Gator Aid

A few months ago I took a few days to myself at a friend's little cabin in the woods. It was a wonderful spiritual retreat and I spent the entire weekend meditating, napping, and connecting. I worked quite a lot with my chanupa, performing several sacred pipe ceremonies each day, and probably the most thrilling thing that happened was the introduction of a new Power Animal during one of those ceremonies.

Power Animals are those Animal Spirit Guides that usually come into our lives at a specific time for a specific purpose, to guide and help us in a particular direction or with a particular task. It is especially exciting to me when they pop up of their own accord rather than my journeying to seek them because there's a certain amount of validation that comes with a guide showing up before you even knew you needed someone to help you in a certain area. If you weren't looking for someone in the first place you don't have to be concerned with the whole "I'm just making this up" mind set. 

Of course with new Spirit Guides, especially ones that just pop up, it's always a good thing to double check and make sure they've got your highest good at heart, so I always run them past Nathaniel, my stalwart reindeer companion, for his approval. Another fun way to do this is to ask them to tell you joke. If they really have your highest good at heart, have no other agenda, and are of a higher frequency, they are going to have a sense of humor, so if they can tell you a joke you're pretty safe. 

The joke this guide told me:

Why can't ducks ever be experts?

Because they're always dabbling!

(In case you don't get it -- non-diving ducks are called "dabblers")  

But I'm getting ahead of myself... So there I was one evening in the middle of a Pipe Ceremony, negotiating a deal with the Mosquito Nation in order to keep from being bit (which they mostly upheld) when I became aware of a presence. Whatever it was I knew it was reptilian. When I am in Non-Ordinary Reality, things tend to look similar to what the world looked like to Frodo when he put on the ring and became invisible (between the worlds) in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so it sometimes takes time for the shadows of figures to solidify into recognizable shapes. Even then they can morph back and forth between different forms. 

Then it raised its massive head and began breathing fire. "Mike?" I asked, referring to my dragon power animal, "Is that you?" But there was no immediate answer. Another dragon perhaps? You can never have too many dragon friends! But as the flames faded the form solidified into a giant albino alligator. Leave it to me to have something as unusual as a fire-breathing alligator as a spirit guide. As he stood there looking at me he began to glow from the inside. (...Make that a giant, albino, fire-breathing, glow-in-the-dark alligator). While we sat there staring at each other, the name "Ansel" floated through my thoughts. Really?! What is it with my power animals and alliteration?!

So I had a nice conversation with Ansel, asking what his message was for me, and how we were going to work together. Seemingly building on the insights I had earlier gained from my meetings with Sekmet about anger, Ansel was to help me learn when it's appropriate to 'breathe fire'.  And he was to help teach me how to dial it back to keep just enough flame burning inside to radiate the light, my inner light, to be a beacon. Again the message repeated through my spiritual history: I am meant to be seen.

With that, Ansel turned, very smoothly for his great size, and, with barely a splish, dove into a river I hadn't previously noticed but from which he had apparently emerged earlier. He sank quickly beneath the dark waters, his radiant white silhouette, propelled by his gracefully weaving tail, in stark contrast with the black currents as he descended, diminishing in size until swallowed by the darkness. It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.

It wasn't until I'd returned home and was doing a pipe ceremony down at the river that it occurred to me how appropriate Ansel's appearance was. Taking a long drag into my mouth, holding it for a second, then blowing it out, I suddenly realized I was literally breathing fire. Clever gator! The fire-breathing wasn't just about expressing anger, it was working with my pipe. He was here to help teach me how to work with my chanupa! 

Then another insight hit me that caused me to giggle out loud. Alligator is actually an exceptional mother. She doesn't just lay her eggs then disappear. She regularly tills the nest, turning the soil and stirring the eggs so that they get equal portions of warmth from the sun and coolness from the earth. Then when the babies hatch, she takes them in her mouth and carries them to the river where she teaches them to swim. Here I was, at the river, being taught how to swim, so to speak, by an alligator. 

It still amazes me how these things build on themselves, how something that seems relatively mundane at the time (at least as mundane as an albino, fire-breathing, glow-in-the-dark alligator can be) continues to unfold with deeper and more profound threads of meaning and connection. 

For instance - Even as I was writing this it occurred to me that Ansel is modeling the fact that I am the chanupa. I watch Ansel breathing fire and keeping his inner flame lit in the same way the breathing back and forth through the pipe keeps the embers in the bowl, the heart of the chanupa, alive, and just as it is my smoking the chanupa, breathing in and out, that helps keep the embers of my own heart lit, staying in alignment so I radiate more of my inner Divine light. 

