Stories from the Sacred Fire Ceremony in Greenland - July 2009
Transformation -- Marlene - White Bear Woman -- Canada
Greenland Experience -- Judi -- Florida
A Dream -- Sabine -- Munich, Germany
Greenland From The Bottom Up -- Tina -- Vermont, USA
Time for Transformation -- Elisabeth -- Germany
Preparing for the Sacred Fire Ceremony -- Heinz-Werner -- Switzerland
Go Green(land) - Encounters at the Edge of the Glacier - Monica Lieschke - Germany
Transformation -- Marlene - White Bear Woman -- Canada
At first, I was afraid.
I heard, I saw
The Melting of the Big Ice on Top of the World.
Relentless. Powerful.
Then, Hope was born.
I heard, I saw
The Melting of the Ice in our Hearts.
Relentless. Powerful.
Rivers of Love flowing together.
We are the living Ceremony.
The Sacred Fire is Home.
Greenland Experience -- Judi -- Florida
"…Whom did you meet, what did you experience, what did you see and what did you hear .. "
Those are the words of Angaangaq.
I met many people from all over the world, wonderful, interesting, beautiful, amazing people, gifted people, humble people, loving people. People with stories about their lives, their country, their peoples, their lands. People doing ceremony in their unique and powerful ways. I sat beside these people, I worked side by side with them, I broke bread with them. I loved that experience -- all of that was so beautiful. But most of all -- I met myself.
When I arrived at the camp, Aajuitsup Tasersua, we stopped a bit of a distance from the camp and did ceremony with the land. I stepped out of the vehicle with tobacco in my hand, and alone I walked and asked the land if I could visit, I thanked the land. The land began to embrace me, to talk with me. I decided to walk the rest of the distance into camp. The group drove on ahead, and I began my journey with this amazing land. I talked to the land as I walked, then I listened, and I listened some more. I felt such welcome, such embracing. I had never been on land like this before -- it was so alive -- it is a land of ceremony. The land, the stones, the water, the plants, the ice -- they spoke to me, they welcomed me, they embraced me, they invited me into other realities. I felt home in a way I had never experienced before. And in this sacred land of ancient ceremony I found myself -- I came home to myself.
During a ceremony the elders from Greenland were telling their story of their land, the changes that are happening, how they are being affected; they gave their message to the world with Angaangaq translating their words into English. I saw the beautiful connection and love flow amongst these elders and I witnessed them telling their story with loving kindness to a world whose ignorance has created the acceleration of the changes happening in their world. I was humbled as I have never been humbled before, and I stood there and prayed that I would always remember these moments. I prayed that when I feel wronged, I will always stand in the energy of loving kindness, just like these beautiful elders.
I energetically saw the power and beauty of focused connected ceremony as my eyes were opened to new levels of seeing. I felt energies moving thru me. I heard voices speaking, talking to me as I hiked into the mountains. I loved the beauty of the land, the magnificence of the ice. I heard a woman elder from New Zealand chant one of the most beautiful chants I have ever heard, and the ice chanted back to her -- it was a moment beyond words. I listened as the ice melted and fell. I listened to the laughter of the ice as it was beginning it’s transformative journey to all the parts of the world and beyond. The excitement within the ice was ecstatic. The ice was in celebration. I couldn’t stop laughing; it was a moment of joyous rapture.
I experienced the physicalness of cold as I bathed in cold lakes and cold rivers. I lived without the comforts of electricity and plumbing. I learned about primitive camping. I learned how I can adapt, and now back into the modern world I feel more intently all the amazing and wonderful joys and beauty of our modern world. I live in ceremony now -- I notice more, I feel more, I listen and listen some more, I say thank you to all of creation both natural and man made. I love it all; I embrace it all. Life is just so very sweet. Angaangaq is right -- life is a ceremony to be celebrated, all of life, just all of it.
A Dream -- Sabine -- Munich, Germany
Up to now I haven’t met Angaangaq yet in person. Through a friend I had heard about a sacred fire ceremony in Greenland and that we could connect energetically with the ceremony on those days. I did not know about the fires being held world wide.
Some months later I had this dream……….
