Ocean Honoring Ceremony

Ocean Honoring Ceremony 
November 7, 2010
Linda Mar Beach, Pacifica, California
Co-Led by Charlene Sul and Ginny Anderson
 
 
One year ago to the day, I sat in ceremony at the creation of the Earth Medicine Society, whose purpose was to help bring people back to the Earth Honoring ways and connection them with all their relations, of the stone, water, plant and animal realms.  At one of the early meetings we journeyed.   This vision had me on a mountain above the Bay Area looking at the lush greenery that had returned and seeing the sparkling connection of the web of life below.  I was filled with hope, then as today, as we come together in ceremony and add another spark into the web of life with our ceremony to honor the Ocean.
 
Our purpose is to honor the Ocean, the body of water that connects us all, the womb of which all life was born and one of the places on Earth where one can find intense peace, joy and harmony within. 

We will do this today in the creation of a Tule boat in which we will place our prayers and let the Ocean consume them to feed them back to the world.  We are led by two beautiful people of mystery, Charlene Sul, who is the founder of the Confederation of Ohlone people, which empowers others to serve their communities thus creating better society and Ginny Anderson an eco-Psychologist and leader of ritual for personal and community transformation. 
 
The Tule reeds where collected a week before by Ginny and Stacey, in a sacred manner, at Alviso by the bottom of the Bay.  Ginny and Stacey where able to this by going invisible from park rangers, flying over a fence, and not shape shifting into ducks, thus attracting the unwanted attention of the high tech, duck hunters that surround them.  Miraculously, they survived brought the Tules for our purpose of building a boat.
 
When I arrive at the beach I see some of the people beginning to gathering, people with Tules and offerings for the ceremony.  We do a thorough search of the beach to see if there is anyone we have missed.  We can not see Charlene who is supposed to have arrived.  As we wait outside in the rain, we each tell our story about being drawn to the ocean.  I joke about spending most of my life in hot water, but then again that is my make up fire and water, and tell of my attraction to the Ocean from a early age, and how for me it is like returning to the mother, the womb, a sacred place
 
We then scour the beach for any offerings that we can find.  I make an offering of a feather, piece of wood and a flower and blow in a prayer of heath to our Mother Ocean.  After this I notice that the crowd is moving.  It seems that Charlene has been hiding in plain sight and steps back into this dimension and is ready to start the ceremony.
 
We prepare an altar of flat stones in a cleared circle on the beach.  Charlene smudges us with sage and the rain stops.   We lay out our offerings of flowers, fruits, herbs, seeds, incense and all other offerings to add our prayers to.  The Tules are unwrapped and we go to work.   
 
We each gather a bundle by taking the Tules and folding them in half.  The bundles are then tied with raffia in four places.  Next we braid the raffia in to a rope to tie the tule bundles together.  I get a lesson in braiding.  The bundles are tied in the shape of our prayer vessel.  If one were to make a boat in this manner for fishing then the boat would be allowed to dry completely before being sea worthy.  
 
Once the boat is completed we add our prayers and offerings.  It is a beautiful ceremony as we create with our prayers and intentions this offering to the Ocean.  The boat is a beautiful expression our hearts’ desires for the Ocean. 
 
Now there are eleven of us, two male and nine females.   Charlene opens the ceremony with a song.  The birds gather on the ocean as a flock of seagulls plays in the waves.  We go around the group and everyone offers a prayer or a song or both.  Half way through this the flock of seagulls flies overhead and one of their numbers bless our gift as only birds can with a bit of good luck as some might say.
 
Next we make a offering of tobacco and cornmeal and each one of us takes a pinch and offers our last prayers for the Ocean.  The rest of the cornmeal and tobacco is offered for all forgotten prayers and the boat is ready to be carried to the sea.
 
Aerin and I carry the boat to the sea following a straight line in the direction the boat faces and Charlene leads the procession smudging the air.  Before going into the Ocean there is one last prayer song.  While we sing there is the last offering of honey that is poured on our prayers to sweeten them for the Ocean.
 
We head to the sea.  I try to avoid the waves and for my trouble get knocked down into the surf.  Luckily the only damage is done to my pride and the lesson is learn, to fully commit to the objects of one’s prayers.  
 
The boat makes it to the surf and the waves play with it as it move down the shore line, getting stranded and being brought into the sea again.  Each one of us offers more of our prayers to the Ocean with the additional items that did not make it to the boat.  
 
The ceremony completed we go for a snack.  Later we return for a picture and while we had our backs on our prayers they were consumed in the surf, a successful offering accepted by Mother Ocean.