The Thing with Ceremony
Why am I special?
I am not.
What is real ceremony?
You are in the center
You are the one giving
A place of honour
A place of sacrifice
You always have a payment
There is a cost for being
In the centre of ceremony
To being the main dancer
To be the main story teller
To be the main healer
To be the main singer
To be the main musician
There is alway a payment
There is always a balance
To be maintained
You give as good as you “get”
Getting is the sacrifice
You be honoured by being
In the sidelines
Be in the circle of singers
Be in amongst the drummers
Be in as the village
Be in as an auntie or uncle
The one in the centre
Carries the cost
And the balancing happens
In their circle
To them
To the ones to the things near
Unless all the ones around
Give – gift generously
With word and action and deed
With gifts to other, to land
To Spirit
That is why extractive consumer starseeder, often white human, ceremonies are dead
No one gives
One sits there in envy
Jealous heart
Of the one one in the centre
But one doesn’t understand
To be in the centre
Is not about glory.
Literal sacrifice
they say in some sacred ceremonies
The one in the centre loses some years off their life
Each time they hold the ceremony, and that is not often
They say in some sacred ceremonies
That the ones in the center
That is all they do all year long
Is getting ready for one ceremony
Which lasts five days or one
Am I ready for that?
Do the folk who gather
For that ceremony
Are they prepared
To give to Spirit
Or to the Spirits
To keep the ceremonialists safe
To dance and sing again
If the ceremonialist is constantly
Giving to Sprit, they know that
It will cost them
Even their life
Balance balance
Keep the balance
Be at peace with
“Sitting in the third row”*
– Christiana Aro-Harle
Written while thinking about ceremony and preparing for Awakening and dancing Mother Bear.
*quite sure this was a line heard from a podcast by Nordic Animism & Tyson Yunkaporta.