The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
How Indigenous Rituals in America & Africa Bring Connection to the Whole By Matthew Fox 2/27/2026 |
In yesterday’s DM, we learned anew of the African wisdom that all creation is sacred. This is echoed surely in other indigenous traditions, such as among Native Americans.
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Black Elk writes: We regard all created beings as sacred and important, for everything has a wochangi, or influence, which can be given to us, through which we may gain a little more understanding if we are attentive. |
“Mitakuye Oyasin: An Important Message.” Lakota Elder Dave Swallow Jr. explains the concept of relatedness to all beings and the earth. Krasimira Ivanova |
We should understand well that all things are the work of the Great Spirit. We should know that he is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and all the four-legged animals, and the winged peoples; and even more important, we should understand that he is also above all these things and peoples. The Lakota people honor “all our relations” — Mitakuye Oyasin. And this realization of relationship is at the heart of what brings peace to the human heart. Says Black Elk: Peace comes within the souls of humans when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the Universe dwells Wakan-Tanka (the Great Spirit), and that this center is really
everywhere, it is within each of us. |
Hundreds of First Nations people and non-native supporters from Canada and the US participate in the Healing Walk to the Tar Sands in Fort McMurray, Alberta to heal the land, air, water and climate and have their treaties honored. Photo by Jen Castro on Flickr. | An old Omaha elder remembers his youth: When I walked abroad, I could see many forms of life, beautiful living creatures which Wakanda had placed here; and these were, after their manner, walking, flying, leaping, running, playing all about. But changes have taken place. Now the face of all the land is changed and sad. The living |
creatures are gone. I see the land desolate, and I suffer an unspeakable sadness. Sometimes I wake up in the night, and I feel as though I should suffocate from the pressure of this awful feeling of loneliness. How much is an awful feeling of loneliness touching all of us these days as
Mother Earth succumbs more and more to the neglect and abuse of human industry, fossil fuels, and the rest? |
Speaking from the African tradition, Dona Marimba Richards reminds us how we bring back a sense of community and the “whole” when it is lost or wounded through ritual. The universe was created (is continually ‘recreated’) |
Dr. Marimba Ani talks about restoring connection to the divine through recreating rituals in African traditions. Healing For Soul |
by a divine act. We participate in that act as we perform rituals in imitation of the Creator and aspects of the Creator….Through association with this sacred universe, divinely created life itself becomes sacred and a most precious gift to be cherished, preserved, passed on and revitalized. It is to be lived to its fullest. She speaks more about the role of music, ritual, and dance. “Few have understood what music is to us. Black music is sacred music. It is the expression of the divine within us.” We become “part of the whole,” and music puts us in tune with the universe. It explains to us the mysterious workings of the universe and ourselves as cosmic beings….As in ritual, in music, the human and the Divine meet. |
Performance groups representing three different tribes of Jonduru, South Sudan, showcased their traditional dances for peace. Photo by UNMISS on
Flickr. | Dance is integral to such a ritual. Through dance we experience reality as immediate to us; that is, we are identified with the universe….Dance, for us, is a religious expression. When we dance through Rhythm, we express ourselves as cosmic beings…Dance and Song; Rhythm |
and Music, then, are part of the matrix of the African Universe. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you sometimes sense an “awful feeling of loneliness,” and do you
sense it in others? Might the wounding of Mother Earth and feeling cut off from the larger community of the universe be triggering that sense of grief and loss and isolation? Do rituals of dance, rhythm, and music reconnect you to belonging to the cosmos again? |
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