This weekend was the
Mayday Parade, one of our favorite Minneapolis events. The Heart of the Beast Puppet theater puts on a huge event that tells a story through sections of a parade and a ceremony that follows. This years theme was "Our Common Treasury":
As we experience the failure of our economic systems built on debt, consumer waste, the theft and sickening of earth resources, we gather to rebuild an economic system that protects and sustains our Earth as a “Common Treasury for All.”
We were a part of the spider puppet in the section led by our friend, Bart. With 18 puppeteers, this puppet had more people holding it than any puppet ever in the parade.


Photo credits to Colin on a few of these, including the next three.



These pictures are from the parade staging area where hundreds of people were somehow organized into a parade.

Tired before it even started.

Some of the puppets were covered in chia seeds so that sprouts would grow out of them. (Incidentally, on the culinary front, we recently had some chia seed pudding that a friend made that was quite tasty, a lot like tapioca. I had never realized that
chia is not a proprietary name, but actually an ancient Aztec food plant.)




The land on the globe is real grass.




The spider web that went with our spider. The sides were passed along through the crowd.