Snohomish Thursday Farmers Market
Full Moon Fires
Soles for the Soul Moccasin Crafting Workshops
Adults ~ Babies
Drum Birthing Workshop
Rattle Crafting Workshop
Wing Medicine Workshop
Medicine Bag Workshop
Talking Stick Workshop
Private – Group – Experiential Workshops
Oh! This set me back on my heels. I trust. But, do I trust absolutely? In all moments? Within days I was given an opportunity, a test of my absolute trust.
These last many months, it feels as though I am, we are, constantly being tested. Absolute trust is required to stay sane, balanced, and right-sided. And action. Many actions. All our attention is needed in every direction. There is no being on the fence.
I write this as a small boat, with duel American flags, slowly motors by on the river below where I sit. What trust is required to be an American, to be a citizen of the world? How does one go on aware that there was not one Treaty ever honored with our Indigenous Relatives, on stolen land where immigrates are unwelcome, while their government systematically destroys people, sacred places, civil rights, and has it’s dirty warmongering hands in the destruction of foreign people and lands globally? To trust that this is all in divine order requires great strength, total surrender, and a willingness to face the terrible facts head-on – it hurts, yet the suffering of other living beings the world over is unimaginable. Rising in compassion and empathy, it is only absolute trust that carries me. I hearing the birthing cries above the commotions and distractions, above the motor of the boat drifting by. #RiseUp #Vote #Divest
One Human Family – Sending Up A Prayer
To you, your families, and your communities… Love…
All My Relations
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I am created by Divine Light
I am sustained by Divine Light I am protected by Divine Light I am surrounded by Divine Light I am ever growing into Divine Light Swami Radha was my first spiritual teacher some 25 years ago. Her teachings woke me up to myself through the many practices of yoga. I was surprised to discover I wasn’t studying yoga. This powerful path was self discovery – body, mind, and spirit. Until then, I’d been a sleep-walker, in survival mode. I really worked it hard, this union of self/Self. I’m awake. Even with this, it was a medicine way path that brought me fully into my heart. The Bear Nation showed me a way home to myself by way of the heart. A four chambered heart – open, full, clear, and strong – a unified, whole, integrated self. “The mountains have always been here, and in them, the bears.”
~ Rick BassIn the Light |
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FIRST DANCE
Gratefully, I was commissioned to craft moccasin for a Dancer, she hadn’t worn moccasin before to make her prayer. Prayers of health, help, and happiness, as well as her own prayers were held with every stitch. They came together so beautifully, red buffalo medicine. A brief and sweet exchange over tea, we wished one another off to our respective ceremonies. I returned home to find this photograph and an email in my inbox:
“I hope you’re not horrified,
these moccasin went to the depths and back with me. They were strong traveling shoes and I’m so glad for them.” ~ CE Horrified? Quite the contrary. The sight of the good Red Earth and her words brought me to tears of joy and gratitude. Worn only once, their first dance, four days, sacred shoes, sacred feet, dancing a prayer. So filled with Spirit, they are even more beautiful. It humbles me. It is an honor to be united in this way of making prayers. “What if we All came together
to pray for peace, unity, and justice for ten seconds? Just ten seconds. Imagine how powerful our prayer could be in this sacred place.” ~ BRWhat if? It’s all sacred.Join me, from wherever, however. 10am PST ~ Daily 10 SecondsAll My Relations |
The last of Lyjse’s hair called to be in a rattle. Of course. I listen to the medicine, it tells me what is needed. Still a grief settled in, a deep sadness. Grieve good, VGH said once. I settled in too, grief is needed.
Holding. The. Grief.
Grief took me beyond the horse hair to the insect bore on the fir handle. The river of surprise. A new prayer that isn’t grief, but none the less a healer. I have so much gratitude for the ways of medicine.
Blessing from the Four Directions, Above and Below, from my heart.
