Happy New Year’s Eve

 

 

Imagine living way up North, a fly-in, and the land is covered with feet of snow.  It is quiet but for the nightly howling of wolves.  I, once, heard a sound outside my front door and I flung it open to be face to face with wolves.  I never slammed a door shut more quickly, but they won’t be around close to our houses tonight.  There are fires dotted amidst the community as the people burn off last year and send their prayers up for the New Year.  It is almost New Years… counting the hours, alone, waiting to run to the door and fling it open… and suddenly there is gunfire all over the community.  Both thrilling and threatening.  I lived in many First Nations communities, mostly fly-in and isolated or semi-isolated (winter road over the lakes).  Some communities have bought fireworks... under the dancing aurora borealis there is added flashes of lights of every color from the fireworks.  It reflects in the snow.  People are shouting and banging drums, in some communities.  They are warding off last years negativity.  The more noise the better.  A church bell might ring, women bang their pots and pans, cars ride up and down the one road through the middle of town and blare their horns.  Sirens.  Whistles.  They are ridding us all, and their community of anything that might be negative that hangs over from the last year.  It is something to experience.   

(I might add that most of the communities were ‘dry’. That meant that it was illegal to have any liquor on the reserve.  Of course, the policing was pretty tough and you could see boats coming in, and the community policeman might miss searching them.  So, yes, there was some partying in some of the reserves.)

And then, we go top our fires and offer prayers and feast.  People walk up and down the community wishing each other Happy New Year. 

Oh, Great Spirit,
Whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me! I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes
ever hold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.

Help me remain calm and strong in the
face of all that comes towards me.
Help me find compassion without
empathy overwhelming me.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy: myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you without shame.

- Translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887

I wish you banish all the negatives, the sorrows, the burdens of this year and wake in the morning to a brand-new way of being.  Happy New Year, dearest ones.

©Carol Desjarlais 12.31.22

 

You Can be Religious and Be Spiritual: You Can Be Spiritual and Be Religious

 

 

“Your life is your spiritual path.  It's what's right in front of you. You can't live anyone else's life. The task is to live yours and stop trying to copy one you think looks better.” ― Sandy Nathan

Spirituality, to many, and me, as well, is a sense that we are connected to something higher than ourselves, higher than a prescribed doctrine, something deeply more holy and personal in connection with a Higher Being/Power that gives one peace and comfort, awe, healing and contentment in ways that one might personally seek the sacred within.  Religion is organized set of beliefs and practices shared by a community or group, that holds to many rules and regulations typically for salvation of some sort. 

Lame Deer, a Lakota medicine man is said to have said that First Nations of the Americas believe in the Great Spirit that is not human being, but a power and is not some old man with a beard.  Most of the First Nations believe that Creator is not gendered nor does Creator have to take on a specific form.  They believe that anything that had energy, that lived in some form, living or nonliving has or has an original spirit. 

Slow Buffalo, a Delaware-Lenape is said to have said that we have to remember the ones we are going to depend on.  You will find that they explain anything above immediate Mother Earth is our Grandfather.  What is between Mother Earth and immediate sky is our Mother/Father and the earth, of course, is our Mother Earth.  Then it reverses back to below ground being Grandfather again.  It is explained that all animals, fish, trees, rocks, birds, etc. are all our relations.  Some are older relations like the buffalo, the sturgeon, salmon, turtles, etc.  The things that came before us were our teachers and remain so. 

Our First Nations knew about the movement of stars and the shapes and the heavenly bodies and that they are either spirits of things passed on or are being noticed to teach us and we can learn things from them yet.  We live in a living womb and they all have ways of showing gratitude, asking for help, from those people, places and things that have gone on before… and are yet to come.  All ancient cultures passed down stories, drawings, and, even yet, do so in today’s way of teachings.  Spirituality is living. 

You will see, read, hear, that I have taken the best of all I have learned and will continue to learn and I have discarded what does not fit my soul.  I trust my soul/spirit to no intermediary.  I have found what works for me, to build and feel my spirit and my spirituality comforts me.  What more could I ask?

©Carol Desjarlais 12.30.22

  ****Painting is Aries.

Inner Treasures And that Danged Ego

 

 

“When you connect to the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you.”
― Stephen Richards

I do not know why we do not see ourselves as the treasures we are.  I am a rockhound as you all know, and I treasure rocks and gems like they were some of my most priceless things.  Of course, there are many many other things that I decree priceless in my life; people, places, things that mean more to me than anything.  But, why I do not, as most of us do not, view my inner sanctum of my Self as Priceless, I do not know, but seldom do we consider them so… or even consider them at all.

Things I/We should consider priceless is our peace and calm and quiet of mind.  What a blessing it is to just be spiritually at peace, spiritually calm, and spiritually quiet.  I tend to find that when I am in the throes of creativity.  As I have said before, creating is my palace and space of prayer, meditation, and a holy lack of time constrictions.  That is an Inner Treasure to me.  I timidly share and force myself to give of those sacred holy moments, through sharing my art and creations.

Another Hidden Treasure of mine is that I care about giving pleasure, joy, love, to others.  Once, one of my daughters said that she felt robbed of some of my love because I loved my teenaged troubled youth I worked with, and then she realized that I just had lots of love to give and no one got robbed of any of it.  Yes, the ability to love and care is one of my hidden treasures. 

Another Inner Treasure is my ability to have lots of energy.  Some days I have more than others.  Some times of the day, I have more than others, but I am an energetic person and I am restless if I do not keep busy.  I tend to be too overactive, though, and wear myself out because the body cannot keep up to my energy most times.  I have learned to treasure energy more as I age.

I treasure Inner Joy and Bliss and my inner sense of happiness that does not come from outward things, but from inner things like clarity, self-belief, deep inner thinking/thought that engages my intellect.  I am a lifelong learner and I thrive when I am learning something new.  It is what is impetus for this blogging that I do.  It is what leads me to my personal truths. 

What can get in the way of these things is my Ego that tricks me into trying to make other than the inner more important than it should be.  Ego fulfilments are never long lasting.  Once a desire is met, it flits off on to another desire.  My Ego wallows in fear, lack of trust, lack of self-trust.  It keeps secrets to hold against me.  It keeps me vulnerable and easily manipulated.  It tries to keep us down and gnaws away at our self-esteem, causes us to struggle, keeps us ashamed, and acts like it knows more than our very soul does.  It wants to control us.  (I have not ever been easily controlled, I thought, until I realized how I allow the Ego to control me. 

If we do not value ourselves, we discourage anyone else from valuing us.  I would be devastated if I thought people, places, things that I love would not see value in me.  I am going to work on Determination to Trust and Value Myself this next year.  That has to be one of the most worthy Inner Treasures of all.

©Carol Desjarlais 12.29.22