"Seeing in a Spirit Way"
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Migizi, Migizi
Ninzhiibendam
Nasawaabide’igong
Gi-ga waabandan zaaga’igan.
(The eagle, the eagle
Patient like him.
From the forks on high
You will perceive a lake.)
- Ojibwe Medicine song for good hunting¹
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Migizi, Migizi
Ninzhiibendam
Nasawaabide’igong
Gi-ga waabandan zaaga’igan.
(The eagle, the eagle
Patient like him.
From the forks on high
You will perceive a lake.)
- Ojibwe Medicine song for good hunting¹
Flight of the white-headed eagle
Today, I am pleased to present part 15 of a blog series connecting my jewelry and graphic art as well as artwork by kindred artists with the Seven Grandfather teachings of the Ojibwe Anishinaabe People.
These Grandfather Teachings, kept safe for thousands of years by countless generations of Medicine People of the Anishinaabe Peoples, are passed down orally and from the sacred birch bark scrolls that still exist today.
Today's blog story features a drawing, titled "A Prayer for Life," and two ring sets created at my workbench.
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Ingii-bawaadaan
Babaamaashiyaan
Dibishkoo migizi
Giizhigong.
I dreamed
I was soaring around
Like an eagle
In the sky.
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Spirit flight, quest for a life-guiding vision
GICHI-MANIDOO, after
creating Aki, the World, spoke about the importance of mino-bimaadiziwin;
living a life according to the Seven
Grandfather Teachings.
Gimishoomisinaan
Migizi became inspired and told Great Mystery that he, since his feathers
symbolized the intermediate region between things of the spirit world and the
earth, would like his feather to be gifted to the Anishinaabe person who’s the
most brave and guided the most by the Teachings.
Migizi’s generous offer
prompted GICHI-MANIDOO thereupon to tell the Anishinaabeg of the Teachings
of the Feather. It (GICHI-MANIDOO) instructed the Elders of the Nation
about the power of spirit flight and the importance of young adolescents
engaging in what would become the most vital of human ventures: waaseyaabindam,
the quest for life-guiding visions – particularly during the passage from
boyhood into manhood. It (GICHI-MANIDOO) also instructed them that no Eagle be
harmed for their feathers, which were manidoog (spirits) in themselves, and
that whenever a person saw an Eagle fly overhead, this mighty spirit bird must
be honored with tobacco. GICHI-MANIDOO added that any person, no matter what
gender or age, living their life according to the Seven Teachings would be gifted
with a feather….
As the eagle is anami’ewin
mizhinawe, a prayer carrier of messages and giving thanks, healers who belong
to the Medicine Lodges of the Anishinaabeg Peoples sometimes envision
themselves turning into eagles as they pray for another person and to
GICHI-MANIDOO, the Great Mystery, asking the eagle to carry the sickness up to
GICHI-MANIDOO in order to heal the patient.
So highly esteemed
were its spiritual powers that in the old days, an Anishinaabe person would
never gaze up to a flying eagle without offering a prayer with asemaa (the
sacred tobacco) in hand!
The inlaid, respectively appliqued, wing feathers of the above sets of silver wedding rings, which I titled Waaseyaabindamowin Miigwan (Vision Feather) and Manidoo Waabiwin (Seeing in a Spirit Way, literally: spirit-seeing), symbolize manidoo (spirit), reminding the wearers of the rings that eagle feathers, regardless if they are from the bald eagle or the golden eagle, have the power to convey human thoughts and feelings and provide persons with an opportunity to speak directly to the spirits out there with debwewin (a straight mind) and bekide'ewin (a pure heart).
Click here to read the first story in the Teachings of the Eagle Feather series, which centers around a set of wedding rings titled ‘‘Growth is a Mystery.’’
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About the author and his sources of inspiration:
My name is Zhaawano Giizhik. My clan is waabizheshi, the marten.
As an American artist and jewelry designer currently living in the Netherlands, I like to draw on the oral and pictorial traditions of my Ojibwe Anishinaabe ancestors from the American Great Lakes area. For this I call on my manidoo-minjimandamowin, or "Spirit Memory"; which means I try to remember the knowledge and the lessons of my ancestors.
The mazinaajimowinan or ‘‘pictorial spirit writings’’ - which are rich with symbolism and have been painted throughout history on rocks and etched on other sacred items such as copper and slate, birch bark and animal hide - were a form of spiritual as well as educational communication that gave structure and meaning to the cosmos.
Many of these sacred pictographs or petroforms – some of which are many, many generations old - hide in sacred locations where the manidoog (spirits) reside, particularly in those mystic places near the coastline where the sky, the earth, the water, the underground and the underwater meet. It is these age-old expressions that provide an endless supply of story elements to my work; be it graphically, through my written stories, as well as in the context of my jewelry making.
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