Gaa Mnokmet Ked: The Spring Wisdom Teachings (CPN)

 By Minisa Crumbo Halsey

WE ARE THE FARMERS, HUNTERS, COOKS, FISHERMEN, TAPPERS, STORYTELLERS, GATHERERS … OF OUR LIVES.

Spirit Horse Ranch Studio

And now, it is the sunrise of the world, called SPRING — the eastern, mental and yellow direction of the Medicine Wheel. It is the sunrise or dawn of the year. The stronger Gizes (Father Sky Sun) is pushing back the winter dark while warming and awakening Sekmekwe (Mother Earth) to yet another season of sprouting, rooting and growth. Just as the night of winter protects all things, it makes visible our star relatives Withik Negos … the Constellation of Ursa Major the Big Dipper. The hibernating kche mko, Big Bear, emerges, as do we two-leggeds, from the root homes of the mkowango (den), bringing new life, vigor and vision of plant medicine. Now, soon, comes the selection of back yard raised bed garden, windowsill or larger field. Prayers to the long history of chosen seed beings are offered to our Mother Earth, in gratitude, with planning thoughts, song, drum (de-weben), and perhaps a pinch of asemma (tobacco), cornmeal or fat. Now, we are purifying and humming to our highest and most sacred frequencies … preparing ourselves to initiate the digging, plowing, the mindful dropping of seed and first watering … as FARMERS OF OUR LIVES we continue to connect and fuse ourselves with all living things and with the heart of the sky and the heart of the earth. AHO!

These things we do to honor all new and emerging life, the inner lives and outer lives of all animate and inanimate beings. Now, we begin to prepare for the many ceremonies of the renewal that may be recalled, heard, told and created afresh with song, dance, painting or craft, by other works, prayer and feasting … for this new year … indeed for the young of seven generations ahead … do we offer these works to all of us … of the eighth fire prophesy.

Each of us, the long hairs, the newborns among us, the children and the elders, teens, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents, husbands and wives and all of our relations … we are each and every one of us drawing and receiving our first conscious breaths and remembering that we are “breathed alive by the Creator-Mamogosnan” into a living world of heartbeat, breath, movement and blood memory. This being so, we have a sacred charge to reach out, participate in and to support ourselves and our people … and to not forget who we are and what we have … through enduring connection to Mamogosnan and all of the others … heal us God, by the WAYS OF THE AIR … By these and other seasonal ways do we recognize ourselves as “farmers of our lives.” The GAA MNOKMET KED demonstrate the flowering mystery in our deepest recesses. These and many other things are learned as we set our moc-sin (moccasin) feet to walk yet another year upon and with, the renewed sacred path of SPRING – MNOKMET … one of the most beautiful and enduring gifts from the Creator that we might know life “in a good way, now and forever more.”

Getegemen - Garden

 

Potawatomi ‘Garden’ Vocabulary:

Basket = gokbenaben
Bees = amoyuk

Beans = koje'suk

Bloom = jijen

Butterfly = memiki

Cabbage = e'shobuk

Cherries = siwswe'mnen

Circle = waye'yak

Cloud = ngwankot

Corn = ndamen

Cucumber = kokobe'

Dance = nimedi

Drum = de'we'gIn

Earth = sugmuk

Feast = wewesnakewin

Fire = shkote'

Flint Hill Grounds = shokinkik

Flower = washkone'to

Food = wisnawen

Fruit = washkbak
Full Moon = nibakises

Garden = Getegemen

Good Rain = mnogmowIn

Gourd = shishigwIn

Grapes = siwnwen

Grass = mIshkos

Honey = amo

Hot Peppers = wasgagIn

Indian Tobacco = nInse’ma

July/Month of Young Corn = We'shkitdaminkesis

Lightning = sawasmo

Milkweed = nInwezhe’k

Moon = tpukises

Mother Earth = Kumde’kwe’

