Each foot fall creates a vibrancy, held by air, that becomes language between walker and ground.  Measured in rhythm, footfalls experience the vegetation and animals of place.  Shifting gravel gives way to dust and the smell of land whispers of life once known.  As if we have something do with dirt.  Walking is the intimacy of thought in space between foot and ground.  A beckoning of relationship and a binding of place.

Being bound to place is an intimate relationship with the ancient.  Both a knowing of what is old and wonder in what is becoming.  Walking landscape allows for a patience of awareness that allows memory to deepen and broaden.  Giving way to wakefulness of life in the moment between foot and dirt.

Walking landscape is the learning of remembering.  Moving us toward an awareness of commonality—our ordinariness of dirt and place and body.  To walk, is to step into the normality of ancient existence, beginning knowledge, and the imaginative what is yet to become. 

Yet the trees have good leaves.  Strong leaves carrying a good edge.  Deep in their particular green—somewhere between the sour cherry and the plum—they speak well of their ancestors.  Fall ancestorial leaves who gave all of themselves—their nutrients, their chlorophyll—back to the tree before sealing their stems off from the tree, turning yellow and dropping to the ground.  Today, we enjoy the wholeness of their existence: bright and beautiful.

Morning coolness still lingers well in these days who are beginning to warm.  Warm who reminds us that apricot tree leaves will hold shade well, who in turn, will hold us well this summer.  Life given and life returned speak to tomorrow’s summer moments of life and wonder.

When I choose to experience people like grass my relationships become closer and easier.  I’ve a friend I not often call.  They are very personable and likeable when we hang out together in person.  They shoot-the-bull easily, are engaged, have a true sense of who they are, and a genuine interest what is going on in my life.  Yet, when I call them on the phone there is no patience, they are quick and to the point.  “How is life?” is answered quickly with, “Fine.” quickly followed with a pressing, “What’s up?!”  They get right-to-business.  Their ease with relationship and questioning and wonder is lost over the phone.

The “What’s up” is disorienting to me because I’m expecting their unique insight and laughter.  This lack of phone relationship bothered me, until, I began thinking of them as a grass relative.  I don’t expect fescue to be anything other than fescue.  And when I hear “What’s up” I recognize this is another way of being grass.  They may blow in the wind a little differently than me, but then, that is what you get, naturally, from wheatgrass.

In trying moments with friends or acquittances I have found I am healthier—which in-turn, I think they too are healthier for they need not dwell with whatever I might project—when I quietly say to myself, “oh, yes, she is bunchgrass” or “he is wildrye.”  Perhaps it is simple and trite, but I find knowing my people through grass lenses helps me accept creation as created and experience the natural as intended.

We could certainly talk about Christian structure and the Council of Nicaea using the vernal equinox to set Easter day or Pope Gregory, in 601CE, using 46 days to fix Ash Wednesday.  However, while setting Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the Spring equinox serves Church structure, there is a hint of the indigenous.  Strain Christianity through a fine sieve and the mystical of indigeneity is revealed.  Grind the Lenten season down like acorns, leach it with a little water, and the indigenous surfaces.

I like this rhythm, “The spirit sent Jesus into (είς) the wilderness and Jesus was in (έυ) in the wilderness forty days.”  The rhythm of words into (είς) and in (έυ) allow us to learn Jesus did not wander the wilderness but became wilderness.  Wilderness’ simplicity is as a space where the unknown becomes known.  As we live our unknown, our fear subsides, our interior awakens, and we begin to recognize wilderness’ commonality from within.  The mundane of the first Sunday after the first full moon of the Spring equinox is the awe of the season.  For it is in this moment of 40 wilderness days that grace allows our insight to deepen and our attention to have clarity.  It all begins with Ash Wednesday.

When we hear those old words saying, you are dust, and to dust you shall return, the wildness of indigeneity awakens within.  There is grace in becoming landscape and remembering; we are ancient dust; we are the dirt of our birthplace; our communal people are of that same ground; plants and animals rose from dirt alongside us; the voice of our ancient people finds us upon wind’s wild breath.

This Wednesday begins an indigenous season of remembrance and connectedness.  Gather with your people and begin a season of close attention, amble into (είς) your natural landscape, practice the virtue of attentional listening, and open your interior to unexpected growth.  There in (έυ) the wildness of your place you will find an ancient welcome.

