Affirmation of Thanks for Service
This ceremony pays homage to the diseased Piñon and other trees that are being felled for fire prevention and other trees being harvested for construction–be it housing, roads, shopping centers etc. Everywhere we travel today we are witness to de-forestation. Rather than invest our energies in negative feeling, we can instead pause in our day and pay a tribute to these creatures that symbolize the Heaven and Earth connection.
Honor each of the Four Cardinal Directions beginning and ending in the East. This does not have to be done at the sight of the de-forestation. You can do this at any time or place that is doable for you. If you feel that you want to do it at the sight of ‘harvest’ without attracting attention, imagine that you are calling in the directions in your head. Spirit does not demand that the “form” of our Intention be rigid. You may want to take some ceremonial tobacco or corn meal that you have blessed on your altar with copal to surreptitiously spread about the sight as you work each day.
“Today I pause to honor those trees whose lives will be taken for what humanity deems fitting and proper. You, more than other structures of nature, represent the Heaven and Earth axis. I behold your spirits and the metaphor of all possibilities that you symbolize. I silently implore that, though felled in an untimely manner, your purpose has been served and that your remnants will be put to some use. And, I acknowledge that while I may not see it, nor understand, that your transition is truly part of a much greater plan than my consciousness is perhaps able to grasp at this time. Above all I honor you tree spirits and the vastly wondrous and orderly cosmos wherein resides Great Spirit.
I further commit to in some way express my concern to the imbalances between nature and humankind. Whether my contribution be in the form of time or money, I promise you Tree Spirits to take action in supporting either re-forestation programs, water conservation and/ or programs that address living in harmony with our Mother Earth and her environments.
Bless you kindly Tree Spirits. Thank you for your lives and for your contribution of beauty, shelter, environmental balance, and connection to Father Sky and Mother Spirit. May light, peace, love, conscience and harmony one day prevail in all of creation as we know it.”
