By request: the story told at the land blessing at Alma. The Tongva are the indigenous peoples of Catalina island. Tongva means ‘the people of the earth’, because they understand the way of creating harmony with the earth.
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In the Tongva creation story, like all creation stories, in the beginning there was chaos. From this chaos emerged the one god, Quaoar. He was sorrowed by the emptiness in existence and began to dance, whirl, and twirl all about while he sang the Song of Creation. Out of this melody began to form other beings - first was the god of sky, Weywot. Next emerged Chehooit, who became Goddess of the Earth. These two new deities joined in the dance and created the Grandfather Sun and Grandmother Moon, Tamit and Moar.

Together the 5 gods danced and sang, and as each unique divine being joined in, the song became more complex and intricate. Soon the Goddess of the Sea, Manit, and the Lord of dreams and visions, Manisar, were created; and when they joined in the Bringer of Foods and Harvests, Tukupar Itar, was manifested, and then Tolmolak, the Sky Coyote, and finally Shishongna, the Goddess of the Underworld, joined in the singing.

These divine beings danced and sang together, creating everything else into existence: they furnished the world with hills, mountains, trees, and rivers. They sang into existence the plants and animals, and finally the first man and the first woman to walk the physical plane.

This story of creation, manifested through song and dance, is like the tree of life, which begins with one seed and branches off, fractals into fractals, into more unique and specialized beings. This can be seen in creation stories of all cultures, like the Kabalah tree of life, with branches descending into lower and lower vibrations from heaven until they hit the physical plane and are able to manifest life on earth.

This is the portal we create when we align our bodies with heaven and earth - and like each branch of the tree, though we are unique and specialized, we each at all times possess an inner connection to each other, and to the source.

And the Tongva are referred to not only as the people of the earth, but the dancers - because they understand that dance is the way of creation, the way of creating harmony with the earth, of aligning ourselves with the heavens, of dealing with sorrow, with new beginnings, and of celebrating events.

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* picture: i love this one, we all feed each other the fruit of life, through our offerings!