The most beautiful place

The Maroon Bells, outside Aspen, Colorado is one of the most beautiful places on Earth to me. I had the opportunity to spend two summers playing in the area when my mom and dad attended the Aspen Music Festival. So, for five weeks each during the summners of 1975 and 1980, I was on my own. Well, me and my younger brother.





Without being there, it's difficult to describe, even looking at these wonderful pictures just how gorgeous this place is.

Somewhat Discovered Country

My trip to Wisconsin was fantastic! In my last post, I wrote about leaving for yet another shamanic workshop this year, this time with my teacher's indigenous teacher from Peru.

Adolfo is a wonderful man. He's my height, which is to say, on the short side, and just a beautiful and light-filled man. As far as I know, he is the first Peruvian shaman of his rank to leave the mountains to teach. He worked us like dogs.

This workshop was for mesa carriers, those people who have been initiated into the Andean shamanic tradition. The mesa, really misa, is a shamanic sacred bundle of special stones, or khuyas. This workshop turned out to be all about the ceremonies for the care and feeding of the mesa and about working with the khuyas on a deep and intimate level. We spent four intense days in ceremony, most of it outside in the cool, misty drizzle of the Wisconsin dells. One day we spent almost entirely outside, leaving the Prairie Center of our retreat place at 9:15 and not returning until about 6:00pm. It was a day of almost nothing but ceremony with our mesas.

The thing that stuck with me about the teaching received from Adolfo and his lineage is how connected everything and everyone is. We learned the small ceremony of hallpay, the ritual chewing of coca leaves when you meet someone, when you need to foster balance and harmony with yourself, another, or in a group. For the obvious reason, we used dried banana chips in place of the traditional coca leaves. For the record, banana is nasty and usually makes me throw up (really). Every time in my life when I've eaten raw banana in any form, I've heaved. When I saw the enormous platter of banana chips on the very first morning, I thought, "oh, no. What in hell are we going to do with those?", but it worked out OK. I ate more banana in that one class than I have in the past four decades and didn't even get queasy.

The teachings we received were all about connection, decision, intention. Connecting to each other, connecting to the sacred energies of the landscape, connecting to our mesas and khuyas, and connecting to the sacred energies of the Apus, the mountain spirits. Connecting, connecting, connecting. Thanking, thanking, thanking, expressing gratitude and joy.

And in addition to all of the hours and hours of ceremonial work, I took more notes than I've ever taken at a workshop lasting a comparable time. I'm telling you, he worked us hard! And I came back with more than I had anticipated! I made tons of new shamanic friends, many of whom are within a half day's drive. I'm seeking out mesa carriers in my area now, too, since I know that there are some here.


It was pretty wonderful stuff, and it has changed the shape of my daily routine. It has changed the way that I look at many things.

Undiscovered country

Tuesday evening I leave for another shamanic workshop, this time with my teacher's teacher, an indigenous shaman from Peru. In 2010-2011 my husband and I spent fourteen months doing ceremony and building our power bundles, our mesas, in this tradition. This teacher will be teaching all about the mesa.  I'm apprehensive. Mostly because this is all an unknown, but also because I feel like the kid who didn't study and who now is facing final exams. There's no way I can cram for this one, though.

Grr

Since Oct 2, my google-created browser, Chrome, will no longer allow me to load either Gmail (ha! another Google product!) nor get to the Google. site itself. I've tried every fix on-line to no avail.

How stupid is that?

Third Dawn

This morning was the third and easiest, and also most difficult, dawn ceremony day.

Colder and overcast, a sweet Full Moon (Harvest moon) was setting just as I was meditating and doing ceremony.

I was at the big spring that flows out from the heart of town. I felt the least safe at this, the only public spring of all three of the springs I have visited. Funny how that works. Yesterday's ceremony took place at a spring that is about a half-hour's hike into protected land. I felt completely safe there.

Each spring, each ceremony has had its unique lessons to teach me, its own unique message.

Springs are the places where the tears and the waters of joy flow from the Mother's mouth, unceasingly. The gifts of the Mother flow to us every moment of every day.

Sacred Spring

This morning hubby and I rose at 5:17am to hike out to sacred spring #2 near our home. Fortunately we live on the foot of a mountain that is literally running with water, so my little homework assignment for the upcoming class has been relatively easy to accommodate.

We parked and hiked in about 30 minutes to the spring through dense trees. It was very dark.  I'm glad hubby was along for this one because it was kinda scary :-)

At the spring itself I did a small impromptu ceremony and collected the water, soil, and stone, all the while the light was changing and becoming day from night. Quite magical.

Tomorrow we go to the big spring that is downtown - the courthouse is literally one block from a big spring where cotton trading used to take place. It's all of a five minute drive and you can park almost right next to the water. Sooo much easier!

Sacred Tasks

Within two weeks time I will be working with my teacher's indigenous shamanic teacher who is from Peru. It is his first trip outside Peru and I am excited about the possibility to be able to work with him.

In preparation for his teaching visit, participants in this class have been instructed to do three sacred ceremonies. For each, at dawn I am to collect water, soil, and stone from a sacred spring or lagoon near my home. Fortunately, I live in a place with much water. This morning was my first ceremony.

I rose at 5:15, had coffee and meditated, and headed off. Our instructions are to gather the water before the first rays of sunlight has hit it, so it was rather dark when I set out on my short hike to this spring. When I got there and began my simple ceremony, I found that I had quite a lot of emotion. The Earth Mother weeps her tears at springs, and so did I.

In my meditation with my allies and with the Apus, I asked for a good way to do this impromptu ceremony (no instructions had been given). My answer was, "give of yourself." I gave of my tears, and I also gave of my clinging to 'story'; I let go of things which no longer serve me.

