All posts by Barbara Ocskai

Ceremony, Thoughts About This and That

Leaning In

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I am feeling the pull of ceremony.  The Dance.  Grandmother Turtle under a blue moon.  The hill – a vision quest.

As I enter into the month of June, which the Gregorian calendar marks as the middle of the year, I find myself reflecting on an entire year.  The Sundance ceremony, a ceremony of life and rebirth, ushers in the new year just after the summer solstice.   Since last year’s ceremony, I pause to consider, who was I at this time last year?  What have I learned about myself?  And where am I going now?

A few days after the dance last year, I dreamed of three red fox.  The medicine of fox teaches me to keep my head down, to find greater comfort in silence and become invisible.  In my lifetime, I have fought this, feared being invisible – if I am not seen then what is my purpose or value?  I recognize myself as both anonymous and known when I look into the mirror.  How am I the same?  How have I changed?  I recount the lessons of this past year when drawing on the medicine of fox served me well.  And the times when I would have been better served had I been more like fox and remained silent or hidden.

Some recent soul doctoring has led me towards unification of self.  Integration into a greater understanding of myself as a whole.  With this I am finding a new sense of peace of mind and heart.  I am watching for patterns – personal and ancestral – asking what else can I turn towards and heal?  I hold myself accountable for bad habits.

Recently I saw a photograph of an old lover that a mutual friend had posted on Facebook.  My first thought was how he looks just the same.  My next thought was how different I am.  In the years since that relationship the changes in me have been many and mighty.  I look back at the woman I was with tenderness and not judgment, with compassion and self-love rather than blame.  Surprisingly, I find myself grateful for who I was then, offering myself kindness.  Increasingly I am more and more satisfied with who I am now recognizing the miles I have come to get to this place of self-love, knowing there are miles to go to be the best version of myself possible.  Who I will become as I lean into the unknown mystery called the future?

What prayers will I take to the tree?  I have prayed for a long time for those who will dance their prayers, for those who will hold the container of ceremony, for those how will cry for a vision and be there to support.  I have prayed for the land, for the water, for the ancient ones who carried these ways forward.  Prayed as I served in preparation for these ceremonies.  I am asking myself now, what prayers will I say for me?  Who do I want to be next year?  What will I manifest with integrity and intention?  Perhaps I will stumble and fail, learn the hard way – this too a gift in the process of my life and constant rebirth.   I am grateful for it all.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

 

 

Ceremony, Moms and Kids, Sustainability, Thoughts About This and That, Wing Medicine

We’re Not In Kansas Anymore

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I woke today dream praying for the workers in the fields with toxic conditions.  Prayers for them.  For the soil.  For the water and our Mother the earth.  Healing in a paradigm shift.

Dream FORWARD.  Dream BIG.

What will we dream for the next Seven Generations?

Peace first, in my heart of hearts understanding, my own healing is my work and an offering to the solutions.

The Children’s Circle meets this afternoon.  Seems we’ll have a sunny time.   Bare feet.  Making relations with our Mother.  And the water.  Last spring our Circle  offered ceremony for the water, this spring Snohomish County is offering free shoreline restorations in their Lake Wise project!  WooHOO!  Wopila! to the children and moms!

Echo Lake is noisy with bird voices.  East of me somewhere close a tree is being limbed.   Prayers for the Standing  Nation – Hallelujah!  I/We can breathe by their generous living in the web of life.  Pilamaya!

I saw a Red-tailed Hawk being mobbed by twenty or so Crows an hour ago.  I heard the terrible scolding of the crows long before I saw them in the sky.  Red-tailed tried circling higher, moving rapidly together the crows wouldn’t relent.  All the way across my Echo Lake sky and beyond my view they mobbed him.  I heard Red-tailed cry out though I could no longer see him.

Times are changing.  Things aren’t ever going to be the same.

It’s a powerful time we are living in.   We’re not in Kansas anymore.  We get to decide what we want our world to look like.  We have that power for good or evil.  Our lives are in our own hands.  I have optimism in the emergence of good.  Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude for all who are bringing Light.  All those ceremonies, prayers and service.  It is an honor to be among you.

Prayers for Peace and healthy food.  No more chemicals in/on our children’s bodies, or our bodies or in our Mother Earth.

Good happy hearts for all of us.

Humbly I bend to the breaking down and breathe Light into the future.  Dreaming.  With my dreaming eyes I visualize, holding space for the heart space for myself and Oneness.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

 

Thoughts About This and That

What’s in a Word?

