Rites of Passage & The ReWilding of Human Nature
“I received a letter containing an account of a recent suicide: ‘My friend jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge two months ago. She had been terribly depressed for years. There was no help for her. None that she could find that was sufficient. She was trying to get from one phase of her life to another, and couldn’t make it. She had been terribly wounded as a child. Her wound could not be healed. She destroyed herself. The letter had already asked, ‘How does a human pass through youth to maturity without breaking down?’ And it had answered, ‘help from tradition, through ceremonies and rituals, rites of passage at the most difficult stages.” --Wendell Berry, “The Unsettling of America”
Follow Your Name
My name is Kedar Brown. I was born in Savannah, Georgia on February 21st 1960. During the first seven years of my life, I grew up just over the bridge from the small town of Thunderbolt on Wilmington Island. My back yard; “the bluff” we called it as kids or rather my mother did when she would warn us; “stay away from the bluff ” descended into saltwater tidal creeks that adjoined our back yard.
I learned to swim before I can remember. My early childhood was alive with the smell of saltwater marsh, earthy woodlands, shrimp boats and adventure. The bluff with its live oaks, low hanging Spanish moss, and the dry oyster bed at the base of an old black walnut tree by the water’s edge had a magical allure. It was etched into my psyche by my mother’s warnings and some ancient calling, residue of DNA from a more wild, indigenous self… a call to the edge, to initiation, set to awaken at a later time in my life.
The progression of our day to day lives and initiatory passage are like rivers flowing side by side in opposite directions. One is moving in this world of ordinary reality and the other moving in a parallel world with a magical current from an unseen source springing forth from a darker, richer, fertile ground somewhere ‘west’. Embedded in our mythological consciousness is a narrative waiting to awaken. We too, as in the old Native American story of “Jumping Mouse”, will hear the roaring of the sacred river calling our name.
Most, generally think of their lives (at least in this one lifetime) as beginning with a birth and ending with a death. However, it is the initiatory passages of our lives or periods of the soul’s decent into the deep well of dark waters with its allure of small gold coins thrown there by others who simply wished something more, that runs opposite to the flow of this life in that they begin with a death and end with a birth. Such is the way of initiation.
My friend and teacher, Malidoma Somé, West African elder and shaman of the Dagara people, shared a story with me about a man who lived in his village. Late one night this man was sleeping in his thatch roof hut when he was awakened by the smell of the unknown. When he opened his eyes, he saw the figure of Death sitting on the ground beside him. The man was terrified. He got up and ran out of his hut into the night. He ran and ran and ran deeper into the night until he came to the next village. He paused for a moment and after considering his situation he decided, this is not far enough. With that thought he took off running deeper and deeper into the night. He ran and ran and ran until he came to the next village. Feeling very exhausted he collapsed into sleep and after only a few minutes his body jolted awake and realizing the situation again he got up and began to run. He ran and ran and ran into the darkest, quietest, stillest part of the night until he came to the furthest village outpost at the banks of great river. This time he collapsed right where he stood from complete exhaustion and fear. Sometime after sunrise he was awoken again by the smell of the unknown. When he opened his eyes there was Death sitting there on the ground beside him. His pupils, wide as saucers, were looking at Death looking back at him and Death spoke; “I came to see you way back there in the first village to tell you I would meet you here.”
To have a good death is to have lived a full and beautiful life; not because you did not have your share of challenges or sometimes made stupid decisions but in spite of them. Do not be afraid of death. Be afraid of the unlived life. You do not need to live forever just live and love well.
Most great visions and subsequent journeys begin with darkness and great loss. In the same way we plant seeds in the dark of the new moon, the old Celtic marking of the new day began and ended with sunset and the new year that was once ritualized at the eve of the darkest nights following the end the harvest and preceding winter at Samhain.
These periods of darkness or challenge serve as a calling, a kind of gate-keeper at the threshold. Something wants to die and as in the Wendell Berry quote above, without the wisdom of initiated elders and the old ceremonies and rituals to guide one across these great divides many will misinterpret the calling and not make it across.
