Sacred Waters Pilgrimage 2020

Our Sacred Waters Pilgrimage has begun. We opened at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in beautiful ceremony on the day of the Summer Solstice, in community with Ojibwe elder water and wisdom keepers, women of all ages, children and beautiful babies. We, the 4 of The Wind & The Warrior, and our extended family, are grateful for the permission and the welcoming we’ve received here. We are grateful and nourished from the sharing and the exchange of song, dance, food, knowledge, and practices that opened this pilgrimage. We will continue this journey along 7 stops along the Mississippi River in ceremony, in community, and in conversation down to where the river runs into the Gulf in Louisiana. 

The purpose for this journey is to join in sacred water ceremony and in courageous conversations for healing & the shifts being called for in these times: healing the lands and waters, healing the generational & historical wounds of Black and Native peoples on these lands under Settler Colonialism, and healing the historical relationships of Black and Native peoples with each other. The intentions for the pilgrimage are to honor the sacred water work that has come before us, to share indigenous practices in ceremony between Black and local Native water keepers, healers, and culture-bearers, and to co-create practices and conversations toward a stronger solidarity and shared vision for liberation of and on these lands. 

The vision for the Sacred Water Pilgrimage came in 2019, before we had any idea of how poignant the timing would be. At our Wind & Warrior gathering in August, Colette Pichon Battle shared she had the same vision and message. In partnership with the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy (GCCLP) under Colette Pichon Battle’s fierce leadership, and Gulf South for a Green New Deal, we are heeding the call. 

The pilgrimage will involve private sacred water ceremony on the Mississippi River, as well as invitations for communities to take part in virtual spaces for collective water prayers, inter-community conversations and cultural arts practices, and an archival project to document our narratives in this powerful convergence of ceremony and uprising - of spiritual and material movement - toward transforming our systems and relationships, and healing our waters and lands.