The spring was sweet. I hummed "Wexford Carol" while I was gathering, after I had received permission from the spring to do so. Why "Wexford"? I have no idea. It just seemed like the song that wanted to come.

On my way back to the car, on the trail there was this huge buckeye waiting for me:

Gift from the spirits

I've never seen buckeyes here before, though I know that they do grow here. This one is enormous, as you can see. I have small hands, but not that small! As it was right in the middle of the trail where it had not been mere minutes before, I took it as a thank-you from Spirit, an acknowledgment of gifts given and received.

Templates

I just spent an amazing week with a wonderful Middle World shamanic teacher from Seattle.  My husband came with me for this one, and I was so glad :-)  So many amazing shamanic colleagues from around the world were there to be in circle with us, and I was so glad to be able to share his enormous heart with my dearest shamanic friends.

We were exploring mediumship with our ancestors, and using an ancient technology called Seidr to do it. This is written about in the Icelandic sagas, specifically in chapter 4 of the Saga of Eirik the Red. For those of us with Northern European ancestry, this is an ancestral practice which speaks to our blood. The first time I returned to myself from sitting on High Seat last year, staff in hand, I thought, "I've been doing this for a thousand years".  Apparently I really have.

This week, I saw again and again the templates that we create with our thoughts, the ways in which we inhibit ourselves by narrowing our possibilities.  When one sits on the High Seat and sees through the eyes of the volva, the seer. As each seeker came before us three on the High Seat, as the answers formed, I could see how we think a reality into existence that is so much smaller than the reality that is possible for us; we carve a narrow way with them, when a beautiful, broad avenue is available to us if we want it to be. The templates that we "think out" ahead of ourselves are the spaces into which we create our world.  Make them big!  Make them roomy; large enough for your own dreams and with some extra capacity for the dreams of spirit to fill in, as well.

The spirits have enormous love and compassion for us.  They want us to succeed and to unfold in a beautiful way, to meet the purpose that we have crafted for ourselves in this life, in these bodies head-on. 

Words to Live By

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."   ~  Martha Graham quoted by Agnes de Mille

A Truth

I received a new oracle deck last night in ceremony:  the Osho Zen Tarot.  Asking for wisdom today, I pulled the 7 of Clouds card:  Politics.  It was pithy and so apt for what is going on today both in politics and in the Church:

"Anybody who can be a good pretender, a hypocrite, will become your leader politically, will become your priest religiously.  All that he needs is hyocrisy, all that he needs is cunningness, all that he needs is a facade to hide behind.  Your politicians live double lives, your priests live double lives - one from the front door, the other from the back door.  And the back-door life is their real life.  Those front-door smiles are just false, those faces looking so innocent are just cultivated.

If you want to see the reality of the politician, you will have to see him from his back door.  There he is in his nudity, as he is, and so is the priest.  These two kinds of cunning people have dominated humanity.  And the found out very early on that if you want to dominate humanity, make it weak, make it feel guilty, make it feel unworthy.  Destroy its dignity, take all glory away from it, humiliate it.  And they have found such subtle ways of humiliation that they don't come in the picture at all; they leave it to you to humiliate yourself, to destroy yourself. 

They have taught you a kind of slow suicide."

Start with a bang ...

2012 has begun with vigor!

So far, the vigor has involved shedding responsibilities that are no longer serving me:

1. I'm transferring my half of my therapeutic massage partnership to my business partner.  I simply don't want to own that business anymore and don't want to go in those directions.  I want to steer my own ship now. 
2. I'm leaving a healing circle that was created by a Native American elder because of the ego, shadow and constant projections that come from its members.  When you haven't healed yourself, you can't heal others. 

I have spent time focusing on how I would feel at the end of my life, what I would consider my life to consist of were it deemed a success or failure.  When I did this meditation on New Year's day, a few aspects of my life came up wanting in this regard, so I've changed priorities a bit to include more energy and time toward the things that deeply matter to me.

Success to me in my lifetime means working out my life lessons, dealing with unfinished business of past lives and ancestors, and working out my own individual karmic accumulations.  For me it doesn't necessarily mean money and fame :-)  I really don't care about that very much, though I *would* like to have enough money income to be comfortable and have all of my needs met.  I'd LOVE to win a big, fat lottery and be able to take care of everyone I love!  I hope this happens, too, but either way, my "success" in this lifetime is not tied to that.  

Along with this refocusing, I've begun a few projects that astonish myself.  I'm writing fiction, some bawdy, some tame, and I'm also writing a couple of how-to's, one for the massage profession and one for the shamanic profession.  Such hubris I have to think that I can write books! :-)  As Marianne Williamson puts this quandary:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

If not us, then who?  Who am I not to be a voice in the world?  Why else am I here?

Cheers!

No Moss

I've been traveling almost non-stop since 2 December when I left home for Cleveland to sing with a group there.  Came back for 2 whole days of work, then out on the road again for our annual Christmas visiting of both families.  Just got home last night with a sick hubby; he's got headache, sore throat and sinus crap.    Work starts back tomorrow bright and early.  *sigh*

But we did get this for Christmas from my husband's niece, so all is not lost.  The perfect Nutrckacker!  Ours also has a guitar.

Love thy neighbor as thyself

I just read this:


http://www.danoah.com/2011/11/im-christian-unless-youre-gay.html

and it has really made my entire decade.  Many of the thoughts I've always had are espoused here.  Please do read it in its entirety; it's not long and it is really, really worth it.

There's a follow-up here: http://www.danoah.com/2011/11/powerful-responses-to-im-christian-unless-youre-gay-blog.html

This second link is the follow up post which has responses to the first, both good and bad.  Also worth reading.

Love.