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Healing Ourselves and the Earth with Babalú-Ayé
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Each Alliance e-newsletter features an essay from a different member. This month's featured contributor is Phoenix Smith. Phoenix is an initiated orisha priest and the founder of EcoSoul, a healing arts organization that draws on ancestral wisdom, the spirits of nature and mindfulness practices to cultivate well being. She is a presenter at our Nov 6-7th conference. See: www.ecosoulwisdom.org
Alafia and greetings.
I am honored to support the Earth Medicine Alliance and to have been invited to participate as a co-presenter on African Diaspora Orisha Traditions, as well as facilitate a traditional Lucumí healing ceremony at Heron's Head Park in the Bayview-Hunter's Point. When asked to write this piece I immediately began to wonder what it means to be an ally to the earth, to each other, to our own healing. As an initiated priest in an earth-honoring spiritual tradition I do what I always do, consult through divination with the ancestors and the deities or spirits of nature known as orisha for guidance.
And so through my mentor and godfather, Dr. Michael Mason, we humbled ourselves before our tradition and asked for guidance. We were pleasantly surprised to receive it from none other than the orisha Babalú-Ayé who is thought to rule the Earth and who also has dominion over the spirits of those buried in the Earth. When Babalú-Ayé is present, sickness and death are also present, and his secrets often link him to the ancestors.
There is another side to Babalú. He is famous for healing people. In fact, Lucumí people make a big deal about his cleaning ceremony, his awán. People clean themselves with beans, tubers, fruits, meat and other kinds of food, casting their maladies into a basket lined with burlap. The elders say Babalú possesses a capacity for rebirth. They say he can even provoke a resurrection.
As we prepare for our awán ceremony on Nov 7th in the Bayview- Hunter's Point community where sickness and death are frequently present, I pray that through him a resurrection is at hand for the human and non-humans that inhabit that space.My prayer is also that by connecting with the community through ritual at Hunter's Point, that those of us who love earth-honoring practices can begin to look beyond our tribal blind spots and reach out to the allies in our midst.Who knows, as the Lucumí elders say, maybe a resurrection really is at hand.
Peace,
Phoenix and Michael
Reference:
Mason, M. Babalu Basics. Retrieved October 24, 2010 from http://baba-who-babalu-santeria.blogspot.com/
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Greetings all. We are now less than three weeks from our first annual conference from Nov. 6-7th. The full conference brochure is now available on our website ( click here). The Alliance will be hosting over 20 presenters from diverse earth-honoring paths for two full days of learning, community, interfaith dialogue, and ceremony on the land. Cost is $50 in advance and $65 at the door. Online registration is available here. There are currently 9 spaces remaining for our Nov 20-21st members retreat in Montara, north of Half Moon Bay (limit 20 participants). See below for more info. We also now have regular volunteer meetings open to all Alliance members. If you feel good about our mission and efforts, see the "ways to be involved" below for opportunities to help translate all these wholesome ideals into tangible service and in-person, earth-honoring events.
Finally, please check out the contribution this month by Alliance member, Phoenix Smith. Phoenix will be a presenter at the upcoming conference.
Hope to see you at the conference or the retreat! Love and gratitude, Daniel
The Earth Medicine Alliance is a tax exempt 501(c)3 non-profit.
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Mending Our Relations with the Natural World:
Nov 6-7th, 2010
San Francisco, CA
 You're invited to the first annual conference of the Earth Medicine Alliance! This weekend gathering will host over 20 panelists, presenters, and ceremonial leaders from different earth-honoring ways of life. We are excited to welcome Native California (inc. Ohlone and Salinan) council members, initiated orisha priests, Buddhist teachers, representatives of European pagan and other earth-honoring paths, shamanic practitioners, chi gung teachers, eco-psychologists, and life-long earth activists. We will gather to learn from one another, to engage in constructive interfaith dialogue, to offer ceremony out on the land for and with our other relations, and also to just have a great time together over two full days in community. On Saturday we will gather at the Unitarian Universalist Center of San Francisco, and on Sunday smaller breakout groups will offer co-created earth healing ceremonies on public lands in and around San Francisco. Cost is $50 in advance and $65 at the door. For more info, see the full conference brochure. Follow this link to register online, or just visit our website at: www.earthmedicine.org for details. Thanks and hope to see you at the conference!