Dia de Reyas is tomorrow.   Before long, we’ll head over to the local panadería to pick up the Rosca de Reyas we’ve ordered.  For days they’ve been preparing Three Kings Bread for the community and today the panadería will be busy, festive, and full of life.  I enjoy Dia de Reyas nearly as much as the mass of Christ for many reasons; most of all though, the people of many cultures come to celebrate as one community.  Additionally, the day reminds us that the mass, the celebration of Christ, the mystery of creation does not end on the twelfth day of Christmas.  Rather, the celebration continues into ordinary time with the daily epiphany of creational life.

The pan/bread of the Kings Ring or crown that holds a hidden baby figurine within symbolizes the fullness of our creation.  Wheat, water, salt, flour, yeast, (decorative candied fruits), and the Christ figurine become one and singular within breaded Rosca de Reyas.  Epiphany begins in the ordinary days when the entwined siblingship of tree and flour and Christ allows the mundane to become eternal. 

Standing again she walked a few feet, looked to her rump, circled, then folded her legs and laid down, again. Clouds watched as the amnionic sac remained protruded.  She leaned and two hooves became visible, within the sac.  Quiet settled, the landscape watched, and the calf’s muzzle appeared as she lifted her head.  She’s done this before.  A resting moment, a foreleg stretch and the calf’s head appear, within the sac.  Creation silences.  She rests.  An Exhale and shoulders clear the vulva.  Breathing in, the calf is birthed.

The amnionic sac remains intact and the ordinary becomes extraordinary.  The birth is “veiled” for the calf remains inside the sac.  Sunlight lends awe as the calf moves in a space of glistening amnionic fluid.  Separate but wombed, the mother and calf remain one.  Individuals but singular.  Interior place becomes exterior yet new life calf remains internal.  An eye opens, first sunlight of birth, the calf stretches, and the amnionic sac ruptures.

Though water ponds around mother and child, the gushing amnionic fluid disappears into the ground. Hungry for home, you can feel fluid slipping through dirt.  Following roots stretching into the ground, the fluid finds root hairs.  Recognizing kin, the hairs absorb the fluid and the birth process begins, again.  

Sun glints off the sac now matted to calf and giddiness fills the air.  A crow caws and I settle upon vertigo haunches.  Interstellar spirit is not of flesh nor matter but is the boundarylessness tangling of calf, grass, water, root, soil, light, sky, and mamma where the singular becomes communal.  The old people’s adage of us being “known before the womb” becomes obvious as the life of what was and will become exists in the now of creations amnion.  Silence holds space as animate earth watches mamma’s first licking of her calf; stimulated the ancestors are rebirthed as the calf takes her first un-wombed breath.  Mama moos a newborn coo.

****

The mass of Christ is a moment of mystical introspection. To contemplate the transcendent is to live into a day of unveiling existence’s mystery.  Symbolically and otherwise, the unknown of becoming begins as creations amnion is unveiled.  There is richness in a day when we allow ourselves to remember we are creational siblings who exist in an everlasting birth of renewal and restoration.  Our existence within the mundane and ordinary is of awe because the everyday is transcendent.

Our ancestorial stories are stories of common creational intermingling.  Whether we are people of Skywoman, Buddha, Muhammad, Spider Woman, Nüwa or Christ; the singular answer is we are not alone.  We are creative life who has siblingship with the natural and amnionic landscape.

Regardless of our human beginnings, may we recognize the unveiling of creations amnion in our life.  Know we are forever wombed, forever living, forever sibling.  And recognize the blessing that within the morrow of our bones exists the exquisite sacrament of a newborn calf.

The spirituality of the natural Christ is known in place.  All that we are aware of that is ancient and everlasting is the Christ who existed in Bethlehem and the Jordan long before human birth.  The wilderness of John and the landscape of a Bethlehem journey speaks to the unincorporated everydayness of Christ.  Nothing special here, a river, a donkey, a dirt road, a breeze, shrubs, and people—yet it all is singularly exceptional.

To look around our place and see the Christ of grass, the bare tree Christ, the Christ of fallen leaf, the rabbit Christ, the Christ of ridge, the quail Christ,  the Christ of water, the hitchhiker-farmworker-mother-houseless-child Christ is to know we are uniquely and wonderfully of our place.  To learn and then to know our everydayness—our ordinariness—is the beginning of knowing our intimacy with the Christ of creation’s landscape.  And therein lies harmony.