To navigate more clearly and cleanly across these thresholds we must learn to read these challenging passages of our lives as part of our personal mythology rather than as the prescribed pathologies of a society nudging us toward a more depersonalized collective mythology of “isms” (e.g. consumerism, racism, sexism, materialism, lookism etc.) with a belonging and identity often devoid of spiritual ground.
Carl Gustavo Jung, and more recently Joanna Macy, reminds us that; “there is one great question that runs like a thread through everyone’s life and you are fortunate if you can find it”.
It is the life that we cultivate each day, by the stories we tell ourselves and the way we live our lives following these great disruptions, that will lead to the crafting of character and a true elder or simply just an older version of the younger uninitiated self, still in search of the holy grail or even worse; one who simply refused the call.
“In the depths of the soul, anyone’s soul, there is a desire for Initiation. Initiation means one thing dies and another comes to life.” ~ Michael Mead
Some years ago, as a wilderness therapist, I was working with a seventeen year old. The reason he was sitting in front of me deep in the woods at this wilderness rehab center for teenagers is this. He grew up in a village in South Africa until he was eight years old. At that time he move to a major metropolitan city here in the United States. He found his belonging through drugs, alcohol and gangs; a shadow form of modern society’s rites of passage for youth. Knowing something of the customs of indigenous tribal communities, I asked him what he remembered about his time in the village. He told me a story about going to live with his grandmother at a young age for the purpose of receiving a name, a name different then his given birth name. I asked if he could remember it and write it down for me. He wrote out a very long name in his native language. When asked what it said he spoke about elements and nature and animals. At that moment he stared off into the forest and said, “you know, the last thing my grandmother said to me before I left was ‘follow your name’”.
I often hear of people speak of medicine names that they have given themselves or received following some form of initiatory rite of passage. Sometimes they wear it as a badge of identity or authority. Such names received following initiatory encounters are a directional beacon calling one into a life to which they belong; a name that may be initially spoken with some uncertainty or even trepidation at the responsibility to the vision is holds. These names are like bread-crumbs on the trail; not simply a refection of who we are at that moment but more importantly where we aregoing.
I wrote this poem in remembrance of that young man. My prayer for you reading this right now is that the name you carry, be one that carries you across a lifetime of depth and purpose; a name that leaves a story behind you that serves as a blessing to your future generations.
“Follow Your Name”
Pay attention… pay attention
Be careful not to distract yourself
From yourself by focusing on the obstacles in your life.
Focus on the delivery of your medicine,
Not on the stories in your head
Where you recount your limitations and loss.
Do not indulge in such self-importance
As a way to avoid taking responsibility for your medicine
And the gift of healing you came here to offer.
You are the heroes and heroines of your own story.
If you are not initiated into the bone memory…
Into the mythology… of your own life,
You will likely be living an existence
That is not entirely your own
The life you know you must live
Is the one standing just a few paces in front of you
Looking back over its shoulder with eyes wide
Waiting for you to remember.
Apprentice yourself to yourself
Follow this trail to the horizon of your own dreams.
The place where you live in the absence of story;
The place where the sharp edges of this unfolding moment
Demands your full attention.
Where are you?..... I am Here!
Who are you?..... I am this Moment!
Pay attention… pay attention…
Do not walk in the world in such a way
That others give you a name
You have no belonging to.
Rites of Passage Initiations
Rites of passages initiations are deeply inscribed into our mythological consciousness; across distant time and lands around the planet. The fasting prophets of Judeo-Christianity, the pilgrimages of the Buddha and Mohammed, the walkabout of the aboriginal dreamtime, the prayer fasting and mist walking ceremonies of the ancient Celts, the great matriarchal deities, and the vision quests ceremonies of many Native Americans.
