Ceremonial Pipe Dedication Prayer

Great Spirit, Gitche Manitou,
I place myself in this sacred high place so that I can survey the wonder of all that you have made,
And so that I can be reminded to remain humble in in this circle,
With the awareness that the center of the universe is everywhere, in the spirit of every living thing,
Making every life small in its place,
And mighty in its preciousness.
 
I raise this sacred pipe to you as a way to give thanks.
I have prepared myself to the limit of my ability, through study, work, relationship, and service.
Yet even the best of our efforts do not approach the fulfillment of the power of this symbol,
This living branch of male and this living stone of female, brought together into equality
And made holy with the feathers of eagles and the colors of our prayers and our people,
Red, yellow, black, white, and the blue of the holy sky.
This limb of ash, taken lovingly from its mother tree, and then given life once again as the bearer of the breath of our prayers,
And this bowl of stone, lifted from the bosom of its mother earth through the labor of sweat and the giving of tobacco, and worked with hands of a friend and a teacher, given life through its place in friendship, and bearing upon it the symbol of the seven strengths that lead us to a place of wholeness.
 
I lift this offering of wood and stone to you, to your face in every direction, to your heart in the earth beneath me, to your vision in the heavens above me, and to your many helpers who surround us and come to us.
 
I raise this offering in this place of beauty, but with a mindfulness that this offering is made in behalf of those who do not rest in a place of beauty today,
But who cry in a place of loneliness,
Who cry in a place of bad dreams,
Who cry in the places where they were left by hands of power and greed and violence.
 
I raise this offering in their behalf, that they might not remain in those places, but that they might offer their lives, too, as people of holiness, wonder, and possibility,
That they might find the vision of themselves as you see them.
With this offering, I also rededicate myself to friendship and alliance with them as well, not as a man presuming to lead or guide, but a friend who prays for them.
 
As they sit here with me in my heart, each one of them, we send you this prayer of affirmation,
We, your children who you made through spirit and earth,
Affirming that we will reach out, we will dry one another’s tears, we will heal wounds both in ourselves and in others, and we will remind one another of the possible future.
 
We affirm that we will help our children see their future, and to love an earth in which we see not desecration and waste, but beauty.
 
We know, Gitche Manitou that you have given us a sacred power as men and women,
A power to reconnect others back into the broken circle of this life,
A power to find laughter,
A power to refuse to radiate the same hate that has brought us into pain,
A power to restore, to rebuild, to repair, and to recognize what so many others deny.
And we pledge to use this power to heal wounds.
This is Gizhewaadiziwin - loving and caring for others.
 
Creator, I also raise a prayer about those who brought betrayal to each of us.
I do not pray in their behalf, but rather I pray in defiance of them
To ask that you free us from the false image of ourselves as dehumanized, broken, and desecrated,
And to see these as the truth of our betrayers instead
Not because I desire any harm against them,
But because their own souls are shattered and outcast from your living circle.
 
Let our lives be lived in celebration of what is yet possible,
As we learn to reject the false lessons of the lowest points of our pasts,
So that we can be as free as this medicine smoke to move into the world with grace and flawlessness,
In whatever shape and direction you will,
Set free into healing action
Let us not harm ourselves with the useless goal of perfection,
But let us grow with the perfect goal of usefulness.
 
Yes, Creator, we give you our hands
And we give you our souls and our imaginations, and our energy and our companionships
To become circles linked to circles
In the great hoop of life.
 
For this, I offer this pipe and this prayer.