Spiritual energies
of the universe flow in a powerful, direct way from Source through
Nature. She resonates in every fiber of my being and is calling
me, calling each of us, to be more than we know we are. I invite
you to seek out places that fill you with passion and longing and
go be in loving communion with your soul and nature.
Being
our authentic self is our gift to the world.
A
high-pitched yelp pierces the moon-shadowed stillness. Sharp staccato
yodels answer. A chaotic chorus rises and falls in waves ricocheting
off the sheer 800-foot canyon walls. " How many coyotes are there?
Where are they?" Every nerve tuned in, heart beating fast, I am
aware of my vulnerability here alone in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona.
"The Holy Ones created this as a place to nurture the body and spirit." Words
spoken last night with such reverence by Daniel, my Navajo friend,
come to mind.
Here
on the edge of my fears--of animals unseen, of the unknown me--the
Black Hole at the center of my being relentlessly stalks, pulls
like a magnet. "Take a chance, leap over the edge, let the fire
of your central sun burn away the dross and realign you."
The
Call to Pilgrimage
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This
is an artist conception of the supermassive black hole at
the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.
September
5, 2001 NASA spaceweather news reported a visible flare was
recorded from a powerful X-ray outburst. Scientists say the
black hole gobbled up a comet or asteroid or that the flare
might have been caused by the reconnection of magnet field
line near the black hole, a process that also triggers solar
flares on the Sun.
This image triggered a response, a gut feeling: go into canyons
of immense power and beauty in northern Arizona and Utah.
Allow the old carapace to dissolve and make room for a larger
boundary to come into being--tap into the power that lies
deep in the vortex of my inner center.
Just as the sun shifts its poles and the galactic center realigns
its magnet lines releasing tremendous energy, I feel the call
to come into greater alignment with my soul's destiny and
let my creative fires flare. The earth, the sun and the galaxy
are shifting frequencies and on a cellular level we humans
need to keep up.
When
your heart issues that call to pilgrimage and you answer and
go to a place with great natural energy and power, you receive
cellular level stimulation, awakening. Entering with a child-like
sense of awe, heart wide open, in reverence and prayer opens
the door. This is really a pilgrimage to your own heart--
an act of great love and courage to just be with you.
You
don't necessarily get a technicolor movie spelling out your
big vision, but you become more tuned in, more receptive in
your day to day life.You listen more to your heart's yearning
and each new bold step out opens more doors of creative expression
taking you places you never would have imagined.
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The microcosmic world of our cells, our body is organized along
the same principles as that of the earth, the stars and the
solar system. Our galaxy is a spiral form as is our DNA. Physics
is now verifying what ancient people of the earth have always
known: we are all connected. We are vaster than our mind, than
our body. And in the purity of wild nature we have a direct
pipeline to Source. As you relax, quit thinking and doing and
just be alive to the moment, Nature always gifts us.
The
Colorado Plateau in the southwestern United States--132,000 square
miles uplifted from ancient seabeds-- is a primordial force of crystalline
rock and sun embeded with prayers from thousands of years of human
presence.
Sitting
on the edge of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, the jagged
cliff face sheers straight down toward the turquoise ribbon of
the Colorado River far below. A Holy Place, not far from the
sipapuni, the Hopi mythological place of emergence into this
the fourth world. I revolve around my own abyss, magnetized,
terrified, irresistibly attracted by force greater than my mind
can grasp. Time and again when my mind wants to spin, I come
back to staring at the textures, the purple, green and red layers
of the landscape temples before. Every nuance comes into sharp
focus: the abrupt ree..eee squawk of the pinyon jay announcing
his presence, the soft feel of cool early fall breeze quivers
the needles on the pinion pine and flows over my body like silk,
then gusts in a strong who-who whooshing voice. This is my practice
of Presence. When my mind wants to analyze, categorize, plan,
project, I notice it and make a choice to deepen my breath and
come back down into the body. For only in the present moment
can inspiration flow in.
Juncture
of the Little Colorado River flowing into the Colorado.
Upstream a few miles is the travertine formation known as the Sipapuni
by the Hopi people.
Vast canyon scape evokes sense of
freedom:
"She could
not estimate distance. But she did not need that to realize
her perceptions were swallowed up by magnitude. Hitherto
the power of her eyes had been unknown. How splendid to
see afar! She could see--yes--but what did she see? Space
first, annihilating space, dwarfing her preconceived images,
and then wondrous colors! What had she known of color?