Muddy = winkiwIn

Onion = shakwesh

Outside = sagec

Peace = e’tokmite’k

Plenty Potatoes = topeka

Plum = pokma

Potatoes = pInyak

Prairie = mskoda

Pumpkin = wapkon

Purple = we'je'pwate'k

Rain = kmowen

Sage = wabshkukbyag

Spider = aspeke' e'e'buk

Stars = nagosuk

Strawberries = demen

Summer = E'mnokmuk

Sun = kises

Sunset = e'pkishmok
Sweat Lodge = mdodmogumuk

Sweet Corn = wishpumnuk

Sweetgrass = wiingaashk

Sweet Potato = wishpupnyak

Thunderbirds = cigwe’k

Toad = mamkeci

Tobacco = se’ma

Trees = mtugwe'nIn

Turtle = mshike’

Very Dark (Outside) = gispuknya

Very Light (Bright Sunshine) = waseya

Warm Wind = shawnash

Water = mbish

Watermelon = ashktamo

Well-Being = matsowIn

Whole Kernel Cooked Corn = pakswayuk

Wild = pkoc

Wild Rice = pkocnomin

Wind = notin

World = otake’

Worm = mose

Heart of Mother Earth

The Heart of Mother Earth loves and cares for us all, all ways, all days ... now and forever more.
AHO! Grandmother

Excerpt from 'Spirit Talk': The Mother Earth and all beings that live upon and within her body have their own unique medicine ways and it is of these ways that we seek to learn the languages, uses, and songs. Our Mother is a sentient being with an evolutionary path of her own, and when sufficiently sensitized it is possible for us to feel her heartbeat through the soles of our feet and entire being.

Sacred Berries Ceremony

From May 15, 2020:

Bozho and a very good Rainy morning to all, from the Bodewadmin Longhouse... an early summer, ancient and current women's teaching that can all be active within ... providing valuable focus in and on the women's seat of the soul, the woman place. A proven and worthy tool by which to live in harmony with the Creator and the natural world.

Migwech! My love, Minisa

Yes, Jaguar Woman, there IS a strawberry-demen teaching and yearlong right of passage ceremony for the young girl becoming woman. The sacred berry is representative and guardian of the life carrying qualities of the womb and the potential of 'new life coming' medicine. 

The other berries, which follow later in the season, represent the certain cellular division 'medicines' of the 'new life coming' and as a metaphor of the young girl becoming woman capable of 'Carrying Life and the Waters of Life'.

In the demen-spring or early summer ceremony she and a circle of women will pray and prepare to seek, greet, offer thanks for the gift, gather and invite the 'medicine' to join in and with, the girl's body through the coming 13 moons, at which time the demen give-away ceremony will be seated and complete, with a feast prepared for all participants.

Through this time, the 'young woman becoming', will observe a 13 Moon strawberry fast. She will then be offered the demen and other traditional foods, at the conclusion feast to FEED and NOURISH her life and herself, the life of the circle, her people, and ALL life, 'in a good way'. From this time onward she will be woman, having merged with this beautiful and powerful 'medicine', assisting her transition into the beauty and responsibility of an adult woman.

Migwech Creator, Sekmekwe, Gizes and all of the Demen for these and all of the gifts, known and unknown, spoken and unspoken ... mine (and) breathed alive.

Respectfully retold, in the appropriate season.
Dawn Woman 1IK

Flowering Moon

Gaa Mnokmet Ked: The Spring Wisdom Teachings (CPN)

 By Minisa Crumbo Halsey

WE ARE THE FARMERS, HUNTERS, COOKS, FISHERMEN, TAPPERS, STORYTELLERS, GATHERERS … OF OUR LIVES.

Spirit Horse Ranch Studio

And now, it is the sunrise of the world, called SPRING — the eastern, mental and yellow direction of the Medicine Wheel. It is the sunrise or dawn of the year. The stronger Gizes (Father Sky Sun) is pushing back the winter dark while warming and awakening Sekmekwe (Mother Earth) to yet another season of sprouting, rooting and growth. Just as the night of winter protects all things, it makes visible our star relatives Withik Negos … the Constellation of Ursa Major the Big Dipper. The hibernating kche mko, Big Bear, emerges, as do we two-leggeds, from the root homes of the mkowango (den), bringing new life, vigor and vision of plant medicine. Now, soon, comes the selection of back yard raised bed garden, windowsill or larger field. Prayers to the long history of chosen seed beings are offered to our Mother Earth, in gratitude, with planning thoughts, song, drum (de-weben), and perhaps a pinch of asemma (tobacco), cornmeal or fat. Now, we are purifying and humming to our highest and most sacred frequencies … preparing ourselves to initiate the digging, plowing, the mindful dropping of seed and first watering … as FARMERS OF OUR LIVES we continue to connect and fuse ourselves with all living things and with the heart of the sky and the heart of the earth. AHO!

