ANCIENT WISDOM IN NEW FRONTIERS

A few short months ago I gathered five stones in an arroyo in Abiquiu. They held the seeds of ancient wisdom to take into new frontiers. Little did I know that souls the world over would hear this call too.

I return to the arroyo in gratitude for the guidance on this first ever journey to build our personal mesa and deepen the connection to the ancient wisdom that lies in every rock and stone.

It was a glorious day in Abiquiu to open ceremony for our Mesa Building Journey. After a chilly and overcast morning the sun held us in warmth in the middle of winter.

A beautiful herd of cattle met us at the entry point to our sacred site for ceremony. On New Year’s Day I buried what did not burn of our despacho beneath the tree here. What gentle gatekeepers for us.

“Cows can teach us about home and community and the joy and contentment therein. Cows aid us in realizing to be easy going and live in the moment. They show us about love and connections at work and home. Cows can teach us how to make the changes needed to bring joy in our surroundings.” Animal Totems by Starstuffs

Before heading into the arroyo we prepared our luminous body with a white candle clearing to release the energetic impressions that have imprinted us in lack, limitation and fear. We carried the candles to our ceremonial site to burn.

At the start of our trek we found large stones to carry the burdens we are ready to release. The intention was held for all those on this journey by blowing them into the stone with our breath.

They were laid to rest at our site for ceremony in a circle of protection around our burning candles. Elizabeth Inman of the Purple Adobe Lavender Farm in Abiquiu brought her essential oil from the farm which we used to anoint the stones and each other.

As we laid to rest our burdens and burned the energetic patterns that limit us, we fed our prayers with offerings of flowers, sweets, chocolate and wine. A feast for Pachamama and Spirit!

Prayers for the highest manifest vision for humanity and the Earth were blown into the peace flags and wrapped around our Apuchetta or little mountain offering.

Our prayers and intentions created a vessel of beauty for our beloved Earth Mother, Pachamama, as we heed her ancient wisdom and travel to frontiers not yet known.

Let us remember we are born as the sons and daughters of Pachamama.
Let us remember we are her caretakers and stewards.
Let us learn to listen to her rhythms and cycles.
Let us learn to live in harmony with her
and all her beings.

Namaste

A bow of gratitude to Valerie Hart for capturing some of these moments.

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WINTER MESA DESPACHO

A Despacho To Open Our Mesa Building Journey

We prepare our hearts and call to the Grace of Spirit,
The wisdom of Pachamama and
The power of the Apus,
To guide us through the darkness of winter
As we build our mesa
To weave our hearts to the love and beauty
Of our Earth Mother, Pachamama.

May the white petals of the rose hold our prayers in purity.

We call to the Four Directions
So we may be in balance with all your elements,
So we may live in harmony
With the rhythms and cycles of Nature
Around us and within us.

We feed our prayers and intentions to you
With offerings to bring color and sweetness
To our hopes and dreams
As we walk this path of transformation.

We wrap our prayers as a gift to you Pachamama
With a forgotten prayer holder of the white rose
To hold our intentions through time and space
Until they manifest in this Earth dimension, the Kaypacha,
For the highest good of all.


We wrap our despacho in the sacred cloth
Informed by the blessing of a new snow
On the first morning of a new year.

We thank you, thank you, thank you
For receiving the prayers of our most tender and humble heart.
We bow in gratitude for the blessings you bestow upon us
And for clearing the path ahead so we may walk
In the beauty and the abundance that you so
Lovingly provide to us all.

Namaste
AHO
Amen

 

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MY FIRST CLIMB

Mount Rainier

 

The year was 1988. I boarded a plane in New York bound for Seattle. I was going to climb my first real mountain, the kind that needed headlamps and dehydrated food pouches, crampons and gaiters. Mount Rainier, at 14, 410 feet is the fifth highest peak in the United States and I was on my way to the top.

