My Hip as an Art Project

“My Hip as an Art Project” is about a session I had with Kathie Jaskowski. It shows, as so many sessions do, that DWD has the power to change lives.  The after-effects of that session are still with me as I make art.  Many of you have also given me sessions around my hip issues and I could have written something about each of them.  All of those has been miraculous and have contributed to my wellbeing and growth as a human.  Bowing down to all of you!

After my hip replacement surgery, I had a profound experience and shift In a Dancing with Dragons session. As I felt into the Reiki pouring through, I touched on some grief that was present—a connection to the parts of me that had been cut away in what is a common, but still dramatic, surgery. I felt a deep grief about the loss of my bone; I somehow couldn’t really take in that someone had cut off part of my bone and I had let them. After resting in this feeling of grief, eventually I also felt a strong desire to welcome in any new materials placed in my body so they could integrate into my whole system. There was also a sense of overwhelm--everything felt like a lot. I was aware of the shock to my body, even as something in me was relaxing as I invited integration. 

After a long pause with Reiki flowing, I got an image of some kind of weaving—a tapestry with different textures, different elements, all woven together; it was beautiful. Some part of me was internally creating art as a metaphor for what was happening in my hip.

Yes! I could see the artwork taking form.  Living on a farm, we often find bones of the animals who live here with us, and I put some of them in one of my gardens—my bone garden. In the Reiki experience I saw one of the femurs from the garden as the top part of the tapestry, from which everything else would hang. Then I was weaving in long grasses and stems of prairie plants—natural fibers to help create the shape and texture of the piece. And then, just like my new hip, I was adding in some metal and ceramic pieces here and there. Seeing this art piece come alive helped me feel the magic of what was happening in my body—it felt quite extraordinary.  

Along with the power of the art came a sense of failure—why did I have to have this surgery in the first place? Shouldn’t Reiki or any of the many other practices I explored have healed me? This part wasn’t ready to have everything work out beautifully yet. I named and acknowledged this disappointment, which is what it seemed to want.

As I saw the art project unfold and felt the power of it, I also felt a more complete welcoming of what was here. There was a letting go of the sense of failure and an embrace of the beauty that was and would be present. Such a relief. Somehow, unexpectedly, it felt exciting to me at that moment. My heart felt full and we sat in the Reiki energy a while, letting everything be blessed.

A few words from the experience of the witness:

your femur embraced the metal.....like tiny roots moving into the metal

everything was drenched in Light

Failure stepped forward and asked to be seen.  I felt you acknowledged it and it receded.

The image of making art about my hip surgery was so powerful, I searched for a way to get started.  It would be weeks before I could get out to my bone garden and choose a femur; the biggest version of my project would have to wait for now.  But I needed to do something soon to honor this vision.  I decided to decorate my walker with a few sacred objects. I wrapped yarn left over from beloved projects around the metal bar of the walker.  I kept it simple since I was still using the walker to go everywhere, including into the shower.  I hung a few treasures and enjoyed the way they swung as I walked around the house.

Soon, I had no need for the walker and it stood unused in the bedroom for a few weeks. I wanted to put it away, but didn’t quite know what to do with all the yarn and pieces that had had so much meaning for me.  On one hand, I thought of my art project every time I walked by the walker; on the other hand, I didn’t need it and wanted to declutter. I also wanted to honor the art that I made. So, for a while I felt, not stuck exactly, but pausing until I had a sense of how to balance it all.

Concurrent to all this, we were building a wetland on a part of our property that was a long walk for me at that time. Once I knew I could make it there. I was so excited to see its beauty after all those weeks of having to stay in the house. When we visit we like to offer some kind of blessing, like cornmeal from Indigenous corn my husband grew last year. Then I remembered the yarn and crystals and knew that offering all that to the land would be just the thing. So, I carefully cut it all off and put everything in my pocket. I walked out to the land, taking in the beauty of everything I saw. When I got to the wetland area I scattered all the pieces of “hip art” out on the land. It felt perfect.

Once I was able to move around even more, I started on the bigger project I had envisioned. I got the femur and a hip bone from the bone garden. I knit several cords that I then braided into one stronger cord that would attach to the femur so I could hang it from the wall as I worked on it. I threaded long strands of yarn from the stash of my friend Martha, who had died years before. I wove other strands of leftover yarn through it so that I could insert bark and grasses and wild plants into the sculpture.

It hung from my office wall and I walked by it every day, blessing it, and being blessed by it, as I did.  I have spent many months working out the details of this project and at one point undid the whole bottom half.  I worked with a shaman for a while before the surgery and in one session she saw my hip joint as a glowing crystal.  Kevin had recently found a large crystal out on the land and I broke it into smaller pieces and glued them into the acetabulum of the hip bone.  It was beautiful!  Is still beautiful. This will go into the bottom half of my sculpture in a way that is not quite clear to me now. In the meantime, here it is.

During the Thanksgiving weekend after my surgery, I made a casserole in one of my favorite ceramic dishes that we took to share with family. Somehow it broke in the car on the way home and I was pretty sad about it. Then I remembered that the surgeon had also used ceramic in my new hip! I broke the whole dish into smaller pieces and added some to the sculpture.  It felt so good to be making art out of things that I loved that I didn’t really want to throw away.

Just recently I was leaning my back against our Grandmother Tree—the oldest and largest tree on our property.  We revere her and love to sense her long and steady energy.  I looked down and there was another well-weathered femur bone, that I had not noticed in my near daily walks past her.  I had been envisioning a new lower half for my project and this might be perfect. 

Despite my excitement at this project, and my early vision, it has not been easy to finish.  I have wondered if this is some kind of inner resistance, but am now deciding that it will just take as long as it takes, unfolding however it does. I still see it daily, and I can feel some part of me working it all out. In the meantime, here are pictures of what I have so far. Who knows what the final piece will be? Just like Reiki it’s all so mysterious.