The Opening Ceremony for Ojai Day was initiated 10 years ago. It came from an awareness I had when painting the center of the first Ojai Day Mandala in 1993. I saw our Chumash elder praying with sage on the Mandala. At that time people of Chumash ancestry blessing in the public spaces was not common, as it is today. When I asked the city to support an opening ceremony they brought a microphone and speaker to the Mandala for us. Julie Tumamait brought her Chumash blessing to the event there.
