Newfoundland. Part II: DRUM drum DRUM drum

 

FIRE CIRCLE (Liturgy) AT THE LIGHTHOUSE, Part Two

The Smudging Ceremony

From the blanket
A drum offered to the Scottish woman,
“Drum like so,” says Kevin.

On the blanket
a shell to hold the sage leaves,
a match to ignite them.

Kevin bearing the shell to each of us in the circle
clockwise, each in turn scoops the smoke
over face, chest, mouth, heart.

To purify
To ward off evil spirits
DRUM drum DRUM drum.

Kevin asks, “What does the drumming make you think of?”
“A horse,” I pipe up.
A heart,” offers the man with the red-and-blue-collared dogs.

“Yis,” lilts Kevin, returning the shell to the red blanket.
Sits legs crossed.

                                                         sacrament
                                                         communion
                                                         park program turned worship

 

The Lessons

 

The Moose and the Calf.

Kevin tells us a story. “My grandfather and I were moose hunting. We saw one by a bog, but Grandfather squatted, lit his pipe, and smoked in silence while I fidgeted, thinking of my mother’s frying pan sizzling with moose meat. Eventually a moose calf walked out of the woods. Grandfather knew all along that it would; he had noticed that the cow moose was full of milk. He snuffed his pipe and we moved on across the barrens.”

“The first thing Grandfather did after killing game,” adds Kevin, “was to say aloud, ‘Your spirit will live forever. Thank you for giving yourself to feed our family.’ “

”One time, as a teenager, I shot a robin,” he continues. “Was Grandfather angry? No, but he cried when he saw the worm in the robin’s mouth.”

“You see,” he reflects softly, “Every action has a consequence. Aboriginal people seek to give, not take.”

 

                                 

            

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kevin looks around at our rapt faces. “Did anything you ate today come from something that was not once alive?”

“No?”

Grandmother and the Blueberries. Kevin tells another story. “One day, my grandmother and I walked to the barrens to pick blueberries, each with a container to fill so grandmother could bake a blueberry grunt for supper. We scooped berries by the handful – there were SO many – and I wanted to return home to get a larger container.”

“ ‘But,’ said Grandmother, ‘what if we pick so many that Mr. Stewart’s wife won’t find any when she decides to make a blueberry grunt and comes picking?’

‘And what about Mrs. Goudy?’ “

                                                                     Squirming of congregants
                                                                     I want to tell Mrs. Goudy to hurry up
                                                                     The well-fed dogs sleep

   

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