Guest Author - Phyllis Doyle Burns
This article was written by our previous editor, Phyllis Doyle Burns, and all rights are reserved. For inquiries and comments, please contact the current editor, Jane Winkler.
Throughout Nature our ancestral lands spread over Mother Earth like a woven tapestry.
Ancestral lands - how long ago and far away sounds the phrase; what cherished memories it stirs within our hearts; what profound spiritual strength it casts on our lives; what visions of beauty it plays across our minds.
Visions of woodlands with quiet places of solitude to offer a cool and shady sanctuary of repose; visions of mighty mountains that watch over us; visions of great plains stretching as far as one can see, with grasses that gently bend with the wind; visions of deep cool forests with streams of cold, clear water, calming us; pine trees that whisper to us with the voices of our ancestors; deserts that hide their secrets till spring rains quench the dry land and give birth to glorious color and flowers of amazing beauty; lakes and oceans that bless us with their calm beauty or rouse us with waves crashing to shore; deep ravines and canyons that give us profound and majestic paintings of Nature; all this beauty and more was gifted to our ancestors by Great Spirit, entrusted to them to care for, receive from and give back to, to live in Harmony and Balance with.
As Nature did, the ancestors also wove us a tapestry of memories and messages. They left us with not books, but words, songs, stories, legends, and the beloved Creation myths. They left pictures on rocks, on cave walls, on cliffs in canyons, on the land, that tell us the story of their way of life, their culture, traditions, ceremonies, and beliefs. They passed on to us the importance of peace and harmony with all Creation. They passed down from generation to generation the stories of tricksters that taught us lessons of good and evil, of right and wrong. They left us with profound words of wisdom to guide and teach us.
Is it so far away and so long ago that they spoke? Not really - it is near, now, within our hearts and memories, in our traditions and beliefs. The songs of the Old Ones are all around us; in the wind, in the trees that dance with the wind, in the prairie grasses, in the rushing waters of rivers or the serene flowing waters of mountain streams and the crashing of waterfalls, in the crackle of dry leaves in autumn, in the storms of the Twins - Thunder and Lightning, when their voices are like echoes of the ancestors. And in the silence, on nights when gentle falling snow muffles all sounds but the whispers of the past.
The following words are from my friend's site at First People and are very meaningful:
The time has come to listen to echoes from our land...the wisdom and teachings of our Native American Indians. Their words are simple and their voices are soft. We have not heard them, because we have not taken the time to listen. Perhaps now is the time to open our ears and our hearts to the words of wisdom they have to say.
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