The Water Walker

From the Facebook Post of Grandmother Sharon Day:


For Josephine Mandamin on behalf of water walkers

Ogima Ogitchidagkwe
M’dewanikwe
Ogima Ogitchidagkwe
M’dewanikwe
The nibi found in you
A true warrior
Ingah izitchigay nibi ohnjay
I will do it for the water
Ogima Ogitchidagkwe
M’dewanikwe
You are my hero

Listen to the nibi
She speaks if we will only listen
Swirling round and round
Waves breaking onto shore
She speaks if we will only listen
As she’s moving on downstream
She sings to us in wintertime
ice breaks on the frozen stream
Listen to the nibi
She speaks if we will only listen

Ogima Ogitchidagkwe
M’dewanikwe
Ogima Ogitchidagkwe
M’dewanikwe
We’ve learned so much from you
Of love and fierce devotion too
giiBimosaayan nibi ohnjay
we walked for the water
Ogima Ogitchidagkwe
M’dewanikwe Bidasigaye
You are my hero

SDay 2/22/19

Reflections on Grief

“In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most wakan, most holy. There's a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help.

You might recall what it's like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person's eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.” - Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

Image Source: Facebook

Mothers Day

I'm feeling the weight of Mothers Day today. The weight doesn't come from my mother, it comes from within me as a recovering Addict and alcoholic because in my active addiction I often chose drinking or using over the needs of my three children.

I live my amends for that every day but no day more than Mothers Day.

When my children were small, Mothers Day was mostly their Dad's responsibility: to get a card, or make and help deliver an interesting breakfast in bed, get something from the store, or wrap a special schoolmade item for my special day. I adored those times: everyone giggling and snuggling together in bed and talking over each other, telling me which breakfast item they Made or which handicraft was their Creation. Life wasn't always perfect, their father and I were not a good match but the kids were resilient and happy for the most part.

After the divorce my lifelong struggles with addiction worsened and my disease began whispering that surely my children were old enough (at 11, 14 and 17) to be left alone together while I lived the single, party-girl life. When my sons both decided to live with their father full-time, the addicted part of my brain consoled me again, drowning painful reality by checking me out of my life almost completely.

I left town for 6 months, justifying abandoning my youngest to live with her father full-time with the argument that I needed "space" to get my head together. I sold my house and blew the small profits I did make on more drugs and alcohol and constant "road trips".  I renamed myself with a brief-lived childhood nickname and became "Mickie" tied to a fantasy of a musician-hippie-bohemian lifestyle my 'addict' brain told me I could pull off at age 41.

That was the year I missed Mothers Day for the first time. The awkward Skype promises-apologies-repeat rhythm of those conversations still haunt me, filling me a guilt that is difficult to shake. What kind of mother did that make me?

It took me three more years to start answering that question.  I missed another Mothers Day #2 while in treatment for chemical dependancy. I remained in the grips of baffling, powerful and cunning disease. I was a mother who had no idea how to live life on life's terms, who had been running for so long I was full of fear about how to be clean and sober.  A mother who hadn't been consistently clean or sober for decades, except (barely) through most of her pregnancies.

After treatment, counselling, 12 Step meetings, thousands of conversations with fellow addicts in recovery, years of indigenous ceremonies and hard soul searching work I am coming to the realization that no amount of time that passes will erase the past. I am still working on forgiving myself for Mickie's mistakes and assumptions.

What kind of mother does that make me?  I think that makes me like alot of moms out there, not perfect, doing the best they can with what they have.  ❤ Michelle

started in May 2018
finished December 8 2018

 

Brigit Anna McNeill

November 25 at 7:32 AM

We are approaching the threshold of winter.

Life is being drawn into the earth, painlessly descending down into the very heart of herself. 

And we as natural human animals are being called to do the same, the pull to descend into our bodies, into sleep, darkness and the depths of our own inner caves continually tugging at our marrow. 

But many find the descent into their own body a scary thing indeed, fearing the unmet emotions and past events that they have stored in the dark caves inside themselves, not wanting to face what they have so carefully and unkindly avoided. 

This winter solstice time is no longer celebrated as it once was, with the understanding that this period of descent into our own darkness was so necessary in order to find our light. That true freedom comes from accepting with forgiveness and love what we have been through and vanquishing the hold it has on us, bringing the golden treasure back from the cave of our darker depths.

This is a time of rest and deep reflection, a time to wipe the slate clean as it were and clear out the old so you can walk into spring feeling ready to grow and skip without a dusty mountain on your back & chains around your ankles tied to the caves in your soul. 

A time for the medicine of story, of fire, of nourishment and love.

A period of reconnecting, relearning & reclaiming of what this time means brings winter back to a time of kindness, love, rebirth, peace and unburdening instead of a time of dread, fear, depression and avoidance.
This modern culture teaches avoidance at a max at this time; alcohol, lights, shopping, overworking, over spending, bad food and consumerism. 

And yet the natural tug to go inwards as nearly all creatures are doing is strong and people are left feeling as if there is something wrong with them, that winter is cruel and leaves them feeling abandoned and afraid. Whereas in actual fact winter is so kind, yes she points us in her quiet soft way towards our inner self, towards the darkness and potential death of what we were, but this journey if held with care is essential.

