Weather permitting we will hold Water Ceremony outside in the Sand Dunes. Afterwards we will dance in circle around a rescued pine tree on the property at Hospitality House.
Before dancing, Jackie / Godarvi will teach us a simple chant that we will sing and dance to. Jackie says, “I’d like to read what qualities the names of God we’ll be chanting refer to and just give a brief statement or 2 about Siddha Yoga chanting.” Description: “I would be happy to introduce you to a form of chanting that can induce the experience of the divinity within each of us, the source of universal Oneness. In the tradition I follow, Siddha Yoga (which originated in India), chanting is
a key spiritual practice. It can purify our surroundings, fill us with love and joy, free us from worry, bring us supreme contentment, and let us experience the divinity that lies inside. We chant different names for God, each evoking certain qualities of the one God.”
Community meal follows.
Please RSVP 715 466-5349. Thank you. Miigwetch!
Let’s share books that promote women’s advocacy to action. Like a Tree by Jean Shinoda Bolen. How trees, women, and tree people can save the planet.
Animal totem: Turtle faces west September.
Beautiful intention: Danka Brewer, Mother Earth Water Walkers,
“Maja awi mino niiban, sweet dreams May the Creator keep you safely in his loving arms and grant that we might rise and greet the dawning of a new day and each other spirits tomorrow. May The Dawning of a New Day bring you to a better place to start from and a bright path to travel tomorrow.”
August Deer Medicine: “When deer show up in your life it is time to be gentle with yourself and others. A new innocence and freshness is about to be awakened or born. There is going to be a gentle, enticing lure of new adventures. Ask yourself important questions. Are you trying to force things? Are others? Are you being too critical and uncaring of yourself? When deer show up there is an opportunity to express gentle love that will open new doors to adventure for you.
Saturday, July 30- There were thunderstorms surrounding the valley in late afternoon. Water sisters arrived at the Hospitality House in Minong. We began by dressing up in skirts. Sandy Stein mentioned that when women wear a shawl and skirt it represents mountains and being close to Mother Earth. A skirt worn in ceremony is respectful and helps women remember that we are feminine energy and connected to Mother Earth. We put our sacred items together to carry them out to the sand dunes. I had on my glass water pendent that Worth Cooley-Prost had made for me. Sandy wore her medicine bag. It is good for women to have their very own medicine bag. We have several small beaded butterfly medicine bags made by an elder Marilyn Vig, Rice Lake, WI. I will exhibit and offer them for sale in September at our online store at http://stores.ebay.com/happytonics
Rainbow after storm
While still at the house we witnessed a rainbow. This was a beautiful sign.
Then it started to lightly rain again as we walked to the sand dunes. Sandy Stein said, “Rain is good.” I responded, “After all we are praying for the water.” We felt blessed as we entered Sacred Space and the rain began to lighten up and then stop.
Sandy, Deborah and Godavari met the sweet fern for the first time that is now growing over the dune and into the site. I love this fern, years ago I put my intentions on the fern and wished that the fern would climb the dunes from the other side. Each of them smelled the plant and were joyous when they smelled the sweet fragrance having never smelled anything like it before. I reminded water sisters that we needed to be silent as we entered Sacred Space.
Sweet fern.
We put our individual sacred items on the blanket alter in the sand. Before we began the Nibi Wabo (Water Song) each of us added our pure water to the water bowl to marry the waters. We tried to smudge but couldn’t get a match to light the sacred sage; it was too damp. We each took a pinch of tobacco in our left hand. In turn each spoke their intentions of remembrance before beginning ceremony and added a pinch of tobacco to the basswood Two Headed Bear Dream Bowl handmade by Frank Galli. The bowl was made especially for Water Ceremony offerings. Then I gave a short talk on the observations of water to the sisters.
