How to Make a Native American Prayer Tie
Creating a Native American prayer tie allows you to create a physical representative of an actual prayer from your mind and heart. The prayer tie both represents and holds the powerful energy of the prayer. According to the official website of the "9th Engineers Battalion," in Native American culture, once you've made your prayer ties, you would burn them in a respectful and dedicated ceremony, as an assurance that your prayers would reach the heaven and the Great Spirit. Repeating this ceremony and tradition today is easy and an effective way to put an image behind your prayers.
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Things You'll Need
- Blanket
- Red or blue cotton cloth
- Scissors
- Herbs: sage, sweet grass, tobacco, cornmeal
- Red yarn
- Stick
- Fire
Instructions
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1
Spread out a special, clean blanket on a flat surface where you will do your work. According to the book, "Star Medicine: Native American Path to Emotional Healing," by Wolf Moondanc, this blanker can later become your medicine blanket and the place where you do your praying,
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2
Cut pieces of red or blue cotton cloth into 1-inch squares. Take a pinch of tobacco, sage, sweet grass and cornmeal and place them in the center of each square. Gather up the sides of each square and pull them together, gathering the herbs together at the bottom.
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3
Cut a small piece of red yarn and wrap and knot it around the neck of each bundle. Make at least four separate bundles and string them together on a piece of red yarn, wrapping the yarn around the neck of each one to create a line of prayer ties. The four bundles signify the unity of the four separate directions.
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Tie the line on a stick and place the stick in the middle of a fire and allow the smoke to carry the prayers up to the heavens.
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Tips & Warnings
Place your thoughts and prayers inside of the prayer ties while you make them. Once you hang them, let these thoughts and prayers go.
References
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
