Easter Sunday

Once again, I am simply supplying a link back to my Easter Sunday photo gallery at AnnArbor.com.

As a bonus to those who look at the blog from here, though, here is something that I experienced during the past week. On Tuesday, March 30, I was a speaker at the 5th Annual Binational Conference on Lake St. Clair. For those not familiar, the waterways draining out of Lake Huron and into Lake Erie are, first, the St. Clair River, then Lake St. Clair, smaller than the five main Great Lakes but a part of their water system, then finally the Detroit River. In the delta of the St. Clair River where it drains into Lake St. Clair, one of the largest islands is Walpole Island, and on that island, using the Canadian terminology for the people otherwise call Native Americans, live the Walpole Island First Nation. A member of this band, Reta Sands, was invited to give an opening prayer for this conference, a rare thing for a conference with a combination of scientists and policymakers. Anyway, I was able to find the same prayer online, originating from the Sioux Chief Yellowhawk:

O Great Spirit, Whose voice I hear in the winds,
and whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me, I come before you, one of your children.
I am small and weak. I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made,
my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may know the things you
have taught my people,
the lesson you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength not to be superior to my brothers,
but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself.
Make me ever ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades as a fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you without shame.