Indigenous Caribbean Network

On this day Tuesday, February 7, 2012 (11 Ik in the Maya Calendar) which is the actual day of Full Moon for this month It is my honor to report that our scheduled Taino Full Moon Ceremony of Saturday February 4, 2012 was a beautiful success.

We welcomed into our home (the Verona PA Teaching and Healing Lodge of the Caney Indigenous Spiritual Circle) a small group of local Peaceburgh area participants of all races and backgrounds including members of our own Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center (the official Native American center of Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania) as well as a woman of Cuban Taino heritage whose ancestry harks back to my own home city of Santiago De Cuba. We celebrated the traditional Full Moon circle ceremony and were honored by the special participation of our sister Margaret who performed the role of the Cosmic Matriarch Ata Bey. She was guided by my own wife Leni Mais Guariche Sague in the recitation of the sacred words of the ceremony "OUR WOMEN HAVE WITHIN THEM THE RYTHM OF THE UNIVERSE".

Due to the fact that the day was wet, snowy and cold the cemies (spirits) deemed it in their widom to make it very difficult for us to truly heat up the guanara cibas (grandfather stones) and therefore we had a very mild kansi (sweatlodge) ceremony.

And yet all who approached me afterwards to reflect on their experience in our kansi lodge this past Saturday expressed a sense of profound satisfaction in the way that this particular part of the ritual touched their soul, and so the spirits are the ones who ultimately dictate the outcome of our work.

I want to thank all of those who participated in our ceremony and pray that the blessings of this experience follow each and every one of you throughout the time that we are apart until we meet again. I want to extend a special thanks to Mihnia for his invaluable assistance with the fire, as well as the other men who pitched in their own way with this task. I also want to thank Vikki Hanchin for her always beautiful input during and after the ceremony. A very special BO MATUN (thanks) goes to my spiritual sister Tenanche Cemi-Ata Golden for her kind help as assistant beike of the Caney Circle during the ceremony. This is a task that she has been performing in behalf of our circle for almost thirty years.