¡Colores!; 411; Meinrad Craighead: Litany of a Great River. AM Ritual.

I mean, I've been telling people about, yeah, we have a lot of good wild spirits going, yes, we do. Oh, say. There are going to be a little antsy today, because we haven't got to do that, so I didn't like any way to prepare, like, a new one, or something, just a matter, we can go later in the day. It's still cool enough. I was, it's been so many. I mean, another month, I have to go early in the morning, because it just gets to get hot in the day. It's so beautiful, yeah, it's, it was occurring to me, but if I don't, that's all I had to do, I just want to water my garden for us, and I have to water it twice, twice at what, in the morning and in the evening. Oh, you must have no sense of it. During the sun. Yeah. Yeah, there are nobody's bigger than that. Oh. And they're real vulnerable right now. Well, you're lucky you have a garden to even, and

you know, fires, because they're living things are sometimes funny, sometimes they start and they burn beautifully, sometimes they're very recalcitrant, and they have to be huffed and puffed at. So, obviously, you might end up with a lot more footage of me starting the fire than you'd usually, than you'll actually use, but there's nothing I can do about it. Sometimes it just does not go very well. Bring more. Bring more. Come here. Pull the hair for us. Yeah. They're great grazers. Okay, then, anytime. Okay, let me. I like the fire each morning to make an act, a ritual act of

celebration for the beginning of each day. And I like the fire usually just before sunrise, but sometimes, you know, there's no fixed time. I just kind of, I'm an early riser, so I come out whenever it feels right to come out, but that's usually just before sunrise. And then after the fire has caught, as it now has caught, and it's burning. Then I just move around the altar and pray briefly to the four directions, the four sides of the altar. The side of each altar has three tiles on the east, which is what I'm facing right now, the direction I'm facing. There is a turtle rising to carry, carry with the energy, symbolizing the rising energies of the day. The, the tile here, the zigzag kind of pattern, black and white zigzag

pattern, represents the blessings falling down into the day, all the opportunities, all of the, all of the, the good energies that fall into our lives in the beginning. And this tile is a little bit faded. It represents the moon is like this, represents the, the new moon, also obviously in reference to beginning. So the east is the time of beginning. And if you can give me just a second, I'd like to get this far. I don't make a big fire, just enough dry can length

to, to keep it going for a few minutes. The Kenwing is of course all the Cottonwood windfall and deadfall from all of the Cottonwood trees I have. So I'm never without Kenwing, which is very convenient. And I love the idea that my, some aspect of the trees that I live with end up as part of this ritual burning ceremony every morning. And not only here in the outdoor altar, but also in my wood burning stove in the studio. So that this Kenwing I'm putting in here now has, has been in the trees surrounding me and is now becoming the ash, which will go back down into the earth. And then I move round to the south side of the altar, whoops.

And the south for me represents the fullness of the, of the day's energies. The sun obviously as it rises swings round to the south and gives us the burning heat energy of the day. I always think, think of the day as the doing of it, the day is whatever we do with the day that we've been given. So the tile here, the top tile, is a rabbit running as rabbits run so, so quickly and zigzagging and moving, which always the very motions of a rabbit's movement, he always seemed to me a kind of energetic understanding of movement along, along the earth through the day. And on the south side, the sun and the moon have equal intensity. So the fullness of the sun sits right next to the fullness of the new

moon, so the moon has now waxed from the beginning moon over to the south to the full moon. And then I move round to the west side of the altar. The west obviously as opposite the east, the top tile represents, instead of the turtle ascending to rise with the energies of the day, this turtle is descending to take down to rest, all that the day has given us and to bring the day to a conclusion, to end it and lay it into the wholeness of the circle. The moon here is the crown moon, the dying moon, so we've come from the new moon to the fullness of the full moon on the south, to the crown moon on the west, and the pattern of water here, instead of zigzags down, as I have on the east altar, the zigzags represent flowing water, in other

words, the Rio Grande, which is just west of me. And the flowing water is resting in the west because the end of the day is like the flowing of the final energies into night, as if all the rivers of the world are moving from their source through their various river beds, into emptying into the seas and the oceans on this planet. Mind rate, could you hold it right there for just a second? Just kind of contemplative. Thank you.

See what, let me set this up. If you can step to your right there, okay. Okay. And then finally, I've come to the north side of the altar. The north representing the darkness, the unknown, the unfinished, what we cannot see into what we simply must accept as being part of the pattern of light and dark. The animal on the north side of the altar is the owl, but also the snake in the fish. Creatures of the underworld and creatures of the night world in the forest. And the moon here is dark of moon, so the moon in this tile is

simply a black, a completely black opaque orb representing the three nights of the dark of moon. And while the fire is still burning, I come round the altar with cornmeal, so I've circled the altar once, just walking, and now I walk again, again, beginning on the east, and simply trail behind me a circle of cornmeal. And this is just a simple ritual of my giving to the earth, and thanksgiving for all that I receive from the earth.

And also, it's a way of a ritual way of beginning and walking in a full circle. You know, before you use it all, can I get you, I'm trying to just get a tight shot of your hand and stuff sprinkling. Now just tell me where to begin. If you can just, let me see here where. Because I can go get more cornmeal. Okay, if you can just put your hand down as though you're just about to do it. I can get it. This is a tough shot to get because you're moving, of course, but okay, if you can just do it a little slower than you normally. Yeah, that'll be great. Okay, you can go a little faster, I think. Okay. I'm kind of running out, okay.

Okay. Okay, well that's the fire ritual. Well, if I could just, you could get a little bit more, so what I'd like to do is get one where as though the camera's looking up. I don't know that I can do it. Sure. But try and get the altar going above and then you. Right, okay. Okay, I'll be right back. Okay. Okay. Okay, so I should start going around

now with the cornmeal. Okay. Okay. Okay, if you could just start facing the altar there.

I'll just take, get your hand going in and out. Okay. Okay. Here, we'll come around this way.

Still sprinkling. Yeah, I think you could. I'll have to go get more. Okay. I think I could put more wood if you would be able to build a fire up. A little bit of wood. That'd be good. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Who? I'm gonna... I'm gonna... I'm gonna... I smell sweet girl. More secret. Mm -hmm. Just don't let her go. Mm -hmm. Take her to the toilet.

This is taken a long time, baby. It's just taken a very, very time. Before, he got the mud in the car. We put the mud in the car. Here we were sweet dogs. Let me see if it's the bug. There's another dead bug. We got no bugs. I just can't believe we got no bugs. We have a few days without the bugs. We'll see there's one. Hey.

Let me look at my butt a few more here. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Now go go go. Time. Time. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I

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