Month 8, Day 22: My Earth-Healing Ceremony

Yesterday was the summer solstice, so to mark the change of seasons, I did my first bona fide Native American ritual: an Earth-healing ceremony.

Okay, so I didn’t read the fine print before I started doing the ritual. Apparently, you’re supposed to do it as a sort of “penance” for having done something wrong to the Earth.

Now, as much as I hate being out in nature, I’ve never really done anything (at least not intentionally or that I’m aware of) to hurt Mother Earth. I recycle. I try not to be wasteful. I don’t engage in strip mining or logging. I don’t even use aerosol hairspray. In general, I think I qualify as a pretty good citizen of the planet.

But I decided to do the ceremony anyway, to express my regret for all the crap you other losers are doing. (You can thank me later.)

According to writer Bobby Lake-Thom in his book Spirits of the Earth, “The Earth-Healing Ceremony is an ancient ceremony that can be done individually or in a group as a means of communicating with Nature and bonding with the Earth, and as a way to make restitution to all our relations in Nature.”

So I grabbed my boyfriend and went outside to make my restitution.

Now, you’re supposed to find a secluded spot in nature, but since I imagine the local police would frown upon the idea of me lighting a sacred fire in the park, I decided to do the ritual in my backyard.

The first step was to build a sacred circle of stones, and to build a ceremonial fire. This aspect of the ritual was the main reason I brought my boyfriend. He’s got more experience with fire than I do and he also really, really likes it. (Pyromania? Perhaps a bit.)

My not-so-raging sacred fire—and this was AFTER my boyfriend added some gasoline as an accelerant

Next, you take some pieces of wood and form them into an altar or tepee. I did my best on this part, but as you can see in the photo below, my tepee left something to be desired. I used stray dried-out branches from around my yard, reasoning that it wouldn’t exactly be “healing” to the Earth if I tore fresh branches off the trees.

My sad little tepee, to the left of the unlit fire

Then, you offer a gift of tobacco to the four directions, the Great Spirit, and Mother Earth. This is another place where my boyfriend came in handy. I quit smoking about a year ago, so I didn’t think buying tobacco would be a great idea. I know myself well enough to know that I would use precisely one cigarette’s worth of tobacco for the ritual, and then smoke myself silly for the next several hours. Luckily, my boyfriend had an old cigar lying around and was willing to sacrifice it in honor of Nature. Nice guy, right?

We lit the fire, burned the tobacco, said a prayer of thanks to Mother Earth, and apologized to Nature for all the wrongs we (and by we, I mean YOU, people!) have done, and the ritual was finished.

So now I guess I’m back on good terms with my friend Mother Nature. But I think I still need to have a long talk with her about this heat and all the damn bugs.

Month 8, Day 18: Is This Real?

I came across this little poem/prayer/song from the Pawnee tribe the other day:

Let us see, is this real,

Let us see, is this real,

This life I am living?

You Gods, who dwell everywhere,

Let us see, is this real,

This life I am living?

Now, I understand that this poem is supposed to evoke wonder and awe, to make us feel like everything around us is sacred and almost too magical to be believed.

I get that.

But the pessimist in me reads the poem in another way, the same way I react when every little thing goes wrong in my life—when the last piece of toast falls on the floor, when the curling iron breaks, when nothing ever seems to work out for the best—I say, “Is this for real? Is this really my life, this never-ending (pardon the expression) shit storm?”

I hope you read the Pawnee poem the opposite way, because it’s really kind of exhausting to view life the way I do.

Month 8, Day 16: Interacting with Nature’s Creatures

Maybe part of the problem is that it’s too damn hot lately, but I’m having a lot of trouble being “one with nature,” like I’m supposed to be this month as a Native American. As someone who always prefers curling up on a sofa with a book to being outdoors, I’m just not the ideal candidate for a nature-based religion.

But despite the inherent disconnect between me and good old Mother Earth, I keep trying. I’m even trying to see the natural world around me as being full of spirits, and as something I can and should interact with.

Native American writer Vine Deloria, Jr., wrote in God Is Red:

“The Indian is confronted with a bountiful earth in which all things and experiences have a role to play. The task of the tribal religion . . . is to determine the proper relationship that the people of the tribe must have with other living things and to develop the self-discipline . . . so that man acts harmoniously with other creatures.”

Part of “acting harmoniously” with the creatures of nature, I’ve learned, is to avoid harming them. And so, I’m both pleased and profoundly freaked out to report that when I saw a little spider running along the ground near my desk yesterday, I did NOT give in to my instinct, which is, of course, to pound it repeatedly with a shoe and then weep hysterically until my boyfriend comes in and cleans up the squashed carcass.

