Categories
Existence

Resting in Elkhart


Boozhoo! 

We began our journey eating lunch with our dear friend Niki at Grain + Verse outside of Harrisburg. They have delicious food and an awesome atmosphere. Perfect lunch before we journey west. 


Our car is names Arrow… Shooting us on our journey to North Dakota. We made great time so far! 9 hours to get to Ekhart Indianna, through beautiful clouds and gusts of wind…. Into snowy sky’s that only lasted for a few hours. 

 


We made our first major stop at the Blue Heron Service Plaza! Yes… Blue heron and no we didn’t go looking for it. I love how the universe tells us we are on the right path. 


Around 12 we started getting tired so we decided to stop off and get a hotel. We drove to the next exit and it said Elkhart… Wow. If you’ve read other posts you know the Elk has been apart of the journey since the beginning. My drum and rattle are made of Elk. Again the universe said yes you’re on the right path… Take a break. 

We are up now, it’s 8am, eating breakfast and preparing to head out. We are going to stop at the Indian Mounds Historic Site on the way up to Turtle Mountain Reservation. 

Last night at Standing Rock front lines, water protectors were sprayed with water canons, concussion grenades, and tear gas. 



The Fox22 news on Elkhart reported on it saying it was a riot. Wow. But they also mentioned that there were people collecting donations to take to the water protectors.


Sending lots of love and light to everyone at Standing Rock, and all over the world. 

Migwetch and Gizaagin 

Raine Dawn

Categories
Wine and Painting Party

Dream Catchers

Dream catchers are sacred circles. Being that I am Ojibwa, also known as Chippewa, dreamcatchers have always been a party of my life.  Growing up, there were dream catchers hanging on every wall, in every window, and in the car. We even had dream catcher earrings and christmas tree ornaments. I remember growing up making dream catchers in school and sunday school.  Though I don’t remember being taught exactly where they came from. I simply remember that they catch bad dreams and let the good dreams go through.

So as I got older I started reading and researching dream catchers and found that they were believed to have been created by the Anishnabe tribe, which is where the Chippewa began.  The Anishnabe people originated on the east coast, but migrated west after a prophecy about a disaster.  When they traveled west, there were groups of people who wanted to stay and adapt to the places they were. So there became different bands of tribes. My tribe is the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewas, in North Dakota.

So, there was said to be a time in Anishnabe history when the people were being tormented by nightmares. There was an elder who had a vision of a spider’s web in the morning dew, and knew each drop of dew was a bad dream the spiders web had caught the night before. As the sun rises in the dawn, the bad dreams are transformed by the light and evaporated. The people began crafting these beautiful ornaments to clear their space of bad dreams. Over time grandfathers and grandmothers created them for newborn children and were hung above the cradleboard to give the infants peaceful, beautiful dreams.

So now we know a little more about the dream catcher paintings we recently made! It was such a blast! Thank you four for a wonderful evening! Your dream catchers are truly unique and each of you did an awesome job!

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