Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas

Well, Christmas has passed, and everyone had a good time.  We stuffed ourselves with turkey & dressing, the kids got the toys they wanted, and Athena and I even had enough money to get each other a few much-appreciated gifts.

I love Christmas, even though I am not a Christian.  It is such a season of happiness and fun.  Stressful, too, but worth it for me.  The whole season is layered with so many centuries of tradition and belief, stretching back beyond memory.  I love the wonderful secular mythology of Santa created by the Rankin-Bass stop-action animated movies (Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Rudolph, etc).  It is only the latest layer of mythology added to this mountain; on top of the Christian festival of the birth of the savior, pre-Christian German tree worship, the winter solstice, the Yule Log, and on and on.

When much of our city lost power, (our neighborhood was out for 5 days), I became intensly aware of the precariousness of human life in the grip of Winter.  There are no streetlights, no microwave, no radio or TV.  Food spoils in a few days.  You are cut off from everone except your close neighbors.  The nights are absolutely black, and freezing cold.  You can see nothing at all.  Without fire, you could not survive a single night.  And all through December, the nights are getting longer and longer, colder and colder.  There is a real primeval fear: what it it keeps getting colder?  How long will our fuel last?  How long will our food last?  We must always live on a knife's edge of survival: if in the fall we did not stock enough food and fuel for the entire winter, we will die.  There is no forgiveness, no second chance.  

Suddenly, there is a miraculous change.  The night, which seemed to be engulfing the world, relents.  There is a little more daylight than there was yesterday.  Tomorrow, there is a little more.  We are saved!  The grip of winter has been broken, and the sun is returning!  We still have months to go before spring, but the tide has turned.  At last, we can look forward with hope instead of fear.

Truly this is the season when hope is born, when the sun (son?) who will save us and gift us with life is reborn.  Once again, in the stately turning of the world, we have been forgiven, and all undeserving we are promised new life.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Ice storm

We have been hit by the big ice storm.  The ice is mostly gone now, but we have not had power for two days. I am really tired of this!

It was painful to see so many trees broken by the ice.  The ice was so thick that it bent some trees right over until the tops touched the ground; others lost many branches.  It seems like more than half of the trees I have seen suffered some major damage.  I went out and gave them what strength I could, but I could not stop the ice and many of the trees I know have suffered greatly.  They all said that endurance was one of their strengths, and that if they could they would make it through.  I spoke with the oak tree in my front yard, which has lost several large branches at the top; if all the top branches are broken, then it may not be able to grow properly again.  It did not seem to be in pain, but it felt very 'diminished'.  

Many of them knew that they may not survive this, and although a bit melancholy they did not seem greatly upset or angry as a person might.  Their thoughts seemed to be on the continuity of life, that there were many trees that survived and that their part may be ending the great play would go on.  It was comforting, I think I was more upset than they were.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Shaman horse

Athena and I went to visit a friend's horses this weekend, so I could talk to them and give them a little Reiki. 
Mo and her husband have four horses.  The first three were normal, easy to talk to, horses.  We had a fun time talking with (and about) them.  The fourth was different.  Daskala is a Medicine Hat horse.

Not really knowing what Medicine Hat meant, I thought "Oh that's nice" and went ahead and tried to contact her.  Nothing.  I tried my spider thread, sent it to connect with her spirit.  Nothing.  It was like there was no one there.  I pushed some Reiki energy, and it just stopped.  Now I knew something was different.  Instead of pushing and probing, I just tried to be receptive; then I knew that Daskala was blocking me completely.  She has a shield around her spirit, a circle of protection that lets nothing pass without her approval.  It was not directed at me, the shield was always there, she never took it down.  I realized that this was not just an ordinary horse, but an adept with a high spiritual awareness.

So I stepped back, and apologized for being rude.  She kindly but firmly said that she would not allow me (or anyone) to connect directly with her spirit.  It was "not safe" to be open, with no protections; she couldn't just let any Tom, Dick or Harry poke into her spirit or read her thoughts!  So I instead spoke to my animal guides, and asked them to help me explain that I just wanted to talk for a few minutes, and meant no harm. 

She acknowleged the tree with respect, but would not talk to it.  Spider she dimissed as uninteresting.  But when my bird guide spoke, it turned out that she has a bird guide too!  Our birds spoke together, and Daskala agreed to speak with me. 

Daskala said that, just as Mo suspected, she was there on a mission.  She is there to help Mo learn something.  She would not say what.  Mo asked could she tell me when?  Will it be soon, or will it be a long time?  Daskala said that it would not be right for her to talk about this.  When the time was right, the lesson would be learned.  Be content with that. 

Daskala is a very strong-minded horse (not stubborn, that is different).   She has a goal, a duty, and she will see it through.  Whether the learning will be easy or hard depends on Mo.  But the lesson WILL be learned!

She reminds me a lot of stories of an Inuit shaman; she will teach you, even if the lesson involves shooting all your relatives and dragging you home :)  Of maybe of a Kung-Fu master, who will whack his student in the head and throw him in the dirt if that will help the lesson hit home.  She has a very strong streak of mischief in her, something of a Trickster. 

I feel privileged to have spoken with Daskala.  Her gifts are far above mine, I am grateful that she shared some of her time with me.  But I don't know that I would want have her choose me as her student :D

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Lots of AC practice

 Athena, my wife, has been shopping on the Internet for a new horse a lot lately.  I have been getting a lot of practice with doing quick long-distance AC probes, to see what a horse is like!   It is getting much easier to use a few photos to open up a link quickly and get a reading on what kind of horse it is, what they like and dislike, are they smart or not-so-smart, calm or spooky, etc. 

I quickly found that I don't like using the normal Reiki distance-healing symbol to make the contact.  I find it cumbersome, overly complex, and impossible to memorize.  So instead I have started asking Spider to help, since one of Spider's gifts is communiciation (making connections, bridging gaps).  So I open my gates, raise my energy, then visualize a big spinnerette shooting out a long strand of fine, strong silk from my mind to the heart of the horse in the picture.  I can feel it unwinding through a great distance, and then contact opens just as if the horse was next to me.  

This 'spider-silk' distance connection has become easy to do, and very effective.  And it is much easier than memorizing a long string of Japanese characters that I don't understand anyway!

I find it continually fascinating how much of a strong sense of individuality I get from these quick readings.  Each horse feels like a different person, with attitudes, likes, and responses that may be completely different that another horse who looks very similar.  I don't feel like I am 'planning' or 'projecting' these feelings, otherwise why would the results I get surpise me so often?