Deep Peace to you this holiday

Deep peace I breathe into you,
O weariness, here:
O ache, here!
Deep peace, a soft white dove to You;
Deep peace, a quiet rain to you;
Deep peace, an ebbing wave to you!
Deep peace, red wind of the east from you;
Deep peace, grey wind of the west to You;
Deep peace, dark wind of the north from you;
Deep peace, blue wind of the south to you!
Deep peace, pure red of the flame to you;
Deep peace, pure white of the moon to you;
Deep peace, pure green of the grass to you;
Deep peace, pure brown of the earth to you;
Deep peace, pure grey of the dew to you,
Deep peace, pure blue of the sky to you!
Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the sleeping stones to you!
Deep peace of the Yellow Shepherd to you,
Deep peace of the Wandering Shepherdess to you,
Deep peace of the Flock of Stars to you,
Deep peace from the Son of Peace to you,
Deep peace from the heart of Mary to you,
And from Briget of the Mantle
Deep peace, deep peace! 

1895 variation of traditional Celtic Prayer

Image copyright Toni Truesdale

Grandmother Agnes be at peace and surrounded by love

Grandmother’s Prayer

“I am a voice for the voiceless. We are speaking to an unseen world.

Speaking for Mother Earth, trying to stop our spiritual blindness.

We speak for the animal kingdom, for those in the waters, for the ‘four leggeds’ and the one leggeds(trees), the Bengal tiger, the elephant, the creepy crawlers.

I pray that the creator hears us. The creatures have a right to be. The creator gave us instructions about this and how to be a long time ago. He told us ways to take care of ourselves, what to eat and where to live. But now we are unbalanced.

We cut the green off our Mother’s face. We pollute the water, Her blood.

We do clearcut logging on the tops of mountains, when the trees they are the ones that call the wind and rain. Without the ancient trees at the top of our mountains, we are in trouble. The little trees can’t do the same work as the old trees that have been destroyed”... Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim

Celtic traditiomal Prayer

May your day be filled with blessings

Like the sun that lights the sky,

And may you have the courage

To spread your wings and fly!

Celtic traditional prayer

Indigenous Peoples Month

“Red Pendleton Blanket:

Earth and Sky”

By Toni Truesdale

The Elders play an important role in all societies.

Their wisdom from experience makes them invaluable teachers.

As Western values are constantly encroaching on

Indigenous communities,

Use of Native traditions is eroding;

Heritage languages are becoming endangered.

Youth are easily caught between the mainstream and tribal worlds.

All of our elderly are more socially isolated.

If we don’t learn to bring together

The generations in positive communication

Much cultural knowledge will be lost.

copyright 2007 T. Truesdale

we are of the earth, belonging, as all living things

Basket-House-Village-Universe

by Toni Truesdale

Baskets of women

Reflect nourishment

Physical as well as spiritual

Object to concept

Keeping sacred the spirit of everyday life;

Within the home

Utilitarian to universal

Dwelling to village

Community to cosmos

Each human passage

of the last 140 thousand years...

Birth to death

The finite to consummation

End to beginning...

copyright 2010

ToniTruesdale.com

All Souls Day

Prayer for the Dead

by Toni Truesdale

To all those conquered bones,

With the painful solitude of lone closed eyes.

It’s not just the victim that dies.

Did gold, silver and slaves

Make this destiny just?

Or did fate rape those women in lust?

Can they ‘save’ the souls

To make it just?

Or did Manifest greed burn the cross in the night?

Would it not be right,

To look back at 500 years;

And say to those dead

That we finally see their tears?

And to each that has suffered

Say a prayer for peace;

For the sake of the future

And the hope of release;

From that continuing cycle

Of servant of master...

copyright 2000

ToniTruesdale.com

Female power of healing

“Healing Light”

by Toni Truesdale

The archaic texts of the ancients allude to the talents of women

in prophecy and healing. They are direct gifts from the

body of our primordial mother, Earth.

Copyright T. Truesdale

Indigenous Peoples day: in the Footsteps of the Ancestors

Remember the sacrifices and strength,

The ancestors are the 

Foundation of this country.