I am finding that the more I work with my chanupa, the deeper I go (another river metaphor) and the more I'm walking in my own light, not afraid to step into the darkness and face it, or light it up. Like they say, "You can't be a beacon if your light don't shine."

So I now have a Spirit Ally ally-gator...  An animal spirit guide to help be my navi-gator... A power animal to help discover my deeper mysteries as my investi-gator...

Okay. I'm done. See you later...

...never mind...

Grand Ole Osprey

I’ve been doing a weekly post on my Facebook page for years now that I call Totem Tuesday. Each week I put up an original drawing of my own of an animal along with an explanation of that animal’s ‘medicine’, which is the powerful gift or lesson that animal brings to our lives to help us grow. 

Normally it can seem rather random as I try to come up with animals I haven’t featured yet and balance the appearances of various classes - mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, insects, etc - so as to represent a wider range of animals and expand people’s understanding about how EVERY species has a place and a purpose to which we are all connected. We are all related. Mitakuye Oyasin - The Native American phrase which means “All My Relations.” 

This year, however, I have noticed a lot less randomness as almost every animal has volunteered to come forward by repeated appearances in my own life, and their particular medicine has been precisely what I needed or what I was experiencing at the time, and usually they have not been animal guides I’ve experienced working with before - Tasmanian Devil, Narwhal, Slow Loris, and Whale Shark to name a few. But the one that has gotten a lot of my attention and has been working steadily with me is Osprey. 

This is the original post from my Facebook page:

*TOTEM TUESDAY*

OSPREY is a hawk that is HIGHLY SPECIALIZED to fish. She has long, sharp fishhook talons, textured feet for a better grip on slippery scales, and closable nostrils to name a few adaptions. Her message here is that you came into life with SPECIAL STRENGTHS AND CAPABILITIES to carry out your unique life purpose. These talents and abilities are natural and an integral part of you, and are custom-made to lead you toward that which nourishes and feeds you most. But to use these things, like Osprey, you may need to REACH OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONES. Venturing into territory that other birds of prey, including Fish Eagles, won't, Osprey is the only raptor that dives into the water. She TAKES THE RISK of doing so so that she can KEEP HER EYE ON HER PREY even as she enters the water. With Osprey as your ally, there is nothing you can not achieve once you have locked on to it. FOCUS and CONCENTRATION are a couple of her greatest gifts, as well as an ACTIVE SEEKING OF ONE'S PASSION, and a FEARLESSNESS to enter unknown territory to do so. Osprey does not wait for things to fall in her lap. She makes things happen. 

Osprey's nest is a large mass of grasses and sticks built with a clear view of the fishing grounds. Not only does this make her a SENTINEL, aware of everything around her from her clear vantage point, but Osprey has also become a BEACON and a GUIDE for fishing boats who use her nests as navigational landmarks.

Also there is an aspect of INTEGRITY with Osprey. Whereas the noble Eagle sometimes scavenges and steals Osprey's catches, Osprey is SELF-SUFFICIENT, relying on her own skills and abilities to care for herself. It is her own CONFIDENCE and ADEPTNESS that allows her to decide her own fate, and with a sense of POWER and MAJESTY that is self-evident without the need to boast.

So find that one thing that feeds your soul, and dive into it wholeheartedly no matter where it takes you. From your vantage point the future is yours. Set your vision and go for it. Let Osprey guide you and nothing can get in your way! 

Osprey’s medicine really resonated with me, especially with having decided that this is my year of deepening my path. After I posted this I realized that what Osprey medicine is really about is Dedication. Everything is dedicated to one purpose, customized to contribute to her goals with nothing extraneous. Dedication is focusing on one thing and releasing everything else. In a way it's like using the Law of Attraction -- You continuously affirm and focus on what you want, not giving time and energy to what you don't because 'Where consciousness goes, energy flows." Everything serves her singular purpose.

This brought to mind an experience from Sandra Ingerman's Teacher Training. We were to journey to one of our helping spirits and ask what it was that we needed to release in order to move forward on our healing/teaching path. As I slid into the spirit realms on the hoof beats of the wind-horse drum, Mike, my dragon guide loomed above me. Before I could even fully ask the question, Mike let loose with a barrage of fire, and I saw the word 'OBLIGATIONS' before me engulfed in flame and burning to ash.

