HeART Everyday will contain all my challenges for January 2009. This art evolves from bitsnpeaces, a group I am starting to share artful pieces around the world with friends.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldbitsnpeaces/
No matter how bad things get on earth, we survive. We endure, we heal and grow. We are willing to make changes, to use our resources and overcome. We are very aware that we can make fresh starts and we finally renew our determination when we can bear to, betimes.
There is even a Buddhist term, “Honnin-myo”, which expresses the concept that every moment is a new beginning. The Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin is based on the Lotus Sutra Lotus Sutra Text central to the Japanese Tendai (Chinese Tiantai) and Nichiren sects of Mahayana Buddhism. It represents the Buddha as divine and eternal, having attained perfect enlightenment eons ago. , the highest teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha, who lived and taught in India 3,000 years ago. The Lotus Sutra takes its name from the lotus flower, which symbolizes the simultaneity of cause and effect. It is the only flower that blossoms and seeds simultaneously. The Lotus Sutra reveals that all people can attain enlightenment in the muddy pond of their lives as common mortals.
We know that the path of life can be fraught with trauma, interruptions, confusion, and sometimes detours. According to my people, to allow this in our lives cast us from the circle and we need others to help gather us back in. To have one missing in the circle, is to feel that loss incredibly and so we work to bring that individual back so the whole circle can heal because of that casting out. That is an old way and one that is much forgotten in today’s world. We seem to enjoy that there are others who are outside the circle and do not realize how every single person in our community, our family, our friends, are an integral part of our circle. In a way, none of us can be whole while one is not sitting at their place in the circle. We need to work hard to bring everyone back into the dance. In bringing them back, we all heal.
In our ancient way of thinking, there are four main causes to problems: offending the spirit world, intrusion by an alter spirit into the body, soul loss, and bad medicine. These things can cause disassociation, depression and even paranoia so when these things happen, great group healing must take place and loving focus given in order to heal the whole circle. As the new moon builds, it is a good time to reflect on those within our circle and those without. Are we without the circle? New beginnings, new opportunities, new intentions can help us draw back together again. Look at how having someone outside the circles adds stress, challenges, in various disguises.
Have we gotten so busy that we mouth resolutions and intentions for resolutions and intention’s sake? Are we willing to the body work, the mind work, the emotional work, the spiritual work, to meet those things we resolve and intend to do?
We have to know we cannot be perfect. We are perfectly perfect as we are, by time and place…since we know that everything comes at the time when we need it and if the lesson is hard, we simply need to learn it so we can move on… so we can beginning anew. It is more than body choice, mind choice and emotional choice…it is spiritual choice.
As I write this, I am hoping to draw one of my children back into the fold of health and connectedness to us. I made her and her family a Native Sobriety Calendar. For the Month of April, I did the scrapbooking and wrote this quote:
“I walk into a wild forest garden. I can choose what blossom to sit beside and listen to. I can choose a stink weed or I can choose a wild rose. It still comes down to a choice and commitment of an individual to seek the messages that leave us stinking or smelling beautifully.” C.D., Lainee’s Sobriety 2009 Calendar.
We survive, endure, heal, grow, make changes, and overcome because every blink is a new beginning, every moment we are beginning again.
A moment’s smile - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiXy55OHyY
“The way of knowledge is like our old way of hunting. You begin with a mere trail — a footprint. If you follow that faithfully, it may lead you to a clearer train - a track - a road. Later on there will be many tracks, crossing and diverging one from the other. Then you must be careful, for success lies in the choice of the right road.” –Many Lightenings Eastman, SANTEE SIOUX
There are a group in California that gather and do a Releasing Walk. This group is made up of prayerful people from many faith traditions: Buddhism, Celtic Spirituality, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Native American, Sikh, Zoroastrian will be gathering for this Annual New Year’s Eve Walking Meditation for Compassion and Peace. Following Opening Ceremonies, everyone will travel clockwise around the lake. The 2.7 mile walk takes approximately one hour. They will return to the starting point for Closing Ceremonies. I would dearly love to join in on something like this.
