Winter Solstice Gathering
As I sat in my medicine room to write this newsletter having no idea what I would write about, I found myself in a memory as if it were my own but from another time and place. I realized after looking over what I had written that it reflected scenes from my own life retold here as ancient memories from another time and a visit to New Grange Ceremonial Grounds in Ireland. I would like to dedicate the telling of this story to my friend Benjamin Walker (Blue Joy A Singing) who recently returned to the realm of the ancestors. Thank you Blue Joy for agreeing a long time ago to meet me here and to walk a bit of this dusty road together. I will see you down the road my friend.
Ancestral Bone Memories
It was bitterly cold and the ground was hard and frozen the night we started the long journey. My father rose from the kitchen table and walked the seven steps to the door where his coat and hat patiently waited for his return. As he opened the door, I felt the cold air enter our house looking for warm bodies and I moved myself and my sister closer to our winter hearth fire. Warming the chill from our bodies, I could see out the window through a thin veil of light snow toward the barn. I watched as my father bridled and saddled our three horses. Under the full moon I could see warm breath from the horse’s nostrils reach the cold night air.
In that moment my spirit traveled to an earlier memory… watching the steam rise from the kettle that hung over our cook fire. As if in a dream, I heard my mother’s voice and her laughter moving across the room. While I could not understand the words, the feeling was one of warmth and comfort. Even now, I can smell the red oak burning, hear the crackling sounds of the fire and see my mother’s hand reaching for the kettle. It’s been almost three years now since our mother crossed the great river to join our ancestors.
Father returned from the barn and again the cold air came into the kitchen. This time I was ready, having already added a log to the fire. Father did not seem quite himself tonight, quieter than usual. Or maybe he was exactly himself and it was me that was feeling more quiet than usual. Returning to the kitchen table, father carried the soft leather deer skin. The one we hunted earlier in autumn when the leaves had all fallen and the standing tall ones of the forest stood in silence.
It was a single arrow that brought this great one to the end of its journey. I was with my father that late afternoon day in autumn. He silenced me with a subtle hand gesture as he lowered himself to one knee. I instinctively followed, lowering myself to the ground. He drew the quartz-tipped arrow out of the quiver that hung from his back and loaded it into the bow, leveling it with one silent, smooth motion. At that moment, the deer with many points looked in our direction, seemingly right at my father. I heard my father whisper to the deer: “I will see you down the road old friend.” He released his arrow, clean and true, and this beautiful creature fell to the ground. Later, my father told me that he believed that the deer and himself had agreed to meet in these woods a long time ago before either of them were born. He looked up from the medicine bundle he held gently in his hands and said, “We must honor the teachings of the deer by the way we live our lives. This one has now become part of us. His blood is now of our blood and his bone is now of our bone. The story of this hunt will be etched into the bone memories of your grandchildren.”
My father now carefully wrapped the deer hide, which was scented with dried lavender and cedar and contained Mother’s ashes. Father usually made the journey to the Winter Solstice Ceremonial grounds on behalf of our family. I would stay home with Mother and my younger sister Cara. She is eight this winter and I am now fourteen.
Many times I have heard the old ones in our village tell stories of the Winter Solstice Ceremonial grounds. They say the sun goes to sleep at the beginning of the darkening nights in mid-autumn, and on a particular sunrise in midwinter after the longest dark night, it begins its return with the promise of spring and new life.
I’ve heard tales of a large round stone chamber there that is covered on the outside with white quartz stones. It has been there longer than anyone remembers. Father says we will enter the chamber from the east and walk through a narrow stone passageway to the center of the chamber: “There is a large stone bowl in one of the alcoves adjacent to the center chamber and we will place Mother’s ashes there and wait for the light.” The journey seems long but our horses instinctively know the the way. Each of three nights along the road we are sheltered in homes of kinfolk that welcome us.
Having edged our way along a narrow stone passage, we are now inside the round stone chamber. It is dark and I am pressed against my sister's shoulder and holding her hand. She is standing between father and me. I can hear low whispers and deep breathing and smell wet leather and whiskey. My father moves forward and places Mother's ashes in the large stone bowl. Now we wait for the return of the light. After some time in the darkened and quiet space where we are standing, I can see a small thread of light moving across the ground down the narrow passageway that leads towards us. As I watch the light getting closer, I feel a warmth and a gratitude for all those that have come before us. Light filling the chamber now, I silently thank my ancestors for dreaming us into this place with their stories, their tears and their laughter; their footprints and heart beats now placed in the large stone bowl. As the sunlight enters the center of the chamber, I feel my body leaning in towards its glow like a tree, thirsty for water, and I pray that the story that will be written from the ashes of my life be one that blesses those that are to follow when I go to join my mother in the large stone bowl.
Wishing You All Bright & Warm Winter Solstice Blessings!
Written by Kedar Brown