Over the ages we have experienced a decline in many of the meaningful rites of passage and initiation practices in our culture. The once sacred and transformative ceremonies and rituals that informed early cultures with a sense of personal vision, community responsibility and deeply rooted connection to earth and the sacred have often been replaced by “pseudo initiations”. These do not facilitate the shift in consciousness required to enter into new life stations and responsibilities such as graduation, conception, baptism, confirmation, marriage, divorce, change in career, times of psychological or spiritual crisis, adulthood and other developmental life passages.
With the absence of such initiatory practices many unconsciously abandon their own personal wisdom and truth, adopting instead the values and stories of a larger culture informed by a spiritually devoid mythology of consumerism and economic advancement at the expense of our children and elders of all species. Our youth often become lost in self-initiations through alcohol, drugs, sex, eating disorders, isolation, violence, depression and anxiety in an unconscious response to the bone memory and calling to initiation. Our elders, uninitiated themselves, are many times at a loss of knowing what to do as they quietly struggle in isolation with their own challenges without a clear road map of how to navigate the road ahead or offer guidance to those that come after.
“If the fires that innately burn inside our youth are not intentionally and lovingly added to the hearth of community, they will burn down the structures of culture, just to feel warmth” ~ Michael Mead
In the various indigenous teachings to which I have had the privilege to be exposed, I have discovered a common thread of understanding. We arrive here from the world of our ancestors having made certain agreements about a gift of medicine that we have seen is deeply needed here. We have relationships and agreements with specific ancestral helping spirits that carry this same frequency of medicine. Rites of passage initiations at various thresholds of our lives serve to reactivate the memory of these relationships and realign us with the delivery of our personal medicine, the healing we came here to offer. Activating these memories of medicine is the place inside each of us where spirit meets the bone.
“Where Spirit Meets the Bone”
There is a place in the hear of a lion
As there is in your own heart
Hunting, stalking
Scanning over open field…
Water and rock
That which you are searching for
Is also searching for you.
Years pass… and the passion
And the single focused determination
Hold you to the hunt.
Other years pass…
And lost in your despair and surrender
The hunt will not let you go.
This place you seek
Is not marked by arrivals or acquisitions,
Distractions on the journey
It is the place where Spirit Meets the Bone;
The place of action, beauty and love
Un-shadowed by thought.
Easing forward… held by grace guided by faith
To touch the unknown where you can only hear
The undecipherable whispers of the unknowable.
There is a such a place in the heart of a lion
As there is in your own heart.
Initiatory Rites of Passage
Serve as important ways of experiencing personalized and meaningful ritual and ceremony to:
•Facilitate, mark, or celebrate developmental life passages and decisions.
•Facilitate the shift in consciousness required to enter new life stations. and responsibilities.
•Move through periods of psychological and spiritual crises.
•To assist the family in the raising of their youth.
•Seek spiritual guidance for self and community.
•Remember, clarify and strengthen personal gifts.Z
•Deepen awareness of your own personal mythology.
•Assist in the understanding of roles as men and women.
•Honor & connect with your own sacred traditions and teachings.
•Deeper connections with your community and your ancestors
•To heal the wounds of separation from self, community, nature and Spirit.
•Receive the guidance and blessings of initiated elders and the continued mentoring of youth
“From an indigenous perspective, the individual psyche can be healed only by addressing one’s relationship with the visible worlds of nature and community and one’s relationship with the invisible forces of the ancestors and spirit allies. It is in ritual that nature, community, and the spirit world come together to support the inner building of identity.” ~Malidoma Some´
Initiation by Fire or Water
As Michael Mead suggests initiatory passages carry us along one of two distinctly different elemental trajectories.
Initiation by ‘water’ is one of souls “descent” into both personal & ancestral turbulent currents of memory and belonging. It is here (if we make the passage safely) we can find greater awareness, healing and reconciliation. In this way activation and flow of healing travels down our ancestral bloodlines and back into our hearts as a kind of alchemy that offers soul food for future generations. The shadow side of pseudo initiations or an incomplete passage can sometimes take the form of depression, anxiety, risky behaviors or suicide.
