To Start the Day

It is with profound humility and an enduring desire to be of service to a story larger than my own that I reach out these long arms of language towards you, Grandmother, in hopes that my desire to feed you may be of some use. I choose to speak directly to you in this moment because it feels most genuine to my being, to take this opportunity to open the portal in myself that speaking to you allows me unique access to. In speaking to you, I speak also to anyone else who would listen, and be fed by these reaching words.

When I turn to the East, and call upon the Grandmother who dwells there, the keeper of breath and beginnings, the one who’s song travels on the first light of dawn, breaking over the horizon, I feel my own breath empty and fill me, the fuel that calls me back to myself, able to live another day as part of this great dancing. I offer each exhalation’s cleansing release, I offer each inhalation’s inspired renewal to You, East-dwelling Grandmother, may this breath feed your breath, which is the breath of creation expanding and contracting in its eternal unfolding.

I turn then to the South, and here I call upon Grandmother Spark and Flame, Grandmother Dance of Wildness, I feel heat begin in my feet and travel up my legs, up through my root and my spine, up my creative center, my will center into the core of my being, where my heart catches flame, a bright green flame, who’s roaring is the song of my Spirit falling eternally in love with the Grandmother of the South. I kneel before You, I offer You all my rituals of beauty and pleasure, knowing it is my own aliveness that feeds your dancing. Fed by the breath of the East, these Southerly flames dance higher, rising up through my throat and my crown, becoming the wild song of my soul, feeding the song of all Creation.

In turn, I call out to the Grandmother who dwells in the West, who is the vast ocean of fertile mystery, the dreamtime, the chalice overflowing with emotion’s shadowplay. I am humbled before you Grandmother, for this is the realm where all my fears and insecurities reside. I recognize the challenges my own emotional body holds for me and I offer that up to your alchemical cauldron Grandmother, may you feast on my past traumas and fears and thus metabolize them into their own opposite, into my own full presence, full spectrum availability to the unfiltered ocean of human experience, free of fear, free of insecurity. I prepare to dive head first into your infinite depths, calling in the guidance of my dreamtime Grandmother, making myself fully available as a tool of your works in the world. The salty tears of my own inner ocean fall freely, let them merge with your vastness and unify my own vulnerability with the strength to which it holds the key. Let these tears feed your waters Grandmother, and let them flow clear and clean once more.

With a deep breath, I turn to kneel before the Grandmother of the North, and she does not allow me to kneel, she asks me to stand, to feel myself rooted as a tree with limbs reaching into the stars. In your presence Grandmother of Soil and Seed, Grandmother of Roots and Wings, I feel myself as the vessel for all whose lives have come before my own, whose blood and bone and song and craft shape my own making, who live on thru me, thru the works of my hands and my heart. I dedicate myself in this moment to being a worthy carrier of these myriad lineages, praying only that my life be made into a worthy offering, and that this offering be truly received in its fullness, that it may feed a story larger than my own.

Oh Grandmother who dwells in the Sky, and Grandmother who dwells in the Earth, I invite you to enter me now, to feel my voice as your voice, to feel my hands as your hands, to ride upon the strength of my spine and breathe your creation’s fire out into the world thru me. It is with utmost humility that I offer myself, not for any personal gain or renown, but so that your works may be accomplished swiftly and gracefully, that this beautiful Song of Creation might continue to be sung for many more generations to come.

Grandmother Thump Thump, who lives in the incantations of my heart’s contractions, be with me now, feel my dedication, my willingness to be guided, my heart’s true yearning to be of use to you. Please hear me now, be with me now, and know that so long as I have air to breath, fire to dance, water to wash and earth to plant, I am your humble daughter, I am your praise singer, your open hands and your careful feet.

For all my relations…Mitakuye Oyasin
Long Life Honey in the Heart
No Evil
13 Thank Yous