It's a beautiful saturday here in Pipestone. The Dogs always get up at about 4:30 ready to Do Something! I am so happy to be in their company and for the fact that they are healthy. I appreciate their love which is so unconditional. When I make mistakes with dogs they let me correct me and move on. We sometimes cry together, but I have never had such close unwavering love as from a dog. They are my heroes.
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| Spike |
I've been thinking for a few years about the question of wether or not people humans our earth as we know it is worth saving? I wonder how the entities made the decision previously that the world as it was known needed to be erased or radically changed. for example: the Great Flood, the Ice Age, the great volcanic Age, perhaps there was an age of meteorites? Many cultures tell both creation and recreation stories. I often wondered why the dinosaurs had to all be eradicated? Were they too destructive to the overall balance of life here? Were they so Hungry and Large and discompassionate that there was no opportunity of balance? No future for the dragon fly or the rose or the small toy poodle or rabbit?Is Creator so much and of such depth that all of the Ages are just an expression of a Season to the Divine Oneness? I think it matters that most species here are able to live together. I think that all together we create a sum that meets some sort of un tipping point. Matter and energy flowing back and forth like a great breath in and out. We have heard for years about global effect of our species on this globe. I wonder how or if anything that we have done can be undone? Can our actions, which may not have been of the intention that we have grown into, be taken back to a point of origin or attachment and remade?
Can attachment or agenda be undone? Can we as the originators of an action or wave of resulting consequence from an nidus of intent be also able to suck back in that original thought and breath and remake it and then release it thus changing everything? I think that we can. I think that Transformation of Negativity into Positivity is the Advancement of our Age.
I learned to bead when I was a young girl. I remember my mom and dad going to las vegas for something with my dad's work. When they returned my mom had on a beaded belt. It was made by native americans and it was amazing. I had never seen anything like it. The colors were primarily sky blue with red and white in the pattern. It blew me away. I remember telling my mom how much I liked it and that I really wanted it. I remember that she looked me right in the eye and said to me," Make your own belt."
Like most of the great teachings that have come to me in my life that statement, " Make your own belt" has taken most of my life so far to understand. Yesterday I finally saw the other half of what my mom was teaching me with that belt.
After I expressed such strong desires about the beaded belt my mom took me to Tandy, bought me a little beaderette loom, some beads, some thread, and wax and told me to get started. i still have the little container of special pink pearlecent beads that she bought me back then to use when I was good enough. I've never quite been able to bring myself to use them Yet. LoL anyhow, I read the instructions, studied the relationships between the thread, the needle, the beads, and colors and patterns, and worked my way through many trial and error beading projects that sometimes got ripped out and sometimes were finally finished and also as amazing as that first belt. My mom took me to museums to see old beadwork and on occasion I had enough money to buy a book that I would find that showed a different relationship that was possible between those amazing little things. Beads, thread, leather, wax and patterns. over the years there have been very few people that have given me beadwork. I always have made my own. And I have given beadwork away. when I was first turning thirty and ending my 20's I made three belts. One was for my mom to honor her for her gift to me, one was about my dreams of horses and to honor my Arapaho ancestors and my Grandmother Nannie, and one was for me. it was of fall leaves. I was born in the fall and it has always been one of my favorite times of year. Everything smells different in the fall. the Leaves change so gloriously before they Let Go of the Past and give over their little bodies to the generation of compost that helps keep the Earth warm through the Winter and Feeds the little spring bugs and flowers the next year. the size of bead I most commonly use is a 13 cut, there are 375 beads per square inch in a piece made with those beads. thats a really strong deep Medicine Way. Because I was young when I Made or Created Them, and They definitely are Entities, there is a lot of Raw Energy in them. Like Fresh herbs Raring to go! Those belts took time and love and careful prayer as each bead was placed and each design taken from magic, from dreams, from the trees, from stories, from old ancient patterns and put together back in a new personal story on the belts.
Beadwork is really pretty simple, it is the time and effort that a person chooses to put into understanding the relationship between all the parts that yields eventually not only a practiced hand, but a practiced eye. Very often I can pick up a piece of beadwork that someone else made and hear or see the story in it. I can feel the intent in the pattern. There is an energy and a path that is made with beading that if done with song and prayer and intent intact will linger not just in the maker but the wearer the holder of it. If an object is also covered with an attachment that clouds it that attachment can sometimes be cleaned off, reworked, or the item can be buried and taken back to it's origin in a gentle and healing manner that is beyond my ability to facilitate. On my way home from Lame Deer I stopped at a Catholic School museum and was looking at the beadwork in the cases. the curator was there and he was surprised I think, that I sat down and wept at some of the dresses that I saw in the cases. He began explaining that the items were not stolen or take but donated by trial members who wanted them protected etc.... I told him I wasn't weeping over the things in the case. but because the people who made those things used to live lives that generated that kind of expression about their lives and their Relations with the Star Nation, the Spirits, Their Medicine and the Divine Breath. I was Weeping I said because I don't see anyone Wearing or learning to make beadwork in todays society.
Tattoos are the same. Every time one is made the story and the ink and the artist both takes up a bit of the person and places a bit into the blood of the wearer a bit of themselves and it stays there as long as the pattern is intact and continues to radiate energy, intent and purpose throughout that design. It was easier to understand that about tattoos for me because I had a Teacher tell me about it Clearly when I got my first one. He had studied for as long as I have done beadwork tattooing. he had worked with the Hopi, some East Indian as well as some Japanese Masters, and I met him in Minneapolis years ago. so it Was and it Is that each tattoo I have serves a purpose. A remaking of me and a making of me. A binding to an intent.
