Kommano (Remember)
A prayer of gratitude and invocation in the 4,000-year-old Proto-Celtic language
On the eve of Summer Solstice,
I dreamt with the Ancestors
I emerged in an alpine meadow next to a mountain forest
The meadow was vibrant with endless wildflowers and plants of many kinds
This alpine meadow on the edge of a mountain forest was a meeting place
Across and outside of time and space
The Ancestors were there
Mâtîrja—the Ancient Mothers
The healed, well, wise, and healing ones
The ones helping me remember
I joined them in the early morning of Summer Solstice gathering herbs on the mountainside
Then they led me into the forest, into a large rustic open-air kitchen with a big work table for processing the herbs
The hearth fire was warm and bright
They taught me and guided me in ways to work with the herbs
Some herbs placed in a large pot to simmer over the hearth fire for a strong tea
Some herbs bundled and hung to dry for future medicine
The final herbs gently chopped or torn into smaller pieces, placed into jars and mixed with alcohol for tinctures
Then we gathered around the hearth fire and drank the tea together, breathing deep
The Plants are a portal to the past
The Plants are a portal to Us
The Plants are a portal to Spirit
We prayed and wept and swayed
We sang in the Mother Tongue
We called in Mâtîrja—the Motherline
The Ancestors who seek to heal
The ones who seek to support the remembering, the repair, the reweaving, the rebirth
Kom molyeyo, galweyo
Kom molyeyo, kommano
Ûrâ kadjo
Mâtîr Urâ
Mâtîr di Sterâ kwe Nemos
Kommano
With gratitude, we call you in
With gratitude, we remember
Sacred Earth
Mother Earth
Mother of the Stars and Heavens
We remember
(The words in Proto-Celtic—a 4,000-year-old language—I learned from Her Bone Bundle, a book of words curated by Carolyn Hillyer)
***
Over the past year I have learned about Summer Solstice traditions that people from at least some (likely many) of my ancestral lineages took part in. I learned about them in both dreams and waking hours. The traditions revolved around the gathering of medicinal herbs during this peak of the seasonal cycle because their medicinal benefits were potent at this time. In Celtic and Gaelic regions, they gathered herbs at dawn on Summer Solstice to work with for different purposes (Emma Rose Lowe at @essentialnatureyoga). In the rural areas of Italy, on the evening of June 23 (called St. John’s Eve, but the tradition pre-dates Christianity) they gathered many herbs from the surrounding landscape, soaked them in water, and left them outside overnight. This was the l’acqua delle cento erbe (100 herbs water), infused with sacred herbs and sacred morning dew. The next morning they washed the babies with the water, their faces and hands, and if there was enough the windows and floors. This was a ritual of cleansing/clearing, blessing, and protection. (Italian Magic - The Secret Lives of Women, by Karyn Crisis)
Learning about and respectfully practicing these traditions is about connecting with what has been buried deep within, with what lives within me in my blood and bones and DNA. It’s about remembering and reclaiming the ancient ways of connecting with the Spirit and Sacred Energy in all things—cosmos, seasons, plants, animals, landscapes, and traces of the Ancestors I carry within me.
We are intimately entwined with this web of life. We are part of the Earth, we come from her and return to her. She is our Mother, a miraculous Living Being, one Body with many parts. And we have a responsibility to repair the harm we have done to the Earth, to others, to self—to the collective. The harm that stems from deep-rooted supremacist programming (human supremacy, patriarchy, white supremacy, etc.) The more we remember, the more we can unravel the programming and work to repair.
The world needs us to do this work—to go beyond intellectual learning/unlearning and a checklist of progressive values. To go into the deeper places. To unravel. Otherwise we continue to uphold the status quo/harmful programming in conscious and unconscious ways.
It can be scary, difficult, painful work, but we don’t have to do it alone. We can connect with our healed ancestors to help us wake up, remember, repair, reweave the ways and truths that have been hidden, disrupted, severed over thousands of years.
Most of us white-bodied people have to go really far back to reach our healed pre-colonial ancestors. And even further back to reach our well and wise pre-patriarchal and pre-human-supremacy ancestors. We don’t have to know them to start the conversation. They will make themselves known when you open your heart. They are there ready to help us lift the veil and deprogram from this patriarchal colonial white supremacist human supremacist matrix.
They are there to help guide us to be part of the healing and birthing of the new world.
Teachers I have learned from and continue to learn from who can support you in this work include: Dr. Rosio Rosales Meza, Maria Munoz, Marika Clymer through decolonizing Reiki training, Myranda Pretty Owl, Obsidian Smoke, Aoife Ní Lodáinn, Rachel Ricketts, and more.