THE SAND WOMAN

I don't know why I was so called to this ritual. The river and its many sand bars were a big part of my life for 20 years. I spent quiet summer afternoons with friends,swimming, talking and  picnicing.

 I spent solitary time dancing on sand bars.

When my son was young, we spent hot days diving off sand bars, into unusually deep waters surrounding them.





 I played Frisbee and catch the ball with dogs that I dog sat for. I ate watermelon, and watched late night bonfires with friends. Yes, the sand was an integral part of my experience.
A moment came when I began to envision a uniquely personal ritual.
At a Christmas party  we were discussing an enchanting movie called, Calendar Girls, a true story about how a few middle aged women posed nude for a calendar, to raise funds for a friend who has cancer. 

We all laughed and hypothesized about our own ability to do such a thing. Most said they could never do it for any reason.  But a few brave souls said yes . There was a photographer present and he suggested that he would love a project like that and offered to do the photos for free. That seemed to be the end of that.


As summer approached I began to mildly contemplate what month I wanted to be in the calendar and just what my project would be.Instantly, the sand came to mind. 
Symbolically, sand speaks of change and impermanence.  I remembered watching the Tibetan monk, who once lived next door to me, create a magnificent sand mandala. Each grain of colored sand is laid down gently to create an exquisite, intricate ancient design that is almost unimaginable. I asked the Lama why did his culture do such a laborious, tedious  and labor intensive art form in sand??? He said, " we use sand as a sacred  teaching tool of impermanence." When the mandala is completed after many weeks of work it is simply swept up and the sand is set free in the flowing waters of a near by river. It is symbolic of the constant shifting of forms. No matter how hard we strive for stability and the safety of permanence it is not the true nature of existence.



It made sense to me. After leaving the stability of a 15 year marriage, my life was in a constant state of change. The more I allowed and embraced these shifts the easier they became. The meaning of my life began to coalesce  around the ability to shift gracefully. 
I wanted my photo to represent that. What began as a humorous idea was to become a deep personal ritual.

On the day of the shoot I kayaked out to a sandbar alone. I spent the afternoon in silence, just allowing ideas to come to the surface of my consciousness. It began by my dripping sand until it built up, by scooping the sand with lots of water and allowing it to slowly funnel out of my cupped hands. I began to build a tail all the way down the length of the small sand island I had chosen.I dug a huge hole in front of the tail where I could kneel waited deep. This way my hidden legs would allow the tail to appear as though it was attached to my waist. It took the entire afternoon to build the layers of wet sand high and long enough to match the proportions of my upper body. Like the Tibetan monk had described to me, a meditation. My thoughts did not wander aimlessly but kept to the task at hand. I was a meditation of new forms I would be creating in my life. No part of me would remain. In the late afternoon the light of the setting sun would be perfect  My closest friend, Cecilia, and Dick, the photographer, would kayak out to my island. When they arrived we worked quickly to catch just the right moment. I stripped and put hair gel in my hair to facilitate sand adhesion. I settled into the hole while Cecilia buried my legs and brushed away all the footprints around the shot. Earlier I had created a partial clay woman and I now rolled her into the sand so that she appeared to be made of sand as well.I held her high and looked up. Dick shot from all angles and within a few minutes had 130 exposures. As the sun set, there is an indelible delicious mental picture in my mind of the three of us kayaking down the river into the setting sun to have a celebratory dinner together.

 I was deeply moved by Dick and Cecilia's experience of what I considered MY ritual.  They also had had personal epiphanies. And each of us had allowed the river to help us on our personal journey of change.

 Knowing that night the river would take the remains of my sand creation along with it on its journey I smiled and felt a sense of empowerment . The idea of ritual as a tool became real for me. And I like to think that my ritual was for all of us.