Make A Creative Medicine Bag
The Soul Food Cafe provides prompts and challenges for those who wish to participate in the Pythian Games This is one, suggested activity.
Shaman Elder, Maggie Wahls, says "A medicine bag is an ancient item that spiritually represents the person who wears it. In 1991 the body of a man who lived over 5,000 years ago was found frozen in a high mountain range and with him was a medicine bag. The medicine bag is known in all cultures and through out all of history. They contain objects such as leaves, feathers, stones, herbs such as sweetgrass, sage, cedar, lavender or pinion, and other objects which have been added by the wearer and considered spiritually significant.
Medicine bags can be as small as 1 inch by 1 inch or as large as 30 inches in length. They are typically made of leather and you can purchase such a bag to make your own at most metaphysical stores.
The reasons to carry a medicine are for guidance, healing and protection. Most medicine bags contain a quartz crystal as one of its objects. Quartz energy resonates with all the energies of the physical body and is considered a remarkable healing stone. It connects you to your spiritual self.
Other items you might like in your own medicine bag are items you may have found a special attraction to or resonance with in your life. For example, a special shell you found at the seashore or a feather you found or a piece of pine tree or a juniper berry that holds meaning for you. We often meet up with items that seem to be just waiting for us to pick them up and carry them home and then we don't know what to do with them. This is one place to give them a home close to your heart. The essence of these special items create an energy in your medicine bag and that energy is the force that represents you. So by creating a medicine bag and wearing it close to your heart you are connecting with your spiritual self, the authentic you and always remembering who you are."
Assembling a Creative Medicine Bag
Assemble special things and fill your medicine bag. Think of this bag as a container for your portable living stimuli. Carry those items that represent your inner work. Take time to open the bag and create an altar wherever you are ready to begin a creative project. Meditate upon the things in front of you. Wear the bag close to you, fill it with your intent, and grow your life. Consider these items
Choose one for your medicine bag
The Task
In 1991, high in the mountains hikers found a man frozen to death in the snow. It turned out the man was prehistoric, frozen over 5000 years ago, sometime between 3350-3140 BC, nearly intact and almost perfectly preserved. Because of his appearance and certain objects he carried it was suggested the dead man had possibly been a Medicine Man or Shaman, dying of exposure when caught out in the open during a mystical retreat. Several associated facts presented themselves for such speculation.Use a fragment like this to create a shamanic character who lived in another time and another world.
In Case I Wanna Die Bag
by Kerry Vincent
I was going through some hard times, in deep therapy, not sure if anything good would ever happen to me again. My therapist would end a session saying, "Hang on, kiddo," and "Do something nice for yourself this week." Sometimes, when I was feeling suicidal, it took all my effort just to sit there on the bedroom floor and not do anything self-destructive. So to distract myself, I created a special activity bag. It kept me occupied until the black mood passed.
I went through a couple different pretty gift bags over a couple of years. I filled them up with favorite things - ink pens, journals, favorite perfumes, photos of people and animals I loved, postcards from museums I'd visited, books that made me smile again, like "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "The Book of Weird". It was evidence I compiled that there had been some good days in my life, even if I wasn't having a good day right then. Remembering happier times helped me to hang on. I'd sniff the Silver Rose scent and be reminded of a lovely bed and breakfast stay the year before, see the pictures of my kids, that I did not want to have to find me if I "did something drastic", and be scarred for life%u2026I'd re-read sweet thoughts in pretty cards friends had given me. Often it was just empty journal pages I could bleed ink all over until the pressure subsided.
I've had smaller versions since. I used to carry a medicine bag, a petite version of my "In-case-I-wanna-die" bag. It held an acorn from the ancient oak in my grandma's yard, a symbol of her strength and perseverance, an ID badge from visiting the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, a lock of my partner's hair, a souvenir coin my son and I made years ago, a sugar cube from Les Deux Magots in Paris%u2026These things symbolized sources of power and strength for me%u2026
Like a toddler who relinquishes her security blanket strip by strip, I am down to carrying just one stone with me. It is painted with my spirit animal, Coyote. I am looking within and finding my own strength, and taking good care of myself.
Making A Heart Bag
in the Cave of the Ancients
The wind softensWinter thaws
Seasons turn
The Gatekeeper gives you a small silken bag and invites you to fill it from your conscious woundedness, from your deepest awareness as woman and lastly from your joy.
Spirit Bag
by Luna Eternally
Long ago a grandmother I do not remember clearly, took a cutting from my mother's dress the day I was born. She fashioned a rounded square into a small pouch with cords to pull it closed and a longer one so I could wear it around my neck.As long as I can remember it hung up high on the wall where I could not reach it or touch it. But I could see everyday.
On my seventh birthday I was given a gift in tissue and ribbons. It was my spirit pouch, just for me. And for the first time I was able to open it. Inside were stones and small scrolls of paper, each with a date. The first one was today.
I carefully opened the scroll: Luna, girl of my heart, today you are seven. Your mother has labored hard for you to come into this world and you must always remember that. There may be times that you forget how much your mother and grandmother love you and how we anticipated the day you arrived to change our lives forever. Maybe at seven you think you almost know everything, but you must remember there will always be someone older than you, someone younger than you, someone to listen to and someone to give guidance to. Live in the present. Be brave and do not fear darkness.
