Holy Ground

Holy Ground

BY CATHERINE COLEMAN FLOWERS

…Trauma, and we’re also talking about the beauty of the land. And Lowndes County is extremely beautiful. You know, the trees, the animals, the insects. You know, I see the largest butterflies that I’ve ever seen, I’ve seen them in Lowndes County. And you see animals, even a bald eagle there. But the land itself has a story that has yet to be told about the trauma that has occurred, not only to its indigenous settlers who were there, who’ve probably been there since the beginning of Mother Earth, to the people that were brought there on the slave ships who intermarried and became part of the village that was built at Holy Ground. And Holy Ground is significant because it is so sacred that when you go there, you can hear the fish honoring the land by jumping out of the river. And I remember participating in a ceremony where we were not only honored by the fish but also by the birds that flew overhead. So. I think if we look at beauty and pain coexisting, we’ll find it at Holy Ground. In Alabama.