Completion & The Spiral, Beginning Again

We began the Sacred Waters Pilgrimage on the Summer Solstice, on June 20, 2020.

After six Full Moon ceremonies down the Mississippi River,  we completed our pilgrimage with a focus on the root chakra for the Seventh Moon of our journey. We held ceremony on the Winter Solstice in Louisiana, both in New Orleans and in Plaquemines Parish where the Mississippi meets the Gulf of Mexico.

Grounding in the Root Chakra & the Winter Solstice: With the root chakra, we are called to focus on grounding and our physical body, security, safety, stability, and survival. The Winter Solstice calls us to focus on stillness, rest, and dreams. 

Winter Solstice 2020: December 21 at 4:02 am, CST
Chakra: Root Chakra

• Direction: South

• Mantra: I Am

• Element: Earth

• Color: Red    

• Principle: Release

Where are we called to be still? To release? The Winter Solstice and the 7th Stop at the mouth of the Mississippi River call us to reflect on cycles: completion, new beginnings, and returns. This stop focuses on release: outward celebration, letting go of what is no longer needed, and releasing what we’re holding that can be offered back to the water, the lands, and ancestors.

Root Chakra & Winter Solstice Medicine Invitations

Medicines: Some medicines we invite for Stop 7 include Red Root, Winterberriess, Chaga, Cayenne, Frankincense, Myrrh, Tobacco, Red Jasper, Blood Stone, Hematite. And the lands! One of the most important medicines for the root chakra is grounding with the earth: time with your feet and coccyx (tailbone) on the grass and soil.

Teas | Cider | Bath

----

Warm Bath Recipe: Ginger Orange Bath

Cut up a piece of ginger root into thin slices

Cut about 4-5 oranges into medium slices (don't want too thin or they will sink)

Draw a hot bath and let sit for about 15 minutes

Before getting in, check the water and adjust the temperature as needed

Rest and lots of water! 

Even if rest is not in the form of sleep, allow moments of stillness and spaciousness where possible.

Curiosity

This pilgrimage is about healing -- the waters, our ancestral lineages, and ourselves and relationships. Allow curiosity for where your attention is being drawn in these areas.

Journaling

Take time to journal (written, or via other arts modalities) your experience. Even the details that don’t seem important now, allow yourself to free write, write poems, write questions, write letters, and just journal in stillness.

Archiving/Recording

Our stories are critical, and archiving experiences (written, video, various arts modalities) is a profound way to explore, express, and record. Because your experience and your story matters, and because we often have deeper revelations through sharing our stories. Anything you want to share, you can share with us at windandwarrior@gmail.com.

Grace and compassion for yourself

All healing is a journey, none is linear. Have grace, compassion, and curiosity for where you are and whatever may or may not have come up in this moon and for this chakra focus.

Return to ceremony and care invitations guide from Stops 1-6  for teas, baths, and steams to offer yourself as heart healing needs continue to be revealed. Specifically, notice places in your body where physical manifestations are occurring and offer a heart medicine poultice from the guide.

Reflections at the Headwaters

Reflections 

“The Waters know your intentions.”

                                 -Renee Gurneau

It is early morning on the last day of June, and we’re in the last days at the headwaters. We began this journey with 24 hours of driving across a nation alternately siloed in homes and uprising in the streets, still finalizing the adaptations of the vision of 2019 for the realities of 2020.

We opened the pilgrimage on Juneteenth with a land altar and ceremony on a small shore where the river meets the city under a bridge.

Drums and offerings. Songs and prayer.

Gathering at the river’s edge, and wading in the water.

The previous evening, we were received with grace and storytelling into the home of Renee Gurneau, an Anishinaabe elder and wisdom keeper. We spent hours with her in her home that evening, along with two other women, including her daughter, Simone Senogles, who would join us in ceremony at the headwaters. We talked creation stories, popular music, water songs, family, uprisings, justice, and community. We laughed about the ways of tricksters that walk with us and the great mysteries of cable TV remote controls.

We made offerings, we asked permission.

We left that evening feeling full in many ways. We received permission and an expanded circle of community. Renee and her daughter extended calls to women who are water and wisdom keepers and women learning water ceremony. On the day of the summer solstice, we gathered at the headwaters for ceremony, we exchanged songs and gifts, and later conversation and contact information to stay connected with some who we were just meeting that day.

The Mississippi River begins relatively small. Her waters have a strong song, yet gentle flows here in Minnesota. She gains size and force as the river travels south.

This Sacred Waters Pilgrimage, because of the communities on the journey with us, and those in simultaneous ceremony and virtually community conversations, feels like it is following the same pattern.

Medase (thank you).

Gratitude

As our time at the headwaters draws to a close, I reflect with immense gratitude for the Anishinaabe elders, youth, and women who shared ceremony with us and all the wisdom, knowledge, laughter, and prayers offered; for the boat ride to the northernmost point of the river and for the joy of jumping in the water together. Thank you to the many who are trusting us on the journey of this pilgrimage, the water keepers and local communities along the stops, all who are joining us from home, our GCCLP partners and Pilgrimage Circle teams. Thank you to all who are sending offerings and messages with us for the communities where we are traveling and sharing ceremony. Thank you to our families supporting us and holding it down at home during our time away. Thank you to the Ladyslippers, Dragonflies, Eagles, Loons, and Herons who greeted and visited with us over these weeks.

Thank you to the Ancestors and Spirit guides who open the ways for this pilgrimage, who protect and guide us on this journey.