A gift of names

A spirit journey tonight, after a very full week.  No particular goal in mind, it just felt right to take one.

The Harvest Moon was out, glowing silver.  As I walked through the woods, I worked on opening my heart.  Gradually the woods lightened and I could see green leaves on the trees around; not full light, but it was steady.  I think I am making progress.

In the clearing, the sun was shining.  I walked up to the Oak, and embraced it, thanking it for the strength and help it has given me.  Spider and Swallow appeared also, and I thanked them each for the special help and gifts they have been giving me recently.  My wife struck her head recently and after returning from the hospital I was trying Reiki on it.  I asked Spider to help knit the flesh together again and to help it heal cleanly, and I felt a definite response; I know Athena felt it too because she immediately said "Ow!" :)

Oak said that he was glad to give me his strength; he then leaned down and placed a nut in my hands.  It looked delicious and I ate it.  Then I asked what it was, and Oak said that is was strength for me to have when I needed it.

I walked over to the stream, running swift and clear.  The water tasted cold and wonderful, and I also laved my face and head with it.  It was so refreshing! 

Then I turned to my guides and asked them if there was anything they could tell me.  Spider spoke, saying that I should look around me and see where the threads of my life were, that I needed to stay aware of who and what I had included in my web and to keep them in my heart to stay in balance.  I looked around and there were many heart-threads from me to Athena, my son, my daughter, and others in my life.  It was all part of a large web that was beautiful and elaborate, that we all spun together by caring and reaching to each other.  Spider told me to keep aware of this, and know that I needed to be a dependable anchor for my threads, and that I could also get support and comfort from these threads; that we are all balanced in a web of love, helping each other.

As I looked at the threads that lead to my son and daughter, my guides said that it was time I gave (or learned?) their names.   They appeared to me as subtle concepts, and with a little work and help I determined that they should have this form:
My daughter is Aurora Lucidus Animi, Dawn of the Heart of Fire.
My son is Cercatore Filodoro, Seeker of the Thread of Gold.

(BTW, Spider promised to bind these names in safety and Oak to secure them within his arms, so that they cannot be used for their harm.)

After thanking them all, I left the clearing, returned to the sea, and awoke.

On the Quest of the Fabled Jewels of Slo-Na-Impah

Many seek to find the city of Slo-Na-Impah, of which many tales are told, and plunder the great caverns of their living jewels.  Those who attempt this great theft have always come to grief.  They are devoured by the terrible guardians of the treasure, who pursue them unsleeping across chasms and seas, and never fail in their duty.  For the great green serpents Malice and Envy, and fire-eyed salamanders Greed and Hatred, surround then always and will be found even in the eyes of their dearest friends.

I myself have journeyed thence, but with a different aim.  By walking humbly as a supplicant, and with honesty and an open heart, I was granted the boon to gaze for a time upon the great jewels, blazing under the starlight like stars themselves, each with a color never seen before or since.  I walked away with empty hands, but with a far greater treasure.  For having seen their jeweled colors shine, I carry in my heart the memory that can never be lost.  I do not desire to see these wonders gripped within my fist, or closed with in a box; or even chained around the neck of a woman where they must either shame her beauty or be shamed by it.

And my greatest treasure is the knowlege that the jewels remain free and unbound.  If someday I shall chance upon a traveller in a inn who has likewise seen these wonders, what shall equal our richness?  For as we share with each other our memories of their beauty, each will awaken in the other memories yet more wonderful, shared freely, unstained by any dark thought.  What finer treasure is there, than that which can never be stolen, and as it is shared only grows more splendid? 

-- with thanks to Lord Dunsany

Wheeling Within

A poem, written at the quiet suggestion of Barn Swallow, to send out into the world...

I walk to the river,
The river of peace,
The river of dreams,
Jordan, Niger, Tigris, Anduin,
The runs from the mountains to the sea,
That carries our hopes, our prayers, our dead, our souls,
That waters the roots of the world.

I sit by the tree,
The tree of strength,
The tree of protection,
The tree of inspiration,
Yggrasil, Oak, Ash,
Tent pole of the heavens,
Giver of gifts,
Rooted in the earth,
Home to the birds that carry our dreams to heaven.
The tree is the river.

I gaze at the mountain,
The mountain of majesty,
The mountain of power,
Olympus, Fuji, Golgotha,
Home of the gods,
Forge of the earth,
Axis Mundi,
Bed of the sleeping giant,
Doorway to the ancients.
The mountain is the tree.
    The tree is the river.

I dance in the circle,
The circle of drums,
The circle of life,
The circle of hands,
Where dance the ancestors and the animal powers,
And are sung the mysteries,
In strophy and antistrophy.
The circle is the mountain.
    The mountain is the tree.
        The tree is the river.

I kneel at the altar,
The altar of reverence,
The altar of sacrifice,
The chamber of relics,
Where flows the grace, the grain, the blood,
The sacrifice of Demeter's daughter,
The rebirth of heaven's son.
The altar is the circle.
    The circle is the mountain.
        The mountain is the tree.
            The tree is the river.

I furrow the earth,
The earth of our crops,
The soil of our future,
The cradle of our death,
Gaia, Earth, Geb, Demeter,
Foundation of the world,
Mother of all that lives,
Source of the harvest,
The dust from which we came and will return.
The earth is the altar.
    The altar is the circle.
        The circle is the mountain.
            The mountain is the tree.
                The tree is the river.

