By Betty Lou Chaika
www.earthsanctuaries.net
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer says, “One of our responsibilities as human people is to find ways to enter into reciprocity with the more-than-human world. We can do it through gratitude, through ceremony, through land stewardship, science, art, and in everyday acts of practical reverence.”
When my husband and I visit our Ojibwe cousins on the reservation in northern Wisconsin, we watch them introduce themselves to plants as a sign of respect and ask them for permission to harvest. We witness our relatives giving thanks by “putting down tobacco” as a prayer of gratitude for every piece of medicine they pick. They practice the reciprocity of giving a gift in return for the medicine the plants have given. When we are with our relatives we, too, offer tobacco.
Back at home, tobacco does not feel like my medium of gratitude. I might choose to give water or ashes or dried apple slices for bounty received. Any of the ways that my indigenous Northern European ancestors made offerings are lost in time, as they are for so many broken cultures. We try to remember — maybe honey, mugwort, mead? If we do not live within an Earth-honoring community that has taught us traditional sacred ways to give thanks to Earth and Spirit, we each need to find our own ways to give reverence. The more authentically we give thanks from the heart, the more genuinely relational it feels. Poets might write words of gratitude or blessings on small pieces of paper and bury them at the base of trees. Singers might offer a song accompanied by the rhythmic percussion of a pair of picked up sticks.
A visually oriented person might be moved to create something of beauty as an offering. This is the way that most resonates for me. But this practice did not come naturally to me. It is one I learned from an old friend. She showed me how to make prayers when out on a walk by using the natural elements that the place offered to us. I watched as, in countless different ways, she offered beauty back to beauty given. Wherever we went she led us on little mindfulness walks to gather natural objects that made themselves attractive to us. In whatever place we found ourselves she made a simple ritual to locate and mark a symbolic center. There she created small, spontaneous ceremonies to turn our inner experiences of gratitude into outer forms of expression.
One time we met for a walk in Duke Gardens. Arriving at a pond she suggested we spend some time in silence. After many minutes of quiet, suddenly green frogs, bull frogs and grey tree frogs all started croaking. When it began raining softly we took shelter in a small outdoor pavilion overlooking the pond. Not speaking, just watching the rain make lazy overlapping concentric circles on the dark water.
After a while she suggested we express appreciation by naming the various pond creatures before us. We took turns giving thanks — for three tiny baby turtles lined up on a little log. . . for a big turtle resting over there on the muddy bank . . . for the various frogs with elevated eyes floating towards us. . . for the plentiful colorful dragonflies flitting about. . . for red cardinals, a gray catbird, a bluebird, a jay. . . and for whatever was making the continuously rising bubbles that looked like rain coming up from below to meet the rain coming down from above.
After this ritual acknowledgement, she suggested we make an altar. I followed along as she gathered pieces of twigs, leaves, petals, and bits of moss that had blown into the pavilion. With these she made a pleasing design in the round stone bowl of a broken water fountain in the center. Then she started doing some slow, meditative, Chi Kung. I asked her to teach me, so we did the movements together, facing each other across the fountain altar. One of the gestures was like E Malama, so I taught her the dance. We danced For the Beauty of the Earth, too, around our lovely altar. Shortly after we stopped singing and were sitting quietly on the stone benches, a family came by. The father looked at the water fountain and said to his young ones, “I see some kids have been playing here!”
But, my friend didn’t show up for our walks empty-handed. At most, I would remember to grab a small bag of birdseed to scatter to any birds of place we might meet. She showed up for each walk having carefully prepared, as for a pilgrimage. Once, when I had an especially sticky healing need she suggested we meet in the forest to consult a particularly wise stand of beech trees. She brought chunks of pears, apple wedges, and orange segments. We threaded the colorful fruits on strings and hung these prisms in the trees. I had a feeling that this much beauty would surely attract a lot of help! And, with this heart-opening call, she surely primed me to receive it. As we wandered amongst those big old beech trees in silence, I observed a number of beings and things that gave me helpful symbolic messages.
Recently, on a crispy blue day, my husband and I hiked up a rocky trail to a hilltop populated with huge, rounded, Buddha-like blue boulders. Wanting to praise this spirit-personified place, we chose a singular flat rock, like an altar-in-waiting. It was already decorated with moss and lichens. We added some large sprouting acorns from the montane chestnut oaks, red and tan leaves of maple and oak, small twigs, and stones to make a simple collage, a practical offering of reverence to the surrounding beauty. Neither art nor ceremony, this was more akin to playful prayer or prayerful play. What appeals to us, what delights our souls, will surely get the attention of the spirits as well.