Being a novice climber, a one-day school of mountaineering was mandatory. I learned how to conserve oxygen at high altitudes and effectively use crampons, metal spikes strapped to the bottom of boots to insure secure trekking on ice.

Is there such a thing as a secure trek on ice?

We simulated rope travel. After leaving base camp at 10,000 feet we would make our ascent harnessed together in groups of four. Climbers die every year by falling to their death or landing in a crevasse. An ice-ax arrest was paramount before attempting the climb.

If one of the climbers you were roped to were to tumble down the mountainside they needed to call for an arrest to alert the other three climbers they were falling. Chances are the falling climber would take you along with them.

Once a fall was established, by either a cry for help or by your body sliding down the mountain, the ice axe was to be plunged into the snow taking care to avoid any of your vital organs or limbs. The ice ax arrest is a highly technical and physically acrobatic maneuver that I prayed I would not need on the mountain.

After a crash course in mountaineering our ascent began at dawn the next morning. The trek started easy enough. Rolling green hills and lush meadows covered the lower mountain slopes in late August. The sun soon gave way to a soft morning drizzle, common in the Northwest.

As we reached higher altitudes the wind picked up speed. A once innocent drizzle began to rage to a blinding snow. The climb was no longer rolling but steep. The overnight gear and protective layers weighed heavy on my back. I kept thinking how would I ever get off the mountain? There seemed to be no strategy for manuevering the treacherous trek back down.

My mind raced eons ahead of my body. Although we were climbing up I could not figure any way back down. Was anyone as panicked as me? I had no way to know. The climbers ahead were blurs in the snow.

When it seemed that every nerve bundle in my body was ready to unravel, a deep stillness descended. There was a voice. Whether it was inside of me or somewhere outside is hard to tell but it said, “Follow the step in front of you. That is all you need to do. Just take one step.”

That much I could do. I could take one step.

I did not realize it at the time but it was the first time a mountain ever spoke to me.

excerpt from the forthcoming A Feminine Path to Enlightenment...and so the book opens

 

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BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL MESA: THE SEASON OF WINTER

There was a time in our history when we, as humans, lived in harmony with the rhythm of Nature. We tracked the heavens and followed the guidance of stars. From ancient Wisdomkeepers systems of healing and enlightenment have been mapped for us to follow.

Although we may have lost touch with lunar cycles and bemoan the force of Nature when it interferes with our own, we are still intimately woven into the mystical matrix of Heaven and Earth. As our individual consciousness is entwined within infinite consciousness we have the ability to source and create from this ancient portal of wisdom. One such tool to open that portal is the shaman’s mesa.

A shaman’s mesa is used for healing, divination, prayer and ceremony. A mesa deepens the awareness of non-ordinary states of reality. It is a spiritual anchor that keeps us grounded. Building a personal mesa is a journey of transformation that will deepen your connection to Mother Earth and heighten awareness to the rhythms and cycles of your own true Nature.

I am honored and humbled to share this first ever Mesa Building Journey with you as called by the Santa Tierras, the ancient feminine Spirits of the land. Each journey will take place over 40 days throughout each of Nature’s seasons. You are welcome to participate in one or all four seasons as you are called.

Our first journey will begin in Winter on January 10, 2015 and run until February 20th.

During this 40 day cycle you will receive all of the teachings, practices and information listed below by weekly emails. The group will close with ceremony on February 20th however you are free to continue with the process taking as much time as needed allowing you to work at a pace that suits your schedule and lifestyle.

Some of the practices are sequential in nature, meaning you will need to complete one before moving on to the next, but that will be included when you receive your emails each week.

We begin building our mesa by discovering a stone or kuya. These will be found in Nature or you may already have a stone or crystal you want to work with. Through a heart centered meditation we will set a personal intention to be held in our kuyas to guide us through this 40 day cycle.

I will open our journey with a despacho or prayer offering to align our intentions with the wisdom of Winter and call on the guidance of Pachamama and Spirit.