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Over the many months that I’ve written this blog, I’ve quoted many teachers and teachings and several long-ago published books, siting the sources.  It came to my attention a while back that certain words, especially in the Lakota language, are often searched for on the internet by concerned persons.  This is true and obvious when I take a look at my site statistics.

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I wonder, when these words are found on my site – are the blog posts actually read?  Does the person doing the search then give me a pass when it becomes clear the quotation source and my intent?  Or am I considered an outsider appropriating culture and language by the one visiting my site?  Another disrespectful person without any right to the use of such words?

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Last November, I listened to all three days of the Global Indigenous Wisdom Summit.  All – but one – of the  Elders who spoke during those days embraced all comers to the Indigenous path of healing for the ails of our societies and Earth Mother.  They said we are all indigenous.  We are all people from the Earth.  True.  It was even said that to harbor resentments now is about ego, not my path or usage of a word.  Admittedly this was a relief to me, knowing I am welcome and embraced for my heart and intentions.

I am walking my life in the best way I know how to.  I use Lakota words.  I speak in Sanskrit.  Also the occasional Yiddish word.  I speak from my heart without malice or disrespect.  Instead with gratitude for those who’ve come before me and carried these ways forward.  And for the way I came to embrace them today – in a reverent way in my life and prayers.

What anyone thinks of me or my writing is none of my business.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

 

 

Creating for Creating's Sake, Rattles, Workshops

I’m Hearing Voices

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Rocking gently. A tremble at first.  Steady.  Dropping in, a rhythm takes over. The sound of the stones striking rawhide. Rolling off the internal surface of the skin, the stones trill and growl.  A soothing voice calling me deeper.  Shaking the rattle I journey.  Seeking. 

I have been sewing rattles for several days, give-aways for a sister and friend.  Many people in our community are helping to fill her blanket offering, as she is honors her commitment to dance her prayers.  Sewing my own prayers into these rattles, I am hearing voices – in my head and my heart.  Making medicine is a powerful time.

All my sense perception are engaged in the crafting.  Consciousness and unconsciousness communes with the Mystery and the invisible.  My sense of touch a constant from beginning to end.  The sense of smell alighted with the various tree medicines.  And wet buffalo hide, patiently yielding into form, drying into shape, an evolving fragrance.  My eyes see what has become while I held the needle.  My heart is tantalized by stones, the three sisters – what will my ears hear?  What voices will be  coming through?   I can taste the healing, sweet elixir of buffalo on my finger tips.  Thinking of the good vibrations these rattle will send… more prayers from someone else’s heart – a spiral dance, the Circle widens.  We are one.

No two rattle are alike.

Questers will sew  their medicine rattles this weekend for their time on the hill.  Will the forecaster’s promise of sunshine hold true?  Can we sit by the lake sewing our prayers with the water and breeze, the bird song?  There will be many voices will accompany us, whether we are outside or in.

May 3, 2015 a rawhide rattle crafting workshop is open.   Perhaps a turtle shell rattle is calling you.  Let’s co-create a time together.

From the Iroquois creation legend of Sky Woman come the story of the Three Sisters – it was love that kept them together and it is love that creates their voice.   To the Iroquois People, corn, beans, and squash are the physical and spiritual sustainers of life.   ~  “A long time ago there were three sisters who lived together in a field. These sisters were quite different from one another in their size and way of dressing. The little sister was so young that she could only crawl at first, and she was dressed in green. The second sister wore a bright yellow dress, and she had a way of running off by herself when the sun shone and the soft wind blew in her face. The third was the eldest sister, standing always very straight and tall above the other sisters and trying to protect them. She wore a pale green shawl, and she had long, yellow hair that tossed about her head in the breeze.”

Let it be love that keeps us all together.  Love will light the way.

With gratitude.  Gather Light.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

 

Thoughts About This and That, Wing Medicine

ET Phone Home

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The Band-tail Pigeon have arrived to gorge themselves in the springtime sunlight at the seed feeder.  They are both bold and shy.

Band-tailed Pigeon

Pigeon medicine offers us a way home.

Home to ourselves, to our own hearts where there is meaning.  Home to our internal family.  The Pigeon is asking us how can we best parent ourselves?  How can we be our own kid sister or big brother?  Our own best friend?  And home to the physical abode where we are safe, content and able to thrive.

