Opening Ceremony

July 24, 2009

    Opening Ceremony is nigh. I enter the arbor space, walk by the Moon Arbor on the right (thank you.) and enter the main arbor by approaching to the left. Drop tobacco at the entrance, and then again by the high red flags of the Western Gate, welcoming and honoring the West. I cry. I feel alone. It's ok. I am loved. I circle clockwise to the Northern Gate, then the Eastern, and the Southern, greeting each direction on this auspicious and celebratory day. I walk around again and settle near the Eastern Gate, across the circle from where the elders will sit and speak.

     The Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo reminds us this is the 25th year here on the land, Peace Village, Sunray Meditation Center. Ywahoo is a Cherokee Elder, powerfully and beautifully carrying the wisdom of her grandparents' tradition.  She is also a recognized Lama of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. She has been a performing dancer in her youth, and a singer. All of these contribute to the wholeness and effectiveness, I find, in her teachings and practices, meditations.

     Dhyani and the Sunray community seem to start everything with the Heart Chant, slow, graceful, grounding, opening.

     David Hoene, Little Wolf, and David L. are setting the fire. Katherine Marielle is here with camera and camera man. (This is controversial. We are not permitted to make photos or recordings, traditionally as well as now, during ceremony in the arbor. But the elders feel that, at this time, the information needs to get out to the people, so they are permitting Katherine to make a documentary film about Peace Village and share the elders' messages.)

     "What is this?"

     "This is the Dance that Sweeps Away Illusions."

     (Oh, how I need to be here.)

     The Stick Dance, Dhyani says, came from a vision many years ago, which also said it should be done first in a special place that had a beautiful blue spring. Blue springs are incredibly sacred to the Cherokee. Blue water is said to be new water, made at the mantle of the earth and to be able to make people new. The Stick Dance was begun there, the name of the town I didn't catch. The dancers recognize that their body, speech, and mind contribute to the forms that arise around the earth.

     I am a medicine woman, standing alone. I hold my hands in prayer position over my heart, Anjali Mudra, and I force my hands open. My broken heart remains open.            

     "We learn together," says the minister. "These are hard times," she says. "We are not floundering."

     The fire has been started by the steady firekeepers. "There is so much to be grateful for. We take all the gifts and walk with them. We transform all the energies. Bring us to one heart."

     I bawled through most of the opening ceremony, moved to be here, and moved to feel so alone.

     Back at my tent, I open Voices of Our Ancestors: "The uncertain person is propelled around the Medicine Wheel by emotions. The student of life analyzes and recognizes general patterns of emotions and their outcome, and chooses to act with care. . ."