'It's a Wake-Up Call'
It's a Wake-Up Call
Rita O. | ro2350@columbia.edu
On a rainy Wednesday morning, just days into the COVID-19 outbreak in New York, a Native American leader and her husband left the city by car for a serene village upstate that is surrounded by farms, rivers and streams.
“Mother Earth wants us to take a break,” said the woman who is known as Little Owl. “We figured that this is the perfect opportunity for us to be close to the land.”
Little Owl is the medicine woman of the Oklevueha Native American Church of New York, a community of over 1,000 members practicing spiritual traditions that honors Mother Earth and Father Sky. The New York group is an extension of their main Utah community based on two Native American tribes: Lakota Sioux and Seminole.
As with other faith groups, Little Owl and her community have turned to digital resources to stay connected during the pandemic using the Zoom video conferencing tool, iMessage and WhatsApp. Recently a video was shared through text to the community.
The community is doing its best to continue its ceremonies, heart-opening mantras, live music and drum circles online. But whether in person or online, the goal is the same: connected with the concept of oneness.
In the video that was recently shared, a rugged, graying man with unruly hair stares into the screen. He is the ayahuasca shaman – a healer who uses the plant of the same name - leader of the Amazon.
“In this moment of this world epidemic,” he begins. His words mixed over recorded violins and other string instrumentals. “We now have in our hands the opportunity to heal our heart from fear.”
The video continues highlighting almost-bare women and men in the Amazon, reconnecting with Mother Earth around flaming woods. The video serves as a reminder of what’s interrupted by the current crisis and what’s ahead.
“We have been living from fear for so long,” the shaman in the three-minute video continues. “A movement of healing is being born, a movement that will unite us globally.”
The pandemic is a wake-up call, Little Owl explains. She adds that, if people don’t wake up to change how the earth is treated and how people treat each other, then Mother Earth is going to do something about it. This pandemic, though extreme, could be that “something,” she says. The global crisis is chaotic and one with a divine purpose; it’s a reawaken to listen to the earth they worship.
Oklevueha’s planned ceremonies and rituals for the remainder of the year, like the healing rituals and dance circles, were postponed or canceled. The live, interactive community at large, Little Owl says, is on pause.
Though not ideal, the benefit of their Zoom meetings and group chats is that the community can still “see each other's faces” and stay connected. They can grow together through the uncertainties and remain inspired by sharing videos like the one of the Amazon and joining in on collective meditation while safely at their homes.
“This is the perfect time for us to find that inner peace. And, to find that connection to silence.”
In the countryside now, she already sees a shift in her perspective amid the crisis.
“Where there's a crisis, there is blessing, and there is an opportunity for change,” she says. “The bigger the crisis, the bigger the opportunity we have to shift to a new reality.”
The Healing Circle
The Healing Circle
Rita O. | ro2350@columbia.edu
It’s the second Saturday in February, and hours from now, a full moon will rise over New York City. Seventeen intertribal men and women, some old and some young, some with blonde hair, others with sleeve tattoos, gather on the second floor of an apartment building in Greenwich Village for tonight’s healing circle. They come from different Native American tribes. They gather here every second Saturday of the month but tonight is special. With the full moon approaching, it’s the perfect time for a cleansing. The moon brings renewal of spirit.
Itzhak, the circle leader, walks in five minutes past 7 p.m. All the members in the circle sit on the ground, legs folded, backs upright, waiting on Itzhak’s instruction. He plops down at the edge of the circle and immediately begins. In front of him is the altar. A ring of four lit white candles and one red one in the middle sit atop a Navajo blanket with particulars from the earth: sand, a variety of greens and red petals.
The room turns dim. The altar is bright.
Itzhak sets the mood. “We can drum or rattle. When we do that, we want to close our eyes. Let our body relax. And, whatever comes to your mind, is exactly what you need to have.”
The room readjusts with each word.
“If you see any visions, or whatever comes up, just go with it.”
He grabs his oversized drum and beater. “If you don’t have an instrument, please grab one from the altar.” At the altar are rattles and hand drums with adjoined beaters.
The drums are the heartbeat of such gatherings. They awaken the soul, Itzak later explains. “The rattles and the drums help us transcend our own reality and consciousness to a world of dreams and visions.”
DOOM.
DOOM.
DOOM.
He eases the room into that world with his drumming.
DOOM-DOOM.