Each week instruction and practices on working with your kuyas will be sent via email in video, audio or written format depending on the information. This allows you to participate on your own time and schedule.

 Our Teachings for the Winter Season will include: 

• Setting a Personal Intention to Guide Your Journey
• Opening Sacred Space
• Creating an Altar
• Shamanic Journey to meet a Spirit Ally
• Clearing and Purification Practices
• Using Your Kuya for Prayer, Healing and Divination
• How to Use Your Kuya in Day to Day Life
• Caring for Your Kuya
• Kundalini Meditation/Daily Practice
• Journaling Assignments
• Personal and Collective Despacho Ceremony

Establishing a daily practice during this time with your kuya and a Kundalini meditation is highly recommended and instruction will be provided. The specific meditation we will use will help release old patterns and habits thereby opening pathways for allowing what we need into our lives.

Space for questions and sharing will be provided through a closed Facebook group and via email. Although we will be working individually, our journey is amplified by the collective like-minded intention of a group, uplifting each other and exponentially increasing the power of our individual process.

If you are in Northern New Mexico, we will open our journey by gathering on Saturday, January 10, 2015 to meet our kuyas in an arroyo in Abiquiu where few travel. This journey began through the stones gifted to me in this very same place.

Registration for the 40 day online course in the Winter season is $40.00 through paypal. Your registration insures you receive the weekly curriculum via email. Click here to register. 

To participate in the Arroyo Gathering in Abiquiu on January 10th, a $25.00 donation is suggested through paypal. Click here to join. Further information, including directions, will be provided once your donation is received. 

I am deeply grateful to share this unique, first time ever process with you to deepen our connection to the unconditional love of our Earth Mother for individual and collective healing and transformation.

Thank you for sharing!

May all love surround you.
Namaste

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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”

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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!

 

 

 

 

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LOVE LETTER FROM THE MOTHER

While preparing for ceremony to Heal the Mother Wound I have been writing Dear Mother letters. This is an excerpt from one such letter.

Artist Unknown

There is no need to suffer.

There is no need for you to carry these burdens. They are very big and you were just a child. You carried these very heavy burdens because you thought you must but this is wrong thinking.

It is OK to lay them down, to lay down the burdens of your past so your heart may rest. Your heart may be at ease.

Once you are free of suffering then you no longer create suffering in the world. Once you forgive yourself then you bring forgiveness to the world, forgiveness to others.

Everything starts inside of you first. You are the Creator.

I have given you all the gifts you need to create your life in beauty and in love.

I love you and I want the best for you my child. You are always my child and my love for you is eternal and unwavering. It does not go away. It just could not get in because you had your heart locked.

I know it is scary to throw away the key. The lock gives you protection and security. But these are false prophets my child. This is not the way to feel safe, to build a prison of your heart and throw away the key.

I love you my child. Allow this into your heart. Let the grace of my love and the grace of my healing fill the prison walls of your heart. Let your heart rest and abide in my love.

I love you my child forever,
eternally,
and always.

 

 

 

 

 

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THE ESSENTIAL PRACTICE

When the bedrock is dismantled, the foundation we have built our life on crumbles. On our journey to the enlightenment of truth the crumbling is necessary. It is necessary to have these breakdowns of our belief systems, the fixed and rigid states of mind that we operate from.

It is only then that we can create the possibility for what is actually true and authentic for us rather than building our life on false precepts that have been imposed on us.

It is terrifying to feel our life fall apart. Everything we have ever been led to believe becomes a lie. And the biggest lie is the painful betrayal against our own soul, the belief that we are separate from the source of love that we are.

The deepest pain is the illusion of separation. The deepest pain is also where recovery lies for it is the recovery of our truth that makes us whole. What makes us whole makes us holy. The recovery is the path to our divinity.