It is that kind of intention that I put in my belts. Even when I didn't understand what I was doing i was doing just That. How do I know that? because I see it in the beadwork of me. of Mary. I was created like a piece of Beadwork. Made a Certain Way and That Way will unfold as surely as any pattern I placed in the falling leaves on my own belt. My mother was trying to tell me to Create my Own Life. But, Relatives she was also trying to tell me Not, to Give Away My Life to Another just because they wanted it or, just because I Wanted Something From Them. she was also trying to Teach me as I just and only realized Yesterday that my belt once I have it is Precious to Me. It was given to me and that is not to be taken lightly or to be given away to another. And, I think she also tried to show me that it is important to Teach Others that You Can Make Your Own Belt.
I gave away one of my belts to someone after my sister died. I was not in a place of self respect or understanding about me and the medicine that I am Entrusted with here in this Time. I wanted to please the person I gave it to, I wanted to put a buffer between me and the strength of their energy. I wasn't yet able to stand in my own place truly UnMoveAble As I Am Now. I was afraid of her and I wanted to be attached to her at the same time. I wanted an in. so I gave it. I didn't understand at the time fully what I was doing. I remember part of my awareness but I also know that since I was a little girl I have sought and valued and missed love and family and companionship more than Anything. I have throughout my life been known as a giveaway girl. LOL when I was little I was always trying to Help. I think that the Fear of Others and Lack of Confidence in Me that was hammered into me as a Child translated in or through my pattern into a sideways way of Relating to People. it has taken me a really really LONG time to untwist that intent from my Own Pattern and to remake me finding and keeping the Original Beads and Thread and not Throwing Away all of it. But Straightening and cleaning and reorienting, and discovering and practicing the Remaking of Mary. One of the hardest Parts of this cleaning and Reorienting is understanding What is of Me, and Which is of Another's Intent towards Me. That My Friends is also something that helps create what we do, how we choose, Until, we are able to Understand that Intention Towards us Exists and Affects us until WE Disallow that in our own Path. Now, this does not Mean not being Connected we ARe Connected it simply Means disallowing Others Influence or Intent to Drive Us. Kind of makes Their Footprint back to its original size and Means we are and Will Be Responsible for Our Own.
The Giveaway of the Belt was one of those things I had to remake. It was a final expression of something that I had to undo in me and relearn recreate and in the interim teach and giveaway the Lesson Not the Life. It's all about Holding The Fire. it takes a pureness to be Fire, and a pureness of intent to hold it without influencing it. To Feed it without gorging it, to let it burn down without going out, to understand its Relationship and Participate without getting burned or being consumed or growing cold from being unwilling to get close enough for fear of being burned.
I think that my mother saw that pureness in me when i was young and she was trying to protect me, to reach me through the only medium that she could. Do I think she knew exactly what she was saying and doing? no I don't but I think that my Mother knew when to Leap, when to Act, when to Say what the Spirits needed saying in the Moment. And as all the things my Mother was, she was truly Fearless when it came to understanding Self and the Power the Intent of Self could create in the World. I think my Mother saw in me that my greatest gift and my greatest flaw was that I gave myself to Love. Unconditionally but also way too Naively. I think that she knew Way More about the World I would encounter and how Hard it would be to survive it with Love Intact Not as a Child, but as a Warrior, Healer, Grownup, Teacher, Holder of the Fire. My Mother is the one who would find me up in the Night watching the Fire, Talking to the Ancestors, Finishing the Puzzles, weaving in what was Left Out and Undone in the Night. She is the One who Saw me at my most Original State. She knew I think, that if she did not Teach me to be Careful, I would give all of everything away at the wrong time in the wrong place for the wrong reason. And That would be a Waste of Her Gift of Making Me.
And I did. and I have. Done just as She feared, but maybe not too much Too Late, EH? As with the Belt. So that Act of Love and seeking Love where it was not really mine to have, that Act of trading my medicine belt, trading me, bonded me to that person in a way that was incredibly destructive to both of us. I can look back now and see the reverberation through our relations and some of the relations around us compounding my intent combined with the receiving intent (which is not for me to speak of or identify) into an off center force that became more and more destructive as it vibrated out from that belt and all that it came in contact with on its journey. this Relatives is why we have to Pay Attention to Our Intent and Our AGENDAs. Because they Do have energy and will Last and Vibrate out a Long time and really Really Far.
The Spirits have spent quite a long time trying to teach me to Be the Being That I Am. To stand in and understand me so that I Hold My Own Fire. They have taught me Finally enough that I am beginning the inkling of that Position. this summer they gave me a dream very clearly of the belt coming back to me. It was very clear. So I undertook the journey of Taking Back the Belt and as Best as Possible Owning my Own previous Agenda and taking the hits while Standing my Ground and Undoing the Doing that was creating Negativity and in So undoing, Transform it all into Positivity. And Now, to Give it to You.
I am well aware that I don't control the entire puzzle. LOL I do understand that the Others that were involved in the Adventure of the Belt will have their Own Teachings, Transformations, and Love to gain from the contact they had with it. I will hold them in my thoughts with love and care even as they have me.
Relatives I do think we can Where we Can go back and ReMake our Intent, ReMake our Agendas, Transform our world. I think we can Find the Strength in our Skills and Learn the Application that maintains the Warmth in the Winter, and Feeds the Flowers in the Spring.
I am going to make, beginning today, small beaded medicine bags for the Center. They will be made with the intention of selling them as a Way of Supporting this House and This Project. it is something that I Can Do with Beadwork for You, for This Place, for The Future. I will make them and post them somehow so that If Anyone Wants One they can Purchase it as a New Beginning for their Relationship with this House.
all my best
all my love
in my heart
to the fire
to your heart
mary
1 comment:
Beautiful; You, your words and your creations
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