People are not driving, which is a gift to the trees, and the very air we breathe. Mother Nature takes care of herself.
Is it a hardship to be forced to stay at home with the family when we are fortunate enough to have one? Perhaps it is a time to build family relationships. What a gift it is. Life is so fleeting.
Now is a time for meaningfulness. Meditation, prayer, and ceremony are enlightening ways to wake up. In the morning is the time to ask our Creator what is expected of each of us today? Listen. It is not the time to ask what our God can do for us. Listen and practice living to your higher purpose.
All the unnecessary chatter and all the running around, have come to a standstill. Give thanksgiving for the silence, the better to listen. Turning inward opens the heart and allows us to hear, truly hear the heart’s messenger. Photo white cedar copyright Mary Ellen Ryall
Last night the full moon was brilliant. I ventured out to a meadow to feel for the right spot to start a Water Ceremony. Photo: Duck pond in Congress Park.
The meadow is next to the Saratoga Springs Community Garden and the wetlands at Wesley Retirement Community. There are 36 acres here of wetlands, woodlands and extensive landscaped sitting areas within shaded green spaces along with solid footpaths for easy walking. It is truly a lovely natural setting that I can explore and enjoy by myself. I feel safe here. Flowers are blooming everyswhere throughout the property. At night the grasshoppers are singing and darling small tree frogs keep my heart happy as they chant with me. Before I do Ceremony, I take the time to do Tai chi and Yoga to work out any stress that is being held in the body. Once I have cleared my own outer body auro of clogged energy, I am ready to begin.
First I lit a small dried branch of White Sage from California and purified with the smudge. Then I offered smudging to the seven directions. After this clearing, I put down sacred Assema that has been used in daily morning offerings. All gifts are returned to the earth. I had my birch bark clapping sticks and proceded to do the Nibi Wabo Ceremony. It is important to remember that as women we are the protectors of water. As more and more of the world becomes dried up, water is disappearing. In poor countries, the water situation is even more critical. When I think of a woman having to walk several miles a day just to obtain one vessel of water that she carries on her head back to the village, I think about the inner body that is mostly water. How are these people surviving with a critical shortage of water? This is a human tragedy story.
Water is not a commodity and yet profiteering companies go to poor countries and sell water to poor people. Whoever heard that one needed to buy water in a bottle?. Water is being treated as a commodity. This is a social justice issue. Water is a gift from the Creator. Water is for all species on the planet, not just humans and crops. The birds, butterflies, moths, large animals and fish, let alone all the Green Nation, must have water to survive. How can a planet full of people not realize that by emitting carbon dioide into the atmosphere, for money, people are doing so without paying attention to the consequences. We are depleting air and water around the world. The climate is at a dangerous level now because of Climate Change. We are living in perilous times for air and water. This is why we must offer water our love and respect. We need to remember her and celebrate her everyday of our lives. Just by focusing on one issue, one can change the world, at leaset in our own corner of the world.
There is a small water font near my front door. This allows me to rememeber water as I come and go throughout the day. I am centering my thoughts around water so that I am more intuned to the living presence of water. This is similar to a meditation. How could I ever forget thinking of the Beloved who gives me life?
Doing a chant with my clapping sticks in the seven directions all around me, above me, below me and within me, I am honoring water as a living Being. May we remember. It is in forgetting that the natural world is taking abuse beyond what anything should suffer. Let us rejoice that we are abundantly blessed and offer Ceremony for the gifts that we recieve. Starting with becoming conscious of water and remembering her as a conscous effort. Let us walk forward to becoming conscious everyday of our lives and not just on the appointed time set aside for Water Ceremony, on the Full Moon.
To women everywhere, I bless you and myself with an offering to Nibi Wabo.
Memengwaaikwe
Butterfly Woman
Photo: of full moon rising over the trees as it comes into full view in the meadow.
Today I went out to my sister’s colonial farm. I brought my birch bark clapping sticks and some corn meal to put down. It was softly raining as I walked up though the woods on the foot trodden trail. I felt I was being led to honor my friend Worth Cooley-Prost who is ascended now with other masters. I just could feel her wanting me to do a Water Ceremony and so I walked up to the Wild Butterfly Habitat where I have my own refuge in a field. My chair was there and I was happy to be able to sit down for a respite.
Sacred gourd and clapping sticks
I knew that I would gather my crystal rock and pipe-stone from a sacred Ojibwe place. I didn’t want to leave them behind  knowing that I was moving. I want my sacred things around me. Personally I would rather have my sticks and twigs than furniture. They comfort me and give me strength.