Tonight is a good night for a Releasing ceremony. I am sure you all have your ways of releasing. I used to walk in circles, trying to get hold of logical thought and release negativity. Some write thoughts and burn them. Some go to a Medicine Man and have him use the feather to scrub off the negativity in a ceremony. Whatever you do, it is a good time, in today’s world, to make this a New Year’s ritual.
Another ceremony I do is one of Prayer Ties.
Prayer ties are made by placing a prayer in a pinch of tobacco. The tobacco is then placed on a tiny red cloth squares and tied as a bundle on a string. My people usually make 9 bundles. They are prayed over and smudged as one makes each little bundle, and thus contain your wishes and prayers. They are hung in a tree or bush, in a special place, never to be touched. I think more recently they are hung in the home and when the prayer is answered one way or the other, they are buried. Remember, when we ask, we have to accept that answer, so one must be conscious of when they have been answered.
As Kay pointed out in a comment on my blog earlier, some people do a burning ritual. Each person brings something to burn that we would like to rid from our past (in Full Moon) or a prayer request of something new (in New Moon), that will burn, turn to smoke and release into the ethers. This allows the past energy to move along to its highest spiritual progression path and the new prayer request to move along to its highest spiritual progression path. We may bring pictures, drawings, or intentions written on a piece of paper for the past or the newness. For the past, after we have burned and released it, then we have something prepared that is written down on a clean sheet of paper. This would be something new that we would like to call forth from Creator/God/Higher Being. For the newness, the prayer request is then burned and released into the ethers thereby replacing the past. It can be a full ceremony, or it can be a quiet one where everyone silently contemplates and writes their intentions. But, the closing is always a prayer of gratitude for the year gone by.
In Native American ways - the burning of sage, sweet grass or tobacco is burned along with the past, which is given as an offering. When the smoke rises up into the ethers and is carried away, there should be a quiet or meditative break in order to embrace a new awareness of transformation in your life. It is also symbolic that you can offer up a bit of food you wanted and only ate half of so that you could offer the other half in thanks.
These ceremonies show our intent: any intentional ceremony shows our faith, our desire, to be at One, to be healthy, to be happy, to be enlightened. Any ceremony one does shows respect for The Oneness.
As is common in Native American ways, there is always a feast following a ceremony.
How About Some New Year’s Eve Bannock?
INGREDIENTS (makes 12)
• 2 Cups Flour
• ½ C Milk
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tap salt
• 3 Tablespoon lard, divided
• 3/4 C Warm water
• Oil
DIRECTIONS
• Mix dry ingredients together.
• Cut in 2 T. lard until crumbly.
• Add milk and water mix until you have a soft dough.
• Knead until dough is springy.
• From 12 dough balls.
• Melt 1 Tbsp. lard and brush on each ball and let set for 30-45 minutes to rise.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll each ball into an 8″ diameter circle.
• Poke a small hole in the center of each circle.
• Fry the breads in oil heated to 365 degrees F until light brown on both sides.
• Serve with honey, jelly, or brown sugar and cinnamon, but I love it best with bear grease, salt, or a slice of cheese.
A celebration occurs several days prior to December 31, in fact on Winter Solstice, and it is Native American. On the day of the Solstice, a meal is dished up as the tribute for the year passing. Since it signifies, among other things, the bounty we’ve received through the year, the dish has a small amount of many foods. Once the plate is filled, it is placed at the base of a tree, and thanks are given for the year, regardless of any bad that happened as well. We all have something to be thankful for.
At midnight, we offer a silent prayer, thanking the creator for the year passed, and hoping for a good year coming. Then a song is sung to remember those who went before us; ancestors, friends, family, people who are no longer with us. It is a somber celebration that grounds us, preventing us from flights of egotistical fantasy and arrogance. It is a simple recognition, and a resolution of sorts, that helps us enter the New Year rejuvenated and fresh.
