This year I rediscovered gladiolas. I remembered them from childhood, saw them in grocery store buckets but, until this summer, had never planted them.

They're tall, not swoopy or graceful -- just spears of green poking into the heat.

Then they bloom. And the blossoms start at the bottom, opening in sequence. If you put them in a vase, they last. Just tear off the bottom blossoms when they wilt. The buds on top open.

And they are a wonder.

Hallelujah!

Bearing Gifts

When a Chicago friend learned that I was going to the 11th Gathering of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana, he asked if I would present some honor bundles to the grandmothers.

I emailed the organizers and when they gave permission, relayed the okay to my friend. Four days before I left, the package arrived: 13 bundles in white envelopes tied with red ribbon and leaves.

When I registered the afternoon before the gathering was to open, the staff knew of my mission. I was interviewed and advised to be prepared to present the bundles at one of the meal breaks during the program.

On opening day, the grandmothers entered the arena. Their spiritual energy was seismic, reverberating throughout my being. There were prayers and testimony to the grandmothers’ shared mission of peace. The pattern of the gathering was that each grandmother would speak and pray after ceremonies then (often) bless the approximately 600 attending. It was all marvelous but there was no opportunity to present the bundles – not a lunch, not at dinner.

 On the second day, the staff directed me to sit closer to the grandmothers. Again, the day was filled with song and dance and prayer. But again, there was no opportunity to present the bundles – not a lunch, not at dinner.

 The third day was hot – three digit temperatures. Our host grandmother, Margaret Behan, had arranged for riders to reenact the Cheyenne’s Long Ride from the Oklahoma reservations to their Montana home. The riders arrived this morning, accompanied by wolves (on leashes, brought to the reservation for ceremony). The stories about their sojourn, the healing prayers at places like Sand Creek, were intensely moving. That night, the Cheyenne prepared a feast for everyone attending. Once again, the day passed with was no opportunity to present the bundles.

 I was beginning to be annoyed at having been given the bundles, at having to carry them around, at perpetually waiting to present them.

 The last day of the gathering was filled, as the others had been, with wonderful messages and prayers and songs. I was assured that I could present the bundles after lunch. I was seated right next to the grandmothers. There were many presentations. I had about given up when they asked “Mim from Colorado” to come forward. I don’t know exactly what I said. I know it was something about having been asked by a wonderful and powerfully gentle man to present bundles containing the coals from a sacred fire intended to spread the message of peace around the world. I said there were papers in the bundles that could explain more.

 I thought it was over. But it was not. I was invited to present the bundles individually! I held the bundles with two hands, bowing a little as I handed it to the grandmothers. I looked deeply into their eyes. They looked deeply into mine. All of them smiled. Many of them kissed me. It was incredible. There were other presentations after mine and more prayers, then honor songs and dancing. The sacred fire, which had been burning before and throughout the gathering, was allowed to go out. And I had the indelible experience of personal contact with some of the most powerfully spiritual women on earth.

 Bearing gifts, I was blessed.

Schindler's List Redux

My decision to go to the General Assembly of Unitarian Universalist Congregations wasn’t a well-considered, rational choice. It was pure impulse, prompted I think by a vague sense that immigration issues (which I didn’t really understand) were issues that I could no longer ignore.

 There was no way to ignore them in Phoenix. The General Assembly was replete with information about immigration issues. I began to understand that these issues were people – people afraid to go to work lest they be arrested, thrown into a private prison, permanently separated from their husbands and children, with no legal rights, no legal recourse. No hope.

One afternoon, I left the convention center to see a documentary called “The Minister’s War,” the story of a Unitarian minister, Waitstill Sharp, and his wife Martha. In 1939, their Wellesley, Massachusetts home was filled with news of the war engulfing Europe. One Sunday, Rev. Sharp stood at his pulpit and declared war on Nazi Germany.

Martha Sharp remembered, “We realized that we were living at the front lines against Nazism. We had never felt such an urge to act before it was too late – to save these brave people, to help them save their world and our own.”

 So they acted. They left their young children with friends and flew to Europe. In Nazi-occupied Prague and Paris, in the detention camps of Vichy France and on hidden trails through the Pyrenees, they risked their lives to rescue thousands of refugees, including anti-Nazi dissidents and Jews. It was a powerful and important film – that turned out to be a theme for my experience of GA.
***
I stayed in the hotel closest to the Convention Center. One afternoon, I took the escalator from the first to the second floor. Looking down, I could not help but notice the manufacturer’s name: Schindler.
 ***
 On June 23, before participating in the Candlelight Vigil at Tent City Jail, I heard Maria Hinojosa, anchor and managing editor of NPR’s Latino USA. She said Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Weisel had advised her to question using the term “illegal immigrant.” He said there is no such thing as an illegal human being. He said that term was dangerous -- that the Nazis declared the Jews to be an illegal people and that was the beginning of the Holocaust.

 Maria told about conditions she had witnessed in immigration detention camps where people were not just fed bad food, they were hungry. People who were not criminals were being held by our government in windowless rooms with no drinking water.

