Sacred Fire Magazine Issue 5

CHIEF OREN LYONS

SANGOMA COLIN CAMPBELL

The Modern Voice of Ancient Tradition

KAHUNA LEI’OHU RYDER

Issue Five

Spiritual Practice in a Time of War SHAMBHALA’S RICHARD REOCH

The Path of Fire-Filled Devotion SHYAMDAS

Relating to the Natural World GESHE TENZIN WANGYAL RINPOCHE

There is No Sufi Here SHAYKHA TASNIM HERMILA FERNANDEZ

The Role of the Teacher HUICHOL TSAURIRRIKAME ELIOT COWAN

Correcting the Damage of Modernity DAGARA SHAMAN MALIDOMA P. SOMÉ

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Sacred Fire is the modern voice of ancient tradition. As we walk in the footsteps of those who came before, what do we see? While hardship and suffering are nothing new to humans, today’s global situation appears wildly out of control, driven by insatiable materialism, individualism and greed. Needing balance, we’re called to remember our interconnectedness with all things, and to speak out about what really matters—the divine spark that animates us all.

There are people alive today who carry the wisdom of how to create and experience living relationships with the gods and spirits. They can trace their lineage and their traditions to the earliest peoples, to the Time Before Time. In this issue of Sacred Fire, nine of these elders from different traditions offer guidance for today’s world. These are teachings we can all live by, because the ancestral wisdom speaks to our indigenous hearts.

We can each hear the voice of the gods, if we simply embrace the intention. Together, rediscovering the world as Divine, we’ll become a force to heal the world and her people. Now is the time.

—Sharon Brown, Publisher

Contents On the Road to the Sacred The Ice is Melting

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Addressing the United Nations Millennium World Peace Summit, the Onondaga Faithkeeper calls for reconciliation and realignment with the laws of nature.

Oren R. Lyons

Ritual: Correcting the Damage of Modernity

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Rituals can be brief moments of connection or multi-day choreographed events, and the power of invocation is real. Can modern society handle it Dr. Malidoma Patrice Somé

Spiritual Practice in a World at War

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From the frontlines of social activism to the frontlines of Iraq, people are finding contemplative spiritual practice as a way to be more conscious and effective in action.

Richard Reoch

Opening the Sacred Doorway

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An American acupuncturist discusses his journey into Huichol shamanism and how any serious spiritual path requires a teacher Louise Berliner and Jonathan Merritt Aloha, the Breath of Love

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A meditation on the source of all things. You don’t have to be Hawaiian to feel the spirit of place..

Lei’ohu Ryder

Relating to the Sacred 25

It’s easy to lose the sense of the sacred in the modern world.

What can we do to regain our relationship with Divine?

Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche There is No Sufi Here

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Why you can never find a Sufi, the power of the Dances of Universal Peace and the true meaning of jihad.

A conversation with Shaykha Tasnim Hermila Fernandez.

Jonathan Merritt

The Path of Fire-Filled Devotion

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Thirty-four years of studying and translating Sanskrit texts inspires a lesson on the Path of Fiery Devotion, the Path of Grace.

Shyamdas

Nature Spirits, Ancestral Spirits, and the Sangoma

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Could the solution to what ails the world lie in investigating the beliefs and methodologies of the ancestors Colin Campbell

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Cover photo: © Cheryl Surry. Inside cover photos: Sharon Cohen. Photo this page: © Irina Tischenko. Image from BigStockPhoto.com;

Moments of Aha! On Right Timing The Rock Courtship of Eagles

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Impatient for spring, the author makes peace with more snow.

Susan Chernak McElroy

A Night with Nothing 44

A night in the desert seeking solitude and freedom yields more than a growling stomach.

Yael Grauer

Poetry The Reed

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John Mizelle There’s No Place the White Clouds Can’t Go 42

Departments

Judyth Hill

Editor’s Note

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Contributors

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Letters 7

You speak and maybe we answer.

Divine Nourishment 47 “Remember “ the Sacred Art of Nourishing

Come, enter Pele’s Parlor for a day of sensuality and self love.

Getting Right with Money I Can’t do the Sum!

Provocations Irish Gods

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Fat and Happy 31 Spring 43

Exploring the energy of Metal, healing our father wounds, and learning to manage money.

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Photos this page from top: Helen Granger, Micah Spear, © Mike Brake. Image from BigStockPhoto.com. Background photo:

© Mike Schrengohst. Image from BigStockPhoto.com.

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Editor’s Note MY PILGRIMAGE

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very spring, as part of my shamanic spiritual tradition, I make a pilgrimage to a sacred mountain that is located in a land of immense beauty and wealth. The land that surrounds this mountain has always been peaceful and prosperous, blessed with exquisite weather and rich soil, clear rushing streams and meandering rivers. Great schools of fish swim in the bay and the forests are alive with deer and raccoon, foxes, squirrel and all manner of birds. Waterfowl nest in the wetlands and, in the spring, the meadows and mountain ridges are lush with wildflowers. The original people who inhabited this land lived in harmonious abundance. They practiced no arts of war.

The mountain rises up from the sea and stands over the land like a great altar to the Divine. It is easy to recognize as a sacred place. For thousands of years, the shamans of the native people climbed those heights and placed offerings in its blessed cave, just as I do now. They recognized that the mountain is more than a place that a human can visit to get closer to the Divine. It is, in fact, itself a Divine Being, a Godform manifest in this realm as a mountain, who protects and pours the gifts of its abundance on all the beings who inhabit the land. Further, it is a Being who is in constant relationship and communication with the forests and streams, the plants and animals and humans who surround it. And, as I have discovered in the years since I was called to this pilgrimage, through the act of pilgrimage, through daily prayers and meditation, through my dreaming and journeying into the spirit realm, it is possible to relate directly and intimately with this Divine Being, to learn its nature, to receive its gifts and to share them with my people.

This is no small step for me, a California boy of mixed Northern European heritage, raised in an unconventionally religious household. My father was a radical Presbyterian minister, a Christian Existentialist for whom the primary act was the leap of faith—to believe and act as if the Divine is present in the world and that our lives mattered, though the world may seem indifferent and life, itself, absurd. He was a devotee of Jesus and believed in unconditional love and in turning the other cheek. For these beliefs, and for calling his congregations to feed the hungry, house the homeless and heal the sick, he did not fare well within that denomination.

He taught me to pray but, because his basic premise was that God is essentially unknowable, the prayers seemed empty and insufficient.

For people who live in intact traditional cultures, who are still connected to their ancestral wisdom and practices, the

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concept of a leap of faith is utterly absurd. The people who inhabited the land of the Sacred Mountain slept close to the ground. They knew the plants and animals. They knew the mountains and valley, the forests, rivers and meadows. They honored the ocean and made rituals for the weather beings.

They recognized that everything was alive, that everything was a divine manifestation. And so, every activity had the resonance of connection. The general awareness was one of reverence for and gratitude to the beings who brought the rain and the sunshine, who made the fish run and the deer give himself to the snare, and for the fish and the deer themselves, and for the great oaks with their bounty of acorns, and for all the green beings that nourished them. The adepts among them, the shamans who could travel between the material and spiritual realms, recognized the sacred mountain as their Grandfather God who protected and guided them. Through their shamanic work, they learned what the gods wanted and how to honor them. They expressed their gratitude through ceremonies and rituals, through offerings and sacrifices. And, in turn, these practices brought them abundance.

This daily awareness and practice of spiritual connection is, of course, not limited to people who live what might be seen to be primitive or tribal lives. Indeed, every religion and spiritual tradition offers practices that bring people into deep contact with the Divine. In the highly civilized yogic culture of India, the traditional greeting is “Namaste,” which intimates, “The God in me greets the God in you.” So the fundamental relationship is one of spiritual connection. In yoga meditation and exercise and through the Islamic practice of the five-timesa-day prayers, through the disciplines of Buddhism and the practices of certain ecstatic Christian sects, people nurture the daily experience of the divine presence.

For most of us who live in the largely secular humanist Western cultures, things are not so easy. Most of us live with little connection to the natural environment and, subsequently, the Divine, if it exists at all, is distant and separate from our daily experience. It is very difficult for us to think of a tree spirit or deer spirit or the spirit of a stream or a mountain as living, conscious beings who are in constant communication with us.

Because we live our lives so separately, we have little capacity to relate to those beings. And, because the adepts among us, those who can move between the realms, are generally viewed with ridicule and suspicion, are often feared and suppressed, the ancient rituals are seen as silly superstitions if not lunatic ravings. They don’t make sense in a culture where the human Sacred Fire

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mind is seen as the supreme entity and all that has been achieved is the result of human activity.

But did humans bring forth the beautiful weather? Did they spawn the fishes or build the soil? Did they plant the forests and make the rivers flow? Even the most advanced science cannot explain the fact of life, how it manifested on this planet. All that makes up this bountiful world is the work of the Divine, of Father Sun and Grandmother Ocean and Grandfather Mountain and Great Grandmother Growth. And, while we have done a great deal to destroy that abundance and beauty, the gods still pour forth their gifts out of their generosity, out of their love for this realm.

Of course, that leads to the question of why, if the gods are so generous, does anyone have to make offerings? Why is spiritual practice necessary and practical?

The simple answer is that we, in closing ourselves off from the guidance of the gods, have made a mess of things. And many of the God-forms have closed themselves off from us. In the land of the Sacred Mountain, the abundance of nourishing and nurturing plants and animals has disappeared. And, where people once lived in peace and prosperity, there are great pockets of poverty and violence. The rivers are polluted

and the air is fouled. The fish are greatly diminished in the bay and the wetlands shelter fewer fowl. And, beneath the veneer of the physical beauty, a great environmental catastrophe is unfolding here and throughout the world. It is a catastrophe which humanity, in all the wizardry of its technology, has no hope of averting.

At the same time, people are being called back to spiritual practice in a myriad of forms. We are beginning to reconnect with the Divine Presence as it appears in the everyday world.

Ancient ancestral wisdom traditions are being brought forth so that people can begin seeing themselves in relation to the world as it truly is, alive. This is the beginning of the great spiritual transformation, the renewal of our knowledge of and connection with the divine natures of the plants and animals, the ocean, the mountains and valleys and ourselves. This transformation is our only hope for reversing the destruction, for bringing our relationship with the world back into balance, for saving a place for ourselves in this realm.

As I approach the Sacred Mountain, I will carry this prayer for renewal and connection in my heart. Though I recognize the dangers before us, I will walk without fear. I will walk in the presence of the Divine. I will climb the mountain with joy.

—Jonathan Merritt

Photo by Micah Spear

Contributors Michael Ash creates vital photographic imagery of visions glimpsed through the bright eye of

the sacred. He lives on the Big Island of Hawaii. www.sacredelements.com.

The Modern Voice of Ancient Tradition Issue Five www.sacredfiremagazine.com

* Colin Campbell is a Sangoma in the Nbukushu tradition. His practice as a traditional African doctor relies on living in alignment, respect and deep connection with the Spirits of Nature.

Publisher Sharon Brown

Often found in forests or by rivers or fires, Sharon Cohen runs Native Design, an ecological design company, and is writing a book on native plants and place.

Managing Editor Louise Berliner

* Eliot Cowan, singer of the song of the Blue Deer and Tsaurirrikame (master shaman) of the Huichol tradition, reintroduced Plant Spirit Medicine to the western world.

Editor-in Chief Jonathan Merritt

Contributing Editors Mark Blessington, Rita Kesler,

Mary Lane

Soliciting Editor Gavin Harrill

* Sanskrit scholar, author and translator of devotional texts, practitioner of Bhakti Yoga, and classically trained singer, Shyamdas enlivens the teachings from Shri Krishna and the Path of Grace through his humor and ecstatic chanting.

Submissions Manager Stephen Michael Scott

Sarah Davis expresses, ”Big gratitude to the honorable plant and animal companions for

Art Director Helen Granger

stirring up her creative fire,” as she finds her way home in Bristol, Maine.

Marketplace Design Maxima Kahn

* Initiated into the way of the Sufis in 1971,Tasnim Hermila Fernandez is a minister of the Universal Worship and spiritual director of the Church of All. She is a founder, leader and mentor of the Dances of Universal Peace.

Production Manager Sherry Morgan

Living near the Hudson River, Mark Gilliland integrates Tibetan and Native American symbolic traditions into his sacred art. www.image-maya.org.

Subscription Sales Jill Jacobs

Yael Grauer lives in the beautiful Sonoran desert. She sells herbal salves, oils, teas and custommade gifts of herbal loveliness. yael@dirttime.org.

Distribution Manager Theresa Arico

Judyth Hill, a stand-up poet, teacher and baker living in New Mexico, has published six books

Web Support Dan Cernese

of poetry and has been described as “energy with skin.”

Advisory Board Karen Aberle, Jeff Baker, Tucker Farley, Lisa

Declared an Australian National Living Treasure, Michael Leunig uses “regressive, messy and vaudevillian” approaches to address the sacred and the profane.

Thank you! Our deep gratitude to Karen Aberle, Belladona,

* Chief Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, is renowned for his wisdom which is enlivened by his tremendous wit.

Author of several best-selling books, Susan Chernak McElroy lives in the shadow of the Teton Mountains in Idaho, with her animal family and many visiting wild neighbors. www.susanchernakmcelroy.com.

Mary Ellen McCourt, a photographer for over 30 years, hopes that her photographs express the

vitality and life force that imbues all life on earth.

Jonathan Merritt is a mara’akame (shaman) in the Huichol tradition and the editor of Sacred Fire.

Proofreaders Jackie Robinson, Dianna Seale Editorial Assistant Santha Cooke

Advertising Sales Kateri McCue Business Operations Phen Canner

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Goren, Susan Skinner

Cindy Blessington, Lael and Peter Brodsky, Justin Combs, Alan and Amanda Kerner, Eric Noyes, Rachel Shea, Lynn Wachowski, K. J. Winslow, our families, and Grandfather Fire.

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An award-winning poet, John Mizelle also writes music and fiction, and conducts workshops that facilitate people on their journeys to the heart of the world. jbmizelle@cruzio.com.

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* Formerly Public Information Officer for Amnesty International, Richard Reoch is President of Shambhala. He teaches how to live spiritual principles through action in the world.

Subscriptions: One year/4 issues: $27.80 (USD), single

* Distinguished Tibetan Bon Master, author and teacher, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, was appointed by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama to represent the Bon tradition. * Lei’ohu Ryder is a Hawaiian Kahuna, wisdom keeper of the sacred doorways of Kukuipuka.

She is also a peace worker who is building the rainbow bridge of aloha one heart at a time. www.leiohuryder.com Craig Sadler loves to capture the beauty of nature in Southern California through photography

and song. www.pbase.com/crs. * Malidoma P. Somé was sent by his Dagara village elders to sew the seeds of indigenous technology into the mind and heart of the modern world.

Micah Spear says “I use my imagination and creativity to grow into my

life and spread happiness and joy to others.”

Anna Trzaska is an artist in Boston, MA. www.annatrzaska.com

issue $7.95 (USD); Back issues $10 (USD) includes shipping within the U.S. Subscribe online at www.sacredfiremagazine. com

Reproduction: No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher.

Any requests to reprint material appearing in Sacred Fire must be made in writing and sent to publisher@sacredfire magazine.com.

The opinions expressed by Sacred Fire contributors are not necessarily those of Sacred Fire magazine, the Sacred Fire Community, the Sacred Fire Foundation or their respective staffs.

Sacred Fire is published by the Sacred Fire Community, whose purpose is to foster a global community that rekindles our relationship to each other and the world through the universal and sacred spirit of fire. www. sacredfirecommunity.org.

Copyright 2007 by the Sacred Fire Community. All rights reserved.

* Will be a speaker at the Interspiritual Conference June 1–3, 2007. See p. 56.

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Letters To the Editor:

To the Editor:

I went down to Yuma, Arizona and El Centro, California where I did a lecture at the college, a sacred sweat lodge (purification ceremony), and doctored a few people. One of the students there gave me a copy of your magazine. I was very impressed with the article (formerly a speech), submitted by Thom Hartmann, entitled “The Lost People.” I was very impressed with Hartmann’s heartfelt appeal and I wish it could get out to more Native American communities.

Thom Hartmann wasn’t as successful as he could have been, in his piece, “The Lost People,” because he resists leaving his secular-logical-scientific view to talk strongly about the spiritual.

The question this provokes in the reader is the possibility that Thom didn’t consider himself qualified to speak from a place other than his Western-secular “tradition.” Or was he just blind to the distinction?

Native American people are in a very precarious situation during this great Cycle of Purification. Some of the younger generation are finally waking up to their heritage, cultures, religions, and spirituality. They are insecure while re-learning, hence very protective; and the more educated ones are completely aware of what Western society and Christianity have done to their people. In the meantime, another large segment is still struggling with alcohol, drugs, discrimination, diseases, poverty and forced acculturation.

For many of them, the only salvation is a coming back to the Red Road and spirituality.

In the meantime, they see non-Native people coming to their few remaining Elders and “authentic” medicine people, learning the different Tribal rituals, ceremonies, and related mythology, religion, and cultural knowledge. In the process, many of them are being pushed aside, or shy off out of resentment. They don’t really understand why this is occurring. So while many of them are reaching out for a cultural lifeline, they feel it is being taken away from them once again. And since many of them are still in the process of “relearning,” they are embarrassed, afraid, and even jealous to share with or participate with non-Natives in the culturalreligious rejuvenation. They are not educated enough to know what happened to the White people, and what the White people did to other racial and cultural groups in terms of erasing the traditional, tribal, natural, and Earth-oriented religions, spirituality, and healing practices. Nor do they know that the White people originally had some very common and similar ceremonies such as Childbirth, Puberty Rites, Vision Quests, Sweat Lodge rituals, sacred dances such as the Deer Dance, and Burial Ceremonies whereby the beliefs and practices were very much the same; especially as it related to the Natural Laws and the Great Creator’s Laws and Original Life Plan for all races, as well as the proper handling of powers, forces, medicines, and “good” effective practices.

So, in summation, we cannot make White people into fully qualified cultural-religious Native people, but we can serve as a mirror, guide, and ally to help them relearn and practice their own original ways. BUT just like our own Native people, they must learn not to become power hungry, egotistical with the new knowledge or bent on avarice. They must also realize that they cannot participate in some Tribal sacred dances and ceremonies, because they are not meant for them, nor is it their cultural-religious responsibility.

In the meantime, Thom Hartmann, you are welcome into my sweat lodge ritual any time, or in my dad Charlie Red Hawk Thom’s lodge, and/or to seek certain spiritual-religious knowledge, guidance, and development from us.

Medicine Grizzly Bear Traditional Native Healer www.nativehealer.net

After all, he brings in evolution, standard European migrationtheory and Western anthropological time lines to talk about what is known as the Native Americans as though these Europeancentric theories are an ultimate and unchallengeable reality that everyone must adjust to. Most people can’t see that these theories, conceptualized from the institutions of a conquering culture, subversively support both a type of white intellectual validity over indigenous perspectives and also indirectly validate the conquest.

