What are Prayer Flags?

‘‘Every social justice movement that I know of has come out of people sitting in small groups, telling their life stories, and discovering that other people have shared similar experiences.’’ Gloria Steinem

Prayer flags are an ancient tradition that comes from Tibet and the Bon. Bon is a Tibetan religion. It is almost indistinguishable from Tibetan Buddhism in terms of doctrines and rituals, but the Bon believe that they were the indigenous religion of Tibet before Buddhism. Imbued in the flags I create is respect and honor for all indigenous people and the ancestors of spirit and blood who guide us. This respect is part of waving goodbye to the Patriarchy.

Sometime after the election in 2016 I felt called to create prayer flags. Prayer flags
are meant to interact with the elements, to be in the sun, wind, rain and snow. Interacting with the elements, they spread good will and compassion as they wave. They hang up until they become tattered bits. Prayer flags take the long vision on change. I make them to specifically to wave goodbye to the patriarchy.  Making them from old sheets, pillowcases, doilies and women’s hankies connects me to the labor of women and the unknown artists who created small piece of art with embroidery, crochet, and lace making and to those who have tended the hearth and made the beds throughout history.  

I stitch the flags by hand with wishes and prayers imbued in them for a world where all genders, races, and sexual orientations are honored and held sacred and most of all, that our beautiful planet and it’s elements – earth, water fire, air and spirit are held as sacred. The prayer flags have 5 panels representing these 5 elements. Hundreds of the prayer flags now wave across this country, and also wave in Iceland and the United Kingdom.

On sending a prayer flag to Reya Mellicker, she gave it away (truth is she’s given away many) as she didn’t have an outdoor space in which to hang it. She asked for a single hankie, so she could wave goodbye all over Washington DC where she lives.

This took the project to a new level. Many women have hankies passed down from mothers, aunts and relatives. Many of them are small works of art in themselves. Reya, Ilyse and others helped me in spreading the spell and it took off. Women began sending me hankies and I sent them back, transformed into small prayer flags. I began collecting hankies, which are plentiful at thrift stores and that mighty cyberspace garage sale, EBay.

The beauty of hankies is they can be carried everywhere and waved at moments and at places when and where the patriarchy is thick and needs dispelling. They also catch tears of joy and pain as we work to wave goodbye with gusto.