The image is of mural on the Interfaith Center of Case Western Reserve University depicting water as a medium of peace between different faith communities.
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First Annual Members Retreat
Pt.. Montara Lighthouse Hostel in Montara, CA
Sat, Nov 20 @ 4pm - Sun, Nov 21 @ 3pm
 Although the vast majority of our offerings as an organization will be open to all, we have made a commitment to offer two events a year that are specifically for Alliance members. This first members retreat aims both to honor those generous souls who make our work possible and also, in the spirit of community and drawing on collective wisdom, to encourage member involvement in major decisions we face as an organization. This first year, in addition to just spending a full day together in nurturing, earth-honoring community near Holy Mother Ocean, we'll creatively engage the question of how to approach the Alliance's local, earth-honoring events in 2011. The Alliance currently has three types of offerings: our annual conference (www.earthmedicine.org/conference), our interview project (www.earthmedicine.org/education), and earth-honoring events in the S.F. Bay Area. What we do for these events is not yet decided. For example, in 2011 the Alliance could offer community rituals on the land in the Bay Area (where? led by who?), hands-on service projects (e.g., native plant restoration, river clean-ups, educational hikes), interfaith panels, work with Spirit and the arts, events that engage younger people in earth-honoring activities, more on-line offerings that reach folks outside the Bay Area, etc. We'll vision together around these kinds of choices of where to direct our available energy. We are asking for a $50 contribution for all those attending the retreat. This includes a private bed in dorm accommodations, use of a private group meeting room on Sunday, and a community breakfast and lunch (bring your own dinner on Saturday, we will have access to a community kitchen area). The retreat is only open to Alliance members; however, everyone is welcome to become a member at any time, including the day of the retreat. For new members, we are offering a year membership and retreat registration for $75 total. This is a drug and alcohol-free event (like all of our events). To register, please send payment at: P.O. Box 390791 / Mountain View, CA 94039 or contact: info@earthmedicine.org to reserve your place. Spaces are limited to 20, so it's good to register early. Payment is due by the start of the retreat. For more info on membership visit www.earthmedicine.org/joinus. The Earth Medicine Alliance is fully a tax exempt 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We use Paypal's secure server. If you have any trouble signing up as a member, please let us know and we'll take care of it. The image is of the California coast near the Montara hostel.
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Ways to Get Involved with the Earth Medicine Alliance
 At this stage in our development, the Alliance is run entirely on volunteer effort. It's great to see just how much has come together over the past eleven months in this way. The primary for most volunteers right now is our conference in less than three weeks. We hope to see you there, and we welcome your support in getting the word out. Ways to Help Out with Conference: - Register. If you're not already registered but you plan to attend, early registration saves $15. You can register online from our site or by mail.
- Share with your friends or other networks. Are there people you know that would enjoy attending? We have a Facebook event page for the conference if it's useful to share with your people in that format.
- Hang up a flyer. I have a one-page conference flyer with tear-off tabs, just send me an email at: daniel@earthmedicine.org if you're willing to print out a few and hang them about.
If you are inclined to be part of our team of volunteers, check out our scheduled 2010 gatherings: www.earthmedicine.org/volunteer. We are committed to having fun and supporting each other in our efforts. - Voices of the Earth interview project. We have conducted two interviews so far (Malidoma Some and Orion Foxwood) and have several others in the works. If you have technical skills with conducting or producing refined interviews in a web archive format that would be helpful to us. We're also open to suggestions for earth-honoring elders and teachers in the Bay Area to interview.
- Board of Directors. We are a Board of eight, and we have space for up to thirteen members in our bylaws. If you have prior experience serving on a non-profit board, and especially if you have bookkeeping, fundraising, marketing, business, or other practical skills, then we may be interested.
- Event promotion. We have two events scheduled in 2010 (Nov 6-7th and Nov 20-21st) and we could use support in helping these to be well attended.
- Web maintenance and refinement. Andrew (our webmaster) and I could use whatever time and formal skills you may have to offer for refining our site, getting it more out there for search engines, and generally doing all the necessary web things for a successful organization.
- Making new connections. Are there family or friends in your life or public figures (e.g., religious leaders, teachers, ritualists, earth activists) that you feel would benefit from knowing about our work? If so, consider letting them know. If there is any way we can support you in this sharing, please be in touch. We also have a Facebook page (search for Earth Medicine Alliance) if you get the sense that you "like" us.
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