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Water Ceremony at the Poughkeepsie Waterfront

Finished for the Season - See you in the Spring

Where

Poughkeepsie Boat Launch

Cost

Free

This will be the last ceremony for the season. Please bring your families and friends and join us for our Prayer ceremony along the banks of this sacred body of water. We will meet at the Poughkeepsie Waterfront – at the boat launch next to the Ice House. We will offer up our prayers with tobacco and song, sending them down to the Ocean, for the healing of the waters, the healing of Mother Earth and all of our Relations. We will honor our mighty river and all the life that it sustains within it and along her shores.

Please note that this event is *Weather Permiting* and will be canceled in the event of Rain, Snow or Ice.

Be mindful of the weather & dress appropriately as it is often cooler by the water, and come down to the river to offer your prayers. Please check our Facebook page & events for updates, or call the Dreaming Goddess at 845-473-2206 to confirm that we are meeting.

We meet at the Poughkeepsie Boat Launch

woman's and a girl holding sticks

Water Ceremony on the Hudson River with Dreaming Goddess

Water is Life

The most beautiful ceremony that I had the privilege to participate in while I was at Standing Rock happened every morning at the Cannon Ball River ~ the Water Prayer Ceremony.  It is my vision to stand with the intention of the Native People and to support and foster stewardship of Mother Earth and her Waters, here at our River Front, by joining our hearts in powerful prayer.

We all have come from the waters of our mother’s womb, we are made up of water, and we can’t exist without clean water.  Let’s come together at the edge of the river and connect ~ to the water ~ to our hearts ~ to each other ~ to the world ~ for the highest good of all.

Mni Wiconi is Lakota for “Water is Life”.  I invite you to research your own native language and bring the statement “WATER IS LIFE” to the river in your ancestor’s language.  It will be wonderful to hear the many and diverse ways to speak this truth.

Please bring your families and friends and join us for our Prayer ceremony along the banks of this sacred body of water. We will meet at the Poughkeepsie Waterfront – at the boat launch. We will offer up our prayers with tobacco and song, sending them down to the Ocean, for the healing of the waters, the healing of Mother Earth and all of our Relations. We will honor our mighty river and all the life that it sustains within it and along her shores.

The River That Flows Both Ways

We live along a majestic, powerful body of water, originally called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, or Mahicantuck ~ the river that flows both ways. As a result of this flow, the merging of salt and fresh water has created an ecosystem unlike any in the world, with marine life found nowhere else.

Here’s a bit that I found on the web about Mahicantuck River, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation:

“Of course, native tribes had named the river long before Hudson’s arrival. One of their names-Mahicantuck-means “great waters in constant motion” or, more loosely, “river that flows two ways.” It highlights the fact that this waterway is more than a river-it is a tidal estuary, an arm of the sea where salty sea water meets fresh water running off the land.

men and women facing the river with their hands up

Water Ceremony on the Hudson River with Dreaming Goddess

The Hudson estuary stretches 153 miles from Troy to New York Harbor, nearly half the river’s 315 mile course between Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondacks and the Battery at the tip of Manhattan. The estuary feels the ocean’s tidal pulse all the way to Troy. Push a stick into the beach at the water’s edge, or note the water’s height on a piling or rock. Check back in 20 minutes. Is the water level the same? The estuary usually has two high and two low tides in twenty-four hours. With this rise and fall come changes in the direction of flow. In general, a rising tide is accompanied by a flood current flowing north towards Troy, a falling tide by an ebb current flowing seaward.

Salty sea water also pushes up the estuary, diluted by freshwater runoff as it moves north. In years with average precipitation falling in usual seasonal patterns, spring runoff holds the leading edge of dilute sea water-the salt front-downriver in the Tappan Zee. As runoff slackens in summer, the salt front pushes northward to Newburgh Bay, and further-to Poughkeepsie-in droughts.”

Copied from http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4923.html

Dates for 2024:

  • Sunday, September 1
  • Sunday, October 6
  • Sunday, November 3

Learn About Conserving our Hudson River

clearwater.org

riverkeeper.org

Mni wiconi 

L’acqua è vita

El agua es vida

L’eau est la vie

To neró eínai zoí

Alma’ hu alhaya

Water is life

Wasser ist leben

A auga é vida

Dlo se lavi

A víz az élet

Voda tse zhyttya

Tubig ay buhay

He ola wai

Vaser iz lebn

Yaku runna kawsay

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