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On the Road: An Evolving Turtle Island Odyssey

Copyright  © – 2007 – by Steven McFadden

After walking 3,500 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and arriving somewhat south of the place native people know as the Western Gate of Turtle Island, a band of pilgrims encountered the poet Gary Snyder on the last night of January, 1996. We had been walking toward this Western Gate for eight months, so we were paying attention to the portents.

With several other pilgrims, I heard Snyder speak that night at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He said that when he considered modern man’s relationship to the earth, he felt it lacked a conscious spiritual connection. “The fire of catastrophe,” said he, “has burnt out all.”

turtlislandSnyder revealed himself as one the many elders we had set out to find on our prophetic quest across the back of North America. He’d sounded a steady incantation for decades on behalf of the earth, his words finally reaching our pilgrim ears at the end of our epic walk specifically in quest of sacred places and steadying voices.

As it happens, poet Snyder won a Pulitzer Prize for authoring the collection, Turtle Island. He summoned his title from the creation stories native to our North American continent – the old, old name.

That night in Santa Barbara, Snyder said that ,as he saw things now on Turtle Island, people have organized themselves by race, gender, belief systems, and so forth. But we have not yet organized ourselves by ecosystems – the actual places where we live, and the actual resources native to these places.

“Nature is no social construction,” Snyder said. “The land sees no colors.”

Using high language and artful rhythm, Snyder told us that when we come to comprehend this, it will help us all to finally and truly become Native American in the full spiritual sense that embraces all the land and all the people, the plants and the animals. 

Through hearing the poet’s lyric, I came once again to a basic realization about why we had walked, and what we – a multicultural, all-faiths band of pilgrims — hoped to accomplish with our procession on foot across North America to meet some of the contemporary elders of our land. We were striving to help establish the kind of authentic spiritual connection with the earth that Snyder invoked with his words.

Eleven years after the end of the walk, in 2007 shortly after I finished writing the story of our walk in the form of an epic nonfiction saga (Odyssey of the 8th Fire), Gary Snyder reappeared. This time the poet came to Santa Fe to speak about his late compatriot, Jack Kerouac, the writer who crafted an undulating, enduring paean to America and freedom with his novel On the Road (1957)

Snyder was invited to Santa Fe by the Museum of New Mexico and the  Palace of the Governors. They asked him to speak as a complement to their exhibit of Kerouac’s work, including the original, continuous and amazing 120-foot teletype scroll that Kerouac used for writing On the Road – a novelized account of open, mad, freedom-expressing rushes across the back of Turtle Island in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with beauty to behold and creative souls to encounter.

Poster for the Santa Fe events.

Poster for the Santa Fe events.

On stage in downtown Santa Fe at the packed Lensic theater, Snyder told the audience that back in 1956 he had use of a cabin near Homestead Valley, just north of San Francisco. It was a rude structure, lacking glass for the windows. In this country abode, Kerouac moved in with him for 5-6 weeks – a place to crash.

Very much in command as he stood center stage, Snyder spoke directly of his friend Jack Kerouac as a man who was well intentioned, sweet, playful, sometimes goofy, non-judgmental, and imbued with the spirit of compassion. He said Kerouac was keenly intelligent, well read, and had a mind for words. One of Kerouac’s prime spiritual gifts, the poet said, was his ability to confront the immediacy of his imagination.

I listened to Snyder attentively. I wanted to understand more. In preparing to write the nonfiction saga of our long walk across Turtle Island —  Odyssey of the 8th Fire — I’d been informed by books telling of our human journey: Homer’s Odyssey, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie, William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways,  Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and Paolo Cohelo’sThe Pilgrimage. Inevitably, Kerouac’s On the Road also touched me with its entraining cross-America accounts of reaching outward, inward, downward, upward.

The miles that Kerouac’s Beatniks traveled in cars and buses and by hitchhiking, we odyssey pilgrims later traversed on foot – as if that were an era wanting speed to break free of bonds, and the era of our  walk a time to slow down, to take measure of the vast, multi-faceted spiritual landscape sprawled out before us, to proceed across it at a more deliberate pace.

With the overarching thrust of their works, Kerouac and Snyder were among a multitude of inspirations for me. In Odyssey of the 8th Fire, the actual Turtle Island emerges from the depths of North America with immediacy and relevancy. Spiritual elders of North America step forward by the dozens to share teachings of our land.

The spontaneous, howling, Beat pilgrims Jack Kerouac wrote about were, in one conception, on the road for truth, freedom, and spiritual realization advancing in their time and place. Our on-the-road walking quest some fifty years later was, in part, a natural extension and evolution of this fundamental quest, and also a part of the overall, amazing, grand, hope-lifting odyssey of all of us: multicolored, multi-faith masses of people over centuries of time striving awkwardly, unceasingly to establish a conscious, realized connection with the spirit of this beautiful land that we might finally be truly at home here on Turtle Island, and that the land and water and air might cleanly support our children and grandchildren in health and freedom.

