Saturday, April 24, 2010

Prayers for the Water EARTH DAY, April 24,2010

Today is Earth Day all around our sacred home some call "Earth" others call "Papa Honua" and still others call "Turtle Island" and more still call "Gaia."  By which name you call her, this home and the all her elements cries to be healed.  Palaoa, the great whales sing songs that mourn the pristine seas, Salmon with memory of the great migration into the sea are stopped from their traditional journey weakened by the toxic slough of Human Kind's chemicals. 

Earlier this week, Pete and I made our own historic journey in Scout the trusted Subaru (sometimes our home, and often our mode of getting keia to kela).  With fears faced, I sat in the back seat with an oxygen tank, ceramic mask and many prayers said to have my spirit guides and my belief that the risks of travel through two hours of pollens that tax my system and a large gathering within a building were risks that I was willing to take. 

The gathering as I have written in a previous post, was one of the first in the Pacific Northwest, to honor and bless the waters of Earth and in particular The Salish Sea (the waters from the south Puget Sound of Washington north to the waters along Vancouver Island in the Canadian) known to the Peoples of this continent's First People.  We did make that journey to gather at the Long House on the campus of Evergreen College along with 400 others who knew this gathering was of great import.

Oxygen in a tank allowed me to be within a building with many people for the first time in more than three years.  I used to ceramic mask that is necessary for many who have sensitivities to the plastic cannula usually used for breathing oxygen.  Regulated at a very low mixture, the oxygen gave me just the reassurance that I could breath fresh air instead of chemically fragranced or volative organic oils from Nature's storehouse.  I am grateful to say, it worked! 

Pete and our long-time friend Joan, reunited in our own celebration of renewed friendship chatting and being part of a sacred ceremony to bless the waters of Earth, and the water that is within each of us humans.  With songs, words and the inspirational photography of water crystals --the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto of Japan, a sacred Long House was filled with messages and directives.  The song A DROP OF WATER written and sung by Washington artist Dana Lyons was the invocation.  The singular and power drip of water as a drum beat and a heart beat called to each of us.  Songs for the Salt Water and the Fresh Water from The First People of The Salish Sea graced us with connection.  Words from the elders of these First People inspired us with their strength, their actions and their unwaivering commitment to maintain their birthright and their kuleana (responsibility) to maintain their traditional rights to a way of living that was unseparated from clean healing water.  Among the many powerful messages I heard, the story of one First People's leader, touched me at such a tender place.  His story linked the Creator's exquisite sense of love and compassion for Earth and the Human through the single drop of water -- the tear.  Through that duct placed in the corner of a human eye the water within makes its way back to Earth ... connected always.


Today is a day for all across our home to remember to act in behalf of HOME, to act in connection with all that lives because there is WATER.  Whenever two or more gather there is a meeting of mind and heart.  The lyrics to Dana Lyons' A DROP OF WATER follow, and the clink here to a video and a place to listen to Dana Lyons singing a truly wonderful prayer for the water.

A DROP OF WATER

by Dana Lyons, copyright 1991


There’s a drop of water on the wall

And the drop’s about to fall

And it falls into a trickle

And the trickle’s flowing down

Down, down to the ground,

And the moss begins to grow

Watch, watch, watch, watch the water flow

And watch the current become a stream

Busting through the seams

Cracking through the concrete

Bending down the steel

In a raging that is real

A tearing torrent you can feel

Feel the thunder growing, thunder underground



And in my heart, the chains falling apart

The wildness in my soul

And for once in life, for once in life I know



I’m not alone, for the mountains make our bones

With the oceans in our blood

Our feet planted, planted firmly in the mud



We are alive, the burning embers in our eyes

The tingling touch upon our skin

And in the heat of passion we begin to understand



That we are of this land,

That we are part of Earth

And when it’s threatened

We will fight for all we’re worth



We watch the dam,

The dam come crashing down

Water rushing to the sea



And now the river is free



Reigning Records

PO Box 2627, Bellingham, WA 98227



DROP OF WATER
Listen to Dana Lyon's water song by clicking on the link below
http://sacredceremonialsforthesalishsea.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/listen-to-drop-of-water-by-dana-lyons/#comment-56

WATER, FORGIVE US, WE ARE SORRY.  THANK YOU.

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