Niibin: IV. Amaamimiinan'giizis

As the summer wore on we’d enter the Miinan-Giizis, or Blueberry Moon, named after the tiny berry indigenous to our habitat. These berries were delicious as well as essential for our health! We knew what is well known today about the cleansing properties of wild blueberries.

After a long, hot day the nighttime returns and we enter giizhigoong, or ‘the sky world’. The stars shine brightly overhead in the northern sky, while some of us sleep…and begin to dream.

We believe that dreams are our minds thinking while we’re asleep, processing experiences we’ve had during our waking hours. And then there are other dreams when we go and visit the spirit realm.

We travel there and get spiritual guidance or insight from the time spent there, and when you wake up you return from that place. So dreams give us that understanding that comes from the spirit world.

Dreams come kindly at first, but if we do not learn what is necessary then the dream will come back more forcefully?! These dreams are brought to us to guide us through life. The dreamtime is a good place to be coming home from.

But if we cannot sleep, Miinan-Giizis is a great time for star-gazing! We watch for shooting stars, which are actually messengers from our ancestors reminding us at the warmest time of the year, that the coldest time will once again be coming! If you keep your eyes open, you might see one?!