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