Message: Grandmother Tonya Whitedeer is one of the Ambassadors of the White Buffalo Family in Oregon. She is with them now and doing ceremony as we stand in circle. Worth Cooley-Prost is traveling from Arlington, VA to the Carolinas. Worth is standing with us in ceremony at the same hour where ever she is. I remembered Shelley Ruth Wyndham, Cape Town, South Africa, who asked that she be remembered each time we stand in Water Ceremony. She is with us in ceremony. Mother Earth is going through a Great Cleansing and weather is and will become more violent. We are to stand firmly grounded to the earth and hold any fear in our feet which is solidly planted in communication with Mother Earth. We are not to let fear rise up through our bodies. We are not to be afraid when great and turbulent changes occur around us. We are to know that Mother Earth is protecting us. We are the Water Walkers, water sisters and water teachers.As women we are called to protect water. We are not alone. We are here to grow in healing energy work as we band together all over the world. Each of us in our own environment is here to teach others not to be afraid and to help people cross over the rainbow road after a storm. We are here at this moment to personally adapt to Climate Change and its consequences. We need to learn what our agricultural plant growing zone is and may be in the predicted future. We need to plant appropriately while we look towards the future. Current plant zoning is changing. In Northwest Wisconsin instead of planting the same species of downed trees ( Birch, Red Pine and Jack Pine) of the last storm in Minong on July 1, we need to look at a zone or two further south and plant accordingly. We need to personally adapt and teach others to adapt. There is no sense in old programming of being alarmed when our immediate world is changing and negatively lamenting the changes. If we survive I believe this is sufficient enough to be grateful. The solution: Think positive because we are still here doing our work. Adapt! This is the message.
Then we sang to the four direction, using our birch bark clapping sticks. The clouds were getting black and thunder clouds came closer. After concluding the Water Song we ended ceremony sooner, packed up our ceremonial objects and headed back to the Hospitality House. Before we left the sand dunes, Sandy put down the sacred items she brought to the ceremony. These were a shell and rock. I left a tear drop shell in a special place also which was significant because we were blessed by rain during ceremony.
Parched sand dunes from drought.
One of the observations I have noticed since I started working on water issues and Water Ceremony, with the Sisterhood of the Planetary Water Rites, is that I am forever thirsty. Northwest Wisconsin experienced a seven-year drought . I am conscious of having a dry mouth and wanting to drink water.
NOTE: Parts of this state’s North Woods and the adjacent Upper Peninsula of Michigan are the only areas in the continental USA experiencing “extreme” drought. It’s the region’s most severe drought since the 1930s and its longest dry period since the 1950s, says Roy Eckberg, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Green Bay, Wis. Learn more at http://www.usatoday.com/weather/drought/2010-06-24-drought_N.htm
Artesian well with spout and cup
I am grateful for all the rain in 2011 even though we have had to deal with strange, unpredictable and more frequent violent storms. Even the clouds have changed to forms I have never seen before. Now I keep a weather radio on.
I am secure in knowing that there is pure water at the artesian well in the woods where sweet water flows to the surface from deep within Mother Earth. What a happy woodlands it is that surrounds the artesian well. Even though the trip is long and I need to drive 60 miles round trip from Minong to Shell Lake and back, I am happiest when I am drinking this precious pure water.
After the Water Ceremony Godavari wrote, “Thanks so much, so very much, for having us at your place, especially right after the trauma of the storms, when it must have been hard for you to get ready. I like that it rained on our ceremony. In Siddha Yoga rain is auspicious (highly beneficial, a good omen) because it is a blessing upon the earth and its people. As you said, it is life itself. After our ceremony, I began drinking water with much gratitude, knowing we are blessed to have clean water on this part of the earth. And inside, I feel a purification beginning, which the water ceremony seemed to launch. Purifying me of anger and resentment, making space for greater love. So in a personal way too, I am grateful to you for leading us in honoring water, in honoring Mother Earth.
Note: Godavari means goddess of a holy river, and there is a River Godavari, as they call it there, near the Siddha Yoga ashram in India.
Worth Cooley-Prost says, “My part of Water Ceremony was brief and on the move, but held my Heart and I hope added something Good to the whole. My old (85 now!) friend Dot, who co-founded the Light Group in Kinston NC in the early 1970s, brought me a little container of water from there. (It used to be artesian well water, now it’s a mix of that and water from the Neuse River… anyway, Water from close-to-me Ancestors’ home since 1841 or so.) And our car smelled so wonderful with sage lit!
Tonya Whitedeer Cargill is a Clan Mother of the Bear Clan of Medicine Creek Metis in Laytonville, CA. She holds women’s circles and Grandmother Net of Light Ceremonies. She is one of the Ambassadors’ for the Sacred White Buffalo Family in Northern Oregon. She is currently working on a novel that is coming to her through Spirit. Tonya works with endangered species Medicines of the Green Nation and maintains a Medicine Walk open to the public to educate all those that come to her land named through Spirit as Medicine Creek. Visit the Sisterhood of the Planetary Water Rites at http://waterblessings.org/
Mary Ellen Ryall is a Council Guide of the Sisterhood of the Planetary Water Rites and Executive Director of Happy Tonics, Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(3) environmental education organization and public charity. Ryall is the author of My Name is Butterfly published in 2011 by Salt of the Earth Press. The book will be available on Amazon shortly.