In my dream I knew about many small healing circles taking place all over the globe; so many, I could have never imagined. I saw them from way above, as if I could look into the stars, just that I looked the other way round, from the sky down onto the earth. Thousands of small groups of stars, which I then recognized as healing circles. Then I looked more closely and discovered that what I saw were many people attending fires. It felt beautiful and peaceful and one could sense a strong connectedness – one big field of consciousness. But then – very vaguely in the beginning – I saw all those small healing circles with their fire keepers coming more and more into focus. I saw them everywhere and they formed one fire circle like a belt of fire all the way around without any gaps in between, one blazing belt of fire encircling the entire planet.
Deep peace, deep acceptance with all.
Greenland From The Bottom Up -- Tina -- Vermont, USA
Little did I know last Spring when Oona asked me to head the “Environment Committee” for the Sacred Fire Ceremony in Greenland that I would be experiencing much of the event from the vantage point of a toilet seat.
No, I don’t mean that I suffered from some kind of gastro-intestinal bug during the ceremonies. Rather, during the two weeks that I was in residence at the Assavik Valley encampment, I was either overseeing the activities of my other committee members or washing and sanitizing plastic camp latrines.
I thank my intrepid volunteer crew – Dick, Jeremy, Weston, and Monica. Collectively, we performed some of the humblest but most important work in support of the ceremonies. We not only maintained the camp toilets (which involved bagging and hauling heavy, stinky, black plastic bags long distances by wheel barrow to our huge roadside dumpster), but also daily collected, bagged, and removed kitchen waste, scrap construction materials, and miscellaneous trash. We also hauled potable water for cooking and drinking before, during, and following the ceremonies. And we served as general stewards of the land, picking up stray paper, empty water bottles and lost gear, watching out for signs of undue erosion along pathways in and around our campground, and otherwise taking measures to be sure that our camp site was left in as nearly a good condition as we had originally found it.
Pondering this experience some five months after the fact, I am struck by the beauty of the work performed by the Environment Committee and by the many other folks who pitched in to make our spiritual community in the heart of the Arctic desert not only a reality, but also a profoundly transformative experience for all who came and saw and participated. Those who cooked, or washed dishes, or hauled fire wood, or constructed sweat lodges, or drove vehicles to and from Kangerlussuaq, or otherwise selflessly attended to any number of other tasks necessary for our care and comfort, you are the living embodiment of what it means to live and celebrate “life as a ceremony.”
If I close my eyes, even now I can see myself bent over a toilet seat with an alcohol wipe. Hearing the voices of two women, I turn and see a young European woman arm-in-arm with a Greenland Elder. They are laughing, stumbling together across the hummocky landscape, assisting each other on the journey to the adjacent, newly-cleaned toilets. They are spiritual sisters, so different in age, cultural background and personal history, and yet, here in the Assavik Valley, they have “come home” to this place and to themselves. To witness this – to be so blessed - who could ask for better spiritual service than this? Thank you, Angaangaq, Quanaq.
Time for Transformation -- Elisabeth -- Germany
For me it was a challenging time - taking care of Wai and remaining centered in myself and open for experiences. Coming back home my heart was a little bit sad and heavy, and I felt that I know now the difference between how it is to just imagine becoming sick and dying and really having the illness. To see how the ice is melting and that it is too late is different from just hearing about it. Right now death and transitoriness have become the main themes in my life -- regarding death as the crown of life not as something terrible. And I don't want to loose these feeling any more, it seems to be some kind of strong fuel for my inner and outer way. No more time left to just play around, time for awakening.
Some of my experiences and messages I got in Greenland --
• In the sweat lodge the eagle came to me and told about melting wisdom and love together to realize oneness, to see that we are never separated, realizing the completeness and absoluteness in everything.
• On the way to the icefield the cracks in the rocks on the ground called me a lot. Standing over them one leg on each side I felt the mighty emergy coming out there from mother earth and there was the message that this is the most important - this non-material, this supposed nothingness, these gaps between things, words and thoughts, what we can not experience with our regular senses - "form is emptiness, emptiness is form".
• The ice field looked like a skeleton, something dying, like a mirror of our society, telling us, "Look, this will happen to you all, it is inevitable, everything will and has to break down."
• The piece of ice from the glacier that Angaanaq brought to the shamans told me that it is about the power of compassion and especially about dedication and devotion. To go completely with the things that happen no matter how difficult they are. It is all part of a bigger plan that we humans with our small mind cannot understand.
• I saw many figures in the ice; they looked as if an sculptor had made them: the head of a horse, two eagles, two whales and last a phoenix empracing the ice with its wings.
