Hudson River’s Yom Kippur Ceremony, September 28, 2009

A sacred ceremony needed to occur on behalf of New York State’s Hudson River. The request was made simply enough: while working almost two month’s ago with Napa, California’s Lisa Morris, my superb energetic healer suddenly received an image of the lower Hudson River reaching up and claiming two passing aircraft overhead. She literally saw two giant hands stretch up from the river below and pull down the aircraft and their occupants.

Interestingly, I was not intimidated by this otherwise dark vision. Decades ago, Lewis Mumford wrote that “Rivers as open sewers are one price of civilization.” During the early 1980’s, for instance, I had taught at Troy’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and still later, at SUNY Albany. I knew, for instance, the sad legacy of General Electric’s decadal dumping of PCB’s into an already badly polluted Hudson River. I’d tracked corporate noncompliance on such matters as water pollution. I also knew of longstanding efforts aimed at a river-wide PCB “clean-up.” But simply put, rivers, like Humpty Dumpty, are much easier to protect than they are to reassemble.

While Lisa spoke, I recalled an August 8th, 2009 mid-air collision over the Hudson River between a commercial helicopter and a small private airplane in which all passengers had perished into the river below. As memory served me, Federal Aviation Administration officials still sought to assign blame for the crash in which nine passengers lost their lives.

I remember Lisa asking me when I next planned to visit the Hudson River? I would fly east, I told her, roughly coincident with September’s Jewish High Holy days. I’d be visiting my sweetheart, Fay Chazin, who lived along the lower reaches of the Hudson River, in Ossining, New York.

At the time Lisa also shared that I needed to take along a rose flower essence. “I would know,” she said, which one to bring.”

The day before my actual departure for New York, I searched through my “Perelandra” rose flower essences (www.perelandra.com) and called in the Deva (nature intelligence) of the pending Hudson River Ceremony, together with many guides and guardians. I set aside for travel “Orange Ruffles” rose flower essence as part of the anticipated river ceremony.

Machaelle Small Wright characterizes Orange Ruffles as keying to someone’s “receptivity.” When working on individuals, she writes: this flower essence will help “An individual moving forward as a conscious body/soul unit . . . experience receptivity in a new way.” “This essence,” she writes, “stabilizes the individual on all [physical, emotional, mental and spiritual] levels as the soul infusion (the seating of the soul into the body) encourages the expansion of the parameters of the individual’s sensory system. Orange Ruffles helps stabilize the individual as his [her] sensory system expands so that [s/]he may function with new sensitivity to each of the five physical senses (Small Wright, “Perelandra Essences Guide,” 1998, p. 6).”

This previous description is intended for individual users. I had no sense of what required being mended on behalf of an entire river system, but I did grasp its magnitude? I only trusted that this essence was the necessary one to do the job.

With the flower essence in hand, I drove to Pacifica’s “Amethyst Light,” a metaphysical healing and gift stop that is owned by my friend Mylene Carol. I explained Lisa’s vision to Mylene and told her that I needed to prepare for some sort of ceremony on the banks of the Hudson River. Handing her a bottle of the Orange Ruffles, I said it was likely that Fay and I would perform what Machaelle Small Wright calls a “Battlefield Releasement Protocol.”

I’d read about Small Wright doing such protocol’s from an observation tower that overlooked the infamous Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg. What she’d explained was that Nature continued holding many such jagged energetic fields; but at considerable expense. What Pan (or Gaia) required was that incarnated human’s take responsibility for any and all distorted current or ancestral energies that had once occurred at particular geographical sites. In short, it was up to us to own and Divinely transmute any misqualified energies that we had inflicted upon a Civil War battlefield—or a besieged river, for that matter—together with their myriad inhabitants.

Small Wright explains that the whole of Nature could temporarily contain such energies, but not without significantly distorting everyone downstream within that landscape’s Divine chain of being. What was required was a kind of reconciliation, of sorts, where, with the help of particular flower essences and other attending Divine ones, humans would themselves accept responsibility for such matters as the broader effects of war and, in the case of the Hudson itself, pollution, among other indignities, quietly took their toll.

Mylene confirmed that the flower essence I had selected was the right one all right, but I also wondered what else I was to bring along? Dropping into the energetic field, Mylene, a consummate seer, learned that I needed to take along small pieces of citrine; one each for every passenger killed in that mid-air collision. Citrine is a very powerful yellow crystal that transmutes negative into positive energies. All I would require knowing is how many pieces of citrine to bring along to river’s edge?

Next, Mylene saw a white rose as being part of the ceremony. “Did she have one,” I asked? “No,” was her first response. Suddenly, looking up, she said: “Wait a minute!” We walked outside her shop, rounded the corner, and there, on one of her roses, were two remaining beautiful white blossoms. I connected with the Deva of the rose and those Divine ones assisting with the ceremony. We were guided to cut one of the awaiting rose blossoms and to bring it inside.

I asked whether I needed to take the white blossom as is or could I separate the petals, one by one, for the long trip East? “The petals could be separated,” Mylene conveyed, while those that were past their prime needed to be thrown away. I pulled off the outer-most petals, which had browned, revealing dozens of pure white petals together with one which was like no other: it was spotted throughout with red dots and splotches.

