Smoke ceremony for new Canadian Prime Minister


Paul Martin became Canada's newest Prime Minister December 12th in a two-part ceremony - a purification with smoke and feather, and a swearing in. The latter got all the press, but the former could, in a world where ceremony points to practice, be much more significant.

I happened to catch the smudge ceremony on television. It started with a man in a suit and tie, white-haired and pony-tailed, walking up and laying a small rug on the floor, on which he put a bowl. This was Elder Elmer Courchene of the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba. He then put some sage in the bowl, lit it, fanned it with a white eagle feather, and proceeded to move all around Paul Martin, patting him - hands, head, back - with the feather.



The ceremony is a cleansing one, to drive out obstacles and damaging influences. It is remarkably similar in both spirit and form to the lhasangs performed in Tibet and, nowadays, in the Shambhala community.

What if this were not a one-time ceremonial occasion, but part of an ongoing - how about daily? - practice of recognizing self in world, a world that is not just the TV world of discursive politics, but one where earth and sky are joined by the motions of our human hands?

Posted:
Sun - December 14, 2003 at 05:11 PM      

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