Indigenous Peoples Day, October 12 (Not-Columbus-day)

 Sorry I don’t know the artist to give attribution to 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daily Salutation of Gratitude

 This is inspired by a section of Robin Wall Kimmerer's book  Braiding Sweetgrass. We come to greet the day and give thanks to the great mystery, the creation of everything, and for all the things we have been give. For Mother Earth, we are grateful. For all the people. For all the water: the rains, the lakes, the rivers, the ocean. For the fish and the birds; for the roots and the plants. For the bushes and the trees; the fruits and the berries. For the Three Sisters of corn, beans and rice. And for the food that grows on the water, the wild rice. For the four winds that bring the change of seasons, from the North, the East, the South and the West. For the four-legged and the two-legged, the creepers and the crawler. For Grandmother Moon and Grandfather Sun, for the stars, for ancestors and loved ones walked on before us, we are grateful. Now we have greeted the day and if we have forgotten anything, know that we will continue with respect, intent and thankfulness. Now our mi...
Read more

Sweat Lodge

Yes, I have done sweat lodge.  Once.  And I plan to attend again. And I recommend it. When I was invited, the message was very respectful, “I want you to know that this is a very protected space, no creepy folks, no nakedness, I know everyone attending and I can vouch for each one.” The space is on Cowlitz tribal land and there is much symbolism in the layout. The structure is a dome wigwam; the number of ribs (five) is symbolic; heavy blankets make the walls; the opening is to the east (the direction of sunrise; the direction of new beginnings); there is an ‘umbilical’ line to the east of the opening that you should not cross because it leads to the fire where the stones — and the stones are the ancestors — are being heated. Since I’ve only been once, I can only describe how this program was run.  I have been told that another type, a “warrior sweat” is a crazy situation where they bring in a ton of stones (like 40) at a time and pour a whole bucket of water on... ...
Read more

Sacred - a definition - and the Eagle (Kno)

Image
I  want to clarify what I see with the word ‘sacred,’ as used in our stories.  Some people mistakenly think that we worship all things labeled sacred, and that there are multiple gods - not true.  My little granddaughter even asked me, “What about the rain god?”  I don’t know where she got that idea, but I told her we only have Creator, with lots of different words for that concept, like Mnedo (spirit), Shemendo (great spirit), Mamogosnan (father of us all), God.  Sacred, whether Eagle, the four medicines, or others are due the highest respect. We give thanks to them, but we don’t ‘worship’ them, if that distinction makes sense. For example, the drum is sacred; it is blessed with tobacco before being played to welcome the voice and heartbeat of our ancestors. With that in mind, a story about the importance of Eagle (directly from potawatomi.org) Long ago Creator, Mamogosnan (our great father), became angry with mankind because they  did not live i...
Read more