Thursday

Sun Ceremony

by Emily Takahashi

An Excerpt from the Shambhala Touching the Earth Collective March Newsletter

For a recent Touching the Earth Salon, I was asked to share a little about a practice I did over the course of one year, 365 days in succession. In November 2020 I took an online class with a ceremonial leader from the Turtle Clan and Mohawk Nation, Diane Kahontakwas Longboat. Among other offerings, she invited the participants to do a daily practice, called the Sun Ceremony, for one full year, without missing a day. The instructions were to rise at dawn each morning, with a glass of water and a way to make a smoke offering. The idea is that the Sun always rises, regardless of the weather or the conditions, without fail, and makes the journey across the sky, and so we too can rise in honor of that journey, regardless of what is happening in our life. You greet the Sun, offer a smudge offering, and ask for a blessing on the glass of water, rendering it into whatever healing or empowering substance you may need.

I felt drawn to commit to this practice of rising each day at dawn, and to feel the full cycle of the year, in all its changes. It was during the height of the pandemic lockdown, and participating in this daily ritual felt like an appropriate way to meet the quiet, slowing-down time we were in as a global community, a chance to enter into a more direct relationship with the patterns of our Earth Mother and her celestial companions.

Diane had encouraged us to “make this ceremony our own,” to feel free to incorporate elements from our own traditions, and use our intuition. She also introduced us to the Haudenausaunee Thanksgiving Prayer, or the “words that come before all others.”

As the weeks progressed, and we turned the corner at the winter solstice with dawn arriving earlier and the light becoming brighter, I found myself expanding the Sun Ceremony practice, incorporating lhasang practice, element goddess practices I had learned from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, and feeling my way through the text of the Thanksgiving Prayer. And as I got more and more familiar with the Thanksgiving Prayer over time I began to use my own words to praise Mother Earth, her soil, rocks and landscapes, the different forms of water existing throughout the different continents, the Fish People in their great variety, the inordinate Plant forms—flowering, food, and medicinal—the Tree People who stood about me listening to my morning words, the many relatives, whether local animals, birds, reptiles, or insects, or far-away brothers and sisters of other lands, the winds of the four directions in their many forms—gentle,ferocious, warm or cold—the Thunder Beings of the West, Brother Sun himself in his Great Eastern Glory shining in undeniable confidence, Grandmother Moon and her many ways of caring for women, the bringer of children and the conductor of tides. And the Great Teachers of past, present and future, whose compassion has guided and supported countless sentient beings to wake up to the splendor of reality, and the ancestors, both personal and universal, with their many sorrows that need healing as well as the joys they have passed along. And finally honoring the Creator, even though we are a non-theistic community – it seemed fine and right to acknowledge the great gift of creation as it presented each and every day in infinite abundance.

As the months passed, the ceremony, which had begun with the simple instruction of rising with the sun with a glass of water and smudge, had evolved into a great symphony of reverence that took close to an hour. Whether I accomplished anything else of significance in a given day, I felt I had taken care of the most important task of any day – an outpouring of gratitude for the gift of life itself, and the chance to be connected to all of its manifestations.  

As the months progressed further and the grand symphony came to its fullest expression, to keep things fresh and not feel enslaved by the practice itself, I began to feel the need to simplify, consolidate, be less beholden to an exact template, but remain spontaneous from the heart. The ritual began to decrescendo, and shorten, as did the days themselves, following the summer solstice. By the time I concluded in November one year later, I felt complete with a condensed, concentrated form. Without intending to, my Sun Ceremony had followed its own natural shape, mimicking the same expansion and contraction Earth’s days had experienced.

Diane had said that on the final day of the ceremony we would receive a gift from the Creator. Some people were known to have visions, or something extraordinary occur in their life.  None of these things happened for me. I concluded my 365^th day to no fanfare or life-changing events. Except for a feeling that I had earned a deep healing that I couldn’t have gained just by thinking my way into connection with the Earth. I had been part of every day as it began, without missing one. I had showed up with Mother Earth, and she had showed up with me.  

From time to time I still rise with the dawn and perform the Sun Ceremony. I am not a slave to it, but when I synchronize once again with that symphony I am always refreshed and re-set in my being.

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To read the full Shambhala Touching the Collective March Newsletter please click here.