Planet of Dreams
Cecelia Chapman
July 2022
Traveling through Spain I came across the Wolf Queen legend. The 7th century Galician Queen Lupa, or Wolf, outwitted Rome, church, early empire powers, Visigoths and annoying pilgrims dragging the body of their Apostle all over her territory. She and her countrywomen freak out the patriarchal, order-loving Romans, and early Catholic Church confounding their dreams. Rome and Church call them ‘witches’ for their healing and uncanny animal skills, herbal lore, astronomy and ancient knowledge. Why has her story persisted? Did she truly convert to Christianity or is this church propaganda like other parts of the Codex? Intriguing variations in Lupa’s legend compelled me to make an investigation of a character that acted counter to the dream of an early nation made the world’s greatest empire by the Catholic Church.
The Magic Dream, URHere Now 2022, is filmed in Galicia, Spain, the edge of several empires, a terrain of 500,000 year old, neolithic consciousness, and adventurers who dreamed of sailing past the setting sun. Diana Magallon and Gabriel Valecillos music. Rafael Gonzalez drawings. From Planet of Dreams.
In dreams the subconscious talks to you. It uses images, sometimes it connects words. It wants to remind you of past memories, to connect them to the present in problem solving or creativity. In Planet of Dreams, this multi-media exploration wonders at this moment of increasing planetary crisis and cosmic consciousness. It asks: can the dream state guide us? Radical and creative methods of guardianship for earth and solar system commons are needed.
Planet of Dreams started as an idea in California, then I moved to Cape Cod, then to South Carolina. I traveled through Galicia Spain, then returned to Washington DC, and finally Portugal. It was not a ‘planned’ journey, most of it I worked. It happened. But I discovered in each place I stayed, a connection to dream and indigenous land stewardship. The Cape Cod Wampanoag never made camp in the same place twice. California Ohlone peoples stewarded the land. They did not own land. The Nacotchtank and Algonquin speaking Indians monitored their water and land. Communal forests in Galicia are a unique land tenure system. These guardianship practices, and colonial failures need to be examined as we plan a space future.
Dream journey paths are shamanic, serendipitous, never straight. They twist and turn, leaving you wondering what? Cosmic costume, guardian cloak, feathered dream mask.
Link to The Last Time Tomorrow video on Otoliths→
The Last Time Tomorrow is filmed in Portugal, on the coast railway, where deforestation is a visible fact. In the world, it is happening so fast.
Aiken, South Carolina. Hitchcock Forest, the largest privately owned urban forest in the US, an equestrian dream. The neolithic Catawba Indian lands for 14-40,000 years became Spanish Empire territory of El Dorado dreams. An adventurer’s fantasy, pirate paradise, runaway slave route, South Carolina was home to early US political figures with dreams.
Aiken, South Carolina. Largest Cold War plutonium reservation in the US. Produces tritium for weapons and space travel dreams on Catawba Indian lands.
Watch Nucelar Forest on Calamari Press →
Nomad Dreams, the Sorceress, the Flying Saucer and the Moon, is filmed in South Carolina, once part of the Spanish Empire and it’s search for El Dorado. The state’s early landscape of adventurers, pirates, runaway slaves, and hunted Indians dreamed, aided by voodoo, magic, and fanatic belief.
Watch on Nomad Dreams on Video Sound Archive →
Goose Moon Owl was made during a moon cycle named Goose Moon by American Indians. I found a dead owl, a powerful totem, and interpreted it to mean the end of things and a new beginning. Goose Moon Owl was filmed in Massachusetts on Cape Cod, in forest stolen from the Wampanoag tribe by the first pilgrim settlers in the US. This forest land is now one of the most important US military bases. But the base has poisoned the Cape water table during it’s decades of weapons training. Cape Cod has become a second home vacation location for the wealthy and elite ruling class, whose prosperity derives from slavery, piracy, and the military industrialization of the New World. Soundscape is personally recorded owl calls and calls found online.
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