Initiation by fire is one of “ascent” or initiation by Spirit. To be on fire with vision and purpose as if possessed by a genie that will not let you go. The fiery transformative genius of inspiration, creativity and innovation burn inside you. The shadow side of pseudo initiations or incomplete passage can sometimes take the form of addictions, mania, risky behaviors or accidental death.
Each of these initiatory ordeals has the allure of brushing up against the sacred. To brush up against the sacred is to brush up against a real or imagined encounter with death. In the words of Joanna Macy,
“It is that knife edge of uncertainty where our creativity becomes most alive.”
Understanding this provides insight as to why so many of our youth and uninitiated adults living in a state of prolonged adolescent repetitive patterns of destructive behavior in the from of self or pseudo initiations or simply surrender to a distracted state of existence. The desire to brush up against death is our mythological impulse to encounter the sacred.
Our ancestors understood well how to access the wisdom inscribed in the landscape through the fire of living by those who came before. Across generations it has consistently been the power of ritual and community in concert with music and voice that gave rise to the innate awareness of the wisdom embedded in the stones, rivers, trees, glens and mountains of the land around us.
There is an old Irish proverb that speaks to the relationships rooted strongly in our psyche and in the memories of the landscape itself, rooted to those who have come before us. Our grandmothers and grandfathers are inviting us to draw upon the knowledge that we are born from the love of thousands who seek to guide us into becoming ancestors ourselves; ancestors that our great grandchildren will be proud of.
“The troubles of this world can only be healed from the other world and the troubles in the other world can only be healed from this world.” Irish Proverb
This suggests a necessary relationship of reciprocity & guidance. The soul’s descent is an offering from the realm of ancestral helping spirits. Sometimes when calling upon your ancestors for support during those times when the very ground beneath you is shaking with great disturbance you discover that they are ones doing the shaking. It is through periods of initiatory decent or rites of passage that we are granted access to a language older than words; a language embedded in the land around us.
Modern Day Rites of Passage Ceremonies
There are four distinct phases to in a modern day rite of passage.
1. The Calling: Who am I? Where am I going? This is the beginning of the initiatory descent. This phase can be conscious and intentional; guided by initiated elders or unconscious and messy, with the danger of being seen only through the eyes of dysfunction and psychopathology at odds with modernity. Here are some to the ways a calling can arrive on your doorstep.
•Psychological, spiritual, mental or physical crisis’
•Awakening to a longing, desire, or curiosity
•An invitation to walk through a doorway into a more awakened life.
“The Door”
by Adrienne Rich
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly and
you must look back and let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself makes no promises.
It is only a door.
2. Severance Phase: As you follow this thread your attachment to everything and everyone you have known begins to slip form your grasp. Willingly or unwillingly you let go.
•Separation from familiar places, faces, routines, and accustomed sense of self.
•Physical, emotional, mental and spiritual preparation for the threshold phase.
“Questo Muro”
by Anita Burrows
You will come at a turning of the trail To a wall of flame.
After the hard climb & the exhausted dreaming
You will come to a place where he
With whom you have walked this far
Will stop, will stand beside you
On the treacherous steep path
And stare as you shiver at the moving wall,
The flame that blocks your vision of what comes after
And that one who you thought
Would accompany you always Who held your face
Tenderly a little while in his hands
Who pressed the palms of his hands into drenched grass &
Washed from your cheeks, the tear-tracks
He is telling you now
That all that stands between you
And everything you have known
Since the beginning Is this: this wall.
Between yourself & your joy
The riverbank swaying with wildflowers,
The shaft of sunlight on the rock.
Will you pass through it now,
Will you let it consume you
Whatever solidness this is You call your life
And send you out, a tremor of heat
A radiance, a changed Flickering thing?
Entering the Death Lodge
Every rite of passage runs opposite the flow of life in that they begin with the symbolic or mythological death. Prepare for the threshold phase as if you were preparing for your death. What needs cleaning up so that you have a “good death”. Where does forgiveness, amends or blessings need to be offered or received? How would you choose to live and love if you only have this short period of time before the end of your days?
