Part Four Practice: The Words Before All Else

(soft relaxing music) Greetings. I am Mama Bear. Clan Mother of the Bear Clan from Akwesasne in upstate New York. Welcome to this Long Time Academy practice, which is called The Words Before All Else. In the Haudenosaunee way, it is custom before you begin your business of the day to open and to close with an acknowledgement of why we exist in the world, and how we are in relationship to all things. And most people call it the opening address. But the way we look at it is laying down the mat upon which you're gonna sit, which is creation. And it's about a ascension from the obvious which is the people, all the way from the tiniest up to the largest, which is the universe. The Words Before All Else helps us to remember that we are all intricately connected in the web of life. And we welcome you to adopt this practice at sunrise and sunset. In our way, we reciprocate the speaker. And so, I welcome you to join me whenever I say, "Now we wrap our minds together as one, let it be so" by responding with the words tall. The reciprocity of saying this means that you're in agreement with the words. (soft relaxing music) Bring your hands together and position yourself within the colossal universe as a small spec of wonderment, imagination, and wisdom, so that the universe knows that you're here, and you're standing in acknowledgement of the beauty and the power that she is. And we begin to focus on prayer, on the mysterious beauty of that which we are born into in the earth that we walk. We are important to all of creation. We are creators, and we bring our minds together as one. Now, we acknowledge our sacred mother earth, and we acknowledge all that grows on her, and the rivers that run through her, and all the magnificent powers that she possesses in order to bring us happiness. And how she nurtures us, nourish us, and cares for us. We bring our minds together as one and acknowledge our sacred mother earth. Then we move our minds to the waters, the great medicine that we all arrive here on this earth, in the vessel of the mystical magical waters. And how we clear our throats. And we quench our thirst, and we travel the waterways, and how intricately they feed into the oceans. And how magnificent we are that our bodies are a big container of that great medicine that brings us to this place of acknowledgement that we are all part of in relationship of the great mystery of the earth mother. We bring our minds together as one to acknowledge the sacred waters. Now we bring our minds toward the sacred waters and deep into the ocean, into that primordial place where all the sea life live the fishes, the plant life. In great abundance, they have been assigned a purpose, a duty to...