Blessing of the Creatures

Blessing of the Creatures

Happy Earth Day 2020

We created a “Blessing of the Creatures” to celebrate Earth Day
and honor the creatures of the Earth, including us humans. In this 4-minute ‘listening video’,
Passamaquoddy Vera Francis shares The Passamaquoddy Drum Song in a moving weave of Passamaquoddy and English.


This Drum Song was reunited with the Passamaquoddy people through recordings that were made in 1890 on wax cylinders.
It is held in reverence as one of the most ancient songs and offered here as a Blessing of the Creatures.

We hope you are moved to share this on social media or email or to embed on your website.

This ‘Blessing of the Creatures’ marks the public kickoff of a community performance project called
MAINEUSA: the history of Maine from the Ice Age till Now.

As soon as it is possible to gather together again safely, you are invited to join the performance here in Maine –
featuring puppets, live music, dance, lots of stories, and a life-size Right Whale puppet.

This now-virtual Blessing of the Creatures was created by Vera Francis, Passamaquoddy and Marty Pottenger.
A project of arts nonprofit
Art At Work, MAINEUSA was scheduled to premiere in July 2020, but has been postponed due to Covid-19.

We are grateful for the support of our sponsors – 350 Maine and Sierra Club Maine – and our partners, volunteers, activists, historians, artists, the City of South Portland, the Maine Arts Commission, the MAP Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town program, and the Maine Bicentennial Commission.

If you are able to contribute, please consider helping an organization that needs your support:

Wabanaki Health and Wellness
www.wabanakihw.org
Click here to donate.

May this time of grief, challenge, and change become a time of renewal, reevaluation, and recommitment
to the well-being of the Earth and all her creatures, including us.

Vera Francis, Passamaquoddy, Environmental Activist, Storyteller, Scholar


Marty Pottenger, Director of Art At Work, South Portland, Maine