Ceremonies of Reparation: Ceremony #11
Ceremonies of Reparation
For those interested in the
background of these ceremonies, please refer to the September 8, 2021 blog
entry.
Ceremony #11, June 29th,
2022
As I near completion of this
cycle of ceremonies, I realise this is only the beginning.
You see, there is a quote I
carry in my memory – something I read in my early 20’s. It was written by T.S. Elliot. To be
honest, I know nothing of Mr. Elliot’s life. The quote was in a book that spoke of death, visions,
and journeys, and it stuck with me. “To
make an end is to make a beginning. The
end is where we start from.”
And so, I find myself
reflecting on death and endings.
And beginnings…
In my original plan of
ceremonies and locations, I was supposed to go to Lekwungen territory this staryk
(Ukrainian, “Old Man/ Old Moon”), and several factors kept turning me
away. If I were to make it there, I
would have had to postpone the ceremony for several days after the dark moon. I had not missed a dark moon yet. My heart was conflicted.
I had previously scheduled to
sit with one of the property owner’s where we currently live and their children
to make Motanky for the 28th which I did knowing that the doll I created would be for the ceremony. When we were complete, I was walking back to our trailer to place the
Motanka I had made inside. Setting her down,
I realised I could switch the order of locations/ ceremonies. Perhaps all of the “road blacks” preventing
me from going to Lekwungen territory on the appointed date were because I was
supposed to be here instead. I had just
made Motanky with the people who host us here – some knot inside me loosened...
We have been living at this
“new” location for 3 months. I do not yet
feel rooted here -- perhaps because we have been so incredibly transitional,
perhaps because of something else I am unable to see or foresee at the moment.
What I do know is that the
beginning of my time here has been marked by a series of endings.
It began with my phone
dying. That may not seem like a big
deal, but as one of my main business tools, it was a pretty big deal. It died
late on a Thursday afternoon, and I had a client-call the next morning. I also had extremely limited funds. I zoomed off to the local Best Buy and found
the least expensive replacement I could afford. However, all of my phone contacts
had died with the original phone. Sigh…
Within a few days, my
beautiful cat companion became seriously ill.
So ill and in-pain that he ran away.
And during the 24 hours that he was “lost”, his kidneys began to shut
down. I was frantic and bereft. I looked everywhere. Late in the evening of the 2nd day,
while I was looking and calling for him, he began to meow. We called to one another until I was able to
find him. He could barely lift his head. His body was non functional and limp. He looked like he had had a stroke. I wept as I carried him to meet with my
husband. It was Easter Sunday, 10pm at
night. I called vets and animal
clinics. My choices were limited – go 1
hour up-island or down-island to one of the 2 emergency clinics that were
open. My truck was not in-shape for the
drive down-island (over the Malahat summit).
I called my parents who were visiting from Ontario, and my mom said she
would like to drive with me up island.
By the time I got through the phone-intake with the clinic, organized
with my mother, and managed to get a bit of water into the cat, it was now
11pm.
I was extremely tired, having
barely slept the night before from worry.
We arrived at the clinic just after midnight and were met in the parking
lot by the vet-assistant. They took the
cat inside and returned with more forms and papers. I also received a shock. The quote I was presented with was $3700. And in order to proceed with his care, we
would need to put a deposit of $2700 down.
I didn’t have that kind of money – not in my account, nor on
credit. My mother agreed to put it on
her credit card – I could pay her back over time. We left and began the drive home, even more
exhausted and stressed.
He was in the cat-hospital for
36 hours. A catheter, blood tests, and
an additional $300 bill on top of the deposit.
The morning I was to pick him up, my truck ran over a screw, which
punctured the tire. The landowner helped with some temporary goop so that I
could rush to the tire hospital, get the tire fixed, and then make my way to
the cat-hospital… “Good,” I
thought… “That’s the third incident…”
Then I got an email three days
later… A student and neighbour had died,
her heart weakened from covid-related-pneumonia that she had contracted earlier
in the spring. I had seen her 2 months
previous when she had returned home from the hospital. I had sat, holding her hand, listening to her
fear of dying, to her soul-loss and trauma from the experience at the hospital. She had been home for 2 months recovering and
getting stronger. We spoke about doing a
soul-retrieval –she did not feel “strong enough” for the ceremony. She wanted to wait. Then one morning, she woke feeling sick
again. She died by that evening.
It was difficult to know that
her soul had been wandering… I felt sad.
And yet, I also trusted she had known what she had needed, beyond
anything I could have wanted for her.
And then…
The landowners had recently
taken on several farm-animals that my husband (as farmer) was taking lead role in
caring for. Two of the most recent
animals were docile goats. They had a
pen attached to the animal barn, with wooden slats 6 feet high for the outer
walls.
About a week after the
students’ death, my husband (who usually rises at 5am to care for the animals)
came back in our trailer, looking green instead of his usual beautiful
brown. He said, very simply, “the goats
are dead… I think a cougar has killed the goats.” I, who usually sleeps until 7am, woke fully
and immediately. I threw on some clothes,
told him to sit and rest for a moment, and went out to look in their pen. Their bodies were splayed on the ground. There were marks in the dirt that looked
like there had been a very short struggle.