We odyssey walkers stretched out our legs and strode toward what we felt could help. We did what we could. We walked to a great many of the holy sites of Turtle Island, and there enacted ceremony for all of the sacred hoop of life on Turtle Island, respecting all spiritual traditions and all colors of humanity – as had been the agreed-upon philosophy of our pilgrimage band, some 40 or more multicultural souls.

As it happened, as it happens. Circumstances impend. Roadways exist.  Poets sing.

END

Resources

Jack Kerouac – On the Road
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road

Gary Snyder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Snyder

Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, NM, USA
http://www.palaceofthegovernors.org/

Odyssey of the 8th Fire
http://www.8thfire.net

 

On the Road, of course. Our Evolving Odyssey

by

Copyright 2007 by Steven McFadden

After walking 3,500 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and arriving somewhat south of the place native people know as the Western Gate of Turtle Island, a band of pilgrims encountered poet Gary Snyder on the last night of January, 1996. We pilgrims had been walking toward this Western Gate for eight months, so we were paying attention.

With several other pilgrims, I heard Snyder speak that night at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He said that when he considered modern man’s relationship to the earth, he felt it lacked a conscious spiritual connection. “The fire of catastrophe,” said he, “has burnt out all.”

He revealed himself that night as one the many elders we had set out to find on our prophetic quest across the back of North America. He’d sounded a steady incantation for decades on behalf of the earth, his words finally reaching our pilgrim ears at the end of our epic walk specifically in quest of sacred places and steadying voices.

As it happens, poet Snyder won a Pulitzer Prize for authoring the collection, “Turtle Island.” He summoned his title from the creation stories native to our North American continent – the old, old name.

That night in Santa Barbara 11 years ago, Snyder said that as he saw it here on Turtle Island, people have organized themselves by race, gender, belief systems, and so forth, but not by ecosystems – the actual places where they live, and the actual resources native to these places. “Nature is no social construction,” he said. “The land sees no colors.”

Using the rhythm of high language, Snyder told us that when we come to comprehend this, it will help us all to finally and truly become Native American in the full spiritual sense that embraces all the land and all the people, the plants and the animals.

Through hearing the poet’s lyric, I came once again to a basic realization about why we had walked, and what we – a multicultural, all-faiths band of pilgrims — hoped to accomplish with our procession on foot across North America to meet some of the contemporary elders of our land. We were striving to help establish the kind of authentic spiritual connection with the earth that Snyder invoked with his words.

Eleven years after the end of the walk, in 2007 shortly after I finished writing our story in the form of an epic saga (Odyssey of the 8th Fire), Gary Snyder reappeared. This time the poet came to Santa Fe to speak about his late compatriot, Jack Kerouac, the writer who crafted an undulating, enduring paean to America and freedom with his novel On the Road (1957).
Snyder was invited to Santa Fe by the Museum of New Mexico and the Palace of the Governors. They asked him to speak as a complement to their exhibit of Kerouac’s work, including the original, continuous and amazing 120-foot long teletype scroll that Kerouac used for writing On the Road – a novelized account of open, mad, freedom-expressing rushes across the back of Turtle Island in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with beauty to behold and creative souls to encounter.

On stage in downtown Santa Fe at the packed Lensic theater, Snyder told the audience that back in 1956 he had use of a cabin near Homestead Valley, just north of San Francisco. It was a rude structure, lacking glass for the windows. In this country abode, Kerouac moved in with him for 5-6 weeks – a place to crash.

Very much in command as he stood center stage, Snyder spoke directly of his friend Jack Kerouac as a man who was well intentioned, sweet, playful, sometimes goofy, non-judgmental, and imbued with the spirit of compassion. He said Kerouac was keenly intelligent, well read, and had a mind for words. One of Kerouac’s prime spiritual gifts, the poet said, was his ability to confront the immediacy of his imagination.

Once again, I listened attentively. I wanted to understand more. In preparing to write the nonfiction saga of our long walk across Turtle Island — Odyssey of the 8th Fire — I had been informed and inspired by grand books telling of our human journey: Homer’s Odyssey, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie, William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and Paolo Cohelo’s The Pilgrimage. Inevitably, Kerouac’s On the Road also touched me with its entraining, exhilarating cross-America accounts of reaching outward, inward, downward, upward.

The miles that Kerouac’s Beatniks traveled in cars and buses and by hitchhiking, we odyssey pilgrims later traversed on foot – as if that were an era wanting speed to break free of bonds, and the era of our walk a time to slow down, to take measure of the vast, multi-faceted spiritual landscape sprawled out before us, to proceed across it for a time at a more deliberate pace.

With the overarching thrust of their works, Kerouac and Snyder were among a multitude of inspirations for me to journey with the other pilgrims on the walk across North America, and then to apply myself to relating the saga. In Odyssey of the 8th Fire, the place Turtle Island emerges with immediacy and relevancy. Spiritual elders of North America step forward by the dozens to share ancient teachings of our land.

