Home |
|
| A Spiritual Journey |
|
|
|
|
The medicine referred to in Native American medicine is anything that improves one’s connection to the Great Mystery and to the oneness of all life; this includes healing the mind, body and spirit. It includes anything that brings personal power, strength and understanding. A friend who had great medicine said to my ex; who constantly struggled with the fact she had a crap mum. The medicine imparted to her was thus “Your wish is akin to wanting your mum to be like the best chocolate cake but instead you have kitty litter. Look at the kitty litter for what it is, and stop agonising over the fact it is not the chocolate cake she’ll never be. It is in the agonising that you are causing yourself pain.” This actually helped heal the wound, which was raw due to years of longing, to that of acceptance. One thing we constantly do as human beings is to try and change other people, loved ones, workmates or friends. Not ourselves, but others. It can’t be done. Oh yes, people can change, but only from the inside out, not the outside in. we can help, we can inform, we can support, but we can’t force it to happen. My path is of an Irish person. I’m not Native American, and don’t pretend to be, so I’m not going to assume their traditions, that is my acknowledgement of respect. When I was a teenager I hiked in the Mourne mountains every Sunday, and I had this moment that was vivid and has stayed with me. I was standing on top of a mountain, and I was alone. I was taking in the view around me, it was incredible. I was on top of the world. But I had this incredible feeling of belonging, of being part of all around me. It coursed through my whole being, as if it came up from the earth and through my feet. I was part of the ancient ones, the ones that came before. I used to describe the feeling from the title of a Van Morrison song, “haunts of ancient peace.” That moment shaped my spirituality, but introduction to Native American beliefs opened my spirituality, rather than containing it, as I had done before. I had the same feeling again, but it was fifteen years later, and it wasn’t in Ireland, it was in the Arizona desert, concreting the knowledge that spirituality doesn’t have to be about place or birthright or even bloodline. Spirit is spirit, we are all connected. Everything. Then, like everyone else, I had a point in my life where I had a huge change of circumstance. A change of everything really. I went from a state of having, not in terms of being rich, in terms of having a stable group of friends, the sense of purpose of being a parent, a warm homely home, belongings, outside interests: to a state of not having, no friends, no home, no kid, but a bizarre sense of purpose and loyalty to the relationship I found myself in; that the loss of all these things was raw, but acceptable. I functioned, I coped, I kept moving forward. Getting up in the morning, dancing around the roaches and fist sized hunting spiders, keeping the living space clean. The house had been condemned. It did have running water, but no working drains, so I threw bathing and washing water out the back door. The rent was £70 a month. I bought a 25 kilo bag of rice and a 25 kilo bag of pinto beans, a 10 kilo bag of ready-mix pancake mix and a mate gave me a huge jar of marmalade. I would caramelise the marmalade in a frying pan( a cast iron one I found under a tree and cooked the rust and debris off it, best pan I ever had) and poured the pancake mix over so that I got a sticky sort of bun. That was a treat. Then because I yearned for taste in my rice and beans, I would go to Taco Bell, buy a 69 cent burrito, and stuff my pockets full of condiment sauces and salt and pepper. That was southern Alabama. Then I moved 20 miles south into northwest Florida or LA as the locals called it, a joke, standing for lower Alabama. When Florida and Alabama were having their borders defined for statehood, Alabama wanted that piece of coastline for trading purposes, so it was still a point of contention between the two states. I lived in a small trailer that had survived a hurricane from 40 years before, so there was warped and dented walls, that you could see gaps through the floor where it should have met the wall, you looked down onto the sandy ground. Another place you couldn’t keep the creepy crawlies out of, unless you immersed yourself in dangerous chemicals. The cupboards were so iffy; we just kept everything in plastic lidded containers. It was in that sleepy old southern town of Bagdad that I got news of my fathers’ and grandmothers deaths back in Belfast. I didn’t get the news until after the funerals. It was bizarre. It felt like the whole earth had been pulled from under me and I was freefalling, like I had lost my base, my foundation. I had phoned my mum from a payphone at the post office, and she gave me the news. I walked back to the trailer in the middle of the road and cried like I had never done before, the tears, snot and sweat streamed down me. I must have looked quite frightening to anyone who may have seen me. I was wailing and just let the grief flow freely as there was no stopping it and I had not the will to try. I was painfully aware that I had not said goodbye and I felt so far away and disconnected. I could not return home. I was an illegal alien. My partner at the time was creek and Cherokee and knew I needed to connect and communicate with the old ones “all our relations.” She took a bag of blue corn, some tobacco and white sage and brought me to a place not far from where we lived. It was a wooded spot on the Blackwater river. The banks of this river had fine white sandy beaches which were naturally occurring, and the water was bright and clear, filtered by the sand. There were trails into the forest, which were full of palmettos and palm trees, and then you would come across murky swamps with hanging Spanish moss and foreboding looking cypress knees poked straight up out of the water as if worshipping the tapering trunks of the towering cypress trees above them. We came to a clearing and she made a circle with the blue corn meal, staying in the circle, all the time talking to the old ones, offering the corn to the four directions. Then I was invited in the circle. She put leaves of sage in the abalone shell, lighting them and then smudging me with the pungent smoke, all the time calling on the old ones, honouring “all our relations.” Calling in positive energy and banishing negativity. She asked me to smudge her, and so I did, self consciously mumbling what I had heard her say. She then guided me through a meditation connecting me to spirit, and I was on a journey. I saw an old warrior, his face craggy and weathered, and I followed him. He turned into a bear. It was as if my spirit had left my body and was in the woods with spirit. I remember there was a spider’s web. I don’t have a clear specific journey, but when I returned I had this overwhelming joyful feeling that my dad and gran were with me. I felt connected again. I felt their love, and knew they felt mine. That was a number of years ago now, and I still feel it and draw strength from it. We are all connected. All our relations. I’m an Irish person; it was just the journey I took to get to my place of spiritual belief. I’m not an Indian, I don’t try to be, but I know we are all connected.
 Quote this article on your site | Views: 742 | Print | E-mail
Only registered users can write comments. Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6 |
|||||||||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Post New Event