The Hopi Mother: Peace is born in darkness

By Sheila Seclearr

The Hopi Mother: Peace is born in darkness is an essay by Sheila Seclearr of Santa Fe, New Mexico. A culmination of writing based on Peace Studies plus Hopi Indian history and prophecy, Seclearr weaves an account that includes her trademark empathic travel for a look inside a Hopi village and its unique worldview. 

Beginning with an account of the traditions surrounding the birth of a baby in a Hopi village, Seclearr goes on to show how corn and water are universal symbols of life, and how the Hopi have continued to revere women in their matriarchal society. Their traditional pottery and the kiva prayer house are related to a woman's womb. Clay is called the broken-down mixture of everything on earth.

This unique Hopi worldview and their prophecies for modern times are highlighted as a roadmap to peace, via their connection to divine feminine and the earth in general. Celebrating life, wholeness and connection with each other are claimed as the building blocks of peaceful society in this poetic and hopeful essay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ravenkind Productions
• Release date: May 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386692805

Sheila Seclearr

Sheila Seclearr is an author/editor/publisher from Santa Fe, New Mexico. As a business communications consultant, she has produced multi-media projects, websites, business plans and grant applications. She has credits on several screenplays and has production credits on two PBS documentaries and one independent documentary. She is also the author of an award-winning novel, A Tree on Turtle Island (Open Passage Press, 2003).  Seclearr was previously in Chicago as Vice President of national public relations firm, DeChant-Hughes, Inc. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Communications/Journalism from Loyola University Chicago and did post-graduate studies with The Center for New TV in Chicago and ScreenwritingU in Los Angeles. Her publishing company is called Ravenkind Productions (ravenkind.com) specializing in helping businesses and independent authors with digital and multi-media publishing.

Book preview

Introduction

Even though I have only a smidgen of Native American blood seven generations back, I was highly influenced as a young child by Ute dancers, by growing up in the West, and by educating myself about Native American people and their issues. Later my brother adopted two daughters, half Shoshone, and I’ve had the blessing of knowing and loving them, watching them grow into young women, and seeing a view of the world through their multi-cultural perspectives. I’ve had close friends from various Native tribes and from different parts of the country who have shared their lives and stories. But I’ve been careful not to write or tell their stories as if I really knew anything about them.

I am a student of cultures and I am an observer. I try to write what I know, but sometimes I am witness to things that educate or change me and I want to share them. About fifteen years ago I was writing a novel, historical fiction called A Tree on Turtle Island. It was about the period in the mid-1700s when Colonial Europeans were meeting the Native people who lived in the East coast area of the thirteen American colonies. I wrote it from the perspective of an English girl, but it included many stories of Native people. I went to a Native American elder that I knew and told him I wanted to be careful not to overstep my telling. He had one question: Have you dreamed about your story?

I’d had many dreams about it. Every major step of the plot was led by my dreams. His response was quick. He told me that I had to tell the story.

Since then whenever I have a vivid dream, I wonder if it's a new story project. Some are and some aren’t, but this one was clear. It first showed up as the elder in the section, The Womb of Creation (page 15). He spoke no words but conveyed a huge world