Prompt 265. The Sacred Center

An essay and prompt on creation by Jasper Young Bear

Diego Rivera, Untitled (Hands of the Figure Hope), study for Creation, the mural in Anfiteatro Bolívar, Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, Mexico City (1922)

Hi friend,

This week, the overwhelming amount of suffering in this world has knocked the wind from my lungs and left me breathless. I’ve been meditating on how to use my voice in a way that is helpful—that illuminates and supports rather than confusing things, that promotes peace rather than sowing discord, that reinforces our common humanity rather than pushing us farther apart.

I feel certain that the starting point has to be gathering the air back into my lungs. So rather than rattling off a hastily composed hot take or hollow opinion, I’m watching and I’m listening. I’m holding space to mourn the loss of innocent life and to grieve with those who are hurting. And it’s with the hope that the Isolation Journals can be a place where we come together, find respite, and take a breath that today I’m resharing a piece by the Arikara medicine man Jasper Young Bear.

Called “The Sacred Center,” Jasper’s essay and prompt are a reminder to summon even the tiniest amount of faith—that we can change things, imagine new ways of being, and create a new world. It asks us to compose a prayer, not in the empty-thoughts-and-prayers-but-no-action way, but as a prelude to peace, reconciliation, and healing.

Sending love,

Suleika

Some Items of Note—

• We’re meeting at the Hatch, our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers, today—that’s October 15, from 1-2 pm ET. Carmen will be hosting, and we’ll be meditating on celestial happenings. Find everything you need to join us here!

• Every Friday in the Isolation Journals Chat, we send up our small joys in a chorus of collective gratitude. Small joys are what I lean on in my most difficult passages—they lift and carry me from day to day. This week’s was so full of goodness and generosity, and it restored me. If you’d like to add yours, you can do so here.

Diego Rivera, Creation (1931)

Prompt 265. The Sacred Center by Jasper Young Bear

In my tradition, our story of creation is one that takes four days to tell.

Often people think this is a quaint little story, but it’s not. It’s a sacred truth, and at its center is this most crucial concept: that you are the universe, that everything the creator went through, you’ve gone through too.

Most people struggle with this. Most aren’t ready to accept that they are the sacred center. But it’s an important shift to what’s called whole-to-part thinking, where all the dichotomies of the universe are cast aside. Where there is no male and female, no black and white, no political divide.

When you use whole-to-part thinking, the sense of self is much deeper, more expansive. In our sacred ceremonies, we play this out starting as a baby, when we get an Indian name. In this ceremony, they put us in the center of the universe and have us turn to face all directions. When we get named, we are the light. We are the beginning. We are one with time and space. We go forth, and we vibrate with our names, attracting what others have instilled, attracting what is already inside of us.

Right now, people feel trapped by the systems. The current political system. The distribution of land. People don’t feel like they have enough. They don’t get to see a rolling river; they can’t go pick juneberries, plums, or chokecherries, which all grow wild here where I live, or go fishing in Lake Sakakawea. Nowhere are they told how nature and community can be in harmony.

But we can create a new world—we must create a new world. All it takes is a mustard seed of faith. We must believe that we are not separate, we are not John or Amy or Ken. I am not Jasper Young Bear. I am the creator, and believing that I am the creator is the only way I can do this work. It’s the only way I have the strength to say, “How dare you hurt the earth? How dare you hurt my people? How dare you hurt each other?”

If there is any time that God is listening, if there is any time to pray, it’s now.

Your prompt for the week:

Imagine you are the center of the universe. Imagine that you are the creator. Imagine that your power and your prayers have no limit, and all things moving and in motion, all things static and sitting are affected by your prayer. What is your prayer?

Today’s Contributor—

Jasper Young Bear, whose Indian name is Lucky Man, is a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. He is from the Hidatsa Water Buster Clan on his father’s side and the Arikara Bear Society and Arikara Medicine Lodge on his mother’s. He is the founder of the Running Wolf Wellness Center and Cultural Survival School. He is pictured here in conversation with Pharrell Williams.

For more on how we get through, see—

• A Creative Heart-to-Heart, where my husband Jon Batiste and I answer questions about life and the creative process and share about how we use a creative practice to marry our sorrows and our joys

• Letters from Love, a video replay of our workshop with the beloved author and speaker Elizabeth Gilbert, where she teaches us her decades-long spiritual practice for combating hate and tapping into an ocean of unconditional love

• Lighting the Way, a special installment of Dear Susu in which the community shares wise words for getting through the hardest times (429 comments worth of them!)