Each year, fall apricot leaves teach me a little more about redemption.  As the weather cools and days shorten I wait for the leaves to begin changing color.  Then comes a day, when the sun reflects just right and their green isn’t quite yesterday’s green.  There is always a bit of sadness when that day arrives.  Yet I am willing to experience that sadness, for alongside, I feel a a settling grace in the air for what is beginning.

This is the season when you cannot miss the leaf’s indigeneity.  A seasonal kindness experienced between the birthing tree and dying leaf.  A reciprocity that in Christian terms is the mutuality of birth, death, and resurrection.  From my Christian construct, the yellowing apricot leaf becomes Christ.

Yellowing happens in this season because the leaf allows its chlorophyll to break down into its base nutrients.  As the chlorophyll breaks down, the leaf’s dominant green pigment is lost, which in-turn allows for the unmasking of the leaf’s other pigments.  Those pigments, now dominate, become the leaf’s color.  Some trees become red, others orange, and for the apricot, yellow.  During this change, the leaf funnels their nutrients to the tree; who holds them throughout the winter; and with spring’s arrival, uses them to birth next year’s leaves.  Once those nutrients reenter the tree, the leaf creates a protective seal between their stem and branch.  When the seal is completed, the leaf separates and falls.

Birth, life, death, and resurrection are common throughout creation.  The grace of giving life so another might live is normal and everyday.  The Christ of indigeneity is neither (only) human nor a one-off.  Rather, just as the leaf gives of itself so life may be rebirthed, so does all of creation.  Creational indigeneity cannot be bought or sold; there is no prestige gained in the common; nor power attained in life’s sacrifice. Rather the landscape hold loveliness on a covenantal table of lives given: the picked grape, the harvested wheat, the yellowed leaf.  Life resurrected and redeemed: vine, soil, tree.

(First published: Center for Indigenous Ministries: November Newsletter)

What I find sad is the Doctrine of Discovery has hidden our natural identity, replaced it with labels suited to fit systems that value profit, power, and prestige, AND have us believe these values are values we should honor and desire.  Since 2014 the Center for Indigenous Ministries annual Winter Talk has allowed conversation that questions and counters these values by unveiling damaging issues such as shrouding Two-Spirits, burying landscape language, children hiding in the closet, compartmentalization of creation—human, plant, animal, wind, water, and dirt, lost identity, and boarding/residential school trauma.  Winter Talks have helped us understand why Church, Nation, and Business developed and maintained a Doctrine of Discovery (Doctrine) that inherently enhances their profit, power, and prestige.  Which is why it is sorrowful to learn leadership is not aware of the Doctrine nor grasp their complicity in supporting structures bent on having us forget the natural identity of our birth.

Jim Harrison tells a story of a Chippewa friend who became “somewhat disturbed…when it occurred to him that people did not know that every single tree was different from every other tree.”  The statement challenges (Doctrine) human-centered systemic-social-pastor(al) justice work.  Certainly, those of us who are capable of putting our shoulder against the institutional door and busting it down to bring about greater justice for our human siblings should do so!  However, humanity will never experience the justice we desire until the fullness of creation experiences righteousness.  We, from the door buster to the theologian, the elementary school teacher to the accountant, the biologist to the social worker, the scientist to the police officer, need to recognize we’ve been taught to think there is creational difference where there is none and believe there is sameness where there is uniqueness.  We-should-be-disturbed.

Whether we sit down on the lawn or hike the Saskatchewan prairie we need to experience each blade of grass as exceptional and matchless life.  We must begin valuing the process of becoming indigenous and regaining our natural identity.  To do so is dig out of the genocidal pit of the Doctrine of Discovery and stand on the dirt path of life.  To recover natural memory is to grasp the landscape is not only sensitive to our loss, but is actively seeking relationship and vivaciously loving us.  To have our interior present with the creational is to recognize our ancestors in the windblown dust and the ancients along the treelined ridge.  To open our soul to the drifting clouds is to welcome the descendants.  If we expect, if we watch, if we engage the indigenous, we will find what is truly comfortable—our divine sibling.