Sunrise

As part of ISU's Earthweek activities, there was a Native American sunrise ceremony this morning. I loved about nearly all of it. I did think there was a mite too much talking, but there had to be some talking, since none of us knew how the ceremony went.

It started with drumming. A deep, steady pulse. As participants came to the circle, we were "smudged": smoke from a burning bundle of sage was wafted over us with a hawk's wing. The leader of the ceremony took some loose tobacco and held it to the sky, touched it to his mouth, to his heart, and then used it to create a medicine wheel on the grass, pausing to give respect to each of the four directions as he did so. He placed rocks and crystals at the cardinal points and at the center. The largest crystal's three inch length pointed to the south.

Then the ceremony leader and his daughter brought crystal singing bowls to life. Recordings of such bowl-songs do not do them justice. When their song was over, they began the greeting of the six directions (the four cardinal directions plus the earth and the sky). We all turned to face each direction, then to the center for the sky-greeting, and knelt on the earth for the earth-greeting. The leader's sister sang a Shoshone song about the earth's beauty. Then the talking-stick began circulating around the circle. Some held it and said little or nothing before passing it along. Some held it and spoke at length. I expressed only a wish for the healing of the earth.

By this time, the sun was up over the hillside. We faced it while the leader's sister sang a Shoshone sunrise song. For the closing, each of us took a pinch of tobacco from the sack and offered it to the medicine circle.