13 Grandmothers Raining Wisdom
“When the Grandmothers come from the four directions and speak,
the world will heal.” —Hopi Prophecy
By Mayra Mann
Grandmothers circles are arising. Out of the native lands, in cities, and across the many islands and continents of the planet, indigenous grandmothers, shamans and medicine women have been called together to share sacred wisdom and earth-based healing traditions. Although they are grassroots groups, rising up out of our families and communities, they are daring to dance up a storm—a rain of collective, indigenous wisdom.
These wise, wonderful grandmothers have such an urgent, egoless message of peace that they have drawn hugs from the Dalai Lama and harassment from the Vatican—for asking the Pope to rescind historic church doctrine that played a role in the genocide of millions of indigenous people worldwide.
Grandmothers are coming into their spiritual power and it’s an awe-inspiring event to watch, experience and learn from, especially when the ancient tradition of grandmothers circles is being shared in a Kamuela living room. Three tutu wahine grandmothers are showing me the way of wisdom circles.
Tutu wahine Maya Yonting-Dornes and grandmother Jon Marie Kerns sit comfortably on the couch. Behind them, through a large picture window, sits the voluptuous Mauna Kea, glowing beneath the 11th-hour sun. These spiritual elders are meeting at the home of tutu wahine Ma’ata Frances Tukuafu, a vivacious 45-year-old, “the fiery one,” who sits athletically on the floor, cross-legged and grinning as she speaks of her passion.
When Two or More are Gathered in Grandmother’s Name
“There was a prophecy on Turtle Island and the mainland that it would be women that bring in the new era,” Ma’ata says. “And 13 is a very powerful number.” With 13 lunar cycles in a solar year, the moon travelling 13 degrees across the sky every day and our human bodies having 13 major joints, the number 13 certainly seems to be significant—a major rhythm of nature. The back of a certain turtle shell has 13 segments, and some say these 13 segments represent the 13 tribes of the Native people in North America.
In the fall of 2004 the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers first gathered from all over the world—Alaska, North, South and Central America; Africa; and Asia. They came together in upstate New York and, within three days, they formed a Global Alliance.
“We gathered from the four directions in the land of the people of the Iroquois Confederacy,” says the Global Alliance Statement. “Affirming our relations with traditional medicine peoples and communities throughout the world, we have been brought together by a common vision to form a new global alliance. We are the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers. We have united as one. Ours is an alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children and for the next seven generations to come.”
From this foundation, like a rain of wisdom, other grandmothers’ circles have formed—one of them the 13 Grandmothers Pacifica—in Hawai‘i and beyond.
“What we’re trying to do here is to bring back the ancient wisdom teachings that have been lost,” says Ma’ata, whose father in O’ahu descended from Tongan royalty. Fahu, or eldest daughter in a family of 14 children, Ma’ata was raised in Tonga and Hawai‘i.
“There are four main concerns here on the Big Island that the 13 Grandmothers Pacifica are addressing,” she says. “First, we’re helping grandmothers who are raising their grandchildren, for whatever reason, whether their kids are in jail or on drugs or are incapable.” The Big Island Grandmother Circle also supports a healthy, clean, green environment and encourages a grounded and personal, wisdom-oriented spirituality that will help heal societal issues like drug use. Lastly, they share the principle that unifies all grandmothers’ circles: they are remembering, gathering and sharing native knowledge, “to strengthen and empower people, to bring back the balance that has been lost.”
After organizing the first Big Island Grandmothers’ gathering in February of 2010, which drew more than 300 people, the three elders began meeting to plan this year’s event, to be held at Hawai‘I Volcanoes National Park.
Although she grew up on Maui, tutu wahini Maya Yonting-Dornes now lives on Hawai‘i Island. In between, she trained in Christian, Japanese Buddhist and Hawaiian lore from her grandmother before moving to New York to train in the western corporate world. Auntie Abbie Nape’ahi told her that she would be a “bridge,” says Maya. I had no idea what that meant. Now I know: it involves the ancient form of ho’oponopono.”
Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness, often recommends communication through a third person and offers to set things right after a quarrel or misunderstanding. By preventing small annoyances from becoming larger wars, ho’oponopono could be the remedy the world is waiting for. Actually, we don’t have to wait for it any longer, since the grandmothers are speaking, and the world is “hungry for it,” says Ma’ata.
“We are not backed by government, or by a religious affiliation, but what we have to offer as circles of grandmothers appeals to those who are searching for spirituality and don’t know how to name it. It is quite nurturing for people to be in the presence of the grandmothers,” she says.
Many are hungry not just to listen, the grandmothers say, but to speak about their concerns, the dangers of patriarchal customs, and how the human domination of nature can be replaced with partnership principles, respecting nature, women and men—of all cultures.
Ma’ata experienced firsthand some of the patriarchal bias that exists in Polynesia. While on a recent trip to Aotearoa/New Zealand, at the grandmothers’ first welcome ceremony, women were not allowed to speak at all. “I felt the rage rise up in me as I had forgotten how patriarchal the customs are, both in my own Tongan culture, as well as the rest of the Pacific,” says Ma’ata. “I had to ask myself why this was, and how can we, as 13 Grandmother Circles, help to bring in equality.”
