Dear Readers, As a follow up to a previous posting that was entitled Three Texas Cherokee Pajos, here now is a letter that was sent to my sisters after our tripartite ceremony on the 17th of January as the Wolf Moon was rising. Each sibling chose their own spot in their own environs and each buried their personal pajo. Knowing that we suffered for so many decades for lack of this kind of medicine, I humbly offer this personal glimpse into our ceremonies in the spirit of encouragement to anyone poised and hesitating on the edge of their own healing from similar storms. We have learned that time is truly flexible in the presence of gravity, just as quantum physics maintains. We have learned that we can fix the past. Having fixed it, we have already changed our futures. It is all on the same string. We have learned that this work is accomplished in the present, heals past indignities and realigns the future. Hu!
Myself, big sister Tina and little sister April on top of Coliseum Mountain in the North Shore Lynn Creek Watershed during a physical phase of our collective healing. It was Tina's first peak and she showed a beautiful grit that was humbling to behold. April exemplified care without knowing it by her unselfish companionship of our sister while her own children ran ahead of us all to the top and I trudged along solo at a mailman's pace, smoking my Drum. (smile).
Lillooet, B. C. Jan. 18, 2022
"Hello Grandmas!
By the time you read this, we have steered our ships. The arrows are loosed. May we all begin to enjoy the mental and spiritual peace and ease commensurate to our calendar ages and may our bodies also benefit from it. May what we learn be as examples to our own progeny and also solemnize and dignify their personal transitions. Time and space curve in the presence of gravity, so I say with full Faith that it has, in fact, accomplished just that.
I purified myself yesterday by stacking, chopping and tarping two truck-loads of wood and making a box of kindling. Just the night before, I learned a new wood chopping technique used in mindful body work from a new lady on Calm with a dance background. It worked wonders!
I buried my pajo in my front yard in a circular flower garden feature that Nisa and I built long ago. It is directly centred on the Bay window. Over the years, the flowers changed and the deer showed us which were their favourites. We had decided to tone it down this coming Spring and I have always wanted to plant native species like Choke Cherry, Saskatoon, Sage and Rabbit Weed. When we got home from Nisa's transplant, I was surprised to find my local favourite, (artemisia trilobata, aka Big Sage) growing in the bereft circle. Possibly planted via deer scat by the little buck and his sisters that ate the flowers down while we were away.
I cherish that sage, so I got a hammer and chisel and cut out a section of frozen soil near it. I made a hole about 1 1/2 feet deep and lined it with fir needles. I chose a pinkish, whitish, blackish river stone. I smudged the pajo and the hole, the dirt, the rock, the Sage and a wee baby Oak, sprouted from an acorn which Pasquale the squirrel had planted at the Easter Seal House in Vancouver. These three line up. The sage to the SW, the Oak in the middle and the pajo in the NE.
I had my "Medicine Stick" standing guard outside as I did the ceremony. It is inscribed with these words in Swedish, German, Welsh and Irish: I Fertilize, I Banish Fear, I Repel Evil, I Heal The Sick and I Protect The Weak. It has a jade "Eye" which I found in the river, an amethyst-coloured orb, a pine(al) cone and copper coils to work like a spiritual induction coil. It is my stick and will only do what I have inscribed. It has a nice Eagle feather I found while walking the Fraser years ago.
I sprinkled some "doctored" corn meal and chicory that I had I fixed up in 2009, according to my understanding of Rolling Thunder's teaching. I placed the bundle on the fir needles and gently covered it up with my bare hands and tamped it down. After the rock was in place, I prayed without words (just heart-streaming) and then I watched the Wolf Moon rise over the Fountain Ridge.
The immediate effects of this our ceremony will be subtle as a twig vibrating after three birds have taken flight from their perch. That effect over time is the vast distances those birds will fly and we each shall see what they see. Without the ceremony, they would have merely cast down their eyes in sadness and respect and have shown us what we already knew. I want to congratulate and thank both of you for helping me to make this medicine.
April, thanks for your video. You are a beautiful grandma and you can cope with anything that comes using the innate gifts of the little girl that are baked into you, the woman. Ponder the things you put in your video and let your own tailor-made lessons come from it. Tell us the stories as you apprehend them. I will share what I learn of mine with you and Tina as well.
Tina, I think you did a wonderful ceremony. Your intent is impeccable. I knew when we talked on the phone that you really "got it" and that it was indeed Go Time. I could see you and April from your beautiful descriptions of the sites you chose. My greatest joy is that we all did it together and I know that it carried much more power for healing than if only one person had done it alone. We all retain our innate gifts. Childhood has to end but it should end at a reasonable time and in a dignified manner. Before it hadn't. Now it has.
Myself, I laid my childhood anger to rest within the main ceremony of marking the end of my childhood and also included a dignity for and an acknowledgement of an aborted child of mine. All done in my front yard in a space I have sanctified and made timeless, with cars and trucks coming and going. I already "feel" different. Here are a few pictures to mark this day. -Mike"
My pink, white and black Cloudstone, a tiny Oak twig and the artemisia tridentata
The view after my ceremony. A pink, white and black Stonecloud over Fountain Ridge, right where the Wolf Moon arose moments later. Mirroring my pajo rock with a spiritual Good To Go!
"The immediate effects of this, our ceremony, will be subtle as a twig vibrating after three birds have taken flight from their perch. That effect over time is the vast distances those birds will fly and we each shall see what they see."
Tina's pajo Spot
"Here’s my now favourite spot ever: my pajo rests beneath a Tulameen rock next to the wind chimes April gave us as a wedding gift in 2007, and I can see them from my bedroom window every day.
I feel blessed." - Tina Hopkins
"Tina, Your pajo spot, like you, (a born Kelly) is a symphony of growth, spirituality and evergreen determination. I will regard this picture often. It literally feels like Ireland to me. Fine as a bee’s wing! -love, Mike"
Tina's chosen poem to mark her ceremony:
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you have ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott, Collected Poems 1948-1984, New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986.
Far from fin