I look to the sky,
The sky of stars,
The sky of mysteries,
The vault of the heavens,
The firmament, the crystaline sphere,
Where is scattered the stars and the wandering planets,
That taught us of time,
Hours, years, and centuries,
And the movements of the worlds through the river of stars.
The sky is the earth.
    The earth is the alar.
        The altar is the circle.
            The circle is the mountain.
                The mountain is the tree.
                    The tree is the river.
                        The river is the sky.
                            The sky is the earth...

Endings and beginnings...

"Endings are foretold in beginnings, young human," Moriana said, "and the seeds of destruction are sown at creation."  The dragoness smiled, a toothy sight.  "But if you're fortunate, you're able to come around again to start anew."

"Is it always the same, honored Moriana?" I asked, my child's voice not yet broken by adolescence.  I hopped from dragon print to dragon print, pressed deep in the leaf mold.  "The same ending and beginning?"

"For some," the dragoness admitted.  "But for others, it is the spiraling song of the lark ascending."

-- Covenants, by Lorna Freeman

Meeting the Green Master

 In my last spirit journey, after the interlude with the jellyfish, I walked on up my path.  As usual, the woods seemed dark, the trees were tall, black, and clean-limbed.  As I walked, I practiced the exercises to open my heart, to try and accept more freely.  As I did so, the sun broke through the trees and the woods lightened up.  I stopped to look around, and it went dark again.  Whenever I concentrated and opened my heart, the sun showed through the trees and they appeared green and bright; whenever I stopped, it went dark again.  I have a lot of work to do, to learn to keep my heart open.

When I reached the clearing, my guides were there (Oak, Spider, and Swallow).  I greeted them and thanked them all for their help.  I looked to the stream, and the Green Master was there.  He/she is a guide who usually appears in an anthropomorhic form, of a person crowned with leaves and growing with leaves.  He usually works invisibly, under the surface.  This is only the second time that I have spoked to him face to face.

We talked about my wife Athena, who has been having a rough time recently.  He told me that I need to take care of her, she needs my help.  He said that she has special gifts that she gives to me, just be being who she is; just as I bring her special gifts just by being with her.  She doesn't know the gifts she brings me, and would deny it if asked; but it is true.  If I feel inadequate, or if I don't know what to do or say for her, to not get upset.  Sometimes just being there and doing what I can is all thats needed.  Keep focused on my love for her and my respect and admiration, and I will do what is needed at the right time.

I took comfort from this, and thanked the Green Master and my other guides.  I walked back down to the beach, and woke with a sense of peace and refreshed strength.

Wisdom from the Jellyfish

Last week, when walking, I was thinking of my guides and thanking those who helped me with Athena's bug bites.  I thought of the Green Master, the human-appearing spirit being who appeared in my first journey.  He/She said at the time that I may not see him much, he would be working behind the scenes to nurture and guide.  So I thought, as I often do, "Well, if he needs me to contact him he will let me know."  When all of sudden I just knew that he wanted to talk with me about something.  It wasn't urgent, but that I should try and find time in the next few weeks for a spirit journey.

As usual, I started at the seashore, on the beach studded with shells and seagrass.   I could see the beginning of the path up into the forest.  But first I turned to the sea, and spoke to it wordlessly, trying to comprehend its vastness and majesty.  I became aware that swimming in the water near my feet were several cone jellies, a harmless type of jellyfish shaped vaguely like a torpedo or a swimming cucumber with rippling lines down its sides that luminesce in the dark.  I reached out with my heart and greeted them.  One of them spoke to me, and as I admired it, it invited me to join with it and swim in the limitless sea.

I didn't follow it it body, but accompanied it in spirit into the deep sea, sometimes watching it and it's fellows flow effortlessly in the water, sometimes seeming to be a cone jelly myself.  With a transparent almost formless body that seems hardly different from the sea itself, with the sea always flowing within and through it, I felt that the jellies do not feel themselves to be solid beings who move through the water, but to be embodiments of the water.  As if they are the sea itself dreaming a form for its thoughts.

I sometimes have a fear of the deep ocean, terrified of falling forever in the blackness, not knowing which way was up, nothing solid to grasp.  How can these creatures bear to swim in this bottomless ocean, with no reference points?  It spoke to me and comforted my fears.  There is no down, there is no up.  There is nothing we are falling towards, there is not place we are going to, and nothing we are fleeing.  We simply ARE.  Immersed in the sea, fed by the sea, made of the sea, what can we fear?  What could we desire?  Let go, just BE.  The universe will sustain you, if you relax and let it happen.  If you live in the moment, you cannot get lost.  If you are not going anywhere, you don't have to worry about not getting there.

I released my fears, opened my heart, and relaxed.  My frenzied thrashing stopped, and for a brief while I knew what it was to simply exist, floating the middle of the all-sustaining void, with no needs or fears.  I will try and carry this peace and perspective with me into my life.

I thanked the jellies for the teaching, and returned to the beach.  In a later post, I will tell about the rest of my journey, and my meeting with the Green Master.

Healing the itchies

Well, its been a while since I posted.  Life has a way of getting very complex!  I am trying to get back on my path, and take some time again for personal growth

Last week, Athena got a very bad case of itchy bug bites, possibly chiggers.  I got a few, but she got a lot and the itching was driving her crazy.  She asked me to use Reiki to help.  I gave it a try, and asked for help from Oak and Spider in getting the poison out of her.  I felt them help; Oak seemed to have an affinity with the malady and was able to counter some of the irritation, and Spider cast her web to try and catch the poison and drag it out.  I also set up a circular circuit of energy into her ankle and back out into my hand, where I could catch and hold it it briefly and then dispose of it.  Athena reported an intense feeling of energy, and I just pulled as hard as I could.  I felt a lot of bad energy come out, cold and tingly.  She said that it felt much more comfortable, and it continued to improve over the next several days.