Journey into Vastness 1B

There was a lot to pay attention to during the day, much laughter and excitement, alongside a great reverence.  I watched and listened and worked.

“You’ll get it with time,” I was encouraged.

Pahó were feathers created to represent our prayers and are used during ceremony as offerings or blessings.  Sun Wolf sat with me, showing me how to carefully loop the feather so a rawhide thong could secure it to its final destination.  Feathers had been sorted the night before.

Now we laid the feathers on the ground, mimicking the pattern they would follow if they were still attached to the bird.  I would learn the basic single feathers, while others with more experience would begin making the natóh… the holy smoke cigarettes.

My feathers might be part of the straightwood, a stick full of feathers that would be planted in different places where we would stop in our ceremonial procession.  Or maybe part of a clan stick.  My secret hope was that at least one of my creations would be gifted as an honoring present during the giveaway honoring.

This visual prayer was a gift of my love.  It had a large feather that represented that the Great Eagle of all Time had given us permission to engage in these rites.  Two aspects of ourselves went into every feather… the larger feather was our infinite self that lived many lifetimes to fulfill our purpose, and a small duff, or body feather that was our child of the endless adventure.  That was the part of us that played with Coyote on a regular basis.

A question about lashing the leather wrapping produced the co-ordination initiation – laughter echoed as I endeavored to create the Snake Clan pattern with the sinew tie.  It was quickly agreed that Catch Fish, another cousin would be valuable in this moment because of his weaving and knotting experience.  This in turn brought about stories of Camp Dog, his twin, and how they would always switch identities and fool people.  They were both in the city this year visiting their parents.  This was a traditional up bringing.  We lived with Grandpa, and the parents… well most of the parents… visited on a regular basis.

They had rolled many pahó quills and would have the task done in half the time.  I, however, was asked to complete four.

“Do that.  Then if you want to do more, you can.”

“I’m going to make 12!”  I said excitedly.

Everyone laughed.  Our family thrived on laughter, and there were many that held envy.

“Maybe,” Sun Wolf smiled sheeplishly, “but aim for four to begin the magic.”

Finally, I understood the encouragement being offered.  Four was doable and an accomplishment for fingers that were creating for the first time.  Catch Fish and Camp Dog had been making pahó for nearly ten years now and were able to do it without thinking.  12 was definitely a set up for failure.  I viewed the advice with mixed feelings, however.  I felt challenged to prove my bravado.

“You should re-thread the sinew back into the pattern to hold it.”

“Okay.”  I followed what he showed me.  “Is that good?”

“Yeah.  Did you remember to blow your prayer into it?”  Sun Wolf asked.  “Then you put it in the basket of finished feathers.”

The basket was large and flat, his mother had made it.  She had taught me how to hunt rabbits with a throwing stick last summer.  I just started… I needed more practice at both.  Next to the basket of feathers was another basket that was quickly filling with the natóh cigarettes.  Both the feathers and the natóh were set in as spirals, working inward.  There was to be six of us this year, including my friend White Bear, who I knew from school.

At this point, I began to be concerned about the number of feathers needed.

I heard someone talking to me “…there were three of us that year, and two the year Moves by Night entered.”

“Numbers are going up again,” someone added.

“Yes, more are coming home again,” the first voice agreed.

“We pull down the Veil of Illusion.  A beautiful song, we hear Spirit’s voice,” a woman prayed for all to hear.  “In the humming of the Flower Eagle’s wings, and in the whispers of our minds, we hear Spirit’s song.  The magical song of our souls… they have been trapped in our hearts… but at last we hear the soft gentle dawning.  Magic voice, Spirit has helped us move beyond death.  Now we offer our songs to all that be, upon Changing Mother’s altar: Our Hearts.”

One factor that had not been counted on was our enthusiasm in our initiation.  We all wanted to pray and have the Ancestors hear us!   Finally, it was necessary to create talking circle order that everyone might be heard by the whole.  Strikes the Enemy watched over Sun Wolf and I, because he was the eldest in our household, and soon he would be a VisionKeeper himself.

I felt quite humble in this moment.  I followed this man like a father, more than a cousin.  He taught me to track and communicate with animals.  He always made me feel special and served as an example of what was possible if I learned this way of life.

I held on to a pair of beautiful knife wing feathers, because I knew in the eagle’s flight, they cut through the air currents.

“Sun Wolf, may I keep these?  They are the most beautiful I have made, and I would so very much love to wear them in my hair when I dance.”

“I, MoonFire? The feathers give us permission, as the White Tail did upon our emergence, to live as part of the We!”

“I know.  But I’ve never created anything so beautiful before…”

“I think you might gift them to someone in the honoring giveaway.”

Of that, I thought.  And surely, I could gift a feather.  Then the strangest thought came over me… what was the difference in the honoring gift?  Was giving a feather to a humane being really easier to consider, than gifting my creation to be used for a bigger honoring of our Changing Mother Earth.  All That Is thought out, and Creator and Changing Mother Earth took form with us as their progeny.

Strange, I mused.  I hadn’t thought about the Oneness of all things quite in this way before.  It meant everything… Grandfather’s voice cut through my thoughts.

“We will travel to the four places of power on four consecutive days,” he was smiling as he spoke to those working in our canyon, “the work this year is most important, and we know our Mother has re-turned.  The world has come together.  We are Guardians.”

He did select one of my feathers from the basket.  He then swished it four times up to the clouds.

Straightwood staffs would be made to leave at the altars representing the Four Sacred Directions.  We would tie feathers representing the 7 Clans of the Pleiadian Lineage, streamers of feathers blowing free would represent the power of our thoughts, like in the Creation Story.  “Planting,” Sun Wolf had called the leaving of these staves at our stops.  There would be much reverence in these moments.
“A thought well planted can create change,” observed my dad.

“Yes,” Grandfather agreed, “Sacred Parents, we came to life by choice.  We came all knowing, to learn to remember our sacredness and seek the hidden shadows within ourselves and expose them to the transmuting light.  We are members of clans, and reality, we belong to the land and the dream.  We are gotáh… family.  The universe is our home and echicasay… All Our Relations is our Tribe.”

To those gathered, the old man had become the voice of what once was.  His cadence, the vibrato as he spoke could transport us to our memories, the mind went blank and a full body sensation could be experienced.  It was a melodious tone, even when he chanted, but during storytelling magic could be revealed.

“We thank Kato’ya, the father of our clan,” Grandpa finished up, “he shows us what we have not understood, and our efforts are successful.  We are conscious of others.  We acknowledge all who re-member and we are grateful for what we co-create.  We look upon this beauty and say to ourselves, ‘look at all the Sacred Parents have given us.’”

And all the while, Sun Wolf, Strikes the Enemy, and I created visual prayers worthy to gift Changing Mother Earth.