In other words, if it’s all just a matter of migration and justified change—which evolution is supposed to validate—then what’s really wrong with what white European settlers did?

This indicates the level of “perspective inducement” that has been achieved even in good people like Hartmann, who feel that something is wrong with the picture seen today. Therefore, unless the reader is already pre-sold on the tragedy that killing several cultures of people and getting rich off of their land presents a huge spiritual, ethical and environmental crisis, the reader will see it as a weak, bleeding heart article, because somewhere the reader senses that the author himself has supported the justification.

Grandfather Fire, Everywhere To the Editor: I find some of what Thom Hartmann says in “The Lost People” does scant justice to European culture both past and present. Mr. Hartmann describes European movements towards indigenous traditions as ephemeral, lacking in depth and substance because of our “broken” lineage.

Many of us in Europe are responding to the global crisis through developing ways of life that are not only sustainable but are sourced from a deep reverence and honor for our ancestors and all life around us.

Those “few who have in their hearts the understanding of the loss of their ancestors’ ways” are not, “empty and longing and in pain, slaves to corporate dominators.” We may feel the pain of our loss of the Old Ways, but we also feel the deep fulfillment of communion with our sacred landscapes and our ancestors. We know and understand the nature of exchange we have both with the Earth and its peoples (including our “corporate dominators”).

It simply is not true that “not a single elder is left who knows of sacred sites, healing plants or how to pronounce the names of his ancestors’ gods.” This knowledge may be dissipated, but it is there for those who choose to seek it in the lands and amongst the peoples with which they live.

Life is never static—cultures change and evolve. Our European journey towards harmony may be long and difficult, but there is both strength and wisdom in our stories too. Our brokenness is also our wholeness, and our journey is the destination.

Cathi Davis, Britain

We would love to hear from you! Write to the editor at: jmerritt@sacredfiremagazine.com

The Ice is Melting in the North

OREN R. LYONS

The following statement, reecting the position of the Traditional Circle of Indian Elders and Youth, was delivered by Oren R. Lyons, Faithkeeper, Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation, to the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, United Nations, New York, August 28-31, 2000. It is reprinted here with his permission.

Leaders of the World Neyaweha-scano (Thank you for being well).

Today I bring you greetings from the Indigenous Peoples of North, Central, and South America.

Indeed, I bring you greetings from the Indigenous Peoples of the world.

We are the keepers of the traditions, ceremonies, histories, and future of our nations. We are the ones who escaped from your proselytizing. We survived with the wisdom of the Old Ones.

And we are pleased to add our voices to yours in this great effort for common sense and peace among nations.

Leaders of the World I bring you a most urgent message that was brought to our 23rd annual gathering of the Traditional Circle of Elders and Youth. This message was brought by a runner from the north, from Greenland, and he said: The ice is melting in the north!

He informed us that some 15 years ago they noticed trickles of water coming down the sheer face of Glacier Mountain. That trickle has grown to a roaring river of ice water pouring out of this mountain into the Atlantic Ocean.

He informed us that Glacier Mountain has lost 4,000 feet of ice in these past few years. And the melt continues to accelerate.

This is an alarming message that requires your absolute attention.

Leaders of the World We are a collective voice of Indigenous Peoples. We have joined this great mission for peace. We add our presence in support of this great effort for reconciliation between peoples and nations.

We agree that there must be parity and equity between rich and poor nations, between white people and people of color, and rich people and poor people, with special attention to women, children, and indigenous peoples.

We, in our collective voices, add to this: that there must be a reconciliation between peoples and the natural world, between nation states and the forests that sustain us, between corporations and the resources they mine, the ďŹ sh that they catch, and the water that they use.

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Leaders of the World Indigenous nations and peoples believe in the spiritual powers of the universe. We believe in the ultimate power and authority of a limitless energy beyond our comprehension. We believe in the order of the universe. We believe in the laws of creation and that all life is bound by these same natural laws.

We call this essence the spirit of life. This is what gives the world the energy to create and procreate, and becomes the ponderous and powerful law of regeneration—the law of the seed.

We, in our collective voices, speak to this to remind you that spirit and spiritual laws transcend generations. We know, because this has sustained us.

Religion and spirituality is vital to survival and moral law. It is a faith that has sustained our human spirit through our darkest hours. It has sustained our human spirit in times of crisis during the times we suffered through the grinding measures of inexorable persecutions that have spanned generations and continue today. Yet here we are, today, adding our voices to this plea for sanity in leadership and responsibility to the future generations whose faces are looking up from the Earth, each awaiting their time of life here.

Leaders of the World We believe that reconciliation should begin here because peace is an inclusive term, and peace and reconciliation is the purpose of this summit.

Peace is dynamic and requires great effort of spirit and mind to attain unity. Leaders of peace must step forward and take responsibility for a paradigm change in the direction of current lifestyles and materialistic societies. The human species has become the most voracious and abusive consumer of Earth’s resources. We have tipped the balance of life against our children, and we imperil our future as a species.

Leaders of the World Despite all of our declarations and all of our proclamations, no matter how profound they may be: The ice is melting in the north.

We see the acceleration of the winds.

We see the fires that are raging in North America.

And we see that the sun’s rays that provide us with light, energy, and the very essence of life now are causing cancer in people, blinding animals, and killing the plankton and krill of the sea.

This is only the beginning and already we are helpless. We will now see the real spiritual powers that govern the Earth.

Leaders of the World There can be no peace as long as we wage war upon Our Mother, The Earth. Responsible and courageous actions must be taken to realign ourselves with the great laws of nature. We must meet this crisis now, while we still have time. We offer these words as common peoples in support of peace, equity, justice, and reconciliation.

As we speak, the ice continues to melt in the north.

Dahnato (now I am finished). Neyawenha (thank you).

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Ritual

Correcting the Damage of Modernity DR. MALIDOMA PATRICE SOMÉ Art by Sarah Davis

I

am called Malidoma, he who is to “to be friends with the stranger/enemy.” (The word “doma” is used to refer to both meanings. The idea is that a stranger can become an enemy, and so a stranger is sacred because it is the task of him who is not a stranger to turn the potential enemy in the stranger into a friend.)

I have suffered greatly and learned greatly in the pursuance of what I see as my calling. Today, I wonder whether my life in exile makes me more of a stranger/enemy than one who would or should be friend, or should it be the other way round? The quest constantly imposing itself upon me has been more a quest for a home in the hearts of people—a thing that I take as a yardstick by which to measure the level of my own comfort—than a desire to efface myself behind the commonality of mechanistic standardization. And the constant questions ghostly looming in my consciousness are what can I tell my brothers and sisters across the great sea? How relevant is a small village in the wilds of West Africa to the hustle and bustle of Western society?

The West is crowded with people who want healing—this much I have been able to notice. There are people who know that somewhere deep within is a living being in serious longing for a peaceful and serene life. These are people who are so dissatisfied with the existing system that they will embrace anything that promises to rescue them from a sense of entrapment. Without real ritual there is only illness. Such illness cannot be healed with pills or drugs or alcohol, or shopping at the mall, or by spending many hours a day in a trance in front of the TV screen.

Where does this trouble in modern people come from? I have come to suspect that in the absence of ritual, the soul runs out of its real nourishment, and all kinds of social problems then ensue. I do not want to pretend that I can provide a model for fixing the ills of Western culture. My intentions are much more modest. They are the results of my observations and experiences as a person caught in this culture and alienated by it. From the echoes of my ancestors, I feel I can give some clue as to how to improve that which is in constant decay in this culture. The truth is, I am also trying to make myself feel good by doing that which my own elders commissioned me to do. If my elders have deplored the sweeping effect of modernity, they have also lived in admiration of how effective news from the Otherworld, the primitive world, can help others understand and appreciate themselves better.

I suggest that the road to correcting ills goes through the challenging path of ritual. I suggest that ritual not be simply copied from one civilization to another but simply inspired by some culture still in touch with it. The soul of any man or woman craves for this touchstone to the inner self that puts us back in touch with our primal selves.

In Western culture, the closest thing to ritual I have seen is liturgical ceremony, always charged with boredom, and in any case incomplete in what it seeks to accomplish—an intimacy with the Divine.

Ceremony is only a component of ritual. Ritual is not just an elegant procession or music that lifts the soul or words that ordain.

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To ritualize life we need to learn how to invoke the spirits or things spiritual into our ceremonies.

This means being able to pray out loud, alone.

Invocation suggests that we accept the fact that we ourselves don’t know how to make things happen the way they should. And thus we seek strength from the spirits or Spirit by recognizing and embracing our weakness. This way, before getting started with any aspect of our lives— travel, a project, a meeting—we first bring the task at hand to the attention of the gods or God, our allies in the Otherworld.

We openly admit to them what we are facing and how overwhelming it is. By ritually putting what we do in the hands of the gods, we make it possible for things to be done better because more than we are involved in its getting done.

Also, willingness to surrender the credit of our accomplishments to spirit puts us in greater alignment with the Universe.

From an aboriginal point of view, one who is not in alignment with the gods or with a God cannot accomplish anything. Anything created without the blessings of the gods or God comes loaded with ills. It does not take much time to send a little invocation at the start and at the end of the day. This way everything in between is sanctified or sacred and safer because it has been thrown into the hands of the spirit world.

A person who accepts the fact that everything he or she does is the work of the hands of the Divine lives a ritualized life. Everyone can do this.

Anyone can, before going out in the morning, send a little prayer to the ancestors on the hills or in the river. It takes a word or two, or at most a few sentences. It is private and effective.

Modern communities can benefit from a good sense of ritual if they begin by experimenting with it emotionally. I don’t think it is possible to be fully into ritual while one is carrying a load of undelivered emotions. The way you know that your rituals are having a positive effect on you begins with the discovery of how much emotion is pushing you from the inside like a volcano.

Those who are able to express their emotions have been, at some point in their lives, in alignment with their own spirits, saints, guides or guardians.

Modernism means unemotionalism, or that which owes emotion to the world. It also means Number Five

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loss of memory of that way of acting that encompasses both the body and the soul. To cleanse the modern world from its unresolved problems of the soul, there ought not to be a Memorial Day, but a massive funeral day when everyone is expected to shed tears for the titanic loss wrecked

by Progress on people’s souls.

I have seen and participated in some aspects of funerals or burial rites on a minuscule scale in this culture. What I saw was how difficult it is for the modern man to shed tears at length, and how everything that is done to encourage tears degenerates into some kind of strange liturgical solemnity that smells of repression or unwillingness to actually do that which is needed for release of deep grief.

I saw hot tears flowing from wet eyes.

That felt good.

I was once part of a grief ritual for Vietnam veterans. I went there bracing myself to face a flood of weeping eyes. A lot of people were there; more than I could count. But instead of an occasion for grieving, it was a ceremony almost similar to that which happens at Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day. People showed up thinking this was going to be a good idea. They did not come out of a desire to mourn.

The setting was beautiful, the lights blinding, the electronic sound system deafening. It felt as if there were an edge of sensationalism, or solemnity, but no communal grief. The candle procession that followed on the wet road leading to the wharf was beautiful and elevating, not mournful. I remember seeing a repressed tear here and there and wondering why people behave as if it is illegal to cry their guts out. The grief ritual for Vietnam vets was in its intent a noble initiative that fell short of being able to pull the vets back home.

This experience led me to wonder whether it was possible to propose giving a Dagara-style funeral. Michael Meade, one of today’s leading voices in men’s consciousness and awareness— teacher of wisdom, artisan of symbols, metaphors and myth in the stories of humans—has always been in favor of rituals.

He encouraged such a ritual at a men’s conference. Of course a lot of the details in Dagara funerals were dropped due to the impossibility of applying them. Since nobody was supposed to be dead at the conference, death was symbolized. It was

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an innovation that worked just the same. What happened was that we contented ourselves with dividing the participants into three groups: the containers, the mourners or grievers, and the singers. The zeal with which people involved themselves was baffling.

Led by a master drummer, the singers were in ritual preparation long before the actual beginning of the ritual. Over the course of several days, they prayed, rehearsed and prayed again. The grievers were in real grief long before they got the permission to let loose. For three afternoons we gathered, prayed to the waters, the tears of Mother Earth shed so we might live in her lap. We told each other stories of loss, pain and frustration. The sincerity of the tellers authorized the grief of the group.

Meanwhile, the containers busied themselves like ants, and with unparalleled dedication erected a most startling edifice which was to serve as the shrine and the border between this world and the next. In fact it was not an expensive-looking shrine, just a creative artifact brought to existence by the dedicated wit of its builders. It looked like an arch, or a dome with half of its size being an opening delineating this world and the next. It was made with the elements of nature: dry wood, leaves, grass. There was at the door a little space where, later on, people brought bundles symbolizing their losses. A few feet from it was a line separating the tribe of men from the Otherworld. Twenty feet away, there was a space specifically designated as the village where the grief was supposed to be held. The space in between constituted the road of grief, the place of chaos and commotion.

It was made clear that anyone charged with grief should pull away from the village and carry his grief to the threshold and throw it in there, then come back to the village. People had the option to rush to the shrine, walk there or dance their way to it. The speed was a function of the emotional intensity. They were to be assisted by others who were instructed to stop them gently as they reached the line, wait for them to drop their grief into the Otherworld, then return to the village together, Every expression of emotion was supposed to be done facing the shrine.

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Ritual: Correcting the Damage of Modernity

When the ritual actually began, there was genuineness everywhere. The genuineness quickly translated into an appalling chaos. First, there were more mourners than helpers.

Loads of them packed themselves up at the shrine. Fascinated by the sight of the Otherworld, they were unwilling to return to the village. Worse, some of them, mesmerized by the beyond, wanted to throw themselves into it as if in serious need to join the dead.

Second, it was impossible to trust that the line of demarcation was going to be observed. The pull of the Otherworld was powerfully visible. The interdiction to cross the line was enforced by guards. They used their fists at times to bounce contorted grieving bodies back to the village. Some people who were asked to return to the village felt hurt. They thought it meant that once again it was not OK to grieve.

So they turned around and mourned their way back to the village. I was appalled.

Normally, from an indigenous point of view, if you want to know where a funeral shrine is, follow a griever. This time it did not work. How did it happen that the village was turned into a shrine? The implications were so heavy I could barely believe my eyes. Michael and I ran everywhere, like men from the fire department battling a blaze. Someone had to explain in gentle terms to these sincere people the need to avoid throwing their grief at the living.

Meanwhile, grievers, torn by a flood of unleashed grief and mortally attracted by the beyond, symbolized by the shrine, attacked the guards who were posted at the threshold to prevent them from jumping into the Great Beyond. They could not resist the pull from the beyond. Honest screaming souls leapt toward the shrine—they had become the bundle.

They were recuperated by strong hands and sent back to the village side. As if feeling defied, they gathered their forces together and leapt back only to find themselves reminded in an equal way that they did not belong to the Otherworld yet, and that the village needed them. Other grievers were angry; they ejaculated some insanities at the shrine, screaming at the tops of their voices and ending with a torrential weeping that would break the heart of the toughest CEO. It was no longer a Dagara grief ritual, but a ritual—period.

People leapt out of the village in single line and danced their way to the shrine, turned around and came back home to the village. It was beautiful to see. The space between the village and the shrine was busy. The cleansing was happening. So much grief surfaced that the shrine was jam-packed with a crowd of men who did not quite register that they were only supposed to go to the shrine and drop their grief and return to the village where the drumming and the chanting was going on. The containers’ job had to be edited a little bit to clean

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it of its therapist-like influence. Besides these little cultural infiltrations, it was a small success. I saw hot tears flowing from wet eyes. That felt good. I heard sincere groans and yells and screams that almost made me feel like I was home again. The ritual was working.

Even though it was just scratching the surface, the scratch was at least opening something. In a way, there was an invitation to unleash grief. The experience left people empty, light, and— above all—miraculously prone to celebrate. I understood why, in the village, life rotates around grief and celebration. People celebrate because they have paid their dues to the dead. The other side of real grief is real joy. Unfinished grief translates into petty joy and silly amusement. The experience taught me a great deal. Without ritual, humans live in nostalgia.

When there is an opportunity for people to mourn their losses, the horizon for rites that heal will be pure and bright, and healing will come pouring into the souls in a great moment of reunion.

Can I impart to the modern world that which is rooted in the ancestral world? Only time will tell. Are we not of a common soul as proposed by modern thinkers such as Jung? If so, then what serves the soul of the Dagara may well prove to resonate in the soul of modern peoples also. And so I offer the prayer to our common ancestors on behalf of those seeking to recover themselves from the rubble of modernity as they seek to work their way toward being elders of the new post-modern tribal order.

May the spirits of every pertinent direction take notice of their hearts’ desire.

May the forces below pump strength into their feet—that they walk the walk of their life, the walk that heals the wounded truth of their bellies and keeps the eyes of their memory open so they can grow ni yang maru.

May the ancestral fuel burn in their spiritual veins and animate their souls with vision so they can hoId hands ni yang maru.

As they walk toward their future, May they wake up fast to the dialogue between the soul and the spirit.

And may they labor to clean the world from its paralyzing epidemic of soul-barrenness so that tomorrow our children can sing together in peace.

Excerpted from “The Farewell,” from Ritual: Power, Healing and Community by Malidoma Patrice Somé, copyright © 1993 by Swan Raven & Company. Used by permission of Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Spiritual Practice in a World at War RICHARD REOCH

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t this time of intense international anxiety, when the world is trapped in a spiral of hatred and fear, it is natural that extreme violence of all forms should erupt. It is also in the nature of beings that dark times such as these should give rise to profound wisdom and compassion.

This twin truth—the interplay of darkness and light—has become the focus of contemplation, not only in spiritual circles, but in the broad world of social activism. How do we maintain our dignity in the face of degradation? How do we sustain our energy when we are faced with overwhelming demands? How, when we are called to swim in poisoned waters, do we ensure that we do not poison ourselves and others?

These questions are the subject of a unique study funded by the Ford Foundation, Inviting the World to Transform: Nourishing Social Justice Work with Contemplative Practice. It points out that a wide range of social justice organizations are facing similar challenges. These include people burning out, losing their sense of perspective, succumbing to frantic activity, replicating the same injustice and aggression they were committed to opposing, succumbing to feelings of despair, anger and selfrighteousness and feeling unappreciated as they struggle to work meaningfully in our hectic, materialist culture.

The study found that many of the same organizations are increasingly turning to forms of spiritual practice, not only as an antidote to these difficulties, but also because “social justice work arises out of contemplative practice.” The experience of incorporating some form of spiritual work into their organizational framework produces detectable results. Staff and volunteer activists are better able to process their emotions in the midst of the “mutually self-destructive adversarial climate that marks so much good-intentioned work.”

Spiritual practice also aids intuitive learning, the study found.

Organizations report that their staff and volunteers find it easier to be “authentic, vulnerable and compassionate.” They are able to work with less stress and anxiety. They move beyond the imprisoning concepts of “for” and “against.” They find the same results whether they are “walking alone or walking with others.”

