Cekiya

Cekiya. Pray.

It is a lesson I have learned here, among the Lakota. Cekiya.  Pray. 

From the heart, in all your pain, in all your joy.  In the midst of struggle and suffering, in the midst of joking and laughter.  Cekiya.

From the mind, focused in, to direct your prayers and energy to Tunkasila, the Grandfather, to Jesus, the Son, to whatever you call the Reality that holds us close and gives us life.  Cekiya.

I have a hard time praying.  I have a mind that wanders and doubts, that criticizes and analyzes, that tries to keep me safe.  I have a heart that feels - a wild heart, beyond my ability to control and feel safe with, because it wills me out into the dangers of loving others.  These two are not opposites - but I have found, in me, they are slow to understand one another. 

I have been blessed in my year of service to be invited into so many spaces that the people here hold sacred.  In these invitations, I am learning so much.  Around the table at dinner-time on Christmas with local friends who are becoming family - here I understand what it means to be generous, to be welcoming.  The office of the museum, where I listen to the thoughts and hopes and fears of a strong, strong woman who leaves me inspired and in awe - here I learn what it means to share wisdom, to teach and be taught.  A classroom in the Juvenile Detention Center, where tough kids with no reason to trust open up just a bit every time I see them - here I learn what hope can look like.

Another space into which I have been invited is the inipi ceremony - sweat lodge.  Here, I am learning how to pray.

Every time I enter this space, I find myself a little shocked.  I look around and see the stars shining in the night sky.  I see the horizon stretching over hills for miles and miles.  I feel the cold breeze chill me to the bone as I huddle closer to the fire.  I smell the smoke of a fire lovingly and selflessly prepared so that we can all pray better.  I feel the handshakes of men and women who are willing to let me into their world, willing to let me hear their prayers, to hold those prayers as sacred.  I hear the laughter that lives inside of this people, I hear the cries of pain that reside there as well - I hear the music they make together.

I am learning what it means to pray.  To pray like you couldn't live without it - and maybe starting to let myself understand that, perhaps I can't live without it.  Perhaps I am not as strong, as invincible as I want to convince myself.

"It's gonna get hot in here."  That is how the last one started.  All gathered were asked to pray for a relative, to offer our time and our prayers and our spirit to bring healing - we were asked to give up our own needs, to trust that they will be taken care of, and to pray for this relative.

I had a tough week.  I carried a lot of weight in my mind and heart.  I looked forward to this time of prayer to offer up what I had to say, to give voice to my difficulties.

It was not to be the case this time.  Something I have struggle with lately has been the seeming selfishness of my prayer.  I always seem to praying most intensely about something for myself.  I have hoped to be more far reaching in my prayer, to get outside myself and pray for the people.  This last ceremony was the experience that I needed.

It was the hottest sweat I have been in yet.  I didn't think I would make it through.  I found myself breathing fire as my mind raced around in panic. 

But my heart was calm.  I had something to pray for.  Someone to pray for.  There was purpose to that suffering and pain, and it was to support my relative, to pray for that spirit and for healing.  That gave it purpose and meaning like it never had for me before.  Took me outside of myself, outside of my own needs and own discomfort, and allowed me to sit and focus my prayers on a relative.

Cekiya.  Like I never have before.