medicine bag

When I was 16, my mum gave me a small medicine bag to hang around my neck.
I was living away at boarding school and going through what I called a “grey time” ~ weeks when it felt like grey, heavy rainclouds had covered the sky inside me.

Inside the medicine bag was small rocks, crystals, seeds and amulets… and a few pieces of corn kernels “to nourish and feed the soul”.
Tonight, pulling the large green reedy heads from fresh corn, I remember that small medicine bag, and the tiny corn inside it. I remember the grey time, and the tiny shaft of light that hope can bring. I remember the words of Denise Linn, that our medicine bag is our body. I remember to feed my body, to nourish it, just as I feed my spirit and nourish it with love. And I remember the love with which that medicine bag was given to me from my mother.

So, in quiet moments, I find myself tending to experiences and light, knitting them together into an ethereal medicine bag. Into it grows small pockets of wisdom, tiny gold flecks of magic, memories of walking and sharing and two eagle feathers. I walk at night, lie on the ground of a black oval, peering up at blurry stars, deciding which to use as a fastener. I make a new bag, a new life, for me, for my mother.

In grey times, Mama waited for me, handing me the medicine bag with corn. And I hold the medicine bag for you now Mama.

I offer this to you, Great Spirit.
I offer this to you, Great Mother.
I offer this to you, My Mother.

“My spirit is with you always now.
And your spirit is inside me too now.”
~ Aboriginal man on Going Bush

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