These things we do to honor all new and emerging life, the inner lives and outer lives of all animate and inanimate beings. Now, we begin to prepare for the many ceremonies of the renewal that may be recalled, heard, told and created afresh with song, dance, painting or craft, by other works, prayer and feasting … for this new year … indeed for the young of seven generations ahead … do we offer these works to all of us … of the eighth fire prophesy.

Each of us, the long hairs, the newborns among us, the children and the elders, teens, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents, husbands and wives and all of our relations … we are each and every one of us drawing and receiving our first conscious breaths and remembering that we are “breathed alive by the Creator-Mamogosnan” into a living world of heartbeat, breath, movement and blood memory. This being so, we have a sacred charge to reach out, participate in and to support ourselves and our people … and to not forget who we are and what we have … through enduring connection to Mamogosnan and all of the others … heal us God, by the WAYS OF THE AIR … By these and other seasonal ways do we recognize ourselves as “farmers of our lives.” The GAA MNOKMET KED demonstrate the flowering mystery in our deepest recesses. These and many other things are learned as we set our moc-sin (moccasin) feet to walk yet another year upon and with, the renewed sacred path of SPRING – MNOKMET … one of the most beautiful and enduring gifts from the Creator that we might know life “in a good way, now and forever more.”

Crumbo Indian Arts Thank You Cards

 

The Crumbo Indian Arts THANK YOU cards are in holiday presentation, on the stand and for sale at 

The Art Market Gallery of Native American Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The suite of six cards can be viewed below, each with a message and thank you in the two indigenous languages of Muscogee 

Creek and Potawatomi, English and room to write in a personal language of choice. 

Visit the gallery to view the best in Oklahoma Indian Art ... right on historic Route 66.

Spring Medicine Wheel Teachings

As seasonal thoughts turn to farming and tending our selected seeds, salads and soils.. our INNER GARDENS ..the question naturally arises, how does my garden grow? How best might my inner farmer select the best seed, till the soil, enrich, water and nurture, consume and harvest the most important precepts by which one might live?

Come, let us move together this day, to explore these words in certain cultural/seasonal, collective/personal and yet universal directives.

The Medicine Wheel 4 X 4 wagon is building its wheels. The finely meshed and recognized gears of language that carry our loads, provide a center and direction, are beginning to be directionally and seasonally purposed to function as an inclusive true home and spiritual sanctuary. The home is under final construction and livable … always a dance and a song in the process of becoming at spring, or any given time. Welcome home traveler and seeker.

The Tree of Life: This day I will introduce a few core, ancient and personal images of the Medicine Wheel Teachings.

The Season of Mnokme: These seasonal talks will be introducing and inviting some visible and palpable Medicine Wheel images which may serve as a pastiche for you, dear attendant, upon which to perhaps sense, choose, build and view a current relationship with the natural world ... this natural world ... this most magnificent and non-denominational origin gift of Enduring Beauty ... designed for each of us sacred beings, to help identify, individuate, stimulate and maintain balance and harmony pathways by which to live, within the seasonal Ways of the Medicine Wheel Teachings ...

May we perhaps be available to move with some these ancient, proven and reliable Ways … Ways of building and maintaining balance and harmony of mind, heart, body and spirit ... LIFE. All ways, all days ... now and forever more.

AHO! Dawn Woman

Heart of Mother Earth

The Heart of Mother Earth loves and cares for us all, all ways, all days ... now and forever more. 

AHO! Grandmother

Excerpt from 'Spirit Talk': The Mother Earth and all beings that live upon and within her body have their own unique medicine ways and it is of these ways that we seek to learn the languages, uses, and songs. Our Mother is a sentient being with an evolutionary path of her own, and when sufficiently sensitized it is possible for us to feel her heartbeat through the soles of our feet and entire being. 