No wonder artists failed adequately and truly to paint
mountains, let alone the desert space. The toiling millions
of the crowded cities were ignorant of this terrible beauty
and sublimity. Would it have helped them to see? But just
to breathe that untainted air, just to see once the boundless
open of colored sand and rock--to realize what the freedom
of eagles meant would not that have helped anyone?
And with the
thought there came to Carley's quickened and struggling
mind a conception of freedom. She had not yet watched eagles,
but she now gazed out into their domain. What then must
be the effect of such environment on people whom it encompassed?
The idea stunned Carley. Would such people grow in proportion
to the nature with which they were in conflict? Hereditary
influence could not be comparable to such environment in
the shaping of character."
from The Call of the Canyon by
Zane Grey, a Western novelist who wrote this while living in
Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona in 1920. |
Slim waterfalls cascade over the rounded cliff face rising over
1000 feet above. Hiking in the Virgin River I lean heavily
on my walking stick to keep balance on the slick algae-coated
boulders. This cleft is the Narrows in Zion Canyon, Utah.
Rain upstream can bring a sudden torrent of water rushing
through the narrow, winding confined slot. Knowing this
adds to my sense of exhilaration, adventure. Moving water
is a constant background hum and carries a moist, organic
smell. Hanging gardens form in seeps wonderfully exotic
with moss, ferns, orange stars, red firecracker penstemons.
Giant stone temples tower overhead and in a flashing moment
we merge and I too am a temple--God's music and celestial
light shining on water, in orange rock, in my heart.
hikers
in Zion Narrnows
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One
of many temples of Zion
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On
the open plateau lands of the Navajo Reservation, Arizona,
I walk into a deep dry crack in the Navajo sandstone--dunes
frozen in place from the time when dinosaurs walked the earth.
The sandy floor is only 4 to 8 feet wide narrowing overhead
to a slit arching in domed swirls and jagged promontories.
This cross-section reveals angled bedding of the wind-driven
dunes now cut through by water in corkscrew curves. My fingers
caress the surprisingly smooth, nubby textured wall, more
like a tapestry than stone.
Sun
light illumines the crack like a sand lantern burning in luminous
shades of orange, yellow and red. Painted by light. This is
my quest to be infused by Light direct from Source. In hushed
awe I am right here now a radiant star of light.
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Empathetic
Unity
Trips
into the world of wild nature and Native cultures of the Colorado
Plateau open people to a felt experience of empathetic unity, which
is central to indigenous thought and being. People feel at one with
each other and the world around them. Love is directly felt and
imprinted forever. The welcoming smile, the wise eyes that see right
into your center.
The
wind's breath on your skin is the earth Mother's soft breath of
acknowledgement of your presence. Nil'chi is the Navajo name for
holy wind, the inner form of the mountains, the trees, the stars.
Swirls on your fingertips, toes and the top of your head are tracks
left by the holy wind that entered you upon birth. As you breathe
in, liquid light from the stars, the sun, the mountains feeds you.
With every out breath, the whole of the cosmos knows you.
Shaggy-bark juniper friends stand dark green against the red rocks.
Their branches often grow in a spiral pattern on wind-swept cliff
sides. Juniper needles grow in a spiral and are burned for spiritual
purification and boiled as a medicinal tea by Hopi and Navajo peoples.
Pungent smelling smoke rising from juniper camp and hearth fires
is a classic Southwest scent. Fire, purification, security are some
of the medicine Juniper offers. A Hopi medicine man once told me, "If
you have a question you are seeking an answer to, go find a big
juniper. Pray to it, visit it for four days and you will get your
answer."
Trees
have filaments of energy running up and down their bodies just as
we do. Rooted in the earth, they reach to the sky, their leaves
receptors of light that metabolize nutrients for the plant. Each
tree has a unique medicine or biochemical field. Ancient peoples
learned this medicine by direct communion with the spirit of the
plant. Rocks, trees and animals were here before we humans. These
beings have a direct connection to the source of their creation
and are here as our helpers. What keeps us from hearing? From feeling
this direct connection to life?
These
words from Shakaim Marian Chumpi, Shuar (formerly known as Jivaro)
shaman from the Amazon basin of Ecuador are very insightful: "We
Shuar are taught to read people, to peer through the fluttering
leaves as they smile at us. With the gringos, we see that they
lack the fire that burns in the hearts of our people. They are
longing for love."
( From Spirit of the Shuar, by John Perkins and Chumpi).