In the clearing I began in the four directions. I chanted the water chant to Nibi Wabo and felt I was honoring the rain as it gently fell and that my friend was pleased.
There is also a stained glass hanging container that an elder friend made years ago. I thought about it and wondered what I would do with it in my new home? A light-bulb went off. I will hang it from a window and put water in it. It will remind me daily to set my intentions in my own residence. I will offer ceremony for the  purity of water, that it will remain abundantly with the Earth, even though it is quickly disappearing at an alarming rate. I will continue to bless the water. She wants to be honored. We should never  forget this life giving gift to all Beings that live on the planet.
A visit to tranquility
We must never stop protecting her from pollution, toxins, nuclear waste, plastic, and sewage. Â She allows us to live as well as the trees, plants, birds, fish, and animals that often sacrifice themselves for us.
Recently I learned that Worth Cooley-Prost walked on. She was a visionary when it came to creating her art. Worth worked with glass, but not just glass. She honored water as a living Being that should be loved, prayed for, and protected.
A few years ago, I received a surprise package in the mail at my home in Minong, WI. I had no idea who sent me the box because I hadn’t met Worth yet. She was one of my readers to this Blog. Worth knew from reading my posts that I was a council member of the Sisterhood of Water Rites. Sending the box to me was one way for her to honor water and the women who are protectors of water.
Within the box was a lovely hand made glass pennant on a wire necklace. It literally sparkled in the sun. I was overcome. In the moment, I sent her a thank you note. We then became friends on Facebook.
In 2012 I flew to Washington, DC, from Wisconsin. I went to honor my friend Cindy Dyer who was having a one woman photography exhibit at Green Springs Botanic Garden in Fairfax, VA. I called Worth and asked her to join us. Another artist friend Deneen Stambone drove us to Green Springs from Springfield, VA. Worth parked her car after greeting us at the door and I walked over to the vehicle. Matter-of-fact, she handed me a pair of earrings that went with the necklace she gave me earlier. I couldn’t get over it. I mean it was such a surprise to receive the necklace with glass pennant in the first place and now this? I was stunned.
Worth honored water. She saw a better world through Ceremony and joined the Sisterhood Water Ceremony group out in WI, even though she lived in Arlington, VA. We would coordinate our time when we offered Water Ceremony.
moss in frozen water = snow
Sometimes I am so unaware. For example, yesterday it rained all day. Niki Bresnahan and I met at the Sundial Community Garden, in Fitchburg, MA, and we transplated tomatoes and planted more beans in the gentile rain. We love to play in the rain. Why I didn’t think of Worth as blessing my day is beyond me. I realize it this morning. I was out there in the garden with a water friend and we were playing in the rain and loving our plants that were being nourished with nitrogen rich rainwater.
Miigwetch (thank you in Ojibwe) Worth for all the gifts of heart from here and beyond. Energy never dies. It always transforms. As a Monarch Butterfly that goes through transformation, we do also change and live on.
Worth Cooley-Prost created these lizards and I fell in love with them. Lizards love water.
Thank you Worth for the gifts of spirit and intentions that you gave us. Our time together was brief but eternal as I know you continue to send me blessings, such as the rain yesterday and a surprise online donation came to the nonprofit Happy Tonics at www.happytonics.com
I have kept a vigil candle lit for 24 hours to honor my dear friend. I do believe that we receive many blessings from other parallel universes and Worth is sending her love to who those of us who are so fortunate to live here in the present on this sacred planet.
Do you know the mourning dove song? The bird says, “Oh, pray for me.” This is what the song sounds like to me. I recently heard that the mourning dove reminds us to pray for the dying.
A few years ago, after my husband passed on (July 4), I have been consciously practicing a meditation on death and dying now that I am a widow and live alone. I am a mixed bag of spirituality in combination with being raised Catholic. Each night when I retire, I practice praying for a happy death. St. Joseph is the patron saint of a happy death. Before I fall asleep I set my intentions on this meditation and I say a little prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep I pray my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. The meditation brings peace and acceptance. Why shouldn’t death be a happy experience? It is a blessing to be able to sink under a cosmic wave and just float.
I do not want to extend life by any artificial means such as resuscitation, operations, chemotherapy or dialysis. I simply want to accept that each human dies, cell by cell, from the very moment we are born. I don’t believe in human suffering any more than I would let my dog and cats suffer an agonizing death. If I knew that I only had six months to live, I would want doctor prescribed suicide to help me leave the planet in a painless fashion as possible. I believe that being centered on ceremony is a means of bringing peace. I love to be within the sacred, be it ceremony on Earth or meditation.
