Elder Rick Lightning blessed the launch ceremony of our new Centre for Chinese Studies and the Centre for Chinese Teacher Development last week, with words of wisdom, prayer, smudgning and chanting. It was a special moment for a special launching day. Here is our International Office’s (Dr. Xinxin Fang) and our Qilu Normal University’s message to Elder Lightning:
Dear Elder Ligntning,
We wish to express our sincere gratitude for your blessings with your sweetgrass and prayer yesterday at the Launching Ceremony for Centre for Chinese Studies. Your speech and words of wisdom were very touching, your prayer and song were very moving. We could feel the air change like a warm autumn wind filling the Telger Students Centre. Your stories of history and your connection with land and sky are still lingering on top of Tegler and resonate in the ground. It was a perfect peaceful prelude to the celebration that followed.
This is a poem written to you by one of the Chinese delegation professors.
疏云密树色深浅,
一曲高歌满校园.
欲架虹桥跨碧海,
要携枫叶到泉边.
Literally means:
Sparse clouds, dense trees, in deep and light colors,
A blessing song fills the campus.
we wish to ride a rainbow across the blue ocean,
To bring the maple leaf to the fountain. (These Chinese delegation come from Ji’nan, a city of spring fountains.)