Are you looking for a new home? New work? A community? A circle? A teacher?  The medicine of Pigeon can take you where you want to go both within and out in the world.  Pause.  Take a few moments to connect heart to heart with the ordinary city dweller, on these common yet unique birds. Watching their behaviors and adaptability, we can call on their powers.  We can call ourselves home.  Bring our energies back to ourselves and be at center.

Rock Pigeon TrioThe common Rock Pigeon is just about everywhere, assuring us that home can be found anywhere at any time .  All we need is to look within – be ET and phone home.  Home is where the heart is after all.

I call myself home.  I’m grateful for the winged ones.

All My Relations

Creating for Creating's Sake, Drums, Leather Goods, Medicine Objects, Moccasins, Moms and Kids, Rattles, Wing Medicine, Workshops

Spring 2015 Workshops

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The door is always open.  Come in, make yourself at home as you are welcome for the Spring Workshops at Soul Proprietor.

April 4 – Wing Medicine, noon until complete

April 5 – Leather Works, noon until complete, what do you need?

April 11 – The Night Turtle Dance Fund Raiser Auction, 5pm – 8pm

April 12 – Rattle Crafting, 10am until complete

April 25 – Medicine Bag Journey, noon until complete

April 26 – VQ Rattle Crafting (closed)

May 3 – Medicine Repair Day, noon until all repairs are complete

May 9 – Children’s Circle, 1pm – 5pm

May 10 – Drum Birthing Day, 10am until complete

May 16-17 – Moccasin Workshop – Bainbridge Island Bodhi Center

May 23-24 – VQ Moccasin Workshop (closed)

June 6 – Children’s Circle, 1pm – 5pm

June 7 – Turtle Shell Rattle Crafting, noon until complete

June 20-21 – Moccasin Workshop, 10am -7pm each day

Ceremony, Creating for Creating's Sake, Drums, Medicine Objects, Moms and Kids, Rattles, Thoughts About This and That, Wing Medicine, Workshops

Concentric Circles

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“Starting from within, working in a circle, in a sacred manner, we heal ourselves, our relationships and the world.”  ~  Chief Phil Lane, Jr.

Dense.  Fog.   Not the dark mercury fog of deep winter.  Instead a thick membrane of white-gray.  Seeming impenetrable while the light is already beginning to suffuse the placenta birthing this day.  Silhouettes emerging.  A circle.  The Standing Nation, tall, shoulder to shoulder.  The semi-round waxing moon had been present very early this morning, casting light onto Echo Lake, now she is on the other side of the fog.  Only milky white, shadows in the distance.   The lake is an altar.  It is a circle before me every day.  Surrounded by the circle of trees. The concentric circles begin within me, working their way out into the world.

Offering prayers to the North, to what remains of a non-winter, the trees tell me to go to the core of things within myself.  I go seeking to understand what lay beneath.  What is the motivation?  What are the emotions?  What is at the heart of me?  At  my very core?  Often in the forest I find pieces of wood that are just that, the core, the place of connectivity, of a branch growing from trunk.  I’ve kept some, one particular piece was sanded smooth becoming a talking stick for the Children’s Circle.  There are many circles – symbolic, metaphoric and physical in this reality that are part of my life.

Many circles.   Circle of life.  The circle of the seasons.  The astrological wheel a continuous circle.  Many Sacred Circles of Peoples.  The hoop of a family.  The hoop of a drum.   The waft of a feather fan, begins in the circle of a nest, sage smoke moves out into the Universe.   The round of a rattle allowing the contents to emanate voice.  A stone tossed into the lake creates ripples that move, even if interrupted, to the shoreline, meeting that circle of earth surrounding the circle of lake.  It is all connected.  Concentric circles.   Starting from within.  Working in a circle.  In a sacred manner.

The work at Soul Proprietor happens in a circle.  A container created by prayer, by intention and by the people who come to create.  Over the years numerous Teachers have begun to send their students to me, to craft in a good way their ceremonial and sacred objects.  Each of these Teachers carry a unique piece of a healing perspective.  I integrate these threads of wisdom into my life, woven fabric.  This past Sunday another new Circle, eight beautiful women came to birth drums.  The guidance that came forward for me to share with them was to learn the sacred songs, using their drums to send up a voice.  A healing.  Their teacher is one who carries the songs.  Their hearts begin the circle.  Starting from within.  Working in a circle.  In a sacred manner.   We heal ourselves.  Our relationships.  And the world.

I am filled with gratitude.

