In Tucson, every monsoon season, the heavens open up, and the mermaids reappear to sing, to dance and to parade through the heart of downtown Tucson! For the past three years friends of Institute for the Shamanic Arts have dressed up as fish for this uplifting family friendly parade. It is a perfect opportunity to highlight creativity and nature honoring Animism in one community event. Our costumes highlight our amazing Fish Puppet Heads created from paper plates, designed and constructed by Jacob Gardener.
This year was special because it began to pour rain the moment the parade began, and the drops stopped the minute the parade ended. A true blessing!!!
Jacob wrote the following about the experience~Hopefully next year you can join us in our Sacred Fish Skool for the 2017 Parade!
The Mermaid Parade (Sacred Water Festival) was very inspirational. As an animist I was reminded that when connecting with Spirit, between the worlds may be quite strong by the side of the road. The old saying concerning “Rain on my Parade” takes on new significance when the parade concerns mermaids in a drought stricken region. What a great affirmation of sympathetic magic. I always feel renewed and pleasantly patient after spirit affirmation. I believe this is an example of the hollow bone 101 experience.
During the parade, in 1 hour it was possible to make eye contact with nearly 2 hundred people! There is the moment when the eye sees the novel, non-threatening,community strengthening, very human desire to smile. There is an energy in this smile of others directed to the whimsical procession. It is a type of soul nourishment. This energy may be given away freely with no fatigue, nothing has been lost. Each person in the parade has nearly 200 smile energy equivalents to joyfully give away. And this ability can grow into enough smile energy to make a difference in the realm of daily chaos so that smile energy returns from unknown sources.(a true delicacy!)
