at a two-spirits powwow
Almost midnight on Saturday... and I almost forgot to 'flip' ye olde weblogge, with literally seconds to spare before the bell was struck! ;p Shades of TFR of yore.
The moment the seated, indigenous men started sounding the drum in the middle of their small, tight circle — at first softly, gently, then more deeply and percussively, their voices rising and falling with the sound — tears began welling up in my eyes. Because it is the sound one's heart makes, of course, the ur-sound of life itself, the resonant echo of which constitutes that invisible, unhearable, but definitely felt background hum of the universe.
I was at a powwow this afternoon on what was once Yelamu land, and the mana I absorbed there was unmistakable. When the long and marvelous line of dancers started flowing in to the central area, their steps and movements led by by the drums and voices, I had trouble seeing them through the watery scrim in front of my eyes, which I had to dab away in slight self-consciousness, though the Navajo Nation auntie sitting in her wheelchair next to me surely would have understood why the tears arrived as well. ::chuckle::
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NB [to self]: ...here's the link to the livestream on YouTube, to re-watch parts of it sometime later.