The benefits of nurturing spirituality are beautifully summed up by one of the leaders interviewed for the report: Marianne Williamson, founder of the Global Renaissance Alliance. She

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Painting by Ana Trzaska reflected on some of the more remarkable social movements in history: “The fact that the Quakers had the hour of silence before they discussed abolition gave the spiritual fuel to the Abolitionist Movement. The fact that the women, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Staunton, and those others sat in silence before they talked about women’s suffrage gave the spiritual fuel to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. These movements were unbelievably out-numbered, not only in terms of people but in terms of power-economics and material forces, absolutely entrenched, that had no plans whatsoever to let go of slavery, male dominance and institutionalized racism.”

What are the spiritual practices that social justice organizations are now embracing? They include inner work that enables people to have a quiet mind in the midst of stress and distraction, focus their awareness, develop insight and cultivate “personal goodness and compassion.” These practices are not so much “a vacation” or “stepping out of action,” but a way of enabling activists to be more “conscious in action.”

The study reveals what it terms a Tree of Contemplative Practice. The branches show both stillness and movement practices, generative practices for deepening compassion, devotion and confidence, activist practices that enable people to see their work as spiritual endeavor, creative practices that stimulate awareness of artistic processes, ritual practices that act as catalysts for change and awareness of seasonal processes, and relational practices that enhance dialogue, listening and talking circles.

The power of such spiritual practice, common to most of the world’s wisdom traditions, is being stretched to the limit in these times of increasing turbulence.

Speaking of the challenges facing humanity, United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has said: “If we want to have a chance of overcoming the many challenges that face us today—in the fields of peace and security, development, and the protection of our global environment—we must think beyond our narrow, short-term self interests, and raise ourselves to a universal perspective from which the well-being of the broader human community appears as important as our own well-being. Each of us shares the hope of a more peaceful, equitable and sustainable future. Our actions—as individuals

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and as members of our communities—must be guided by that common dream....Let us remember that whatever our origin, our race, our culture or our belief, we are not essentially different. Above all, we share the same home, a shrinking planet on which we are bound to live together. So, let us work together towards the common good and the harmonious and peaceful coexistence of all the world’s people.”

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These words strike a deep chord within each of us. In the Shambhala tradition, we are said to be living through the “dark age.” The Kingdom of Shambhala—both in legend and inspiration—embodies the profound human aspiration to create enlightened society on earth, based on the deep understanding that the essence of all beings is profound, brilliant sanity. In the Shambhala tradition, the natural

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Spiritual Practice in a World at War expression of that sanity is compassionate activity. It is precisely in the dark age that such wisdom and compassion are called forth, along with the teachings that enable us to manifest enlightened society.

The Shambhala lineage is held by a successive line of Sakyongs (literally “Earth Protectors”) devoted to the protection, wellbeing, and spiritual care of our world. The current Sakyong is Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, whose latest book, Ruling Your World, sets out this ancient wisdom for contemporary application.

Just before the latest invasion of Iraq was unleashed in 2003, the Sakyong conveyed to the United Nations his fervent hope that the UN would “explore every possible avenue to avert further escalation of the hostility, aggression, and lethal conflict which has plunged innumerable beings on our planet into lives of fear, misery, and despair.” He urged that any possible recourse to force “be tempered by the realization that it is never too late to seek to resolve differences through dialogue, and that in these dark times, the consequences of warfare weigh most heavily on ordinary men, women, and children who are now overwhelmingly the victims of armed conflict.”

As today’s daily news reports bring home to us so painfully, it was a prophetic statement. In July 2005, Shambhala received a web inquiry from a Sgt. Paul Kendel, stationed in Iraq. In response, he received a copy of the Sakyong’s first book on meditation, Turning the Mind into an Ally, and entered into correspondence from the front lines—an exchange of messages that also included the Sakyong. These extracts convey with great potency the power of these wisdom teachings even in the most extreme of circumstances.

“Meditation is difficult here,” wrote the sergeant. “I live in a tent with 20 other soldiers and we have to walk with someone wherever we go. The only quiet time is in the shower or a hot sweltering Port O Potty. Neither is terribly conducive to meditation practice. However, reading the sections on contemplation has been very helpful. Riding around all day in a humvee waiting to get blown up provides one with unusual opportunities at contemplation. But it has been the issue of anger that has really made a difference.

“Most of the soldiers around me grow angrier and angrier at the Iraqis every day. Everyone is frustrated and lonely and just wants to go home. Reading the Sakyong’s book has helped me control my anger. Last week I helped try to revive a dead soldier who drowned in a ditch when his vehicle rolled over.

He spit up nothing but grey mud when we tried CPR. He had a wife and two kids. Later that day, everyone was so angry, we just wanted to lash out at anything or anybody. When a vehicle came too close to our security checkpoint I fired three bullets at the car to make him stop, which he did. He turned and drove off, just a guy heading to work who was probably confused and failed to stop quickly enough. I thought by firing at the car it

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would release some anger and I would feel better, but I didn’t.

Its hard not to grow angry and bitter, but the teachings of the Sakyong, as well as other Buddhist works, have made dealing with this place a lot easier. I have certainly gained a different perspective on the dignity of the human race, but thankfully it has only opened my mind, not closed it.”

In a reply to Sgt Kendel, the Sakyong wrote: “The Tibetan people have gone through persecution and tremendous hardship. It was their resolve not to abandon compassion and not to give in to anger that ensured the survival of the Tibetan culture and people. As you mention in your letter, the contemplation that sentient beings are innately endowed with goodness and wisdom is always important to remember again and again, regardless of stupid and cruel behavior—for if we let their actions trigger our anger, not only will they have stolen our mind, but our dignity as well.... Human beings through their actions bind themselves to seemingly intractable and convoluted situations. It’s not brain power alone, but rather the weight of genuine compassion that will resolve this.”

Some days later, Sgt Kendel returned to the theme of all pervasive anger on all sides: “So much hate. So much anger. If I let this place and the hate that is all around me, fill me with aggression and anger, I will only become like the men who wait in the darkness in the hope of inflicting death upon another human being. It’s all nothing but a vicious cycle. Ignorance and hate drive some men to kill us, and we perpetuate the problem by seeking the same in return.

“This place is like Vietnam. They kill you and slip away into the night. You never really see their faces… We retaliate and our hate grows, simply perpetuating the problem. The only answer to the problem is more compassion, just like the Sakyong said to me in his letter. But how do you convince a group of people that just had their good friends blown to pieces that the answer is love and compassion?

“Unfortunately, in America, especially in the Army, these attributes are considered a sign of weakness, not strength. We can launch a space shuttle that shows the brilliance of human ingenuity, but we can’t find a way to solve the most basic ills that plague society.

“If the Sakyong would like to print my letters I would be honoured. If he wants to use my name that is fine as well.

Whatever I can contribute in any way to the Sakyong’s goal of spreading human compassion I will be happy to.”

Sergeant Kendel is not alone. Nor are the growing numbers of people in all corners of the world who are working to carry humanity forward out of its nightmare of global aggression and injustice. From the theatres of war to the front lines of social activism, the wisdom of the human spirit is breaking through. Like a bell calling for silence, it is reminding us of our innermost nature and rekindling our deepest longing for compassion and peace.

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Photograph © Shannon Workman. Image from BigStockPhoto.com.

A woman came to our fire seeking help for her friend.

Her friend, a woman, had long been engaged in shamanic journeying, soul retrievals, and ritual healing. Although she was not initiated in or connected to any particular spiritual tradition, she had been quite successful in her work.

The shamanic healer had recently led a group of people on a healing journey to a “spiritual vortex” in Ireland. After a month of performing ceremony and ritual healing in that place, she returned home only to fall mysteriously and seriously ill. Her endocrine system had shut down.

Her electrolytes were wildly out of balance. She was bedridden, near death and the doctors could find no reason for her illness.

“Is there anything,” her friend asked, “that you can do?”

I looked at my friends and wracked my brain. “Who,” I thought, ”might know the gods of that Irish place?”

Eliot Cowan. Photo by Will Berliner.

Eliot Cowan is a healer. Originally trained as an acupuncturist and herbalist, he rediscovered the ancient shamanic healing practice of appealing to the spirits of plants for help and healing.

His book, Plant Spirit Medicine (Swan, Raven and Company) has had a life-changing effect on thousands of people. Several hundred of his students are currently practicing PSM in Australia, Britain, Canada, Mexico and the United States. A fully initiated shaman (tsaurirrikame) in the Huichol tradition—one of a very few of European heritage—he has taken on more than forty apprentices. I am one of them.

I have sat with Eliot around a hundred fires, listening and watching closely. His wisdom and guidance have utterly changed my life. I am constantly amazed at his ability to work steadily and tirelessly, never hurrying, but bringing forth incredible things. It is not too much to say that the Sacred Fire Community and this magazine have sprung from the work of Eliot Cowan.

Strangely, because it seems that he never has time to talk about himself at any of the many fires I’ve shared with him, this interview was taken by phone in October, 2006.

—JM Question You were living a relatively stable life as an acupuncturist in California, what led you to go to be with the Huichol?

Eliot Cowan At that time I was doing quite well in my

acupuncture practice. I was making good progress as a practitioner. But at the same time, I realized that if I were to continue to make progress at that rate, I would die before I could offer the healing that people needed. I went to my acupuncture teacher and, for several years, I tried to persuade, cajole and

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bribe him to take me on with a few others in an apprenticeship program. Finally, he told me he wasn’t interested and it wasn’t going to happen. At that time, I began to pray and look for someone else who could be a guide for me.

It happened that I was sitting in someone’s waiting room and picked up a magazine that was three years out of date. It had some articles about the Huichols. As I read the articles, I felt like I had been struck by lightning! I was unable to sleep that night, which surprised me, as sleeping is one of my great spiritual powers (laughter here). But I felt very strongly that there was something there for me. I immediately tried to get in touch with the author to see how I could meet those people. A year later I found myself in a Huichol village for the first time.

Question How did the Huichol receive you?

Eliot Cowan They received me well. I went with a group that was led by a guy who was connected to a Huichol shaman. I went ostensibly to attend a three-day ritual, but I arrived a few days before the ritual and stayed a few days after it. While I was there, I experienced a healing from a very great shaman. It was profound, a very profound healing I wrote about in my book.

Well, having had that experience, I realized that the guide that I was looking for was going to come from a traditional shamanic path, so I kept looking. Five years later I moved with my family to Mexico, and my teacher showed up soon after.

Question How did that occur?

Eliot Cowan On a previous visit I had met another Huichol shaman, José Benítez Sanchez, the most famous living Huichol

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Opening the Sacred Doorway An Interview with Eliot Cowan

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artist. After I moved there, I sought him out again, because I had been having dreams about a sacred site that had shown me some things and was helping me with my healing. I told him about my dreams and he listened very attentively. After I finished speaking, he confirmed the accuracy of the dreams.

He said it would be good for me to make pilgrimage there and continue my learning. He couldn’t take me because he didn’t have a direct relationship with that site, but he had a relative who did. So we made a date and he introduced me to my teacher, Don Guadalupe González Rios.

Question What was your meeting with Don Guadalupe like?

Eliot Cowan That was interesting. By that time, I had met a

number of indigenous elders from different traditions. These people always seemed to know why I was coming, but they never got around to talking about it. Sometimes those people sent me packing. Other times the message was, stay around for a few years, chop wood and carry water, and maybe we’ll get around to talking about why you’re here. With Don Guadalupe, it was different. He listened quite carefully, then he asked, “When do you want to go? Did you bring your stuff with you?” He took me to the site and got me started on my apprenticeship path, just like that.

Question Once you started making pilgrimages to that site, did you encounter difficulties? Did you ever doubt the validity of that path?

Eliot Cowan That particular site is a mountain, so it was physically demanding, and emotionally demanding as well. It was incredibly difficult. Yet, I was never plagued by doubt that

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I was doing the right thing. It just felt right and I felt something moving me along.

Question How important is it for a person seeking a spiritual path to have a teacher?

Eliot Cowan I’d say it’s not just important, you can’t do without

it. It’s imperative.

Here’s a little story: My first interest in healing had to do with plants. I started reading books and using local plants to help with the health problems that popped up with my friends, my animals, and myself. I had some very encouraging successes. But I also found that there was a lot more I needed to know if I was going to be really helpful to people. I found myself at a dead end with the self-study thing.

At that point, I started looking for a teacher, somebody who could show me things that I sensed but couldn’t quite articulate and introduce me to those areas that were unknown to me.

After a lot of looking around, and a lot of discouragement, I finally found what I was looking for in the person of Professor Worsley, the acupuncturist. Even though he didn’t teach herbalism, he offered the wisdom and experience I was looking for about various aspects of healing.

Later on, after studying and practicing acupuncture for 10 years, I wanted to apply what I had learned toward working with plant medicines in a different way. After a while my self-study once again led me to a blind alley. Finally, a friend suggested, “Eliot, why don’t you look into this shamanism thing? They say shamans can talk to the spirits, so maybe they

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David Wiley, Don José Sandoval de la Cruz and Eliot Cowan. Photo by Rob Norris.

could teach you to talk with plants and learn from them.” It sounded like a good idea.

I went to a workshop and I was given the exercise of making a dream journey to meet with the spirit of a plant, and, hopefully, to have a conversation. I wasn’t disappointed. The plant started teaching me and indicated that his brother and sister plants were happy to teach me also. So I began spending all my free time talking to the weeds around my house. That was really the birth of what I now call Plant Spirit Medicine.

But the point of the story is that I did that little exercise with fourteen or fifteen others. Although the other people reported that they had conversations with plant spirits, I was the only person for whom that conversation went further than the exercise. It wasn’t that I had any special aptitude or special powers. The only advantage I had was my connection with a teacher who was connected to a tradition of healing, and the fact that I practiced that medicine under his guidance. I had someone who could judge where I needed correction and show me the things I didn’t see and the things I didn’t know I couldn’t see. All that gave me a whole new way of relating to plants. So you might say, I knew the right questions to ask, based on that teacher, based on that authentic connection to an ancestral healing tradition.

I want to talk a bit about ancestral traditions, because I’m convinced that everyone, whether or not they are interested in doing healing work, needs a connection to their tradition. I say this because we humans are prone to forgetting ourselves, our relatedness to the world, our belonging.

The way I see it, ancestral traditions are paths that take us to special sacred doorways. The doors open, we pass through, and—Surprise!—we find ourselves still in the ordinary world.

We discover that this world is a place of ineffable mystery, and we belong to it, we are part of it, we are related to everything.

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Even though it may seem that much has been lost, really the doorways and pathways are as much a part of the world as mountains and valleys. They are just as permanent. And technology hasn’t really changed much of anything; the world still moves according to the same laws as it did in ancient times.

Human nature still is what it is. So it is still a matter of engaging our ancestral traditions. We don’t have to try to invent new ways to find ourselves.

When someone does engage an ancestral spiritual path, she really needs a teacher, a living person who has walked the path and knows in human terms what it takes. It’s so easy to delude yourself. Any spiritual path—not limited to healing— involves breaking down the illusion of separateness. That illusion is created by our ego mind, so all spiritual paths are a confrontation to the ego mind.

Now, the ego mind doesn’t really want to get involved with this kind of confrontation. Chances are that when the going gets tough, which it must in any serious spiritual practice, the ego mind is going to dodge the issue, or alter the spiritual path, or seek an alternate path that seems less confrontational.

That’s why a teacher is indispensable. A teacher can guide the person through the difficult parts and show her how she is kidding herself and help her make the necessary corrections.

Question In our last issue Thom Hartmann spoke about how all the ancestral European spiritual pathways have been lost, subverted, conquered and destroyed by the Celts, the Romans and the Christians. Some people, through channeling, dream journeys, and imaginative recreations, have retrieved pieces of those ancestral traditions. Today, many people seriously engage in spiritual practices they associate with pre-Christian Europe, gathering as modern day Wiccans and performing Druidic or Pagan rituals. Is this a way that people can reclaim their ancestral wisdom?

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Eliot

Cowan In a way, yes, but

there are pitfalls. Let me put it this way. Retrieving material through dreaming, channeling and journeying, through visionary experience, it’s good. The problem is that, without elders, without guides to sort through the material in a nonegoistic way to make sure that the mind doesn’t introduce distortions, and also to fill in the missing pieces— because I don’t think anybody gets the whole deal—it gets very tricky.

But it is true that ancestral pathways don’t really die out. As long as there are descendants of those original connected people, the paths and the doorways do not disappear. They’re part of our souls.

Ancestral traditions are paths that take us to special sacred doorways.

When the time and conditions are right for ancestral wisdom to be reintroduced, it is reintroduced. Right now, there are some very interesting reclamation projects quietly going on in Europe.

But, for an ancestral tradition to find its way back without elders, it requires extra special help from Divine. Grandfather Fire sees that the time and conditions are right in Europe and in North America. So He’s providing some special help.

Question So what you’re saying is that, beyond the prayers and desires of the people, beyond the “struggling in the wilderness,” it requires divine intervention to restore the lost ancestral wisdom.

Eliot Cowan Yes. It takes special help. And it’s big news that

this is happening in Europe. But one thing that needs to be kept in mind is that all ancestral traditions are related. They are like one family with different branches, and they do recognize each other.

For example, years ago, I brought my shamanic teacher, Don Guadalupe, to this country. It was the first time he’d been more than 200 miles from his homeland. He wanted to visit the sacred sites and see what the gods had to say in this part of the world. On one occasion, I took him to a sacred site in California. When we got close to it, he looked at it for two minutes and then told me in great detail what the nature of that site was, what was available there, what the offerings were, and how they were to be given. He went on and on for some time.

them to be a great spiritual teacher, though he didn’t have the benefit of a human teacher himself. But he had researched the old stories that were still extant from the indigenous people who used to visit the site. As I told him what Don Guadalupe had told me, his jaw dropped! Everything Don Guadalupe had said was something he had already read about in his research, or learned by talking to people whose grandmothers had made offerings to that place.

That’s another ace in the hole in this matter of reviving ancestral wisdom where local people no longer maintain the traditions. If a person who has a certain standing with the gods visits a sacred site, the gods can get very chatty and open up the doorways. This is a great benefit, a pathway that provides for the rebirth of lost traditions. But again, it brings us back to the importance of living human teachers.

Question Since most people of European ancestry in the United States are mutts—that is, we are not genetic descendants of a single tribe or nation—how can we discover our particular ancestral traditions? How can we find living teachers?

Eliot Cowan My best advice is to be persistent and patient about praying and asking for guidance. It is especially effective to make your requests in front of the fire or before a candle because, in all traditions, fire carries our prayers to the Divine.

Then watch and listen for when and where the guidance shows up. And be open to discovering it in unexpected places.

When people make a sincere request such as—“Please give me guidance. Please show me my tradition,” or “Please help me make a relationship with the gods and spirits where I live”—at the right time, guidance shows up—sometimes in the most surprising ways, like finding an out-of-date magazine in a waiting room.

And when the guidance comes, you need to be willing to accept it and follow through with what is asked of you.

Remember, engaging in a spiritual practice or tradition is not just about what you want. It is about relationship. The ancestral traditions know that balance and balanced relationships are what the world—and therefore, spirituality—is all about.

