Yellow Ribbons

Yesterday I went to a workshop called "Riding the Windhorse" lead by Irma Cacares, a medicine woman affiliated with the New York Shamanic Circle and a resident of Queens. I didn't really know what it would be like, but the other times I've worked with Irma it was such a wholesome spiritual smorgasboard that I really didn't want to miss this one. One of the things we worked on was making prayer sticks- I'm not sure what tradition this is exactly, but you take a stick or two and wrap yarn around them. As you circle the stick with the yarn, you pray. To finish it you tie a feather on to it at its highest point (so the wind horse can carry your prayer to the great spirit) and then leave it in the ground indefinitely.

I'm trying to understand more about the tradition of wrapping strings around things as a spiritual expression. Reminds me of the song that goes "Tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree...," which I guess led to the period of time when people tied yellow ribbons around trees to speed the return of the hostages in Iran. Ribbons remind us of our soldiers in danger. I know that when the Virgin Mary appeared in Fatima one of the three key things she told Lucia, Jacinto and Francisco was to do penance by wearing a tight cord around their waists. In a dream I once had, I carried a paper maché pig that had a green cord wrapped around it several times.

It seems like it has something to do with being married to the rest of humanity, a reminder that we can't ever really be happy while we know someone on earth is suffering. We may act in self-indulgent ways and deep down we are paying for sucking up more than our share of fun, luxury, convenience and treats, for denying our own and other people's pain, for justifying our selfishness by pointing to the world's failures. For spending so much energy trying to be the champions all the time. The fun and power we seize all ends so quickly and then we have to start thinking up our next exploits. It's all very self defeating. We know it's not enough to make things perfect and comfortable in our own little corner of the world and we suffer for it. Maybe the cord is like weights you tie to your feet so that when you take them off you can climb great heights with little effort. For me, it has been a symbol of conscience, a too quiet throb that eventually causes me to reduce my self-centered tunnel vision and be open to the experiences of the people I'm with, especially the ones the challenge me, make me feel insufficient, powerless, clueless, bored, defective, ignored, invisible...