Gaa Mnokmet Ked: The Spring Wisdom Teachings (CPN)

 By Minisa Crumbo Halsey

WE ARE THE FARMERS, HUNTERS, COOKS, FISHERMEN, TAPPERS, STORYTELLERS, GATHERERS … OF OUR LIVES.

Spirit Horse Ranch Studio

And now, it is the sunrise of the world, called SPRING — the eastern, mental and yellow direction of the Medicine Wheel. It is the sunrise or dawn of the year. The stronger Gizes (Father Sky Sun) is pushing back the winter dark while warming and awakening Sekmekwe (Mother Earth) to yet another season of sprouting, rooting and growth. Just as the night of winter protects all things, it makes visible our star relatives Withik Negos … the Constellation of Ursa Major the Big Dipper. The hibernating kche mko, Big Bear, emerges, as do we two-leggeds, from the root homes of the mkowango (den), bringing new life, vigor and vision of plant medicine. Now, soon, comes the selection of back yard raised bed garden, windowsill or larger field. Prayers to the long history of chosen seed beings are offered to our Mother Earth, in gratitude, with planning thoughts, song, drum (de-weben), and perhaps a pinch of asemma (tobacco), cornmeal or fat. Now, we are purifying and humming to our highest and most sacred frequencies … preparing ourselves to initiate the digging, plowing, the mindful dropping of seed and first watering … as FARMERS OF OUR LIVES we continue to connect and fuse ourselves with all living things and with the heart of the sky and the heart of the earth. AHO!

These things we do to honor all new and emerging life, the inner lives and outer lives of all animate and inanimate beings. Now, we begin to prepare for the many ceremonies of the renewal that may be recalled, heard, told and created afresh with song, dance, painting or craft, by other works, prayer and feasting … for this new year … indeed for the young of seven generations ahead … do we offer these works to all of us … of the eighth fire prophesy.

Each of us, the long hairs, the newborns among us, the children and the elders, teens, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents, husbands and wives and all of our relations … we are each and every one of us drawing and receiving our first conscious breaths and remembering that we are “breathed alive by the Creator-Mamogosnan” into a living world of heartbeat, breath, movement and blood memory. This being so, we have a sacred charge to reach out, participate in and to support ourselves and our people … and to not forget who we are and what we have … through enduring connection to Mamogosnan and all of the others … heal us God, by the WAYS OF THE AIR … By these and other seasonal ways do we recognize ourselves as “farmers of our lives.” The GAA MNOKMET KED demonstrate the flowering mystery in our deepest recesses. These and many other things are learned as we set our moc-sin (moccasin) feet to walk yet another year upon and with, the renewed sacred path of SPRING – MNOKMET … one of the most beautiful and enduring gifts from the Creator that we might know life “in a good way, now and forever more.”

Gaa Mnokmet Ked: The Spring Wisdom Teachings (CPN)

 By Minisa Crumbo Halsey

WE ARE THE FARMERS, HUNTERS, COOKS, FISHERMEN, TAPPERS, STORYTELLERS, GATHERERS … OF OUR LIVES.

Spirit Horse Ranch Studio

And now, it is the sunrise of the world, called SPRING — the eastern, mental and yellow direction of the Medicine Wheel. It is the sunrise or dawn of the year. The stronger Gizes (Father Sky Sun) is pushing back the winter dark while warming and awakening Sekmekwe (Mother Earth) to yet another season of sprouting, rooting and growth. Just as the night of winter protects all things, it makes visible our star relatives Withik Negos … the Constellation of Ursa Major the Big Dipper. The hibernating kche mko, Big Bear, emerges, as do we two-leggeds, from the root homes of the mkowango (den), bringing new life, vigor and vision of plant medicine. Now, soon, comes the selection of back yard raised bed garden, windowsill or larger field. Prayers to the long history of chosen seed beings are offered to our Mother Earth, in gratitude, with planning thoughts, song, drum (de-weben), and perhaps a pinch of asemma (tobacco), cornmeal or fat. Now, we are purifying and humming to our highest and most sacred frequencies … preparing ourselves to initiate the digging, plowing, the mindful dropping of seed and first watering … as FARMERS OF OUR LIVES we continue to connect and fuse ourselves with all living things and with the heart of the sky and the heart of the earth. AHO!

