Every Medicine Tool has its own story:
Maybe you remember the post from about a year ago, when I found the frozen little Green Winged Teal / small female Duck and promised her, to use her beautiful wings well, to make a smudging fan to honour her life.
Well, here is the oooold blog post:
https://shamanicdrumm.wordpress.com/2016/02/02/bird-food/
And here is, what I created from the little wings:
Prayer and Smudge Fan Female Green Winged Teal
In Honour of Ee’ren Ödürek, the Siberian Spirit
that created the Land
Yes, there was the “Big Flood” Water was EVERYWHERE – and the animals had nowhere to go and were in danger of drowning. Here in North America it is the Muskrat, that dives down to the primordial bottom to bring back up a small piece of mud that then was spread over the back of Mother Earth the Mighty Turtle. Among my Siberian ancestors and for my Family Clan this important job was accomplished by a small Duck, that then subsequently was allowed to reside in the Sky World and was forthwith known as Ee;ren Ödürek. Since then Duck feathers are highly regarded as preventing misfortune and calamities.
So it stands to reason, that, after I discovered this sad little Green Winged Teal, my Heart cried and I had to honour its life in a meaningful way……
Materials used:
Deer Leather: Ghülbüz lives in the dawn of the East, greeting the Sun every morning.
Fur of Sha-qua sho, the Mink, messenger and go=between the Land and the Water Spirits
Bone carving of Butterfly for transcendence and transformation
Moss Agate carving of Thunderbird, who’s rock art/ markings in Siberia are identical to those here in North America, proving, that the Native People came from my Ancestral home Lands
Sterling Silver button with Ee’ren Adik, the Bear, Keeper of the Eastern Gate and protector from Albis and other evil and illness inducing boogs and other “nastys”
Other Feathers:
Peacock – the all seeing eye of the Spirit
Pheasant: Pride in one’s own heritage
Mallard – family values
Heron – leadership and chieftainship, wise council
I am very pleased, that the general shape of the wings suggested a Butterfly, as they are seen as Spirits of transformation and beauty. A little searching on the net led me to a blog post from Robert Moss:
quoteing Robert Moss:
MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2016
If it looks like a duck,
it could be a Celtic goddess
At the shrine of Sequana, at the source of the River Seine in the Dijon area of France, ancient Celts came to seek healing dreams in the sacred night. Cloaked pilgrims journeyed with their offerings, which included models of the organs that needed healing, carved from oak or stone. They bathed in the sacred spring, prayed to the goddess, and placed their offerings beside a sacred pool. They entered a long portico or dormitory, hoping that in the night – during sleep or in the twilight state between sleeping and waking that the ancients knew is especially propitious for contact with the more-than-human – the goddess Sequana or her emissary would appear to them.
No magical power, other than simple cleansing, was attributed to the spring itself, but the waters were regarded as a source of creative flow, and as a portal to the Otherworld and its powers.
We know the name Sequana from nine inscriptions found in the area. It has been suggested that it means “The Fast-Flowing One”. Sequana is the goddess of the River Seine, which flows through Paris, and (according to Strabo) was the patron of the Sequanae, a Gaulish tribe in this region. Her special companion animal is the duck, and in a statue now in the Musée archéologique de Dijon, a crowned Sequana is depicted riding in a duck-headed boat.
Only the foundations of the healing shrine of Sequana at her spring, the Fontes Sequanae, survive, but we can glean a great deal about the ancient practice of dream incubation for healing from the contents of two pottery vessels discovered at the site. One contains more than a hundred carved effigies of eyes, breasts, limbs, heads and internal organs. A second vessel contained more than 800 similar carvings.
Pilgrims who needed healing for the parts represented ascended a series of terraces, pausing perhaps to drink from streams and cisterns containing the sacred waters, before reaching the main sanctuary and being admitted to the place of sacred sleep. Grateful travelers paid for inscriptions at the site thanking Sequana for gifts of healing, evidence that we have here a Celtic parallel to the practice of Asklepian dream healing in the ancient Mediterranean.
What happened to this great precinct of dream healing in the realm of the Goddess when the Church arrived? One guess. The site was appropriated by the Church and re-dedicated to an invented male, saint, St Sequanus.
In reviving the memory of the “Fast-Flowing” Goddess, we take another step towards cultural soul recovery – and remember a healing practice that can transform our lives.
I also discovered this beautiful Etruscan Duck vessel:
Fly well, Little Duck and Blessings to your species!
