Weaving Sacred Earth Activism: ONE’s Earth Treasure Vase Ceremony
by April Thanhauser, and Elyshia Holliday with the ONE Visioning Council
In mid-May, at the annual meeting of ONE’s Visioning Council, we found ourselves circled around a small clay pot, filling it with prayers and offerings, and planting it deep in Western Vermont soil.
Earth Treasure Vase
The clay pot is an Earth Treasure Vase, a consecrated vessel that carries healing energies into Earth’s body and connects with other similar vessels buried in key locations around the world in a global network of blessing and protection.
This practice was inspired by an ancient Tibetan Buddhist tradition and brought to us through Cynthia Jurs, a Buddhist Dharma teacher and fearless Earth activist who received the spiritual transmission and calling over 30 years ago. She, along with the Gaia Mandala Community, has traveled the world planting these seeds of Earth-healing in places of need. You can listen to her webinar with ONE to hear her remarkable story and inspired call to Sacred Earth Activism.
The Earth Treasure Vases are made in a sacred manner, their very clay imbued with prayers and precious substances. Tibetan monks steeped in their tradition bestowed the first groups of these vessels on to Cynthia. The third generation of vessels was made within a ceremonial container by the dedicated Gaia Mandala Global Healing Community members, and one of these vases was crafted by our dear friend, Rani Findlay, a certified Life-Cycle Celebrant and co-founder of For-A-Tree. Rani is an integral part of ONE and the co-creator of our twice-yearly Gratitude Ceremonies.
ONE’s webinar with Cynthia coalesced a series of dreams, events, and connections from the past year and brought the Earth Treasure Vase stewarded by Rani to ONE—a huge honor and gift to us all. On behalf of the ONE community, the Visioning Council received the vase and was blessed with the opportunity to plant it for the benefit and vitality of life.
Relationship and Resonance
Seven of us were gathered at Sweet Water Sanctuary, Danby, VT, home to Pam Montgomery’s Partner Earth Education Center, where Pam has led many generations of seekers to commune deeply with Nature spirits, especially the healing Plant Beings. Pam and her husband Mark have tended the land and water there with such care and reverence; the bright aliveness of the atmosphere is palpable as soon as you arrive. Pam is ONE’s founder, and Sweet Water Sanctuary is ONE’s birthplace.
When we first began our meeting we were not certain that we would be planting the Vase at this time. The most important piece of all of this movement to us was that the vase was planted at the right time and in the right place. So first, we introduced ourselves and ONE to the vase and placed the vase in a place of honor within our central altar. We connected with the vase and the land. Time expanded. Hearts expanded. Just holding the treasure vase was an experience for each of us so vast and tender it opened our hearts to the expanded sense of being woven into a huge web of love and light.
Together we felt certain that the land and the vase had called each other and that we would help this point of light take its place in the mandala. We would plant the Earth Treasure Vase in a few days' time.
We were flexible with our agenda and leaned deeply into collaboration and connection as we began to put things together for planting the prayer vase.
We spent a sunlit afternoon creating small works of art, paintings, drawings, nettle weavings, and tiny scrolls inscribed on the bark of paper birch with words of blessings, gratitude, and visions for a thriving future.
We searched for the planting place. Could it be that the Earth Treasure Vase herself called us to unite in a most powerful way? To walk along the forest floor, in deep listening with all our body parts ~ feet, hands, ears, eyes, and hearts, allowing the vase to tell us where it wanted to be planted so that it could continue to heal the injuries that Mother Earth was sustaining.
The creation of this ceremony was simply magical. It felt like we were being initiated into our birthrights as human treasure vases, holding the sweet essence of wisdom and compassion that can alleviate the suffering felt throughout the world on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis.
While we were creating, searching, and in ceremony, Pam's husband, Mark, lovingly built a protective box for planting the Earth Treasure Vase. This also felt like a potent part of the prayer, and he gifted it to us with such heart and generosity. There may have been some misty eyes when he presented it to us.
