Honoring the Center

True interfaith community is beginning to happen. This can be supported when the "spin" of each religious tradition is understood, how it may have been of value at one time to perpetuate the specific prayer form lineage. Then the essential part of the "work" of that religion needs to be delved into and then we may all accept each other within the profound gratefulness that Mother Earth is here just for us. That is what this blog has been about basically for the five years it has been around the web. The medicine wheels and how they relate to the human soul root Tree, especially get to the heart of the matter. In hearing of the call to prayer of the Native American elders this week for the solstice eclipse it reminded me of the heartfelt teachings and vision of the Lakota elder chief Black Elk and the wisdom of the "Six Grandfathers", the Daybreak Star, and the sprouting Tree in the Center of it all. Here is his final prophecy from the 1930's ce book "The Sacred Pipe" about the Center of it all:
Black Elk explains in his book “The Sacred Pipe” the seventh sacred rite of the Lakota People; called Throwing of the Ball:
"First, it is a little girl, and not an older person, who stands at the centre and throws the ball. This is as it should be, for just as Wakan-Tanka is eternally youthful and pure, so is this little girl who has just come from Wakan-Tanka, pure and without any darkness [Ignorance of His light. Ed.]. Just as the ball is thrown from the centre to the four quarters, so Wakan-Tanka is at every direction and is everywhere in the world; and as the ball descends upon the people, so does His power… The game… represents the course of a man’s life, which should be spent in trying to get the ball, for the ball represents Wakan-Tanka, or the universe…”
“At this sad time today among our people, we are scrambling for the ball, and some are not even trying to catch it, which makes me cry when I think of it. But soon I know it will be caught, for the end is rapidly approaching, and then it will be returned to the center, and our people will be with it. It is my prayer that this be so, and it is in order to aid in this “Recovery of the ball”, that I have wished to make this book.”
A true "interfaith" movement shows us that we are not only scrambling these days to "catch the ball" but we have succeeded and now as a community we are finding the center."
Baruch HaShem! and good Shabbos Shemot; Shabbos Geulah