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Sedona: Frances Fisher gets caught in a vortex

May 10, 2012 By

An advertising executive is snagged by metaphysical forces in Sedona. Frances Fisher stars as Tammy Johnson, an energetic go-getter who is compelled to open her heart and change her life. Tommy Stovall writes and directs this lighthearted New Age comedy.

Arizona’s mystical red rock mountains set the stage for healing and transformation. Sedona is now streaming at Gaiam TV.

Hurried heroine

On her way from Portland to Phoenix to pitch a new contract, Tammy takes a wrong turn and ends up in Sedona. Clutching her cell phone, she assures her business partner that “I’m not lost! I just don’t know where I’m going.”

Tammy almost hits a young boy who wanders into the road. He is startled but unhurt. In a miracle moment, she’ll meet father and son again.

When a small plane makes an emergency landing, it forces Tammy off the road. Sidelined by a broken axle, she seeks help. Today just happens to be her birthday.

Spiritual tune up

Infuriated by the long wait at a local garage, Tammy seeks coffee while she meets some eccentric locals. Reluctantly, she agrees to get a pedicure from intuitive spiritualist Deb Lovejoy (Beth Grant, wide-eyed, loving and spot on).

Caring coffee shop owner Pierce (Christopher Atkins) transcends the film’s wacky stereotypes with grounded wisdom.

As bizarre misfortune continues, Tammy remembers a heart ache from her youth. Confronting a homeless woman Claire “da lune” (Lin Shaye), she is forced to surrender and accept healing.

A red balloon and kismet

Meanwhile across town, vacationing attorney Scott (Seth Peterson) and his partner Eddie (Matthew J. Williamson) argue during a hike with their sons Denny (Trevor Sterling Stovall) and Jeremy (Rand Schwenke). Eddie wants Scott to turn off his cell phone so he can really appreciate his family.

When 7-year-old Denny disappears, the family begins a frenzied search. A local guide Chuck (Tatanka Means) helps them look. Scott begins to reevaluate his priorities. Director Stovall achieves a natural, heartfelt portrayal of a gay family.

Weaving whimsy and depth

Fisher (Unforgiven; Titanic) achieves marvelous depth as a headstrong businesswoman embracing her gentle, vulnerable side. Peterson (Providence; Burn Notice) is intense as a dad who realizes he wants his son to be happy, not “perfect.”

The plot is skillfully woven with synchronicities and flashbacks. Filmed in just 21 days, Sedona is a gem in the rough.

Soaring cinematography by Rudy Harbon brings Sedona and its quirky citizens to life. Composer Ebony Tay used indigenous and local musicians to create a rich soundtrack.

If you like Sedona, you might enjoy:  Our Idiot Brother; We Bought a Zoo.

 

Sedona    2011  /  NR /  1 hour, 30 min

Cast Overview: Frances Fisher, Seth Peterson, Beth Grant, Matthew J. Williamson, Trevor Sterling Stovall, Rand Schwenke, Christopher Atkins, Kylee Cochran, Barry Corbin, Tatanka Means, Lin Shaye

Director:  Tommy Stovall

Genre:  Dramedy, Indie Comedy, Adventure


Filed Under: Awaken, Character, Compassion, Heal, Healing - Traditional, Learn & Grow, Native & Life Wisdom, Nature, Spirituality Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Contemporary Mayans wage sacred activism in time of prophecy

April 3, 2012 By

Mayan voices fill 2012 The Mayan Word, a unique opportunity to hear contemporary Mayans tell their story as they interpret Mayan prophecies about 2012. Melissa Gunasena directs.

The documentary raises awareness as it focuses on contemporary Mayan struggles. Mayan spirituality, sacred ceremonies and activist marches are shown.

The film is streaming free online courtesy of the filmmaker. You can support the film at the 2012 The Mayan Word website.

Sacred activists step forward

The Maya have survived repeated attacks since the Spanish invasion of the 16th century. Today, Mayans organize and carry out activism to resist multinational takeover of their land. They face police and military action. Assassinations have been reported.

Mining, dams and industrial agriculture exploit the land but do not preserve it for future generations. For many Mayans, land is still the center of their identity and spirituality.

Mayans see activism as an outgrowth of their love for Mother Earth. Cosmic vision, spirituality and politics are part of preparing for the changes of 2012, they say.

Leery of commercialization

Contemporary Mayans are noticeably absent in international conferences, books and films about the Mayan 2012 prophecies. Several Mayans have sharp words for Western tourists. “Neoliberalism wants us to disappear,” says Silvia Cime Mex of the Chichen Itza Artisan Collective, Mexico. “They want our culture to remain, but without us.”