Later, I shared some of what he said with a person who had spent his life in those mountains and who considered

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Aloha

the Breath of Love LEI’OHU RYDER with photos by Michael Ash

Aloha, I was born and raised on the shores of Wailau, Oahu, where my family were farmers and fishermen. Wailau “means the gathering of the waters.” On this beautiful shore on Oahu, I learned about the spirit of the land and sea where my forefathers had migrated in earlier times and began to plant and cultivate taro, the spirit food of the ancient ones.

The taro symbolizes the family lifestyle of our people. In Hawaiian philosophy the taro is our older brother. The corm, as it is formed, creates these offshoots called oha, which is the root of ohana, our word for family. There are many offshoots of this taro plant, and when we harvest the taro, the top of the corm is placed back into the taro patch for generations. And so that piece that we replace is called makua, which means parent. So the spirit of place goes back to our ancestor, the taro, who taught us how to live and cultivate the lands here in Hawaii.

Spirit of place is the body walking with the backbones of time within your spirit. It is not something that is just attached to land. It is attached to all things of spirit: Land, Sea, Mother Earth, Father Sun, Grandfather Fire. Spirit of place is an essence. In the Hawaiian language it is the aka, the sticky glue that ties you to sacred things, whether you realize it or not. It is where the soul sits through one’s transition through the body of humanity. So the spirit of place is the compass that leads you to doorways, to doorways, to doorways, crossing over, filtering into human form over and over again.

Wherever one is born, the spirit of place continues to ooze forward from the land, our Mother Earth. As our two feet walk and take us forward, we are that spirit cultivating the place of the soul within. So this is a different way of shifting the spirit of place. It is a place, yes, but you are the place itself as well.

Sacred places and heiaus—Hawaiian temples—feed the spirit of place within us. The spirits of the land, earth, sea and sky feed us as keepers of place. So even if you see concrete paved over ancient pathways, that spirit of place continues to ooze forth whether the people understand that or not. In the midst of our fast-paced modern lifestyle that seems to be spreading all over the globe, spirit asks all of us to remember that we are the spirit of place.

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There are places that the family of man is crying to gather towards, sacred places. Hawaii is one of them. In the onslaught of society, we no longer connect with the spirit of place within, because we get confused about spirit. But the bottom line is that we are all spirit, whether we know that or not. We must look at each other as spirit bodies, and learn from each other’s choices that lead us home to our original design as spirit keepers of the creator’s domain.

My home on Maui, Hale Kukuipuka O Waioha, “the house of the doorway to the light under the breath of heaven,” sits on the slopes of Haleakala, this beautiful doorway, this beautiful portal that aligns the energies of the Pacific Ocean, of Lemuria, to the very beginning.

The pulse of our Mother Earth beats very sacredly and very full here because of this beautiful land we call Maui Loa, or Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific.

As somebody who has been called into service to humanity, one of my jobs is to support the sacred connections that honor all ancestors and those who hear them calling. It doesn’t matter where they come from or what religion they are. “Olohe Malu—Ancestral Teachings of Aloha” is just one way to support this. Through prayers I am able to use the connections to bring people into that sacred space so that they can align more fully in the sacred temples of themselves.

The music that I have been blessed to receive awakens those old memories lying deep within the DNA, the cells of humanity, rocks, flowers, and birds. You might listen to the music and not understand the words, but something gets triggered and you remember, and that opens the vessel, the tears and the memories. So a lot of the compositions are about sacred walks, sacred pilgrimages, sacred places.

I have been trained by a lot of the spirits of the places that called me. Many of my teachers are in that form. So one walks and learns at the same time. One trusts the creator to help. One must come face to face with the walk itself. You cannot plot your destination. It’s not all gravy. You’re not on a constant high. It is respect and surrender to the highest calling of your spirit that takes you to your origin of place of spirit.

The message is “Aloha,” that breath of love, that breath of light that goes back to our original intent, love. Spirit is love. When we are fully present, the spirit of place is all about love and compassion and allowing love to transcend all things. When you love, you don’t judge, you don’t separate.

When you love, you have mercy and forgiveness. When you love, you understand that you are connected with a greater whole.

The biggest message I can give to the people of the world is to know that we are all aloha. We are all spirit. We are all connected to something much greater than ourselves. We are spirit of place.

We don’t have to save money for ten years to buy a plane ticket to

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Hawaii. Spirit of place is where you are. It is where the creator has placed you.

And you don’t have to have money or position. All you have to be is spirit itself, humble, smiling, playing, being life, being aloha, knowing that you are part of that rainbow bridge, that breath of aloha.

Aloha is an energy. It’s not just a word; it’s not just love. When you say, “Aloha,” your body fills with the spirit. Aloha energy connects the spirit of place within our bodies with the full spirit of the Universe, of Mother Earth.

Just like the beautiful food we eat that is organically grown. You can taste the energy in the food that is loved and cared for. Or when you see a person smile, you are seeing the spirit of place in that person. Their spirit is coming inside you. You can feel that. Tell people to say “Aloha.” When you say, “Aloha,” you can feel your body tingling, your cells erasing all the barnacles that you carry, eradicating all the resentment, hate, and sorrow that have been transmitted from generation to generation through your DNA. Keep saying, “Aloha, Aloha, Aloha,” and visualizing that Aloha. It will be the biggest medicine in your spirit of place that you ever had so you can walk more fully in your divineness.

Many thanks to Mary Lane for gathering these words.

Chanting the Universe Chanting the universe means being aware of every vibration that calls to us as spirit rising free.

It means expressing ourselves as consciousness awakened—fully present in every moment. We open ourselves to the guidance of primordial tapestries that unlock our knowing of life.

We release what we view as our obligation to stay in the self-ordained structure.

Ancient calls reveal traditions indigenous to Earth and its origins.

Chanting the universe means being in alliance with the heart of love that beats the breath of spirit in songs and stories. It acknowledges the facets of one’s self and calls them home to be embraced. It calls in the cellular memories of the spirit and frees the self to receive love.

Nana Ka Ha—Witnessing—We are here to witness and model the authentic self that is being fully expressed every moment. We are here to be fully present in the embrace of each breath. We are here to learn and observe that being life teaches one acceptance of the self and others.

Chanting the universe means honoring all life as it reveals the information of the past carried in the cellular structures. It embraces the oneness in all life. Chanting the universe means living in freedom without qualifying, judging or separating.

Keys to Chanting the Universe

Ho’ola La’a e—Protocols—Recognize each individual spirit and honor the right to its traditional spiritual expressions.

In this way we maintain harmonious relationships with all beings including animate and inanimate forms.

Oli Kapu Ha—Chants—Recognize each one’s ability to express the breath of spirit through various forms of chant.

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Pule Waiha—Prayers—Communicate with all that is life in communion with one’s breath and spirit. Offer the authentic abundance of one’s self as a spirit being. Release one’s sacred intentions to be in communion with the higher realms of the universe.

E Oli Oli E— Celebration—The joyful expression of life that honors each being as a sacred being connected to oneness.

Dance and feast. Freely and fully honor everything each being offers. Have fun being alive, being life.

Ho’ola Hou—Living—Expressing life in every moment offers great joy and expansion. This means being free of those structures that prevent us from honoring and connecting as one. This means releasing experiences of shame, guilt, fear and self-judgment. This means offering one’s self the freedom of choice in every moment to be life.

Ea Ha Ola—Being—This is the sovereign expression of the breath of life. One becomes free to be the love that is present every moment. One releases the old patterns of the self that have prevented the exhilarating flow of life being. This releases one from “doing life” to being life.

—Lei’ohu Ryder

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Sacred GESHE TENZIN WANGYAL RINPOCHE

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n shamanism, tantra, and Dzochen, the elements are considered to be sacred, the underlying forces of existence. Because they are sacred, all that arises from them—and that is everything—is also sacred. External nature is sacred and the body is sacred. The elements without and within arise together, from the same source. The warmth of the sun and the warmth of the heart are different in degree, not in kind. The water of the oceans is not different from the water of our bodies. Our flesh is formed from the elements of earth and it will dissolve back into the earth. The air that is in our lungs is the same air that the hawk rides. The space in which the universe arises, the space our living room couch occupies, and the space in which our thoughts arise is the same space and is sacred. And all that is in space—substantial and insubstantial, matter and mind—is the elements.

As the elements in the body are sacred, the consciousnesses that arise from them are also sacred.

Whether of wisdom or passion, dream or nightmare, the living experience of beings is a display of the pure elements interacting with awareness. The innate awareness, too, is integrated with the elements.

It is the purest and most subtle level of the five elements in perfect balance, the quintessence of the luminosity of the base of existence.

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Sometime in the history of the West, the sense of sacred relationship was lost for many people. We can witness sacred relationships, or read about them, in the shaman’s relationship to the natural world or the tantric practitioner’s relationship to the deities, but often we don’t have such a relationship in our own lives.

Ask yourself what “sacred” means to you. Are you in any relationship you regard as sacred? If so, is it based in your own sense of the sacred or is it composed of behaviors you learned from others? What in your life do you truly believe to be sacred?

but that which recognizes the sacred is the sacred inside.

We are in relationship with everything.

That’s what this life is—relationship with everything.

Without a sense of the sacred, it is difficult to have faith in religious instruction. In Tibet it is said that if one treats one’s master like a dog, the teachings are worthless as rotten food.

If one treats one’s master like a friend, the teachings nourish like fresh food. If one treats one’s teacher like a deity, the teachings are divine nectar.

Similarly, if we relate to the natural world as a collection of lifeless mechanical processes, it is lifeless for us. If we relate to our bodies as machines, they are machines to us. If we relate to religion as a fantasy to us, it is a fantasy to us. But if we relate to the natural world as alive, full of spirits and elemental beings, the natural world speaks to us. If, as in tantra, the body is regarded as a divine palace and the result of great good fortune, as the best possible vehicle for reaching enlightenment, it becomes a vehicle that can carry us beyond death. If we relate to the dharma, the spiritual teachings, as to sacred teachings that will lead us on the path to truth, the dharma in fact leads us to truth. Relating to the elements—to the natural world and our bodies and minds—as sacred, they become sacred. This is not just a psychological trick. It’s a recognition of our real situation.

Sacred relationships are defined not only in terms of how we relate to what is outside of us. Relating to the sacred also brings us to the deepest sense of ourselves, to what is sacred in us. Shamans connected to the earth find in themselves the connection to all of life, to the powers and forces that control the world. Tantric practitioners find that devotion to the deities leads to the recognition that their deeper selves are the deities.

In guru yoga, the student must find the mind of the master within. Sacred relationship finds something sacred outside,

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We are in relationship with everything. That’s what this life is—relationship with everything.

We have many friendly relationships that are nurturing and helpful, and that is good. Those relationships support us and fulfill us as humans.

But if we have no sacred relationship to the environment, to people, to religious images, to mantras, and so on, it means the sacred aspect of our life is dying, or buried, or hasn’t been accessed. It hasn’t been enriched or expressed. It doesn’t arise in our internal experience because it hasn’t found a match in the external world; there is nothing to evoke or fuel it. So it disappears from our lives and our cultures or becomes an abstraction or is reduced to mythology or psychology.

It’s easy to lose the sense of the sacred in the modern world. Many of us live out of touch with the power of the natural world, knowing it as something fenced in parks or tamed in gardens. Behind the reflected light of the city, night is no longer dark and vast. Our houses are temperature- controlled. Many of us have lost faith in religion and live in a world in which life has been reduced to a chemical reaction, the stars are dead material processes, and there is no life after the death of the body. The societies of the West have created wonderful technologies, arts, and sciences, but living in a dead world, relying on entertainment for fleeting satisfaction, is a sad and unnecessary price to pay for those advances.

The lack of relationship to the sacred can be an obstruction on the spiritual path. We learn something like a meditation practice and we feel better. So we treat that practice simply as something that makes us feel good, like going for a walk or taking a bike ride.

We may interpret the shamanic practices as only symbols used to manipulate mechanical psychological processes. But when we really need help, we don’t turn to what we believe is only psychological; this is because it seems smaller than we are in our totality. In a sacred relationship—to the elements, the deities, the master, the holy texts—we turn to something sacred, of greater value and meaning than our depression or anxiety or self-hatred or disappointment.

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If we spend a lot of time in relationships characterized by mistrust, anger, disrespect, and so on, every part of our lives is affected. We see things in a more negative light. When we spend a lot of time in sacred relationships, our life is affected positively. Our painful feelings are not so large. We start to see the sacred core of every being.

Developing faith and gratitude opens the door to sacred relationships. It’s good to reflect on the long lineage of the teachings, the men and women who followed the path over the centuries. They traveled far on the path because they recognized it as a sacred journey into the center of themselves and the world. And now it is our turn. We are fortunate to have an inclination to lead the spiritual life and to have found appropriate teachings from a living tradition. Opening our hearts and minds to the teachings, we start to open ourselves in many dimensions. We open ourselves to sacred energies and are healed and blessed by them. Our well-being becomes independent of external circumstances. The world becomes larger and all of it recognized as alive. There is no longer the dead matter universe of the nihilists or the impure material world of the dualists. We connect to the sacred, creative energies whose display is existence itself.

How can we develop the sense of the sacred? By remembering that the source of all is sacred, that space and light are sacred.

Every appearance is beautiful if we go beyond prejudice and recognize the vibrant, radiant nature of phenomena.

Remember that all beings have the buddha-nature. Remember the sacredness of the religious tradition. Spend time in nature, particularly places special to you, and open yourself to the beauty of the natural world. Begin each practice period with prayer and open your heart. End each practice period by dedicating yourself to the benefit of all beings. Engage in the practice as a way to help alleviate the suffering of all those you care about. Spiritual practice is an activity meant to benefit all; it is not only for yourself. Look into the night sky when the stars can be seen, feel the immensity and magnificence of the universe. Think about the complexity of your own body, the mysterious functions that support your existence. Broaden your mind enough and you necessarily come to mysteries that are so much bigger than everyday concerns that to encounter them is to experience awe, to experience the sacred.

When working with the elements, we are working with the ground of the experience and the experiencer. To recognize the elements in the natural world, their beauty and interplay, to enter the sacred dance of the elements, is to inhabit a living world full of mystery and potential.

The Reed Lung is the organ of inspiration, the love nest where grace and matter meet.

Diaphanous membrane marks unseen churning, flux of spirit into form, then out again into stillness. This body is a wayside lemonade stand on the road there and back—sweet, sour, pungent, rich. At the touch of invisible presence, the body gasps. The mystery is that inspiration and expiration are the same. Flesh appears for no good reason, heartbeats come for pure delight, breath flows from one unlikely creature to the next; even the empty, abandoned husk morphs to something new, unexpected, exquisite as breath whirls a gale, leaves rustle and scatter, bones rattle laughing, pulses quicken and stop. It’s Spin-the-Bottle, an endless kiss with random partners that leaves every body breathless; the spark of every terror, every rapture, every going, every coming, every ache, thrill, longing, crescendo, birth, decay, revelation.

Relax.

When body declines mind’s frantic clamor, even this hardening against death shows itself as just the reed that shapes the music of the wind.

—John Mizelle

This article is exerpted from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s most recent book, Healing with Form, Energy, and Light: The Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra and Dzogchen, Snow Lion Publications, 2002. Reprinted with the publisher’s permission.

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There is No Sufi Here Shaykha Tasnim Hermila Fernandez, Sufism, and The Dances of Universal Peace

If you drive through the streets of a city or look in the phone book, you never see or find a Sufi center . In fact, if it were not for the relatively recent translations of the ecstatic poetry of Rumi and Hafiz, notably by Coleman Barks and Daniel Ladinsky, and the National Geographic specials on the whirling dervishes, there might not be any awareness of the Sufis among us. They are the hidden ones.

“There’s an old saying, ‘You can never find a Sufi because the Sufi does not exist,’ Shaykha Tasnim Hermila Fernandez tells me. “Sufism is a practice and a state of being. It is something we do and become in the act of doing—so that the self is continually being effaced and, at the same time, becoming one with All, becoming All-ness. So the Sufi might be the guy driving the cab or standing behind the counter at the bakery or the woman sitting at the corporate reception desk. They are veiled; yet, you recognize something about them, their connection to something very deep.”

From the beginning of our telephone conversation, I recognize that Shaykha Tasnim is a person with a very rich and deep connection with the Divine. Her lifelong quest for that connection led her through the study and practice of Hermetics, Alchemy, Vedanta, Kundalini Yoga, Judaism, Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, Huichol Shamanism, Mystical Christianity and Islam. She serves as a representative of the Sufi Order International. Since 1975 she has been a leader and teacher spreading the Dances of Universal Peace. She is a Healing Conductor and Cherag (minister) of the Universal Worship for the Church of All. In 2000 she was ordained as a Sirag (one who is enabled and authorized to train and ordain new ministers).

“At the same time the lineage is alive,” she continues. “It is living because of the connection that the teacher gives to the disciple through initiation. The initiate connects intimately with those beings who have walked the path of the Sufis before him. One passes through one’s teacher who is effaced in her teacher, who is effaced in his teacher, and so on back in time.

“One way to look at it is to think of a drop of water as an individuated being. I am that drop. So if I surrender into the

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ocean, I completely disappear. I, as an individual, die. There is nothing identifiable as me. That’s the fear people confront when they face annihilation. Yet, at the same time that drop becomes immersed and dispersed into the whole ocean. It becomes, in a sense, the ocean itself.

“This begins to approach what a Sufi is. It is a station, a way of being, so that those who have the capacity to know will recognize it and say, ‘There is a Sufi. There is the Khalif Allah, the representative of Allah.’ The Sufi is so empty because they don’t exist as an individual ego, a self-identified person.

At the same time they become so expanded, an ocean of love, the ocean of mercy. They reflect God’s names, God’s qualities and attributes perfectly, and they reflect everyone. Can you imagine a world where sufficient human beings were immersed in that depth? Let’s envision that, please.”

Shaykha Tasnim has been diving into that depth since Hazrat Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, who was then head of the Sufi Order International, initiated her into the way of the Sufis in 1971. I can’t help but remark on how remarkable that was, that at a time when youths were breaking down every type of structure, disordering order, she, as a young woman, was submitting to a master, committing herself to an ancient order. I can’t help but comment on how, these days, people seem to think that they can simple pick and choose the things they like from various traditions and cobble together a workable spiritual path, that traditions and teachers are superfluous on the individual road to enlightenment, that intention is all that matters.

“Well, we must always encourage the seeker in his longing,” she gently admonishes me. “Who is the seeker but God hungering for connection with God? Yet, at a certain point, a person can only guide himself so far. Then he needs someone with greater experience and wisdom. Initially, it might not seem so, because we don’t know that we don’t know. There is a little bit of squeak room. But once the seeker reaches a certain level of introspection and discernment, he is going to need a teacher.

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Photograph © Steve Lovegrove. Image from BigStockPhoto.com.