Our spiritual practices provide the ground when our life falls apart. The time that we spend on a mat, the time that we spend on a cushion, the time that we spend in prayer is what holds and sustains us through these times of falling apart and coming together, breaking down and rising up.

excerpt from the forthcoming “The Feminine Path to Enlightenment”

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POWER CORRUPTED

We have let the necessities of life and the very basic need for survival shape the nature of power. There is a have and have not consciousness that has segregated humanity in nearly every culture in our world. Those that have the resources are the ones with power. Those without do not.

Money and power.

The two have become equal.

Artist Tommy Simpson

This is true to the extent that those that have the resources can wield their power through fear. If there is fear you will lose your job, fear you will lose your income, fear that there will be no food for the belly of your child, then you are held captive. Your power lies with an authority outside of yourself.

This appears true in the web of humanity but in your divinity, as a creative and omnipotent being, this is not truth.

Our relationship to power is so adulterated that we are blind to our misconceptions. There is nothing in this contaminated equation that those holding power in a corrupted way would like to change.

Of course there is resistance to a threat in power. There is a lack of collective will to make fundamental change. When did we become sheep? How have we, the most powerful species on our benevolent Earth, been corralled and led so far astray from the true nature of our own power? How did our truth become so corrupted?

Global poverty, human torture, tyrannical governments and war ravage our planet. Many people lack the most basic freedoms. The crisis of our human condition can overwhelm us. I am one little person. What difference can I make? What can I possibly do to right the relationship to power on our planet?

The way to cope has been to collapse under the oppressive weight of responsibility. Why should I bother? Hopelessness takes hold. There is nothing I can do that will change anything. Our powerlessness is perpetuated in an epidemic apathy at the root of global suffering.

We hold a position that says nothing I do will really matter or make a difference. How can I possibly help bring equality to the masses, end world hunger or stop the destruction of our planet?

This way of thinking is self-fulfilling. You are correct if that is what you believe but recognize that this way of thinking, this belief system is corrupted. It is not truth.

This ideology has been laid down by false prophets that have held power by driving their own agendas to the fore at the expense of others. This thwarted system must then be manipulated to guard and protect the power that is measured in material goods. They too are in denial of what is the truth of power. The belief that accumulating wealth is the path to freedom and salvation is the lie that lays upon their soul.

excerpt from forthcoming The Feminine Path to Enlightenment

 

 

 

 

 

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SILENCE CORRUPTED

In Nature there is a great silence. Stand in the middle of the forest and you will come to know its immenseness. You will find it in the mountains standing so still. They speak with a power that cannot be understood in words. One must go deeper to listen.

Silence is not devoid of sound but a mother tongue of all sound. We are born from the primoridal sound of silence for it is the language of Creation.

Silence exists in space. In deep surrender, when resistance falls away, when all control is let loose, we come to know silence. Silence speaks with a depth of feeling commensurate with how deeply we listen.

We have forsaken our native tongue in pursuit of seductive sensory quests. We have abandoned the noble art of silence and the profound gift in solitude.

Silence has become a sword used to inflict pain. The silent treatment is a withdrawal of our love and attention from another. We disconnect from our heart. We have taken silence and used it to hurt and to harm.

This is not the truth of silence. This is silence corrupted for silence is our most wide-open heart, transparent and tender, not closed and guarded.

We do this with anything of great power. When we cannot comprehend a mystery we make it wrong. We corrupt it to give a sense of control over something we do not understand.

Why have we become so uncomfortable with silence? Any space between others is afflicted when devoid of words. We feel a need to fill in the gaps lest silence feel awkward.

There is a difference in hiding behind a safety net of silence to withdraw from speaking your truth. This too is silence corrupted. We think, oh I use silence because I am not saying anything or I am being quiet so I understand silence.

This is not the truth of silence. This is a poor understanding of silence. Sometimes your voice is needed. You must speak up and use words.

excerpt from forthcoming, The Feminine Path to Enlightenment

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