Honoring White Deer

Under an icy January sky we gathered to honor a great matriarch, to offer comfort and Inspire one another by one whose first and last breaths were taken at home. Born at home in 1933 at 3.5 pounds the doctor told her mother “this one will not live.” Her Grandmother placed her in a shoe box near the wood burning stove. She dripped milk into her tiny mouth through the night. She was alive in the morning. That was my mother.

With drum and word medicine and native ceremony we placed our eulogies, our prayers, our stories, our songs, our promise to carry forward the power of a living icon whose blood runs thick in our veins.

Yellow corn meal, white sage, coffee bean, altar flowers adorn her spiritual grave filled with the treasures of her many descendants. We breathed our blessings into her spiritual grave. For her. For ourselves. For a world in need of such power, wisdom and brightness of spirit.

Smudging. Bear Staff. Blue heron Feather wands. Crossing over 9 directional prayers. Voices raised in native tongue and power of the ancients. Not for the weak wishing. We gathered to speak of sacred first and last breaths. To send forth her spirit and to grow our own.

The part of the ceremony for a departing female had not been spoken for many hundreds of years. Tears filled many eyes to hear this coming back to life.

To those whose eyes met mine in that sacred ceremony on these sacred burial grounds I am forever connected in deep unspeakable love. In lasting and humble comfort and gratitude.

To all who held the sacred space I thank you with hand on my heart.

Rattle held high sweeping the sky in a crescent moon, CALLING THE SPIRIT OF WHITE DEER!

We belong to you. You belong to us. HO! Da Da Da Huh I. HO!

Mother MorningStar