JONATHAN MERRITT

“All religions are man-made,” Shaykha Tasnim says, “so we forget that. Jesus did not come to found a church, capital C—the Christian church or the Christian religion. He came to awaken the people, to give them a message from God, to speak to them in a way they could understand. Given his audience, he used a lot of agrarian metaphors— mustard seed, fig tree and vine.

They knew what a mustard seed was. The important thing is that the messenger connects the message to the immediate experience of those who are to receive the message.

“In the Koran, those who delivered the message, known and unknown, are said to number one hundred forty-four thousand. One hundred forty-four thousand simply indicates that the number of messengers is large, not that it is limited to this specific amount—innumerable, really. For instance, I can cite Buddha, Moses, Krishna, Mohammed, Jesus, et cetera—I can count thirty, forty, fifty messengers. One hundred fortyfour thousand and more messengers have spoken to the created ones since the first breath was given to Adam. Ultimately, only God knows.

“This Sufi order that I represent, founded in 1910 by Hazrat Inayat Khan, explicitly recognizes Moses, Abraham, Zarathustra, Mary, Hagar, Esther and on and on. How can one not recognize them all? A more subtle point is that if we use the word Sufism (or Tasawwuf in Arabic ), the specific term refers to Islamic mysticism. But what has taken the name of Sufism has always existed. And, yes, gnosis, or mystical knowledge goes back beyond recorded time. You can see traces of it in Egyptian mystery schools and in other ancient traditions. It has always been there.

“The teacher needs to be someone with more experience, who can see where the seeker is on his path and who can inspire the seeker’s submission and obedience. The seeker needs to be able to refine and discipline his ego desires so that his relationship with the teacher is one of trust, of love, of sharing wisdom that is not the teacher’s nor the seeker’s but that awakens the divine knowing that is in their hearts. The purpose is to reconnect to that source that the seeker has never been apart from, to awaken divine qualities that are already there so the seeker becomes more real and more capacious.

And, as that capacity increases, the seeker starts to see that it is God acting through himself and the world. God is the ‘doer.’

The spiritual relationship is of utmost importance because it allows transformation from the ‘unreal’ to the Real.”

I had long been under the impression that Sufism predated Islam and, given that it is actively suppressed in many Islamic nations, that it is somehow separate from Islam.

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“In that sense, I can say Sufism with a small ‘s’ extends beyond Islam. Yet, in another sense, it is nothing but Islam. It is not Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism; nor is it any other mysticism than Islamic mysticism. And that may be hard for people who don’t know much at all about Islam, yet still insist that Sufism is not connected to Islam. So sometimes it’s easier to just use the term ‘mysticism.’

“The Sufis have a very developed science and art of personal transformation, of taking the self from those totally animalistic, instinctual, desire-based actions and reactions, to the most exalted state of human being. Sufism is a path of heart. I know that is an easy catch phrase. But since people don’t know what we mean when we say heart, they think that it excludes the mind. But the mind and the heart, in a manner of speaking, are the same thing. Hazrat Inayat Khan, who brought Sufism to the west, has an aphorism. ‘Mind is the surface of the heart, and heart is the depth of the mind.’ And in Sufism, when we speak about heart, there are seven different degrees or levels or subtleties that we call heart in various forms. Yes, it is a path of the heart, and

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Mind is the surface of the heart, and heart is the depth of the Mind.

—Hazrat Inayat Khan in one system it involves seven levels of purification. It allows a transformation that returns us to our birthright.”

Years ago, I experienced a little of that transformation when I began attending the Dances of Universal Peace that were being held in a cave on the island of Kauai. Previously, I had been engaged in a low level of political activism—organizing poetry readings for various causes and attending peace marches. While I was adamantly nonviolent, the question of violence was never far away.

And in my work there was an overriding sense of fear that manifested as righteousness, as opposition and confrontation.

When I was first invited to join the Dances of Universal Peace, I was skeptical, even cynical about the prospect that dancing together, looking into each other’s eyes and singing sacred songs could have any effect on the powers that ruled the world. What I experienced, though, was a deep connection and powerful loving kindness among the people with whom I danced.

Shaykha Tasnim tells me, “The central transformative aspect of the dances has to do with the sacred phrases. They are either a revered name of a master saint, a prophet, or a phrase that has come through scripture. When they are sung or spoken, there is potency in the vibration. So when people enunciate those sounds together, it multiplies the effect. As Jesus said, ‘When two or more gathered in my name—in my sound, in my vibration—I am there.’ When a group of people intones a holy name, then that presence comes. It is an invocation.

“The rhythm is also a powerful element. The dances have structure. So, the group is intoning and chanting together, and also using their bodies and moving in consonance. This moving together in consonance also helps unify the field.

Then, as people get comfortable with the choreography and with singing in a language they don’t speak, they can focus more on the state of their own consciousness.

“All of this is subtle. In a partner dance everyone is moving together and singing the same phrase but each person you meet is like a whole different world. Even though we’ve set up some parameters, we’re still vibrating at a different rate. A skilled dancer who meets a new dancer in the circle can modify his vibrational rate to meet the new dancer’s rate, then adjust that rate to help raise the new dancer’s vibration. The experienced dancer slowly lifts the new dancer into resonance and

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connection with herself and with the community. If the new dancer has that experience of being lifted into connection, in two hours, that alters her makam, her everyday consciousness.

So she feels expanded. Perhaps she has a deeper or higher feeling about herself, emotionally.

“The trick is integrating that expanded state so it isn’t just a high that doesn’t serve anything. Through repetition of the dance experience, through familiarity with the basic dynamics, one gains the freedom to focus on one’s own state and intention. One is learning how to access and apply exactly that expansiveness in everyday life. In that way, perhaps, the dances might bring about a greater peace in the community.”

Although I only attended the dances for about six months and didn’t seek out another Dance for Universal Peace after I left Kauai, one phrase, ‘Ishk Allah, ma’abood l’Llah,’ has stayed with me for twenty years. I saw my chance to find out what it means.

“The whole phrase says—in a poor translation because Arabic is so rich—‘God is love, lover and beloved.’ But the love is a particular kind of love that we don’t have words for in English.

One image, and this is pretty strong, is of a vine that begins to wind itself around another plant or tree and it is so powerful that it completely takes over, swallows up, and consumes the other plant. It completely obliterates any ‘other’ presence than itself. There is no ‘other.’ There is only one unity, only One Reality.

“If God is the lover and beloved between whom this dynamic experience happens, then where are you? What’s your place in all that? Does it not include you? Are you at one pole or another? Are you standing outside? You get subsumed in that phrase. So the beloved is all—the lover is nothing, on one hand. But we say that God is the love, the lover, and the beloved. How can the lover be nothing? There is no beloved without the lover. The one who extols and uplifts and idolizes and worships and serves the ideal, the beloved, is critically necessary, and is none other than God. God is the doer. So that is where the erasing of the ego identification may take place—God willing.

“This effacement of the personal self, the small self that would claim all power to itself in regard to decision making, even up to the presidency, turns that petty tyrant more into a servant. In Arabic, the word, jihad, means struggle. And there are two types of jihad—the lesser, which is the outward struggle against the enemy or oppressor; and the greater jihad, the inner struggle which is you against your ego. That’s where the battle is: the battle of overcoming our pettiness, arrogance, selfcentered absorption and vices. That is a more holy war than anything external. But the benefit is not only personal—it advances the health of the whole humanity.”

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All this talk about spiritual paths— Abstinence, chastity, gods and all that.

How about gluttony?

I celebrate the path of overeating.

How about voluptuousity?

I follow the path of breast, belly, lip.

I worship at the shrine of Too Much And I love my Things, especially my Ipod.

I love napping, noshing, and gossiping on the phone, Trading half-truths with my friends.

Midnight ice cream cones—with pretzels

Photograph © Merriam Fontanilla. Image from BigStockPhoto.com.

And sleeping late, very late And anything else deemed not good for me, Like transfats, Especially transfats.

Who can say what truly pleases the gods?

Fat and happy, That’s my creed.

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SHYAMDAS

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am a student and practitioner of the Path of Fire-filled Devotion as taught by Shri Mahaprabhu Vallabhacharya (1479-1531). He was one of India’s five main Acharyas, and the root guru of the Path of Grace. His teachings are originally in Sanskrit, and I have spent the past thirty-four years studying and translating his works. How fire is related to devotion has fascinated me since I first came into contact with the Path of Fiery Devotion which we also call the Path of Grace.

To understand the divine connection between fire and devotion we must turn to the teachings of the great devotional master Shrimad Vallabhacharya himself. He is called the Fire God. Fire is also the devata (deity) of speech, and therefore, Shri Vallabhacharya is Vaka Pati, the Lord of Speech. He blessed this world with exalted teachings. He taught that devotion to God’s feet is cool, as it is based in servitude, while loving devotion to God’s face burns with desire and divine longing.

The grace-filled way to the Beloved is to sing our hearts out to God while we burn in the bliss of divine separation. Renunciation of what is unnecessary and listening to true teachings are also key practices. It is an intense Path which brings us face to face with the eternal Beloved here within this world.

I originally came to India knowing nothing of this Path. I arrived in Vrindavan in 1972 and met the great saint Neem Karoli Baba. After he left his body in 1973, I continued on the amazing fire path of grace. It made perfect sense to me that God should be comprised of pure nectar, unlimited, devoid of difference and unattainable except, of course, through love. As my search continued, I began to study classical Indian singing and the poems which spoke of this lovely Krishna, who is ineffable, yet can somehow be described by his lovers. I was taught that the Beloved appears before those who burn with His joyous rapture. In the midst of this adventure, I took initiation in the Path of Grace from His Holiness, Goswami Prathameshji. He whispered to me a mantra that his forefather, Shri Vallabhacharya, received directly from the Blessed Lord: Thousands of years have passed in separation from You, and I am filled with intense pain and anguish. I have lost my true joy and now dedicate my body, senses, vital breath, mind, intelligence, reason and sense of self, along with all their functions, as well as my spouse, children, house, relatives, and wealth, in this world or any other, along with my soul, to You, Shri Krishna.

O, Krishna, I am yours.

Shri Vallabhacharya teaches pure non-dualism, that his world, the entire creation, is comprised of God and nothing but God. This pure monistic

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Devotion ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARK GILLILAND

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view inspires us to discover divine joy within ourselves as well as throughout Creation. To experience God everywhere is the foundational tenet. It is the Path as well as the Reward.

For grace-filled souls, the world is not unreal or something to overcome, but rather, a divine realm wherein Shri Krishna and His manifold creation can be experienced as a Lila, a divine play. Shri Vallabhacharya, the Lord of Fire, encourages us to live happily in this world and offer our bodies, wealth, hearts and everything to the Lord of Sweetness, Shri Krishna.

The Beloved pays close attention to those who adore Him and returns every favor one-hundred-fold. To know and love Him is devotion. To experience His rapture is Grace. The Path of Grace inspires us to employ the powers of our hearts and minds in His pleasure. It encourages us to use our bodies and every resource in a brilliant and sensitive manner, so that we ultimately become possessed by Divinity. In that blessed state, there is no need for liberation! The blessed ones who are able to withstand the force of His love imbibe the drops of nectar that overflow from the Beloved’s bliss. Then, endless creative expressions arise in the practitioner’s life and are offered to the Beloved of all souls.

Dedication involves a total offering. Then one’s heart opens and songs of praise, called kirtan, arise. Kirtan singing became one of my main devotional occupations—I became a temple singer and found kirtan to be the direct approach. In the words of Mahaprabhu Vallabhacharya: The blessings of the great bhaktas always produce blissful praises, which are unlike the tunes of worldly people; it is like comparing stale dry food to a rich delicious meal.

(Nirodha Lakshana 5) The poet and singer, Surdas, adds, The pleasures of singing of Gopal are not equalled by mantra recitations, austerities, or by bathing in millions of holy places.

When our hearts are offered to the Beloved, every sense becomes filled with God consciousness. Shrimad Vallabhacharya further enlightens, in the mood of Shri Krishna’s beloved Gopis: We experience Krishna with our eyes. We feel Him through all of our senses. Hari is the desire, the festival of our hearts.

To imbibe Krishna’s form is the ultimate reward. To have conversations with God, to behold Him, to embrace Him, is what we live for.

We have heard the nectar of His flute and now savor His fragrance everywhere. We approach Krishna directly and stand in His joyful proximity. We integrate all of these bhavas continually into our devotion. Understand us: we know that the fruit of attaining human form is to use God-given senses to

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experience God—to join them in Hari’s pleasure. We want to behold Him with our eyes, or better yet, with all our senses. To imbibe His form, His divine essence for us, is the only reward.

We have no use for that liberation of merging into Brahman, where the ability to taste and discern Him is annihilated… If we merged with Hari, we would not be allowed the opportunity to experience Him. (Subodhini Yugal Gita) This Path embraces contradictions. It arises where fire can burn on water, where union is found in separation, and where there is intensity, yet humility. This Path is never dependent on a particular practice—only upon the Beloved. I was spiritually relieved to discover this. I continue to contemplate the fact that pride of practice, anxiety, and false expectations are all obstructions to coming face to face with the Beloved.

As my search continued, I began looking to Sanskrit sources, where I found other jewel-like teachings in the writings of Shri Harirayaji, Shri Vallabhacharya’s great, great grandson. He was an esteemed teacher who summarized the teachings of the fiery path of grace-filled devotion, in these Sanskrit verses which I have translated: When the absence of all means is the means to achieve the fruit, and when the fruit is the means, know that to be the Blessed Path.

When worldly and scriptural achievements are accomplished through the Lord’s grace alone and never through the devotee’s efforts, know this to be the Blessed Path.

When the Lord accepts the soul without considering her qualifications and does so without delay, know this to be the Blessed Path.

When a devotee who has understood the intention of the scriptural injunctions remains attached to the Lord Himself and has no obsession for scriptural practice, know this to be the Blessed Path.

When there is no consideration of virtue or defect, and when there is a continual feeling of appreciation for all the Lord’s deeds, know that to be the Blessed Path.

When thought is never given to worldly and scriptural satisfaction, and is given only to please the Lord, know this to be the Blessed Path.

When there is not an infinitesimal reason for the Lord’s selection of the soul, and the choice depends solely upon His divine sweet will, know this to be the Blessed Path.

When devotion is independent, does not require the external manifestation of the Lord, and leads to all types of divine experiences, know this to be the Blessed Path.

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When there is no fear of the world and the scriptures because of profuse divine attachment, and when everything other than the Blessed Lord appears as an obstacle, know this to be the Blessed Path.

When relationship is both the means and the achievement and is established according to Krishna’s sweet desire, know this to be the Blessed Path.

When anything related to the Lord is treated as if it is the Lord Himself, anything unrelated is treated with indifference, and anything in opposition to the Lord is opposed, know this to be the Blessed Path.

the flute, melodious notes fill Vrindavan and enrapture the hearts of anyone who can hear the call.” This Krishna, a herder of cows, the son of Yashoda, the butter-thief and Beloved of the Gopis, is the object, means and reward of the grace-filled practice that arises with the fire of devotion.

Kirtan singers are always looking forward to celebrating Krishna. The Sanskrit word, utsava, means festival, but also carries the meaning of delight, merriment and pleasure.

Utsavas, devotional celebrations, elevate not only the mood of the bhakta, but of Shri Krishna as well. Shri Krishna is always in a festive mood. The astha chhap poet, Chaturbhujadas, sings, Today, Krishna is new.

When no concern is shown for one’s body, etc., and a keen desire for Him always lingers, know this to be the Blessed Path.

Tomorrow, He is something else.

When devotion has no expectation for reciprocation from God, and when the divine sentiment is nourished, know this to be the Blessed Path.

Shri Giridhar, the Mountain Holder—

When there is a reversal in the order of the means and the attainment, and when devotional attachment is the attainment as well as the means, know this to be the Blessed Path.

When humility is the singular means for the Lord’s manifestation, and the humility aroused in separation is the fruit, know this to be the Blessed Path.

When the soul always feels remembered by Krishna due to total attachment to His feet and is able to forget mundane pleasures, that is the Blessed Path.

I was hooked. The combination of wisdom teachings, nondual view, fire devotion and the all-attractive Beloved was all I needed. My songs continue to be offered to Shri Krishna, who is described as, “Dark as a rain-filled cloud, adorned with peacock feathers, wild flowers and a gunja bead necklace. He graces the banks of the Yamuna River, and when He applies His lips to

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Every day, He is more and more.

the Enjoyer of the refined mood.

Kirtan, the singing of Hari’s praises, is continually new. Every sacred word, although repeated countless times, always carries with it new and inspired meaning that melt the heart of the devotee. Kirtan is sung, then heard with the ears and digested into the devotional heart. Then, fired with devotion, we are inspired to sing again. These inspired songs make their way to the Beloved, Who responds from the abode of Devotion that rests upon the realm of liberaton. Beware—it is addicting, as the poet, Rasakhan, has said: Listen, my friend!

Don’t enter that narrow path where Krishna plays His flute.

If you go there and see Him, Krishna will capture your soul and send you home with a shattered heart.

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Nature Spirits, Ancestral Spirits, and the Sangoma COLIN CAMPBELL

Colin Campbell spent the first years of his life in Botswana, at a time when much of the traditional culture was still intact. From the time of his birth, he suffered an illness that ranged from mild uneasiness to attacks of acute cramping in his whole body, accompanied by blinding headaches. The illness kept him from employment. It seemed as if his very soul was sick. In 1975, he met Hambukushu headman Samutjao Mareka. Samutjao performed a divination in which he described Campbell’s situation and told him that it was caused by the ancestors. It was, he said, “the illness of calling.” In the years that followed, other divinations echoed that diagnosis. It became apparent that the only way he could survive was by learning African medicine and participating in rituals for many years. In 1999, he was initiated as a Sangoma (spirit medium) under the tutelage of Porogwane Kaote, a Sangoma and initiation master, and his symptoms disappeared and have not returned. Campbell presently co-runs a traditional training school and initiation center for traditional doctors and sangomas. He also has a practice in Cape Town, South Africa, from which he consults and runs programs based in Southern African cosmology.

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his is a time when the great power of the human mind displays itself in the most spectacular and awe-inspiring ways. The dazzling glitter of technology entrances, enraptures and brings comfort and relief from the hardships of living in a world of unpredictable temperament. Truly it would seem that the mind conquers and nature retreats in the face of technology’s power and majesty.

But what is really happening? What drives us to conquer and control, to harness and capture, to annihilate and destroy?

Most importantly, where is this path leading us? These are questions growing numbers of people are asking as they realize that modern science and its resultant technology have a price.

As Fritjof Capra points out in his book The Tao of Physics, “Modern physics has fundamentally changed the conditions of life on this planet both in beneficial and detrimental ways.”

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These changes have dramatically accelerated over the last quarter of a century, becoming rapid and relentless as though driven by some deep compulsion. According to modern psychology, the root of compulsion is often identified as fear.

One of the primary compulsive drives of science has been to systematically eliminate as many external threats as possible.

We fear the unpredictability of nature, therefore conquering nature through technology makes us feel less vulnerable and fragile, at least temporarily.

