Opening Welcome, Interhelp Fall Workshop 2018
We will begin by offering an adaptation of a welcome ritual created at Canticle Farm, a community near San Francisco that is a hub of Work That Reconnects development. Then we will honor and thank the beings of this place in a manner inspired by the Haudenosaunee people, who are also referred to, by European Americans, as the Iroquois Confederacy.
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To those of you who have been here many times and those who are here for the first time. To those who feel happily reunited with a familiar community and those who are now opening themselves to new people and new experiences. We say “WELCOME.”
People on all parts of the continuum of gender identity and expression. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, heterosexual, transgender, cisgender [those identifying as the gender they were assigned at birth], queer folks, the sexually active and the celibate, and everyone for whom those labels don’t apply. We say “WELCOME.”
People of African descent, of Asian descent, of European descent, of First Nations’ descent in this land and abroad, and people of mixed and multiple descents and speakers of all of the languages spoken here. We say “WELCOME.”
People of all ages. People whose bodies are of all shapes and sizes, of all abilities and challenges. Those living with a chronic medical condition, visible or invisible. We say “WELCOME.”
People who identify as activists and those who don’t. Mystics, believers, non-believers, seekers of all kinds. Those who practice the Old Ways, the ancient and enduring Earth-honoring traditions. We say “WELCOME.”
Your emotions: joy, fear, grief, contentment, disappointment, surprise, outrage, anger and all else that flows through you. We say “WELCOME.”
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We honor all the beings of this place. The plants: the grasses and herbs, the apple trees and the sycamore. The plants’ wonderful companions, the fungi that hold your soil and decompose your bodies to enrich Earth. To you we say “THANK YOU.”
We honor the animal beings of this place: raven and robin, earthworm, deer and mouse. The walkers and crawlers and flyers and burrowers. To you we say “THANK YOU.”
We honor the stone beings, the wind and the rain, the air and the sun, the mud and the sparkle of the dew. All spirits and energies of this place. To you we say “THANK YOU.”
We honor the ancestors, all beings who came before, and the beings to come in the future. We invite you to inspire and guide us this weekend. To you we say “THANK YOU.”
And finally, we acknowledge and honor in particular the people who have lived on and loved this land for millennia; you are known to us as the Pocomtucks. To you we say “THANK YOU.”
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And now I invite you to listen as we hear a little of the story of the Pocomtuck people.
