The tipi is the shawl of the home. The tipi is feminine and the covering of the poles is her shawl. The flaps of the tipi are opened during the day and symbolisms a woman praying her morning prayers. The flaps of the tipi are closed at night representing a woman holding her family close and protecting them.
Women are the foundation of the family and the community. It is the mother in her that teaches values that maintain balance in our lives between physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. Her very reason for being is ceremony. Everything she does is ceremony. Every bread she makes, every laundry she does, every mopped floor, every meal she makes, etc., is ceremony.
The values she teaches is symbolized in the tipi. The poles of the tipi all point in different directions. Every individual that lived/lives within that tipi has a different pathway to walk, yet is forever tied to that of the home/tipi. The poles may point in different direction but they all point, first and foremost to Creator. The crossing of the poles, at the top, represent a nest, symbolizing that this is home and a place to return, always, to receive comfort, nurturing, protection and consolation from being out in the world. Even the shape of the tipi, when the top flaps are open, resembles a bird that is landing. This symbolizes that this is the place to come to at any time and find your solace, your teaching, your protection.
The tipi is the place where your earthly mother resides. The most sacred place on earth to us. The most sacred person we come from. No matter where the tipi moves, it sits on sacred land. All around it and in it become holy. It is our place of pilgrimage, even if all there is is a mother with a shawl on. She is the goddess that reigns from her seat before the fire. Do not neglect her, or the fire he resides over, or the teachings, the love, the protection that is/was supposed to reside within her as that remaining bit of DNA from the first mother. To return home, is the longing of every person who knew the value of a mother figure, a living tipi. Those who loved a mother-figure greatly and was greatly loved in return, only need to go to a place where tipi are raised and, when invited in, to remind oneself that this is someone’s very soul that they have entered.
Whether Maiden, Mother, Crone, is aware of this or not, it is so and has been so since first woman and first tipi lodging. I wish you all that place to go that represents home, the tipi in your life.
©Carol Desjarlais 7.25.23
I waited at the door of my tipi for one who has gone without stopping by. Now I am cslling to a second who is out in the choas of life and who eeds to come home and be loe, nurihe, copfort and protected. The door to my tipi has aways been, will always be, open.
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