad to be done with servicing that debt.

So this spring we are excited to turn our focus to the Rough-Edit of the documentary about Lakota Spiritual Ecology & Religious Identity (So Rough I’m calling this ‘Director’s’ Cut a Gross Edit). And the Documentary, Deep Field Antarctica, about Remote Field Work and Isolated Landscape meditations is never far from thought. The media-prep for six intense seasons is ongoing.

In other words it’s full time on the Prairie documentary about Lakota (Sioux) Medicine Man, Sidney Hasnohorses; while preparing the Ice-Media for Deep Field Antarctica.

We’ll be posting teasers and relevant threads from both intense Cultures and Landscape right here from both Deep Access Documentaries.

The process of organizing the media is proving to be a rich and intense experience all it’s own. The four-direction prayers, poetry, and essays that sprang from my attempt to “Live” an authentic, native religion will augment and tie the narrative together.

Journal entries on the rituals, ceremonies, and morning prayers will establish the motivation behind the 8-year-long immersion.

Reflections on life, humanity, trauma, ethnicity, ecology, quantum field theory, consciousness and the brutality of modern civilization . . . continue to surprise and inform.

The documentary narrative is revealing the interconnectivity of all living things in the language of oneness, wisdom-keepers, and quantum consciousness. In other words, the edit is becoming an experience of its own within oure space-time river of life and quantum consciousness.

Inevitably, before your eyes, all projects will self-organize on this Blog. A relational database of content  has been designed. This very site is becoming a taxonomy of potential human experiences organizing decades of creative and investigative projects. It will serve as the publishing engine for all future Prairie-Ice projects.

In short, the first documentary will portray the religious identity and spiritual ecology that led me to the grueling Lakota rituals and a deeper understanding of the tribal mind. The profound ceremonies still strong in the North American cultural landscape this attempt to live an ancient, natural religion became a Slow-Motion “Collision between Ancient & Modern Minds”.

So a “walk around the medicine wheel”  guided by and authentic Medicine Man is becoming an experiential documentary floating on the River-of-Life & quantum consciousness.

My thanks to Sidney Hasnohorses for overcoming his personal struggle and revealing the ancient medicine-wheel to this modern-mind; for preserving and guiding an ancient, Oglala Religion; and for putting up with a decade of incessant questions.

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Fall Hunt

Sidney Hasnohorses Hunting

Salvatore Stalking the Hunters

 

 

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The Last Ghost Dancer: The Interview that Sparked the Decade Long Documentary & Odyssey of Consciousness

Within hours of their first meeting, Oglala Lakota Medicine Man, Sidney Hasnohorses, divulged the ultimate nature of his beliefs to filmmaker Salvatore Consalvi: “We do not practice our religion, we live our religion.” Taking place between a smoldering fire and the willow frame of a sweat lodge, these extemporaneous conversations were honest, courageous, and riveting.

Yet the words themselves felt like echoes of native wisdom from the intentions of grandfathers like famed ceremonial chief Frank Fools Crow. “There is natural power, and spiritual power.” His teachings connected the interview that night to much older and deeper lessons. “Without spiritual power we tend to work for ourselves. Accomplishments may be outstanding, yet we tend to subordinate and misuse the rest of creation.”

This documentary reveals a powerful tension between the beauty of Native American traditions, and the harsh realities of modern reservation life. Our account will superimpose casual storytelling, formal interviews, landscape studies, and social awareness. Visual effects, animation, video and photographic studies will portray mystical rituals, remote healing, modern reservation life, intergenerational trauma, and daily routines.

The interviews and research includes rare insight into the beliefs and ancient rites critical to the survival of the Lakota. We learn that Sidney comes from a long lineage of Holy Men tasked by the Spirit World with passing the religion to future generations and to a modern world in dire need of native wisdom. However sacred ceremonies or private rituals were never invasively recorded, rather those events will be depicted creatively, on the emotional plane.

We are currently fundraising for post-production. Keep an eye on our progress here and all over social media.

 

 

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From the Pine Ridge Reservation, to Kickstarter, & Antarctica: An Odyssey of Indie-Documentary Filmmaking.

What began as a character study of a complicated, mystical, Oglala Lakota Medicine Man became a “slow-motion collision between ancient and modern minds.” 

