Tag Archives: ceremony

Parched

The BC fires smoke has me feeling pinned here at the lake.  The sky is matte gray, slightly moist.  The water is flat save for the circles created by dragonflies touching the glass.  The trees that ring Echo Lake are still brilliant green against reflection and sky, yet I feel thirst.  The lake level is quickly receding.

Each day I bless the water.  This has been my practice since the past spring equinox.  There is only one Water.  It flows in all forms.  You. Me.  The big water – Grand Mother Ocean.  Rivers.  Snow.  Blessing the water is blessing myself, blessing us and our Mother. Our unique, as we know it , planet blesses us with fresh water.  Our home, our Mother, gives us life.  Water. Is. Life.

On my circle walks, I find the Timothy grass waving in the breeze, it is taller than I am now.  Some of the Bracken fern are too, a few out stretch the grasses. The look strong like their ancestors the beginning of time.  Why didn’t I pick those fiddleheads?  (missed opportunity) The orchard  grass is chest high, blooming, beautiful.  I find the Horsetail is petering out already, weeks early.  Out my kitchen window are giant fireweed, perhaps 12 feet tall.  They number fewer than a dozen of  plants.  How old I wonder?  It looks as though it will be a banner year for blackberries, the bushes laden with hard green berry buds.  But will it?   I’ve seen a lot of shriveled berries too, petrified ornaments among the withered canes.  Lack of water.  I think of the bears.  What is the high country like?  Down here it is parched.

I was very disappointed Inslee didn’t call for conservation measures NOW when he declared draught in Washington.  I am doing my best now to conserve.  Join me?

I think I was 16 when I had a vision of myself as an old women.  I was in the desert, wind chimes all around (ha!).  Will the patterns persist?  Is the desert coming to me?  What does the future hold for us?  The Polar Pioneer en route.  Bought and paid for politicians.  Stupid Humans.

“Every day brings more news that Shell’s 2012 near-catastrophes weren’t a fluke,” said Travis Nichols of Greenpeace, which organized protests while Polar Pioneer was berthed at Terminal 5 at the Port of Seattle.

“Last week we learned Shell will only be able to drill one well at a time because they deliberately ignored the Obama administration’s regulations to protect walruses.  This week we learn the company can’t keep its fleet in working order even before it reaches the Arctic.” ~

Off my soapbox now but still banging the drum.  I’ve got moccasin patterns to sew, happily.  The blue full moon and ceremony is coming soon.  Wopila Grand Mother Turtle for your generosity!

A mother Northern Flicker is feeding her juvenile son at the suet now as I write.  It’s a good day to be alive.  A good day to be still, be silent, open to the countless gifts that surround me.   I’m breathing and finding balance.  Making an offering.   Over and out.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

And Ye shall Receive

Who said, ” Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.”?

In my ties for the Tree the first year I went to the Dance, my overarching prayer was to truly know and integrate self-love.  I’d been dancing around the notion for a several years unable to really connect my head and my heart.  In the year that followed, an unexpected initiation brought an answer to this prayer.  My second dance, how do I multiply abundance was a concern I took to the Tree.  A subtle shift of perception opened the way forward, again answering my pray.

Leading with my heart and managing my mind/ego, among other things, came through the day I left for the Dance.  I’d thought I had procrastinated my ties.  Instead, I realized that unconsciously I had waited.  Waited until I could get out of the way allowing for what was really needed to come though.  I had waited for my ego to get out of the way.

The Dance was a hard one in many ways and still I felt cradled in exactly the best way possible.  Incredible lightning and thunder, a downpour.  Intense heat.  Dust.  Confrontations with myself.  Uninterrupted connectivity to the Tree.  A full moon.  The drum.  Songs.  Opportunities to listen.  Hearing the sound of my flesh being cut from my body, incredibly loud in my ears, like stormy ocean waves crashing to the beach.   The fullness of my prayers.  Babies.  Catching my ego flare.  Ravens on the wing, their voices evoking joy in my body and calling my attention to them over and over.  Raven, who’s medicine supports my going into the darkness of my mind to bring out the light of understanding as loving kindness to illuminate my heart.

I came away from the Dance with more questions than answers.  My landing, or re-entry as some folks call it, was immediate and intense.  Day one, I laid low, oddly baking a peach pie in 90+ degree heat.  I avoided the festivities of the Fourth of July.  I found it a BS celebration.   Freedom and independence really a bore that pissed me off.  Freedom and independence my ass!  Not for the Indigenous Peoples, nor the African Peoples, or even the exploited Chinese.  How can I possible celebrate when this truth lay beneath the colorful noise of fireworks?  Sometime during this day was the first time I got a message about how the prayers in this years ties would be answered.  Then again the next day, the same message and a tool for guidance.  Medicine that has waited for the right time to come forward, augment my work.  I admit, I’m afraid.  I turn in, I laugh in the face of my fear – for on the other side of darkness is light, liberation, a happy heart.   Isn’t this what I prayed for?  Yes, and still, I wasn’t ready for shadow work.  It’s time though.  No more dipping my toes into the dark waters.  Time to dive in.  Having medicine for my personal work, having medicine be my work in the world, I shall receive.  My willing heart will lead me into the scary crevasses of my mind.  The medicine and self-love will illuminate the darkness.  Everything I want is on the other side of fear.

These ways are “not old ways, they are alive and we are living them today”, said an Elder Just like the dust in my moccasin, the Tree and the Dance are alive in me.  Answering my prayers.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations