TEXT: SOPHIA STYLE
Twenty
July 2008. Time's up. The drum beat is getting closer as I look at several women contemplating the blue sky. Three eagles fly in gentle circles over the fire around which we gathered. Behind us see a colorful procession and see the unmistakable figure of thirteen elderly. There are high and petite, some in wheelchairs or helping another to walk, all with a formidable presence that reminds us of something forgotten, old and environment. Just looking at them, tears flow down the cheeks of dozens of people. We come from all over Europe, including Peru, to a farm near Borja (Zaragoza) to live three days with the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers.
The vision that
joined four years ago, this impressive group of women around the world gathered for the first time in the land of the Iroquois Confederacy in upstate New York. The driving force behind this initiative is visionary and ambitious Dr. Jeneane Prevatt, better known as Jyoti, who founded the Center for Sacred Studies in Sonora (California) in order to conserve indigenous ways of living and praying. For years, she and other community members Kayumari had the vision of a circle of women, all elderly women, who would join together to help heal the Earth. In 2002 Jyoti traveled to share this vision with Bernadette Rebienot, old bwiti of Gabon, and Maria Alice Campos Freire, traditional healer in the Brazilian Amazon. Both were enthusiastic: they too had been receiving this vision. And both had just signed virtually identical letters to other tribal groups, which declared that it has reached time for the original peoples emerge as guardians of the planet. Jyoti
realized it was time to bring grandmothers around the world, as stated in ancient prophecy: "When the Grandmothers from the four directions speak, a new era is coming." Jyoti started his search on contacts with indigenous groups that the Centre had developed Sacred Studies. Sent letters of invitation to sixteen indigenous grandmothers from around the world. Some are already known, others not. Accepted thirteen, all healers and medicine women fully recognized and respected in their communities, from the jungles of Africa and South America, from plains, forests and deserts of North America, the mountains of Oaxaca, the Arctic, Guatemala, Nepal and Tibet.
The first time gathered around a table on wearing a ritual cloth, decorated specifically with the thirteen moons of the year. Rita Pitka Blumenstein, Yupik Grandma, handed out with tears in his eyes a rock and an eagle feather for each of the other grandmothers. He had treasured since her grandmother gave them when he was nine, saying that one day would be a member of a council of grandmothers and I had to share with them the thirteen feathers and stones. Also the other grandmothers, each in its own way, had received their own signs and prophecies and felt called to enforce.
Twenty
July 2008. Time's up. The drum beat is getting closer as I look at several women contemplating the blue sky. Three eagles fly in gentle circles over the fire around which we gathered. Behind us see a colorful procession and see the unmistakable figure of thirteen elderly. There are high and petite, some in wheelchairs or helping another to walk, all with a formidable presence that reminds us of something forgotten, old and environment. Just looking at them, tears flow down the cheeks of dozens of people. We come from all over Europe, including Peru, to a farm near Borja (Zaragoza) to live three days with the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers.
The vision that
joined four years ago, this impressive group of women around the world gathered for the first time in the land of the Iroquois Confederacy in upstate New York. The driving force behind this initiative is visionary and ambitious Dr. Jeneane Prevatt, better known as Jyoti, who founded the Center for Sacred Studies in Sonora (California) in order to conserve indigenous ways of living and praying. For years, she and other community members Kayumari had the vision of a circle of women, all elderly women, who would join together to help heal the Earth. In 2002 Jyoti traveled to share this vision with Bernadette Rebienot, old bwiti of Gabon, and Maria Alice Campos Freire, traditional healer in the Brazilian Amazon. Both were enthusiastic: they too had been receiving this vision. And both had just signed virtually identical letters to other tribal groups, which declared that it has reached time for the original peoples emerge as guardians of the planet. Jyoti
realized it was time to bring grandmothers around the world, as stated in ancient prophecy: "When the Grandmothers from the four directions speak, a new era is coming." Jyoti started his search on contacts with indigenous groups that the Centre had developed Sacred Studies. Sent letters of invitation to sixteen indigenous grandmothers from around the world. Some are already known, others not. Accepted thirteen, all healers and medicine women fully recognized and respected in their communities, from the jungles of Africa and South America, from plains, forests and deserts of North America, the mountains of Oaxaca, the Arctic, Guatemala, Nepal and Tibet.
The first time gathered around a table on wearing a ritual cloth, decorated specifically with the thirteen moons of the year. Rita Pitka Blumenstein, Yupik Grandma, handed out with tears in his eyes a rock and an eagle feather for each of the other grandmothers. He had treasured since her grandmother gave them when he was nine, saying that one day would be a member of a council of grandmothers and I had to share with them the thirteen feathers and stones. Also the other grandmothers, each in its own way, had received their own signs and prophecies and felt called to enforce.
Birth
Council decided to enforce their voices to a global alliance to give new life to traditions, rituals and practices that can help heal the problems of the Earth and the villages inhabit it. Created the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and proposed to meet every six months on the ground of every one of them until 2012 to share the old practices and ceremonies of their communities and unite their prayers for world peace.
With incredible physical and logistical efforts, not without encountering obstacles, since May 2005 the Grandmothers have already met in the communities of four. Have been in Santa Fe (New Mexico), current home of Flordemayo, Grandma native Maya of Guatemala, in Oaxaca (Mexico), the Mazatec shaman "mom Juliet" Casimiro, in Dharamsala (India), where they received the blessing of the Dalai Lama, Tsering Dolma Tibetan Grandmother Gyaltong, and in the Black Hills of South Dakota, home of the Lakota sisters Rita and Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance. At this fifth meeting in South Dakota, the founder of the group of women Arboleda de Gaia, Mariana García bequest, invited the thirteen grandmothers to come to Spain to bring his wisdom to Europe ancestral. Happily accepted. This is his only visit to Europe before 2012. Building on this historic journey to the land of the conquistadores, grandmothers called at the Vatican for the pope personally deliver a letter calling for the annulment of the Papal Bull of 1493, which laid the groundwork for the extermination of millions of men and Indigenous women throughout the world.
His tools of prayer and action
After returning from the meeting with the 13 grandmothers often asked: "What did you do?". Be present at a meeting of grandmothers is like crossing a threshold that leads to an incredibly rich in meaning and symbols, beauty and authenticity. The grandmothers are mostly women of prayer, and much of the game, morning, noon and night, consisted of guided prayer ceremonies for each of the grandmothers as their respective traditions, in a large field under the bright sun or under the sky crashed.
In the center of the ritual burning a hot fire. His tools of prayer and healing include drums (beat of Mother Earth), incense, feathers and water to purify. Sing, dance, go into a trance and weave his magic in a tangible and exciting. When you pray out loud feel the greatness of their hearts, continue to intercede for everyone, for those who suffer, for the Earth. Express their gratitude and reverence life, ask forgiveness, healing and individual and collective, and move around the circle to give personal blessings to one hundred and fifty people are gathered.
Under the shade of the trees listen to each of the grandmothers. His words measured, simple but profound reminder that old ways are dying out. According to them, now is the time to decide how we will live and survive on Earth. Their sense of urgency is the result of the experience: Dakota contaminated water by uranium mining, radioactive waste is stored in Tibet, alcoholism and drug addiction in the Native American reservations, patent pirate about plants and the knowledge of the Amazon. As Grandma Bernadette Rebienot Africa, with its powerful presence and immense, says "the time has come", there is no hesitation. The same tribal prophecies that give a key role of grandmothers in the renewal of the world also claim that we are in the "eleventh hour", that unless we transform our way of relating between us and Mother Earth will apocalyptic cataclysms.
In Communion with the Natural World
Grandmothers practice and preach a spiritual activism that is rooted in nature. They are women of prayer and action, and for them the search for peace world can not be separated from the path of healing that we all need to take to regain inner peace and fulfillment. Its core message is the most basic principle of indigenous cultures, all life is sacred. When the Brazilian Grandmother Maria Alice talks about the qualities of Mother Water, when Mona Polacca Hopi elders speak of the teachings of Mother Earth, when Grandma Bernadette explains the language of fire, wind or plant, or when Council oldest grandmother, Agnes Baker Pilgrim, traces the journey made by the salmon, their words reveal an impressive sense of intimacy and community with the natural world. Far from seeing nature as a storehouse of raw materials or of "natural resources", grandmothers guide us towards a relationship of reverence and unity with the elements, which impart their wisdom to those who are open to listen and learn. When asked "How can we change things?" Grandmother Mona Polacca, with its beautiful simplicity, answered: "Each of us can change things from the time we got up, with the way you use water , how you breathe the air, how you appreciate this new day, sunlight or grandfather fire, or how you touch the earth. " Caring
water is an urgent message that is repeated in his meetings and has been a central theme of his visit to Spain. The grandmothers pray for the recovery of water worldwide, and participate in projects using permaculture to protect local waters and to revive the sources. In an interview at the Bioneers Conference 2007 in California, Grandmother Maria Alice mentioned a visit he made to Spain. Came to a place that seemed completely dry, but nevertheless felt a very powerful presence of water. Then he was told that shamans and healers from around the world had said that "it is instead of water." And she understood "that the water is hidden from the people who do not surrender to it, not the consecration, not the viewer and says" this is sacred and precious. " Water lies ... and we thirst. "
At the heart of all projects in which involved grandmothers beats an underlying message: the solutions to today's problems are rooted in a profound transformation of how we see the world, and the rediscovery of our spiritual connection with us them with our brothers and sisters everywhere and the Earth.
