River, Blood, And Corn Literary Journal: A Community of Voices
Crisosto Apache named the 11th Colorado Poet Laureate
Sacred Grief
by Hollee A. McGinnis a.k.a. Lee Hwa Young
Because we lost
families and cultures
as children,
before we had words
and could only express
the loss and grief
through our bodies,
crying, acting out,
behaviors that adults want to stop,
we learned we do not
have permission to grieve.
And yet, grief is the holding
of the paradoxical and simultaneous
experience of love and loss.
We grieve because we loved.
We grieve because we have lost that love.
We loved our mothers, fathers,
sisters and brothers. And
we lost our mothers, fathers,
sisters and brothers.
Why not give permission
to grieve that love
that was lost?
This is the grief
that never gets expressed
and released: that turns
into anger, self-loathing, hate.
We have all experienced love
and the loss of that love.
Through a parent,
who did not return our devotion,
a lover, who no longer
matched our passion,
a friend who turned enemy,
a death.
We find it
hardly bearable
to imagine
we loved
so much
and were
so loved.
And not believing
ourselves to be
loveable and loved,
we cannot access
the doorway
that is offered
by sacred grief
because we are in denial
that we were ever loved.
And so, we sit
only with the loss, and
we think we are grieving
all we lost.
But the sacred grief
is the realization:
we are grieving
our knowing
of how much we loved,
of how much we are loved.
Copyright © Hollee A. McGinnis. All rights reserved.
Hollee A. McGinnis, MSW, PhD, is a scholar, writer, healer, and wayfinder. Adopted from South Korea, she has worked for decades in community organizing, policy, and research on childhood adversity, adoption, complex trauma, cultural loss, identity, and mutual aid. As a wayfinder, she integrates Western science and Eastern ancestral wisdom for transformation and healing.
A Winter Solstice Love Story
by Terra Trevor
For forty-three years I lived on the Central California Coast in an area that makes up the traditional Chumash homeland. In those beautiful days our solstice celebrations were rooted in the traditional ways of the Chumash.
Four years ago, I moved away, away from the land and people who raised and shaped me. Now I’m living near my grandchildren on the Northern California Coast. Everything is still new for me, unfamiliar. I’m walking gently while this Indigenous California landscape in Ohlone territory teaches me who I am.
For the record, I’m not Chumash. I’m mixed-blood Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca and German descent, with ties to Korean. And I hold the culture, traditions, and history of the Chumash people in my heart. This is their heritage, their life blood, and their landscape of time. And for all Native people Solstice is a time to honor the connection to our ancestors, to the rhythm of nature and our continuing deepening ties.
In my bones I remember, and I can still hear and feel the slap of the wansaks’—a musical instrument made from the branch of an elderberry—beat out a steady rhythm and a mix of laughing voices of my friends gathered contrast with the drift of fog and the heavy surf pounding. Lanterns are lit against the darkening evening and a fire is built, where storytelling takes place. Salmon is on the grill, potatoes are roasting, and the picnic table is loaded with more food. We are honoring solstice, an astronomical phenomenon marking the shortest day and the longest night of the year. For people throughout the ages—from the ancient Egyptians and Celts to the Hopi—midwinter has been a time of ritual, reflection, and renewal.
Solstices happen twice a year, around June 21 and again around December 21. The date is not fixed, it varies; the December Solstice can take place on December 20, 21, 22, 23. While we usually think of the whole day as the Solstice, it actually takes place at a specific moment when the Sun is precisely overhead the Tropic of Capricorn. Solstice helps us cultivate a deeper connection to nature and to all of the things that matter most to us. It’s a time for feeding the spirit and nurturing the soul. Prayers and rituals set forth a plan of life for the coming year, ceremonially turning back the sun toward its summer path.
Throughout history, honoring the solstice has been a way to renew our connection with each other and with acts of goodwill, special rituals, and heightened awareness. Solstice is also reserved for feeding the spirit and nurturing the soul. It’s a period for quiet reflection, turning inward, slowing down and appreciating the day, the hour, and each moment.
While we don’t know how long people have been celebrating the solstice, we do know that ancient cultures built stone structures designed to align with the sun at specific times, and in ancient times the winter solstice was immensely important because the people were economically dependent on monitoring the progress of the seasons. There was an emphasis on the fall harvest and storing food for winter.
Remembrance weighs heavy on my mind. Tonight as we near Winter Solstice, with a December moon above me, and the only light I can see, I’m falling back in time. My memories are washing over me like a series of massive waves hitting hard, without warning. As soon as I catch my breath another beautiful memory pulls me back home. My mind floats back over the years. Memories surface—and feelings that remain untouched in my heart, in that place of perpetual remembering. All those Winter Solstice nights of long ago, when we were young, and our elders walked this good earth with us, when we gathered for a good meal together, with storytelling, laughter, conversation, dance, and songs from the ancestors. Fire offerings of chia seeds, acorn flour, and berries were made, followed by prayer and ceremony.
Now, I’m in my seventies, nearly the same age as the elder Native women who guided me, informed, instructed and shaped me into the woman I am today. I’m honoring my Indigenous community with gratitude for their love and the gift of their time they gave me, helping me give to others.
With the night sky, dark and beautiful above, I walk toward the sea and stand silent in respect to the ancient peoples who left the witness of their lives, visions, and the strength of their faith for me to ponder. The scent of sage hangs in the air. I fill my lungs with it, knowing it will permeate my body and cling to my soul as a reminder of what I can feel and remember when we were together long ago.
Copyright © Terra Trevor. All rights reserved.
WomanSong
by Linda Boyden
There’s never an easy time to be a woman;
Harder yet to be a woman of Color.
You know, one of the standard four-skin
variety pack–Black, White, Red, Yellow?
But what about us MixedBloods?
What are we? The Grays? Pinks? Ecrus,
Coppers, Burt Siennas?
Color confuses.
Makes some see outrage;
Others, pity or an-in-your-face-kind-of-scorn.
Senseless. Color can’t speak the truth.
The truth lives under the color.
As each succeeding generation mutes
and blends the tones,
The blending carries us closer
To the true state of our souls,
The final destination of being Colorless.
The power of woman brings us into the world,
Leads us to the safety, comfort, and pain of our world.
If we are lucky, in the end, the power of woman will sing us through our deaths,
Carry us home,
Where there are no tints and shades,
Where there is only sanctuary, and the solace of the open arms of the Grandmothers.
Women, when there is nothing else to give your child,
Give her a song, a strong woman song.
Sing us, Mothers, sing us home.
Copyright © Linda Boyden. All rights reserved.
Linda Boyden writes children’s books and poetry. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers. She is the author of The Blue Roses (Lee and Low Books), Powwow's Coming (University of New Mexico Press), and Giveaways: An ABC Book of Loanwords from the Americas (University of New Mexico Press).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)