Woke up Early and Needed to Pray. I was affirmed by Ate Grace Nono how important it is to understand Prayer as communication. You are not the only one who is speaking to the Divine Ancestors speak to and through you in Exchange. This morning I woke from a dream of many dishes in a sink needing to be washed. And my hands went to do the duty and the dishes became bodies and the sink became the ocean, and I was there scrubbing these bodies that were very much alive and I was crying and crying. I felt myself trembling and shaking, but I did not stop. I felt a deep responsibility to cleanse those bodies. They were being prepared to be used for a great rite. This is what I felt. I woke up and prayed.

This is what I heard within me, in communication with ancestors.

“Prayer of Responsibility”

I know my responsibility to my Ancestors
I have dug up their memories
Their words
Their lived lessons
Their collective actions
And in ceremony of similar waking battles
I’m replanting these remnants into my bones
Creating armor for my spirit
With deep understanding of
What it means for us to have to rise
More unified than ever before
To lead from Love
To act through Prayer

To protect the Sacred

My Ancestors are telling me
It is more than right
It is more than belief
It is truth
To be Free

I hear them
And it is my responsibility
To be
Free

This is not just the message of my Ancestors
Who fought in revolutions
In land battles
And in wars

Freedom echoes from
The Trees
The Clouds
The Ripples and the Waves
Our greatest guides
The Grand Mothers and Grand Fathers of us all

With the fires of the Sun in day
Reflecting on the moon at night,
Constantly lighting our way
Through darkness…
They remind me that they are our collective guardians
And they are still rising for us ALL
Just like they rose for others
Many, many generations before
I hear them
I understand what they are calling on us
To do

To be
Free:
Our Responsibility

To Protect
To Honor
To Defend

All that is Sacred
I know you hear their messages too

To Protect
To Honor
To Defend-
What is Sacred

But

You have misunderstood
You aren’t listening in the deep way I have
You hear Sacred is Towers scraping the Sky
You hear Sacred is Pipes penetrating the Waters
You hear Sacred is Concrete clearing away theLand
You hear Sacred is Construct
You hear Sacred is Coverings
You hear Sacred is Skin

You have not heard the Sacred within
You have not heard the humility of human being
You have not heard the humbling of wonderment
And so you have lost the ability to hear even echoes
From what came before any tellings of divide and conquer
Before the messages of supremacy and hate,
Before the lessons of constructs that were made
To make us see each other as Other
Forgetting we belong to the Land, the Sky and the Waters
The Same
Forgetting we belong to Eachother
That is why
You cannot hear your brothers and sisters screaming, right in front of your face
You have blocked out their pleas to your humanity
You have disregarded thier prayers to your spirit
You misunderstand

And so Our Ancestors
Tell us to shake you further
To tear down walls you are building
To destroy the machines you have built to rupture and wreck
To place our bodies before your own
And look you in the eye
And pierce into you the truths
Through our tears and our trembling
We are channeling
We will not let you look away

Even if it means that you will beat us bloody
Even if it means more will be lost
We do not die just for our communities, and our families
We die for our Ancestors

OUR Ancestors

We know our responsibility to them
And to eachother

It is our Responsibility
To remind you
To make you listen

Listen further
Not to Ego
Listen further
Not to Fear
Listen further
Not to Confusion
Go further
Not to Guilt
Go further
Not to Shame
Listen further
To the Freedom Ringing

From Ancestors crying
Through us
I hear them
Can you hear them?

It is your Responsibility too
They are your Ancestors too

Can you hear them?

“Protect
Honor
Defend
The Sacred”

“ALL is Sacred”
“ALL is Sacred”
“ALL is Sacred”

That is our responsibility
The responsibility to the Sacred
The responsibility to each other

To be Free.

Our responsibility.