Last week the Sacred Lands/Sacred Sites & Ancestors working group of Sacred Earth Activism offered the first in a series of online interactive evenings to help build and deepen our sacred relationship with the land at our doorstep. We shared photo’s and stories of spots which our dear to us and we consider to be a sacred site. First I thought of a place along the riverbank of Het Wantij which is special to me, but then I realised I wanted to share a photo of my garden. This tiny piece of the earth which is given in my care as long as I live here and I try to make a safe heaven for native plants, some trees and shrubs and for pollinators, birds, hedgehog’s, lady bugs and other all kind of small and even smaller wild life.
To me, this online SEA event was also a stepping stone for the day of the summer solstice and the World Peace and Prayer Day.
Celebrating the main festivals to me is ‘from and for the community’. Our communities which approach the world from an animistic point of view and also embrace the earth and all our relatives. Let’s hold up a mirror to ourselves and each other about our lifestyles, see what steps we can take ourselves. At the same time we have to keep in mind no matter how green we are as an individual as long as our economic system is one of polluting and exploitation we cannot save the world. We have to keep on putting pressure on governments and companies (local, national and international).
So I call upon heathens and pagans to make earth activism part of their rituals and prayers and to use our ways to make a significant contribution to the fight for a thriving earth. What follows is a prayer I (re)wrote for both last weeks SEA online event and to honour World Peace and Prayer Day.
Wish all my relatives a lovely summer solstice.
Deep interconnected web of life:
things come and go
yet they could not do so
without each other.
Lessons learned long ago
lay hidden in the land.
Skills and soundness acquired by ancestors,
teachings humankind could benefit from today:
how to live healthy and in harmony
with sun and moon, with time and tide.
Awareness awakes in the well,
and flows into all directions
by whirling waters of the world.
Responsibility, balance and honesty rise
along roots of mighty and magical trees,
entrust through buds into the breeze.
The winds of change stir
sacred activism,
for climate justice,
social justice and
intergenerational justice.
Fuel and feed contributions
from concerned citizens,
joining benevolent forces.
Fuel and feed every voice
and every movement
caring for the earth, the living land.
Ancestors guide our journey home
touch us and teach us!
Help us to listen to the land.
Help us to hear the waters.
Sense the sacredness of the earth.
Siblings of old connect our sacred sites.
Be a mediator between spirits and water wights
so that they can strengthen and support each other.
All: Hail to the ancestors, hail to the land spirits and water wights!