What if the new gods are the old gods in a new time and a new place? What if the future is composed of the wisdom of the ancients? They say, we are the prayer of our ancestors' dreamings. And do we feel it? Do we feel their prayers running through our blood like currency, our desire to be a part of this great big body of the universe?
What if the earth is an essential organ inside of the entire body? What if we have a role to play that is significant? Not to over decentralize us, but to recognize that we already live in paradise. It's just not how we're choosing to see it, but it is.
Is there anything about the trees and the water that isn't paradise? Is there anything about the wildflowers on that hill over there that isn't paradise? Everything beautiful and perfect and divine has already been given as grace and we're just not acting like it. Sometimes it's hard to know what to believe when you've been in a row with the old gods and the new gods seem very connected with technology, and all you want to do is sink your toes into wet dewey grass. All you wanna do is walk up the creek and look at the sunlight on the water. We've been taught not to think this is God, but what if everything is Creator? What if every part of Creation is Creator?
I haven't known what to believe for a while, but I do believe in us, and I am not sure exactly why, but I do. And this hopefulness keeps me moving forward. I dreamed the other night that the healing that we needed, that we haven't been receiving in all of the services and workshops and therapy sessions, that what we needed, the key was ceremony….to ritualize the changes that have happened, to come from the past into the present and move into the future.
I don't know what you believe anymore, dear ones, we haven't been gathering for a while around the same ideas. But I believe the earth as an organ and the body of the cosmos and that we have an essential function. By essential, I mean every single other thing is impacted by who we are and how we be. I believe in the water in the creek. I believe in finding the north star by discovering the drinking gord above where I live. I believe in the vulture who crossed my path the other day and the sound of the owl. I believe that when I listen to the wind in the tops of the trees, there are messages.
There are messages for me, the question is, what will I choose to believe in and how does creation itself connect with Creator? I don't want a remote Creator that's far away that's mediated by borders and gateways and things I must say in order to be with Creator and Creation. I don't know if anyone really knows, but I know we're busy asserting that we do know, but I don't know that we do. And if to you that seems blasphemous, I understand I've been where you are. I'm somewhere else now, but I honor wherever you are cause I've been there and you've been here.
Many of the traditions of my ancestors have been my foundation. They're solidly beneath my feet providing encouragement and a pathway forward. What I'm doing now I don't feel is against them. Although if we were to talk face to face about who God is and what God is and what creation is, there likely would be some distinctions that we would have to make because I'm not going to have a religion that doesn't include the creek as sacred. I'm not going to really have a religion at all. I'm going to have ceremonies that honor Creation. And honor my part in creation.
This is not about centralizing humans' relationship to themselves, but centralizing humans' relationship with creation, as a way to get to know oneself. I know, I know that our indigenous ancestors and those living today continue to say that we are focusing too much on ourselves and our process, and I do agree, but unless we can get our minds and hearts and hands aligned, then we won't know what to believe and we won't know how to question what is, and we won't know where to look.
So there is some basic repair that needs to happen at this human soul level. We are humans living inside of something called Soul. We are spiritual and we are sensual, and we are looking for the intersectional relationship between the spiritual and the sensual, and we have been for the longest time. I love that we're seekers, but might we also be finders? Can we be finders of this moment?
It can sometimes be challenging not to know the name to call on or the specific prayer to say for someone's child or for someone's parent who's ailing. It can be challenging to lose the traditional frameworks and feast days that you have been grown up with. It can be challenging also, to fight them. Many of us surrender and just accept where we are. I'm not saying to leave the places where you are, but I am saying this: Let's gather in ceremony.
Let's gather in a ceremony that works for all of us who choose to gather independent of what we call the name of the Divine. If we can just agree that Creation is sacred and that we must honor the seeds and the stars, we must honor the earth and the waters. We must honor creation and ourselves as a symptom of Creation, creating itself. Some believe that we came here from another dimension or were breathed upon by the Divine and rose up from soil out of clay and became us. But regardless of what your origin story is, there's some stuff that makes you up. And that stuff is, stardust, oxygen and water. And your soul is happening here now and inhabiting this cooling sack of stars
So yes, I dreamed the healing we need is ceremony. And yes, I answered the call. And yes, the Wheel of the Year is my measurement. And yes, this is where you can find me until I'm hundreds of years old or until tomorrow. I'll be with you as often as I can on the Wheel of the Year ceremonies. I hope I can honor us. I hope I can serve the Divine. I've given myself to the Divin from such an early age, and it keeps changing and deepening. It's a real relationship. It isn't abstract. It's felt, it's spiritual, it's sensual. I don't have names and terms and prayers for specific things like I used to, but I have these ceremonial days on my calendar and I've invited you to join me at the Cura Council.
Sending you all so much love this day as I watch the sunrise and find my footing amongst, amongst all of you. And on this ground, closing with a quote by Billy Frank, Jr. Nisqually activist and environmental leader. He says, “I don't believe in magic. I believe in the sun and the stars, the water, the tides, the floods, the owls, the hawks flying, the river, running the wind, talking. They're measurements. They tell us how healthy things are, how healthy we are, because we and they are the same. That's what I believe in.”
Jonathan and I gathered at Wild Water Creek and spent the whole daylistening to the earth and the creatures. It was Earth Day and we brought blankets and pillows and we laid out on the ground and we napped. I said, prayers to the poison oak to protect me and that I might have a new relationship with them and mosquitoes, and yet I was willing to suffer the stings if I needed to be there. I'm listening to the trees, to the water, to the ground. I'm listening to my dreams. I'm listening to my paintbrush. I would hesitate to call myself a spiritual teacher, maybe a teacher of the sensual and the spiritual, but not because I'm carrying something that you need, but because I'm carrying something that I know I have. And I want to honor that, and I invite all of us to do the same. Love is here. Love is all around us. The currency of love flows through us all. May we find common ground and celebrate. I'll see you in the next circle.
Shiloh Sophia
This is me on the Sonoma Plaza by a tree I have loved all my life. Isn’t she something?
The Cura Council is gathering on May 1. I hope to see you in circle. A reminder will be sent with your access on the morning of. Come in your jammies or in your regalia. Come tired or come wide awake. Come in the middle of the night or early in the morning. All are welcome. Give yourself some spaciousness if you can before and after. All traditions welcome.
Our common ground for this ceremony is seeds - when you think of seeds what do you think of?
~ Curate Shiloh Sophia
What do you really believe?