I’m just back home in Pittsburgh after spending time in Oakland CA and at a woman’s retreat in the woods of East Texas. One of the known values of travel is to appreciate your home in a new way and, though it’s not to be counted on, this glorious mild, sunny weather is the best I’ve experienced in the last ten days. As I watch golden leaves floating on the breeze towards the ground, I remember a ritual I learned from our retreat leader, Glenda Taylor, many years ago. It is known as the Ritual of the Prayer Stick, and it involves the weather as an ingredient in the transformation we are going for when we participate in ritual.
As a small business owner, I got in a bad mood easily when the managed care companies were slow to pay for the services my clinic had delivered on their behalf. “We’re not a bank,” I thought, “and our expenses are not slowing down just because they have put us in the role of their creditor.” At a meeting on the campus of one of the companies, it was hard to be as excited by the new furniture as their employees were. To my mind, it had been purchased with our money.
Since this is not a good way to live ones’ life, or operate a business, and we couldn’t afford to involve lawyers, at the next retreat I looked for a ritual that would change my attitude about what I had little to no control over. Glenda suggested a ritual that began with a walk in the woods where each person meditates on what changes in their lives they want to pray for. She directed us to select a thick smooth stick that would be able to stand strong in the ground in all kinds of weather for at least one season. Next, we made prayer ties that represent what we are hoping and praying for in our lives. As I made each prayer tie, putting a pinch of tobacco, (which is sacred in the native American cultures) into a square of white fabric and I tied it, creating a small packet to then tie onto the stick. For each tie, I thought about a specific managed care company that owed us money. I prayed for them that they could have the willingness and good fortune to pay their bills on time. When I got home, I placed the prayer stick just outside my bedroom window where I could see it as its ties blew in the wind throughout late fall and winter.
Winters can be harsh in North Texas where I was living at the time. Leaves don’t all drop, and ice storm come in early in December, (the kind where everyone drives to the nearest intersection or elevated icy overpass, has a fender-bender accident, and then shuffles home.) From the comfort of my home, I watch the rains come, the winds blow, an occasional dusting of snow–all happening, settling, and dissolving on and around my prayer stick. I notice the prayer stick every day, standing there, battered but unbowed. In my conscious mind, I have no idea what this has to do with anything in my regular life.
In late spring, there was a meeting for health care providers at one of the hospitals. Pulling into the parking lot, I noticed that the large luxury car I was following was driven by one of the managed care company’s chief executives. He was someone I knew, someone who would speak to my husband who co-directed the clinic with me, but not someone who ever spoke to me.
Entering the large meeting room, I notice people are gathered around the edges in clusters, standing and sitting as they chat and catch up with one another. Some may have already begun their litany of things going wrong in the health care industry, the “isn’t it awful” part of the conversation. Or they may be trading what my husband called their “doomsday scenarios” of the future of behavioral health care. I place my purse on a chair, not next to anyone I know, and as I turn around, I see the health care executive coming across the large expanse towards me with a smile on his face. I look behind me to see if I am standing in the way of the person he seems to be eager to connect with, and I realize it is me. He shakes my hand. He knows my name and greets me as though I am one of his favorite colleagues. I picture the prayer stick and wonder, is that how this miracle happened? Had watching the stick survive all the challenging weather patterns of an entire season changed my energy field, causing me to be in a better mood, more approachable? Did something in me change that changed other people’s reaction to me? It’s not something I expected, and I still can’t explain it. But I know that a transformation occurred. Was it him or was it me? Or was it both of us?
Sheila