No, the spider in my house did NOT look like this one. Thank you, Great Spirit, for that!

Instead of doing the usual, I let the spider go (although I admit that I did keep my hands and feet up in the air so it couldn’t possibly end up touching me), and I watched the spider until it scurried away beneath the baseboard heater.

This semi-successful interaction with a creature of the natural world inspired me to try again today. So, believe it or not, I actually sat outside on the back porch, despite the heat and the bugs. And the physical discomfort I endured was rewarded: I saw a hummingbird—the very first one I’ve ever seen in my entire life, except on TV, of course.

After 39 years without seeing a hummingbird, I was starting to think they were a myth and that people who claimed to have seen one were just in on a joke that I didn’t get. I’m glad to learn I was wrong.

Excited, I immediately turned to Bobby Lake-Thom’s book Spirits of the Earth, which informed me that hummingbirds are very good signs. They are messengers of good luck, healers, and they can teach us how to be more spiritual and even more psychic.

I don’t know about all that, but I do feel proud of myself for getting out into nature and interacting with the creatures I meet there—and doing it without a fly swatter or shoe in my hand.

Month 8, Day 14: Native American Creation Myth

All religions have stories that they tell their believers to explain how and why human beings and the rest of our world came to be. 

Growing up as a Christian, I remember thinking that some of the Native American creation myths I heard were just so silly and naïve. But now that I’m really taking a good look at religion in general and Native American creation myth specifically, I’m definitely thinking that my childhood attitude was wrong. Dead wrong. In fact, it may be Christianity that's silly. Let me explain.

Although different native groups have their own stories about how the world was created, most share a few common elements. Most depict a “time before time,” when everything existed in spirit only, in the mind of God or the Great Spirit.

Here’s one story, just as an example. The Omaha creation myth tells us that human beings initially existed in a vaguely defined "space between the Earth and the stars," where they lived as spirits, united with God. Over time, though, they started to wish they could have physical bodies, so they started looking for a new home where they could take on bodily form.

Just as an aside, is it me, or is there something weird about this? I mean, a lot of religions suggest that if we’re good people, when we die we’ll get the reward of becoming one with God, existing only in spirit. But if Native American myth has any validity to it at all, we’re clearly not very happy that way. According to a lot of creation myths, the first humans were so desperate to break away from their spiritual union with God that they chose to come to Earth. Strange, don't you think?

Anyway, back to the Omaha story. In their search for a new home, the humans first tried going up to the sun, but it wasn’t right for them (obviously). Then they tried the moon, but it wasn’t right, either (surprise, surprise).

Then they tried the Earth, but everywhere they looked, the planet was covered with water and they couldn’t find a dry spot where they might be able to live. Just when they were about to give up, a huge rock burst out from the water, shooting flames (presumably, this was a volcano).

As it spewed its flames, the rock created vast amounts of dry land, and then trees and grass appeared on the land. The new place looked perfect, so the spirits of the humans jumped on down to Earth and were transformed into the physical beings we are today.

I’ve got to say that I kind of like this creation tale. As odd as it may sound, I think it actually sounds slightly more realistic than the versions you find in a lot of other religions. Sure, there are a few supernatural elements, but at the heart of it, the idea is almost scientific—a natural process (volcanic eruption) created the land where humans now live. When you compare that to, say, Adam and Eve and their magical tree in the Garden of Eden, the Native American version seems downright plausible.

Month 8, Day 9: A Prayer to Mother Earth

I’m doing my best to commune with nature and have respect for the Earth and believe that everything around me has a spirit, despite the annoying little voice inside my head yelling, “Load of crap! Load of crap!”

So, I thought today I’d share a Ute prayer I found that I’m trying on for size. I’m hoping it’ll shut up the nature-hater inside me and help me feel more connected to the outer world. Here goes:

Earth teach me stillness

As the grasses are stilled with light.

Earth teach me suffering

As old stones suffer with memory.

Earth teach me humility

As blossoms are humble with beginning.

Earth teach me caring

As the mother who secures her young.

Earth teach me courage

As the tree which stands all alone.

Earth teach me limitation

As the ant which crawls on the ground.

Earth teach me freedom

As the eagle which soars in the sky.

Earth teach me resignation

As the leaves which die in the fall.

Earth teach me regeneration

As the seed which rises in the spring.

Earth teach me to forget myself

As melted snow forgets its life.

Earth teach me to remember kindness

As dry fields weep with rain.

Well, if nothing else, I guess it’s kind of pretty.