CHANUNPA CEREMONY – SACRED LAKOTA PIPE

Master of Masters, always opening, always softening, always IN the prayer, never behind it or beside it. There are many who hunger for this instrument to touch and to have it touch them. All who come in a good way, no matter how small or large a group, are welcome and receive its impossible and mysterious blessing, as it becomes the engineer of the change and the prayer they need in their life.  Chanunpa is very mysterious and we cannot know the ways in which it causes everything to come into alignment with ourselves and our prayers and all the prayers that come through us and to us. We are in the midst of all of those prayers, which is what our prayer is as a Chanunpa CARRIER...

We carry the Chanunpa for any size group.  A whole village, if necessary. We ask only that each person who comes expresses their gratitude, open their heart about what is troubling them, and ask for help. We do not pray for outcomes for others. And we don't tell long stories. The spirit of the Chanunpa knows who we are and what we are exactly....this is precisely the reason this instrument of power is powerful. It is never imprecise or haphazard or in error or unclear. And, with the blessing it has made for itself, it is absolutely aware of our true intention and the architecture of our correction on our path in each and every moment, past, present and future. 

It is the Great Medicine of true LISTENING and true HEARING. It provides the point of focus for all expansion and the means of expansion for every point of focus, every time, without fail, forever.  The purpose of community and circles is to redistribute the burden of these changes to each according to his or her ability to contain their part in each and every moment. In this way, through the blessing of the instrument by not only the prayers but the impeccable visible living prayers and practices of our brothers and sisters in this way, the instrument becomes more powerful, the prayer more true and more visible. 

"Show me your people"....That is the question and that is the answer.  We must stay in the prayer of the Chanunpa and create family, community and circles of authentic hearts and actions in every moment, so that more human beings who ARE the Sacred Pipe can go out into their worlds and BE the living prayer, thus instructing others through their embodiment.

George Gray Eagle Bear Bertelstein

Medicine Path Native Church – Berkeley, California