40 Days of Peace Day Eleven
Offering
Ceremony draws a circle around us that connects us to the sacred.
Robin Wall Kimmerer writes of a “ritual of respect: the translation of reverence and intention into action.”
She shares a story of how her father pours the first of the freshly made coffee onto the earth in a gift of gratitude every morning before he partakes in his first cup. An offering. A ritual of respect.
The story of her mother is a different offering, but equally intentional. On family camping trips, before departing for home, they would carefully clean up the site picking up every trace of their visit. “Leave this place better than you found it.” Beyond that, “she insisted that they leave tinder, kindling and wood sheltered from the rain”, all ready for the next visitors. Can you imagine how they felt. Arriving at their site in the woods, ready for vacation with nature, and there, waiting for them, an unexpected gift.
“I liked to imagine their pleasure, those other paddlers, arriving after dark to find a ready pile of fuel to warm their evening meal. My mother’s ceremony connected us to them, too.” _Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass)
Image by artist Jonathan Cummings
“Ceremonies large and small have the power to focus attention to a way of LIVING AWAKE in the world” -Robin Wall Kimmerer
The land knows you, even when you are lost
The water called us to Standing Rock, in a dream that Monet and I both had. The land, the water, our ancestors… they called and we listened. And once on this sacred land, the land and water shared their stories and songs and we gave our offering in return.
Soon after setting up our new home, we began to disconnect from the matrix, from screens and noise and chaos. And in this quiet space, we were able to listen, without distraction, to the story of this land and her care takers. Mother Nature began to clear the cobwebs and reconnect us to Her voice and to our voice, to Her heart and to our hearts, and to Her caretakers. The Lakota heart is a gift, a beautiful, sacred gift.
During our time on the land we would be reconnected to sacred ceremonies. Our deep love for Mother Nature would grow into a sense of “remembering”. We knew this plac. We knew these truths. Something inside us always knew, and our Indigenous relatives graciously shared their gifts of story and song, drum and dance. They welcomed us and called us sisters, daughters, grand daughters. It was as if we always knew each other. I’ve never made friends so fast. Our souls remembered each other I’m sure. And the ceremonies we came to know reminded us of who we are, of “our gifts and our responsibility to those gifts. Ceremony is a vehicle for belonging-to a family, to a people and to the land.” (_Robin W. Kimmerer)
I always loved my Indigenous relatives, even before I knew them by name. Even as a girl, the land was calling me to this place and time. I had always been drawn to books and stories and images of my Indigenous relatives. There was always a tugging at my heart, my soul knew I would arrive here one day.
With feathers in my hair, growing up in the woods of West Virginia, Mother Nature was guide and comfort, my friend and teacher, and in 2016 she called me to the Dakotas, where a very large part of my heart still resides on the banks of the Cannon Ball, in a place I was honored to call my home for a precious time.
I have sat with brothers and sisters, unci’s and uncles and aunties, children, grand children, great grandchilden… listening to their stories. These aren’t the stories you’ll read in any history books. These stories tell a different story that anything you are taught in schools, even today. Right here, in the land of the “free and the brave” there are prison camps, nearly forgotten and swept under the ‘family rug’. Genocide, greed, theft, corruption… I have cried a million tears since I stepped foot on Standing Rock.. and my tears are absolutely nothing compared to the grief that our Indigenous relatives experienced and still experience.
Friends, we have great works of love to do.
We cannot change the future, until we heal the past.
Our Indigenous relatives have had SO much stolen from them. They’ve experienced trauma and loss so great it is almost unspeakable, and yet they are still here, caretakers of the land, survivors, guardians of the earth, protectors of the water. And let me tell you from many experience, they are the most generous, compassionate, beautiful people I know. When we stay with our family on the reservation, they will give up their bed, share their favorite foods, spend quality time visiting… and they always share a meaningful gift when we have to leave. They have generously welcomed us into their families, into their circle.
The trauma inflicted on the original care takers of this land is the largest wound of the United States. Genocide, for money, greed and power is enough to break your heart and fill you with rage all at once. Senseless, dark acts that too many turn their heads away still today.
I will say it again. Friends, we have great works of love to do.
We cannot change the future, until we heal the past. There are many brothers and sisters with big dreams and brilliant projects who are ready to welcome allies to stand in solidarity with them. Libraries to be built, art centers to be raised, healing spaces to be created, and places for the young to play and create. It is not for us to march in on a white horse, no. It is absolutely not. There are strong Indigenous warriors on the frontlines leading the way to heal and rebuild the nation. It is our gifts that we offer them… in a prayer of respect, humility and love.
Colonization and greed have done their best to steal their land, their language, their culture, their way of life. But, they never took their ceremony or their stories.
“ At last, I thought that I understood the offering to the gods of Tahawus. It was, for me, the one thing that was not forgotten, that which could not be taken by history: the knowing that we belonged to the land, that we were the people who knew how to say thank you….
The power of ceremony: it marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine, the coffee to a prayer.
What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself?
A homemade ceremony, a ceremony that makes a home.” -Braiding Sweetgrass
Journal Time
Find time this week to make your own ceremony, to make an offering of gratitude, with intention, love and respect.
Perhaps you’ll ask Her to help you remember your story, your heart song…
Perhaps you’ll simply give thanks for the ways She sustains you and gives you life in a relationship of mutual reciprocity.
She knows when we are intentional with her. She knows when we are grateful. She knows when we are listening.
Perhaps you’ll be inspired to write a love letter to Her… or a poem.
If you feel called to share, please do.
And if you feel the call to join us on the Frontlines… be sure to sign up for Poes for Peace emails. It is time for our Thanks and Giving offerings. If you’ve participated in the past, this year will be a little different and we’re very excited about it!
In love and gratitude,
Sarah
Shams of Tabriz’s 40 Rules of Love
