A HEALING CEREMONY
FOR
PLANET EARTH
The
Healing Ceremony for Planet Earth presents each of us with an
opportunity to bring forth a unique response to the need for
personal and planetary healing. By co-ordinating a diversity
of individual responses into a simultaneous global effort, we
are able to benefit from the synergy of many minds and hearts
united, even if only for a minute.
There is no prescriptive form
a contribution to this event must take. It is simply an opportunity
to do what your heart guides you to do. Last year, for the 21st
time, I led a Healing Ceremony For Planet Earth right in my own
back yard.
For various reasons, I had
only networked the event in a low-profile way locally. About
20 people, mostly friends, attended; the youngest was 8 yr. old,
the eldest, 88 yr.of age.
We began by gathering together
in a small circle at the top of a walkway down to the backyard.
I introduced the Ceremony by sharing some of its history, and
by honoring Hopi as the originators of the event. Each of us
enjoyed a traditional native "smudging" from sage and
sweetgrass, lit especially for the occasion.
I then introduced a ceremonial
staff that comes out only for this annual event. It was created
several years ago, by several earth healers and myself. Various
symbols representing different spiritual traditions are painted
on the staff and an eagle feather hangs from a spot just below
the amethyst crystal at its top.
The ceremony really began as
I unwrapped the staff from its protective shawl, and began to
lead the group in a silent walk down to the site chosen for the
construction of a traditional native medicine wheel. As we walked
quietly down to the site, we were mindfull that other earth healers,
in other places in the world, were co-creating their own ceremonies
at exactly the same time as us.
Each participant in our ceremony
had been asked to bring a rock to contribute to the creation
of an Earth Healing medicine wheel in the shape of the Hopi shield
shown below. This symbol accompanies a Hopi prayer :
Together
with all nations, we protect both land and life, and hold the
world in balance.
Once we had gathered in a circle,
I spoke from the heart about what healing the earth meant to
me. Once finished, I placed my stone on the circle (marked by
cornmeal) and passed the staff to the person on my right. We
proceeded to go around the circle, "moonwise" (counter-clockwise),
a couple of times, each person having the same opportunity to
speak from the heart. A collective wisdom reveals itself at times
like this. I have always found it to be profound, as each person
is given a sacred moment of "devout listening" by the
group.
As the exact time of the Full
Moon, when all participants worldwide were linking up, our circle
formed a singular circular unit by linking hands and breathing
together. In silence, we sent a prayerful impulse of love, into
the heart of the Earth and its many kingdoms
Once our meditative linkage
with the heart of the planet was complete, I asked for any final
words from people. Once completed, we closed the ceremony by
holding hands for a few minutes of spontaneous gratitude and
prayer, to thank the Creator for blessing us with a spiritual
energy tangible to all of us. The staff was once again placed
in its shawl, and with that, the ceremony ended. We disbanded
the circle and regathered at the house to share in a pot-luck
feast.
THE HERITAGE
This Healing Ceremony and the
permanent medicine wheel that resulted from it, has given our
back yard a special aura of significance. I cannot help but return
to it time and again in a conscious act of self-renewal and re-membrance.
I am reminded especially of my cosmic origins and of the cycles
of nature. Each time I visit the wheel, I am inclined to pause
and reflect on my place in the Greater Reality of life on Planet
Earth in the last years of the 20th Century. It is as if a spiritual
channel has been opened, there in the back yard, a channel linking
many people, many dimensions, many lifetimes. For this I am grateful.
THE UNEXPECTED
The overall form of ceremonial
participation I have described here can accomodate groups much
larger than 20 people. Over the years, depending on where I held
the ceremony, and what day of the week it was, I worked with
groups from 10 people to a 100 people.
One year, I had over a 100
people who joined me. They had walked silently with me, up a
mountain trail west of Calgary, for over an hour, to Powderface
Ridge. They had all been smudged with sage and sweetgrass and
all 100 of them held the talking stick and spoke during the ceremony.
The CBC, Canada's national television network, documented the
ceremony and created a 10 minute television show about it. That
show aired across the province in the fall of the year, and on
Christmas Eve of the same year, it showed across Canada at 7
PM.
As you can see, the creation
of a Healing Ceremony for Planet Earth is an opportunity for
creative self-expression and can take on a much larger life of
its own than we might expect. We need only take the first step
by doing SOMETHING. Spirit will look after the rest.
"Together
with all nations,
we protect both land and life
and hold the world in balance."
Hopi
prayer
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