I read an article about a ballot initiative that would give doctors legal permission to offer suicide assistance when a patient has only six months to live and has no hope for recovery. The measure is called the Death with Dignity Act. It will be on the Massachusetts ballot come November. I only wish it had been a reality when my husband was dying from cancer and only had six months to live. I will vote for this initiative. It most likely won’t benefit me in my life time but hopefully, it will give others the opportunity to make choices. This is where I draw the line and follow my own truth. I am happy to be moving to Massachusetts where I can take a stand on this ballet initiative. Source: Catholic Free Press, July 27, 2012, pgs. 1-6. The article does not support the initiative.
Be happy insectamonarca friends where ever you are.
I watched the ceremony on the Lake Superior shore yesterday of the convergence of the Water Walk. Luckily I got there early and had time to run along the beach and soak and meditate in the lake before I ran up the road from the beach and caught up with the group coming down to the lake. I was tuned into the experience from the point of view of the lake, and from years of running daily
in the wilderness and swimming in lakes and rivers. And from the point of view of opposition to the mine that would send runoff and bring bilge spewing pollution from ore freighters on that beach. And level mountaintops (nearly weathered by time to hills) to feed industry, industry that should already feed from recycled metal first, but doesn’t. And be powered by Lake Superior ind/wave
power melting and recycling materials with zero carbon pollution in the atmosphere and no acid rain in the rivers and lakes.
But thanks to a Facebook friend I never met before, and her guide to the ceremony, a young native girl, and several kids swimming and wading in the mother lake. And several moms comments….but especially a 6 year old who was barefoot and remarked as I was putting my running shoes back on after swimming, “Oh I should have brought my shoes down too..” I realized the point of view of
my childhood again, I had camped in that very same area with my family as a kid, and still I think that trip is in my dreams.
Mother Earth Water Walkers Bad River copyright Jennifer
Dream on… this is looking through their eyes, the children and their mothers and grandmothers hopes for them…And then!! The great moment for me.. a small thing, but I happened to be right there where the boats would land with the Water Walkers.. the grandmothers….A man stepped up and asked if I would help pull the boats up. A great honor.. a few of us pulled together. Wonderful experience I will meditate on for years… Then I went to the North Country Trail at Upson Lake to explore the Penokees where they would be effected by mining run off. These mountains are wonderful. Their waters are beautiful; I meditated
beside a stream on the trail, watching the intricate insect life. I saw butterflies sucking moisture from mud on Upson Lake boat landing, now to explore this whole area via the trail and get others there too. We need to draw inspiration to fight the mine and fight for those precious waters feeding our very lives and the life web we inhabit.
To: Members in 13 Indigenous Grandmothers from all over the world
Join Us! October Travels with The Grandmothers Council grandmotherscouncil.org
October 1st -3rd
Restoring Balance:
The Indigenous Grandmothers’ Call to the Women of the World
Fairfield, Iowa
We will be celebrating the Grandmothers and many other indigenous women from around the world, with a women’s conference, sponsored by the Global Mother Divine Organization (GMDO), the women’s wing of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement.
Global Mother Divine Organization honors the revered indigenous mothers as those who hold the seat of Mother Divine on Earth in the humility and dignity of their nourishing power. www.gmdousa.org
October 8th -11th
Four Days of Drumming and Prayers: Turtle Women Rising in Partnership with the 18th Annual Prayer Vigil for the Earth
Washington Monument, Washington, DC
UPDATE: 24 September – * Update * Correction* Members of the Grandmothers Council will be present to offer prayers on October 9th.
(not the 10th)
We Cannot Demand Peace. We Can Only Become It. We invite you to join us in Washington D.C. as we build community for 4 days of drumming, singing, praying and honoring our Veterans- past, present and future.
The heartbeat of the drum begins at sunrise on October 8th, with the lighting of the ceremonial fire. Join us as Turtle Women Rising hosts the Grandmothers Council in our Stand for Peace as we raise vibration together. www.turtlewomenrising.com
October 10th -15th
Wisdom of the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, New York
This is an extraordinary opportunity to experience the timeless wisdom of indigenous elders joining together in sacred space to pray for all life and for the next seven generations to come.
This special week of traditional prayer, meditations, silence, ceremony, and council is open to all women and men of goodwill. Throughout the retreat, the 13 Grandmothers offer prayers and teachings from their own unique wisdom traditions—traditions that have served their people for hundreds of years, and are needed now more than ever—in an effort to ease war, environmental degradation, and social ills. www.eomega.org
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To learn more about The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
Please Visit their beautiful Website : www.grandmotherscouncil
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