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Dear friends from near and far,
Please join us on Zoom this full moon, Friday, November 19, 2021
at 6pm Pacific / 7pm Mountain / 9pm Eastern time
for the Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Meditation
On this month’s call we welcome Earth Treasure Vase Stewards,
Alison Fast & Nikole Manieri who will share their story of dedicating an ETV
to Serpent Mound and its placement near that sacred site on the recent New Moon.
Please join us to celebrate this powerful vessel’s entry into the global mandala! After the meditation ceremony we will invite you, our community, to offer your prayers and blessings for Serpent Mound into the growing Earth Treasure Vase Mandala.
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The call information will be sent upon registration.
A recording of the live call will be sent out to all who register.
Note: You do not need to register again if you have already registered previously.
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Journey of the Serpent Mound Vase
By Elizabeth Christine with Alison Fast
and the Serpent Mound Earth Treasure Vase Stewardship Circle
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In August of 2019 the Serpent Mound Earth Treasure Vase was requested by Lynda Terry who dedicated this vase to healing the effects of colonialism on the Ohio Valley and the long lineage of Indigenous people who lived in this valley back through the time when the mounds were created.
The majority of the Ohio Hopewell Earthworks were built between ca. 100 BC and AD 300. Worldwide, they are unique in their combination of vast scale across Ohio’s geography, their geometrical and astronomical alignments and precision, and that they were built by a non-hierarchical, fundamentally egalitarian society. These Ancient Ohio monuments are the largest earthworks in the world that are not fortifications or defensive structures. Their archaeological record reveals that Ohio was an ancient ceremonial pilgrimage site and trade destination for Indigenous Nations of the ancient, pre-Columbian North American continent. The Great Serpent Mound was built after the Hopewell-era sites, around AD 1200, and is the largest documented surviving example of an ancient effigy mound in the world. It embodies fundamental spiritual and cosmological principles that still resonate with many Tribal Nations today, including astronomical alignments that mark the seasons.
Lynda Terry writes: “The intention of the Earth Treasure Vase at Great Serpent Mound is to bring healing not only there, but to many other ancient sites and to bring healing to the souls of many ancient peoples whose molecular presence still exists within Gaia's soils, rocks, waters, and in the winds, in Her body and in the rays of sun and moonlight that shine upon Her.”
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 Lynda’s intention awakened a serpentine journey with the treasure vase, moving and shifting energies across the United States. Lynda’s life circumstances become such that she passed stewardship of the vase to Alison Fast in April 2020. (Lynda is pictured left with Alison and the ETV behind). A stewardship circle began to meet regularly on zoom calls to deepen a relationship with Serpent Mound; dreaming, envisioning, and listening to the calling of the Earth Treasure Vase. Meanwhile, Alison traveled with the vase from New Orleans, through Mississippi, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, California, and across the Pacific to Hawaii. The Great Serpent Mound is earth-based while holding the energy of celestial cycles. The head of the serpent lines up to the point on the western horizon where the sun sets on the Summer Solstice and the serpent’s body mirrors the constellation Draco, while providing demarcation of the cycles of the moon.
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 A year ago, Alison carried the vase to Hawaii. (The vase is pictured left, with offerings at the beautiful spring of Nāʻālehu at the southern tip of the Big Island, once named by Lama Tharchin Rinpoche a Pureland, or Dakini land.) The intention was for Alison to return to Ohio for the burial of the vase on the Winter Solstice, but in early December Alison suffered a fall and began a protracted healing journey. The vase was passed again, this time to circle member, Nikole Manieri in Yellow Springs, Ohio who embraced the vase with tender depth and full-hearted authenticity. Being from the Ohio Valley, she was richly attuned to the region of the vase's destination and purpose. Energies began to build toward placement. A strong directive emanated from the Earth Treasure Vase: it is time for us to care for each other with compassion as our and humanity’s old story is stripped from us. A felt sense of “nested” sisterhood developed within the stewardship circle as the group learned to inhabit the space between the old and the not yet birthed.
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 In June 2021, Nikole (pictured on the right with Alison, left) and a small circle of stewards, including Belinda Gore and Kat VanHammen, took the vase to Serpent Mound for Summer Solstice. The stewardship circle gave their blessing for her to bury the vase at that time if the way opened. Many significant animals and people were met and their messages received, but the vase was not buried. Over the summer, Nikole traveled with the vase to the Newark Earthworks in central Ohio, including the Great Circle, and the Octagon. These and several other sites along with Serpent Mound, are now in the process of becoming UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Federal Interior Department recently accepted the application provided by the Ohio History Connection, and the sites have been passed to the UNESCO council for final approval, which will ensure the protection of these sites in the future. We invite you to join in the prayer that this measure is a success and that the mounds continue to come under the stewardship of the 51 original tribal peoples of the Ohio Valley. Learn more here.
In September the circle gathered again and everyone agreed the time had come and the dark of the November new moon felt right. On the evening of November 3rd, the stewardship circle was joined by Cynthia Jurs and Julian Silburn (whose powerful dreaming provided additional support for the burial of the vase) in ceremony via Zoom in preparation for the burial. A blessing from Julian’s dijeridu drew the ETV into the songlines of the Global Healing Mandala.
We all felt that healing energy was strengthened as we attuned to our true nature. Nikole observed, "From the start, the theme of the polarities and finding unity through the heart, has been a thread.” The balance of masculine and feminine within each one of us and honoring the cycles of birth and death of cultures over time is a deep prayer for this vase.