May it be said of you that you had a “good death” as this reflects one who live and loved well. Approach this ceremonial death and rebirth threshold passage of the quest with your palms empty and heart open, unattached to outcome.
During this time of preparation, maybe weeks or months prior to the threshold phase. you begin making prayer ties. Long strips of thin red cotton cloth are cut into two- inch squares. In each one you put a bit of dried tobacco, fold up the corners and tie it onto a long string. Into that small red bundle; using your breath you blow a prayer. Moving down the string seven inches you make another and then another. To make four hundred or a thousand prayers would not be too many. Several weeks before your quest speak with those close to you and tell them you are making prayers to take onto the mountain. Ask them if they have some payers that you can carry to the mountain for them. We are reminded from our first nations brothers and sisters of this continent, the Lakota Sioux, in the words “Mitakuye Oyasin” or “all my relations” that ceremony and ritual is not done for the individual but for the greater community, human and non-human, living and non living. You don’t go on the mountain for yourself. You go on the mountain so your people may live.
3. Threshold Phase: Stepping into the realm of nature and spirit, that betwixt and between place.
Our indigenous ancestors understood well that rites of passage initiations were to be an ‘ordeal’. There was no guarantee of survival. In modern day rites of passage the ‘ordeal’ is primarily that of perceived risk by the initiate. However, some risk does remain. Throughout history and culture, initiatory rites of passage have three common elements: 1) fasting, 2) exposure to the natural world and 3) solitude from other human encounters. Following the ancient ways of initiation rites from around the world, you will go alone into the wilderness to fast and pray for vision. “What is it that I am marking with this threshold passage?” “Am I marking the ending of something or a beginning; maybe a period of betwixt and between?” Who or what do I wish to dedicate my quest to. You awaken at sunrise and put on your backpack carrying with you only those minimal provisions that will accompany you across this threshold. You gather around the fire at sunrise to receive a blessing for safe passage form your ceremonial midwifes that have accompanied you to this edge. Or as Jesus did, you descend to the river to enact an ancient water ritual with a wild man named John who marked the entrance at the threshold of forty days and nights. Nature will reflect both the shadow and the light aspects of your life and the mysteries of your personal medicine.
During this time on the land you might construct a ‘circle of purpose’ made of stones. You place lager stones in the four cardinal directions. In the center of your circle you place a prayer staff, an asxis mundie, connecting the upper and lower worlds to this one power spot. This circle of stones serves as both your tomb and your womb. Here is the place you have come to make your last stand; to forget your name; to cry out for a vision so your people may live.
"Four Days and Nights at Council Wash"
By Kedar Brown
Old man Juniper Green
Crusted roots among rock and shale;
Surrounded with white desert sands
Offers presence and council.
Old women Ponderosa Pine
Weathered and blackened by the fires of living.
Sweet smelling resin
Rising between old story lines
Etched into her memory and skin
Come and sit awhile, they say
We will tell you of the old ones.
Help you remember your name
Show you where to turn your head
And where put you feet next.
A Ritual Prescription
On this last night of your quest; that symbolic night of death and rebirth you gather enough wood to tend a small fire all night. You set a space across the fire from where you sit for another to visit. You ritually open the space with an invocation and offerings to the fire to begin your last death lodge. You announce to the many realms that your death lodge is open and invite all whom you have unfinished business with to come and sit at the fire with you. It is important here not to go out and hunt for people with your thought energy. All you are to do is tend fire and let yourself be surprised when someone comes. When they do show up listen and speak deeply with your heart to what is asking to be reconciled. Once that is complete simply go back to tending fire. Maybe no one shows up or maybe it is busy all night long, no matter just keep tending fire in between visits.
