Deep Snow Moon

Each week at our sharing circle, we follow the teachings associated with the moon. The Deep Snow Moon is a time to think of others and prepare for the coming cold. We go inward at this time of year, to renew and review. How do we want to grow? What can we learn from each other and from our ancient stories?

These are some of the readings we have used to prepare ourselves for the coming time of darkness, as we await the light.

Under the cold white blanket of the deep snow moon, we gather to tell stories; holy stories, sacred stories, stories about mystery, healing, power, and light. We sit together in hope, patiently awaiting these things as we look to those around us who teach us how to better care for one another, and to work for justice and peace.

In the time of mystery before things are known,

Look deep in yourself for the answers you own.

Speak now of justice and look to the heart; Teach us the Spiritual gifts you are seeing.

It is down in the valley where Harmony lives; where deep love flows bright in your soul. In this is the giving that keeps us all whole.

A Holy Story (Dakota-Sioux Legend)

Now I will tell the story of how a Holy Man, the greatest in the tribe, made mystery-power in days of old. The people were encamped in a circle with the opening towards the east. In the middle of the circle they set up a great tipi made of several tipi’s put together.

Then the people made ready a great feast. Beyond the central fire, opposite the doorway, the Holy Man made mystery. With a stick like an arrow he made a line of holes in the ground a finger’s length deep. Then he touched the ground in front of all the people and came back to the doorway and sat down. And he told the people quickly to prepare the mystery.

So they took the clay and filled the holes with it and covered the holes with earth. When they had done this the Holy Man touched ground. Then he came back to the doorway and was about to sing. And the people watched the ground where the clay was buried and young plants began to sprout!

After he had sung he asked the people to pull up the sprouts, and they did so; one by one they pulled them up. And the roots were holy mystery-power. And the people took the mystery-power and laid it on sprigs of sage, for sage is holy because it heals. This mystery would protect the people. No arrow could pierce them, no arrow could strike them, unharmed would they pass through every danger. So have I told of how a Holy Man made mystery to help the people.

Jeremiah 33:15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up from David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch will grow out of his roots.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—

the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of might.

In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.

(Isaiah 11: 1, 2, 10).

All over the world the faces

Of living ones are alike

With tenderness they have

come up out of the ground.

Grandfather, Great Spirit

Fill us with the Light

Give us the strength to understand

And the eyes to see

Teach us to walk the soft earth

As relatives to all that live.

(Sioux Prayer)

“I could see that the they did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation’s hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother.”

And I saw the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.” ( Black Elk )

On either side of the river is the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22)

We join with the earth and with each other

To recreate the human community,

To promote justice and peace,

To remember our children

We join with the earth and with each other

We join together as many and as diverse expressions

Of one loving mystery: for the healing of the

Earth and the renewal of all life. (Pat Mathes Cane)

“And don't think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It's quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.” ―Rumi

“As you are being rooted and grounded in love… come and see the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; (Ephesians 3: 17, 9)

“All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;