Let the Truth Be Known Though the Heavens May Fall
©2008 Turtle Heart
Part of the work of a Sacred Bundle and its Keeper is the pursuit and understanding of the truth. Of course, the first issue has to be where and what is the truth? The answer to that is that it is within you. That is the place where the truth begins.
To help us know and understand what is true the mystery life gave us the original sacred teachings of the tribal ceremonial life. Different tribal cultures received their ceremonial life from their relationship to the earth around them. People in the forest received forest ceremonies. People in the desert received desert ceremonies. Different tribal communities used the power of their truth to receive what is sacred to them. They say it is sacred to them because with it and through it they can understand what and where is the truth. To some tribes it is the sacred kiva that is the instrument, to another it is sacred pipe or a sun dance.
The purpose these objects serve is that their ceremonial language, when properly understood, will teach you what is true, an in particular, what is in balance. It does this by giving you the personal power and clarity to understand what is true. The truth must be understood from within. It is not a truth based upon rules and regulations. There is no formula. When the ceremonies work correctly they give birth to your knowledge of yourself.
Some people believe the way to understand all ceremonies is to freeze one ceremony in time and then copy it word for word and gesture for gesture. Ceremonies are copy protected. You cannot learn anything by copying down someone’s recipe and “authority” for doing a ceremony.
The teachers hope that those who seek to be inside the ceremonies will receive the gift of a vision. This dream of the life, as we call it, is the one you have the power to realize. In the oldest of the tribal languages (tewa), going to a ceremony is translated as “seeking life”.
If you know your vision, your song, your name, your dream, your silence, your body from within the sacred space of ceremony then you will know what is true in the world.
Ceremonial life of the tribal ancestors is a sacred resource for this work of first finding the truth within yourself and then helping your relations and the creation. There is a fine line of balance between the guidance of the teachings and the responsibility of the person who may be seeking life. It is an art of great softness, an art of life itself.
We call the ceremonies and their keepers sacred because when they do their work right, they are keepers of a doorway into clarity and truth and the liberation of the unique vision that is a seed in every human being.
And that’s just the first step. After you actually wake up and remember, the ceremonial life will lead you out into the waiting world where your clarity and faith in what is true from within will merge with the seven generations as they flow through time. Where, now, we find ourselves in a very different world. A world where truth is not a ceremony but a word, an idea that can be manipulated, reinterpreted and tricked, murdered. Now we find ourselves in the troubled, and dangerous world. Here, for example. As you stand here now, the truth is entirely in your hands.
