Braided Root Waters
Braided Root Waters is the Spirit name of the 105 acres that I love and steward. The name was shared with me by my three Indigenous Grandfather Spirit Guides who are residents of this Land. They also gave me permission to share this name with you.
When we braid hair, thread, or even plant material, we are putting individually weak strands together in a way that makes them collectively much stronger. This makes the braid an apt metaphor for the cooperative, strengthening, Earth-centered ways we are striving for here. Roots, of course, keep us grounded in the Earth, nourish us, and connect us to each other and ourselves. And in a very real geographic sense, the waters that traverse the Land are braided root waters: three small creeks from the West, North West, and North (headwaters or root waters) literally braid together where they meet in the wetland valley to form the beginnings of Spring Brook, which flows all the way to Cayuga Lake, then beyond, to the Sea.
Earth-based Spirituality and Earth Healing
Braided Root Waters is a place for people to reconnect with Earth-centered spirituality and to gather to generate energy for Earth and personal healing. The energetic heart of the Land is located in the twenty acre meadow, where, in 2016, my Indigenous Spirit Guides showed me a large Medicine Wheel and gave me detailed instructions for making it visible to human eyes.
A Medicine Wheel is both a physical place of power and energy and a symbol for the cyclic nature of life on this Earth, a template for the living of a good life in the lessons of the seven sacred directions of North, East, South, West, Above, Below, and Within. Being in the Medicine Wheel feels like being cupped in Mother Earth’s palm.
The Medicine Wheel holds a large Fire Circle at its center, and a small fire circle in each of the Four Directions. We come together as a community of people who love the Earth and who deeply feel the Earth’s and our own pain in these extreme times. Together, around a Sacred Fire, we add to the Energy being generated by people around the world, to help bring about significant change and Earth healing.
At Braided Root Waters we seek Spiritual Guidance to guide our decisions, actions, and land uses. As the many facets of Braided Root Waters Healing Sanctuary are revealed, develop, and grow, more opportunities will be created for Spiritual connection here, such as solstice and equinox celebrations, rites of passage, the Work That Reconnects and Shamanic Workshops.
Land History
Prior to colonization and the genocide of the Native North American Peoples, this was Haudenosaunee Land.
What we know of the more recent land use history is that it was pasture for cattle and cut for hay for at least two generations before we arrived here. No agricultural chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, insecticides) have ever been used on the Land.