I have a tendency to spread myself thin with obligations, whether with other people or organizations, which of itself is not a bad thing except when doing so saps and drains the energy from one's own medicine and purpose, especially when they are done out of guilt or outside expectations and duties. I have a specific purpose and path I came her to fulfill and, no matter how much good I may have been doing through other groups,etc, it is nothing compared to what I can do if I consolidate my energy and direct it to that singular purpose and destiny.

I also realized as I began to concentrate on deepening my path this year, that besides committing to exterior groups and people, I've also always looked for some exterior spiritual way, ideal, or deity to dedicate my life to in order to give my life meaning and purpose. The big news is that my life already has purpose; That I am already part and parcel of Source Energy, so dedication to anyone or anything else is still, however subtly, a dispersion of essential energy without which critical mass of purpose fulfillment can never be reached. There is no higher obligation or dedication than that too my own inner calling and guidance.

And so I began withdrawing my energy from various groups, and at the same time I became consciously mindful of where and to whom I promised my time and energy. If I am to do what I came here to do in this lifetime, I have to let go of those things that don't serve that purpose. I need to pay attention to the inner ebb and flow of my energy and feelings, letting that be my compass and final counsel on whether I act rather than the guilt and 'shoulds' of outer expectations. Enter Osprey as my perfect model and teacher of dedication - Dedication to myself and my path.

In an ironic twist, after thinking I had 'gotten' Osprey's medicine and how it worked toward deepening my path, I discovered I was still just skimming the surface of the meaning. While journeying for a student recently, Hortance, my shape shifting Owl/Toltec guide who helps me with teaching, mentioned, almost casually, my working with Osprey medicine, saying, "What you haven't grasped yet is that Osprey's dedication is not to the Fish. It is to the fishing."

In other words, it really is about the Journey and not the Destination. It is the continuous process of writing, drawing, and exploring, that brings joy to my heart and the feeling of better alignment with my True Self that is the point.  It is the doing and the creating of my various, seemingly countless,  projects that is the important part, not in the finishing. Of course, if I never finished anything my creativity would starve and my soul would wither, like the Osprey with out the fish. The fish is important for my continued survival and nourishment, but it is just the external indicator of how clear and aligned I am.

In other words, as my favorite Zen teacher, Alan Watts says, "When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point."   

"...the journey itself is the point..."

My life is my music and my path is my dance.

Enter the Dragon

A week and a half ago in class we did a shamanic journey. Our intent was to meet a power animal and to ask what we could do right now to benefit the world with the changes going on right now.

This journey was a little different than the way I normally journey on my own and it was actually kind of fun. Instead of just one drummer there were, I believe, four, which was incredibly powerful seeing as the drum is the driving engine -- The Wind Horse (I love that term!) that carries you into the shamanic realms. Also, rather than sitting up like I normally do, we journeyed laying down which meant we were in our Spirit Canoes.

So as the drums began beating I set off in my canoe, Jeshua on one side of me and Artemis on the other (Oh My Goddess was she gorgeous!! -- all silvery and sparkly!). I hadn't before used masculine and feminine allies on journeys, but going with my teacher's traditions, that was who showed up when I asked, and I happily realized I couldn't be in better hands. Meryl, my Pelican guide, with whom I've been doing a lot of work lately, sat up front.

It's important when journeying to the other worlds to be anchored in this world, so we use a real-life physical place -- A hole, cave, or hollow tree that we have been to, for example -- from where we travel to the other realms. So I began, as usual, at the tree that stands in the middle of the old Faerieworlds site. Since I was in a canoe, however, instead of the normal spiral stairs leading down to the Underworld, I discovered there was a river running right into the cleft in the side of the tree, and once we entered it, the river went straight down, ala Land of the Lost. Gravity didn't seem to make a difference, though because we didn't fall but just kept paddling down the river as if we were floating horizontally.

Finally we emerged from beneath some overhanging plants, and as we eased down the river the first thing I saw was a cave about half-way up a cliff face. "Oh, a dragon lives there," was my first matter-of-fact thought -- one that I almost instantly rejected, thinking that since that would just be way too cool I must be projecting my wishful thinking onto the journey's background. Still the cave highly resembled, again, the one from the Land of the Lost TV show, and as I looked around I realized the landscape was very jungle-y and prehistoric looking. In fact the first being I saw there was an allosaurus-like dinosaur who came running, chomping his teeth-laden jaws. "Nope! Not talking to you!" I thought, recalling my teacher's earlier comments about not talking to fish with big teeth.