The peacemakers and the warriors that fought to preserve,

 The mothers who have been the teachers of language and culture.

We all give thanks to them that came before

To ensure the Nations are still here,

The children of this generation will help save the world.

Prayer for Sea and Sky

Prayer for Sky and Sea

The ancient sea is the womb

Of our sentient world

Each to each, every living being

Sustained in symbiotic union

Under our star filled sky.

Copyright T. Truesdale 2019

ToniTruesdale.com

Prayers for Land and Life

Prayer for Land and Life

Imprints and patterns of evolving Species:

Plants, animals, insects, birds

Repeat generational cycles

As life force gives to the next generation;

Charting the way back to the very beginning

Connected to the changing land;

As our world revolves to the surrounding sky

The shimmering sun, sweet singing moon.

We gaze awestruck, with our ancestor’s eyes,

 Into the dazzling void of the universe.

Copyright T.Truesdale 2019

ToniTruesdale.com

Red Rain

 “It is prophesied in our instructions that the end of the world will be near when the trees start dying from the top down. That is what the maples are doing now. Our instructions say the time will come when there will be no corn,

when nothing will grow in the garden, when water will be unfit to drink.

In our ways, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics. We must live in harmony with the natural world and recognize the excessive exploitation can only lead to our destruction. We cannot trade the welfare of our future generations for profit now…

We are instructed to carry love for one another, and to show great respect for all beings of the earth. We must stand together, the four colors of man,

as the one family we are. In the interest of peace.

We must abolish nuclear and conventional weapons of war.

We must raise leaders of peace.

We must unite the religions of the world as a spiritual force

strong enough to prevail in peace.

We (Human Beings) are a positive energy that is a thousand times

 stronger than nuclear energy.

Our energy is the combined will of all people with the spirit of the natural world, to be of one body, one heart, and one mind for peace”

- The late Leon Shenandoah, Onondaga

“We are now living in the fourth and final world of the Hopi. We are now at a most critical time in Human history. It is a crossroads at which the outcome of our actions will decide the fate of all life on earth”

- Martin Gashweseoma, Hopi

Quotes thanks to Akwesasne Notes

Grandmothers Prayer

“Spirits of the sun, of the moon, of the stars,

of the seas, of the mountains, of the Earth,

of forests, of air, of thunder, of water, of the spirit of fire,

and of our ancestors-help us.

Watch over our Earth, watch over our progeny.

Awaken in our hearts tolerance and unity...”

-Grandmother’s Prayer/ Agnes Pilgrim

The sacred stories return to us to honor all living things

White Buffalo Woman

by Toni Truesdale

The White Buffalo Woman of the Lakota Sioux

Brought the message of hope

With instructions on living to the people.

Millions of the great animal lived on the western plains;

The buffalo provided sustenance and survival.

Nearly extinct by white marksman

Who slaughtered them  “for sport”’

The buffalo were left laying in the sun, rotting

Hundreds at a time.

We need to be reminded today;

The sacredness of balance.

Is in the connection of all living things.

To take only what is needed;

Precious, is each life.

Use it with reverence.

And, think of the environment

As your family

And give thanks...

Copyright 1983

ToniTruesdale.com

Celebration

Sugar

by Toni Truesdale

Celebrate overcoming the past

All People of Color

Is it freedom at last?

We begin each morning

Sweetening our cups of coffee and tea;

With sugar refined as

White as history;

Trying hard to distance itself

From the memory

Of genocide and slavery.

Now In the beautiful, warm vacation seas.

Shanty towns and the company store

Create the stillness of poverty;

The Eden now cleared of Native Peoples

And the terrorized Africans

Overworked and disposed before 30.

All to create fortunes for entitled families.

Money from death and misery, bleached

Pure by virtuous European banks;

In a society where income is so esteemed

It became the western hierarchy of ruling currency.

Celebrate overcoming the past,

Where all people are valued at last.

Celebrate the yet to come;

Where full freedom is finally won.

