| CEREMONIES CONTINUED RATTLING Needed - Rattle Estimated time - 15 minutes To learn to rattle follow the same instructions as for drumming. It is more difficult to get a heartbeat sound with many rattles, so go even more slowly in your learning process. CHANTING Needed - Your voice, knowledge of the chant, and if desired, chanting or drumming tape, rattle or drum. Estimated time - 15 minutes. When you chant properly, you take the energy of the earth in through your body, magnifying it and send it out to all your relations on the planet. This means you should feel the chant throughout your whole body, not just your throat. It should cause a vibration that touches all your energy centers. It does not matter if you think you can not sing. Chanting is a way of centering and sending energy, not a way of proving your vocal ability. However, if you are going to sing a chant, you should show respect for it by learning it before you sing. Listen to the person leading it until you are sure you know the words and the tune. Some chants change words and tune unexpectedly, so don't be too quick to join in. When you are sure the chant, sing it with gusto. Most chants are repeated in sets of four with the person who began the chant determining when to end it and signifying this by saying "Ho!" BREATHING Needed - comfortable quiet place. Estimated time - 15 minutes when beginning; five minutes when proficient. 1. Many traaditions throughout the woeld use breathing as a method of centering. To begin, relax your body. If this is not easy for you to do, begin with your toes, tighten your muscles as tight as is possible, then release them. Tighten the muscles of your claves, release them. Do the same with your thighs, buttocks, stomach, diaphragm, chest, lower back, midback, upper back, shoulders, neck. Finally, tighten your scalp and release. Now do your face muscles and release. 2. Allow your breathing to go through as musch of your body as possible. Visualise it as a hollow vessel. Fill the vessel with air. Remember to breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. 3. Take long, slow, breaths. 4. Pay attention to yourself relaxing as you breathe. 5. Feel your breath fill you and connect you with the earth, the sky and all that is around you. THE PIPE CONSECRATING THE SACRED PIPE. When a pipe is consecrated with a ceremony, that particualr ceremony is bound to it. You must stay with that ceremony. Don't use the pipe casually Just pointing a pipe at the directions and smoking it doesn't necessarily constitute a ceremony. You can bind your pipe as a -personal pipe that only you can use - a family pipe that can be shared only with family no one else - a working pipe that can be shared by all. No one else can do a pipe ceremony with your pipe. Store your pipe in a respectful place in temperatures no more than you would be comforable in. It is not a display piece. Do not allow anyone else to touch it casually. Use it reverently. Never step over a pipe. Use your pipe often. Don't let it lay idle. If your pipe has a seperate bowl that is not glued in remove the bowl when not in use. When the bowl and stem are joined it is said to be alive. Each tribe has different ways of consecrating their pipes. All however use smudging and the directions for this ceremony. Here is one form of consecrating Pick a location where you feel comfortable performing this ceremony. Have your smudging mixture, you can use a charcole briquettes( these can be found where you buy your smudging mixtures and where incenses are sold- most likely in spiritual shops.) these help keep the smudging mixture lit, a bowl,Matches or lighter. Firstly light your smudging mixture in the bowl. Using the smudging ceremony at this time. Once this is completed, pass the bowl of the pipe over the smoke, fanning the smoke over and around it. Then repeat this with the stem of the pipe. Pass your hands through the smoke. Place the bowl in your left hand and the stem in your right and then bring the two together and connect them. This is the joining of male and female energies, heaven and earth, the material and spiritual. When they are joined the pipe is awake. Pass the pipe through the smoke fanning it well. Hold the pipe over the smudging bowl and let it fill with smoke. This allows the Great Spirit to smoke the pipe first. If you are not going to smoke the pipe at this time, offer it to the spirit keepers, the earth, sky, the ancestors, and the spirits, before you disassemble it and put it away. Cleaning the pipe beofre putting it away, you can use a straightened clothes hanger, and run it through the length of the stem. The pipe should be cleaned thoroughly, both shank and bowl. You can use pipe cleaners to do this. Remember the pip is sacred and the cleaning must be done in a reverent manner. Actual Pipe Ceremonies are Sacred and it wouldn't be right to post it publically. However I will be happy to email this individually. If there are other ceremonies you wish to know about please don't hesitate in contacting me |
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