Recent history has scant record of the women leaders of ancient tribes—in Native American cultures as well as indigenous cultures around the world—India, Africa, Europe and the Americas. A search will reveal more matrilineal cultures than today’s society remembers. Often, they are recorded as those who ruled over eras of peace. Perhaps it is time to come back into balance, to simple healing diplomacy through grandmothers’ circles. Wisdom circles cultivate honor, respect and a breadth of knowledge that restores wise, feminine perceptions in a world which has been dominated by aggression and power struggles.
By helping to restore the grandmother qualities of empathy and understanding, we—the grandmother in you and the grandmother in me—may facilitate a new era of peace: in rings, wheels and circles of honest conversation, ceremony and celebration.
The Talking Staff and Sacred Bowl Traditions
“We’ve used a little butterfly kachina doll, a feather or whatever is there,” says Ma’ata of the talking staff tradition, which is a centerpiece of grandmother circles. When they pass the talking staff, whoever holds the chosen feather, flower or gemstone has the attention of everyone in the circle. No one else can speak except that one person, until they are complete. Native Americans used the talking staff—the law of the land, not the government—to bring people of different tribes and cultures together to communicate respectfully and peacefully with one another.
In grandmothers’ circles using the native talking staff tradition, individuals create a collective. Ma’ata is bi-cultural and at home in many communities. She recently sat with Grandfather Warren, Cherokee Wisdom Keeper, in his Turquoise Lodge in Indiana, where they discussed her role in bringing the 13 Grandmother movement to Pacific cultures. In her travels, she carries a beautiful ‘umeke (gourd bowl) which collects the breath of everyone who attends the circles.
When women, men, and people of all cultures gather at Volcano Military Camp March 31–April 3, they will focus collective intelligence, speak, listen, celebrate and “breathe together” in ‘ohana, focusing visualizations and prayers for creating the new world we choose.
The Prophecy
For the grandchildren, for the next seven generations, for all relationships, the 13 Grandmothers Pacifica speak of peacemaking and sharing the custom of sitting in grandmother circles, of bringing back the ancient ways of birthing and raising children, of performing rights-of-passage ceremonies for young girls, of restoring the respectful way of communicating in wisdom circles. They bring teachings from the lands of the Navajo, the Lakota, Cherokee and Iroquois. From the islands of New Zealand, the mountains of Tibet and the archipelago of Japan. From the
Mainland and Maui.
They are already meeting on the Big Island in circles large and small, bringing 13 indigenous grandmothers from the Pacific Rim together with caretakers, kahuna, spiritual teachers and with all of us. “There’s a place for everybody,” says grandmother Jon Marie Kerns, one of the bi-cultural leaders of the Indigenous Grandmothers movement on the Big Island and beyond. “Healing is environmental, emotional, physical and mental, and that means that our communities heal because we’re involving everyone, not leaving anyone out.
“In a Hopi prophecy it is said there will be five worlds,” Jon Marie says. “The first world was taken by ice, the second by fire. The third was the great flood. The fourth would have hunger, disease and war, and that’s where we are right now. Yet as we awaken and bring our hearts together in a circle, we will have an opening to a path of health and harmony again—a fifth world—so that’s why in Hopi and many native traditions throughout the world everyone is saying we want to share the circle in order to create that heartbeat that will grow a new life for our children on this
sacred planet.”
The Ripples Spread
If the Earth were a lake and it began to rain ancient wisdom, there would be a drop of caring, an expanding circle, then shared insight, a larger ring, and more dots becoming circles that expand in intersecting wheels as the rain drenches the already wet body of water. Soon, the whole stagnant surface of the lake would be shattered, transformed and reinvigorated by heaven’s nectar, drops of insight, love and understanding.
Tutu wahine Maya is one of those women who waits and watches closely as the voices of wisdom unfold, listening to others attentively, and after everyone else has spoken, she smiles humbly and says, “Well. . .” and then brings forth the truth everyone has been struggling for. Today, sitting in a blue cardigan and white jeans, she says, “The new world is inside, not outside. You arrive at a point where you trust. That means you’ve stepped out of your own way.
“I’ve gone through the fire of controlling. We’re all controllers in recovery, but when you have a moment of epiphany, after you stop sabotaging yourself, you see the real kupuna values. Children even have grandmother energy.”
When Maya was 50 and her husband died, she realized he had been the excuse for “not paying attention to myself.” She grew into her grandmother self after his passing and began to trust her innate wisdom. From a career as a pioneer in New York’s SOHO to working with leading state and island rural health associations, she has learned, “Trust requires paying attention. To others, yes, but to ourselves also.
“We’re not doing this to change the world; we’re changing ourselves and bringing back the circles to replace the plantation mentality, where one group did for another. Now, we’re doing for ourselves and in the process helping to give our children natural preparation for the
modern world.
“We want to bring people together and simply let the ripples spread.” Ho.
Resources:
For details on the March 31–April 3, 2001 “13 Grandmothers Pacifica Gathering” at Kilauea Military Camp within Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park on Hawai‘i Island, please visit this website.
