Dear Jean,
I hear the common thread of love for Mother Earth and concern for Her in your voice, in your readers' voices, and in the voices of other Lightworkers in other groups from many places. The first article in the latest issue of Sacred Hoop speaks of local shamans near Copenhagen working for change in Humanity's treatment of her with visiting shamans from the Peruvian Andes highlands. The shamans of the Southern mountains had never left home before, ever. I hear from members of the Longhouse Coalition on this subject often. I hear from the Progressives in my area often. I know ex-Wall Street traders who are concerned. The tide of Human consciousness is turning, most everywhere I look, towards love and concern for the Earth.
There was a prayer I said once a few years ago in a sacred place. I was drawn by the Universe to the top of Monk's Mound in Southern Illinois. This is the tallest of the Cahokia Mounds, a UN World Heritage site. It covers the largest area of any ancient monumental structure around its base. Monk's mound isn't taller than the Great Pyramid at Giza, but it covers more ground, over 14 acres. It was abandoned over 400 years before the first European Colonialists set foot in North America, since used only by local Indigenous Peoples for an annual ceremony and gathering.
At the peak of Monk's Mound, I was inspired to say a prayer while smoking a fine cigar of sacred tobacco. I, a White European born of this region, appealed to the same Creator and spirits my Red Brothers do. The same Universal spirit that hears the prayers of all Humanity, regardless of the name(s) called upon.
To the East, I called "Heal the Earth, heal Mankind, in perfect ways, in perfect time." I sent the tobacco smoke into the sky of the East with this prayer upon it.
I repeated this prayer to the North, to the West, and finally to the South.
In all of this, my intention was for the divisions between Human Beings to be dissolved and healed, and for them to understand, love, and heal Mother Earth.
As I finished the final prayer to the South, in the nearly cloudless evening sky formed a high, thin cross of cloud that stretched across the entire bowl of the sky to the four Cardinal Directions. In the Southwest quadrant of the cross, very near its center, was a single cloud that looked exactly like a Thunderbird with Coyote riding on its back.
The great-grandson of a Seneca chief told me upon hearing this that it meant that my prayer had been heard and found acceptable. That is what the appearance of both Thunderbird & Coyote together meant.
Shortly after, I was inspired to find a real, native-crafted turquoise and silver ring. It was three years later when I found it. The stone in it is round and mostly blue with brown streaks running through it. It looks for all the world like a miniature Earth. The setting has wings on either side of the stone. Every time I put the ring on my finger, I repeat the following affirmation and think of that evening atop Monk's Mound: "I am connected to, a protector of, and supplied by the Earth."
About two years ago, I attended an interfaith ceremony at the Headquarters of the Theosophical Society in America, which is near my home. At that ceremony, I led an interfaith repetition of the prayer I first said atop Monk's Mound that day.
I would say that working in a prayer for the Earth in our daily routines is something that might be good for Lightworkers. Especially one that recognizes that all of Humanity and the Earth are interconnected and inherently indivisible.
The disaster in the Gulf is a catastrophe. It is also a teaching moment. Think about the lesson of Earth-interdependence the population near the Gulf is learning this Summer. Mother Earth couldn't be more graphic in showing us the dangers of oil-dependence. I wish this had never happened, but it did. There will be no escaping it's lesson.
Love & light,
Dan