• On the way back I felt like choosing a different way and was witness of the biggest breakdown of an ice wall - it was like a confirmation for what will happen. The ice exploded in a rainbow mist and showed the turquoise beauty of its inside.
• Then I was called by a big rock an a green hill looking strong and unshakeable. I went there connecting with this grandfather and was told, "Consider that there is always a bigger power behind - even I was flung here like a small pebble."
Despite all sadness, I also felt consoled. I felt, without being able to explain it, that there is nothing wrong with all that happens. It is as it has to be. We humans did become some kind of a cancer for mother earth. Cancer cells are no longer able to die; they just are parasitic and grow uncontrolled. So something has to happen just naturally so that our mother can survive. And it is good to hold in mind that everything earthly is transitory and in constant change.
During the ceremony changing and raising the human consciousness was not so much the issue, but maybe it can be now. In former times enlightenment was just something for few choosen people - now as many as possible can and have to realize it.
What was also very important for me at the ceremony were some "small" deep and loving contacts with people on the fringe. They are engraved in my heart.
And maybe most important: the web of fires that was spun around the globe, this deep connection between people. It was amazing how many people shared it. This shows that already a lot is happening. Nature has a natural tendency towards healing.
That's all, it's a lot - I hope that some will read it and move it in their hearts. And I would like to hear from others.
Just one little thing in the end: I got a wonderful sign as I found the wing of a butterfly lying in front of my door two times - the day before I went to Greenland and the day I came back. Time for transformation!
Impressions from the Top of the World – Preparing for the Sacred Fire Ceremony -- Heinz-Werner -- Switzerland
It is early June 2009 and I am sitting in the school in Kangerlussuaq. It is not the usual school as we would know, but more like a boarding school. The youth from all over Greenland come here for a year to live and learn with Danish and Greenlandic teachers. Together, they are faced with the challenge of combining the traditional ways of life in their villages with modern life as we know it in order to find their own way. It is exciting, yet sometimes hopeless, as we’ve been told. The school welcomed us with helpfulness and friendliness.
Patricia from Santa Barbara and I have many busy days behind us, some of which lasted deep into the night. But we only realized this later because it never grew dark. We will both be working nonstop until our departure.
Upon arrival here you find a one-time American garrison town. Not at all pretty at first sight. It is surrounded by large mountains and lies at the mouth of a river; a river which carries large amounts of sand. The settlement’s charm has a way of growing on you, bit by bit.
A clear infrastructure does exist. Everything you need is here and what you don’t find, you don’t need. That’s just the way it is here! Things are improvised.
On the second day, we were driven out to the site where the ceremonies will take place and to the Big Ice. Stupendous!
At the right and left of the road for the first few kilometers, there are "do not enter" signs. We are not allowed to get out of the car and walk about the area. The American "visitors“ left mines and ammunition behind on this particular stretch of land and in the water. A bit further on, are the remains of a military jet that had crashed decades ago. The souvenir hunters see to it that the debris grows less and less as time goes by. They say there is also a saw on the site so that the larger pieces can be taken away.
The drive takes you through an area that strongly reminds me of the rocky desert in Morocco; sand dunes, dried grass, short bushes and very dusty air. In spots it is even drier than the Mojave desert. And in between we saw rivers and lakes covered in ice. On our second visit yesterday, there was quite a bit less ice - it is melting and will be gone in two weeks.
During the drive we see many animals of the North - musk ox, caribou, snow hare, snow fox and diverse birds. Only a few show themselves because of the tourists in their loud cars and on fast bikes.
The landscape changes at this point and becomes softer. Tundra. The first buds shimmer a very light green. Sometimes the ground reminds me of huge mountain pastures with hills and knolls.
The vastness is impressive. And then, the eye catches it’s first glimpse of the Big Ice and it cannot let it go. Goosebumps! - in spite of the early summer temperature in and around the car.
I really do feel like I am at the top of the world. The entire globe lies beneath me. No other place has ever made me feel like this. Remarkable, touching, overwhelming, that’s what it feels like!
As we arrive at Long Lake, the road is closed off by a gate. It’s a good thing our driver has a key. He points out the ceremony site off in the distance and again I feel goosebumps. Right next to the gate, there are two mounds of stone. Here lie the bones of Angaangaq’s ancestors—traditionally buried. They have a wonderful view of the stunning landscape—over the ancient gathering place of their forefathers. That is where the Sacred Fire Ceremony is to take place.
