I returned yesterday from four days spent in ceremony with a couple of my brothers. We went to Kejimkujik Park and fasted - one for his first time. Why do we do this? First, it slows us down. After three days without food and water, your metabolism, and your pace, slow to a crawl, giving you much more time to appreciate what is around you. The usual dozens of inconsequential concerns of everyday life lose meaning, and you mind begins to be quiet and focused. Second, it is a time for sustained contemplation of spiritual matters. You are deliberately going without food and water, and that tends to help you remember why you are there. This also tends to sensitize you to input from the spirits. You ask questions, request guidance, and answers are there for you, where often the back buzz of everyday life obscures those answers. I had questions, and I got my answers, and where I did not, I know why. This, in turn, reinforces your beliefs, and takes you one step further on the Red Road. At the end of a fast, you feel pleasantly exhausted, and know deep inside that you have accomplished something of importance. At the same time as your body is used up, your spirit is light, recharged, and connected with the spirit world again. You also tend to appreciate the little pleasures of everyday life more when you come back out. Comforts and conveniences are fine until we take them for granted, but after a fast, food tastes are more intense, water is a precious gift, and you look at everything with fresh eyes. It refreshes that knowledge inside that says we should keep our lives simple. Another part of the experience is developing better perception of your surroundings: what one of my brothers calls the Alpha state. He describes daily life as living in tunnel vision: we focus only on what is directly in front of us, and lose sight of everything around us. In the wilds, that focus goes away, and you begin to perceive much more around you. At one point I was walking the path (an old road, really) between our fasting sites in deep twilight, and could sharply see every leaf and every root and every snag from one edge to the other - an interesting experience. This is why we fast. A final word: when we went into the sweatlodge to complete our fast, we first brought in a single grandmother (the heated stones) and lit the Pipe to commence the ceremony. As we did, a spider was panicing and trying to find a way out of the pit in the ground, which had suddenly gotten uncomfortably warm. All four of us leaned forward, focused on our tiny brother, and when he got to the edge of the pit one of us collected him and put him safely to one side so we could bring in the next grandmothers. Those are my brothers. Those are true warriors: defending the weak, doing no harm, and concerned for every living thing. That is the caliber of men I get to associate with, and who choose to call me brother. My deepest respects to Robert Wiebe and Dave Males, with whom I fasted, and to George Doyle-Bedwell for sweating us in and out. My abiding love goes out to all three of my brothers. My life would be diminished without you three amazing (and totally demented) men in it. Taho. Msɨt nokmaq.
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 17:24:49 +0000
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