In the quiet early morning you gather your belongings and place them a few yards into the east away from the fire. Let the ashes burn low and grow cold. Before the grandfather sun crests the horizon sit (or stand) in the ashes facing east. False dawn appears and begins to lighten the sky as a prelude to the arrival of grandfather sun. If you have been gifted a calling song now is the time to sing it. Make an offering of corn meal to grandfather sun. This is first day of the rest of your life. As the sunrises you too now rise from the ashes of your old life. Step away from that old life into the east. As you walk into the east do not look back or go back to this place for at least one year.
4. Reincorporation Phase: Returning to your people.
•Council of elders circle: Together we sit in council and bring deep and heart-full listening to the stories of your time in the wilderness. Shedding light on the mysteries of your personal medicine and clues to how you are to navigate the road ahead.
•Personal myth making: Like braiding sweet grass, you weave together an understanding of your own personal mythology.
•The Give-Away: Being in service to something greater than yourself
It was told to me once that Black Elk of the Ogallala Sioux said: “It is easy to go on the mountain and have a vision but we do not say you had a vision until you make it real for the people to see.”
The reincorporation phase is less of an event of returning and more about how you live your life once you leave the ceremony and walk into your life. Upon returning to the greater village you may find yourself a stranger in a life you have created and like an old pair of shoes that don’t fit you anymore you are not quite sure how to belong to a life you have outgrown. Your encounters in the wild, both internal and external cannot be fully understood by looking back at the story of your quest. That would be like walking backwards in your life. To truly tell us why you had the experiences you had on the mountain we would need to meet you back at that fire in twenty years and see how you gave it all away.
"Thresholds and River Crossings"
By Kedar Brown
Sometimes,
When walking through an ancient rainforest
Along the north west pacific coast,
Deep in the belly of the Olympic Peninsula
You suddenly awaken from your well-worn path;
You know, that you’ve been walking a long time.
A shaft of golden light passes through the trees
In just the right way,
Anointing the feet of elders…holy ones
Eight-hundred-year-old Red Cedar and Douglas Fir.
These lands of old growth, Cloaked in early morning mist
Whisper with ancient songs and stories
Awakened and illuminated
A thin place…A liminal space
An invitation to simply walk
From here
To there.
From the blackened embers of old beliefs and identities
Into a more visible, alive, wild indigenous self.
Thresholds such as these
Require honor and respect.
An offering of dried tobacco and
Yellow corn meal for safe passage;
A prayer to the ancestors to light the way.
Placed gently in the burnt hollow of a tree,
Enveloped by earth, braided roots and ash.
Offering accepted, Entranced granted,
You step through onto hallowed ground,
Consecrated by the soles of your feet on dark virgin soil.
Pulled forward by some mysterious force,
Unconcerned with the comforts
Of a life you have outgrown
Loving now, silently, those you once loved out loud,
You move across a landscape of memory and belonging
Following the distant sounds
Of old church bells and river water
The most difficult river crossings,
You don't see coming, no warnings.
The very nature of their existence
Flowing from some cold, clear, dark mountain spring
Deep in the underbrush of your psyche.
So now you must cross this river
And your attachment to everything
And everyone you have known
Slips from your grasp.
Some thresholds disappear behind you T
he moment you cross
Offering no return, No forgiveness.
Other crossings happen quickly,
You, barely noticing the slight wounding,
A small scar inscribed into your skin
By the silent gatekeepers.
The old ones remind us,
Offerings must be made at such places
Or they will be taken.
There will be a loss, there's no way around it.
Some thresholds bar your entry
Waiting for a wiser more humble approach.
And some are never to be crossed at all,
For the very price of doing so could be your soul.
Some thresholds open for a moment
Then close never to open again.
While still others, like the flickering of fireflies
On a warm summer evening,
Open and close and open
Again and again offering a piercing light
Of liquid grace into the darker crevices of your mind.
Some crossings can take years or even lifetimes to navigate. Like the bloodlines that have come before,
Footprints and heartbeats left in the ground,
Carrying the deep, sacred storylines
Now etched into your face and hands.
Not seduced by destinations or acquisitions,
Distractions on the journey.
Into the desert you now walk,
Dragging behind you
The red prayers bundles of your people,
Human and non-human
The prayers of your descendants,
Human and nonhuman.
