Creators Story
Psalm 23 revised
May 6, 2017 by By Kathy Moorhead Thiessen
Creator is my protector like a grandfather, grandmother, mother, father, auntie, uncle. I lack for nothing. I have places to lie down and rest under the cedar trees and on grassy plains.You lead me beside quiet waters that are pure enough to fish in, to swim in and to drink. My whole being is nourished and restored.
You guide me along the right paths: learning the right way to live with all creation. Even though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Creator, your loving kindness comforts me.
You prepare a table before me in the midst of those I love and those I disagree with. We have time to talk and discuss and settle our differences while eating wonderful food. You provide medicines and smudge for my healing and my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and mercy and humility and honesty and respect and bravery and wisdom and truth and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will live in the house of Creator for as long as the sun shines and the rivers flow.
Our Story
Ancestral Muscle Memory
My Indigenous Mesoamerican, Haudenosaunee, Chicano, Mexican, Aridoamerican and Ancestral Puebloan Taos ancestors were all farmers, labourers, migrants, Mexicans, Chicanos, gatherers, hunters, traders, and even horticulturists.... travelling, dancing, throwing parties, throwing flowers in the air, celebrating our kills, lighting our fires, collecting our harvests, raising our cocoa vessels and honing our survival skills and our ways of life. We are still a working people on the move and so full of life! We have grit and survived the deserts and Turtle Island with Creator and our ancestors watching over us giving us strength through food and drink we provided for ourselves.
Religion, slavery, colonialism, and capitalism gave us shame and stigma about being farmers, labourers, and craftspeople. Our magical nature, our desire to wander on foot to far off places along the trails carrying exotica was shamed and disrupted. We are made to think that wandering and being seasonal and doing labour with our hands is for the unintelligent, the unrefined, the less crafty.
We can be found again by each other and we can find ourselves through Creator. We can find our way back to ourselves by respecting others and ourselves through right relationship with food production and ethical consumption.
Our strength was in our muscle memory and seasonal labour. Our wanderings and trade routes were part of our prosperity and kinship. It was celebrated. Our rituals were seasonal and focused on celebrating chocolate, corn, berries, the moon, the stars, ancient animals, each other, and even death.
We all have this muscle memory stored inside of our minds and our bodies. We can tap into these feelings and tap iinto Creator by growing food and medicines,eating food and medicines grown with love, and grown and sold or traded by our own peoples. We can follow in our ancestors footsteps and use the old trade routes to follow ourselves back to true health and healing. Gracias Thank you in Nahuatl Tlazohcamati Cenca tlazohcamati
