All posts by Barbara Ocskai

Ceremony, Thoughts About This and That

Patterns In My DNA

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I received a Constellations class as a giveaway in late July from one of my current teachers.  First we were taught to use our body’s physical sensations as a barometer with exploratory exercises to familiarize.  Then our group, 20 of us, were contained tightly (or so it seemed to me) in the corner of a room.  We were to imagine ourselves as our Ancestors onboard a ship, the vessel coming to America – the New Land of promise.  The melting pot where we all belonged.

The interesting experience I had is a tell-tale of what my ancestors felt.  It is a in my own DNA patterning.  It is the ceremonies in my life that allow me to be present with this in a way that doesn’t have any quality of shrinkage – instead I feel humble and bold.  I am carrying my own weight and that of all the others.   Yet it doesn’t feel a burden.  I turn to it, open.  What will it show me of myself, of those who came before me?  Frankly, it wasn’t a pleasant experience on the boat.  Not until many had already disembarked, their own promises in hand, giving me some personal space was I able to breathe.  For me the New Land didn’t feel promising or remotely inviting.  I forced myself to get off the boat, find my way.  I did not feel I belonged.  Nor did I feel welcomed.  The New Land gave me a headache, leaving me nauseated.  The word sequestered keeps coming to mind.  I’ll look at that later.  Now I feel compelled to feel this as a new way of knowing myself and my life – the everyday stuff.  How will that large overview of self lead to discovery  of my walk in the world?  In the places where I bloom and shine or where I drag my feet and cling to the banks of the river, speak up or go mum, demand personal space or offer freely of my time and energies?

A fantastic synchronicity – I was generously gifted with having my DNA analyzed by 23andme at the same time of this Constellations class.  Thank you Lo’ and R3.

A curiosity, we are currently in Leo which is empty in my personal astrological chart.  The 5th house, how do I express myself creatively?  This feels like I’ve drawn the Blank Rune.  The patterns have been delivered.  It is up to me.  What will I do with it?  Like Leo with the Sun as it’s symbol, I am standing at the center.  I am standing at the center of my lineage.  Many generations have come before who now stand behind me.  What will I create with these patterns for the generations to come?

Constellations can be practiced at any time – in our home lives with partners and children, our family of origin interactions, in the work place, at the grocery store.  What the body senses is a barometric touchstone at every moment.  Does it feel inviting?  Does it repelled?  Am I nonplused?   This leaves me to think of the seemingly endless war and the violence we perpetrate on one another.  The teaching is straightforward and elemental, easy to catch onto.  It could be a game changer I feel.  Yet, the patterns are so dangerously ingrained and for so many the act of survival in their current life situation all they can focus on.  Kill or be killed, it’s been happening for centuries, violence is in our DNA.  With this awareness and without a gun or a bomb pointed towards a person – in the Middle East or the streets of Any-City USA, anywhere – could we ALL learn to get along?  Would we understand the patterns and create something new?

It is also true, that in my DNA patterning there is a prayer for peace.  I too, have a dream.   Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!  All My Relations!

 

Ceremony

The Night Turtle Dance

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It’s almost time for The Night Turtle Dance!!!  Come!  Join us!  Bring the Elders and bring the children – a celebration for us all!

Grandmother Turtle is swimming toward us.  We are preparing, moving towards the meadow to met her and with joy-full hearts.

My friend and teacher Sarah received a vision on her hanblechya, vision quest, a number of years ago that was to become The Night Turtle Dance.  This year will be the sixth time this ceremony will be danced.  Each year it grows in such a beautiful way.  A committed core group sees to the organization, to the vision itself and the land where we will gather and dance in the August full moon.  In addition, the group is expanding to include many others who are drawn like Luna moths to the moon’s light – transfixed, thus transformed, who carry this dance within and out throughout the year.

An altar is lovingly etched into a meadow containing seven altars – a community drum with beautiful singers and songs.  It is indeed joy full!  Simple and intricate patterns danced into the earth with great full intention – both joyful and grateful.

