MayDay 2007
Ceremony Team:
Julie Kastigar
Paul Johnson
Esther Ouray
Sandy Spieler
Leslie Zenz
A Turtle Hospital?
Did you know there is a turtle hospital located on the bottom of the lake?
I myself was completely unaware of its existence until
one
languid spring afternoon several years ago. I was lying in
the tall weeds on the steep hill on the northern side of the
lake, when, suddenly, an African-American boy about 11
years old, appeared next to me. Somehow, he had a
curious luminosity.
With no introduction, he asked if I knew about
the turtle hospital. He then proceeded to tell
me about it, and many other secret things
in and about the park.
I cannot divulge all of what he told
me but I can share that the turtle
hospital is very important. It’s
linked to many worlds and places
in time and space, and does not serve
merely the denizens of the lake. It is
illuminated with a greenish light that
has a strange and wondrous source.
Ancient healers, older than any thing
we know, are there. The rarest medicines,
too, unknown or long forgotten.
After some time, the boy wandered off.
I sat, tears in my eyes, deeply moved.
Who can say why Powderhorn Lake is
the locale of such a place? Perhaps it’s
acted as a kind of magnet – maybe it is
the reason our yearly ceremony of hope
and regeneration ended up happening in this
park, and not at another. Who can say?
I like to imagine the turtle hospital’s inhabitants
emerging from the lake bottom every MayDay to watch our ceremony
from just below the surface of the water. I hope they are
pleased with our work and our prayers.
-Daniel Polnau,
Mayday Artist
MayDay 2007
Somos Agua - Sunday May 6, 2007
Masanari Kawahara
2007 Tree of Life Ceremony
La Ceremonia del Árbol de la Vida
THIS YEAR THE MAYDAY CEREMONY is an invitation to share the healing powers of Water.
The Tree of Life is Burning!
photos: Eric Altenberg
Amidst the entrenched violence in the World
Amidst the relentless destruction of the Earth
The Tree of Life
sends up a Cry
Come to the Water
Share the Water
The Water that soothes our thirst
The Water of compassion
The precious Water that nourishes
all life on Earth
We enact the Tree of Life Ceremony each year to honor
the rebirth of Spring, as a renewal of reverence for all
Life and as a renewal of our commitment to work for
the Peace and Health of the world.
It is an increasing challenge to stand as Americans with an awareness of how many ways we, our nation, contribute to patterns and policies which damage and destroy the ecosystem.
May our turning to Water be a prayer for its healing properties to rise in our bodies, in our intentions and through our actions out into the world.
I Was Born
in Japan,
near Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The Park sits in the heart of the city of Hiroshima, a delta through which six rivers run to the sea. As a kid, the park was an ideal playground, with large grassy expanses, full of pigeons to chase. But at night, when I looked at the dark river, I imagined it filled with floating bodies.
As you might know, Hiroshima was the site of the very first atomic bomb attack, on August 6, 1945. The Park marks the epicenter of the explosion. Two rivers border either side.
The bomb turned the city into an inferno. The people’s bodies were on fire. They ran desperately to the rivers, crying, “Give me water, GIVE ME WATER.”
Every year since, precisely at 8.15 a.m. each August 6, the
whole city halts for one minute. All you hear is cicadas
singing, birds chirping and bells tolling to appease the
spirits of the dead.
In the evening ceremony, people float paper lanterns down the Motoyasu River to guide the spirits of the dead back to the other world. Sometimes, a lantern gets stuck near the riverbank, as if the spirit is trying to cling to this world as long as it can.
Participants write messages on the lanterns, such as:
“Mother, I am now a grandmother”
“I will never fight in war”
“Please do not produce any more nuclear weapons”
The colored lanterns drifting serenely through the Park towards the sea is, to me, an indescribably poignant, beautiful sight — and a powerful testament to the voices of people for peace.
-Masanari Kawahara, Mayday Artist
photos: Eric Altenberg
It Should Be Visible
If from Space not only sapphire continents,
swirling oceans, were visible, but the wars –
like bonfires, wildfires, forest conflagrations,
flame and smoky smoulder –
the Earth would seem
a bitter pomander ball
bristling with poison cloves.
And each war fuelled with weapons:
it should be visible
that great sums of money
have been exchanged,
great profits made, workers gainfully employed
to construct destruction,
national economies distorted
so that these fires, these wars, may burn
and consume the joy of this one planet
which, seen from outside its
transparent tender shell,
is so serene, so
fortunate, with its water, air
and myriad forms of “life that wants
to live.”
It should be visible that this bluegreen globe
suffers a canker which is devouring it.
-Denise Levertov from The Life Around Us:
Selected Poems on Nature (1997)
A River Poem
Inside the river are
the sky, the cloud, and the sun.
In my hands’ bowl is the river.
If I throw up my hands,
the river spills in drops, scattering
sky, cloud, and sun all o’er me.
From my hands’ bowl, if I drink
the river, then within me,
the sun, the cloud, and the sky.
Tell me, who is in who?
- Mamta G. Sagar (b 1966), Translated from
Kannada by Chitra Panikker with the Poet