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Many did not receive this yesterday, so here it is again. Hope to see you this afternoon.
Rev. Craig
I guess some things haven't changed much since the group above welcomed in 1873: there's still uncertainty about the future, and we try, as best we can, to find things to celebrate with family and friends. On the other hand, it's easier to dance nowadays than in a time when super long gowns draped the floors!
The turn of a new year brings with it many thoughts of how things can be better, of sorting out what is in our control from what isn't, of examining the things with which we have complicity, of deciding which new projects are worthy of our investment of time and energy, of resting, of letting bygones be just that, of marshaling our time with more self-kindness...what's on your list?
I offer a poem by author, musician, playwright, and 23rd United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, who often draws from her Muscogee (Creek) Nation heritage in examining timeless themes of defining the self, the use of the arts in daily living, mutuality with nature, and social activism:
For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
Joy Harjo
Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.
Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.
Open the door, then close it behind you.
Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.
Give it back with gratitude.
If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.
Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.
Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.
Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.
Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.
Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.
The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.
Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.
Do not hold regrets.
When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.
You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.
Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.
Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.
Ask for forgiveness.
Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.
Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.
You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.
Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.
Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.
Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.
Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.
Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.
To whom do you think Harjo addresses her words in this poem? Do you feel her words speak to you?
With which of her injunctions do you most resonate? Why?
Were you to write a poem like this, what things would you advise your readers?
Has your mind "left your heart" for feasts set by "the thieves of time"? How can you reclaim it? Does this poem help you?
One of the first things Harjo advises is to take a deep breath and then to offer it back to the world in gratitude. This Sunday, Yamê Bado will offer a breathing workshop following the service: perhaps that will be a place from which to begin calling our spirits back from their wandering. And Harjo ends with an injunction to help one another find our way, "dancing in the dark."
I hope to see you all for a joyful and music- and dance-filled service Sunday morning as we begin the journey of 2024 together. And that last word is important, as you must surely intuit, since it is the first word of my every Wednesday Meditation: for, whatever we are considering, whatever we are suffering, whatever we are celebrating, we do it together—in tandem, like a dance of mutuality, an entanglement of Liberating Love (the latter, our congregational theme for January).
In the words of the beloved hymn by UU minister Ric Marsten, "Let it be a dance we do ... may I have this dance with you. Through the good times and the bad times too, let it be a dance."
Rev. Craig
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