A MAP OF YOUR OWN WILD WILDERNESS

At the time of our birth we are each held by a great power in Nature. Where were you born? What mountain or ocean held you when came into the world?

The shamans teach us an honoring and acknowledgment of these great places of power is needed to connect more deeply to the source of power that has kept watch over you.

Make an offering to show respect and say thank you. This is how we restore ayni or what shamans call right relationship to the source of power. We offer our prayers. We offer gratitude.

We begin to taste the drop of nectar that is our power. Not in an arrogant way. Not in a superior way that we have come to define and understand power but in a humble way.

We come to taste the power of knowing how our thoughts, our words and our actions are creating the world we live in. We are powerful in ways we never imagined.

This is the new frontier. It is a map of your own wild wilderness.

Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM

excerpt from forthcoming “The Feminine Path to Enlightenment”

Read Full Post »

BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL MESA: A Transformational Journey Through the Seasons

During an intense few weeks this October, my life changed dramatically through circumstances and events that broke down the life I was living and opened the doorway to a new reality orchestrated by the Divine hand of Spirit.

During this time the land in New Mexico spoke to me through stones found during an early morning hike in an arroyo in Abiquiu. These stones held information on teaching people how to build a personal mesa.

A mesa is a shaman’s altar or medicine bundle used for healing, ceremony, prayer and divination. It is a portal to Spirit and deepens our awareness to non-ordinary states of reality.

I have carried a mesa for the past 10 years, starting with the Four Winds Light Body School and the teachings of Alberto Villoldo. Since that time I have had the great privilege to deepen my practices with medicine men and women in the high Andes through the Bouquet of Light Women’s Journey to Peru to awaken the Divine Feminine.

My mesa has changed in so many ways over the years as kuyas or healing stones have been added and released. This journey now creates a whole new mesa for me.

For some, a mesa looks like a bag of stones or arrangement of rocks and on a literal level this is true. But at the mythic level a mesa deepens your connection to Spirit and anchors you to Mother Earth. A mesa teaches us to listen to the voice of Spirit as it moves through us. The only reason I have any sense of what the stones in the arroyo were speaking of was because of the connection to my own mesa.

Each stone, or kuya as they are called in one’s mesa, represents a particular location in Northern New Mexico to gather for ceremony. Each ceremony will be an opportunity to receive a kuya and begin to build a personal mesa. Although these kuyas represent locations in Northern New Mexico, you can participate from wherever you are and build a mesa with stones from your own native land.

Each kuya is received during one of the four seasons. The cycle of seasons become the reference point for building our mesa helping to deepen the connection to our own inner rhythms and cycles as each season becomes a mirror for our own reflection.

During each season we will hold an intention for our personal evolution and transformation as we learn to work with our kuyas or healing stones. Each season will also include information and teachings on:

• Opening Sacred Space
• Creating an Altar
• Shamanic Journey to meet a Spirit Ally
• Clearing and Purification Practices
• Kundalini Kriyas and/or Meditation
• Guided Breathwork Session
• Journaling Assignments
• Personal and Collective Despacho Ceremony

The Mesa Building Journey will be offered on land as well as online allowing you to participate from wherever you are at a pace that suits your lifestyle although establishing certain practices each day will be highly advisable. A forum for communication and group sharing will be created through a closed Facebook group.

I never had any thought about teaching others to build a mesa but it is clearly Divine intent. Although this journey is still shaping itself into being I am inspired to start sharing and spreading the news of this unique opportunity for spiritual transformation that is being guided and informed by the Santa Tierras, the ancient wisdom of the feminine land spirits.

Registration for this first time ever experience will begin in the season of Winter after the start of the New Year so stay tuned for more information.

I thank you for spreading the news!

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

TO SEE THROUGH THE EYES OF LOVE

Young Girl in India 2006

When you become aware of being unkind, critical or judgmental, stop for a moment. Turn your attention inside and notice what this feels like in your body. You may feel tension, gripping, clenching, knots, pain, fatigue. Notice the physical sensations of discomfort.

Once you notice these physical sensations, sense where they are in your body. Place your hands on these areas to deepen the connection to what you feel.

Now imagine that what you are holding is a little child. Begin to speak to this part of yourself as you would to a little one that was hurt or in pain.

Speak with kind words, a soft tone and soothing voice. This can be done silently or out loud.

You are sending a vibration of kindness to yourself. This begins to change the connection you have to these parts of yourself that have been hurt and are in pain. It begins to change the way you hold these parts of yourself.

These are the parts of your self that, above all else, need your love.

For so long they have been treated with neglect. They may have been hidden in shame. It was not safe for them to be seen.

You are the one they have been waiting for. The love that they are seeking is yours. This is the healing journey. This begins to mend and weave your soul back into your body.

It is love.

Love that heals.

Love that awakens.

Love that connects.

Love is what we are.

We think that we can only feel love or be in love if there is someone to be in love with. There must be an object for our love in order for us to feel love. But what happens when the object is not there? Is love gone? Does it disappear?

Of course it is painful when relationships end but that is different then the truth of what is love. For love transcends the object. Love is not dependent on another otherwise love becomes conditional.

Love in its essence is unconditional. Love is not doled out to only those deemed worthy of love. Love is boundless and unlimited. Its very nature is unconditional. This is the love our Earth Mother has for us. Her sustaining life force is not for a select few but rather feeds all.

We have been damaged so much in the name of love that our fear holds us back from receiving the love of our Mother because that too will hurt. The love of Pachamama, the vibration of love that flows through all of Nature, is abundant and unconditional. This is you. You too are that frequency. It is a remembering.

How do we tune to this frequency of love? How can we become love when we have lost hope in love, have been hurt in love, betrayed in love? How can we re-remember that we are love?

To know this truth of our self as love and live from this truth of love will propel us forward on our path of evolution. It is a climb. It is a transcendence of all that is not love. To see through the eyes of love does not mean you are blind or ignorant or starry-eyed or live in a fantasy world. To see through the eyes of love is an opening of our heart. To see through the eyes of love is to see the suffering of a soul with compassion.

excerpt from the forthcoming The Feminine Path to Enlightenment

Read Full Post »