Dancing
on the Edge
Modern
society is full of distractions, busyness, watching life on TV,
instant gratification, noise, intellectual stimulation. Moving fast,
living in our head, we seem to have lost touch with direct knowing
of the heart, of trusting our own instincts. Subtle signs come to
us constantly. From nature, in our dreams, in the words of friends
and co-workers. Do we slow down enough to listen? If I slow down
I will have to be with me. That's too frightening. So we keep dancing
on the edge of an unlived inner life that calls to us. To heed the
call of our wild heart or that big dream will take us outside our
comfort zone around a bend from which there is no return.
David
Whyte speaks eloquently of this edge place in Crossing
An Unknown Sea.
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"We
all have our own ground to work, you know. You have
yours, too. You just have to find out what it is. But
you know what? It is right on the edge of yourself. At
the cliff edge of life. That's the edge you go to. Put
yourself in conversation with that edge no matter how
frightening it seems. Look down over that edge." |
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And
poetically Whyte relates vision and nature:
"Genius
in Latin originality means, the spirit of a place. The genius of
an individual lies in the inhabitation of their peculiar and particular
spirit in conversation with the world...You only have to touch
the elemental waters in your own life and it will transform everything...We
journey from one unknown sea to another, the wind on our face,
meeting the elements. Out of this conversation we create a directional
movement that ensures our survival and creates exhilaration--an
immersion in the present whilst we simultaneously experience the
joy of speeding toward our destination.
Vision Quest
Going
alone into wild nature is an ancient way of connecting with your
own soul. Simply being alive and fully present in the moment opens
a direct connection to all of Creation which shamans call a state
of ecstatic union. If you can feel this even for a moment, it will
change your life forever. In the seeming simplest ways is hidden
profound wisdom. The gateway is within.
"The
vision quest is a spiritual journey to wisdom that has been practiced
by people for as long as history can remember. The resulting visions
are recorded in cave drawings and described in the oral traditions
of cultures throughout the world. Native North Americans believed
that animals took vision quests when they hibernated during the
long winter months. Christ's forty days in the wilderness was a
vision quest. Many of the prayers, meditations, and rituals used
by the world's religions originally were developed as vehicles for
the vision quest. .. We and the other "moderns" on this planet
are perhaps the first people in history not to practice some form
of the vision quest as a regular part of our education process."
(John Perkins from The World is as You Dream It, Shamanic Teachings
from the Amazon and Andes)
A powerful Navajo guide came to me in the dreamtime showing me the
essence of vision quest. Sitting still with her body curved forward,
alone amid endless dunes, the Navajo grandmother sees through the
sands of time. Her tiered skirt ripples in the desert wind. Lines
etched in her face reveal the sculpting forces of wind and sun.
She does not doubt who she is. Confidence radiates out from eyes
that penetrate my inner truth. Nowhere to hide, I am drawn into
her aura of natural power. She evokes this chant in me:
With Beauty before me, I sit.
With Beauty behind me, I am in the center of life.
With Beauty below me, I am life.
With Beauty above me, I am held in the hand of Creator.
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Barbara
Furlotte came from eastern Canada to Sedona, Arizona last
fall after months of preparing for her solo journey in nature
never having camped before. I was honored to support her in
her powerful intention for deepened soul awareness.
I close with her insightful words:
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"There
was a lot of preparation before going out into the
desert. This was something I was drawn to do for a
long time. On my Solo journey I could feel a deeper
knowing . It is hard to put into words, but I just
knew that I was not alone. I had nothing to fear alone
in the desert or in my life. That feeling is with me
still.
What you accomplish on a Solo journey depends on your reason
for doing it. What is your intention for going into nature
alone, and how willing and open are you to what may come
to you? Most people I think use the Solo experience to find
themselves or to deepen an already strong connection to
spirit. Whatever the reason, if
it is done authentically, it will change your life forever.
A
journey alone is really the only way to connect with yourself.
You rely and trust only on your own instincts. You pay more
attention to your gut feelings. You are not following another's
advice or opinions, you do not have the false security of
others around you. You are not trusting another to keep
you safe and out of harms way. Nothing and no one can give
you the confidence and courage to trust yourself, to live
your life fearlessly only your own connection to spirit
can do that.
I do know that all spiritual masters spent many years of
their lives alone with nature. This should tell you of the
powerful energy of nature. The same life energy in nature
is also within us, we just have to stop our way too busy
lives long enough to feel it. Being alone gives you a more
peaceful and aware feeling towards your own life. You begin
to see things in your life differently and you begin to
react with more understanding and Love to the situations
in your life.
And
I do believe that LOVE is the most powerful energy
known to us all !!!!"
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posted
Oct. 4, 2001
updated March 3, 2008
