Join Me

 

 

Facilitation and Working Together

Are you interested in working with me in-person?  I'm located in Duncan, on Vancouver Island, BC.

Are you interested in bringing one of these, or a version of one of these, to your community or organization?

Are you interested in working remotely?  Email, phone, WhatsApp and Zoom are possible ways for us to connect and work together.

Please send me an email...

 

nikkimanzie@gmail.com

Tell me your name, a little about yourself, what you are interested in, and any questions you may have...  I will, in-turn, send you my brochure of one-on-one services and monthly gatherings.

FACILITATION

I have practiced art and fine-craft-making for over 43 years and have been writing for 6 years. I have worked as a therapist and teacher of earth-based spirituality and medicine for over 30 years.  The disciplines combine as I explore and integrate the folk traditions and sacred knowledge of my Ukrainian grandparents, particularly the handwork that accompanies life and seasonal rites.

 

The pieces I create are relational. Relational to the individual or community they are made for; to the lands I, as a guest, live and walk upon; to the spirits and ancestors; and to the materials I work with. 

 

I describe myself as an advocational & relational interdisciplinary artist…  Yes, it’s a mouthful. And it’s an accurate conveyance of my work!

 

Year-round, I host (by donation) Rites of the Sun and Moon & The Path of Sacred Handwork – based on seasonal rites in the Slavic tradition.  If you are interested in attending in-person, please let me know!!  (A book of the same name and material will be available soon!)

 

Understanding the power of sacred and ritual handcrafting to support individual empowerment and community healing, land re-connection, and revivification of blood and bone memory is at the centre of the facilitation I offer.

The following workshops are available upon request:

v  The Medicine of Fibre and Dye

((up to) 12 hrs in 2- or 3-day formats)

Exploring respectful relations through direct development of plant and land connections and hands-on techniques of natural dyeing and cordage making.

 

Themes we work with:

o   what does it mean to forage ethically on treaty/ unceded lands?

o   learning (practicing) respectful relations by connecting with plants as community members;

o   the “medicine” of plants – surface medicine versus the deeper medicine of relationship;

o   roots, rooting and blood & bone memory;

o   twisting, binding, sewing as intention setting and re-member-ing.

 

v  The Path of Sacred Handwork for Healing and Reparation

(3-5 hr formats)

Participants are guided step-by-step in the ritual making of a traditional Motanka, a talismanic vessel intended to engage with one’s own ancestors/ ancestral guidance.

o   While crafting, we dialogue about the power and healing potential of connecting with ancestral roots and handwork practices.  What is the importance of centering ourselves in these practices? For those who are settler-occupiers, guests to the lands they live and work within, what does it mean to bring (or revive) ancestral practices in a land where one is invited/ uninvited guest?

o   Longer formats include a slideshow and short presentation of The Land Dreams in Ceremonies: Reparation as example of the potential of handcraft as healing and reparation.

o   Participants complete and take-home their own Motanka.

 

v  Gathering Threads: Peace by Piece

(2-4 hr formats)

“The Land, the individual and the community are one” (Wilfred Pelletier, 1993, personal communication).  When the health and well-being of the land suffers, so too does the health of the community and the individual.  If disease appears in an individual, then it likewise afflicts the community and the land.  All are entwined – suffused within one another – and inform one another. We co-influence one another through the land, in helpful and not-so-helpful ways.  Where there is trauma held in the history of the land, it affects us all.  And it is the responsibility of each person to do their part to support its healing.

o   Gathering Threads: Peace by Piece recognizes the connections across time (memories in the land as well as blood and bone memory), the connections of all who have and continue to walk the lands, and the connections (impacts) of our choices, actions, attitudes, and world views to the land and each other.

o   People are encouraged to respectfully “stitch together” stories and connections to one another, land, culture, history, and explore handwork traditions through sewing with good energy/ mood/ intent. 

o   Gathering the varied threads of our life experiences together, we care for the earth, community, and one another as we co-create handcrafted blankets.  Our time, efforts and blanket creations will be gifted to those who can use them through CWAV.

 

v  Writing from the Bones: Pysanky as Radical Acts of Re-Writing/ Re-Righting our Relations

(3-5 hr formats)

Participants are guided step-by-step in the ritual making of a Pysanka, a talismanic egg, using beeswax to write symbolic and imagistic intentions on shell.  (The word Pysanka comes from the root word “pysaty,” to write.)

Themes we work with:

o   Overview of Pysanky (history and uses), and the medicine of the elements;

o   Covering the “natural surface” as metaphor for acts of colonization…  Imposing cultural views on one another… What does it mean to see that which has been written over time?

o   Imprints on the surface: what prayer or vision do you hold and practice to radically re-write/ re-right our relations?

o   Writing from the bones: from your place as an elder(-in-making) and ancestor-in-making, what can you write into “being” (in your life) that will support greatest connection and healthiest relations for the generations of humans and other-than-humans to come?

o   Participants learn the technique of beeswax writing on eggshell and take a completed Pysanka home.

 

If you would like something tailored to your personal or organizational needs, please let me know – I’m happy to design something.