It has been five years since we; filmmakers Salvatore Consalvi was invited to the Wakpamni Lake Ceremonies to conduct a short interview of iconic Medicine Man Sidney Hasnohorse. By the second year of filming we compiled over 30 hours of candid interviews covering spirituality, Lakota history, consciousness, religious identity, and life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota
So many supporters openly wondered why we didn’t just compile a 90-minute film and move on to other projects.
The Hasnohorse kitchen table and Lakota Spiritual Forum
But each year we experienced mystical phenomenon that had us running home to research what we had seen; learned of the Medicine Lineage; or felt in ceremony. Soon enough we were re-working our own understanding of reality and consciousness (#QuantumIndian). Inevitably Sidney’s teachings of Lakota cosmology and spirituality; casually discussed around the kitchen table; entwined with concepts from comparative religious studies, social justice, and even quantum physics. And each year we were allowed to participate in more intense rituals.
Inevitably, I (Director Salvatore Consalvi) asked to pay the Medicine Man and his Ancestors back in the traditional way. So in year three of filming I went “on the hill” for a 2-day Vision Quest; in thanks for the access, patience, and education we received. I attempted to give thanks in the same way a Lakota patient repays the spirit world for a cure or a Native family gives thanks for good fortune of another kind.
Being of European decent it was uncertain what the spirit world would ask of me, if acknowledging me at all. I subsequently
embarked on a four-year cycle of Vision Quest (Humbelechapi), Sun and Ghost Dances. In the first Sun Dance I gave flesh during the warrior round; in year two a celestial sign required I hang from the Ceremonial Tree; in year three I fell while giving flesh and broke my back.
This year, as my middle-aged body heals, I attempt to prepare my mind for the fourth and final year of giving back for the documentary. So, 2015 will be perfect time to begin Post-Production in earnest.
The documentary process and ceremonial mind will entangle further as we prepare to support the ceremonies while building a rough edit from nearly 80 hours of interviews. Stay tuned for our plans for next year.
Salvatore Consalvi and Brigitte Timmerman are the primary Filmmakers on the Documentary in Progress Sidney Has No Horses: Oglala Lakota Medicine Man.
Over four years ago they met Sidney and a small, relatively unknown group of traditional Oglala Lakota people in South Dakota.
From the beginning, they were amazed to learn that Sidney has direct spiritual ties to some of the most famous Warriors and Holy Men of the last 2 centuries.
So they were soon immersed in Sidney’s teachings, in their own research, and in the Four-Main Ceremonies themselves.
This first interview was intense and began a journey into the indigenous world-view.
After five years from first meeting and interviewing Sidney Hasnohorse, we will begin populating the blog with images and graphics generated from the Documentary in Progress.
You have found the first Blog Post from Salvatore Consalvi, Director of the ‘Documentary in Progress’ Sidney Has No Horses: Oglala Lakota Medicine Man.
The project is a continuing investigation (five years and counting) of the Wakpamni Lake Oglala Lakota Ceremony Circle led by the authentic, controversial, if not iconic, Medicine Man, Sidney Has No Horses.
These blog-posts, associated tweets, Facebook posts, newsletters, and YouTube uploads will tell the story of a Lakota lineage of medicine men and warriors leading up to our discovery of Sidney. It will describe his brutally authentic ceremonies. It will portray an unbroken cultural lineage that maintains an extremely mystical Earth-based religion and the indigenous mind that has survived the corporate age.
Sidney Has No Horses: Oglala Lakota Medicine Man 