“The whole system is interested in talking a lot about the Mayans of the past, the Mayans in museums, but they don’t want to know anything about us Mayans that are alive today,” says Pedro Uc Be, a teacher of the Maya Jornalero Collective, Mexico.

Tourism provides little benefit to Mayan indigenous communities, says Filiberto Penados, Founder of the Tumul K’in Center of Learning in Belize. In fact Mayan artisans are chased away from sacred ceremonial sites built by their ancestors. The Mayans are fighting for the right to administer those sacred sites.

Mayans view the world

Mayans “concentrate not so much on economic growth, but on well being,” Penados explains. “That well being comes from my relationship with my fellow man, with Mother Nature and with the cosmos.”

Mexican anthropologist Jose Luis Vera Poot leads us into a sacred Mayan cave. “Some call them dimensional gateways, and through them they had their visions, they traveled through time and space.”

“In our spiritual practice, we sustain the earth, we sustain the energy of the cosmos, we sustain our life,” says Juana Basquez, a spiritual guide from Guatemala. “Everything is interconnected and is sacred,” says Penados. There is “a sense of community, a sense of reciprocity, a sense of responsibility for each other.”

Talking with Nature

Martha Gonzalez, educational advisor from the Honduras, speaks of the ceremony offered when corn is planted. “Mother Earth also needs nourishment.”

How do you approach a medicinal plant? Felix Armando Sarazua Raxtunn, a Guatemalan spiritual guide, explains, “It’s not like you just cut a twig and make a tea and drink it. Just ask permission and tell it what you are going to use it for,” he advises. “They say the guides talk with the animals. All human beings have this perception.”

“This simple knowledge is what can still save us,” he believes. “And it is precisely what we need to take back to prepare ourselves for the next era.”

Views on Mayan prophecies

Efrain of the Chichen Itza Artisan Collective says, “The Mayans didn’t speak about the end of the world. They spoke about the end of a cycle.”

“No specific date is important,” he believes. “What’s most important is the moment where we can make a change in the human system, in the mind and in the heart.”

Earth changes are already upon us, says Juana Batzibal Tujal of the National Maya Coordination and Convergence. Heavy rains, drought, earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions have claimed many lives.

The Earth’s feminine energy is ascending in 2012, says the film. As Mayan women march, a protestor holds up a sign: “The Earth is not for sale.”

Raising awareness and hope

“In the western world, if they lived a more simple life, it automatically takes the pressure off the resources, our resources,” says Ronaldo Lec Ajcot of the Mesoamerican Permaculture Institute.

This era may bring “more harmony, which means peace, equilibrium, more justice,” Basquez notes. “It’s the responsibility of human beings to transform so that the positive prevails.”

Painting in many colors, artist Rene Dionisio of Guatemala observes, “We are really lucky to be in this time, right?” (4 out of 5 stars)

If you like 2012 The Mayan Word, you might enjoy: Thrive; Timewave 2013.

 

2012 The Mayan Word  /   2011  /  NR  /  1 hour, 4 min

Cast Overview:  John Major Jenkins, Juan Ixchop Us, Elias Jimenez, Maria Amalia Mex T’un, Ramiro Batzin, Juana Batzibal Tujal, Juana Basquez, Miguel Angel Amaya, Ana Laynez Herrera, Pedro Uc Be, Filiberto Penados, Ronaldo Lec Ajcot, Juan Rojas

Directors:  Melissa Gunasena

Genres:  Documentary, Spirituality

Language:  Spanish with English subtitles

Filed Under: Activism, Awaken, Character, Community, Compassion, Current Affairs, Documentary, Ecoactivism, Heal, Learn & Grow, Native & Life Wisdom, Nature, Spirituality, Transformation, True Stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sharron Rose dances through change, mystery in 2012: The Odyssey

January 14, 2012 By

In 2012: The Odyssey, filmmaker Sharron Rose investigates humanity’s much-heralded 2012 evolutionary turning point.

Catastrophe or ecstasy?

Rose interviews visionary scholars about 2012 as she travels across the country.

New York Times best-selling author Gregg Braden says that the end date of a Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012 signals the sun’s alignment with the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This occurs once every 26,000 years.

Earth’s magnetism reaches its lowest point at that time, says Braden. The magnetic fields will then shift 180 degrees. The North Pole will become the South Pole, and vice versa.

Braden believes that we will not experience the physical devastation or “apocalypse” that many predict.

Creating change from within

A shift is happening now within each one of us, Braden asserts. “People are truly ready for a change, for an end to the suffering.” As we make “life-affirming or life-denying choices, we’ll either experience the rapture or the ascension.” He calls it a “beautiful yet painful unfolding.”

