Photographs :: Dancers of The Northern Pueblos (portfolio)

RHYTHMIC PRAYERS

Rise up to greet Father Sun, lighting up the new day.
Give us strength, give us courage, give us life.
Break open the new day, flood the Earth Mother with your virility.

Going to the waterside I breathe in the essence of the river.
With our offerings we wash our bodies, cleanse our minds,
open our hearts and souls.
Our prayers flow down to the sea from where the clouds come.

Hear our prayers of thanks,
as we send them with every breath, with every step.
Guide our footsteps as we travel the path of life,
that we may walk properly in a decent world,
that we may come into being as one with the earth,
her children, the plants, living things, and even the stones.
Believing in the spirituality of all . . . all that is.

Make ready our hearts to feel the drumbeat of the earth.
Make ready our bodies to dance the celebration for life.
Make ready our minds to think as one with the earth.
Make ready our Spirits to be in unity as one with all.

We come out seeing through our Brother's eyes,
becoming a part of all living things.
Let us feel the heartbeat of our Mother,
with every footstep, every motion, every breath.
Singing the songs of antiquity, we come forth.

Singing the songs of welcome, we come forth.
Come all Game Animals large and small.
Embrace us, Great Spirit, with a longer natural life!

Drums beating, we feel the rhythm of the earth.
Inside the womb we knew our Mother's heartbeat.
In this new world of light the drumbeat now comforts us.
We are in rhythm with our Earth Mother's heartbeat.
In birth we came from Her, in death we return.

We take the sweat of our brows, the mud on our face
back to the river from whence it came.
All things return into the cycle of life.

Going to the waterside I breathe in the essence of the river.
With our offerings, we wash our bodies, cleanse our minds,
open our hearts and souls.
Our prayers flow down to the sea from where the clouds come.

All things return into the cycle of life
It is a new beginning, the purification of our lives.

Cloud Eagle 1994