1,001 Stories

Today I went to Balboa Park with a friend of mine.
We visited the Mingei Museum.

It was a most interesting experience...from the moment we began our official tour of the museum, I was picking up the "stories" behind many of the objects on display. It was a day of psychometry!

A sampling of some of what I picked up:
~There was a very large woven Apache basket. I saw it filled to the brim with corn during a harvest celebration. Each member of the tribe took a handful of corn and used it to make special cakes that were consumed with the onset of Winter.
~Another large woven basket, this one from Mexico, was used to hold sweetbread during a Pan de la Vida (Bread of Life) ritual.
~There was a painted (Italian) pony cart depicting the arrival of Cortes in the New World. I saw it carrying either an effigy or a young boy in an elaborate costume during a parade.
(then we went upstairs to gaze upon the jewelry!)
~I walked through an array of Tibetan caps/boxes worn around the neck and heard the monks and priests chanting. I thought of my friend D., who had purchased a box that she'd owned in a previous lifetime.
~There was a necklace from Yemen that had been worn by a priest who taught an interesting mix of Kabbalah and Islam.
~I saw an elaborate headdress that had been worn by the bride-to-be of a sheikh in Saudi Arabia. She was being taken to the Temple in a screened carriage that was carried by two strong men. Rose petals were scattered on the path before them.
~There was a very simple necklace consisting of a green jade disc with a hole in its center, suspended on a black silk cord. I knew it had been used by a Japanese/Hawaiian doctor as a pendulum in her practice. Don't tell anyone, but I used the Force to make it move, ever so slightly - twice!
~I passed between necklaces worn by Native Americans, and heard the drums pounding, and the medicine men chanting around the fire.
~There was a "femur" from Northern Africa. (It looked nothing like a bone, btw.) I saw it being worn as a belt by a very wealthy Caliph who had been born to Kabbalist parents, and had used the Numbers to rise in power and status. He gifted this belt to his Beloved when he was upon his deathbed.
~I stopped at an "amulet necklace" from North Africa as well. It had been worn by a Wise Woman, a Priestess of Oshun. She had cast bones for divination; she could send hexes and remove them as well. She was very power*full.

And then there was the portion of the museum where various items from China, Japan, Thailand, and Tibet had been gathered. I sat there for a few minutes and felt "right at home." Things that make you go hmmm, eh?

I think I'm going to do this more often. This was a fascinating experience!