DOOM-DOOM.
Do-do-do-do doom. Do-do-do-do doom. Do-do-do-do doom.
He drums. They rattle. On beat. He goes faster. They follow suit. He mellows out. So do they.
The room goes on in this manner for 15 minutes. Then, DOOM.
Before tonight’s journey to the lower world, the leaders must carry out the cleansing.
Everyone rises.
One by one, Iwona and Jacho, two other leaders here tonight, mist the air around each person with sage, while Glori, another leader, serenades the room with a flute. Iwona and Jacho wave prayer feathers around each person. Then, like a brush to canvas, they wipe the old away from their clothed bodies, from the tips of their head to the soles of their feet. Vigorously rubbing away all that is unclean with the feather, before the “call in the four directions.”
Jacho leads the call.
The call is a "thanks to all that gives.” To the water, the river, the sun and the moon. To all the things that make it possible to live. To the “grandmothers and ancestors.”
“First, we call to the East. Eastern air, carries eagles flair with the feast of mind and broad in sight, for those who rise with father’s light. This spring is king and all is right. We call to the spirits of the East, the place of the rising sun, the place of the eagle, the plains. We call to those spirits that exists only for our highest good and well-being. We ask these spirits to come here and be with us and join us tonight.”
Everyone rattles. Then, echoes, “Aho.”
Jacho calls to the spirits of the South. To, “The place of fire,” and the place of the rattles and snakes, who “shed their skin.” Everyone rattles. Then, echoes, “Aho.”
Jacho moves on to the West. “We call to the spirits of the West. Land of Astro. Space of dreams. We call to the spirits that are aligned with the highest.”
Then, to the North. “To the ancestors talking. To the ancestors before us. Teaching us, showing us the way.” And then he calls to the spirit above, “to the realm of the spirit guides and celestial beings that watch over us and protect us, and provide us with intuition. We invite those spirits.” Everyone lifts their hands and heads, high. Their eyes are tightly shut, in expectance.
Finally, Jacho calls to Achamama, to mother earth.
Everyone is on their knees now, their heads touching the altar. “We ask the spirit of mother earth who is always with us to be with us here tonight. To learn from her. For her wisdom and guidance.”
There is one final collective rattling, and an, “Aho.” Then, everyone returns to their seated position in the circle.
Glori takes a loud, deep breath. The room follows. Then, she softly instructs today’s journey.
“Tonight is about relationships,” she says. “We are here tonight to think about all the relationships that come into our lives. Everything that touches us. We sometimes forget to honor them.” Tonight, she continues, is about honoring every relationship in our lives.
“We’ll go into our journeys to find those relationships and find those sacred moments.”
Tonight’s journey “sinks us into that depth to learn from the lower world,” from animals, from anything that crawls or flies. “Go into the earth and go to your spirit guides. When you meet your animal, ask them to take you to one of those sacred relationships you need to learn from tonight.”
DOOM.
DOOM.
DOOM.
The room grows hushed. Everyone assumes a position. Some spread out on the floor. Others fold their knees to their chest. Eyes are shut.
The drum beats grow louder.
Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat.
And then faster. Rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat.
Then after about fifteen minutes.
DOOM.
DOOM.
DOOM.
Everyone returns from the lower world. Some members confess they rushed their goodbyes with their spirit guides with the last DOOM.
After the first journey, Glori passes the drum beater around. The member with the beater in hand is the only one allowed to speak. Each person must speak about their encounter with their spirit guide.
One woman weeps when describing her mother in the lower world. Her guide was a butterfly who took her to see her mother, brother and sister there. The butterfly instructed her to touch her mother’s belly the next time she sees her on earth because anytime now, she’ll be leaving to go to another world. But the butterfly left her comforted, saying she will be with her mother in the next world.
After the second journey, led by Glori in the same manner, another woman describes meeting a man named Robert after passing through a portal of “dark blue flames and purple forests,” and meeting her mountain lion guide. Robert, she explains, is from her previous life. He is stuck, she says. "Robert never knew love and had a bad life.” She needs to save him but because of the last DOOM, she didn’t have time.
But “I duplicated my heart and left it with him and let him know I will come back and I told him, ‘I will bring you to Pachamama and Mamakia, and we’re going to get you out of here. You don’t belong here!’”
She wants to get him out and hopes to do so on the next journey. The room comforts her with a ringing “Aho.”