 She talked about a conversation with a young, humble woman who told of her experience in a detention center. She said that when their guards would find a bed bug or lice, they would line up all of the women detainees, disrobe them and take out all of the bedding. Then the guards would make the women stand in line, naked, for the open showers. The woman told her: “There was a movie I watched as a kid and I felt like I was in it at that moment...did you ever see that movie? It's called “Schindler's List.”

In Praise of Granola Bars

After my recent camping experience during which they often comprised breakfast and/or lunch, I resolved to never again consume granola bars.

 Still, looking at the flight schedule for yet another trip – noting that no meals would be provided – I tucked several of them into my carry-on.

 Good thing. On the way to my destination, my first flight was delayed so long that getting to my second flight required sprinting (something at which I am not particularly adept). There was no time to buy anything resembling food. Fortunately, I had something resembling food in my carry-on. So I ate it.

 Then on my way home -- my 5:30 p.m. flight was canceled and the airline took about three hours to figure out what to do with their stranded passengers. Fortunately, I had purchased a ‘wrap,'half of which I consumed while arrangements were being made. They eventually decided to bus the lot of us to another airport – three hours away. I got on the bus at 9 p.m. and on the bus consumed the other half of the wrap. We got to our hotel around midnight. After about three hours sleep, I awoke in time to shower and catch the shuttle to the airport monorail. My 6:54 a.m. plane took off at 7:15 a.m. And I ate another granola bar.

 This morning, I discovered that, although I had gone to the grocery store, I had failed to get granola to sprinkle on my yogurt and berries. Then I saw it: the last granola bar. Crumpled, it was a delicious topping.

 My advice: keep granola bars on hand, and on planes, whenever you travel. You just never know.

Honoring Grandmothers

At  the 11th Gathering of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, women erected tee pees for each of the magnificent teachers. Horses and riders re-enacting the Cheyennes' Long Ride from Oklahoma reservations to their Montana home became part of the ceremonies, along with wolves, on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.

Blank Looks

They want to know what you’re talking about. They think they sort of know. You tell them you are going to the 11th Council Gathering of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers.

 “Are you indigenous?” 

 No.

 It will be held on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana.

 “Do you have Native blood?”

 No.

 Their faces become, if possible, even more blank.

 I can imagine their unspoken question: “Why would an old white woman go to an Indian reservation where she will have to camp to listen to a lot of old Indian women?” 

 First, not all indigenous people are Native American. The grandmothers come from Brazil, Central America, Gabon, Nepal, Tibet and New Zealand as well as from the Americas.

 Second, I went to learn, to join in their prayers and blessings and to be part of their efforts to heal the earth – not just from environmental degradation but also from the myriad atrocities that have covered the planet with blood.

 “Okay.” My listener is doubtful. "How can someone learn from aborigines? They are invisible. They have no culture. They are primitive and conquered peoples."  

The 13 indigenous grandmothers represent cultures that go back thousands of years – before there were governments – to the time when people and animals and plants and places could communicate – learn from one another. If the earth is to be healed, if our species is to be healed, these are the women who can help us accomplish this.

 Born and raised in the ultimate consumer culture, I need their perspectives.

 Born into a patriarchal, misogynist culture, I need their energies to empower balance and harmony between the sexes.

All of us have genetic memory of prayer circles and sacred fires. Remembering our original ways of being is a process. This process is facilitated by those with an umbilical cord connection with the earth.

 That’s why I went to the 11th Council Gathering of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers

Big Story at Little Bighorn

Never underestimate the power of a good storyteller. En route to a gathering on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, I stopped at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. I’d been there before but it was a good chance to stretch my legs. And, as it turned out, my mind.

 It’s not a happy place -- a national cemetery, monuments to fallen natives and soldiers. Even more than a century after the fact, the ground still reverberates with battle. You can sense the blood in the soil. I wandered the grounds then went into the visitors’ center where I watched a good DVD about the battle – the last native triumph.

 Someone said something about a ranger’s talk outside the center. I wandered out and found a seat, not sure why I needed to hear a talk when I’d just seen the DVD. The ranger was Steve Adelson, who introduced himself as a former history teacher.

 He warmed the crowd with references to home states and other trivia. Then he started the story, conjuring the general state of this country on the eve of its centennial – bank failures, land hunger, buffalo slaughter, and unrelenting efforts to confine all natives to reservations. He described the Indian encampment along the Little Big Horn River, which we could see from our chairs as a dark green ribbon about a mile away. Then the ranger turned thespian, acting out the Indian’s responses to an initial attack. With movements and gestures and voice, he painted the battles that followed.

 And then the silence.

 But he wasn’t through. To people on the east coast, news of the battle was equivalent to 9/11. It was that horrifying, that unbelievable.

 But of course that wasn’t the end of the story. The battle only strengthened our government’s resolve to confine all natives to reservations. The policy was reservation or extermination. And, eventually, it was largely achieved.

 But that isn’t the end of the story either. After getting the ranger’s autograph and email, I proceeded east on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation where for four days I absorbed incredible wisdom from indigenous women elders/grandmothers. They are still here. But more on that later. For now, this is my thanks to Ranger Interpreter Steve Adelson.