To Brown and the Season of Lights

We walked across a mountain valley towards a beautiful stream we called ‘The Medicine’.  As we moved silently towards our destination the movements of the earth seemed to come alive.

For a moment I was suspended in time and nothing else existed.  I wanted to hold forever this fleeting moment and the ceremony of ‘Going To water’.  I knew that my blessing was with this old elder and his life teachings.  No words can fully describe this experience.

After years of living in harmony with the earth he had an insight to life that is rarely witnessed today.  His very movements were Hers.  He spoke of Her with a sacredness that left one feeling as if you were in the very presence of the Creators own.  He described in minute detail life and its glories.

“The water is the earths blood”, he would say “and it is our duty not to pollute Her arteries and veins”.  He told how all water is related no matter where on earth you find it.  That life is precious and full of mystery.

As our hands touched the waters of The Medicine I realized that in that moment he was aware of everything.  He was at one with every living thing.  “Like the river in its natural course all things must freely pass through us” he would say and finish with “it is our healing”.

He often compared humans to a river that has been damned up.  He would continue.  “Life does not freely flow through them, their minds and bodies have become stagnate like a river whose waters have been blocked”.

I remember this as if it were yesterday.  I can still see, feel, hear, taste and smell that experience.  The Medicine still flowing through my body, mind and spirit unrestricted.    

In The Season of the Lights, the Winter Solstice I remember many years ago the blessings of an elder named Brown.  One who once walked from the path and then returned to bless the younger generations like myself.

Every mountain, stream, meadow, tree, squirrel, sunrise or sunset brings to mind how blessed we are.  Every moment is a breath and every breath is a life.  Like winter to spring and summer to fall we are ever moving and changing.  Let us not forget our many blessings, most of all let us remember life. 

Yona Unega