From ancient mounds, modern rituals, and the spiritual connection between humans and nature.
Dear reader
I've landed back in the UK with a backpack full of stories and experiences all fermenting slowly, such was the richness of my travels over the course of three weeks in Antwerp, Georgia and Ohio. Considering I'd been working with powerful water deities whilst in the States, it was not surprising that as soon as I walked into our apartment, all the water ran dry due to a sudden problem with a valve in our communal water tank on the roof.
These spirits demand attention, and I was sure to honour them at the spring in the South Downs where I practiced qigong this morning.
Part of me is still in the Ohio Valley, walking amongst it's ancient mounds and ceremonial earthworks. Until this visit, I was unaware that the area was a powerful centre, as important as Stonehenge but much less well known.
This lecture explains interesting research into the culture that built these huge ritual centres and communities.
(Starts 4m 16s in)
Since landing home, I've taken part in two rituals. First creating a spirit memorial with artist Jim Saunders at Fork & Digital, based at Stanmer Organics in Brighton. People came and went through the afternoon, creating hanging memorials for lost loved ones. Yvonne and I spent a delightful four hours creating our hangings whilst the birds sang. A robin kept company, a sign that the spirits were present and at peace. My hanging was dedicated to all my grandmothers, especially my maternal line.
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On Saturday, I took the train to London to attend the third degree ceremony of my fellow apprentice freemason, who has now passed to Master Mason status. It is a long ceremony for which I was able to witness just a part of, as I will be taking my third degree early next year I hope. Until then I remain a fellowcraft mason with the Order of Women's Freemasonry. If you had asked my a year ago if I would become a freemason within the year, I would have shook my head in disbelief. I was just returning to work after an illness. But here I am and excited to be on this path that has many branches and opportunities for deepening my esoteric learning and understanding of mystical signs, symbols and ancient teachings. I am a member of Harmony Lodge No 4, which was the fourth women's lodge to be created in 1910. Many leading suffragettes were pioneer women freemasons and it feels empowering to follow in their footsteps.
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This is a shorter letter this week. I'm back to work on Monday but already looking forward to next Bank Holiday weekend and Brighton Festival activities.
I leave you with two poems: one by Ohio native, Mary Oliver from her collection Dream Works. Fitting, as we saw a turtle put back into the sea after being caught by a fisherman off Tybee Island pier.
THE TURTLE
breaks from the blue-black skin of the water, dragging her shell
with its mossy scutes
across the shallows and through the rushes
and over the mudflats, to the uprise,
to the yellow sand,
to dig with her ungainly feet
a nest, and hunker there spewing her white eggs down
into the darkness, and you think
of her patience, her fortitude,
her determination to complete what she was born to do
and then you realize a greater thing
she doesn't consider what she was born to do.
She's only filled
with an old blind wish.
It isn't even hers but came to her in the rain or the soft wind,
which is a gate through which her life keeps walking.
She can't see
herself apart from the rest of the world
or the world from what she must do
every spring.
Crawling up the high hill,
luminous under the sand that has packed against her skin,
she doesn't dream,
she knows
she is a part of the pond she lives in, the tall trees are her children, the birds that swim above her
are tied to her by an unbreakable string.
The second by US poet laureate Joy Harjo, the first Native American to hold the position:
THE STORY WHEEL
I leave you to your ceremony of grieving Which is also of celebration
Given when an honored humble one Leaves behind a trail of happiness In the dark of human tribulation.
None of us is above the other In this story of forever.
Though we follow that red road home,
one behind another.
There is a light breaking through the storm
And it is buffalo hunting weather.
There you can see your mother.
She is busy as she was ever-
She holds up a new jingle dress, for her youngest beloved daughter And for her special son, a set of finely beaded gear.
All for that welcome home dance,
The most favorite of all-
when everyone finds their way back together to dance, eat and celebrate.
And tell story after story
of how they fought and played
in the story wheel
and how no one
was ever really lost at all.
Once I looked at the moon and caught sight of a strange thing. A cricket had perched upon the handrail, only a few inches away from me. My line of vision was such that the creature filled the moon like a fossil. It had gone there, I thought, to live and die, for there, of all places, was its small definition made whole and eternal. A warm wind rose up and purled like the longing within me.
-N. SCOTT MOMADAY, The Way to Rainy Mountain, 1969
Until the passage of the Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, it was illegal for Native citizens to practice our cultures. This included the making and sharing of songs and stories. Songs and stories in one culture are poetry and prose in another. They are intrinsic to cultural sovereignty. To write or create as a Native person was essentially illegal.
Until next week
Much love
Serena xxx