Day 6: Cosmology, Myth, and Song & Becoming Wise and Well Ancestors

OPENING PRAYER

As birdsong streams through the morning air, we remember the songs our ancestors sang, the stories they told, the way they searched for meaning in their lives. We know these things like a native tongue, threading through our own longings. Guide us this day to hear the wisdom still echoing across the generations.

OPENING SONG: Grandmother Song

1. I hear the voice of my grandmother calling me.
I hear the voice of my grandmother call.
She says, “Wake up, wake up, children,
Wake up, wake up.
Listen, listen. . . Listen, listen.”

Refrain:

May the rivers all run wild.
May the mountains go unspoiled.
May the air be clean,
May the trees grow tall.
May there be love for every mother and child.
May there be love for every woman and man.
May there be love for every being in the wild.

FIRST READING: Sandra Easter

Coming into a more conscious relationship with the ancestors is a home coming, a return to origins, to a way of knowing, seeing, and being in relationship with the world that has been and is part of our collective inheritance.

SUNG PSALM OPENING

O Justice, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)

PSALM 139: You Have Searched Me

You have searched me and known me, Holy Lord
Know when I sit and rise
You’re acquainted with my ways
Where I go and where I lie
You know each word completely
before I speak it, Lord
You lay your hand upon me
hem me in behind, before
Where can I flee from your spirit
Or from your presence go?
If I rise up to the heavens
Or descend to the depths below
If I take the wings of the dawn to
the far side of the sea
Even there, your hand will hold me fast
your right hand will guide me
For you formed my inmost being
within my mother’s womb
When I dwelt within that secret place
I was not hid from you
You ordained that the days before me
be filled with love and grace
Made me beautiful and wonderful
for this I give you praise
How precious is your every thought
how vast the sum of them
Though I try to count them
they are more than every grain of sand
O that you would pull down the ones who
do harm and seek to gain
My heart is heavy and I long
for goodness and love to reign
Search me, O God, and know my heart
know every anxious thought
And lead me on the path of
your everlasting way

SUNG DOXOLOGY

Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.

SECOND READING: Colossians 3:15–16 (NRSV)

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

SILENT CONTEMPLATION

PRAYERS OF CONCERN

We offer prayers now for all that is on our hearts.

Timeless One, the memory of the Cosmos is long and holds the stories of our ancestors. When we feel trapped in the limitation of our own narratives help us reach out to the wisdom of generations who shared the same search for meaning, love, and joy. May we find strength in looking to what came before and gain support for the journey ahead.

Sung Response – O God of Love, speak to us in Story. (Repeat)

Godde of Sorrow and Joy, our collective inheritance is filled with toxic patterns affected by war, famine, plague, racism, and the everyday slights that wear us down. And yet there is hope. Our collective memory is also filled with song and dance, laughter and love. Give us the courage to face the ancestral trauma unwillingly housed in our bodies so that as we do this work, we are empowered to disrupt toxic cycles and become a healing balm for this generation and generations to come.

Sung Response – O God of Love, speak to us in Story. (Repeat)

Mother of Creation, we are but threads in the tapestry of life. Our ancestors and siblings are human and more than human. May we hear the song of salmon and badger, honeysuckle and sweetgrass as clearly as the beating of our own hearts. As we recognize our kinship with all the Earth, help us to be faithful stewards of the land and its inhabitants knowing we are not sovereign but participants in this great Matrix of Being. Inspire us to care for one another.

Sung Response – O God of Love, speak to us in Story. (Repeat)

Please add the prayers you are longing to express.

Sung Response – O God of Love, speak to us in Story. (Repeat)

CLOSING SONG: Following the River Home

Following, following the river home,
We’re following the river home.
Waters of life, heart of the trees,
We’re singing our beauty back home.
Mother nature—wild and free,
We’re singing our beauty back home.

CLOSING BLESSING: Blessing for Origins

This blessing comes as an ancient story
of how your people made sense of the world,
through famine, wars, plagues,
and times of abundance and celebration,
how they sang and danced
their cries, their joys, their sorrows.
Know these myths as your own,
look for what ties them to your own cherishing
and your sense of aliveness.
Let this blessing anchor you in meaning,
the kind that emerges over generations
of wrestling and loving,
the kind that still shimmers in us as dreams,
and when you awaken
you know you’ve had a visitation.
Let the stories and songs
be a spiral path you can walk,
ancestral wisdom flowing forth
and deepening at every turn.
Learn these words, these tunes,
these movements by heart,
in your darkest hour let them return
to you like a summons and gift,
a map to guide you home again.

SUNG AMEN