Calling you home
To the one life that you belong too.
Future generations crying From another
More distant mountain.
"Leave us your medicine in the ground so we may live!"
Four days and four nights
You sing and pray and cry.
No food passes your lips.
You smell of desert, sweat and fire.
Something above calls your attention.
An Eagle feather falling from bright blue sky
Into outstretched hands,
A prayer answered.
A three hundred year old spell finally broken.
White hearts and desert bones
Draw new stories in the sands at Council Wash.
The story of your passage,
The forging of character and the crafting of an elder,
Worked in deep by the underworld refiner’s fire & stone. Medicine for the people, human and nonhuman
After many years and many crossings
You carry a shaft of golden light in your eyes,
A blessing for the one who, on some ordinary day
Walks by your door on their way to some ‘routine importance’.
Suddenly they find themselves in a rain forest
Without a compass, a trail marker or a whistle.
The old maps are of no use here. You say
Only deep listening
And the distant sounds
Of old church bells and river water.
A Story of Initiation
I would like to end this article by telling you this story. The original bare bones of this story was told to me by Steven Foster and Meredith Little, pioneers in reintroducing rites of passage back into modern culture. It was passed to them by an anonymous Native American story teller. As a story teller myself, I have put a fair amount of meat on those original bleached white bones, however the original story line remains the same.
Before, I tell you this story, it’s important to know that the point of a good medicine story is not that it be understood; for if a story is completely understood, it is considered dead and has nothing more to teach you. Stories are living and breathing entities. The point of any good story is to notice where your attention enters the story for the first time, or where your attention stays fixed in the story even though the story moves forward; or where your attention leaves the story and where it travels to after that. It is at these thresholds moments in a story that you will find the coded messages for your own clarity and healing.
So... as they say, “once upon a time” or “once below a time;” or “once standing next to what you think is time” there was a village. This village existed a long, long time ago; in a place older then the pine needles on the trees; and a place far, far from here; further east then the sun and further west then the moon. In that time and in that place there was a village. In that village there was a circle of warriors standing shoulder to shoulder facing outwards around a lodge. Within that lodge there was a circle of grandmothers facing inward and within that circle of grandmothers there was a woman bringing new life into her village.
As this little one made its passage into the village from the world of the Ancestors; sounds of chanting, singing, deep breathing, screaming, drumming, rattling and prayers of gratitude to the Ancestors were heard pouring forth from inside the lodge... In the way that chanting, singing, deep breathing, screaming, drumming, rattling and prayers of gratitude to the Ancestors were often heard when a woman was bringing new life into her village. As lightning touched the earth, the cries of this new one could be heard in the circle.
This boy child grew up in the village sitting around council fires late into the night, listening to stories from the elders. She heard many stories of a time in the village when there was much laughter, ceremony and ritual, respect, singing, feasting, dancing, deep connection to the Ancestors, and gratitude among the people. The old one’s spoke of this time with a tearful longing in their eyes as the time of the “Singing Stone”.
As one moon crossed over into the next, the boy noticed a dark cloud had descended upon the village. And with this dark cloud people began to forget who they were, where they had come from, and why they were here. Most of them could no longer hear the guiding voices of their Ancestors echoing deep within their bones. The anguish of this forgetting had shadowed itself among the people and there was much fear anger and sadness.
As this girl grew to that place of betwixt and between... no longer a child and not yet an adult, she decided that if she could find this Singing Stone that her elders spoke of and return it to her village, the sun would again shine and the sounds of laughter, singing, dancing, ceremony and ritual, respect gratitude and connection to the Ancestors would once again be present within the village.
So, he went to his Grandmother and Grandfather and said; “Grandmother Grandfather, I will go in search of this Singing Stone and return it to our people so they will once again remember who they are, their connection to the Ancestors and the entire web of life”.
They replied; “Yes granddaughter, it is time for you to go. You must first go to your mother and ask for her blessing and then go to your father and ask for his blessing. After you have done this return here to this fire.”