The next morning, Nikole, Alison, and their ceremonial sister Khara, decorated the remaining two sides of a wooden box that artist, Deborah Milton and Kathryn Lafond had created with symbols of milk-weeping breasts, rivers flowing from common headwaters, and an uncoiled Serpent. Creative love and songs flowed as the vase was prepared to snuggle into her interior nest, created by Kat VanHammen.
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Serpent Mound Vase in its “nest” pictured with two sides of the hand pained box for the vase,
“Serpent of all Peoples” on the left and “Momma’s River” on the right
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It was a beautiful afternoon when Alison, Nikole and another member of the circle, Belinda Gore set off for Brush Creek. The area just west of the mound on public land was familiar as some of us had gathered there in the pre-dawn for ceremony on the Winter Solstice in 2020. Our little group greeted the spirits and danced; the Pueblo people call it "praying with our feet,” recounts Belinda Gore. “A hawk circled overhead as we approached a place in the woods, which had called Nikole on other visits. A rabbit sprang out of the brush.”
We discovered we didn't have fire to light the candle and beeswax for sealing the ETV. So, while Alison chanted the Tara mantra of OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA and Nikole dug a deep hole in the soft earth, Belinda went to retrieve a lighter. The vase was then sealed in silence and nestled into Gaia as the first stars of the night shone above Serpent Mound.
We left the Serpent Mound Earth Treasure Vase knowing it radiates healing energy, meeting the points of light of each of the other Earth Treasure Vases around the planet. Our time together stewarding this vase was an unforgettable gift on every level and we will continue listening, grateful to be woven into her magnificent mission!
In closing, Alison writes, "In this year of healing I have been called to be bare, with no skin. And realize with deep humility that I am just human, and cannot possibly know or understand the Great Mystery in its entirety. It is through deep listening and weaving all of our rich experiences and perspectives together that we connect the threads of old and new stories. One of the roles the vase has played is to raise powerful and personal inquiries and questions about our humanity that we can continue to follow.”
For more on this extraordinary Earth Treasure Vase journey and the Great Serpent Mound, please see: Ancient Ohio Ceremonial Earthworks by Nikole Manieri here.
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The Great Serpent Mound at dusk….
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One World Bearing Witness
An invitation to a global, live online ritual Dec. 4-5
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Our friends Elizabeth Debold and Thomas Steininger are hosting their annual 24-hour global meditation and prayer ritual, One World Bearing Witness on December 4-5. This is an invitation to take part in sacred activism—together with thousands worldwide, you will become part of a deep field of consciousness guided by spiritual teachers from all over the world—a precious opportunity to spend time with others around the world in deep spiritual practice. Together, we will bring together in our awareness the diversity and brilliance of Spirit as it is expressed on the various continents and regions of Earth. We will meet in depth and in silence across continents and oceans, across religions and spiritual traditions, across beliefs and faiths, to bear witness to the Creativity of Life. It is an opportunity to meditate, regenerate, and celebrate the Life we share.
One World Bearing Witness is dedicated to creating a global field of awareness that shines with the collective Spirit of our diverse humanity. Our diversity is part of human creativity, which is an expression of the creative force of Life itself. The 24 hour ritual is free of charge and you can join for any part of this full turn of our beautiful planet, Earth. Stay as long as you are inspired!
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Full Moon Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Meditation
Inspired by an ancient Tibetan Buddhist tradition, our monthly Global Healing Meditation lives at the center of this community where once a month on the full moon we invoke the locations of all the Earth Treasure Vases that have been buried around the planet to bring healing and protection to the Earth and imagine our prayers radiating out to activate the global healing mandala that has been created, embracing all of Gaia in our love. Each month we focus our intentions on a particular treasure vase that is in the process of being accomplished.
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MARK YOUR CALENDAR for the final FULL MOON of 2021 on December 18th!
2022 dates will be announced in next month’s newsletter
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 Our Monday Mindfulness Meditations provide the opportunity to enter into a quiet place within, catch our breath, center ourselves, let go of anxiety and reconnect with our true source of being within the context of a supportive group or “sangha”. Cultivating mindful awareness, we can meet these times of collective crisis and opportunity with calm and clarity. During each session, our practice centers simply and effortlessly on the breath as a way to anchor our minds as we return over and over to the present moment. There is a wealth of wisdom in this circle. Teachings and reflections are offered by Cynthia and various Sangha members. We then enjoy two 20-minute periods of silent sitting meditation interspersed with 10 minutes of slow walking meditation. We close with a poem by Cynthia West, then open the circle for sharing. The group meets on the 1st and 3rd Mondays at 5:00 pm MT. Suggested donation $10/ session.
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Please consider a gift to Alliance for the Earth
Our small nonprofit, Alliance for the Earth, is an organization that makes a world of difference. And although it is the job of many, we are just a few. For 30 years we have been doing the work of turning prayers into action in eco-systems and watersheds, diverse cultures and communities around the world, embracing the planet with our love. We deeply appreciate your support!
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DONATE HERE
Please find us here
And stay connected in The Mandala, our private online community here
Find Cynthia’s talks and teachings on our YouTube channel here
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Alliance for the Earth is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (Federal Tax ID: 85-0378387) that is dedicated to bringing healing and protection to the Earth and supporting a global movement of collective awakening. Donations to Alliance for the Earth support our peacebuilding work in Africa, temple rebuilding in Nepal, sacred activism through the Earth Treasure Vases and ongoing group practices, pilgrimages and teachings. Become part of our alliance by making a one time or recurring donation.
Thank you for your tax-deductible gift to Alliance for the Earth.
May All Beings Benefit!
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