Filling with Love and Abundance
It was Friday afternoon now, and we had brought, made, and gathered many treasures to contribute to the vase. It was time to add them and fill the vase.
Hands trembling with joy, voices chanting in prayer, offerings being made with the intention to bring healing and protection to Earth, gratitude for the ancestors of the land and their descendants, for the Abenaki people, for human relationship with Gaia and honoring Nature, for the ancestors and elders who have come before us and who walk alongside of us, for the waters that flow in our majestic oceans, the strength of the mountains, the softness of forest floors and trees that we encounter in and through creation and all of time and ...more. Many prayers were accompanied by plant medicines whose natural healing amplified the healing being asked for. Time truly stood still.
Rani returned to Sweetwater that evening and then the next morning, on May 18— an auspicious day when Jupiter and Sun were conjunct– we made our final preparations for the planting of this prayer. Together, Pam, Elyshia, Laura, April, Julie, Rani, Sara, and Lauren chanted as we sealed the vase and readied the box to receive its precious seed.
Within the box, we cushioned the vase with many rose petals and dried medicinal herbs from our home gardens and Pam’s apothecary. The medicines were accompanied by offerings that would not fit into the vase itself. Lovingly wrapped with its mantle and in a regal weaving, the vase found its nest in the box. There were so many offerings the box was full to the brim and almost overflowing. With much joy we closed the box and readied ourselves to go to the planting site.
Planting the Prayers
We brought the Earth Treasure vase, nestled in its cocoon, to the planting site. Close by a stream of sparkling clear water—so close we could hear its singing along with the calling of birds— surrounded by vernal forest, guarded by Ash trees and Maples and Pine, we settled. The trees were just leafing out, filled with vitality, even those old ones half-fallen and giving their rotting wood to sustain the microscopic multitude, even they were sporting branch-fulls of vibrant leaves. The older fallen logs wore thick coats of many-varied mosses among which new seedlings sprouted. In between, clusters of ferns were unfurling, and spring ephemerals were poking through the leaf carpet for their brief moments of heavenly beauty and the chance of pollination. Everywhere, signs of hope and renewal.
Those of us who have attempted digging deep holes in Northern New England’s rocky woodland soils can appreciate our wonder at the ease with which the deep planting hole opened. When we dug— each of us shoveled a bit, and the youngest and strongest one shoveled a lot— the dark soil parted graciously. In spite of being surrounded by trees, we encountered very few roots or stones. We lined the opening with healing plants, rose petals, and ferns, making a nest of medicine and beauty for the placement of the box. The land seemed to eat the prayer and when we were done planting and returned the forest duff over the site, it looked as though we had never been there at all.
This Earth Treasure Vase was planted near a mountain that contains a marble mine that goes two miles into the Earth. Pam shared that, in her experience and understanding, marble helps to remove and disburse energetic static and restore connection and the capacity to listen deeply. So we included in our dedication of this vase that the medicine of the mountain is in service to the Mandala and the health and well-being of our beautiful planet (in addition to Marble Mountain also being nourished by the prayer).
Woven into the Mandala
Perhaps surprisingly, in this land-locked state, we sensed the strong presence of the whales in our ceremony. One young woman, who knew nothing about another treasure vase to be planted soon, had an intense connection with them. When we learned later that this next treasure vase was for the whales, we also learned that the place where it would be planted was very close to where she grew up in Cape Cod. The prayer vessels seem to be already connecting —reaching out to one another!
Indeed, another, more visible animal presence during our time together was Spiders. Ancient spinners and weavers that they are, they made the point that we are all part of a new and very old sacred web. We were honored to help plant a point of light within this web.
We have done our best to share this story with you, our beloved community. It is also difficult to put into words the magnitude of beauty and prayer that we felt in the treasure vase. To be part of such a potent ceremony honoring Gaia was incredibly special. May these prayers ripple out far and wide in honor and support of all life thriving on Earth.
