On March 27th, 2011, some 20 people gathered at the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, in the Somersville townsite, for an earth-honoring ritual offered by the Earth Medicine Alliance. Executive director Daniel Foor shared about the Alliance, the intent for the day’s ritual, and the history of the Black Diamond Mines area. At the time of contact the land was inhabited by Bay Miwok-speaking peoples, specifically the Chupcan, Ompin, and Volvon. The land was ranched by Spanish and then later by American settlers until the discovery of black diamonds or coal.
From the 1860s until the mid-1900’s the area was mined for coal, and from the 1920’s until 1949 silica was mined for glass making at the Hazel-Atlas Glass Company in Oakland and foundry molds for the Columbia Steel Works. There are now over 400 miles of abandoned coal and silica mining tunnels beneath the earth at this park. After mining ceased, the land returned to ranching, and in the early 1970s the East Bay Regional Parks District acquired the area and created a nature preserve.
In the spirit of reconciliation and repair, the primary intention of this gathering was to acknowledge the history of mining at Black Diamond Mines, and, with ritual attention and heartfelt offerings, to make a stitch of repair in the trust between humans and the other-than-human kin of the area. “It’s about coming into relationship,” Daniel said.
We met at a picnic area where the tables were arranged in a circle under an overhanging oak tree. Branches, flowers, ash, and other natural offerings were laid out in a circle around the space. One of the members of the Alliance offered a cleansing with sage, and we began to settle into ritual space. The altar had tobacco, ash, sand, and cedar in an equilateral cross laid out on green and white fabrics with a wrapped bundle at the center. An abundance of foods, bowls filled with liquids, plants (e.g., sagebrush, toyon, buckeye), and other offerings surrounded the altar, and a python shed brought by one of the participants circled the central space.
Daniel led the group in a song and prayer to welcome the spirits of place, and after sharing in greater depth about the intent for the ceremony, participants were supported in going off alone to spend some time connecting to the land and other relations present. Daniel suggested making a small natural offering of our choosing before tuning in to see if the spirits of place had anything to share. People scattered throughout the campground; some lay on rocks feeling their solid coolness, some sat in the tall grass beneath bare gray tree trunks, and some scampered up gigantic hills of black mine tailings to experience the innards of the Earth exposed to the sun.
Upon our return to the circle, offerings began in accord with the progression for an Andean-style despacho ceremony. Red wine and spirits for the Earth Mother and Heavenly Father were made scattered to the directions and sprayed onto the central altar. Daniel then invited participants to share their experiences from connecting with the land, in the form of a prayer if possible. To ground these prayers in something physical, each person used three leaves of either California bay laurel or eucalyptus, and after sharing their prayer aloud or intending it silently, passed their prayer to Daniel, who carefully added them to the central bundle.
Several people shared a connection with the beauty of this place and awe at so many birds thriving near acidic water runoff and mounds of mine tailings. Others shared of feeling attuned to the suffering lingering in the land, and some saw images of the hard lives of the miners and their families, of deaths of women in childbirth or of child laborers. One participant uncovered a king snake while making an offering at the base of a tree, and we shared in circle of the king snake’s immunity to rattlesnake poison and gift of transmuting heavy energies. Another felt called to create through art and dance; “our bodies are our prayers,” someone echoed. With our remaining sets of leaves, we made a second round of prayers silently for ourselves, for our lives and happiness and all of these were added to the offering bundle.
Daniel then asked that both the youngest and eldest man and woman present offer prayers using white and red rose petals. Our group ranged from 26 to 75 years old. The eldest man offered prayers for the land, “May all suffering cease. May all suffering cease.” The eldest woman shared her epiphany from last summer’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She saw vast destruction and devastation, and without being able to do anything, she got very depressed before realizing, “What a waste! What’s the point? There’s no point to getting depressed. You have to just let it move through! Keep on letting it move through, and enjoy it as it passes. Enjoy it! Enjoy that you are alive! Sometimes that has to be enough, that you are alive today!”
“The prayers create lines of intention along which energy can flow,” Daniel said. “Now we feed those intentions.” This began with handfuls of cornmeal, sprinkling along the cardinal directions extending from the ritual bundle and continued as the group added black beans, red lentils, yellow lentils, chia seeds, rice, and green mung beans. Participants then added sweets: raisins, chocolate chips, peanut M&Ms, hot chocolate mix, and other goodies, as the altar took on a playful rainbow appearance. One enthusiastic attendee poured an entire jar of Egyptian molasses onto the mounding circle of food, and as it coated the prayers and oozed toward the center of the offerings, Daniel lifted the leather-wrapped bundle, laughing while wiping off streams of sweets.
We then added various medicine, symbolic items and further prayers from the Earth; ash, bloodmeal fertilizer, juniper from Mt. Diablo, cedar from Mt. Shasta, water that dripped from stalactites in New Zealand, a sprig of balsam fir from Maine, stones from the Big Island of Hawai’i, pine cones from an Indian reservation in the desert Southwest, and even a band-aid for healing. After a final call for offerings, Daniel ceremonially wrapped the bundle, tied it closed, and placed it on the ground. Using a yes/no divination tool, he asked if the ritual was complete, a question directed to the spirits of place, the intended recipients of the offering bundle.
This set in motion a dialogue with the spirits of place that resulted in a number of requests from their side, including: returning for more ceremony on the land including for the ancestors of place, giving thanks for any personal prayers answered from the ritual, and writing up a narrative of the day’s gathering (this story). The divination also called for drumming and movement and as a group we opened a space for drumming, dancing, and song before we finally received a confirmation from the spirits of place that our offering had been received.
With a final song and prayer of completion, the ritual was formally closed for the day. As people gathered up their things, they chatted, caught up, and greeted friends old and new. Some headed back to their cars, releasing the focused attention of ritual, while others stayed on to talk or have a bite to eat, journal, and enjoy what had become a bright, sunny day. In the weeks following the ceremony, the despacho bundle was burned at the home of one of the circle members, and several present crafted this narrative of our time in circle, final completions in this ritual act of reconciliation and remembrance in the rolling hills north of Mt Diablo.
Gratitude to Amos Hausman-Rogers for doing the lion’s share of the writing on this piece and to Jihan Amer for the photographs. For more information on the work of the Earth Medicine Alliance or for an archived version of this story visit: www.earthmedicine.org.
