What Would an Indigenous Grandmother Do?

Just back from the Healers and Healing Intensive with Deena Metzger on her land in Topanga Canyon.  A deep and soulful week in a circle of 18 (sometimes 19) women, two dogs, and lots of animal and ancestor spirits.

Deena worked very hard to help us begin to divest ourselves of our acculturated minds and to inquire into how we might live authentic and healing lives in a corrupt culture and a world in such trouble.

Many realizations, some profound personal healing, and many things to consider going forward.  For now, a poem:

I don’t want to change

my thoughts.

I want to change

the way I think.

I want to think

in images, in stories

spun as threads

arising long and slow

out of culture and

out of the Grandmother Spider

of indigenous mind.

I want to learn

to live in the old ways,

the ways of spirit.

I want to see

the signs and the

deep, precise wisdom

of the true ones –

ancestors, elders, any and all

trying to inform us that

there is a way -

there is a way

to heal,

there is a way

to see,

there is a way

to change direction,

there is a way

to give the children

what they need

to be safe

to be listening

to be healthy

to be whole.

I, too,

want to be whole

all the way into

death and, yes,

I’ll say it,

beyond death,

beyond it but not beyond

the cycle of being -

the ring, the hoop of

being together.

This is the place where

Love remains, where

Love sustains, where

Love comes

into and through

all things.

Love is spirit

flowing into the life

of the world.

Knowing this

I am left with a question

to pose to myself:

What would an

indigenous grandmother do?