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This ceremony is a dance of gratitude – a prayer of giving back to our Mother Earth for all the gifts she gives.  Our every need is met by her.  This dance is to honor that generosity giving back with our hearts and prayers.   I always make my dance a commitment to hold the turtles back, which means I stay on the altar all night in silent prayer between each of the seven rounds.  This is personally fulfilling and meaningful and while I am willing to continue this commitment, there is always a time I am drawn towards the voices and laughter of those who make their commitment in a different way.  Their joyful sounds by the community fire so sweet.  Maybe this year, my fourth year dancing, I will join them and do a little laughing myself.  Maybe not – I like the silence, how it anchors the ceremony in such a good way – how it anchors me.

The vision is made manifest here in the Pacific Northwest, soon it will be danced in Europe and there is a dream coming true to share it in Mexico with indigenous peoples wishing to dance in this way.  Consider helping to bring this ceremony to Mexico.  Consider joining us August 9-11 in the meadow of Camp Niwana, you’ll be glad you did.

“…Oh and we danced  by the light of the silvery moon…”

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

 

 

 

Ceremony, Drums, Workshops

Sweat Lodge Drum Workshop

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A few minutes before 6am the rising sunlight touches the crowns of the hemlock, cedar and fir trees that stand in the south, part of the hoop of Standing Ones on Echo Lake.  They are illuminated, golden, I hear them singing a morning praise song.  Osprey is already fishing – his cries seem in response to their song.  Within 20 minutes the sunlight kisses the earth with good morning.  My own yard is in shadow still while the trees that live here – Lewis, Carlton and Freeman to name a few, all have golden rays that dazzle in their crowns.  So slight the breeze, the lake is still, many Swallow skim the surface for their breakfast.

Sweat lodge drums will be birthed here today.  I am eager for this workshop, both buffalo and elk medicine have been called for.  The hoops are deeper than a hand drum by more than double, made of cedar wood to withstand the moisture of the lodge.  These Chen Chegas, the drum, are double sided with hide and extra energy is required to bring them into being.  It strikes me that the added physical effort to birth a lodge drum is in keeping with the depth of an inipi ceremony.  Birthing these drums is ceremony.  The keepers of these drums walk in a reverent way, deeply understanding the responsibility and meaning of carrying their drums.  With the drums come the songs – which are prayers sung for the People.

“Since the drum is often the only instrument used in our sacred rites, I should perhaps tell you here why is it especially sacred and important to us.  It is because the round form of the drum represents the whole universe, and its steady strong beat is the pulse, the heart, throbbing at the center of the universe.  It is as the voice of Wakan-Tanka, and this sound stirs us and helps us to understand the mystery and power of all things.”                        – Black Elk

The Buffalo medicine is a strong guardian, ever giving of all that is needed.  It teaches us that there is always enough and reminds us of our obligation to act –  our way in the world is supported and still it is incumbent upon us to shoulder our own load .  Elk offers steadfast stamina – we can easily get from here to there.  Elk teaches self-reliance as well as balance within a community.  This medicine will carry one far.  The Cedar tree spirit will strengthen the inner potentials of these four-legged spirits and the two-legged who will carry these drums.  Cedar offers a protective healing energy.

These drums are not yet born but already so very powerful.  I look forward to this day and to the day when I sit in a lodge and hear their voices beating with my own heart song and the heartbeat of us all – sitting in the Center of the Universe.

Two Great blue Heron are flying over, side by side above the lake – I don’t recall ever seeing two at once here before .  I feel their gift and selfishly bid them to stay, wad in the waters, fish, build your homes here – it is always a good day on Echo Lake.  Pilamaya, Pilamaya!

Ceremony, Drums, Thoughts About This and That

Inipi – Sweat Lodge

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I am going into an inipi today.  There is a need in my community.