These things we do to honor all new and emerging life, the inner lives and outer lives of all animate and inanimate beings. Now, we begin to prepare for the many ceremonies of the renewal that may be recalled, heard, told and created afresh with song, dance, painting or craft, by other works, prayer and feasting … for this new year … indeed for the young of seven generations ahead … do we offer these works to all of us … of the eighth fire prophesy.

Each of us, the long hairs, the newborns among us, the children and the elders, teens, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents, husbands and wives and all of our relations … we are each and every one of us drawing and receiving our first conscious breaths and remembering that we are “breathed alive by the Creator-Mamogosnan” into a living world of heartbeat, breath, movement and blood memory. This being so, we have a sacred charge to reach out, participate in and to support ourselves and our people … and to not forget who we are and what we have … through enduring connection to Mamogosnan and all of the others … heal us God, by the WAYS OF THE AIR … By these and other seasonal ways do we recognize ourselves as “farmers of our lives.” The GAA MNOKMET KED demonstrate the flowering mystery in our deepest recesses. These and many other things are learned as we set our moc-sin (moccasin) feet to walk yet another year upon and with, the renewed sacred path of SPRING – MNOKMET … one of the most beautiful and enduring gifts from the Creator that we might know life “in a good way, now and forever more.”

Gaa Mnokmet Ked: The Spring Wisdom Teachings (CPN)

By Minisa Crumbo Halsey

WE ARE THE FARMERS, HUNTERS, COOKS, FISHERMEN, TAPPERS, STORYTELLERS, GATHERERS … OF OUR LIVES.

Spirit Horse Ranch Studio

And now, it is the sunrise of the world, called SPRING — the eastern, mental and yellow direction of the Medicine Wheel. It is the sunrise or dawn of the year. The stronger Gizes (Father Sky Sun) is pushing back the winter dark while warming and awakening Sekmekwe (Mother Earth) to yet another season of sprouting, rooting and growth. Just as the night of winter protects all things, it makes visible our star relatives Withik Negos … the Constellation of Ursa Major the Big Dipper. The hibernating kche mko, Big Bear, emerges, as do we two-leggeds, from the root homes of the mkowango (den), bringing new life, vigor and vision of plant medicine. Now, soon, comes the selection of back yard raised bed garden, windowsill or larger field. Prayers to the long history of chosen seed beings are offered to our Mother Earth, in gratitude, with planning thoughts, song, drum (de-weben), and perhaps a pinch of asemma (tobacco), cornmeal or fat. Now, we are purifying and humming to our highest and most sacred frequencies … preparing ourselves to initiate the digging, plowing, the mindful dropping of seed and first watering … as FARMERS OF OUR LIVES we continue to connect and fuse ourselves with all living things and with the heart of the sky and the heart of the earth. AHO!

These things we do to honor all new and emerging life, the inner lives and outer lives of all animate and inanimate beings. Now, we begin to prepare for the many ceremonies of the renewal that may be recalled, heard, told and created afresh with song, dance, painting or craft, by other works, prayer and feasting … for this new year … indeed for the young of seven generations ahead … do we offer these works to all of us … of the eighth fire prophesy.

Each of us, the long hairs, the newborns among us, the children and the elders, teens, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents, husbands and wives and all of our relations … we are each and every one of us drawing and receiving our first conscious breaths and remembering that we are “breathed alive by the Creator-Mamogosnan” into a living world of heartbeat, breath, movement and blood memory. This being so, we have a sacred charge to reach out, participate in and to support ourselves and our people … and to not forget who we are and what we have … through enduring connection to Mamogosnan and all of the others … heal us God, by the WAYS OF THE AIR … By these and other seasonal ways do we recognize ourselves as “farmers of our lives.” The GAA MNOKMET KED demonstrate the flowering mystery in our deepest recesses. These and many other things are learned as we set our moc-sin (moccasin) feet to walk yet another year upon and with, the renewed sacred path of SPRING – MNOKMET … one of the most beautiful and enduring gifts from the Creator that we might know life “in a good way, now and forever more.”