The Sacred Medicinal Plant Use
Another key aspect of many of the healing practices of grandmothers is the use of sacred medicinal plants such as peyote and the sacred mushrooms in North America, the Santo Daime (ayahuasca ) in the Amazon or iboga root in Africa. Grandmothers assert their right to use them without legal obstacles. The considered gifts of the Earth to help us regain our connection to spirit, and are used in their communities to heal physical and mental illness. As noted by Jyoti, these women are literally "walking library" with a vast knowledge of traditional remedies, now coveted by multinational pharmaceutical companies. Grandma Nepali Aama Bombo (which means Mother Chamana) receives each morning at his home over a hundred patients. His father was an important Tamang shaman tradition in which the practice of shamanism is forbidden to women. Was maintained regardless of shamanic practices, but the spirits of his father and other deities and forces began to visit her after his death and was taught to be shaman and heal.
in good hands
The thirteen grandmothers revived the ancient pre-Christian tradition of the priest or medicine woman who has been initiated through the rite of passage of menopause and can share the wisdom he has gained over the moons. In many tribal cultures originating there was a council of grandmothers who had the final say on key issues for the community, like going to war or not. Made their decisions after thoroughly considering the consequences of their actions in the next seven generations. Grandmother Bernadette said that Gabon's grandmothers meet regularly in the forest to share visions and to pray for world peace and welfare of its people, and that "in Gabon, when the grandmothers speak the president listens." In Borja one that heard it was Manuela de Madre, a prominent figure in Catalan politics.
For many this international council of grandmothers said the wake of what has been called the "archetype of the grandmother" or "Age of the Grandmothers." According to Jyoti, the archetype of the wise old woman 'touch and draws something deep within us. " How could it be otherwise, in our culture and hyperactive teenager that worships the young and superficial, and since so many generations represses the feminine, are the wise elders who lead us to regain balance. They represent everything that the modern West has sought to ignore. Hector Figueroa, one of the few men who attended the meeting, said that "this should have been more men than women." The men who participated, including three who were guarding the sacred fire day and night, or all three Sikhs' warriors of the Divine Mother, "were recognized by grandmothers as examples of a new relationship between the masculine and feminine. The key moment was hearing Héctor Cheyenne Grandmother Margaret Behan refer to us as "my grandchildren." "Suddenly, I felt in my bones that they are our grandmothers' grandmothers and foster spiritual. A Hopi prophecy says that "when the grandmothers speak, the world will become." We are in good hands. ___________________________________________________________
GROVE OF GAIA
The original idea of \u200b\u200bbringing the 13 Grandmothers to Spain was the singer-songwriter Carmen Paris Zaragoza, to participate in the project "Women Embracing the Mediterranean waters." The visit to Spain of the thirteen grandmothers was eventually managed by the association Arboleda de Gaia, a group of women that offers meetings in Spain to celebrate feminine spirituality linked to Earth. Managed to finance the trip and of the grandmothers stay exclusively through private donations. He also managed the publication of the book The Voice of the thirteen grandmothers Carol Schaefer (Ed. Firefly, 2008). In the spring of 2009 will see a documentary about the thirteen grandmothers, For the next seven generations.
http://www.forthenext7generations.com/
http://www.consejo13abuelas.es/
http://www.arboledadegaia.es/
-------- ------------------------------ Sophia Style
doula is an anthropologist, writes and gives workshops on conscious childbirth, menstrual cycle and female spirituality.
Email: semillas@pangea.org
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