At first sight this course of action makes sense and the success of this line of logic is clearly evident —prolonged life expectancy, reduced infant mortality rates, the eradication of many dreaded diseases, more comfortable and convenient living and so on.

Many, however, feel a nagging pang that something is terribly wrong, that all this triumph is a mere façade. Many feel that the cost of our comfort is the loss of something deep within our beings, perhaps the very essence of life itself.

We need to rethink our whole approach to solving the problems of the so-called human condition. Modern technology may indeed be a powerful tool, however it is a small part of a much broader process. To discover a path to true healing, it will be necessary to broaden our search beyond the bounds of the modern scientific paradigm. I believe that the search must include the investigation of the beliefs and methodologies of our ancestors—not anthropological research and documentation, but rather an openhearted willingness to enter into and explore experientially from the perspective of fundamentally different paradigms. I believe that this approach will open new vistas of possibility and may in time reveal a way towards true planetary healing.

Most indigenous cultures tell us that all things are part of a single whole. From this vantage, it follows that all that we perceive and experience, not only what we define as ourselves but also that which we see as separate and other, is no less part of the self. Even modern physics, with the advent of

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Photo by Craig Sadler spirit world offering guidance to those trained in its language, who seek council on the daily affairs of the greater community.

The spirit world or the unseen world, as it is referred to among the people of Southern Africa, is the place from which all people come when they are born and to which they must return when they die. It is the primary source of all that manifests in the physical world. Most importantly, it is the home of the ancestral guiding spirits who play such a prominent role in African cosmology. In fact, for indigenous cultures of Southern Africa, life is not possible without the guidance and support of the ancestral spirits. quantum field theory, validates this understanding of the universe. In many pre-industrial cultures these feelings and understandings formed a core that acted not only as a central guiding principle, but also as glue that held them together in harmonious relationship with the rest of nature. We might call these principles and their attendant attitudes and feelings “universal lore.” It may be that if we are able to re-identify and connect with universal lore as both individuals and as humanity, we may find a primary key to the conundrum of global restoration and healing.

Nature spirits, ancestors and the roots of the Sangoma tradition in Southern Africa It could be said that the wilderness represents the basis of life among the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. It is the teacher, the provider and the home of spirits who interact in constant dynamic relationship with the community. There are certain sacred hills where the ancestral spirits of tribal chiefs live; rivers and lakes where the spirits that govern the weather and regulate the seasons may be found. If it is understood that God, operating through ancestral spirits, governs traditional communities, then nature represents the means by which these spirits communicate with the people. Every aspect of nature, every movement, every change is understood as a voice from the

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The unseen world of the ancestors lies under the ground.

When a person is born, his spirit comes up from under the ground to take up residence in the fetus. When a person dies, his spirit, carried on the wings of their last breath, returns to the world beneath the ground. The place where a dead person is buried is very important as this is where the spirit, if it so desires, may return to the physical world in order to interact with the living.

In the wilderness may also be found portals that join the physical with the spirit world—caves, deep ravines, river confluences and deep pools of water or springs found in the hills. In these places the connection between the two worlds is strongest. They are therefore locations where ritual aimed at the communion with spirits may be performed most effectively.

In African tradition, the elders of the community are the keepers and conveyers of knowledge and wisdom. Because they have lived long and experienced much, they know about life and the world. They are therefore seen as the natural leaders in the community. When old and greatly respected people die, their roles as advisors and teachers may not end.

After a period of time following death, the spirit of the elder may choose to return as an ancestral spirit to offer guidance and assistance to the living. Such ancestral spirits also become mediators between the living and the creator. The creator is

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very distant from the living and therefore interaction is only possible through the ancestral spirits.

Ancestral spirits communicate with the living in three primary ways. First, spirits may communicate through signs and omens that occur in the course of everyday life.

Many out of the ordinary occurrences are understood to be communications from spirits. These signs need to be interpreted by one who is specially trained, in order to differentiate the communications of ancestral spirits from manifestations of malevolent harmful spirits or acts of witchcraft inflicted on the community by practitioners of manipulative destructive magic. The second means of communication may involve the use by ancestral spirits of dreams and visions, many of which are prophetic in nature, offering information about the future and unseen causes of occurrences in the community, such as disease, famine or drought. The third and probably the most important way involves a living person who is chosen by one or more ancestral spirits to act as a medium through whom the spirit directly communicates with the living. The medium or host is believed to be chosen either because he or she is a direct descendent of the ancestral spirit or because the person has extraordinary psychic powers conducive to strong connection with the spirit world. The medium also becomes the person who is able to make requests for guidance and other forms of assistance from ancestral spirits on behalf of the community.

Nature spirits may also choose to interact with the living.

Nature spirits are the guardians and keepers of natural places of power or the portals in nature previously mentioned. Some of these nature spirits, mainly those that are the keepers of natural pools and springs in hills, are said to command and control the weather, wind, rain, lightening, storms and frost.

Often such spirits take the form of a very large snake that has the head of a goat and may be heard to cry in the bush at night like a newborn baby.

There are those among the living who have specialized skill in communicating with nature spirits on behalf of the rest of the community. In times of drought, for example, they will go to the pool of the water snake, accompanied by the chief and selected elders from the community, and give offerings of livestock, beer and other food and make a request for rain.

On other occasions, they may ask permission from the spirit keepers of a hill for healers to go and collect medicinal plants.

These plants then carry the healing and transformative powers of the spirit keeper of the hill as well as the medicinal qualities of the plant itself. The nature spirits mostly communicate in symbolic language understandable only to mediums with special training. For example, a particular wind occurring after the request has been made may mean that the hill may

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not be approached on that day, or the song of a particular bird might signify that the water snake is pleased and will grant the request of rain.

Persons chosen by ancestral spirits to become mediums usually display typical symptoms of illness referred to as “the illness of calling.” The symptoms may include headaches, epileptic fits, convulsions, psychotic episodes, chest pains, paralysis (particularly of the legs), lack of appetite, chronic exhaustion and continual bad luck. On occasion, such people may be seen to run into the bush in a deep trance state where they roam for days eating wild berries and raw meat. If the illness persists, members of the individual’s family take him or her to a diviner who establishes the authenticity of the calling. Thereafter, training in the system of traditional spirit mediumship may begin.

There are three kinds of possessing spirits. Firstly, a relative who has died may return to possess a grand or great grand child. Secondly, a spirit who was unable to find a host among the community of her origin may possess a person from a distant land. Thirdly, a nature spirit who wishes to interact with the community may seek out a human host.

Among the people of Southern Africa, mediums chosen by one or more of these three kinds of possessing spirit have come to be called Sangomas. Literally translated “the people of the song,” Sangoma refers to the fact that when the medium becomes possessed he or she will enter into a deep trance and then sing a specific song that announces the presence of a particular spirit.

On occasion, possession may first be indicated when, with no apparent warning or after long periods of affliction with the illness of calling, the possessed person awakens during the night singing the song of a particular ancestral spirit. This is an indication in many traditions that it is time to begin training as a medium. Once the Sangoma has completed training, the spirits are kept under control by regular dancing and singing in order to avoid further occurrence of the illness of calling.

Drumming, dancing and singing play a major part in the rituals and ceremonies of the Sangoma tradition and many of their ceremonies play a central role in traditional community life.

While Sangomas primarily act as mediums for possessing spirits, the roles that they play in the community may be much broader. During their lives the possessing spirits may have had specific talents or acquired certain kinds of knowledge. Some may have been accomplished herbalists, traditional doctors, initiation masters or even craftsmen such as wood carvers or potters. When these spirits return to possess a person, they teach their skills to the host through dreams, visions and by talking to people while possessing the medium. In this way there are areas of specialization in the Sangoma tradition. One

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Nature Spirits, Ancestral Spirits, and the Sangoma

Sangoma might be well known as an herbalist or traditional doctor, while another may specialize in conducting the ceremonies associated with the rite of passage during the time of coming of age. Others might possess skills in the solving of civil disputes, court cases, business strategy and a huge array of other possible skills that the community may draw on.

Spirit possession and the initiating of Sangomas among people of western cultural background Over the last twenty years, more and more instances of spirit possession among people of western cultural origin are being treated through initiation into the Sangoma traditions of Southern Africa. These people find that symptoms for which they had fruitlessly sought solutions in western medicine, closely resemble those described by Sangomas as “the illness of calling.” A Sangoma is consulted and, through divination, verifies that they are possessed by ancestral spirits. They are advised that the only effective means of treatment open to them is to enter training and initiation as Sangomas themselves.

The accuracy of this diagnosis is proven time and again as sufferers from “the illness of calling” emerge from training and initiation cured of their symptoms. People who have suffered complete and unexplained paralysis of the lower body for months or in some cases years are able to walk again. Chronic epileptic fits, psychosis, chronic migraine headaches and chronic fatigue disappear to be replaced by vibrant health and a sense of renewed inner strength and well being.

In late 2001, the first three students to be trained at the Ngwenyama school for traditional healers completed their initiation as Sangomas. At this writing in October 2006, a further twenty-three students have completed initiation.

Twelve of the students reside and continue their post initiation training in Cape Town, South Africa.

Practising as a Sangoma is a way of life rather than a career.

It is extremely difficult if not impossible for a Sangoma to live and practice in isolation from other Sangomas. Many of the rituals and treatments that form an essential part of the Sangomas life and practice require the support of others who know the specific songs, dances and rituals. If these people are not Sangomas themselves, they are certainly closely associated and either live or spend much of their time with them. For this reason, there is a strong sense of community, mutual support and shared responsibility among Sangomas. Each school or mpanda as it is called in Zulu, becomes a kind of extended family for students and graduates alike.

I have been deeply struck by the strength of bonding between the students who have been initiated as Sangomas in the Ngwenyama school. The beliefs and practices of Sangomas are

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deeply rooted in the African tradition. In order to practice as a Sangoma, irrespective of background or culture, many of these traditions have to be incorporated, often as part of an almost completely new way of life. For those who come from a western cultural background, the Sangoma way of life is substantially different. Suddenly it becomes necessary to operate and live within a collective social structure, which is very different from the individualistic way of living characteristic of western culture. While most who have been through the training will attest that this is perhaps the hardest part of the whole process, I have nonetheless been amazed at how with relative ease a completely new social structure has begun to emerge within the modern urban environment here in Cape Town. The most interesting thing about this subculture is that it is neither typically African nor Western but rather a blend of the two, seemingly incorporating some of the best attributes from the parent cultures.

Of course there is the argument that this is a very small group of people who have undergone a very specific training.

It is not to say that the answer to the problems of social breakdown in industrialised culture is for everyone to train as Sangomas. Rather, the Sangoma community represents a cameo where a set of practices and understandings form a core around which a strong sense of community seems to be developing very successfully. It seems to me that many of the major issues that people face in western cultural settings affect most people in these environments in a remarkably similar way. Of these, the feelings of isolation, separation and aloneness seems to be the most prominent. It is probable that the high levels of violent crime and civil unrest can ultimately be attributed at least in part to an expression or reaction to these deep, underlying feelings.

How can we begin the process of re-dreaming our future as human beings on this planet? What will it take to begin turning the tide of devastation wrought by the sweep of industrial globalisation? First, I believe we need to begin looking very deeply at both our individual and collective understanding of relationship. I believe that the understandings and practices of indigenous cultures and their deep knowledge of the interdependency of all things offer a profound point of entry to this investigation. Many of the tools and practices used in traditional African culture offer ways of exploring the individual’s relationship to psyche, body, spirit, other people and the greater environment. These processes offer the potential of awakening deep innate awareness of our place in the universe and our inseparable relationship with all things. I believe that reawakening this awareness may be the key which could ultimately save us and many of the other life forms with which we share this earth from certain annihilation.

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ON RIGHT TIMING

Rock Courtship of Eagles SUSAN CHERNAK McELROY

Just as no amount of effort will block the tide, no amount of effort will bring an event to fruition before its time.

— Daniel Quinn, The Tales of Adam

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could not stop myself from looking at the buds on the aspens several times a day to see if they’d fattened any. They are great teaser trees, setting out small versions of their buds before winter to torment me for six months with dreams of springtime. I’m a West Coast girl, raised where daffodils poke up out of the ground in February, and crocuses even before that. While my body assured me that spring was in the air, most of the evidence outside kept telling me that it was not.

On a morning of blowing snow, and icicles dangling from the bird feeders, my heart and my eyes were in battle, and my eyes were winning. I could not deny the winter still in evidence all around me, yet yesterday on the elk refuge, I watched in amazement as two golden eagles mated. With my binoculars, I saw them sitting on the outermost craggy edge of a butte, indistinguishable from the rocks all around them except for their subtle movements. They sat side by side for the longest time, moving closer together in incremental steps the distance of a finger’s width.

When their shoulders touched, the male—usually just a breath smaller than the female—reached out and gently began preening the short, arrow-shaped feathers of her head. In turn, she bent her neck to allow him better access. As she lowered her head, I saw her cere flash brilliant yellow like a small shaft of gold in stone.

The male shifted slightly, and with no fanfare he eased up onto the female’s slender shoulders. His claws touched her back,

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dark wings cloaklike and spreading awkwardly for balance. I saw the female raise her tail swiftly as the male swayed back and forth once, then twice, and then it was over. In the span of only a moment, the male was settling down next to the female again, both of them ruffling their feathers back into shape.

I could scarcely believe what I’d seen, in part because the tryst was so fleeting. But also because it was so unexpected, a quick blast of heat in stark contrast with the ashen, cold surroundings. On my porch that morning, the memory seemed all the more surreal.

On the refuge, elk still roamed, a lazy wave. Their coats were thick and bristly like shaving brushes, and they sported winter colors of soft tan and creamy white. I was missing the sight of them in full sable summer pelage, missing the smell of grass that always surrounded them then, and missing the shiny, almost reflective sleekness they shared with all the summer mammals, from foxes to marmots.

In the field next door, three horses had their noses in a pile of hay, their rumps turned toward me, fuzzy as rabbits. A flicker made his way up the fence post, hanging on like an elegant tick, progressing upward by a series of tiny leaps and grabs. When he went back down the post, he simply fell by tiny increments, his black feet reaching out again and again like small grappling hooks.

Flickers are beautiful when they flash their wings, all fire-red underneath, but my heart was longing for the molten yellow and black of the meadowlark, the green uprising of skunk cabbage spears, and the smell of dirt.

It’s not time, the snow seemed to say. Not time? The idea agitated me as much as the cold did. Why not? It was time for the eagles yesterday!

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Illustration by Helen Granger

asked me why she remained partner-less after years of fruitless searching, and I heard myself say to her, “It’s not time yet.”

I saw them instantly in my memory, joined, teetering, all wing and muscle. The words of Rolling Thunder, a Cherokee holy man, came to me. He had spoken once about the idea of timing, and about how the right timing of all things was so very important. All the good deeds in the world, he claimed, were useless if their timing was not right. And the right thing at the wrong time was not the right thing at all.

I flung handfuls of sunflower seeds onto the falling snow, and instantly a riot of rosy finches appeared, massing on the ground like a scattering of jumbled thoughts. It was time for the eagles yesterday. Yes, it was time. Eagle hearts are exquisitely tuned to nature’s gentle urgings. It was time. Just as surely as it was not yet time for the lark, the skunk cabbage, or the dirt. For an instant I imagined their returning at the wrong time. The lark freezes at midnight and falls off the fence railing, a tumbling yellow planet striking the snow. The shoots of skunk cabbage wither like crumpled, brown paper. The dirt turns lifeless and hard.

In my mind’s ear, I heard my boyfriend tell me, “It’s just not time yet,” when I confided to him that I didn’t know which way my life was calling me to turn, and that I wondered why nothing was showing itself as a comforting signpost. A good friend

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Above the beams on the porch sat old robins’ nests. I had left them there to remind me of spring and the urgent squeaks of baby birds. They remained empty because it was not time yet.

I wondered if the elk or the foxes felt the same urgency I did to merge my impatient heart and my undeniable vision into a united whole. But I suspected they were the ones who taught Rolling Thunder about the importance of right timing in the first place.

Spring is loaded with surprises, possibilities, great expectations and ideas, unexpected dreams, and bushels of life, but this treasure chest opens not according to our timetable, which is often just the child of our impatience, but to the mysterious call of right timing. Utterly out of our control, right timing must be acknowledged, respected, and accepted. It will not be harnessed, and it is usually recognized and understood only after it has arrived or passed.

Arrow pushed the door open and rushed out to greet me, the entire back half of her body wagging as strongly as the tail behind it. Was it time for a walk? This is what she asks of me most mornings. “Yes, Arrow,” I said to her, “it’s exactly the right time.”

From the book Why Buffalo Dance. Copyright © 2006 by Susan Chernak McElroy. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com

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There’s No Place the White Clouds Can’t Go*

Nowhere the plumage of doves and angels isn’t moving over the dusty stairways of the Ancient City.

The Moorish tiles spell as always, the name of God in letters of fire, in the shade of blue that is exactly your eyes after love.

I know both those loves.

They take wing inside me, as if I were an invented city and you had designed the streets.

I am all plaza and gazebo, 100% zocalo where women with dark eyes in long silks spin in an ecstasy of Godfire.

That is how it is entirely.

Just like that.

Ajah, Ajah, Come to me as if you are me and I will come to you Every alley, every sidewalk crack is breathing in enormous broken joy You know we have come at last home because we can’t see anything here that is not already the Beloved.

—Judyth Hill

*from Shu Shan K’uang Jen 9th Century, Chinese

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My friend and I were talking, pouring out the litany of blockages that had befallen us.

Problems everywhere – physical injuries, technical snafus, people quitting, misunderstood communications, deadlines missed, empty bank accounts.

“It’s raining shit,” I said.

“I’m up to my knees in it,” she agreed.

“We’re up to our knees in shit! It’s everywhere. Everywhere!”

We mulled over the Divine connection.

Photograph © Tan Kian Khoon. Image from BigStockPhoto.com.

I looked out the window and it struck me.

“Listen,” I said. “It’s Spring! In Springtime the earth is covered with shit, and everything just drinks it in. Drinks it in! And then grows green and blossoms with beautiful blooms.

“Drink the shit!” I cried, “We’ve got to drink the shit!”

It was silent on her end. Was I out of my mind?

“You won’t believe this,” she finally said, “but last night I dreamt I was drinking from a toilet.”

A NIGHT WITH

N O T H I N G YAEL GRAUER Photo by M.E. McCourt

I wanted to live with nothing.

My brother was getting his Ph.D. My best friend from high school had started her first year of vet school. I had previously wanted to track wolves, jaguars, tigers—or to make healing salves and tinctures from the plants I sang to and that sometimes sang back. I had wanted to play with words all day, to be a writer. But I was past all that. I just wanted to be free.

I wanted to shed the burdens of everyday existence, dissolve my connections in the interwoven web we call community, and let go of the items that were keeping me tied down to a physical location: books, car, furniture. I wanted to shed the layers of civilization, to get down to the core. I wanted to let go of my umbilical cord and surrender to the Earth Mother.

