Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery,
teach me how to trust
my heart,
my mind,
my intuition,
my inner knowing,
the senses of my body,
the blessings of my spirit.
Teach me to trust these things
so that I may enter my Sacred Space
and love beyond my fear,
and thus Walk in Balance
with the passing of each Glorious Sun.
The opening words, a prayer from the Lakota tradition, struck me this week in a powerful way. First of all, we are addressing Wakan Tanka, translated as the Great Mystery. Isn’t this the opposite of how fundamentalist teachings address the divine…how we may have been taught as children growing up in the Christian tradition? Aren’t we supposed to know God…aren’t we supposed to know the specific attributes of God? How else can we worship God…or Praise God? Are we comfortable with thinking of the divine this way…as a mystery? Are we comfortable not knowing?
The prayer continues with a line of questioning…of investigation using the wisdom of the body. This resonated with my current study on paying attention to the wisdom of the body, in conjunction with my work as a psycho-therapist. The Lakota teacher is asking the Great Mystery to teach them how to trust. Trust is an important concept, especially when we are in the realm of the mysterious…the place of uncertainty…when we are put in the position of having to ask. This place demands a humility that is often difficult to call forth in our dealings with others. Often, we want to appear like we know. This knowing is mostly seen as happening in our mind. It is made up of facts that we can depend on or trust. Of course, this is what sustains so many on earth and I am not downplaying its importance.
This is especially true in the Christian traditions that so many of us are familiar with. Yet, we know that something else is going on. The trust is by no means an intellectual exercise. Instead, we are being called to trust something that we may only sense intuitively or on a spiritual level…one that cannot perhaps be objectively corroborated.
The Lakota prayer, addressing the Great Mystery seeks this wisdom…this trust in the body…the heart, the mind, the intuition, the inner knowing, the senses and in the blessings of the spirit. But the teaching is coming from the mystery itself…the mystery that is embedded in our everyday experience. We see this is Indigenous traditions…from Native American to traditions from all over the world. The body is enlisted as a source of knowledge…of direction on our questioning…on our quest to find ways to enter our Sacred Space.
This concept of Sacred Space is something that is common to all traditions…including that of our own Dr. Howard Thurman who wrote of this space like this:
There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island and on that island there is an altar and standing guard before that altar is the 'angel with the flaming sword.' Nothing can get by that angel to be placed upon that altar unless it has the mark of your inner authority. Nothing passes 'the angel with the flaming sword' to be placed upon your altar unless it be a part of 'the fluid area of your consent.' This is your crucial link with the Eternal.
The crucial link with the Eternal, then is found within…and it is so special…so sacred that it needs to be guarded by an angel with a flaming sword. The angel seems to be our inner guide…testing our intentions and the authenticity of each decision we make…it must carry the mark of our inner authority. Notice that the Lakota prayer speaks of my Sacred Space. It is a place where we learn how to love beyond our fear. It is a space of intimacy with the divine…with our divine nature. This is a daily practice…learning to love beyond our fear…the fear of uncertainty…the fear that causes us to hurt ourselves and others. And this healing is rooted in our bodies and spirits. It is something with which we were born. But the power to heal and to become whole sometimes needs a midwife…a guide…a mentor…someone or something to take us to that space.
The drumming is one way to do this. Another way is singing. Both enable us to connect with the wisdom of the body…to navigate the inward sea. Thurman had a meditation that captured this process. Often read by Mike Brown, these are the words:
How good it is to center down!
To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by!
The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic;
Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,
While something deep within hungers
and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.
With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living;
A direction, a strong sure purpose that will structure our confusion
and bring meaning in our chaos.
We look at ourselves in this waiting moment — the kinds of people we are.
The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives? —
what are the motives that order our days?
What is the end of our doings?
Where are we trying to go?
Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused?
For what end do we make sacrifices?
Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?
What do I hate most in life and to what am I true?
Over and over the questions beat in upon the waiting moment.
As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence,
there is a sound of another kind —
A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.
It moves directly to the core of our being.
Our questions are answered,
Our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily round
With the peace of the Eternal in our step.
How good it is to center down!
Again, centering down is often not something we experience alone in our room. It is something that we feel called to share in community. It is a way to experience the support of others who also have hearts and minds, intuition and knowing, senses and blessings. We gather, as our ancestors gathered to share in the spirit of the Great Mystery, Wakan Tanka. It is from here that we are able to find some balance…a place where we can begin the work of reconciliation with the past…our own individual past, as well as our collective past. Clearly, this is something that is needed today.
I’d like to close with a vision of indigenous wisdom from the thirteen Grandmothers. At an event in 2004 in a magical valley in the Catskill Mountains of New York, a sacred fire was lit that was to last for 7 days. The grandmothers invoked the directions, danced, chanted, sang and prayed…for world peace, social justice, environmental justice and a healing of our Mother Earth. They approached the fire with their offerings, entering a profoundly sacred space. As they circled the fire, a sudden wind came up surrounding the grandmothers, though not one leaf on the surrounding trees stirred. “The Grandmothers from the other side are here,” said Grandmother Agnes, not at all surprised but deeply humbled. “They give their blessing.”
May we heed the grandmothers call to wholeness, through a profoundly humble process of learning to trust…trust that we have within us and among us, all that is needed to transform our world in this moment in time. May we, as a species learn to walk in balance…balance with all our relations, with the passing of each Glorious Sun.
Comments