I was stunned at discovering the one petal that was anything but white. The random appearing red splotches and dots took me to the blood that had been spilled from the recent mid-air collision. It also reminded me of the centuries-old indignities that had been suffered by the generous river at human hands. Mylene and I were both amazed by the white rose’s symmetry and gifts.

As we spoke about the pending Hudson River ceremony, an intense fragrance of roses suddenly filled the air. I was so struck by the deliciously wonderful fragrance that I began looking around for its source? Wave upon wave of intoxicating rose fragrance began washing over and enveloping us. Mylene soon confirmed what I already suspected: Mother Mary was present and assisting us in completing preparations for the forthcoming ceremony.

Later that same evening, Fay helped confirm that nine passengers had died during last summer’s mid-air collision. I hand-selected discrete pieces of citrine from a powerful redwood container in our home and combined these together with the rose petals into the awaiting envelope.

Once in New York, Fay and I immensely enjoyed one another’s companionship! We hadn’t seen each other in about seven weeks, and just being together felt like a Divine gift. Upon asking her about the ceremony’s timing, she said: “On Yom Kippur, The Jewish Day of Atonement.” “Yes, that’s right,” I said. What is needed is total reconciliation between the river and its numerous, unknowing beneficiaries.

Sunday evening, near nightfall, we attended an informal community service at a nearby Temple. We said the evening prayers with dozens of others including many children

The following morning, on Yom Kippur day, I began pouring over maps about the most desirable streamside location? Intuitively, I already knew that 11:00 AM was the optimal time for the ceremony to occur. Looking at a Hudson River map, I was soon guided to the perfect spot: a small city park that overlooked the lengthy Tappan Zee Bridge. The site was also adjacent to the location of an abandoned General Motors assembly plant.

We drove down to Kingsland Point Park in Tarrytown. Parking the car, we threaded our path through expansive lawns and beautiful trees that were reminiscent of a cemetery. We walked south along a cement boardwalk at river’s edge. Feeling cut off from the Hudson’s beautiful waters, we sought an opening in the fence and scrambled over boulders to sit near water’s edge. I wondered whether we’d be harassed by park attendants for our boldness?

Before us the diagonal-appearing bridge stretched into a hazy watery horizon. To our south, where the GM plant had once stood, a tall cyclone fence surrounded a large mound of reclaimed soil. On the plant’s westernmost reach, and perched atop several large protruding rocks, stood a locked, thirty foot lighthouse replete with gangway. With all this and more in view, we began conducting our sacred ceremony.

After calling in all of the Divine ones, and apologizing for our cumulative indifference toward the river, I was guided to offer three drops of Orange Ruffles rose essences to the river below. As we did so, gusty winds arose which felt like an enormous emotional cleansing.

Here on the Jewish Day of Atonement, we sought to apologize to the river and all its sacred inhabitants and other keepers for what we’ve done over the course of centuries. We then thanked those who had given their lives in the recent crash for their imperceptible gifts. We took turns casting nine pieces of citrine into the somewhat murky waters below.

Finally, one by one, we began casting white rose flower petals into the free flowing water. Since the winds were blowing upriver, many of our petals took northerly flight toward the on-rushing currents. As though further confusing matters, an incoming tide accelerated the collision between comingling currents.

With two notable exceptions, the white rose petals made their way upstream in the winds. One petal Fay released soared upriver a considerable distance before gently falling into the waters. The final petal that needed to be surrendered was the blood-splotched one. Before hitting the water, the winds bore it upstream to collide with an in-river rock. It appeared that the earth needed to ground that particular energy before the water was capable of fully assimilating its gifts.

The ceremony was over soon after we’d begun. We thanked all those who had helped us, including: the Sacred Christed Heart of the Earth Mother; The Sacred Christed Heart of Rumziah the Giant (the Earth Father); the Apu of our location and that of the Hudson River; the Elementals; the Devas; Mother Mary; Jeshua; Saint Germain and Members of the Great White Brotherhood; the Fairies and the Elves, and a host of named and un-named others.

Afterwards, we walked along the river’s edge and sat on a bench overlooking the whole. The winds had died down a bit. It felt calmer, lighter and more peaceful. I personally breathed a sigh of relief. Fay and I had done a “Mitzvah,” that morning, a blessing on behalf of the river and all those who depended upon it. Atonement had been offered to the earth’s waters and been gratefully received.

Later that week, for the briefest moment, Fay received—at her third eye—a vision of a Byzantine-appearing Mother Mary. Perhaps it was a “Thank You” for a job well done! A few days earlier, while crossing the river near Bear Mountain, we’d also been visited at close quarters by a circling bald eagle. It’s the first time, Fay said, that she’s ever seen a bald eagle in the Hudson River Valley. Eagle’s energies were also helping.

I am also struck by the ceremony’s exquisite timing. If rivers were holy, which they are, how might we choose to live in alignment with the basic building blocks of our bodies, and all life, for that matter, for which clean, clear, free flowing water as love is utterly essential?