In yesterday’s DM, we learned anew of the African wisdom that all creation is sacred. This is echoed surely in other indigenous traditions, such as among Native Americans.
Black Elk writes: We regard all created beings as sacred and important, for everything has a wochangi, or influence, which can be given to us, through which we may gain a little more understanding if we are attentive.
We should understand well that all things are the work of the Great Spirit. We should know that he is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and all the four-legged animals, and the winged peoples; and even more important, we should understand that he is also above all these things and peoples.
The Lakota people honor “all our relations” — Mitakuye Oyasin. And this realization of relationship is at the heart of what brings peace to the human heart. Says Black Elk: Peace comes within the souls of humans when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the Universe dwells Wakan-Tanka (the Great Spirit), and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
An old Omaha elder remembers his youth: When I walked abroad, I could see many forms of life, beautiful living creatures which Wakanda had placed here; and these were, after their manner, walking, flying, leaping, running, playing all about.
But changes have taken place. Now the face of all the land is changed and sad. The living creatures are gone. I see the land desolate, and I suffer an unspeakable sadness. Sometimes I wake up in the night, and I feel as though I should suffocate from the pressure of this awful feeling of loneliness.
How much is an awful feeling of loneliness touching all of us these days as Mother Earth succumbs more and more to the neglect and abuse of human industry, fossil fuels, and the rest?
Speaking from the African tradition, Dona Marimba Richards reminds us how we bring back a sense of community and the “whole” when it is lost or wounded through ritual. The universe was created (is continually ‘recreated’) by a divine act. We participate in that act as we perform rituals in imitation of the Creator and aspects of the Creator….Through association with this sacred universe, divinely created life itself becomes sacred and a most precious gift to be cherished, preserved, passed on and revitalized. It is to be lived to its fullest.
She speaks more about the role of music, ritual, and dance. “Few have understood what music is to us. Black music is sacred music. It is the expression of the divine within us.” We become “part of the whole,” and music puts us in tune with the universe. It explains to us the mysterious workings of the universe and ourselves as cosmic beings….As in ritual, in music, the human and the Divine meet.
Dance is integral to such a ritual. Through dance we experience reality as immediate to us; that is, we are identified with the universe….Dance, for us, is a religious expression. When we dance through Rhythm, we express ourselves as cosmic beings…Dance and Song; Rhythm and Music, then, are part of the matrix of the African Universe.
Banner Image: A Native American Hoop Dancer recreates the order of the cosmos. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you sometimes sense an “awful feeling of loneliness,” and do you sense it in others? Might the wounding of Mother Earth and feeling cut off from the larger community of the universe be triggering that sense of grief and loss and isolation? Do rituals of dance, rhythm, and music reconnect you to belonging to the cosmos again?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing From Global Faiths, pp. 48f., 97, 240.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Wrestling With the Prophets: Creation Spirituality in Everyday Life
Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
6 thoughts on “How Indigenous Rituals in America & Africa Bring Connection to the Whole”
Yes! Yes! Yes! My Faith graces me to continue deepening my experience of Our Source~Co-Creator’s Living Loving Presence within and among Us in All of ongoing Creation here on Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her living creatures/Her graceful abundance, and with-in Our Sacred evolving Cosmos, with All its unique physical/nonphysical spiritual beings and dimensions, in LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS in the Sacred Spirit/Flow of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
I particularly liked Dr. Marimba Ani’s comment that “in order to reconnect ourselves to that power source we have to re-create the ritual.” We often forget that “recreation” is a time for play, relaxation, enjoyment, music, dance, socializing, etc. “Come hear the music play, life is a cabaret, old chum. Come to the cabaret, put down the knitting, the book and the broom, time for a holiday. . .”
Yet, old chum, hand-washing the dishes, knitting, books and brooms can also be creative and recreative.
❤️❤️
Loved today’s message! I have have Black Elk’s book, The Sacred Pipe, and the verses you quoted from it are my favourites, have memorized them. They perfectly and succinctly define panentheism and pretty much all reality.
When Dr. Marimba Ani speaks about reciprocity being a central tenet of ritual, I can’t help but remember that that is exactly what Robin Wall Kimmerer says about the Native American principle of a good society as well.
Yes, thank you for this Indigenous reminder of the sacredness of ALL Creation. This mindset would make it impossible to justify deep sea mining off the coast of Alaska to destroy whole ecosystem to get phosphorous to produce glyphosate for agricultural production. All the sea creatures would be destroyed – for profit. This is a colonial Mind set at work in the US Government today. We can still speak up. We must call out these kinds of projects as against the dignity of Creator.