'Anishnabe Star Knowledge' by Minisa Crumbo Halsey:

Bozho Nikon, Hello. My bone, 
Let us, Anishnabé, begin by ‘making a prayer’ of gratitude and thanks for all of the gifts: 
Nengosek: the Star Beings 

Sekmekwe: our Mother Earth 

Gizes: our Father-Sky Sun 

Debek-Gizes: the Grandmother Moon 

Mamogosnan: Creator … we pray that we might see clearly and be seen clearly … and walk the straight path laid down for us in the Seven Grandfather’s Teachings, which give us the Good Ways by which we might live ...

To read entire article:  Anishnabé star knowledge - Potawatomi.org

Hownikan-March-2024-Digital.pdf (potawatomi.org)

Sacred Berries Ceremony

From May 15, 2020:

Bozho and a very good Rainy morning to all, from the Bodewadmin Longhouse... an early summer, ancient and current women's teaching that can all be active within ... providing valuable focus in and on the women's seat of the soul, the woman place. A proven and worthy tool by which to live in harmony with the Creator and the natural world.

Migwech! My love, Minisa

Yes, Jaguar Woman, there IS a strawberry-demen teaching and yearlong right of passage ceremony for the young girl becoming woman. The sacred berry is representative and guardian of the life carrying qualities of the womb and the potential of 'new life coming' medicine. 

The other berries, which follow later in the season, represent the certain cellular division 'medicines' of the 'new life coming' and as a metaphor of the young girl becoming woman capable of 'Carrying Life and the Waters of Life'.

In the demen-spring or early summer ceremony she and a circle of women will pray and prepare to seek, greet, offer thanks for the gift, gather and invite the 'medicine' to join in and with, the girl's body through the coming 13 moons, at which time the demen give-away ceremony will be seated and complete, with a feast prepared for all participants.

Through this time, the 'young woman becoming', will observe a 13 Moon strawberry fast. She will then be offered the demen and other traditional foods, at the conclusion feast to FEED and NOURISH her life and herself, the life of the circle, her people, and ALL life, 'in a good way'. From this time onward she will be woman, having merged with this beautiful and powerful 'medicine', assisting her transition into the beauty and responsibility of an adult woman.

Migwech Creator, Sekmekwe, Gizes and all of the Demen for these and all of the gifts, known and unknown, spoken and unspoken ... mine (and) breathed alive.

Respectfully retold, in the appropriate season.
Dawn Woman 1IK

Flowering Moon

Three Little Winters of Spring - an earth wisdom story ...

From April 4, 2020:

Bozho! Greetings all, from the Spirit Horse Ranch!

Smiling talks: let us gather together and think on a medicine wheel tale.

It is a windy day, here on the land ... which recalls an earth wisdom story told to me many years ago. It is the story of the three little winters of spring. Now, even though stories are traditionally told in the winter when we are are spending more time inside by the fire, our time now, seems to describe now. In many ways this is truly a little winter with accompanying vision quest qualities. Our collective retreats at this time bring opportunities of deep rest and healing. The spring medicine wheel season continues to radiate rays of inspiration and illumination which can and will penetrate and permeate all historic, tender and even hardened layers of memory and condition, all the while delivering the benison of light and love, capable of stimulating mental processes for future plans (and present), and able to plow the deepest furrows of every fertile and fallow field, be it of day or night, dream or vision.

The Winds
These are some of the gifts of spring. Ordinarily, there is more outward movement but spring this year, seems to be temporarily holding onto the hands of winter for a few more weeks ... at least the hands of: the little winters of spring. Let us give them our full attention, sit with them and allow the strong winds of spring to reach back, on and into aspects our innermost being, loosening and tearing away those limbs of our sacred flowering trees that may be dead, dying or diseased; no longer wanted or needed, winds which are scattering green winds of pollen, and driving southern rain clouds to the fields, forests, ponds and gardens.

RedBud Winter
This one comes first, when the redbud trees bloom ... when spring has truly seated sometime in the third week of January. Then a warm spell.

Dogwood Winter
The second little winter comes when the dogwood trees bloom. Then a warm spell.

Blackberry Winter
The third and last winter comes when the blackberries bushes bloom. It can seem to be the coldest and most unnecessary of the little winters ... but it is the last.

