An excerpt on the mystery of ceremonialism from Book of the Hopi. I feel it's relevant not only to Hopi ways of seeing, but also in relation to my own experiences here among the Blackfoot.
peace,
d
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Why these mysteries should seem strange to us now an onlooker cannot say. Their songs and dances form simple rhythmical patterns. The costumes and decorations are even more simple. A deer horn, an eagle feather, a turtle-shell rattle, a twig of spruce and an ear of corn, daubs of mineral paint – no more than these. Have we of this Synthetic Age grown so far away from our earth that we read no more meaning in the elements of its mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms? Yet these ceremonies hold a deeper truth than this. For the Hopi the cornstalk, the talking stones, the great breathing mountains – all are significant and alive, being mere symbols of spirits which give them form and life. These invisible spiritual forms are in turn but manifestations of the one supreme creative power which imbues them with meaning, which moves them in their earthly orbits and seasonal cycles in unison with the constellations of the midnight sky. And again, their unhurried, stately movements follow the inexorable laws of universal life itself – symbols for symbols, layer upon layer of ritual esotericism, through which man reaches at last the ultimate meaning of his brief existence on this one puny planet among countless myriads more.
- Book of the Hopi, Frank Waters/Oswald White Bear Fredericks
peace,
d
_________________________________________________________________
Why these mysteries should seem strange to us now an onlooker cannot say. Their songs and dances form simple rhythmical patterns. The costumes and decorations are even more simple. A deer horn, an eagle feather, a turtle-shell rattle, a twig of spruce and an ear of corn, daubs of mineral paint – no more than these. Have we of this Synthetic Age grown so far away from our earth that we read no more meaning in the elements of its mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms? Yet these ceremonies hold a deeper truth than this. For the Hopi the cornstalk, the talking stones, the great breathing mountains – all are significant and alive, being mere symbols of spirits which give them form and life. These invisible spiritual forms are in turn but manifestations of the one supreme creative power which imbues them with meaning, which moves them in their earthly orbits and seasonal cycles in unison with the constellations of the midnight sky. And again, their unhurried, stately movements follow the inexorable laws of universal life itself – symbols for symbols, layer upon layer of ritual esotericism, through which man reaches at last the ultimate meaning of his brief existence on this one puny planet among countless myriads more.
- Book of the Hopi, Frank Waters/Oswald White Bear Fredericks
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