Dancing to the Ticking of the Doomsday Clock

Guest Speaker: Rena Priest
Worship Leader: Terra Anderson & the Native Connections Initiative Team
Special Musician: Eileen Soskin

The contemporary concept of doomsday comes from Christianity and foretells the end of the world. Conversely, a famous Indigenous prophecy made in1889 by a Paiute spiritual man named Wokova foretells liberation from the evils of colonization if the people would dance the Ghost Dance. The dance was so powerful that the government outlawed all Indigenous spiritual practices until the Native American Religious Freedoms Act was enacted in 1978.  Please join poet laureate and Lummi tribal member, Rena Priest, as she shares how Indigenous songs and dances often celebrate the natural world and situate us in time and space in special patterns meant to release us from harmful patterns and restore us to beauty.  

Bio: Rena Priest is an enrolled member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She served as the 6th Washington State Poet Laureate (2021-2023) and is the editor of the anthology I Sing the Salmon Home: poems from Washington State. Her most recent book, Northwest Know-How: Beaches, includes poems, retellings of legends, and fun descriptions of 29 of the most beloved beaches in the Pacific Northwest. She currently serves as a judge for the 2024 National Book Award in Poetry. Learn more at renapriest.com

We will make a dedicated offering to the  Lhaq’temish Foundation, their Crab Bay project which is near and dear to Rena’s heart.