The Rains
The cold, hard, male rains come ... drumming the Mother alive and calling upon the return of her heartbeat to bring send sap rising, invite sprout and shoot, unfurling bud and leaf..softening, melting ice, moistening and warming the world once more..and so, the world is renewed once again and life begins anew with us in the northern hemisphere and reversed, down under.

Provisions and activities for personal ceremony come forward as we visit the shelving of memory and practice, selecting this or that according to interest or need, that we fashioned through decision and discipline for just such times as these. Provisions and activities, sacred all, fashioned in solitude or circle...to bring solace, lift the heart and lighten the mind, are our proven and worthy tools. We will sit in circle once again. Review these things and add to them ... there will be new stories to tell ... reach out to our brothers and sisters ... and in these times of relative inactivity for some of us, remember: BEING IS A DOING. Prayers and blessings to all who are or have ‘walked on’, to the caretakers and ones most heavily burdened, may they and we know good health and the restoration of balance and harmony, all ways, all days, now and forever more.

Migwech
That’s the way it is with me.

Curiosity, restlessness, patience
Inventiveness, endurance and bravery
Remembering, being breathed alive and a sun ceremony
Water song, traveling song..silent prayer songs and groans of the heart are all heard.
The drum..redbud singers and dewebenkwe rock!
A purification fire, inside on a cookie sheet or outside, w/ sema offering
Smudging and fanning off, self, others and the room, remembering to open a window
Basketry
Sage, ginger and sassafras teas..green tea, chaga thunder, miso
Wild onions and eggs, dandelion greens in salads, corn soup, fry bread ‘n salt pork
Moon time
Collecting and drinking clean rain water
‘Putting Down’ some sema, tobacco ... tobacco down-prayers up
Offering plates
Being breathed alive
And always, the inner vision quest of:
Gratitude

Migwech, Mamogosnon, prime Creator for ALL of the gifts.

Dawn Woman

Spring Medicine Wheel Teachings

Spring-Mnokme:

As seasonal thoughts turn to farming and tending our selected seeds, salads and soils.. our INNER GARDENS ..the question naturally arises, how does my garden grow? How best might my inner farmer select the best seed, till the soil, enrich, water and nurture, consume and harvest the most important precepts by which one might live?

Come, let us move together this day, to explore these words in certain cultural/seasonal, collective/personal and yet universal directives.

The Medicine Wheel 4 X 4 wagon is building its wheels. The finely meshed and recognized gears of language that carry our loads, provide a center and direction, are beginning to be directionally and seasonally purposed to function as an inclusive true home and spiritual sanctuary. The home is under final construction and livable … always a dance and a song in the process of becoming at spring, or any given time. Welcome home traveler and seeker.

The Tree of Life: This day I will introduce a few core, ancient and personal images of the Medicine Wheel Teachings.

The Season of Mnokme: These seasonal talks will be introducing and inviting some visible and palpable Medicine Wheel images which may serve as a pastiche for you, dear attendant, upon which to perhaps sense, choose, build and view a current relationship with the natural world ... this natural world ... this most magnificent and non-denominational origin gift of Enduring Beauty ... designed for each of us sacred beings, to help identify, individuate, stimulate and maintain balance and harmony pathways by which to live, within the seasonal Ways of the Medicine Wheel Teachings ...

May we perhaps be available to move with some these ancient, proven and reliable Ways … Ways of building and maintaining balance and harmony of mind, heart, body and spirit ... LIFE. All ways, all days ... now and forever more.

AHO!

Dawn Woman

Crumbo Indian Arts Thank You Cards

Three Little Winters of Spring - an earth wisdom story ...

From April 4, 2020:

Bozho! Greetings all, from the Spirit Horse Ranch!

Smiling talks: let us gather together and think on a medicine wheel tale.

It is a windy day, here on the land ... which recalls an earth wisdom story told to me many years ago. It is the story of the three little winters of spring. Now, even though stories are traditionally told in the winter when we are are spending more time inside by the fire, our time now, seems to describe now. In many ways this is truly a little winter with accompanying vision quest qualities. Our collective retreats at this time bring opportunities of deep rest and healing. The spring medicine wheel season continues to radiate rays of inspiration and illumination which can and will penetrate and permeate all historic, tender and even hardened layers of memory and condition, all the while delivering the benison of light and love, capable of stimulating mental processes for future plans (and present), and able to plow the deepest furrows of every fertile and fallow field, be it of day or night, dream or vision.

