For the most part, I live a broken existence. I'm in a huge financial hole. My debt is a vice grip, wrapped tight around my whole being. Strangling my life force, I feel trapped within a depressive hold. I pray sleep will lead me away and that I will emerge from this dreamtime and into another reality. Yet, it is I who chose to put myself here. I chose all of it. And, I am so tired of choosing my resistance, as all it does is wreak havoc on my body and pain in my Spirit. So, this is what I entered into this past weekend's Long Dance Ceremony wishing to release.
We entered into the great serpentine circle at the center of our Sacred Village, once the sun had set on September 22nd, giving voice to what we were individually releasing as well as calling in as 126 women each tied a ribbon onto a maypole. Then, our collective heartbeat - the rhythm of the drum - was brought to life, the roaring fire was lit and we began circling it, in dance, walk, hop and shoulder to shoulder, until a new day began. The moon set overhead as we also honored our feminine moon cycles within the Moon Lodge. True to form, my body was sure to start bleeding on this very day.
Joining the Mooning women sweat lodge, I sat naked as sweat poured off of my body and two rounds of 11 hot rocks were brought in to the lodge. We sang together, praying vociferously for ourselves, our loved ones and our planet, as I shed a layer of skin that was thick with toxins. Emerging from the warm, wet womb, an expanse of star illuminated sky tickled my senses as I bathed in a cold, outdoor shower. I could have stayed standing there, vulnerable with my golden brown skin glistening in the night, for years.
J and I were each to be found joining the Drum Lodge and keeping the night's steady staccato beat. We sang out loudly for our sisters who were each enveloped in their own personal dances around tat serpentine fire. For hours, we kept this pace - drumming, singing, circling, praying, prostrating, hopping, dancing, drumming, singing, circling, praying, prostrating, hopping, dancing. Sisters in the Dance, indeed! When the light of the fast rising sun began to make itself known, we took to a maniacal jest, speaking utter non-sense that our hearts deeply understood as we skipped through space and time, arm in arm. A sister from the Drum Lodge placed a bouquet made of sage, cedar and a singular chrysanthemum into my hand - perhaps honoring me for my innocence and joy.
With the sun slowly cresting the eastern ridge line, our brothers from Thunder Lodge presented themselves. Banging their own drums, warriors in the way they kept sentry for us all night, they sang the Cherokee morning song over the valley and down to us. My heart melting, my hand holding the bouquet, I stood tall and proud, a bride entering into divine union with her beeloved - an eternal dance of my Divine Feminine with your Divine Masculine, revolving that great fire in the sky, forever.