Further on, the road leads to the Big Ice. This is really all supposed to melt?! It is truly unimaginable.
The visible surface of the ice becomes bigger and bigger, and suddenly we are standing directly before it. Only a few more steps through the gravel rubble, which has been heaped up by the pressure of the ice, and we are walking on the expanse of ice. It seems very fragile at the edge but it holds.
As far as the eye can see: ICE.
It stretches in all directions for hundreds of kilometers. It is here we are to gather and ignite a Sacred Fire…it will be connected to a multitude of fires around the world. A net of sacred energy. May this energy reach, touch and heal as many people as possible.
It’s time to get back in the car and return to Kangerlussuaq.
We visit the site again in the late evening of the same day. It doesn’t get dark. So many ancestors are waiting for the fulfillment of the prophecy. I am not able to put these impressions into words.
The volunteers accomplished a great deal in last summer. Much has been built and if you can think away the melt water that has accumulated in the sweat lodges, they are practically perfect. Other things have yet to be built or must be reconstructed. There is much more to do and so every helper is welcome; as soon as possible! I will not let what little time is left for the amount of work yet to be done scare me. A former boss of mine used to say: “The day has 24 hours and the night.” That’s the way it really is here so, let’s get to it!
I am so very happy to be here and be able to share my impressions with you.
An adventure awaits us—Oona recently spoke of an expedition—to a truly unknown land. Fascinating nature. Warm-hearted, helpful, yet also very reserved, skeptical people.
A perfect organization, as expected by we Europeans and Americans, is doomed to fail. We are learning that we are a small cog in the grander wheel. We will improvise and through this, learn lessons for life.
Nature determines what is important. Often, I only notice my hunger when my stomach growls, not because it is dusk outside or the position of the sun tells me it’s time to eat. It’s the same with sleep. Only being tired tells us, "Go to bed." It will not be getting dark.
We will live simply, in tents and multi-bed rooms in the school. There will be few showers taken. We will all smell the same. We will be well fed And if it doesn’t happen the way we are used to having it, then it will be as it is. We, and all the guests, can’t expect more.
We will need to drink a lot because the air is very dry. The water from the rivers and lakes is exquisite. Everyone drinks it when we are out and about.
All that we need must already be here or shipped in. There are only two ships per year. One leaves this Tuesday and the other in the fall. We, as a circle, have only a few weeks or even days to organize everything.
No one here is waiting for us to come with our thousand questions. They go about their daily business, yet are always there to lend a helping hand. It is a small place, however, and the official channels are sometimes very long. The familiar “manyana” that we know from southern cultures is known even on the Top of the World.
I am so looking forward to our time together. We will be a circle and live the Spirit of the circle, "The beauty of the circle is that we cannot see one another’s backs. The strength of the circle is that we can see one another’s beauty."
An adventure and experience that will change our lives!
Go Green(land) - Encounters at the Edge of the Glacier by Monica Lieschke
At the forefront of the climate summit COP15 that is to take place in Copenhagen in December this year, a brisk migration began during the summer to Greenland, the hot spot of climate change.
Touched, or more accurately put, shaken, by the quiet, wild landscape, by the vastness and source of the very melting and collapsing ice masses, many visitors inevitably became witnesses and messengers for the dramatic changes that are happening. Changes that, perhaps even changed they themselves a bit…
Together with about 100 other participants from around the world, I pitched my tent in the middle of the tundra, in a place where many generations of Eskimo elders met to hold their councils and ceremonies. ‘Wilderness’ here means washing in a frigid stream; your flashlight can stay in your backpack, the midnight sun is shining.
It is a land of opposites, of extreme change: The vastness of the tundra spreads itself here almost like a desert landscape which then crashes straight up against the wall of an, as of yet, tremendous inland ice mass. The native Greenlanders call it the “Big Ice”—3000 X 1000 km!
How little we know about this country in spite of all the climate reports; it’s overwhelming size, it’s solitude, it’s breathtaking beauty, it’s magical light…
From a Trickle to a River
About thirty years ago, hunters noticed for the first time a small trickling of water from under the huge wall of the glacier; this after three months of temperatures of minus 30 C. For many, it was unsettling. Today these trickles are rushing rivers that pour into the valley from the dwindling, melting walls of ice. The ice grows 20 cm thinner daily. Previously, it was 1500m high. Today…just under 300m.
