I’ve heard the aboriginal communities are saying at this time we must engage in ceremony 70% of the time
to know how to live and heal with the earth.
And yet as we are living in a time where we and life have been compartmentalized, fragmented into pieces by histories of conquest, many envision this as separate from life, as practices and events.
“I’m going to take time out of my schedule to do ceremony…or be mindful”
So we make beautiful events, gatherings, lodge, pow wows, retreats and they are all essential pieces of the medicine and our wholeness. We set aside five minutes to meditate and it is useful, but separate.
We have been accustomed in this society of devastated, dominated, fragmented cultures to see ourselves as separate parts and actions.
Yet, the ancestral self is all parts together, an integrated whole.
We are not too far away from this.
Every child shows us when they are born,
and if supported with love,
what it is to be human.
They talk with the spirits (nature, spirit, ancestors), speak from and shine from their soul, their hearts full of the desire for love and connection.
They look with wonder at everything in the world and move slow enough to engage with ALL life.
Before we begin to teach and model separation and judgement, they live present to each full moment and open to full emotional expression of the rollercoaster that life can be.
Preconquest peoples reside in their heart and body. Often they are called ‘child like’ because of the innocence of their spirits, their openness.
Conversely, much of modern society is disembodied, functioning mostly from the head, often spinning in thoughts of fear and control, competition, domination, false safety (legacies of conquest). And this disconnection is systematically cultivated.
So I’m reflecting on how self-reclamation is every day ceremony/medicina that is much needed at this time.
Tuning in to our inner child (heart/body/soul) and opening to spiritual guidance (spirit/creator/nature familia/ancestors) is a daily ceremony of sacred connecting
that I believe was innate to our ancestors, the way it is innate in our children.
It is a wrenching of our souls and our ancestors’ souls, our innate spiritual humanity, from the clenches of colonizer/conquest violence and degradation.
And learning to hold ourselves with love, compassion, commitment and delight in who we are, the gifts we are here to share, the way an intact ancestral community may have welcomed and guided us.
I think about my curandera maestra Estela saying how she wishes all those who came to ceremonies religiously did their inner work in their every day lives.
I remember realizing, “Yesss, and this is why I am devoted to supporting self-reclamation”
I love ceremony, I love rituals, I love all the potency and energy of curanderismo arts, and…
I’m immensely grateful that this daily, moment by moment, process of self-reclamation has cultivated an inner parent/loving adult/higher self/future ancestor that knows how to hold our precious soul through it all.
That knows how to bring in and open to all the integration and love deeply held within and by the divine in all forms (spirit/nature/ancestors).
That heeds the call of re-integration by daily returning to our essential, whole, never broken self.
Not as a ‘practice’ but as the air we breathe and the way we walk in the world engaged with our extended familia/all our relations.
Tuning in, listening, honoring, opening to loving guidance.
“What is loving for us today?” “What is loving for the earth?” “How can my steps be a blessing?”
Knowing our connection with all Life,
wide Love in our bones,
our breath, our being.
What will our beautiful ceremonies be like if our daily ceremonies are cultivating such deep remembering of who we really are and our place in the web of life?
What can we then bring and realize together?
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Potent artwork by @Yallaroza
As always, if you are moved, please share with those you feel would appreciate this. Your word of mouth referrals help us build this reclamation practice and community xoxo.