We can align with these new energies “by living lives consciously with intent, by being kind to one another, by acts of kindness.”

In the Golden Age everyone lives by love and heart-centered values like compassion, say spiritual teachers. This replaces the world’s Iron or Patriarchal age with its emphasis on power, money and status.

Divine Feminine perspective

As 2012: The Odyssey opens, Rose decides to stop watching television news. She spends more time in nature “to think about who we are, the way we relate to the earth, and to the people around us.”

Commercialism and technology contribute to a “cultural trance,” says Rose. By breaking free of this mindset we can remember how to live an “epic life.”

From a perspective of honoring and love, Rose reveals wisdom and reverence across cultures. This documentary may be the only feature film about 2012 directed by a woman.

A window of opportunity

Braden tells Rose that “We all play a vital role in where we’re going.” According to quantum physics, “If you change your life you’ll change your body, and if you change your body you’ll change your world.”

The world around us, Braden says, is “nothing more, nothing less than a mirror of what we have become collectively from within.”

This time is “a window of opportunity,” he says. “We’ll be more of ourselves than we ever have been before, without the magnetism of the Earth holding our perceptions and our beliefs and our preconceptions and bias in place.”

Iron Age turns to Golden Age

When you align with love and service, the darkest possibilities of millennial change don’t have to happen, says Braden. Right now “we’re re-writing the code so disaster doesn’t have to occur.”

Earth’s magnetic reversal has happened “only 14 times in the last 4.5 million years,” said Braden. “Magnetic fields also act as the glue in consciousness. As the glue gets weaker, we have greater opportunities to transcend beliefs.”

You can see the new age unfolding with increasing unrest as “things not in integrity collapse upon themselves,” he says.

Post-modern world lives

Psychologist and medical anthropologist Alberto Villoldo tells Rose that “We live in a post-modern world of sustainability, of deep ecology, of great reverence for the Earth.”

The modern world, he says, was founded on “greed, on ever-increasing economies and growth, on readily renewable resources.”

We align with Divinity

“It’s really an initiation of the Western world,” says author and teacher Jose Arguelles. “The real nature of the Divine is synchronicity. It’s a metaphor for us in our limited ego states coming back into connection with our Divine, eternal selves.”

Arguelles says we “must dissolve all the old identifications and attachments about who we have to be to be successful.” He predicts we’ll experience the Noosphere or “telepathic mind of the earth” between December 2012 and December 2013.

“The human experience is the main event,” author Terence McKenna says. “I believe what is in fact going on is that we are burning our bridges one by one, freeing the mind, empowering the imagination.”

Indigo children

Rose interviews a friend named Jewel who holds her baby Armand. Armand, who will be 7 years old in 2012, smiles, shouts and looks directly into the camera. He seems to underscore each point his mother makes.

An indigo child is “a powerful, intelligent, independent child who is believed to have an important spiritual impact” according to Dictionary.com. Indigo children challenge authority, Jewel says. They are system-busters.

Deep mysteries

“The global currency of our planet is four things: earth, air, fire and water,” says Rose. The “buy now, pay later” practice has threatened the sustainability of life on Earth.

Watching 2012: The Odyssey invites you into deep mystery. It is a mystical film that “changes” every time you watch it, giving you deeper insights and perspectives.

More adventures

Producer and author Jay Weidner speaks about alchemy, masons and the great Gothic cathedrals throughout Europe. Traveling Incan elders pray and share a message.

Rose visits the Georgia Guidestones (known as the “American Stonehenge,”) and reads the message left by the mysterious R.C. Christian in modern and ancient languages.

“Avoid petty laws and useless officials,” it says in part. “Balance personal rights with social duties.” “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.”

Both McKenna and Arguelles have died since this film was made. The teachings of McKenna, Arguelles and others interviewed are posted online.

The Odyssey continues

Rose is the author of The Path of the Priestess and a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in World Mythology, Religion, and the Sacred Arts of Dance, Music and Theater.

Film represents “the dance of light” in our times, Rose says. (4 out of 5 stars)

If you like 2012: The Odyssey, you might enjoy: 2012: Time for Change; Thrive; Timewave 2013: The Future is Now.

 

2012: The Odyssey /   2007  /  NR  /  1 hour, 39 min

Cast Overview:  Jose Arguelles, Gregg Braden, John Major Jenkins, Terence McKenna, Sharron Rose, Geoff Stray, Moira Timms, Alberto Villoldo, Jay Weidner

Director: Sharron Rose

Genres:  Documentary

Filed Under: Awaken, Character, Community, Compassion, Documentary, Environment, Heal, Learn & Grow, Native & Life Wisdom, Spirituality, Transformation Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,