A number of birds made appearances. A kestrel flew over, dropping a ribbon to me as she passed, and a king fisher landed on the side of the canoe and slowly transformed into a flicker before flying off. Then an owl flew down and landed in the canoe, apparently just to say hello because she didn't stay long either. None of them were the power animal I needed to talk to because whoever that animal turned out to be, would appear to me four times, in four different ways, as a signal that he or she were the correct one.

That's when I saw the dragon, up close and personal, his huge nose right up in my face -- a seemingly common way my guides make themselves initially apparent to me. #1. Then I saw him further off, a stick in hand with marshmallows on the end as he breathed fire on them. #2. Next I saw his gigantic head from the side lying in front of me, as if asleep, then watched his eye slowly open and stare at me. #3. Finally, I got a glimpse of Elliot, the dragon from the Disney movie Pete's Dragon, flapping his tiny little wings which miraculously held him aloft. #4.

With the necessary required signals out of the way, I asked the dragon (whose name is "Mike" -- but that's another story) my question of what I could do right now that would be beneficent to the world. "It wouldn't hurt for you to be just a little bit arrogant," came the reply through a toothy grin. He talked to me of stepping into my power, and as he raised himself to his full height, blue and green scales shimmering, he told me of my power of presence -- something my teacher has recently mentioned to me that I'm just starting to realize. The full impact of this monstrous creature standing before me in all it's brilliance and power was truly awe-inspiring, and I realized when you stand in your power and authenticity, there is no hiding. It was akin to the message I got from a reading a few years ago, "You are tall for a reason. You are meant to be seen!"

Mike leaned down toward me again, saying, "Some will fear you for this. Some will love you. But it is all coming from the same place -- awe." Not awe because I'm greater than anyone else, but because the more authentic and in my power I am, the clearer someone looking at me sees the reflection of their own authenticity and power.

In a seemingly change of topic, he told me not to worry about my breath (which reminded me I'd just run out of altoids...), as he unleashed a steady stream of flames onto some nearby stalagmites of the cave we were in. "It can only burn away that which is untrue. The Truth always remains untouched." It took me awhile to process this, and the more I sit with it, the deeper the meanings I find. And I had to laugh (actually almost choked) this morning as I took part in a Chanupa ceremony (Peace Pipe) and realized I was literally breathing fire. Anyway, it basically comes down to expression. It is the natural expression of a dragon to breathe fire, and I do not have to worry about my natural expressions, whether artwork, poems, conversations, or whatever, because if they come from authentic power, though reactions to them may initially be of pain, it is helping to burn away the illusions and cut through the darkness with light. Like it says in the Course In Miracles, "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists."

An interesting connection, and the initial meaning I took away from this, is that I recently have noticed a change of tone or intention when talking to friends about their respective lives and stuff. I sometimes feel like I'm not being very supportive because I'm not just blindly jumping up and down cheering them on, or diving into the depths to join them in their misery -- which is kind of the way the world seems to teach us to be. Instead I'm more thoughtful about whatever it is, and say the things that I am feeling, whatever they are. I am finally stepping into the name the Stone People gave me on my vision quest a little over a year and a half ago -- "Speaks His Heart."

I think it was at this point that I asked for a ride. ...What? ...You know you would have wanted one if in my shoes! Graciously Mike allowed me to crawl up onto his massive neck, and flapping his great wings, we flew into the air. He told me to remember I was at home in all the elements -- I was an Earth being who had the spark of Fire within me, who was equally at home in the sky (Air) as he was in the sea (Water). And at this last bit he dove into the ocean that was sprawling out beneath us.

Back to dry land and it was time to go. I was wondering what I could give him as a gift. Duh! From out of nowhere I handed him a big pot of gold for his dragon horde. Then after scratching him under his fuzzy chin I gave his chest a hug, and I felt his foot tenderly and lovingly settle on my back with a very slight squeeze as he returned the sentiment.

Before I had the chance to return to my canoe for the journey home, I looked up and Mike had taken a scale from his own body, and with a great finger pushed it into my chest. There wasn't time to ask for an explanation before I had to turn back, so I plan on journeying back this week to inquire as to what exactly this gift was that he gave me.

As an addendum, I went to the monthly Jeshua meeting last night (which I have a feeling will be playing a significant role in an upcoming post or two) and what he told me gave me in a single word what this whole journey had been about: Sovereignty.

Sovereignty, thy name is Dragon.