I’ll be honest, today is my first free day in quite a few days and tomorrow begins another long string of days filled with activity. Relaxing by the lake edge in my hammock with nothing to do is so completely appealing to me.  Oh, the urge to luxuriate is strong.  But there are needs in my community – there is homelessness, illness and death amongst my people, two ceremonies are coming in a few short weeks – the energy needs to be clear to hold good space for those who will cry for their vision and for those will dance for joy.   What is more important I ask myself – resting or attending to another?

These ways I choose to live are not necessarily easy ways.  I am often asked to step up.  This got me to thinking about the value of being selfless.  Selfless service a teaching of Swami Radha and a subject I think I know well.  What can I learn about this now?

My thoughts expand to those who offer themselves in selfless ways. To those who tend to the Elders and the dying.  And those that teach others how to read, or clean the house of the disabled,  to those who add coins into a homeless person’s cup.  And those who build urban gardens so others don’t go hungry while learning to eat healthy and give back themselves.  To the countless organizations in distant lands willing to serve in danger zones.  To the minister who would offer last rites to a soldier on the battlefield, to the soldier.  I cannot even list all of the goodness done by others for the benefit of another.  I give thanks for those that have generous minds and hearts that step in to give of themselves.

Am I selfless I wonder?  I do not consider going into the sweat lodge to pray to be a wholly selfless act.  As others receive what they need, so too, do I.  As others become whole, I am made whole.  We are all related.   I am willing to forgo my plan for the day as there are needs in my community.  I do look forward to the opportunity to pray and purify, to listen to the lodge drum and the singers of sacred songs.  In the inipi I am connected to the whole of the Universe.  We are all connected in this way.  The hammock will to wait.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

Inipi is a Lakota word meaning sweat lodge.  It can be read about and understood as a sacred ceremony in the book The Sacred Pipe.  This book is Black Elk’s accounts of Seven Sacred Rites of the Oglala Sioux.   A medicine man who shared is vision and journey, Black Elk is oft quoted for his wisdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts About This and That

How You Reflect Me

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My dear friend Carol and I were talking once, about what I cannot remember, in her silky wisdom she said the words, “love it into something new”.  These words have stuck with me.  I often come back to them when I am in need of a different perspective on things.

Today I read a post on FB that struck me dumb for a few moments.  The words and sentiment seemed so filled with hate.  My response was to send love to him – see his handsome smiling face in my mind and love him.  I had to ask myself though, was that love genuine?  Did I truly love him in that moment?  Was that earnest expression of love sincere when it was tainted by a sense of O!M!G! and incredulousness?  Not quite.  How do I defuse the sense of horror I feel so my love is indeed a salve?

I know he isn’t the hate.   What sits at the bottom of it?  What lays beneath it all?  That’s where the love needs to go.  It must.

What do I know of this darkness?  Yes, it is all those events – but it is also fear and I don’t feel like I “know” that.  So interesting how I can intellectualize it yet I do not feel it in my body or heart.  For this I am deeply grateful.   How am I in relation to this then?

I have certainly been is despair, in very dark fearful places  but they have been out self-loathing, not the hate of another.  One in the same.  Odd as it may sound, I learned the true depth of self-love from my Mother after her death.  Self-love is a practice.  A learned skill.  So this is how I love it into something new -love myself more.  More deeply with forgiveness for the times of self-loathing.  More sincerely.  More assuredly.  More fiercely.  For it is only self-love that fills the space once occupied by hate.

Pilamaya U.A. – I can truly send love to you now that I can understand and relate.   I see your handsome and smiling face and I love you, it heals me to do so.   Thank you.   Thank you.

Sincere true love.    Aho!

 

Creating for Creating's Sake, Drums, Medicine Objects, Moccasins, Rattles, Wing Medicine, Workshops

Experiential Gifting

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In our consumer driven society, where most of us truly have far more things than we need – an experiential gift is both meaningful and worthwhile.

