Today I go to drum for the children. The ceremony has started; it’s online: I cry with her… with them all.
Weeks ago, holding the horror of 215 unmarked graves of children, dying while under the “care and protection” of misguided clerics and nuns, I sought a way to respond in a good way. For a long time there was no way…
An idea came to me and I acted. I went to a thrift store and was lucky to find a sheet in the exact orange that the Indigenous people have been using in their response to this tragedy. Kamloops is just one of 139 schools with similar graves now coming to light.
There is so much pain to process–the unacknowledged pain Indigenous people have been living with for too many years; the blame; and the shame and self-blame of the descendants of colonists and soldiers.
Pulling from my experience of the Sweat Lodge I attended for a year after my breakdown, I tore and cut small squares of the orange cotton sheet to create prayer ties, like we did each time before we crawled into the darkness of the Lodge. We would hang the little bundles from the supports of the roof above us and they swung in the swirling heat of the Grandfather stones heated in the sacred fire. Threads from the edges of the torn pieces tied the little orange squares into bundles, first around tobacco from a package of organic cigarettes I bought from a store.
I made 70 the first night. Without planning.
The second time, when I ran out of tobacco, I stopped. I had made 60. Exactly. Yes, MOM – the Magic in Ordinary Moments, the active Hand of the Divine, was guiding me! As I counted the last ones I was swept with wonder, gratitude and reverence. I had 130… and no more tobacco.
It took some time to figure out what to wrap in the rest of the 215 I planned to make. I didn’t want to buy more cigarettes – I don’t wish to support that industry. I waited for inspiration.
It came in the form of a memory of something I’d tucked away in my Magic Box. Over a year ago, the man for whom I “house-sit” had cut down a cedar tree and I collected a bag of the remains for use in some future sacred work; this was it. Cedar is one of 4 sacred medicines used by Aboriginal people. It purifies, cleanses, heals and provides protection. Exactly what is needed.
I tied a lot of the little bundles and had quite a pile. As I counted them into a large square of the orange sheeting I wondered how many more I’d have to make. I counted 84. I only needed one more…
I remembered the one I had chosen to take to the river one early morning a few days before. I had found a rock jutting out from shore into the high flood waters; stood on it as I said prayers of praise and petition. I set a kiss upon my fingertips and carefully bent to give it to Her; then touched Her wet kiss upon my forehead, throat and heart. I tossed the small orange bundle as far as I safely could into the flow of the river. It wasn’t far enough ~ an eddy caught the bundle and it swirled back towards me. I watched as it danced in the current toward me and then away again; back toward me again and I said, “You’re going to come right back to me, aren’t you?” and it did. I plucked it from the water and, with the extra weight of the water it had absorbed, I was able to throw it far enough to be caught in the flow and I watched it go, a bright spot of orange in the darkness of the river. It would have been the 85th…
Well, if I had to make one more, I decided, I would make more than one because I had used up all the little orange squares. To make one all by itself seemed wrong. It was late but I decided to make more squares ready for another session of prayer-tie making, and that was enough for the day. I closed my computer and turned away.
Coming to my desk to start work the next day, the first thing I saw was one small orange prayer tie. Hidden behind my laptop screen, I hadn’t noticed it as I closed the lid to go to bed. “What could be the purpose of missing that one prayer tie?” I wondered. Maybe I should make more! It had been a question in my mind, how many I should make – there were so many more than 215 children affected… The magic was so present, with exactly 70 the first night, unplanned; the second 60, also unplanned, and then the rest. It felt clear more was being asked of me.
And now this has been written and I must speak of the magic and my writing about it, to explain why I am doing what I am doing, beyond the honouring of the children that is a catalyst in our world. You see, the magic experienced by Indigenous people is not spoken of; it is not shared because it is different for everyone. MOM speaks to each of us in a “language” shared only by Spirit and the one it is intended for. I call Her MOM – the Magic in Ordinary Moments that happen in everyone’s life. Everyone is known by many names; perhaps you know Her as God.
That being said, it is also true that prophecies of many Indigenous peoples are being heard. I just gave the 333rd “like” to the White Buffalo Calf Woman story told by Red Feather Woman. With stories like this to inspire us, we learn ‘right action’. If the stories had never been shared, we and their descendants would not have such guidance. I am grateful for the guidance.
I am not Indigenous, though some argue that all are indigenous to Mother Earth. I feel claimed by Her through the magical experiences in my life. It was a hard struggle to come to the realization of what was, to me, a very foreign calling: Priestess of Gaia. Where and when I grew up there were no priestesses, and Gaia was unknown. It took a complete breakdown of my reality to wake me, and I walk my Red Road uncertainly, looking backward to see my way forward (reviewing where I’ve been to feel into where I’m going) and seeking MOM’s guidance through The Gaian Tarot. In these uncertain times, aligning intentionally with our lifepath is powerful. I feel these are important tools to employ and this is the work MOM has been training me for.
I am an “ordinary” white woman, born in Victoria, raised in Kamloops, BC. Life has not felt easy, though some may judge it to be so. The choices I’ve made have not always been logical or practical, and I’ve often looked back at them with alarm. Teachings tell me there are no accidents – everything happens for a reason. I have good reason to believe it’s true. When children are the catalyst for change it breaks my heart. It has been said: it is through the cracks that the light shines through… and children will bring us together.
I will take the prayer ties with me today, to see if there is a good way to offer them. If not, I accept the burden of them until MOM inspires me… it’s not about me. I am here to serve.
Recent Comments