Page 209 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015
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Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION
Offerings
Cynthia Travis
In the dreams, I see huge, conical mounds of bright yellow corn; oversize platters piled
high with rectangular slabs of cake; tropical fruit cut into delicate cubes and tenderly
arranged in tiny glass bowls set on an outdoor shelf for runners in a race. I awake
knowing that these are images of offerings.
Sometimes I dream of ways I am to offer myself: I reach into my gut and remove a clump
of flesh shaped like a crescent moon. I fasten it closed with a twig and return it to my
belly. This is painless... I am to dance a dance of reconciliation for arguing guests
followed by gifts of olive oil in ceramic flasks... I hold out my outstretched arms as a
perch for birds of prey...
When one receives a gift such as a dream—such as these dreams—what is called for?
Over the past eleven years, I have been fortunate to work with traditional indigenous
communities in Liberia,1 where dreams are considered to be a gift, a precious
communication from the Spirit World. The natural response to receiving a gift is to
acknowledge the source of that gift, to express gratitude, and to reciprocate. Therefore,
in Liberia, and in my community here in the U.S.—where we are seeking to re-learn to
live by dreams—we sometimes make offerings in response to significant dreams. We
like to go to the river, the ocean, or into the forest to leave nourishment for the animals
and animal spirits: water or milk or some other libation poured onto the earth or into the
water with fragrant words of gratitude; a glistening slice of honeycomb oozing through a
basket woven of fresh rosemary; a poem spoken through tears. There are endless ways
1 I have a small, peacebuilding non-profit organization, everyday gandhis (www.everydaygandhis.org).
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