The Winds
These are some of the gifts of spring. Ordinarily, there is more outward movement but spring this year, seems to be temporarily holding onto the hands of winter for a few more weeks ... at least the hands of: the little winters of spring. Let us give them our full attention, sit with them and allow the strong winds of spring to reach back, on and into aspects our innermost being, loosening and tearing away those limbs of our sacred flowering trees that may be dead, dying or diseased; no longer wanted or needed, winds which are scattering green winds of pollen, and driving southern rain clouds to the fields, forests, ponds and gardens.

RedBud Winter
This one comes first, when the redbud trees bloom ... when spring has truly seated sometime in the third week of January. Then a warm spell.

Dogwood Winter
The second little winter comes when the dogwood trees bloom. Then a warm spell.

Blackberry Winter
The third and last winter comes when the blackberries bushes bloom. It can seem to be the coldest and most unnecessary of the little winters ... but it is the last.

The Rains
The cold, hard, male rains come ... drumming the Mother alive and calling upon the return of her heartbeat to bring send sap rising, invite sprout and shoot, unfurling bud and leaf..softening, melting ice, moistening and warming the world once more..and so, the world is renewed once again and life begins anew with us in the northern hemisphere and reversed, down under.

Provisions and activities for personal ceremony come forward as we visit the shelving of memory and practice, selecting this or that according to interest or need, that we fashioned through decision and discipline for just such times as these. Provisions and activities, sacred all, fashioned in solitude or circle...to bring solace, lift the heart and lighten the mind, are our proven and worthy tools. We will sit in circle once again. Review these things and add to them ... there will be new stories to tell ... reach out to our brothers and sisters ... and in these times of relative inactivity for some of us, remember: BEING IS A DOING. Prayers and blessings to all who are or have ‘walked on’, to the caretakers and ones most heavily burdened, may they and we know good health and the restoration of balance and harmony, all ways, all days, now and forever more.

Migwech
That’s the way it is with me.

Curiosity, restlessness, patience
Inventiveness, endurance and bravery
Remembering, being breathed alive and a sun ceremony
Water song, traveling song..silent prayer songs and groans of the heart are all heard.
The drum..redbud singers and dewebenkwe rock!
A purification fire, inside on a cookie sheet or outside, w/ sema offering
Smudging and fanning off, self, others and the room, remembering to open a window
Basketry
Sage, ginger and sassafras teas..green tea, chaga thunder, miso
Wild onions and eggs, dandelion greens in salads, corn soup, fry bread ‘n salt pork
Moon time
Collecting and drinking clean rain water
‘Putting Down’ some sema, tobacco ... tobacco down-prayers up
Offering plates
Being breathed alive
And always, the inner vision quest of:
Gratitude

Migwech, Mamogosnon, prime Creator for ALL of the gifts.

Dawn Woman

Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk':

It is from the unified and receptive language interaction of our mind, heart, body, and spirit languages that we are able to communicate with the realities and even messages from denizens of the natural world – refreshing and newly emerging spirit beings in the forms of plants, animals, the Grandmother Moon and Star Beings, the Wind, Fire, and Water Beings, and even the heartbeat of Mother Earth, the pulses of Father Sky-Sun, and the mind of the Prime Creator, the Master of All Breath … 

The Medicine Wheel 4 X 4 wagon is building its wheels. The finely meshed and recognized gears of language that carry our loads, provide a center and direction, are beginning to be directionally and seasonally purposed to function as an inclusive true home and spiritual sanctuary. The home is under final construction and livable … always a dance and a song in the process of becoming at spring, or any given time. Welcome home traveler and seeker!

Spring Equinox: The east-west arm of balance is the ‘hard road of life’. The east-west axis provides the essential cross balance with the north-south cross balance – spinal axis of harmony – the Good Red Road … This mental spring arm extends forward and out from the center, joining with the introspective, medicine autumn arm of the autumnal equinox. The Medicine Wheel is in an active and visible building process.