We were really excited to open and pitch our new church or sanctuary or temple or whatever label suits you on Summer Solstice. Our place of worship is everywhere at all times. Of course no one can really do this unless they are a Buddha or Jesus. And, when life is overwhelming or boring or we just forget who or where we are is the
perfect time to worship and remember oneself. Unfortunately, these tend to be the times we forget. There are always moments when a person wants to create special time to be centered, grateful, or just in touch with Mah-n-Jah and for that, Human Anonymous followers tend to want those times to be in as a natural surrounding as possible. We like wild because we aspire to be wild. For the purposes in front of us we have decided to erect a structure, in the wild, to create an energy center for our faith in the Mother earth. There is no structure we can think of that is more suited for this than a tipi.
Personally, I have an affinity for the tipi. Who couldn’t? When reading “Black Elk Speaks” by John G. Neihardt in my early 20’s I was moved by his understanding of life and how everything, including one’s home reflects that understanding. He was quoted in the book, “I came to live here where I am now between Wounded Knee Creek and Grass Creek. Others came too, and we made these little gray houses of logs that you see, and they are square. It is a bad way to live, for there can be no power in a square…..Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop.” To us the circle is how life is. We do not focus on the linear way of thinking or being. Spirals are circles always going higher until they meet and become pure consciousness. Beginning and end meet and start anew. How many times in life does one think “Have I been through this before?” Hopefully at this point they choose a higher vibrational circle to enact and move up the spiral. Unfortunately, most humans choose to stay in a rutted circle and find themselves asking the same question again later in life, which is not good or bad but could be a lesson if one so chooses. The square house seemed stagnate to me as I watched; overly planned, too thought out, conditioned. What I really noticed was the dust on the floor always was in the corners of the room. Sure, things can fit nicely in corners if everything is square but the energy is in a circle in the middle of the room moving out, that is why the dust is in the corner, there is no energy there to move it.
There is another more deeply personal reason I am drawn to the tipi. My family of my early years lived in a tipi in Montana in the wilderness for five years. My first wife, dear friend and Mother to our two glorious children grew our family there. There is nothing like getting in tune to one’s instinctive nature than living in the wilds with only a thin veiled cloak of canvas between you and the bears, snow, cougars, moon, wolves, mice, sun, wind, coyotes, and all the other things that make nature nature. Where at night one might be awakened by the huffing last breath of a deer being harvested by a mountain lion just to roll over knowing you and your family are safe because that night the lion has food. Of course, we had dogs, wolf dogs, we were their pack and they looked out for us because quite frankly they do a much better job of looking out than Human Beings do. We had little ones running around and the wolves protected them. I know this because I saw the coyote, they brought home dead that got just a little too close. When one lives in a tipi they are living in nature, they are part of nature, they are nature. One feels the season, knows the moon phase, smells the trees changing with the sun, hears the mating calls, there is an emotional bond with all of one’s senses feeding your soul. It is life as life was and is meant to be. Moving beyond this reality we call society one recognizes a reality more profound, rich in life and rich to life.
AAAHHHH! The tipi I could reminisce forever. I built a straw bale home in a circle just so we could have a tipi with walls to keep out the cold. It is hard to admit but sometimes warmth wins over bringing in 15 cords of firewood for the tipi, and still being cold and sometimes it does not. All I can say is I do miss it and it changed my life and fed me in ways that nothing else could have.
The tipi is like an inverted funnel pouring, concentrated and pinpointing the Mother’s energy to Father sky. We bathe in Her energy when in it and we are blessed and thankful. There is no other structure that could capture the essence of Human Anonymous better than the tipi. So our church, our sanctuary, our temple is our tipi.
We are hoping beyond hope to raise our new energy center for the healing of the Mother on Summer Solstice, which is a long shot for sure. It will be a hard push. We will see if Mah-n-Jah are willing. If not, it will be as soon as they are willing!
