Red Road to D.C. Totem Pole Blessing
May 22, 2021, Bellingham, WA

The Lummi House of Tears Carvers have created another beautiful totem pole. This one emphasizes our collective need to protect sacred spaces. The pole is traveling toward DC, where it will be presented to President Biden, and later installed at the Smithsonian. Along the way the carvers and their team are hosting many (MANY!) blessings, to imbue this pole with hope, healing, a call to action, and a spirit of unity.
Echoes had the honor to participate and coordinate the Bellingham blessing. It was a wonderful interfaith gathering, in which faith leaders came together to offer solidarity of heart, mind, and action. The following are some of the words that were spoken. Can you add your commitment to action, and a blessing to this pole as it travels?

A Call to Action

To the clergy present:

For those of us who are in the lineage of those who used religion to dominate and destroy, we acknowledge the sins of the past and the ongoing sins of complicity when our religions accept and approve of oppression, greed, and self-centeredness.

We commit to not ignore the past, but to do better, to work for justice, fairness, and to share our power and privilege with others. We commit to protecting sacred spaces and mother earth, to upholding Indigenous sovereignty, treaty rights, and listening, deeply listening, to others.

Response: I will do this.

To the gathered:

For those of us who are in the lineage of those who have dominated and destroyed, we acknowledge the violence of the past and ongoing complicity when we look the other way and so approve of oppression, greed, and self-centeredness.

We commit to not ignore the past, but to do better, to work for justice, fairness, and to share our power and privilege with others. We commit to protecting sacred spaces and mother earth, to upholding Indigenous sovereignty, treaty rights, and listening, deeply listening, to others.

Response: I will do this.

Bellingham Totem Pole Blessing

Great Creator who continues to create and to give: like the copper on this totem pole was a gift in the tradition of giving in the potlatch, may we become more giving people. May we know and understand that the truly wealthy are those who give abundantly. May we not live in a position of scarcity, but instead see the abundance around us that can sustain us all if we all share. Teach us to be people who share extravagantly, with one another and with the land.

Lead us, Great Spirit…...In Our Shared Responsibility (Charis Weathers, Echoes)

Great Connector, we seek your empowering presence amongst us, so that we can go beyond words, into collective action. We express our gratitude for this powerful totem and the winding journey it has taken so far, being sprinkled with rain from the clouds and water droplets from the rivers throughout the Pacific Northwest. Bless your sacred winding waters that flow through this land, the life blood of the earth. Help us see each unique river as a pathway, and way finder for us all. We ask wisdom for decision makers to remove the dams that block the life force of these waterways; and allow free movement of the Chinook Salmon. We give you thanks for these beautiful fish, our neighbors that provide us and the orca whales with the food we need to survive. May we always work to ensure that all of your creatures can find their way home.

Lead us, Great Spirit…...In Our Shared Responsibility (Emma Donohew, Echoes)

Eternal Creator, we give thanks for those who have gone before us and always walked on the good path, like the praying grandmother. We acknowledge that the only thing can that be passed on to others is love, and we pray that we can pass on good traditions and love. Let us honor both our elders and our children, as those who are closest to you. Keep us on the good path to honor our ancestors, and provide future generations with healthy land and abundant resources that are shared among all.

Lead us great spirit.....In our shared responsibility. (Erum Mohiuddin, Muslim)

Great Spirit, Protector, Creator, Illuminator, guide us to deeply listen to the wisdom of the Full Moon, Grandmother Moon, receiving and reflecting her light of truth and her medicine of trust brightly shining on reparation, on transformation, and on justice. We ask you to guide us to witness and emulate the strength and the freedom of Diving Eagle with spreading wings of the Sky father who flies high and lands to impregnate the earth, offering teachings on right use of power. May healing light illuminate this sacred Red Road journey and influence decision makers every step of the way, emboldening them with the courage to follow a clear path of planetary justice and protection, a path of honoring the ancestors and caring for future generations of all beings on this beloved planet earth as we humbly pray

Lead us, Great Spirit……in our shared responsibility. (Jillian Froebe, Interfaith)

Great Healer, we lament the racism and colonialism that continue to harm people and lands today. May this Totem Pole bear witness to these wounds, and remind us of the worth and dignity of all things. Guide us on a healthy path to build a future where no child is held in a cage. Many hands of many ages, touched and shaped this Totem Pole. It grew on this land for hundreds of years, nurtured by this air and these waters; older than our grandparents. May it carry, wherever it goes, the reminder that we are all connected to one another. Touch and shape us into a Society of Justice, where all are respected and honored. Lead us, Great Healer: to speak and hear the truth, to lament, to repair what’s broken, and build a future where all of us thrive.

Lead us, Great Spirit…...In Our Shared Responsibility (Rachel Weasley, Quaker)

We have offered words from our hearts, imperfect as they are, in hopes that this great offering - this pole carved with such love - will bring healing. Healing to peoples, healing to communities, healing to nations, strong healing that can begin a journey of many generations after so many generations of trauma and suffering. As the moon rises and sets, as the tides ebb and flow, as the chinook at last returns to her home waters, as the wolf hunts and tends his pack, as the bear finds her way downslope foraging with her cubs, as the people pray, as the rivers flow and the rain falls, we pray:

Lead us Great Spirit...in our shared responsibility. (Rev. Nomon Tim Burnett, Zen Buddhist)

Learn more about the journey here: https://www.redroadtodc.org/