But my dreams are always more pristine than reality. Ideas of perfect balance, harmony and attunement with nature never quite play out like the movies in my head. I had to learn the hard way that things are not always as they appear, and Gaia was not all flowers and fairy dust.

I picked the Chiricahaus for my experiment because they beckoned and I heard their call. I knew that these mountains, sometimes referred to as the Galapagos of the United States, contained the largest wilderness area of Southern Arizona, filled with an incredible range of biological diversity. But mostly I was intrigued by stories of Lozen, Dahteste, Cochise, Geronimo and other Apache warriors and scouts who had roamed the rugged landscape 120 years ago. If I was really quiet when I visited, I could feel their spirits.

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So off I went to the Chiricahaus, luckily with a friend who knew the terrain. I had taken some classes in wilderness awareness and survival with the desire to be self-reliant and have the ability to live with nothing. My friend had taken many more classes, and even more importantly had mastered some of the skills. He had lived in many different climates with nothing, finding clean water, building basic shelters. He had even spent time in the Chiricahaus with nothing but the clothes on his back, a cooking pot and a knife.

My friend seemed just as lost in the “urban” world, as I felt in these mountains. I found my apartment in the Ol’ Pueblo cozy and comfortable, but he found difficulty with modern means of acquiring shelter and food. He couldn’t quite seem to get the hang of the necessary tasks for urban survival, such as using a telephone and filling out a job application. The noise of the cars, the sound of the trains, sleeping on a mattress, interacting in crowds—all these things unnerved him. But in nature he was solid, and I found comfort in his experience and skill level, his knowledge of the terrain. I knew that his presence would make this trek less dangerous. Besides, I’d taken all these classes because I wanted to be more connected to the earth, and they had pushed me further and further away from my relationships with friends who just didn’t understand. Finally I’d met someone who did and we were going to leave the shackles of civilization, at least for a few days.

I brought a tarp and some water. I decided that focusing on fire, food and other primitive skills was enough—no need to add building a shelter to the mix, let alone trying to find and purify water in the desert.

It was winter, and I was hungry. I had decided we should bring no food. It wouldn’t kill us; they say the body can survive for up to forty days without food. Besides, I had my car and knew the nearest diner. But my goal was to not use it.

I had thought that we could harvest some food. Although I saw juniper, the berries were not ripe and are best used as a flavoring or as medicine. Although I saw the beautiful red manzanita bark, it was winter and there were no berries. There were no acorns on the oak trees. And there was no roadkill to be found. I saw a lone thistle and finally gathered some grass, chewing on the fibrous roots.

My stomach growled. I was still hungry.

But the body can get used to hunger. I’d done that before too. And I thought about it. I could live out here. I could perfect the skills I was working on. I could set up a trap line in the larder zone where I had already seen a lot of tracks. I could improve my cordage skills, beating the fibrous agave and making rope. I could go up higher in the mountains and gather twigs, leaves and branches, trade in my tarp and paracord for a debris hut. I could drink water condensation and boil stream water, and wash my hands with the saponins. I could make grass mats with cordage all night long, use deer bones to make awls and tools. I could survive the winter and welcome in the spring. I could live closely in tune with the cycle of the seasons, to the heartbeat of the planet. But there was one thing that was missing. A village.

What good is harvesting medicine with no one to give it to? What good is finding beautiful tracks and making crafts without anyone to share them with? Even thistles are somehow tastier with company.

These primitive skills were nice in and of themselves, but I was discovering that they weren’t enough.

My friend and I did not feel completely alone in the Chiricahaus, however. We actually felt like we were being watched. I found this a bit unnerving. And I was hungry. And I was cold. I had to get a fire going.

The earth was so cold, so cold that my bones hurt. I was frozen. The temperature brought back memories of being emotionally distant, cold and closed off. Shutting down always made me feel less Number Five

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NOTHING

vulnerable. It was a defense mechanism to avoid sharp, searing pain. But too much coldness brings numbness and the answer is always the same—open up your heart so you can be alive again.

They say the Earth is our mother because it supplies everything we need, but somehow I don’t remember my own mother making me leave the crib to harvest wood myself. We needed to dig a fire pit first, but didn’t have a digging stick. We had a stick but we needed a fire to char the end to a sharp point to make the digging easier. But then we needed to dig a hole before building the fire.

This is so primitive; it is before the time of holes and buckets. Luckily, I had a shovel to keep my musing at bay (and to dig an eight inch hole). Thank God for modern tools.

“The Earth loves you,” one of my teachers used to say, “but not as much as she loves sucking the heat from your body.” I stacked the smallest sticks into a tipi shape, and used some grass we’d harvested as tinder. I added some bigger sticks as the fire needed bigger food, and finally added some logs. We’d made sure to collect wood away from our camping area, just in case we both were sick or had leg injuries and needed to harvest the wood right over our heads later on.

The fire was incredible. It flared up right away. I’d always wondered how some people seemed to have the gift of keeping it going and now I understood more clearly about necessity being the mother of invention. I’ve experimented with so many plants to deal with the chill of winter: ginger, cayenne, onion, garlic, prickly ash. These are wonderful, but none come close to the warmth of the fire. Suddenly the feeling of being watched disappeared, and I felt the warmth both physically and spiritually. I knew everything would be okay, even as the sun was setting.

My friend had wisely ignored me when I said that we didn’t really need food, and had brought some corn pasta for us to eat. After what seemed like several hours, he asked me to taste it and see if it was ready.

“It’s al dente,” I said.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“It’s Italian for ‘good enough.’”

We ate dinner straight out of the pot and drank the cooking water for its nutrients. What normally would have tasted flavorless and barely edible tasted heavenly. After eating we just sat, quietly, listening to the wind and watching the fire.

Then we kicked four inches of dirt over the fire as insulation from the fire bed we had made and lay down. It was too hot. Was that really four inches? We put our sleeping pads on top of the dirt, and felt less like our bed was burning us. Instead it was just warming us throughout the cold dark night, the coals heating the dirt so we could rest comfortably, a primitive electric blanket. Still, I woke with burn holes in my sleeping bag, which I only used as a cover.

In the morning, my friend dug up some sweet potatoes that he had placed in the fire bed to cook while we slept. The fire had been cooking us breakfast all night long and offered its choice gift to us even after it had gone. Breakfast was tasty, and I could appreciate the beautiful view of the mountain much more on a full stomach.

The mountains were still beckoning, but I knew it was time to go home. The fire did not teach me how to live with nothing, but it brought me comfort when I needed it. I wanted to go back to the city and be like that fire to other people. I wanted to do what my friend with all his skills had failed to do—to apply what I had learned out in nature to my life in the city, to approach the craziness and happenstance with the clarity and a knowledge of inner voice. Somehow, having survived the night made me feel more capable of doing what I needed to do in town. I know the fire is always there, even when I can’t see it.

I still retreat to the Chiricahaus at times. I harvest wild medicines, walk silently, watch birds and track deer. I try to quiet my mind so I can hear the messages from Creator more clearly. I try to find balance within the chaos and distractions I experience every moment. I, however, no longer want to run away.

I want to bring warmth to others like the fire brought to me that cold night. I still visit the Chiricahaus, but I no longer want to live there.

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Number Five

Divine Nourishment

Mary Lane

“Remember” the Sacred Art of Nourishing ourishment in one form or another has been a lifelong focus for me on my personal journey.

The sacred art of nourishing was practiced in ancient Goddess traditions in many forms. It was a way of honoring the many sensual pleasures and blessings that came with our physical existence. Nourishing one’s self through food, beauty, touch, sex, music, art, nature and more is an act of receiving Divine love. The destruction of the Goddess cultures have resulted in disconnecting from this sacred art and a belief by many that they are unworthy of this nourishment.

N

Nourishing one’s self through food, beauty, touch, sex, music, art, nature and more is an act of receiving Divine love.

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I have met and worked with many women over the years, and I am constantly amazed that although most are quite comfortable with offering nourishment of some kind to others, receiving it is quite another matter. I know this to be all too true for myself. So when I contemplated writing about “remembering” the sacred art of nourishing, I was instantly flooded by memories of practicing this art with some of my women friends when I lived on the island of Maui.

I lived in a rather funky little jungle house built into the side of a ridge in the rainforest. It was an indoor/outdoor lifestyle. The house was all glass on one side overlooking the jungle and ocean a short walk away. Right outside the window was a group of large rainbow eucalyptus trees with brightly colored bark. I considered them my guardians. The other side of the house was the stone wall of the ridge protruding into the living space. This mountainside in my home was a rather strong presence, as it was about 30 feet long and 15 feet high. I could crawl around on it and sit nestled in crevices. I walked out the front door, down many steps through a little outdoor room to reach the bathroom. This was my spare bedroom where I hung a hammock for visitors. Attached to the main floor was a lanai

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Divine Nourishment (porch) surrounded by banana trees. There was no mistaking you were in the jungle.

I decided to create a day of nourishment for five of my women friends. I called it Pele’s Parlor. We gathered one morning at my jungle home and began with tea from local herbs I had gathered and dried. After our tea, we put on sarongs, then walked down a rutted dirt road that ended on the cliff of the north shore. It overlooked the ocean and a very special bay. It was whale season, so we hung out on the cliff for a while watching the whales breaching and swimming past. The view was breathtaking. The waves crashed against the high cliffs, the clear water allowed us to witness life beneath the surface in the more shallow areas, and it was ocean for as far as you could see.

The trail down to the bay wound steeply through the koa trees, wild vervain and a couple of my favorite noni trees. Once down at the bay it was just us, Grandmother Ocean and one lone white duck that lived there for months. The bay was lined with lava rock that had been ground smooth from the ocean’s constant ebb and flow.

We built a small fire in the shade under a large false almond tree. We stripped off our clothes and dove into the ocean waves.

We lounged on the warm boulders with the waves crashing against them. I ceremoniously brought out the sacred red dirt I had harvested from a vein that ran through the cliff. I put it in my coconut bowl and added a little ocean water, mixing it into a fine slip. We gathered around and smeared this iron-rich mud all over our bodies. The only thing showing that was not bright red from the mud was the rings around our eyes. We basked in the sun on the large boulders as the sacred mud drew out toxins and filled us with blood-nourishing iron. Some women could not help but release primordial screams as they danced on the boulders covered in mud with the waves crashing around them. We dove into the ocean and scrubbed off the mud with seaweed, then returned to the fire for a snack in the shade. We each ran our fingers over our silky skin oohing and aahing.

We walked back to the lanai of my jungle house where I had set up a table filled with bowls of avocado, papaya, oatmeal and yogurt, breast massage creams, foot massage oils, moisturizers, wash cloths and towels. A mirror hung on the outdoor post. Surrounded by the banana trees and caressed by a tropical breeze, we continued our nourishing journey by spraying each other off with the cold water from the hose and giving ourselves a series of facials with the various ingredients. I put out a platter of all the wonderful fruits that grew wild in the jungle. We feasted on bananas, mango, guava, pineapple, coconut. After a while, with faces smeared with food, we all went into the kitchen and prepared a meal together, while giggling, talking story and drinking my wild-crafted tea. We convened back out on the lanai and sat around a table set with flowers that grew abundantly around the house.

I invited another woman friend of mine over who happens to be an incredible massage therapist specializing in the ancient

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Hawaiian Lomi Lomi massage. She set up a table and altar in the downstairs outdoor room and each woman took her turn receiving a massage while we continued our ritual with one facial after another. Another woman brought her Tarot cards and gave each of us a short reading.

The day unfolded and we continued to drop more deeply into the experience of self-nourishment while being filled by our friendship.

I will never forget the tear-streaked, avocado-smeared face of one of my friends, as she sat eating wild guava and massaging her breasts with coconut oil. Her tears flowed with the merged feelings of gratitude for this experience and the deep grief of not feeling worthy of such frivolity. In fact, as the day unfolded, every woman had a moment of deep grief, woven with joy and ecstasy. Each of us recognized how much we missed this in our lives. As if it came out of the same underground pool, each woman expressed the feeling of not deserving nourishment in the form of pure pleasure. Each time this happened, the other women would spontaneously stop massaging, eating or giggling and hold the space. Then we would all return to our dance of delight, talking story and laughing.

By the time each woman had received a massage it was dusk. With the candles lit, Hawaiian music playing, another snack consumed, we all melted into a moment in time of deep nourishment and self love. We were full.

The next morning I received a call from one of the husbands. “I don’t know what you women did yesterday, but a monster left in the morning and a Goddess returned.” We laughed and spoke a little about the incredible day we had shared connecting with all the elemental forces throughout the journey and how each had nourished us so deeply. We were about to hang up and he said, “By the way, thank you for last night. She and I had a wonderful time!”

Since then, every time I choose what to eat, what to do, where to go, you name it, I ask myself, “Does this choice nourish me? Does this honor the life that the great Goddess gave me?” When the answer is “no,” I stop and make another choice. When the answer is “yes,” I practice my gratitude to her for all the earthly pleasures she has provided.

Nourishing Recipe for Women Grab a few girlfriends and go for a hike up a riverbed on a warm day. Pack a little oatmeal, yogurt, avocado and small bowl. Do not eat it. When you are out of sight, strip off your clothes and dive into the water. Mix the oatmeal and yogurt until you have a paste. Spread onto your face and lie on the warm river rocks. Dive back into the water and rinse your face. Mash avocado in bowl and smear all over your face, neck and chest. Lounge on the rocks a while longer while having lunch, hot tea, hot chocolate, whatever delights you. Allow the oil of the avocado to nourish and moisten your skin. Don’t forget to jump back into the river and rinse again before hiking back. Create a variation of this recipe once a week for best results.

Sacred Fire

Number Five

Getting Right with Money

Mark Blessington

I Can’t do the Sum! R

emember the old Disney movie, Babes In Toyland? Annette Funicello plays Mary Quite Contrary, who becomes distraught when her fiancé dies (or so she is told), and her sheep are lost in the “forest of no return,” leaving her with no income.

During the song “I Can’t Do the Sum,” Mary is swooning from the pressure being applied by the big, bad creditor. Multiple “Mary sub-personalities” are swirling around her along with dollar signs and math symbols—quite a special effect for the time! At one point, Mary proposes to the other “Marys” that she and her fellow orphans live in a tent to avoid mortgage interest payments.

Money issues always indicate an opportunity for personal healing.

Oh, oh, oh! Oh, oh, oh! Oh, oh, oh!

Picture us inside a tent.

Beastly poor, insecure.

We must save the six percent!

Six times “x” how complex!

Numbers always nix our brain, Why are we so dumb?

This is much too hard for us.

We can’t do the sum! *

Do you ever get the feeling you can’t do the sum when it comes to money? You suspect you spent too much this month, but you don’t know by how much. You can’t figure out how to make ends meet if you pursue an ideal job that pays less. You want to pay off your credit card debt but you don’t know how long it will take if you only pay the minimums. You know you always have some big bills to pay once or twice a year like taxes, home maintenance, healthcare and insurance, but you have no estimate of their size. Or, do you ever have trouble figuring * I Can’t Do the Sum was originally written by Glen MacDonough, put to music by Victor Herbert and published in 1903 when Babes in Toyland became a successful Broadway operetta (on the heels of The Wizard of Oz). When the Walt Disney Company produced the movie in 1961, the lyrics were modified as they appear here.

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out whether it would be better to rent or own a home, how to easily track your monthly expenses, or how much of your monthly earnings are committed to paying off fixed or recurring expenses?

No? Then maybe you don’t need to read this article. Otherwise, maybe you need more metal energy in your life. According to Five Element Chinese Medicine, metal energy helps us find the essence of things. It helps us answer questions like, what is critical in this situation? What am I really good at? Metal energy also helps us determine what is no longer needed and should be eliminated, organize financial facts for future, easy reference, and analyze financial data and options so that decision making becomes a straightforward task.

One of the most valuable gifts we can receive from a father is confirmation of our value to the world.

“Phil” was a successful sales manager who earned his MBA degree by going to school at night. He wanted higher pay and a more challenging job, so he became a management consultant.

Phil was an immediate success; he was great at managing big consulting projects. People loved working with him and admired his integrity. The only way to keep making more money in his firm, however, was to sell consulting projects, not just manage them. He was promoted to partner even though he was having trouble selling consulting work—the company hoped he would eventually figure it out. But after several years of hard effort, his sales remained low.

promoted beyond his level of competence. He was not cut out to sell consulting. He did not have “selling magic,” he had “project management magic.”

The consulting firm should have detected this and Phil should have accepted this about himself and not pursued the promotion to partner. But he felt pressure from all sides. He wanted to be a “top player” in the firm. His wife wanted all the benefits of a higher income. His parents had always emphasized the importance of money and he felt that their pride in him was dependent upon a high income. His social circle— work associates, neighbors, close friends, fellow church members and casual acquaintances—was greatly impressed by expressions of wealth such as new cars, new clothes, or expensive vacations.

Blessings can appear at first to be curses. Had Phil accepted the blessing of being a great project manager, he would have had to accept the curse of a demotion, living in a smaller home, spending less on cars, taking cheaper vacations, etc. This “curse” however, may have saved his marriage. Or maybe he would have avoided being saddled with onerous child support payments. It takes incredible integrity to quit a high-paying job that is not aligned with your calling.

While Phil managed others with integrity, he failed to have it with himself.

Phil became miserable at work and brought his frustrations home at night. His wife urged him to find another job, but he resisted. If he took a demotion and went back to project management then he would earn less and feel like a failure.

He would also take a pay cut. Phil and his wife started fighting constantly. Then his wife seemed to “snap” and they went through a nasty divorce. His child support payments were based on his income as a partner, so he was in a terrible bind.

He had to sell more but he couldn’t.

Money issues always indicate an opportunity for personal healing. According to Chinese Medicine, metal energy comes from a particular type of divine energy. It is referred to as divine masculine energy, or the Heavenly Father. It is unconditionally available with every breath we take. One of the most valuable gifts we can receive from a father is confirmation of our value to the world. When a father helps us see our unique characteristics—a sense of why we were born and what we have come here to do—each breath we take sinks in deeper and fills us more fully with divine metal energy.

One of our most important challenges in life is doing work that feeds us. When we don’t, we suffer, as does everyone around us. Phil was a victim of the “Peter Principle:” he was

We have difficulty letting high doses of metal energy into our lives if we sustained a “father wound” while growing up.

Phil’s father didn’t encourage him to pursue his true calling,

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Getting Right With Money

regardless of economic consequence. Like many fathers, he pushed Phil to earn as much money as possible. Due to his need to please his father, it was unthinkable for Phil to accept his calling and reestablish integrity in his work life since that would mean a lower paycheck.

Sometimes a chronic deficiency in metal energy can be gradually healed when we recognize the existence and depth of a father wound. Only then can we realize that our birth father no longer has the ability to redress his offenses through an apology or by saying what we wish he had said when we were children. Only then can we accept the roles we played as children in creating our father wounds—when we see that, even as children, we could have responded differently to the mistakes made by our fathers. From there, we can begin developing a relationship with divine masculine energy, or Heavenly Father.

We can ask Him to help us gain a profound appreciation of our true purpose in life and to give us the strength to pursue it.

