Prayer Pole Blessing

Four years ago, Grandma Aggie asked Red Earth Descendants to watch over the prayer pole, keep it alive, a place for the People to go and pray. R.E.D. has provided several of our families' sacred eagle feathers to honor this request. In those years, we've repeatedly had feathers stolen from the pole, interrupting the community prayer as well as creating a potential nuisance on City of Ashland property. In an attempt to keep the peace, keep the prayer and keep people safe, we'll be retiring our feathers and replacing them with "prayer robes" (tobacco that is wrapped in cloth for the purpose of holding up that community prayer). The robes will be a strong and intentional source of strength, just as the feathers have been. Some of our families have sacrificed their feathers for this prayer, and now it is time to give them a rest from carrying this responsibility. It is also important that we protect the unknowing people who are stealing the feathers--they obviously don't understand the significance of the item they are stealing, and thus, we feel it is wise to remove the temptation.

We invite the community to attend the blessing next Sunday and be part of this transition.

As always, we'd appreciate feedback from the community, so feel free to write back and offer your opinion about this! The prayer pole is for the People.