For the past 30 years, the Eskimo Angaangaq (which means ‘the man who looks like his uncle’) has been the runner for his people, sent traveling around the world to sound the warning and call to awakening. He has spoken at UN environmental and developmental conferences. His constant and insistent message, “Melt your hearts! And begin to use your enormous knowledge wisely!” The west must learn from the indigenous. “It’s not a question of looking forward or backward. It’s using the old knowledge wisely.”
In July, under the arctic midnight sun, ‘Uncle’ invited elders from indigenous cultures from all around the world to “Fire and Ice: Melting the Ice in the Heart of Man” –the 81 year old Savej from Siberia, Wai Turoa Morgan from the Maori of New Zealand, a father and son in full feathered headdress from the Amazonian jungle and many others. Numerous participants from Europe and the USA, environmental experts, politicians, physicians, scientists, artists…young and old…answered Uncle’s call all the way to Greenland.
Also amongst them, Jane Goodall, she herself traveling 300 days a year on her own mission for the threatened environment; she herself visibly shocked and touched by her visit to the glacier. She was accompanied by a prominent film team that, at the time, was filming a documentary about her life “Jane’s Journey”.
It’s Not Idyllic
The glacier, close in the background, is not an idyllic scene: frightening, creaking, groaning, bursting, crashing—day and night—reminiscent of earthquakes or quite even the collapse of the twin towers. It is a sound that penetrates through and through. “If the earth had a voice, it would sound something like that,” claims a participant. An Eskimo Elder expresses it a bit more poetically, “ the scream of the ice”.
It is a feeling that almost everyone—native as well as visitor—shares, but mostly speaks quietly about. It is an oppressive, alarming feeling; one of concern or even fear, anger. In light of this phenomenon, one is not able to ignore the force and dimension of this mass of rushing, running water.
A delegation of top real estate managers feels the same. They are visiting while on their way to the kick-off meeting of their foundation, “Greenprint”. The meeting takes place further up north in Ilulissat, where also this summer, diplomats, along with energy and environmental ministers will be meeting in the exclusive Hotel Arctic, in full view of these staggering indices. They are meeting to finally produce factual information that will lead to protecting the climate. Ilulissat was chosen for the conference for good reason. It produces the most glaciers in the northern hemisphere. Icebergs are dispatched from here…20 million tons of ice sent off into the ocean, directly before the eyes of the conference members in the luxury hotel “Arctic”. The edge of the glacier has shrunk kilometers in the last year. It cannot be more symbolic.
Klaus Toepfer, ex-director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) speaks of the arctic as being the “Barometer of global climate change—an early warning system for the world”.
And nowhere else in the world is climate change so obvious, so dramatic, so present and have such presence. Nowhere else is it so tangible and understandable as it is here. The attempt to explain it away, to make it sound pretty, to minimize it…here these efforts melt just like the ice under the sun.
Seismograph for Climate Change
The Arctic as a seismograph for climate change—here in Greenland “only” 50,000 inhabitants and a unique habitat “at the end of the world” are affected—yet ultimately, all of us are.
It’s no wonder that at the forefront of the climate summit, upon which so much hope rests, so many opinion makers are pulled to Greenland. Greenland has arrived in the future. Climate change is a (daily) reality. It is no longer about “admonishing or adjusting”. That’s over and done with. Sled dogs and huskies lay around panting in the warm arctic summer. The people here have always lived from the hunt. For generations, they had learned to depend upon all the signs the weather pointed to. This is over now.
They will also have to increasingly live from Eco- and Conference tourism, from people that want to observe whales or polar bears (at least for as long as they still exist) or also from those that want to “Watch climate change,” or maybe even those that want to see the new potato or strawberry fields. Young Danes pitch their tents at the foot of the ice wall. It seems they have not noticed the deep craters in the ground that were caused by the bursting “ice grenades.” As of yet, there are no bans or signs prohibiting them from being here.
The greatest changes are yet to come for this country. In the meantime, the almost open shipping lanes of the North-west Passage, the run on natural resources, that are losing their protective armor of ice…the skirmish for rights and jurisdiction: the greed has no end. The results from climate change will arguably fuel it further.
We take our tents down after just about 7 days, irritated and enriched, pushed and pulled between beauty and threat. The impact of all the discussions, conferences and summits at the foot of the Big Ice will only first appear in the following weeks and months. But at least our hopes will not be put on ice.
Monica Lieschke is a staff member of FORUM Umweltbildung.
Contact: monica.lieschke@umweltbildung.at