From dust you came and it is dust you will become

Well today Moana you got your connection to the land reinforced. All the time chilling in the freezer.ДЄs we go through this season of Lent, I couldnвЂ™t help but think of that today and the words often spoken on Ash Wednesday of вЂњFrom dust you came and to dust you shall returnвЂќ. It was given to us in a hazmat bag at the hospital and until today it was in that same hazmat bag. I wonder if in New Zealand they just give it to you. Some humor is that when Moana was born we had to sign all sorts of paperwork to get it. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. IвЂ™m invited to kneel and read the fifty-first Psalm, recalling how David watched Bathsheba bathe. Once, twice, and IвЂ™m marked, a lintel in plague years. We joke that Moana was made in NZ but born in the USA, however burying her Whenua here in Lucama today was definitely the right thing to do for lots of reasons. since from dust you came, to dust you will return, the priest recites, smearing my forehead. We took our sweet time in getting toВ this point today but now seems especially appropriate to do it and do it here as we prepare to depart. Most often the whenua is buried in a place with ancestral connection, and is considered a physical and spiritual link to the place of birth.

It is the tradition that after some time you return it to the land (or dust) by burying it back in the ground andвЂ¦ We call it Whenua (Fen-ua) which translated means land. Yes sounds gross and before you go there вЂ¦. In NZ for some we have a tradition of when a baby is born that the parentsВ keep the Placentia or afterbirth. Its flat, its hot, its agricultural land and while economically has seen better days there is are strong ties withinВ this community and the land. Her father was born and raised there and several generations before him, in and around that area.

You see Lucama is where RobinвЂ™s, McClenny side of the family are from. Today we did something very meaningful and something that the likes of will never be seen again in the town of Lucama, NC.

From dust you came and it is dust you will become