Six years ago the filmmakers were granted an  interview for a short educational film. We never thought it would leed to performing the Vision Quest and Sun Dance Ceremonies for four-years.

But the ancient rituals of suffering, prayer, and gratitude added several layers of depth and intensity to the overall experience,  becoming a six-year long exploration of an ancient religion surviving the modern age.

And Medicine Man, Sidney Hasnohorses, never spared the gory details about growing up in one of the poorest, most violent counties in the country. He was brutally honest about his own past, openly revealing character flaws and inter-generational trauma.

But this documentary was an unlikely occurrence, the director, Salvatore Consalvi, was hip deep in another documentary, Deep Field Antarctica, about the remote and isolated experience managing field camps in the highest, driest, loneliest place on earth. For a time, he entertained finishing both projects at once. Yet returning exhausted from a hot water drill camp on the glacier tongue of Pine Island Glacier to performing the most rigorous Lakota rituals that included fasting and traditional flesh offerings proved too much.

Now, the experience has progressed from the spiritual identity of one religious leader to a deeper understanding of mind and consciousness, one consistent with many earth-based religions, and translatable to many modern-minds. And the filmmakers are deep into a Kickstarter Campaign that will fund post-production and tell this story of Ancient Wisdom, Modern Torment, Quantum Consciousness, and a Link to the Spirit World.

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History of the Documentary in Progress: First Interview Captivates Filmmakers and Usurps Antarctica Google

First Interview Captivates Filmmakers and Usurps Documentary Antarctica

Sidney Hasnohorse Smoking

Sidney HasNoHorse (link website) is an authentic, modern-day medicine man. He is genuine, spiritual and yet tragically complicated. The night of the first interview was intense. An deeply mystical mood hung over the house and grounds as the Wakpamni Prayer Circle prepared for ceremony. Yet, for reasons that would take years to understand, there was also an intense anxiety, and fear of imminent violence.

The filmmakers (link-bio page) were stunned on many levels. And we continue to unravel the meaning beneath the legends, rituals, and ceremonies still holding together an indigenous mind and its earth-religion.

Buffalo Skull at Ancestral Teachings

Upon walking into the crowded kitchen as the Circle prepared for the 4-day Ceremony of prayer, hunger, flesh-offerings, it was apparent they were also creating connections to the spirit world. Subsequently for the filmmakers, there was an almost immediate tearing apart of perceptions, expectations, and cultural morays.

That modern anxiety however would diminish behind a thick and mystical mood as the ceremonial mind was building before our eyes. Then as midnight approached, though exhausted, Sidney turned to us and said, “We can do the interview now.” It would be the last chance to talk for four days.

Interview after the Hunt: Fall 2011

The first hour-long interview (http://youtu.be/WLAF2aAfkzA) was honest, extemporaneous, and rich in culture and spirituality. To the sound of dogs wailing and wind howling through the plywood shacks, we sacrificed tobacco to the fire and asked the Ancestors for permission to learn from their Medicine Man. We struggled with extension cords, incandescent light bulbs, squeaking shed doors and playful Lakota spirits knocking our camera about.

He ended seconds before the tape ran out; one-hour: four-minutes and change. We knew immediately that the life story that unfolded before us was honest and courageous. He revealed more than we could ask for; from the first visions that revealed his spiritual gifts; through bouts of ego, anger, alcohol and drug abuse that almost destroyed him. He held nothing back and opened himself to derision and ridicule from native people, and modern scientists alike.

Frank Fools Crow, Sidney’s Primary Teacher

In that way, in traditional cadence and stentorian tone, an authentic medicine man with direct ties to the most powerful warriors and healers of the colonial age gave us the first of many powerful interviews; an interview of a lifetime (Twitter #SageRope). I turned to Brigitte and said, “There is a feature-length doc in this guy.” The next year we returned from Antarctica and I shelved that documentary. We’ve been returning to the Pine Ridge for interviews and ceremony ever since.

Now, at this point in the relationship between filmmakers and Medicine Man, we sit around that same kitchen table and discuss how the language of quantum physics (Twitter #QuantumIndian) may well describe the Lakota Legends and the World Behind this One.

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Documentary Trailer on Youtube:
http://youtu.be/MhmBfDNOUTU
Website: Sidney Has No Horses the Movie
http://sidneyhasnohorsesthemovie.com
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