The Five Element system also tells us that excessive fire energy can restrict metal energy. Two articles ago, we talked about financial fire energy and how our society tends to have an excessive amount of it, as is manifest in our excessive spending and low savings. A simple way to explain the interaction between fire and metal goes like this: if our fire energy is out of control and we spend recklessly, then we are “melting” our metal energy when it comes to applying integrity and discipline to managing our money. So, if we don’t get our financial fires under control, there is little hope that we will be able to muster much financial integrity and discipline.

For example, Phil bought a nice house in an upscale neighborhood. Relative to a career in project management, he bought “more house” than he could afford. This exaggerated fire energy—spending more than is appropriate—hurt his metal energy. In effect, his over-spending required him to pursue a higher paying job instead of sticking to what he did best. Indeed, this “excessive-fire-melts-metal” linkage provides a great explanation for why the “Peter Principle” (i.e., people in organizations are promoted until they are no longer effective) is so prevalent today.

“Janice” had been working for over 30 years in the healthcare industry. During that time she had accumulated several retirement savings accounts called 401k’s. But the value of her retirement was shrinking. She had always relied on others to manage her savings but they were not doing a good job. Now she wanted to feel like a financial adult and manage her money independently.

Janice sought help from a financial coach. She discovered that over half of her return was being used to pay her money

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Sacred Fire

manager. She decided to transfer her money to a discount brokerage account even though she was hit with a substantial early withdrawal penalty. She invested in straightforward mutual funds that tracked various financial markets around the world. One year later she was quite satisfied: her return was over twenty three percent, even after including her early withdrawal penalty.

Unfortunately, Janice’s story is uncommon. Many people struggle with performing simple financial management tasks, like finding the information they need. Others can’t shake the yearning to be taken care of financially. Poor financial education compounds the problem: most high schools fail to provide students with basic financial survival skills. Then, when people turn for help, they often receive it from people who have a conflict of interest: most financial advisors need to make money with your money and often they are tempted to put their personal interests ahead of yours.

So, why was Janice successful at managing her own money?

She was energetically ready to start managing her own finances. Janice had sufficient metal energy; all she needed was education and guidance. Five Element Chinese Medicine tells us that a great way to enhance metal energy in your life is to balance your earth energy. In the last article we talked about the magic of money and the importance of giving and receiving nurturance and support. In Janice’s case, she struggled for much of her life with giving too much of herself to others, but recently had been cutting back on her outside commitments.

By establishing balance in earth, Janice’s energy was flowing smoothly into metal.

Healing our father wounds and finding metal balance can bring tremendous financial blessings. Rather than being a victim or “damsel in distress” like Mary Contrary, it is possible to work from a place of financial empowerment. Janice could have remained a financial victim but instead sought unbiased advice, gathered relevant facts, analyzed her situation and took control of her financial life. The result was a handsome return on her investment.

There is a beautiful symmetry in all of this. The size of the financial issue, the amount of personal healing work to be done and the potential blessing are all very closely related. It may be hard to see while in the middle of a financial crisis, but integrity always pays proportional dividends.

Formerly a consultant to large corporations, Mark Blessington currently counsels individuals and small businesses on how to get right with money. www.gettingrightwithmoney.com.

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9Sacred Fire community Fire circleS . . . . . . 53 9multi-pure Water FilterS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 9Sacred earth netWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 9GettinG riGht With money . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 9haWk circle WilderneSS education . . . . . . 55 9eneke-aliSh huaute, chumaSh ceremonieS . 55 9Wild Spirit WolF Sanctuary . . . . . . . . . . . 55 9interSpiritual conFerence . . . . . . . . . . . .56-57 9herbal allieS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 9prema Sheerin, coachinG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 9malidoma SomĂŠ, WorkShopS . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 9rivertime cabin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 9Sacred Fire community Store . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 9GeShe tenzin WanGyal rinpoche . . . . . . . . . . 59

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9Staub leaderShip SolutionS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 9Sacred Fire maGazine back iSSueS . . . . . . . . . . 60 9Fire-inSpired blanketS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 9elemental imaGery, michael aSh . . . . . . . . . . . 61 9plant Spirit medicine, book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 9Sacred Fire community Store . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 9Source bookS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 9adopt a native elder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 9kakaWa chocolate houSe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 9on Fire GlaSSWorkS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 9plant Spirit medicine conFerence . . . . . . . . . 63 9blue deer center . . . . . . . . . . inSide back cover 9Sai maa lakShmi devi . . . . . . . . . . . . back cover

The Modern Voice of Ancient Tradition Sacred Fire magazine is a doorway to the ancient, authentic wisdom that lives in every heart. It challenges modern assumptions and opens the possibility of living everyday life connected with divine.

Recognizing that all spiritual traditions share a common essence, Sacred Fire invites us all to come together and share our stories around the universal wisdom and healing spirit of the fire.

Get Connected! Come explore the mysteries, challenges and miracles of living a heart-connected, spiritual life.

Feel the warmth! 4 issues–only $27.80! www.sacredfiremagazine.com

Sacred Fire Community Fire Circles Fire circles are at the heart of the Sacred Fire Community.

They offer a space for people of all paths and traditions to come together in community around the fire and be touched by its transformative energy as they share their hearts and lives.

Fire Circles are offered in North America, Australia, and Europe. For a full listing, visit www.sacredfirecommunity.org

Are you longing for a sense of community?

A place to share your heart with others in a sacred space where you can feel safe and heard?

We welcome you to join us at our monthly fire!

Community Fire Circle of Boiceville, NY

The Fire CirCle oF SanTa MoniCa inviTeS you To Find warMTh and ConneCTion around our MonThly FireS.

Contact us: Alan Kerner Santa Monica, California kerners@aol.com 310-452-0658

Claire Franck at cfranckpsm@hvc.rr.com 845-657-2929

Come Home to Your Heart

The

The CommuniTy Fire CirCle in SanTa Cruz, CaliFornia

Massachusetts

invites you to join us at our monthly fires.

invites you to join us at our monthly ďŹ res. Come share a song, a joke and your open heart.

Come be with the fire, the ocean, and each other.

Groton

ďŹ re circle

&OR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

2AY 3TROUBLE AT

2AY 3TROUBLE GMAIL COM

For more information, contact: Peter and Sharon Brown 831-252-5530 p2b48@yahoo.com

The Brookfield MassachuseTTs fire circle invites you to join us to share the warmth at our monthy community fires.

Contact us: Tim Simon and Gwen Broz at timgwen@charter.net or 508-867-9810 for dates and times of upcoming fire circles.

“Fire moves you to a different place�

Community Fire CirCles oF tennessee, GeorGia & south Carolina invite you

Come, Join Us Around the Fire! • stir ancient connections with the natural world • share our hearts and lives • deepen our spiritual connections For more information, please contact: Steve Skinner, Summertown, Tennessee 931-964-2452 stvskin@bellsouth.net Sherry Boatright, Carrollton, Georgia 770-854-5551 sherryboat@bellsouth.net.

Annie King, Florence, South Carolina 843-665-1340 annieking@sc.rr.com

Multi-Pure Water Filtration (ELP 9OUR &AMILY 9OUR 3ACRED &IRE #OMMUNITY 7ITH 4HE 'IFT OF 3AFE $RINKING 7ATER

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CATHERINE@HEALERWOMAN ORG ┬Д Outstanding whole house & shower ямБltration also available.

A donation will be sent to the SFC for your purchase.

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HAWK CIRCLE

SKILLS • LEADERSHIP • CHANGE WILDERNESS EDUCATION

Start your next spirit fire with a bow & drill, the way ancient peoples have for thousands of years. Learn to weave a basket, and build a natural shelter where you can sleep close to the Earth. Read the stories the animals have left us in the snow or shape an arrowhead from natural chert stones. Nestled in the hills of central New York, Hawk Circle offers a variety of programs that will teach you to live in the wilderness using skills perfected by our leading trackers and guides. Welcome to our Campfire!

www.HawkCircle.com or call us at 607.264.3396

Hawk Circle Creator & Director Ricardo Sierra is a Waldorf graduate and has trained with Tom Brown, Jr, John Stokes, Frank & Karen Sherwood in both wilderness survival, cultural awareness, spirituality, native crafts and tracking. He has had many wilderness forays where he has put his skills to the test in wild areas across the US. Established in 1989. See our website for complete instructor bios and lots more info!

• Vision Quests, Spiritual Training & Retreats • Adult Earth Skills Workshops & Intensives • Summer Youth Camps

Chumash Lineage Ceremony & Healings Eneke-Alish Huaute,

widow of Grandfather Semu Huaute and keeper of his medicine, offers traditional ceremonies to bless and heal.

•Genetic Cord Cutting •Name-Giving •Weddings

Eneke-Alish Huaute (480) 362-3757 For more about Grandfather Semu and Eneke-Alish Huaute, visit:

www.grandfathersemu.com

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B: Eliot Cowan • As Senior Shaman of the Sacred Fire Community, Eliot provides guidance and mentorship for spiritual growth and transformation • Author •Tsaurirrikame of the Huichol tradition: Singer of the Song of the Blue Deer • Reintroduced Plant Spirit Medicine to the Western world • Firewisdom teacher • Healer • Founder and chairman of the Blue Deer Center.

C: Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche • Distinguished Tibetan Bon Master • President of Ligmincha Institute • Author • Translator of ancient texts • Known for making Tibetan practices readily accessible for Western students with his clear, lively and insightful teaching style • Appointed by the Dalai Lama to represent the Bon tradition.

A: Lei’ohu Ryder • Hawaiian Kahuna • Singer of Aloha Arising: Channeling the voices of the wind, rain and sea through the soil of the land she walks • Interweaves music, chanting and dance with her partner Maydeen Ioa • Award" winning peaceworker.

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D: Chief Oren Lyons • FaithKeeper of the Turtle Clan • Member of the Onondaga Nation • Artist • Professor of American Studies at SUNY Buffalo • As a world renowned speaker and elder of numerous Native & Human Rights Councils, he shares indigenous wisdom enlivened by his tremendous wit & humor • All-American lacrosse player • National Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations.

E: Tasnim Fernandez • SuďŹ dancer • Head of the Church of All (Burbank, CA) • Foremost leader and mentor of the Dances of Universal Peace • Teaches about the unity of religious ideals broaden% and ing our vision of the world’s religions • Has pursued a lifelong immersion in the practices of numerous and diverse mystical traditions.

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J: Malidoma SomĂŠ, PhD. • Initiated Elder and Shaman from the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso, West Africa • Wisdom keeper and teacher • Visionary • Healer• Cowryshell diviner • Ritual leader • Author • Founder of “Echoes of the ) Ancestors,â€? a non-proďŹ t charitable organization • Malidoma means, “make friends with the stranger/enemy.â€?

H: Richard Reoch • President of Shambhala • Former Public Information OfďŹ cer for Amnesty I: Colin Campbell • Sangoma in the International • Teaches how to live Mbukushu tradition •Diviner • Traditional African Doctor • Proponent of Natural Law: spiritual principles through action in the world • Trustee of the RainLiving in respect, alignment and deep forest Foundation • Chair of the connection with the Spirits of Nature • International Working Group on Sri Found his path through an “Illness of Lanka.

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% ' F: David Wiley • Marakame in the Huichol tradition • Trabajador del Tiempo of the Nahuatl Weather Working tradition • Lends his body and voice for the divine Spirit of Fire to speak and offer ( guidance • Leads numerous types of initiations in Mexico • Board Member of the Blue Deer Center.

G: Shyamdas • Sanskrit scholar • Practitioner of Bhakti Yoga: The Yoga of Devotion • Author and translator of devotional texts • Non-dualist • Classically trained singer • Enlivens the teachings from Shri Krishna and the Path of Grace through his humor and ecstatic chanting.

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The Interspiritual Conference invites people to explore authentic spiritual traditions and offers the opportunity to deepen our connection with the divine energies of the Gods and Spirits. This unique gathering features masters, teachers and practitioners of a wide variety of spiritual paths from around the world. This Conference is intended for those beginning their spiritual exploration and those already on a spiritual journey. ♼ How do you experience divine guidance? ♼ Are you searching to deepen your experience and awe of the natural world? ♼ Do you yearn to expand your spiritual awareness? ♼ Do you have questions about how to cultivate your relationship with divine energies? ♼ Have you always wondered if there is something else? Are you ready to take the “red pillâ€??

The Sacred Fire Community is people gathering around the ďŹ re throughout the world remembering their connection to Divine and each other through the ancient and sacred Spirit of Fire.

The Sacred Fire Community honors and supports all paths of the heart and invites all people and all traditions to participate.

The Sacred Fired Community Organization provides the necessary resources for this Community to sing its song into the world.

The Interspiritual Conference will be held at Silver Bay Conference Center, a historic conference center on scenic Lake George in Silver Bay, New York (www.silverbay.org).

The conference fee is $310. ($260. if paid by March 1, 2007) For registration information, please visit www.sacredďŹ recommunity.org/isc2007/isc.htm or email: interspiritualconference@sacredďŹ recommunity.org or call: 1-800-791-1007 After registration and payment to the Sacred Fire Community, you will receive reservation information for your stay at Silver Bay. Options include single, double, triple, quad and dormitory accommodations.

Rates range from $115 to $265 for two nights and six meals.

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www.sacredďŹ recommunity.org/isc2007/isc.htm email: interspiritualconference@sacredďŹ recommunity.org

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Malidoma Presents ongoing Programs and Workshops on

Indigenous African Spirit Technologies Including: A Two-Year Intensive Journey Into the healing wisdom of the Dagara People of West Africa.

Connect to the wellspring of wisdom within Coaching with Prema Sheerin Through holistic life coaching you will: h Call forth the authentic intentions of your heart and receive the encouragement, championing and accountability you need to fulfill them. h Engage with the inevitable transitions of life in such a way that you open to the learning and the gifts they hold rather than resisting them.

About Prema Prema has 15 years experience coaching in organizations and private practice. She offers workshops and coaching in the USA, New Zealand and Australia. She is currently engaged in a 12 year shamanic apprenticeship and her background includes 25 years of studying and teaching yoga and meditation.

h Learn how to listen deeply to the wisdom of your heart while developing a strong and healthy relationship with your mind and emotions.

Call for a FREE sample session: (805) 696-6513 or email: prema@healingwisdomcoaching.com

Facilitated by Malidoma SomĂŠ, Ph.D., in Oregon, New York, & North Carolina New groups forming annually

Malidoma SomĂŠ: Author, Elder and Shaman

for more information, write to info@malidoma.com call 541-683-6028 or visit www.malidoma.com Ask about Personal Divinations and Personal Intensives www.malidoma.com

Beauty...

it’s what you need Buy this beautiful card in the “Spirit Series”

by Arizona artist, SkyFox, and other products online at the

Sacred Fire Community Store www.sacredfirecommunity.org

Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche July 1–21, 2007

The Fireball of Primordial Wisdom

Books by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche Healing With Form, Energy, and Light Wonders of the Natural Mind The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep NEW! Tibetan Sound Healing

The Tummo Practice From the Tibetan Bön Buddhist Tradition

This summer Tenzin Rinpoche will teach the beautiful and powerful tantric practice of tummo (generating the inner heat) to burn away subtle obstacles to experiencing meditative bliss.

The manner in which Rinpoche crafts each day of the retreat and guides the meditation sessions allows sufficient time to develop each stage of practice, and promotes powerful experiential results.You may attend one, two or all three weeks of the retreat.

For information contact us at:

LIGMINCHA INSTITUTE at Serenity Ridge (our hilltop retreat center in rural Nelson County,Va.)

434.977.6161 / ligmincha@aol.com / www.ligmincha.org

Available from:

Ligmincha Institute Bookstore & Tibet Shop 434.220.0060 / Toll-free: 866.522.5269 bookstore@ligminchastore.org

www.ligminchastore.org

3ACREDð&IRE back issues—while they last!

Issue #1 - our premiere issue Leon and Maria in the Altai by Bill Pfeiffer Nothing is Ever Lost by Stephanie Thomas Berry No Garbage Karma Here by Dr. James Reiley Divine Right Order by Jennie Marlow

1

3

2

4

Issue #2 Transformation by Fire: A Talk with David Wiley A Steelhead Comes by T.E. Merritt Love Beyond Words by Carla Leftwich Wisdom of Winter: Light of Fire by Andrew Cox Issue #3 The Tao that Can be Spoken: A Talk with Ken Cohen The Universe Knows a Smart Aleck by Gina Knudson Animals in Wartime: A Story by Matiop Wal Shamanic Reflection on Water by Malidoma Somé Issue #4 The Lost People by Thom Hartmann Born to the Medicine: A Talk with Eneke-Alish Huaute The Path of Ancestral Wisdom by Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona The Lightness of Letting Go by Brandon Bays Plus regular columns on Getting Right with Money, Divine Nourishment, Reconnecting with the Earth, and more…

Don’t Miss a Single Issue! $10 each.

Order now by sending your check and request to: Sacred Fire, P.O. Box 30645, Albuquerque, NM 87190-0645

Harmony...

it’s what you need Buy this CD and other products online at the Sacred Fire Community Store www.sacredfirecommunity.org

The Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program exists to create a bridge of hope between Native Americans and other cultures. It allows us to reach out to one another, share our gifts, and mend the broken circle of our relationship with the Land and the Native Americans who hold it in sacred trust.

We specialize in hAuthentic Traditional Mesoamerican Mayan Aztec Drinking Chocolate Elilxirs (sugar & dairy free!)

The Program provides food, simple medicines, clothing, fabric and yarns to help these Elders live on the Land in their traditional lifestyle.

hHistoric European & Colonial American Chocolate Elixirs hArtisanal Dark Chocolates hWonderful and Exotic Chocolate Truffles (most sugar & dairy free!)

Adopt-A-NAtive-elder progrAm • pob 3401, pArk City, Ut 84060 p h o N e : (801) 474-0535 • F A x : (801) 746-1186 e- m Ail : mA il @ A N e l d e r . o r g • W e b s i t e : WWW . ANelder . org

hSublime Wheat-Free Desserts & Tortes

3rd Annual

Plant Spirit Medicine CONFERENCE Touching an Ancient Wisdom Come & Experience the Dream of the Plants June 7 - 10, 2007 Blue Deer Center, NY All are welcome

For more information: psmconference@bluedeer.org www.plantspiritmedicine.org

www.leunig.com.au 64

www.artloft.com.au Sacred Fire

Number Five

Worth the Trip!

Plant Spirit Medicine vRitual, Retreat, Ceremony vWisdom Teachers from Ancestral Traditionsv

The Blue Deer Center provides an important setting for teachings and practices that promote balanced relationship with the natural world.

We particularly welcome ancestral approaches to healing, ritual, and retreat. The Center's origins are rooted in the Huichol shamanic tradition and our connection to the universal and sacred spirit of Fire.

BLUE DEER

CENTER

Call or visit us online at www.bluedeer.org for upcoming programs and events.

P.O. Box 905 v 1155 County Route 6 v Margaretville, NY 12455 v 845.586.3225 v info@bluedeer.org v www.bluedeer.org