RIBBONS TO CARRY OUR PRAYERS / COVID 19 PROJECT 

DURING QUARANTINE 

Prayer ribbons are based on the Tibetan and Native American traditions. To indigenous peoples, all of Creation breathes with the Breath of God. Through our prayers, we remember how Spirit sustains us in our journey through life.  People tie  red ribbons to the branches of the tree to send their  silent prayers for happiness, protection, wisdom, humility… dissolve in the wind and touch every single being in nature.

Ribbons are sometimes left as gestures of acknowledgement and respect for the spirits of the land, and sometimes as prayers requesting general blessings or specific aid from those same spirits. At healing wells, red ribbons  may be left as prayers for recovery from afflictions of the body or mind: the cloth is first dipped in the water, pressed against the troubled part of the body (if the sufferer is present), and tied to the tree. The cloth then "takes up" the illness and carries it harmlessly back to wind and earth as the cloughtie slowly weathers over time and disintegrates.