Autumn Drum

 

Let us sit beside our inner fires, warm ourselves and listen to the heartbeat 

and song of  Sekmekwe - Heart Beat of the Mother Earth.

-- Dawn Woman

Ancestor Honoring Ceremony

Sunday, October 30, an altar was erected to the Ancestors in the Longhouse. The ‘Walking On’ song was offered around the place of the Fire-Flower altar, for who among us has not known of someone(s) who has ‘walked on’ in the recent or long ago past? It would be appropriate to use candles, fruit, flowers, candy, tobacco, a photograph/token/favorite food of loved one(s), or vice, as the case may be, that their lives on the other side might carry our best prayers and well wishes ... these things were placed on or around the altar upon entering ... 'accepting and releasing into the light’ as we go. 

I invite you to consider taking this harvest and honoring time into a personal earth walk whether in community or solitude. In this way we begin to approach the Gaa Biboon Ked, the Winter Wisdom Teachings whereby we begin to ‘Fire Our Seeds of Inspiration’ for the new year to come. Begin watching for the Orion Constellation to appear low in the eastern sky at early night, as the ancient harbinger of Winter Bringer. 

The Spirit plate is prepared by selecting very small and representative pieces of each feast food on the table ... mindfully collected with the left, offering hand, taken outside, and offered with a prayer of recognition and gratitude ... I like to raise the plate and turn it to the seven directions, lastly approaching the Mother Earth four times before lowering the plate to the earth ... Shewen dagzewin! A blessing is visited upon us this day!

Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk': Spirit Plate

The Spirit plate makes out recognition and gratitude visible to the beings who are making a gift of their seed history, and when properly addressed they can become actively involved in an ongoing life path through other agents, namely ourselves. Their seed histories, with cultural family trees grounded in the natural world that make contributions of inestimable value and tensile strength to the DNA of any bonding entity, are at least as hugely long and venerable as ours.

Most of these connections and contributions are beyond our ken, but heartfelt gestures of gratitude and respect for these living things are ours to express through remembering our connections to the best of our abilities—where and when they lived and grew, who harvested them, how they were handled and for what purpose and by whom. The questions are always, what do we have to do that these things will live?

The Spirit plate is prepared by selecting very small and representative pieces of each feast food on the table ... mindfully collected with the left, offering hand, taken outside, and offered with a prayer of recognition and gratitude ... I like to raise the plate and turn it to the seven directions, lastly approaching the Mother Earth four times before lowering the plate to the earth ... Shewen dagzewin! A blessing is visited upon us this day!

Winter Medicine Wheel

Gaa Biboon Ked

Winter Medicine Wheel

The winter maker approaches ...

It’s sitting by the fireand story telling time.

Autumn Drum

 

Let us sit beside our inner fires, warm ourselves and listen to the heartbeat 

and song of  Sekmekwe - Heart Beat of the Mother Earth.

-- Dawn Woman

Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk': Spirit Plate

The Spirit plate makes out recognition and gratitude visible to the beings who are making a gift of their seed history, and when properly addressed they can become actively involved in an ongoing life path through other agents, namely ourselves. Their seed histories, with cultural family trees grounded in the natural world that make contributions of inestimable value and tensile strength to the DNA of any bonding entity, are at least as hugely long and venerable as ours.

Most of these connections and contributions are beyond our ken, but heartfelt gestures of gratitude and respect for these living things are ours to express through remembering our connections to the best of our abilities—where and when they lived and grew, who harvested them, how they were handled and for what purpose and by whom. The questions are always, what do we have to do that these things will live?

The Spirit plate is prepared by selecting very small and representative pieces of each feast food on the table ... mindfully collected with the left, offering hand, taken outside, and offered with a prayer of recognition and gratitude ... I like to raise the plate and turn it to the seven directions, lastly approaching the Mother Earth four times before lowering the plate to the earth ... Shewen dagzewin! A blessing is visited upon us this day!

Ancestor Honoring Ceremony

Sunday, October 30, an altar was erected to the Ancestors in the Longhouse. The ‘Walking On’ song was offered around the place of the Fire-Flower altar, for who among us has not known of someone(s) who has ‘walked on’ in the recent or long ago past? It would be appropriate to use candles, fruit, flowers, candy, tobacco, a photograph/token/favorite food of loved one(s), or vice, as the case may be, that their lives on the other side might carry our best prayers and well wishes ... these things were placed on or around the altar upon entering ... 'accepting and releasing into the light’ as we go. 

I invite you to consider taking this harvest and honoring time into a personal earth walk whether in community or solitude. In this way we begin to approach the Gaa Biboon Ked, the Winter Wisdom Teachings whereby we begin to ‘Fire Our Seeds of Inspiration’ for the new year to come. Begin watching for the Orion Constellation to appear low in the eastern sky at early night, as the ancient harbinger of Winter Bringer. 

The Spirit plate is prepared by selecting very small and representative pieces of each feast food on the table ... mindfully collected with the left, offering hand, taken outside, and offered with a prayer of recognition and gratitude ... I like to raise the plate and turn it to the seven directions, lastly approaching the Mother Earth four times before lowering the plate to the earth ... Shewen dagzewin! A blessing is visited upon us this day!