Having a car again enables me to attend Society meetings again. I missed the last one. The Society functions as a tribe as well as a school. Our spirituality involves each other, so we know the importance of going to as many of its events as possible.
When I got to the hall we use, the medicine man had not arrived yet, so I sat in the warm car with the engine off. SF and her basset arrived from Connecticut, needing pit-stop facilities but the hall was locked up tight, front door and back. I suggested she use a stand of pines not far off for privacy, while I gathered brush for the ceremonial fire we would light later.
Towns down here in eastern Massachusetts are getting hinky about open fires, so the Stone Lodge people acquired a fire-pot about a yard across, on legs about two feet high, of black iron. The welder even decorated it with cross-inserted circles at the quarters, the cross being a sacred symbol for many another than Christians. The swastika is likewise used sometimes, but its association with Nazism has cost it much frequency of use. SF returned, I finished the preliminary layout of the fire, and we retired to wait in her warm car and catch up on the year since we last saw each other.
The medicine man, RD, who had formed our Society, showed up with SH of the Stone people. Already in his eighties, RD still is the main influence for us all. Grey-eyed Abenaki. Possible evidence for pre-Columbian European contact in New England. Imitating his notoriously flirtatious manner, I complained, "You guys showed up just as SF was giving me her phone number!" She feigned shock and RD laughed.
The hall opened, and we did various things in the basement to set up for the meeting and pot luck, then relaxed into socializing. RD was alone upstairs, so I talked to him for a few minutes. I wasn't sure what was to be the order of the meeting and when to light the fire. We try always to have a fire in the center of our circles, something to burn up the sacred herbs we throw into which to make smoke to accompany our prayers skywards. "The fire is all set to light. Should I light it now?" "Sure," said the medicine man. I should have known better than to take this answer on its face.
I went outside and SH joined me at the fire-pot. The fire went right up and was perfect for ceremony. Only thing was that my idea of what was to happen and RD's were not very close. I thought we were going to have the opening circle at the fire. Nobody came out. After a while, I went in to check, and found the meeting going on full swing. I realized my error.
In the twenty years I've spent in the Society, I've often been reminded of similarities to what I've read of training in Japanese Zen monasteries. The young monk is never told exactly what to do, but yelled at (or worse) whenever he does something wrong. As he gets older RD forgets or misremembers things, and this puts people in difficult and uncomfortable situations. The older people are not dismayed by this, but others tend to be so upset over what they see as their own mistakes that some of them never come back. To me, it looks like something is using RD, often without his noticing, to offer us opportunities to solve situations with grace and kindness, and to grow in our inner confidence, patience, and skill.
At one point in our history, when the Society was going strong and many people were involved in regular events, RD asked a meeting, "Should we consider incorporating a legally chartered group? There's benefits to being a nonprofit religious organization." The people said, "We have relied on the guidance of the Spirit rather than writing ourselves a bunch of rules and regulations. Since it's worked well so far, why should we change? And let's stay out of the government's attention."
It's true. I've marveled at how the Society runs. Almost anyone who applies for membership is accepted. If they are problems, they simply stop coming to meeting and Gatherings. We have no chiefs -- RD just calls himself a medicine man and teacher -- but our camping Gatherings are a marvel of efficiency. A village of tents forms, and people simply do what's needed, looking after each other as well as themselves. When plans do go awry, people just figure the Spirit wasn't in favor of the enterprise. Or, sometimes, someone's heart had a darkness.
The fire was not to be left unattended. This evening's meeting was to be a sharing of personal spiritual experiences, which I am keen on hearing from other people, whatever I may make of their credibility. Obviously, I was going to miss most of the meeting, since the fire was for the closing circle. Though I would miss the talk, I could talk with the fire, hardly a hardship for a FireKeeper. SH said he'd stay when I suggested we need not both be there, so, we talked. I told him about things about my life, and he told me about his experiences with the medicine of his people out by the Great Lakes. When, at one point, I laughed at the monkeywrenches RD had a tendency to throw into the workings of my plans, he said, "Looks like it was just a way for the Creator to arrange for us to talk."
RD with Weasel Tracks
No comments:
Post a Comment