It looked as it their bodies had been dragged by their broken necks
toward the wooden slat walls. It also
looked like the cougar had attempted, unsuccessfully, to carry one of the goats
over the fence. There were puncture
marks in the neck and top of the heads of each goat.
The deaths struck my husband
hard. He is very sensitive to both
plants and animals in his care. He did not bury the bodies that day, hoping that perhaps someone else might do it. The bodies were still there as night fell. I was up late, working on an art-grant. I heard a noise – like a piece of wood
“clunking.” I wondered if it was the
cougar. I feared for the other
animals. I took my headlamp and walked
toward the barn. Standing about 25 feet
away from the goat pen, I shone the light toward the wood slats. I couldn’t see or hear anything, so I walked
closer, still shining the light. When I
was about 15 feet away, there was a sudden movement. The cougar lifted her head from where she had
been eating the goat. My body
experienced a bolt of lightening go through it.
My breath caught. In one smooth
and easy motion, she jumped up and over the 6-foot-high wooden fence, and then
slowly loped off toward a nearby tree.
She did not run. And she turned
to look at me over her shoulder as she sauntered into the brush.
I did not run. I also did not turn my back on her
direction. Rather, I slowly walked,
backward, toward my trailer and then quickly went inside. Texting my landlords, it was after midnight,
and no one else was awake. I did not let
my cat outside.
The next morning, it was
obvious the cougar had returned after my encounter with her, as a significant
portion of the necks and bodies had been consumed. The conservation officer was contacted,
cameras were installed, and a live trap was set. While she was seen the third night on camera,
she did not enter the trap. The trap
remained for several days.
It has taken me some time to
settle in my body for night prayers. I
do not easily enter the woods at night right now, even though she has not bothered any
of the other farm animals nor made herself known again since that time.
And… there have been no
further deaths.
So, as I contemplated endings
the night before staryk, I also contemplated my bare-thread of
relationship with this land. I have been
happy to see so many emanations of Ma Honeysuckle here – that has felt like a
blessing. So I decided that perhaps the
best approach to this ceremony would be to honour the endings while also asking
for the blessing of beginnings.
CEREMONY: June 29th,
2022
The Motanka made for the
ceremony was simple and pleasant. She was
crafted in good energy, joyful connection with new friends. Her arms are raised in a gesture of joy and
beholding possibility.
The Pysanka was a duck egg,
written with ink, and made in 3 sections.
The bands contain vines (representing Ma Honeysuckle) and waves
representing the Koksilah River (which is nearby). The first section shows Mokosh – a form of
Mati Zemlya, Mother Earth. She is a
symbol of fertility and oversees the fates. Within her is the understanding of the
mysteries of life, death, and rebirth/ renewal.
The second section depicts the cougar as she gazes over her shoulder at
me. The third depicts one of the traditional
forms of a tree of life – also a symbol of death and renewal, and of the three
realms… The base and branch nodes are in
the shape of hearts, to bring clear-heart-seeing to the prayer for new
beginnings.
On the evening of staryk,
I was uncertain where I would gift the Motanka and Pysanka. I thought, perhaps, to bury them near the
vines of Ma… I approached the first set
of Ma vines and made my greetings. They
were silent. I walked further down the path
to the second set of vines. I was greeted
by a spider, weaving a web between the two vines, on-level with a prayer-bundle
I had tied to the back vine. I watched
little spider for a time and looked at the ground, realising there is no where
safe to bury the gifts. The children
walk/ run/ tromp through the area on a regular basis.
As I turned to leave, I
realised that the tree just behind our home where I make nightly prayers might
be a possible location. I call this tree
the Spider Tree as each time I have spent time with the tree, I count a minimum
of 5 spiders, and often more, occupying the spaces between the peeling
bark. One spider in particular is quite
large. If her legs were extended, she
would cover the palm of my hand. I have
learned through the years to tolerate spiders, though if one were crawling on
me, I would probably freak-out!
When I arrived, I checked-in
on the large spider. She was in her familiar
spot, eating another spider that was the same size as she. (I attempted to capture her in a picture – it
was night and my new phone’s camera is not that great.)
I walked to the opposite side of
the tree, where the ground slopes and dips down about 2 feet from the
front-side. Branches that broke off
during the last windstorm are piled next to the tree on this down-slope. Nearing the base of the tree, I notice there
is a small cave under one of the roots.
I dig in the detritus making the cave a bit deeper – it is soft and easy
to move. Burying the Motanka and Pysanka
flows with ease. I offer smoke to the
tree and request it protect these gifts and receive my prayers. I pause and spend some time acknowledging the
ancestors who walked these lands and the People’s who no longer have access to this
place. My gifts feel small, and I wonder
about the solitary nature of the gifting I have been doing.
The days following the
ceremony, the request for a blessing of new direction was answered in the form
of a slow realisation – that the ceremonies would continue, and that the second
year of ceremony would be much more involved and require me to stretch my
comfort level as well as my skills. The
second cycle will need to make bridges with community. And, then it became clear there would be a
third cycle of ceremony, one that will hopefully be a coming together of
peoples to co-create ceremony. And that this
would lead to a fourth layer – a vision I was given to hold… Something that is still in its infancy of
formation.
Pause… Take a breath… One step at a time…
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