Brother Phil asked me and the entire Circle to memorize the opening quote to this post.  He asked also that we live it.  Make it our walk in the world.  With it comes so much honesty, so much hope, optimism.  I am inspired.  The fog has lifted completely, the pale blue sky boldly colors the water.  Trees reflect their strong imprint on the surface of the lake – their crowns pointing towards me – look within to the core of things they say.  Starting within.  Working in a circle.

I have an old dog who is preparing to cross over.  She still has all four feet in this reality and she is preparing, closing in on completion of the circle that is her life.  Somewhere a litter of Doberman puppies are gestating.  My father’s wife is preparing too, for her own transition, dancing between life, disease and death.  And a baby will be born.  Each life begins and ends – a circle, complete within itself and a part of the whole.  My heart is both heavy and full, buoyed by these ways of living and working in a circle.

A’ho Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

Thoughts About This and That

More Trash Talk

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“Guard the mind and protect the soul, expose the mind and the soul will be soiled with the trashes from people’s bins.”  ~  Ikechukwu Izuakor

I’ve made an agreement with myself – if I can see it and if I can reach it – I will pick it up the trash while out on my daily walks.  Oddly, I’ve been asked, “What are you,  good Samaritan or something?! ” I’ve received sentiments of God bless you too.  People have offered me their trash bin so I might empty my bag.  There are some crazy things that get thrown from car windows, that blow out of garbage trucks, and get dropped carelessly.  A home pregnancy test – I couldn’t help but wonder if it was good news.  An untold number of cigarette butts.  A “Found Pig” sign scribbled on cardboard with a number to call – one of a few things that I’ve kept, adding to the curious and eccentric collection of things around my house.  Hector the Collector right?  One mans trash is another woman’s  treasure.  All out garbage.  Fast food packaging.  Beer cans.  Single serve Sutter Home wine bottles, cap twisted neatly back on – every day.  There’s no end to the variety.  No end to the trash.  I’m often scolded to wear gloves.  I don’t.

The trash is always a meditation.

There is a lot of garbage visible deep into the roadside, thrown a dozen feet or more from the road itself.  The blackberry bushes, devoid of foliage invite me to retrieve it.  The winter rains have plastered last years leaf litter down flat to the earth, blanketing decay, protecting new growth.  And trash remains exposed, taunting me.   It wouldn’t be impossible to climb into the prickly stems to wangle the garbage out.  It would be difficult.  It would mean protecting myself from the many thorns.  Too many thorns.  The trash is teaching me surrender.  There is only so much I can do.  I must surrender to the fact that I can see it and I can do little about what is out of my reach.  What else must I surrender to?  Where can I go deeper, cleaning up my internal trash?  What external trash do I want to free myself from?

Low vibrations.  Acts and language that are not love.

I’ve had many teachers in my life (all y’all in fact).  The integrity of language is often times taught; be careful what you say, speak with a soft heart, be kind, seek to understand rather than be understood.  Negative speech and action have low vibration.  Positive speech and action raise the vibration.  Pretty simple.

Yet getting caught in the traps, having buttons pushed, being a pitiful human catches us all.  It happens probably every minute of every day to someone, perhaps some tens of thousands of us in the same instant, moment after moment day in and day out.  The collective is being triggered at this time.  Density rubs up against my own density.  What must I learn when this is presented in my life directly?  How do I rise up and move from a density into a frequency of that is more God-like?  What is my soul asking me to learn in this human body that will make me the best possible version of myself?  How do I evolve to serve the highest good?

“Darkness is the only path to light, it is not our wonderful gifts that make us closer to God; its using our garbage to transform ourselves. This is the key that unlocks the door that opens to God.”  ~  Yehuda Berg

I do the very best I can with the tools I have to work with.  Admittedly there are times, too many times possibly, when my own acts and language lend to the lowering of the vibration in the Universe.  And still, I give myself permission to stand up for myself.  To take a stand for what is important and has meaning to me.  I allow myself to speak up.  And this is doing something new, something different – there is no holding in the hurt of my heart any longer – that no longer works.  It never did.  If it perpetuates the density for the moment and perhaps I am not the most peaceful warrior, I forgive myself for that.  I am always willing to do my work, to understand the many layers of myself, to realign with peace.  To raise the vibration within me thereby raising the Vibration.  I hold myself in love.  What more must I do?  There is always more to do.

“So close your eyes and dream of all the wonderful Trash that’s yet to come. There’ll be more Trash tomorrow.”  ~  Oscar the Grouch

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations