as part of the 2ND ANNUAL TWO-SPIRIT WEEKEND
Friday, August 26th @ 8:30 pm / $10
Two Spirits interweaves the tragic story of a mother’s loss of her son with a revealing look at the largely unknown history of a time when the world wasn’t simply divided into male and female and many Native American cultures held places of honor for people of integrated genders.
Fred Martinez was nádleehí, a male-bodied person with a feminine nature, a special gift according to his ancient Navajo culture. He was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered at 16. Two Spirits explores the life and death of this boy who was also a girl, and the essentially spiritual nature of gender.
Two Spirits tells compelling stories about traditions that were once widespread among the indigenous cultures of North America. The film explores the contemporary lives and history of Native two-spirit people — who combine the traits of both men and women with qualities that are also unique to individuals who express multiple genders.
The Navajo believe that to maintain harmony, there must be a balanced interrelationship between the feminine and the masculine within the individual, in families, in the culture, and in the natural world. Two Spirits reveals how these beliefs are expressed in a natural range of gender diversity. For the first time on film, it examines the Navajo concept of nádleehí, “one who constantly transforms.”
“Riveting.” – LA Weekly
“A gorgeous, moving, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting story, the kind of
film that opens the mind and heart so wide they can never close as tightly again.”
- Martha Beck, Oprah magazine columnist and bestselling author
After the screening:
Participate in a conversation with the filmmaker Lydia Nibley
and contemporary two spirit / LGBT healers.
Director, co-producer, and co-writer Lydia Nibley creates film and television projects under the banner of Riding The Tiger Productions. Her work has been broadcast internationally and she has created and contributed to works that have received Emmy, Clio, and numerous film festival awards. Her next film, In Her Honor, deals with honor killings, and is in preproduction. It unravels the complex knot of tribal, religious, and family beliefs that make it acceptable for a man to murder a wife or daughter and defend the act with the logic, “A man is like a piece of gold; when he is dirtied he can easily be washed clean. But a woman is like silk; when she is dirtied she cannot be cleaned and must be destroyed.”
Allen Page began studying cross-cultural traditions of same-gender loving peoples — our spiritual purpose, societal function and cultural contributions — after attending the first Spiritual Conference for Radical Faeries in 1979. His evocative essay about that first gathering has just been published in the anthology THE FIRE IN MOONLIGHT: Stories From The Radical Faeries, edited by Mark Thompson, Spring 2011. And in 2010, he facilitated an exploration of “What’s Sacred About Being Queer?” at the Spirituality Weekend of the California Men’s Gathering. Of African, European and First American heritage, Allen draws on the collective wisdom of all three lineages in his private practice as a spiritual channel, consciousness teacher and practitioner of sacred healing. He is a member of the LA Gay Healers’ Circle, and a founding member of the Gay Elders’ Circle.
Darrell Redleaf is of Native American descent; on his father side he is Lakota Sioux and Hidatsa from his mothers side. He is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota. Darrell’s is an award winning hairstylist, makeup artist and photographer with over 30 plus years of experience in the entertainment industry. He is Two Spirit and comes from a lineage of medicine women on his mother’s side. His clients list is a “who’s who of Hollywood” including Helen Hunt, Kim Basinger, Cameron Diaz, Jewel and Joss Stone to name a few.
Ali Moinzadeh is first and foremost a gay man. He practices as a gay-centered clinical psychologist and a board-certified physician. He has been a gay activist for over twenty years and was a founding member of the first Iranian-American gay and lesbian association in the U.S. He is dedicated to the psychological liberation of gay personhood in himself and the community at large.
Matthew Sawicki has been doing psychic readings for over 18 years and is also a lover of our unique spirituality and the special mysteries between men who love men. He works in traditional English Witchcraft that traces back to the 1700′s in Oxfordshire. Today Matthew offers card readings in conjunction with other spiritual work – including advice on candles, healing baths and spiritual cleansings. Matthew is thrilled to be a part of this event celebrating our unique gifts as people who walk between two worlds.
Pati Garcia is a Certified Sexological bodyworker/Somatic Sex Educator, self-identifies as genderqueer/fluid two spirit of Peruvian-Mexican descent, loves to dig feet in the earth and throw love into the cosmos. Pati holds space for life unraveling and unwinding as an assistant midwife, doula, and shaman. Pati follows only the spirit led path and refuses to compromise pleasure for any reason at all.
Chris Doggett/Eartha Madre is the creator and curator of the Two Spirit Weekend at HIGHWAYS. Chris/Eartha has been leading ritual and ceremony and dream workshops from the floors of HIGHWAYS to the mountains of the Andes and the volcanoes of Hawaii for twenty years.