All My Relations
Heron fished the river banks this morning. The second of an anticipated 4 oil trains, daily average, has passed in front of my house. Miss Cat sleeps in the warmth of the sun. The Standing Rock Sioux and nearly 90 other tribes are standing in solidarity for their rights. Many others are there to support, take part in this act of prayer and song, to protect the water, the land, their sacred sites. I want to go there. They are peaceful yet the officials feel threatened. The cape primrose is blooming again. Bill Spaulding did you fertilized the hell out them? LOL! Oak Flat still needs saving. All over this country there is cause to defend human rights. Good people are doing so. Wopila! The turtle doves’ coo and my heart smiles. 247 dead in Italy. Saudi Arabia is an ally? Really? There is tension in my body. Chickadee. Still 2 feet of standing flood water in people’s homes in Louisiana. The morning is blessedly light, cool. Steller’s jay. Another train, this one with Boeing fuselage. The oil trains are typically twice as long as the average train. Digging in. Doubling down like the loggers who were called to halt clear cutting Redwood forests – saws ran day and night to cut as much as possible before the deadline to stop. Happy skydivers are descending above me. The ice is melting. Perhaps we need not protect anything since Maka will tend to this business herself, on her own deadline. Cottonwood whisper a breezy secret. I’m listening for their beauty, seeing so much beauty. As modern thinking man, woman, the ones with big brains and opposable thumbs – we’ve been short sided in our hast to conquer the world, with little, if any, consideration for the next generations. Violence escalates. Every violent act seems met with violent response. How can I be non-violent, at peace of mind and heart? Not participate, not escalate the violence? What buttons get pushed in me with this greed and injustice? Honey salve. Self-love. Heal myself. I send up prayers on the smoke, make ties. Barking dogs on Maple Avenue. They always seem angry. Happily, I walk on the other side of the street to give them their space, they eave me be. Randomly, my neighbor gifted me safety glasses. I am protected. Om Namah Sivaya! Thank you Creator for my life! For my son’s wellbeing and happy heart, for All My Relations of All Nations. I get to see a hero of mine in the flesh today! I hope I get to shake his hand. Wopila and thanksgiving! OM
Escalate Peace
“Good Morning! Glory!”! It is a sweet memory to recall my mom’s singsong voice, waking me to each new day. “Good Morning! Glory!”
Good Morning Everyone ~
Snohomish is wild and wonderfully overgrown with white Morning Glory. It’s everywhere. It seems that not even the tamed and tended gardens are free of it. Morning Glory is a messenger encouraging me to break free of old habits, to be more creative, dare to live spontaneously, and to keep blooming anew day after day. Morning Glory wakes with the dawn, then exhausted it languishes as the sun disappears on western horizon – a full circle, a ceremony in each day. Pure white and funnel shaped, the flower is symbolic of both drawing energies in and sending energies out – how will I be in community now? What will I learn of myself? What can I offer? Can I receive? The heart-shaped leaves ask me if am I grounded in my body? In my body, the heart is allowed to lead, the mind can follow. The stretch of the many vining tendrils remind me to embrace what life has to offer, to express myself fully. Am I? Morning Glory connects me to the wealth of my inner reservoir where I acknowledge myself and honor Source.
“My life is my message.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
By experiencing the natural world as our messengers, we can see from a fresh perspective – with medicine eyes and a medicine heart. An old yet new way of being human, in alignment with creation.
Offering workshops, circles, and mentorship throughout the summer season. I look forward to sharing time with you. Until then, I bid you all a glorious morning, noon, and night, and beautiful strides in the South.
All My Relations
Life is one great big learning curve. A spiral dance.
“Energy moves in cycles, circles, spirals, vortexes, whirls, pulsations, waves, and rhythms—rarely if ever in simple straight lines.” ~ Starhawk
I caught myself in fear. Unraveling the tangled thread of it I found judgment, which showed me clearly that even in the kindness of giving a gift fear can have ugly hooks.
It’s the odd thing that sticks in ones psyche that prevents peace in the heart and creates fear and story in the mind. Tis the case with me anyway. Medicine work is always my teacher. It seems the New Ones coming in at this time are Sages or Wisdom Keepers, knowing so much more than me – again bringing me a lesson as I prepared to stitch baby moccasin, inviting me to examine and understand myself more fully, to be more self-aware and to see plainly another layer in the spiraling learning curve of my life.
An aside, my Guides have been talking with me. They are saying, It is the time of Peace Keeping. It’s time now to hold the vision of the Green Grass Walk in bare feet. The Green Grass Walk is a time of Peace Keeping. Even as I write that I feel it as a Circle. I am, we are I believe on a Peace Keeping mission. To be at peace in our hearts, to spiritually awaken to the presence of peace, rekindling our rhythm and relationship to our Earth Mother, to attune to a higher vibration. Peace movements are happening all around the globe. I am gratefully holding this vision, the visceral sensation of bare feet walking on green grass.
Peace. Peace. Peace my Sisters and Brothers. Peace.
Mitakuye Oyasin ~ All My Relations
Blessing For The Senses
May your body be blessed.
May you realize
that your body is a
faithful and beautiful
friend of your soul.
And may you be
peaceful and joyful
and recognize that your senses
are sacred thresholds.
May you realize
that holiness
is mindful, gazing,
feeling, hearing, and touching.
May your senses
gather you and bring you home.
May your senses
always enable you
to celebrate the
universe and the
mystery and possibilities
in your presence here.
May the Eros of the
Earth bless you.
Excerpt from Anam Cara by John O’Donohue
Image: The Art of the Human Body Sciforums
♥Joy is a nebulous concept when I am not present to the moment. Joy is ever-present. In every moment, be mindful, be present to the gift of the moment. I remind myself as a practice.
♥Joy is good medicine.
All My Relations