She is like a strong teacher that asks you to awaken your inner loving elder or therapist, holding yourself with awareness of forgiveness and allowing yourself to grieve, to cry, rage, laugh, & face what we need to face in order to be freed from the jagged bonds we wrapped around our hearts, in order to reach a place of healing & light without going into overwhelm. 

Winter takes away the distractions, the noise and presents us with the perfect time to rest and withdraw into a womb like love, bringing fire & light to our hearth.

•illustration by Jessica Boehman•
•words Brigit Anna McNeill•

Words from the earth

reciprocity floats up to me from paper pages and down from the Sun

From the Polish East and the traditional territories of the Semiahmoo and Qayqayt 

Land-ing and sowing Seeds that grow in my Gifts

by touching the earth, I continue

Pre Fast - May 15 2018

“The earth is what I speak to when
I do not understand my life…

The earth answers me with the same song
That it sang for my fathers when
their tears covered up the sun.

The earth sings a song of gladness.
The earth sings a song of praise.

The earth rises up and laughs at me
Each time that I forget
How spring begins with winter
And death begins with birth.

When I look at ugliness, I see beauty.
When I am far from home,
I see my old friends.

When there is noise,
I hear a robin’s song instead.

When I am in a crowd,
it is the mountain’s peace that I feel.

In the winter of my sorrow,
I remember the summer of my joy.

In the nighttime of my loneliness,
I breathe the day of my thanksgiving.
But when sadness spreads its blanket
and that is what I see,
I take my eyes to some high place
until I find a reflection of
what lies deep inside me.”

~Nancy Wood from Many Winters

Lamus Dworski : Night of the Witches in Polish Folklore

From Lamus Dworski

https://lamusdworski.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/night-of-the-witches/

Night of the Witches in Polish Folklore

Sabbath, reproduction of a lost artwork by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz [source]

Wigilia dnia św. Łucji, noc czarownic – the Eve of St. Lucia Day (the night between the 12th/13th December), ‘the night of the witches’.

In the Polish folk beliefs the night preceding St. Lucia Day (the evening of 12th December) was traditionally believed to be a night of the witches’ gathering, a ‘boundary’ time when the earthly and otherworldly realms are getting much closer. It used to be commonly known as the ‘night of the witches’.

Snowstorms are a sign of the witches fighting for the power: for the leading role during the upcoming year. They are also coming close to the human settlements and it is extremely dangerous for both the people and the livestock to be outside on that night. It was forbidden for the kids or the young maidens to go out – the highlanders believed that they might get stolen. Mothers protected their newborns, often staying awake by their cradles for the whole night: their infant might be stolen and replaced with an odmieniec (changeling).

People feared also that the witches could throw charms on their cattle: for example cows might cease to give milk (which is the main food resource among many highlanders, used for producing cream, butter and cheese that are vital for survival during the winter season). People protected their wood: if some planks were stolen, they believed that the witches would later use them to cast dangerous spells during the Christmas night.

People believed that the places of the witches’ meetings on that night are certain geological points of unique features. For example, it could be a place where three streams are coming together (as believed in the village of Sołonka) or a clear-cut edge of a forest. It could also be a location where borders between certain clearly designated areas are relatively close to each other, like a field between two villages that are located not far one from another.

People protected themselves in many ways. It was common to fasten thorns and protective herbs to the doorsteps of the houses and to the tresholds to the barns, and inside the buildings. It was extremely important to remember what kinds of herbs and in which locations did one leave the bundles: if there was something new, it meant a witch had sneaked into the property and left a cursed bouquet. In some areas the cattle was ‘bathed’ in smoke from garlands that had been blessed on the Day of the Divine Mother of Herbs earlier that year. Wise men and wise women were whispering calming speels to the ears of the livestock.

Those beliefs were found among Polish villagers from numerous regions across Poland, but they were particularly vivid in the culture of the regions north to the ranges of the Tatra Mountains and some parts of the Beskidy Mountains, and a lot of tales about that special night survived in the folktales of the highlanders from the northern slopes of Babia Góra (meaning literally: Mountain of the Crones). Most of the Polish Górale (higlanders) living in those mountainous parts of southern Poland had a particularly strong belief in the ‘night of the witches’, shaped quite literally by the local geographical conditions. That night marked the time when the Sun starts sinking so low above the horizon that it hides behind the local mountains quite early in the afternoon and makes the night much longer for the local highlanders this way.

The next day – 13th December – was seen as the best for divinations. For example, in many villages young girls were ripping off a cherry branch and putting it into a vase in their rooms. If the branch bloomed by the beginning of January, it was a good sign for the upcoming year: designating a marriage, prosperity or general success. The 12 days until Christmas were closely observed: each day predicted events or weather for a respective month in the upcoming year.

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Polish sources for further reading:

• “Wierzenia i obrzędy. Noc czarownic”
• “Na świętą Łucje noc się z dniem tłuce” / Muzeum Kolbuszowa
• “Wierzenia na dzień św. Łucji” / Świętokrzyskie
• “Zlot czarownic na Babiej Górze” / Podhale24
• “Święta Łucja” / Muzeum Radom
• Dzień św. Łucji / Wikipedia