Sandy Shea
Slate River, near Crested Butte, CO
2019
Story Info
TYPE OF WOUNDED PLACE
TYPE OF STORY
EXCHANGE EVENT
Story & Experience
We met in the early morning on the summer solstice at the river. Our group included elders, parents and children. Together we created a ceremony where all participants added to our communal offering to acknowledge, value and create beauty in honor of water.
Why this Place?
Slate River, near Crested Butte, CO
This place is the confluence of waters that are healing and nurturing for our community and numerous downstream human and non-human recipients. It is also the site of past heavy metals and coal mining that forms the legacy of the town’s history. We chose this place to honor the healing properties of water, and to acknowledge our past actions that have affected these living waters.
Act of Beauty
Say more about your actions and activity
Water is a sacred, closed system that affects all events and sentient beings on the planet. It is also a messenger and mirror for human emotions and energies. We offered beauty through an invocation, a poem, music and singing, a ceremony of adding heartfelt intentions into the water, and, finally, the creation of a Rad Joy bird made from natural materials at the edge of the river. Through this ceremony, we sent prayers or intentions on the water, so they would ripple out to all corners of the Earth, and beyond.
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