So she went to his mother’s lodge and received her mother’s blessing for the journey. With this blessing her mother gifted her with one finely crafted bow. As the girl walked from his mother’s lodge she heard weeping for her mother knew she would never ever see his child again.
He then he went to his father lodge and received his father’s blessing for the journey. With this blessing his father gifted him with one finely crafted arrow. As the boy walked from his father’s lodge he heard weeping for his father knew he would never ever see his child again.
He returned to his Grandmother and Grandfather saying: “I have done as you have asked”. They replied, “Before the sun rises and anyone awakens you will leave this village into the east. Do not look back for there will be no fanfare for your departure but remember this “listen to your own deep wisdom and that of your Ancestors that echoes through the trees and rivers and you will find your way.”
Before first light she walked out of the village the way you walk out of a village when you are going on a journey to remember something long forgotten. She walked into the east; into the morning sunlight, into the wet dew on the ground, into the clear, cool, crisp air of spring. Walking some distance into the east, she came upon Eagle standing in an old Oak. “Can you tell me where I can find this Singing Stone I have heard my grandmothers speak of?” she asked. Eagle replied, “I have heard of this one you search for, however, it is not here and I cannot tell you where to find it. I suggest you travel south and see what is there for you”. Thanking Eagle for her words, he turned south.
Far into the south he walked; into the fire of midday sun, into warm southern winds, into dark green vegetation of summer. Walking some distance into the south, he came upon Snake sunning on a large stone. "Can you tell me where I can find this singing stone I have heard my grandfather’s speak of?" he asked. Snake replied, "I have heard of this one you search for. However, it is not here and I cannot tell you where to find it. I suggest you travel west and see what is there for you.” Thanking Snake for his words, she turned west.
Far into the west she walked; into the setting sun, into autumn leaves, bright colors on the ground and overhead, into the evening mist. Walking some distance into the west, she came upon Bear standing by the waters of an ancient holy well. "Can you tell me where I can find this Singing Stone I have heard my grandmothers speak of?" she asked. Bear replied, "I have heard of this one you search for. However, it is not here and I cannot tell you where to find it. I suggest you travel north and see what is there for you.” Thanking Bear for her words, he turned north.
Far into the north he walked; into the deep snows of winter, into the cold, clear night, into the season of deep surrender and grace, he went. Some distance into the north he came upon Buffalo in a snow covered meadow. "Buffalo, I have searched the four corners of our land. I have grown weary from my search. Can you tell me where I can find this Singing Stone I have heard my grandfather’s speak of?" he asked. Buffalo replied, "This singing stone you search for; yes, I have heard of it. However, you will not find it here and I cannot tell you where to find this stone of legends. I suggest you go to up on that mountain for four days and nights and pray to creator and to your ancestors and see what is there for you.” So... for four days and nights he sat on that mountain in prayer. As he met the sun on that fifth morning he knew clearly that he must return to his village. He offered his prayers of gratitude to the spirit of the mountain and turn toward home.
This woman walked toward her village, the way you walk back to a village when you have been on a great journey, looking to remember something long forgotten. As the man neared the village, he heard voices moving down the creek beside the trail the way voices often move down creeks deep in the forest. Coming closer, he now recognized these voices to be singing. She could not yet make out the words. Rounding the bend, he saw family, friends, children and village elders standing on both sides of the path.
Seeing their smiling faces, he could hear their words clearly now! All together saying! ....
”Welcome home Singing Stone. Welcome home!”
That night, Singing Stone dreamed she was sitting around a sacred fire with Eagle, Snake, Bear and Buffalo. Singing Stone expressed much gratitude for their lives and the guidance they had offered her. Buffalo replied, “Do not thank us with your words, granddaughter. Let the way in which you live your life speak your thanks and this we will see.”
“Go Well Singing Stone… Go Well”
I look forward to meeting you down the road one day and sharing stories around that sacred fire.
Bright River Blessings!
Written by Kedar Brown