I can’t comprehend what our ancestors learned from careful study of the natural world. It began there. With careful study and observation. Over long periods of time. Or said another way. Through deep care and devotion.

Through deep care and devotion we learned what the forest sounds like when a large cat is coming.

Through deep care and devotion we learned which plants and trees are good for making baskets.

Through deep care and devotion we learned which vines, which mushrooms, which cacti can bring us into deep connection with the Great Spirit.

Through deep care and devotion we learned to sing, tell stories, dance, make art, make love, raise shelters, raise families, eat well, grieve our sadness, learn our boundaries through our anger, and to love and to love and to love.

I felt our ancestors with us yesterday. In the divinely timed thunderclaps. When the fire would pop or fall apart. When the rains came in. When the rains moved off. When the sun shone. When Mt Sopris showed snow. When the dippers flew chattering and fast over the giggling crystal river. When the red earth caught our feet. When the smoke teared my eyes. When the stones held their heat. When the stellar’s jays squawked and chided. When the caramel vanilla aroma caught my nose off the ponderosas.

I felt our ancestors.

I felt your ancestors. In each of you.

In your honesty. Courage. Bravery.

In your tenderness. Vulnerability. Disclosure.

In your 2 Year Vintage Poetry composed and kept and brought up from the cellar for us to bubble on.

In your watercolor painting of submission, acceptance, and dancing with the rain and wind.

In your Mountain Climbing Manifesto penned in mythopoetics. A man’s mantra for remembering the secret names of the divine.

I saw your ancestors In your heart breaking for land, for humanity, and the gulf we get to bridge between the two.

In your willingness to see the gifts hidden in blindness and the courage to ask for them by name.

In your unabashed acknowledgment of your magic hidden and in full 6’5” display.

In your quiet, humble, contentment with self, the alchemy of water into broth, and the deep aquifer of self-love required to enjoy such a miracle.

In your earnest longing to become an elder, to become what you are surely on the path to be becoming.

And in my fear, my human fear, my fear born of a desire to provide, a fear that is not unique to me, to this time, but has been around for as long as hunger has.

My prayers for us are simple. We treat ourselves with deep love, deep respect, deep gentility. And. That when we hear the roaring, we move towards it.

That when we meet the big hairies and the big scaries, we learn their names, ask what they need, and give where we can.

That we give and we give and we give and we give.

Even though.

We might not SEE the sacred mountains.

As we thought we would.

As we hoped we would.

As maybe we were promised.

But that we give nonetheless.

That our lives are lived in earnest offering to bring ourselves, our communities, our descendants to the Sacred Mountains, to the Sacred Lake, that they may see it, experience it, even if it means, even AS it means, we may never see the Sacred Mountains or Lakes for ourselves.

This is our contribution. This is our offering. This is our gift. Our thank-you to those that came before. Our gift to those who we are bringing in.

And.

Our contribution.

Does not have to be massive.

But.

It has to be honest.

And honest contributions are often born from honest pain.

Like Davis showed us, we give what we are wishing we received.

Let our broken hearts be the guides into our gifts, our contributions, our honest effort in bringing the Sacred Mountains just a step closer.

Each moment is a moment.

To bring them closer.

By listening to a lover.

Patience with a child.

Courage inside a family structure.

Each moment is a moment to move through the meadow.

To give an eye.

To stand in the center of the new place, quiet, and listen for what to do.

Each moment.

Thank you for sharing such beautiful, honest, and human moments together yesterday.

My heart is full. My fire tended. My head bowed.

Peter McLean