Goddess: PocahontasNovember 20, 2009
Pocahontas, which was her childhood nickname, is perhaps one of the most enigmatic women in history. Born, Matoaka, and later taking the name Lady Rebecca, Pocahontas, as she is most well known was a bridge between two worlds: the New world and the "olde" world, in more ways than one. She holds a fascinating place in the evolution of not only a country, but of potentially all humanity.
Settlers looking for religious freedom came to America to create a new society, brought here under the steam of territorial and wealth expansion minded monarchies and were met with a network of indigenous civilizations that already had a claim on paradise. This had no where to go but to implode and that it did.
It could be said that the Native American cultures were the keepers of paradise, and as such after it's fall became the keepers of this memory. Pocahontas, whose very life from birth was infused with a deep communion with manito aki or the sacred law of the earth, took this memory which was embodied in her very being and became a part of the then modern society of Great Briton.
In her book Pocahontas (HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), Paula Gunn Allen says that Pocahontas’s tribe was the Mattaponi, one of several belonging to what natives called the tsenacommacah, or the Powhatan Alliance: and Powhatan was a name both for people of the dream-vision and also a title for Wahunsenacawh, the chief and chief dreamer of the alliance, and a member of the Pamunkey tribe. (There seems to have been overlapping tribal memberships.)
Wahunsenacawh, or Powhatan, may have been the biological father of Pocahontas or only the group’s leader and father figure. According to the Mattaponi oral tradition, he was her father and she was truly his favored child. In the oral tradition it seems important to understand thier relationship in order to make sense of some of the historical events. Powhatan had many children as was the custom of the time for chiefs to take multiple wives in order to propogate the race, however, it is said that Pocohantas's mother was Powhatan's true wife, the one he had chosen out of love. When she died giving birth to Pocohantas, the babe what all Powhatan had left of his beloved wife and so for this reason he had a very deep and special connection to her.
Paula Gunn Allen, a professor emerita of English and American Indian Studies at UCLA and an American of Laguna Pueblo/Metis descent, also says that Pocahontas had a secret name, Amonute, possibly used for sacred ceremonies. Gunn Allen suggests the pervasive nature of spirituality—manito aki, the spiritual world—in native life, and sees Pocahontas as a girl with a special place in native life, as someone being trained to be a beloved woman or priestess.
Some of the events surrounding Pocohantas that are not disputed is that she was in fact Native American and was born into and lived with her people until her early teens. She was then, either by force or coercion taken to live with the settlers, for reasons not completely known, but which are tied to overtures of peace by manipulation. During the time that she spent with the settlers, it is said that she learned to speak english, to read and write and was converted to Christianity. She then ultimately traveled to England, held an audience with the Queen and was introduced to "polite" society. It is here that perhaps, Pocohantas fulfilled her ultimate mission; showing the inhabitants of Europe that the Natives or naturals as they were sometimes called, were highly intelligent, sensitive, artistic human beings that deserved to be treated with respect.
Pocohantas says...
It is possible to walk between both worlds. We are of the earth and we are of the sky. We can walk down paved streets and we can walk on the soft grassy knowls. We have the ability to marry our left brain and our right brain, the scientist and the artist and become a third thing with the synergy that is born of this marriage.
Pocohantas having become "civilized" by "uncivilized" means is the keeper of the memory of paradise, the innocent part of us that will always mourn our loss of innocence. But as we fully mature, we find ourselves back at the place where we first began and we can become as little children again. It is possible to reclaim our innocence and to become one in our hearts and souls with the earth again. We do not need to forsake technology. We need to allow it to help us bring in the high energies, so that we can protect our mother earth.
Pocohantas reminds us that we can walk the earth, sit amongst nature, commune with animals and plants any time we want to. We have our freedom. For most of all these ancestors have fought for the freedoms that we now enjoy. We must receive and allow this freedom to operate in our lives now, to honor the sacrafice of our ancestors and to carry forward the mission.
We are the ones the ancestors have been waiting for. We are the seventh generation of the seventh generation. We are the Rainbow children. Our blood is mixed and we have joined together to receive the abundance of this earthwalk. It is here and now that we can fully enjoy the diversity that is the smorgasboard of life that is set before us. Unity in Diversity. When you walk in the shoes of another, that is when you can know what is in their heart.
Pocohantas did just that. She showed us that we can be anything we want to be. She showed us that we can refine and evolve ourselves and yet still retain our connection to the earth. She showed us that a motherless child will surely perish, just as she did when she was first taken from her human mother and then from her earth mother. She stands for all time as a reminder to return to your mother, no matter how far you go, no matter how fast you get there, no matter what you create, without love, without the love of Father Sky and Mother Earth that we are no thing and no where. Couched within the story of Pocohantas's life are bread crumbs that can lead us to wholeness. If we will start tracking, listening and learning we can find our way home.
Pocohantas Affirmations
I am free as the wind.
I walk between the worlds with grace and ease.
I have the knowledge of the ancestors within my body, mind and soul.
I am thankful for all who have come before me.
I have the strength and the courage to explore this world.
I have the will to expand and grow.
I am a free spirit.
I am one with Mother Earth and Father Sky.
I am a child of nature.
I allow technology to take it's rightful place in the world.
I have come full circle with myself and see the possibilities of life.
My body is a vessel of Light.
I am filled with Thanks Giving.
I am totally abundant in all things spiritual and material.
I receive the blessings of this earth.
I see with new eyes the bounty of this earth.
Totems
Racoon, Dog, Butterfly, Deer, Turkey, Compass, Medicine Bag
Stones
Red Jasper, Turquoise, Abalone Shell, Pearl