The pouch is a robin's egg blue with red thread running all over the edges, symbolic of the blood of my ancestors. I am told to remember them. Seven tumbled stones gently rub against each other: rose quartz, jet, jade, aventurine, citrine, crystal quartz, and amber. Each year a new bead is sewn on to the fringe and sometimes we forget and many beads are placed on at once.
After much moving in my life I have lost this precious pouch and the letters it held. But I still remember that first letter and the smoky smell of sage. I will try to fill in the gaps my grandmother meant for me to know. I can only wonder how my grandmother tried to imagine me as an old woman, even older than herself. Dreaming my own life into being.
Heart Bags
from the vaults within Lemuria
Residents of the Cave of the Ancients have passed through the Seven Stages of Soul Food and found their unique artistic voice. Many took the time to sit quietly and make Heart Bags.
- Cave of the Ancients
- Some Lemurians find their way in to the Cave of the Ancients.
- Into My Silk Bag
- As you know, a pearl is made
from an oyster's anger,
that grit of sand that sends the poor thing
into a conniption fit until it
spits forth a tiny globe of luminescence. - A Bag of Stones
- My little silken bag contains three small stones - one for the past, one for the present and one for the future.
- Believers Silk Purse
- A Victorian evening purse of rose colored silk sits in the palm of my hand. A toddler would love it for a plaything, but it's much too delicate, with it's fine embroidery, swaying tassels and silver clasp and chain. I am asked to fill it with my woundedness, my awareness as a woman, and my joy then, give to the gate keeper.
- Special Bags and Pouches
- I love bags of all kinds and each one has been valuable to me along the way. When I was very young I stitched my own very simple purse out of lime green felt, with orange thread and an orange bead for the closure.
- Traveller's Heart Bag
- "Donne à ton enfant des ailes, mais n'oublie pas de lui donner des racines"
I came across this saying today "give your child wings but don't forget to give it roots". What a wise thing to say. My parents told me that they would support me in whatever I wanted to do, even if they didn't always agree with it. Thus they gave me my freedom but it was still attached by an umbilical cord and thus the roots in my family went ever deeper. However, this freedom didn't always manifest itself in my adult life in relationships with other people. Faucon told me to think of myself as an owl that has never been allowed to fly. - Heart Bag for Gwen Guin
- My heart bag joined me last December, wrapping a lovely deck of Tarot Cards from my 'baby' brother, Matt, as my Christmas gift. I have velvet bags to hold each deck of Tarot Cards, and for my Rune Stones, so the black suede with blue suede fringe drawstring bag became my heart bag.
- My Heart and Soul Bag
- My Heart bag comes everywhere with me. It is small enough to fit into the bottom of my big leather satchel that carries everything a mother and her children might possibly need, like maybe a cereal bar to satisfy hunger pangs, or a bottle of water to quench thirst, or maybe a hankie to dry tears and a sniffly nose, and, of course, a notebook or 2 for when inspiration strikes%u2026.pretty much everything but the kitchen sink!!!
- My Four Chambered Heart
- As I read about the bags that others crafted I fell in love with EACH and every one of them... I wondered what my bag would hold. The mandala here is a series of eight women - four with their heads towards the eye of the sixth chakra and four with their heads flying off the edge of the circle. Below the heads are small circles with breasts and below those are circles that many people see as "hearts." So this led me to reflect a bit on a practice I learned from Angie Arriens. It is about checking in with the status of my four-chambered heart.
- So Now Let It Go
- So now, let it go, let it go for me;
They cannot hurt you any more than this -
And you are loved so dear - it must not be
That you cling on to bitterest memory. - Heart Journey
- Candle light flickering in the warm air, the kiss on her cheek woke her though she knew there was no one there... Consciousness drifting, remembering. The sudden fall onto wet, slippery leaves, browns and greens of the forest floor, rain dripping through branches chilling her skin and numbing her bruised fingers. Panic filling her mind, 'Where am I?'
- Medicine Bag by Pearlz
- My healing bag is made of thin strands of synthetic plastic that are dyed in the traditional colours of my mother's village in Papua New Guinea.
Tell us about your spirit bag
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junepaisa
I am enjoying reading about other people's heart bags and will embark on my own medicine bag journey today - great lens! Posted June 15, 2008 |
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kvwordsmith
I love reading about other's medicine bags, something so personal shared with the world - really an act of quiet bravery. The contents of my medicine bag changes as I change, but the theme is always connection with things I care about and that help me find my inner power. Posted May 01, 2008 |
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dovedove
Remembering who you are - and connecting with the authentic you so important in these busy times. Great lens! Posted April 25, 2008 |
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wyrdspirit
Re-connection ...happens often in the most unlikely places, riding on the bus from the hospital today, coming home and reading this...sometimes we need gentle reminders.....another fabulous lens. Posted April 25, 2008 |
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genece20
Great lens! Medicine bags are a true gift to carry. I liked the way you explained them. Posted April 25, 2008 |
