Monday, September 2, 2024: and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children...
Dear Friends,
A writer in the NEW YORK TIMES recently wrote, “The animus that has plagued national politics feels draining.” A long-time friend has requested that I publish again something I wrote some years ago. I quoted the Sioux mystic Black Elk as saying the sacred tree that could unite us all has never bloomed, but some little root of the sacred tree might still live and bloom into the sacred tree, and be filled with singing birds.
That was his hope, and it’s important that we have a similar hope today. Hope is something we should never lose.
Perhaps we can hear some singing from the young people of today as we remember the wisdom of a couple of old men in the past. - Brother Toby
Fixing Broken Dreams
When many feel that we are only a tweet away from the loss of democracy, why do I write about old guys and broken circles? Because there is something hopeful about it.
Let's start with one of the amazing descendants from the First Peoples of this country, Black Elk (1863-1950), a holy man of the Oglala Lakota Sioux. Black Elk became very ill when he was nine years old. During his illness, he was visited by spiritual Grandfathers who gave him a great vision. He did not share this vision until he was 17.
The Grandfathers took him to the center of the earth. There is a central mountain around which everything revolves. Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), the much-revered American writer on comparative mythology and spirituality, says that Black Elk was "at the point where stillness and movement are together." This is part of Black Elk's vision:
I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and in starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children...
Later, when Black Elk was near the end of his life, he was taken on a cloudless day to the mountain that was the center of his vision. And with tears in his eyes, he related to the Grandfathers that the hoop was broken and the sacred tree had never bloomed. But he also said:
It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and be full of singing birds.
A small cloud appeared right over him and it began to rain. Black Elk's tears mixed with the rain. Soon his tears stopped, the rain stopped, and the sky was clear again.
An interesting side note is that once, the Roman Catholic diocese in Black Elk's homeland started the process of having him declared a saint.
Moral? There is always a little root left of the sacred tree.
Jump ahead to another old man, Dom Hélder Câmara (1909-1999), a retired Brazilian Archbishop who was an advocate of Liberation Theology and frequent spokesperson for the rights and needs of the poor— he was much despised by the military regime that governed Brazil at the time.
I'm not sure when this happened, but I think it was about 1990, Dom Hélder Câmara came to Nevada to join a protest at a nuclear test site. He was very frail at the time. After leading a prayer, Dom Hélder Câmara joined the protesters, and according to a beautiful poem written by Denise Levertov (1923-1997), they all crossed the cattle guard and entered the forbidden ground where federal marshals were waiting with handcuffs. The poet wrote:
After hours of waiting, penned into two wire-fenced enclosures, sun climbing to cloudless zenith, till everyone has been processed, booked, released to trudge one by one up the slope to the boundary line...
They were all pretty discouraged, and somehow knew it wasn't going to do much good. We had entered an age where it was possible to kill millions of people by pressing a single button. But Dom Hélder Câmara wanted to demonstrate that "the sacred hoop" could be reconstructed.
Everyone gathered into an outer circle and an inner circle. One circle moved clockwise, the other moved counterclockwise. Everybody saw everybody's face. After a short time, they began to dance. As the poet wrote;
Dom Hélder, too, faithful pilgram, dances, dances, at the turning core.
And the unity, and the hope, was restored! It was true then— and it can be true again!
This Friday Reflection by Brother Toby was first published August 18, 2017 and has been updated.
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