A Soul Proprietor Learning Workshop is a gift of significance.  Each time we come together to craft, we create purpose, intention and substance.  Whether for a celebration occasion like birthdays and anniversaries or to deepen time with family and community – a children’s day, girlfriend time, male bonding, new babies, emotional and spiritual healing or for no reason at all – schedule a time to immerse yourself and your intended  in a positively influential endeavor.  The time spent together creating is a lasting gift – wing medicine for smudging, a talking stick for council,  a drum to journey with, a rattle or custom fit moccasin crafting – a gift that can alter life in a good way for many years to come.

The experience of a medicine gift nurtures the mind, body and spirit of the one receiving as well as the one who gives the gift, the medicine working in subtle and mysterious ways.

Gift for the joy of it!

Blessings for your good health, happy and whole hearts and all the help you might need…. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

 

Moms and Kids

Feeding the Fire Ceremony

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Come all you Moms and Young Women!

A Feeding the Fire ceremony is planned this Friday evening July 11th beginning at 5pm.  This ceremony is a celebration of the feminine, of our moon time, it’s power and our beauty!  This is an old and traditional ceremony that encourages and supports a girl as she transitions into her moon time and beyond into womanhood.  By bringing this ceremony into our modern day we are aiming to break the taboos, the shaming and embarrassment that so often accompanies a girl and a woman’s cycle in the Western culture.  In the Lakota tradition a woman is considered powerful, connected to the natural rhythm of the Moon and Earth at all times and especially when she is on her moon.  In the ceremony we will acknowledge that this is a truth about all women.  We will hold ourselves in high esteem and bring this belief forward in a good way for each girl and woman in the world.

A fire is built in a sacred way, honoring the Standing Ones who have given themselves for this rite.  As the night grows darker and the fire grows higher – fed by each of the girls and women in attendance stick by stick, we will tell stories of the sacred feminine, of important women within our personal orbits, of women who have inspired us by their journey.  Will sing songs that are prayers.  We will grind corn – an honoring of the sacred foods that feed us.  We laugh and invite the joyfulness of the night to seep into the all the days to come.

This ceremony will be held on Echo Lake, the lake will bath us with warm waters to play and swim in beneath a Full Moon.  Sharing a potluck feast is customary – Shamanic S’mores our after dark treat!

Email barbara@soulproprietor.org to get the address and any other details you might need to attend.  This ceremony is for girls and women  only please.

In gratitude.  With love and light….. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

Thoughts About This and That

Wiwanyag Wachipi: The Sun Dance

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In the book The Sacred Pipe, Black Elk recounts the words of Kablaya, who had received the vision for the Sun Dance ceremony and describes the first time this rite was performed.  The retelling is quite beautiful.  I’d read this book years ago and just found a copy in a used book store and felt it would be well worth the read again – this time starting with the chapter Wiwanyag Wachipi: The Sun Dance

Kablaya then took the red paint, offered it to the six directions, and spoke again to the sacred tree: “O tree, you are about to stand up; be merciful to my people, that they may flourish under you.”  ” When we go into the center of the sacred hoop we shall all cry, for we should know that anything born into this world which you see about you must suffer and bear difficulties.  We are now going to suffer at the center of the sacred hoop, and by doing this may we take upon ourselves much of the suffering of our people.”  “O Wakan-Tanka, be merciful to me, that my people may live!  It is for this that I am sacrificing myself.”

I am in awe of those who make the commitment to dance.  It is a hard way to pray.  It is an honorable way.  And already, for weeks in fact, I can hear the whistles and the drum, the sacred songs.  I am pulled towards the Tree, towards the center of the Universe.  It seems surreal that I stand in my kitchen with a cup of coffee and laptop typing these words now when in a few short hours I will be on my communities land to bear witness to the suffering of men and women who will dance and pray in this old way.  I find this a remarkable juxtaposition as I bridge the modern with the ancient.

“By your actions today you have strengthened the sacred hoop of our nation,  you made a sacred center which will always be with you, and you have created a closer relationship with all things in the universe.”

I woke today to rain and the words willingness to gracefully transcend in my head.  The dance has begun.

May your own suffering be eased by your connection to all those who will dance in all the Sun Dance ceremonies around the country as we are all related in this way.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!