Page 212 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

appreciation to Life for life. Making an offering is a radical act of beauty in response to a

suicidally disconnected culture.

To live in a world of offerings is to invite a reciprocal relationship to that which sustains

us, enlivening that connection because gratitude so quickly becomes specific and,

therefore, palpable, revealing its anchors in the experience of the moment: Oh, that

intake of moist air filling my lungs! That wave curling! That hummingbird! Those geese!

This soft shawl around my shoulders! Making offerings is a way of being present, and

one of the more useful responses to wonderment. A relationship based on offerings is a

real
relationship because it requires attention, humility, intimacy, dialogue, awareness

and reciprocity. Making offerings keep me sane.

One of my favorite practices is to make a small Ancestor Plate at the end of the day, with

scrumptious bits of the meal I am about to eat, and set it outside in the corner of the

deck before dinner. The Ancestors’ Emissary seems to be the little silver fox who lives in

the field next door, and takes shelter from the rain in the culvert at the end of the

driveway. She cleans the plate and leaves a tiny fox-poop next to it. Once, as we sat up

late talking by candlelight, she stood on her hind legs at the living room window and

gazed in at us.

I pour milk into the ocean with the thought: may this milk feed all the life in the sea. For

that moment I am the primal mother releasing primal nourishment. As the liquid arc flows

from my hand, it becomes a tiny bridge of protection and for that instant all creatures are

safe and loved.