At exactly midnight, and much to my consternation my first New Year’s Eve up in an isolated community, each head of the house goes outside and shoots four shots up into the night sky. This represents the ridding, or chasing off, of bad medicine, bad luck, etc. I now prepare to be out just before the clock strikes midnight. I prepare myself with a smudge before hand, and take an eagle feather with me. At precisely midnight, I use an eagle feather and brush myself off, four times, from head to toe, and shake off the negativity that is collected on the feather after each brush by shaking it to the south. It is symbolic for me and is a ritual that I maintain for my own well-being.
Most of my New Years, for a long time, have been spent alone. It used to be that I would go to parties, then, as I had grandchildren, I became the babysitter. Finally, I came to a place where I was snowed in and could not get out of the fly-in communities I was in. It was then that I began this personal ceremony. I never had a lonely feeling left on me by the time I was done. It is amazing what ceremony and ritual can do for one’s soul. I see it like a promise, and intention, a way of showing the intention to be a healthy, happy, person.
Regardless of how you celebrate the New Year, and no matter when you celebrate it, please remember to consider the meaning behind your celebrations. It is the meanings that define you.
So many of us are unaware of where some of our customs come from. For instance, New Years was an ancient mystical practice where horns and fireworks were once used top banish evil spirits of the last year.
Ancient Babylon celebrated their New Years towards the end of March. It was an eleven day celebration for arrival of Spring and the planting of crops. It was also a time when their King was stripped of all his clothing and banished from the kingdom. The people were to do as they pleased, without his royal proclamation or command, for the eleven days. When the twelfth day came, the King and his procession would return, wearing fine robes and everyone was sent back to work and were required to act under his dictate again. This represented everyone starting anew.
The ancient Egyptians celebrated the Feast of Opet around the middle of June. This was the time of year when the Nile usually flooded its banks. It meant that the people could not work and so there were festivals held. Statues of their God, Amon, and his wife and son were floated down the Nile and the people would sing and dance for 24 days before it ended with the effigies being shipped back up the Nile.
Ancient Rome had their New Years in March and people would decorate their homes with lights and greenery and give gifts that focused on good luck. It was a festival that lasted three days and both salve and master celebrated, dined together and societal rules were put on hold. Gifts were given out by the Emperor and politicians. In 153 B.C. the Romans had tinkered with their calendar and New Years was set to January 1. New Years was a time to expunge the ills of the past year and set a pattern of good conduct for the coming year. It was expected that friends would reconcile any differences and enemies would suspend litigations. It was a time of gift-giving. The Emperor was given gifts and wished good fortune. The gifts became more expensive as the years went past.
This custom was carried to Persia ( Iran) by the Romans. The difference was that the Persians exchanged eggs which symbolized life and new beginnings (turning over a new leaf). It was carried to England where Druid Priests celebrated New Years on March 10th. They cut mistletoe and people were given boughs of it to use as charms. The Early English adapted both the Roman and the Druid traditions and added the custom of cleaning the chimneys on New Years to bring good luck. (Cleaning the slate!) They began making resolutions to change faults and bad habits to good traits. This built on the Babylonians who returned everything that was borrowed during the year.
New Years became a Holy Day in the Christian Church in 487 A.D. It was named the Feast of Circumcision. There were no parties since the church decided that it was only pagans that celebrated. In the 1500s, the Georgian Calendar was set for this feast to be January 14th.
In the 1200s, the English revived gift-giving to their Monarchy. Gloves and jewelry were common gifts. As well, English husbands would give their wives money to by pins for the whole next year. (“Pin Money” term comes from that.) In the 1800s, pins were machine made and so the custom disappeared.
Consider new ways in which you, and your family, celebrate New Years. Are there Customs you bring from your background(s)? I know that my first New Years that I stayed on a Reserve way up North, I was unsettled by the sounds of guns going off in the whole community. It was a custom of theirs to shoot away the last year’s negativity. I do not shoot, but I do go outside at exactly midnight and shoo away the negativity in a symbolic ritual, so, in my way, I am keeping a type of custom alive.