The fully illustrated children’s book gives testimony of why native plants are important for pollinators. The charming book teaches about the life cycle of the monarch butterfly and its only host plant milkweed. Over the last eight years Ryall has planted milkweed at the sand dunes. Monarch butterflies flitted about the day of the Water Ceremony. This is another good sign that the monarch butterfly abounds in Minong in and near the sand dunes.
Northwest Wisconsin is in the middle of a winter snow storm much like a blizzard. Even the streets are not plowed. My sidewalks and driveway are piled high with new snow. It looks so pure and beautiful. I really like it. I wasn’t quite ready to start a busy season again, at least not yet! So I welcome the snow. Later this morning, I will put on the boots and hike next door to the Minong Senior Center.
Last night we had a Water Ceremony at the Hospitality House in Minong. Only one woman could make it simply because she lives nearby. The others had to travel here. Weather makes all the difference. Dabora and I dressed the makeshift alter with sacred objects. We did the seven directional Water Song. Candles were lit and the snow just kepm on falling.
We prayed for the water. The late snow will melt and add presious water drops to the water table. This is good and something that should be remembered and respected.
Grandmother Tonya Whitedeer, founder of the Sisterhood of Planetary Water Rites, recently wrote to let the members of the Sisterhood know that the Grandmothers Speak Organization will be sponsoring a Net of Light Workshop in Cork, Ireland, on September 11 and 12. You can learn more about the organization and the ceremonies in Ireland at www.grandmothersspeak.com
GRANDMOTHER’S WORKSHOP on 11th and 12th SEPTEMBER:
About: 2 day event will take place at the Metropole Hotel on Mac Curtain Street in Cork City, Ireland.
Time: Saturday 11th 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. and Sunday 12th 10am to 5pm
Sharon wrote and says, “It is possible to come for just one day but recommended as it is light work for the planet to try and attend the 2 days. The Empowerment is on the Saturday. The workshop includes using the Net of Light, the Empowerment of the Grandmothers, raising the YIN energy in ourselves and the land, helping to awaken sacred sites in Ireland thus helping to balance the whole planet.”
COST: 2 days is 150 euro and one day is 90 euro.
Please email Louise Burke at louise.b75@gmail.com to register for this event and also if accommodation advice is needed.
Thank you for your love and blessings.
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As a Council Member of the Sisterhood of the Planetary Water Rites, I am writing to invite you to attend and learn about the Sisterhood and the Nibi Wabo Water Ceremony at my Hospitality House in Minong, Wisconsin, USA, on Saturday, September 11.
Hospitality houseSand dunes turning to Pine barrens
We will go to the sand dunes near the property at sunset and perform a Nibi Wabo water ceremony. The work we do for Mother Earth and sending positive energy on this particular day is important to counterbalance the negative energy of stored memories of September 11 in the USA.
back yard
As night falls we will make a sacred fire outside on the property and enjoy lifting our hearts to the heavens, on the third day of the New Moon.
In Ojibwe It's a good place
We will send a net of light to the Grandmothers in Ireland who will anchor the net of light. We will be conduits of the net of light in different parts of the world creating balance for Mother Earth as she goes through this time of cleansing. Saturday is the day to empower YIN energy for feminine energy work.
COST: $20 for those who need accommodations.
ACCOMODATIONS: Bring a sleeping bag and mat (hard floors). We will need to shop for food and share food expenses as a group (evening meal and breakfast).
OUT OF TOWN ITINERARY: September 11, plan on being here at 3:30 p.m. so we will have time to food shop, gather wood for a sacred fire, time to cook an outside evening meal and arrange bedding arrangements. On September 12, the sun rises at 6:26 a.m. I invite you to welcome morning’s first light as the sun rises over Peaceful Valley with chimes, bells, drums and clapping sticks followed by Yoga and/or Tai chi.
Sunrise over Peaceful Valley
FOR CEREMONY ONLY:
Please be here by 6:30 p.m. on September 11, 2010. The sunset is at 7:08 p.m. when we will begin our ceremony.
Whenever we hold ceremonies for the Grandmothers we are sending positive energy for the Intention and manifesting our heart energy for the Highest Good.
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