Dedicated to the late Reverand William Potter

Truesdale copyright 2011

Together woman can Protect the future generations: Circle Dance

“Circle Dance”

by Toni Truesdale

Many ceremonies all over the world are danced in a circle.

In the northern hemisphere people dance counterclockwise.

In the southern hemisphere people dance clockwise.

We all follow the rhythms of the earth

.

The drumbeat is the heart of the great mother, ancestress of all life.

All people have danced in this way at one time.

We all share a humanity and one inter-tribal world.

The races of women join together to preserve and protect the world as we know it

For our children and grandchildren into our shared future.

ToniTruesdale.com

Copyright T. Truesdale 2013

testimony of the stones

Standing Stones at Kinnell

For over 5000 years this stone circle

Stands sentry to the largest Loch in Scotland;

In turn feeds the Great River Tay to the east,

And the cascading River Dochart to the west.

Nestled between the mountains of

Gron a Clahan and Beinn Leabhamn

Standing still in an open prayer.

Copyright 2019 T. Truesdale

ToniTruesdale.com

Goddess of a Thousand names

Goddess of A Thousand Names:

The First Female Divinity, Our Common Mother, Earth

Toni Truesdale

 

(Migration: Creation story)

Our ancestors, all, tread through pristine wilderness, crossed deserts, glaciers, oceans and at each stop seeded future generations. Across Earth there is a clear connection from our genesis to the present manifestation of the divine female; The Great Mother,                   ((Tara with the Sun and the Moon)

whom produced all life on this Blue Planet. The passages continue today; but now it is time to reconnect the bonds that tie people to this World; to each other, to all life. May we begin to celebrate again the source, (art: The Source) her sacredness: Goddess of a Thousand Names

                                   

 (  Sanctuary).

Humans have always been in motion:

“Primordial people

Set forth on the longest journey;

To here, now as each individual breath descends;

We all exhale in the moment of still moving humanity”

We walked through centuries, created cultures, religions, shrines, art; developed languages that spoke a thousand feminine names for our sacred earth 

            ( In her Footsteps).

  

“Ancestors, all came through historical patterns of migrations

Moving through hunger, fear, curiosity

Diaspora, trans-Atlantic passages, immigration

Displacement, clearances, long walks and removals…”

                                                               ( Diaspora)

Some of her names we remember: Magna Dea, Tara, Callileach, Danu, Terra Mater, Tiamat, An, Demeter, PachaMama, Mawu, Nana Bakulu, Tiamat, Nut, Gaia, Tonantzin, Hon Tu, Bhumi Dea, Joro… For every step in the movement of humanity there was a name for beloved Mother Earth, the original Creatrix.

                                                              ( Tiamat). 


We need to rediscover these names, remember and create anew sacredness to our greatest commonality this world we share with all living things.  

Tracing back through our common female primordial past through the mitochondrial DNA human origins begin at the southern of Africa

                                                                 ( EVE). 

We are a people evolving, moving as are all species, with genetic knowledge inherited each generation to the next back to the beginning, where all things are connected.

“The circle of life is the

Center of the Earth,

Cycle of seasons,

Rhythm of the winds,

Timelessness of the elements

Spiral of the generations

Crossroads of visions,

Spirits of the Four Directions,

Medicine of healing,

Red, black, white and yellow of the races of humanity,

Roots of the Great Tree of LIfe,

All linking humanity, animals,

Plants, birds, insects

To the oneness of all things…”

The prophesies of many indigenous people speak to this time. We face a choice, to live in a more sacred way, of balance with all our relations… 

        

                                                            ( Migrations)

“Mothers of the Continents”

Grand(mothers) of the continents

Crossing into now deep waters...

Weren’t we all once one?

Ancestors evolve into descendants

To mix culturally

Contradicting with irony

The centuries of violence caused by the mode of current biases...

If we could perceive through generations

Past into what will be

It would transform pointless superiority

and embrace all the children yet to be

As our common family.

( Fates of the Earth)

All images and words are copyrighted.

 Please contact me for permissions for usage. Thanks