The spontaneous, howling, Beat pilgrims Jack Kerouac wrote about were, in one conception, on the road for truth, freedom, and spiritual realization advancing in their time and place. Our on-the-road walking quest some fifty years later, I see in part as a natural extension and evolution of this fundamental quest, and also as part of the overall, amazing, grand, hope-lifting odyssey of all of us: multicolored, multi-faith masses of people over centuries of time striving awkwardly, unceasingly to establish a conscious, realized connection with the spirit of this beautiful land that we might finally be truly at home here on Turtle Island, and that the land and water and air might cleanly support our children and grandchildren in health and freedom.

We odyssey pilgrims acted. We did what we could. We walked to a great many of the holy sites of Turtle Island, and there enacted ceremony for all of the sacred hoop of life on Turtle Island, respecting all spiritual traditions and all colors of humanity – as had been the agreed-upon philosophy of our pilgrimage band, some 40 or more multicultural souls.

Our prophecy walk never advanced to the final sacred site. Our steps to the Western Gate were halted in 1996 about 100 miles to the south direction. As it happened, as it happens. That part of the odyssey remains unfolding, evolving. Circumstances impend. Roads exist. Poets sing.

END

Odyssey of the 8th Fire

http://www.8thfire.net

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A Primer for Pilgrims: Responding With Devotional Intelligence to Urgent Geospiritual Imperatives

by

By all scientific accounts we are in profound crisis on the physical plane. The Sixth Great Extinction is no longer a possibility, but has become a brutal unfolding reality as plants and animals become extinct at a mind-numbing rate 1,000 times faster than they did before humans walked the land; meanwhile the climate crisis steadily intensifies to the level of planetary emergency. On the land the most obvious causes and responses are physical, but as important are metaphysical causes and responses.

*PilgrimsfinalCoverIn recognition of this foundational truth, I am pleased to announce that I have authored and published a new Soul*Spark eBook: A Primer for Pilgrims. Pilgrimage can serve as yet another healthy response to the call of the land, in this case with devotional intelligence and action.

In a wealth of ways across a wide span of traditions and hundreds of generations, pilgrims have sought out holy places: forest groves, healing wells or springs, pyramids, mountains, churches, temples, stone circles or labyrinths. Millions of people have traveled for a host of reasons.

In the end, whether we go willingly or unwillingly, whether we regard ourselves as tourists, business agents, or sacred travelers, we are all, pilgrims. A pilgrimage is a journey, not only outward to a faraway place, but also, inevitably, inward toward spiritual understanding and growth. In our era pilgrimage can be as well a critical geospiritual deed to help maintain the balance of our land, our planet, our lives.

This eBook is an invaluable guide to personal spiritual growth, as well as to earth healing. It’s also a collection of riveting and beautifully told true stories about critical geospiritual actions in North America

This nonfiction eBook by veteran journalist Steven McFadden also acknowledges, honors, draws from and strives to integrate the many cultures and traditions which have streamed onto Turtle Island (North America) over the last 500 years or so.

Author Steven McFadden walks the labyrinth, circla 1998.

Author Steven McFadden walks the labyrinth.

We have long needed, and finally have begun to find ways to graft the far-flung traditions from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Asia, and beyond — onto the rootstock that is so deeply embedded here: Native ways. So many teachings make beautiful sense, in both the short and the long term, in ways both common and rare. We need all the wisdom we can summon to meet the challenges of our times, and native pilgrimage teachings offer a deep foundation.

The book offers a wealth of insight about the challenges that arise in pilgrimage and the profound good that such a spiritual exercise may bring – not just for the individual pilgrims, but also for the world at large.

Pilgrims may set out to do penance for past evils, to find answers to questions, to invoke blessings, to pursue spiritual ecstasy, or to seek a miracle for a friend or family member. Increasingly in our era, pilgrims also set out to help heal the earth.

In most mystical traditions it is said that the human soul itself, every human soul, is on a pilgrimage, consciously or unconsciously. He or she is bound for a holy place and therefore life is not just for enjoyment, but the soul also has dharma, a purpose or objective that must ever be kept in focus.

Now as you set out on the literary pilgrimage of reading this book, my hope as the author is that it will offer up useful compass points to help you maintain your bearings.

Journeys to luminous locations are often undertaken by people with scant understanding of what pilgrimage is and the principles that have been found to enhance it. Thus, they may see only what they have come to see, whereas intentional pilgrims may more readily open doors of perception, encounter revelation, and gain constructive power.

To the extent any or all of us are alienated by modern life from the natural world, a pilgrimage to a sacred place can help heal and restore this. The energetic atmosphere of sacred places can awaken a slumbering soul, providing not only renewal, but also a clearer sense of purpose. The energy can invigorate and promote balance — assisting human beings to realign through physical, mental, and emotional planes.

Pilgrim Marie McFadden

Pilgrim Marie McFadden

Just as I finished writing and prepared to publish this new eBook, my mother died. Marie Dolores Fitzsimmons McFadden was herself an inveterate pilgrim. Over the 92 1/2 years of her life she traveled to just about every region of the planet, and to an impressive number of sacred sites including Jerusalem, Rome, Fatima, Lourdes, El Sanctuario de Chimayo, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and many other places. To honor her memory, this new book is dedicated to her, as well as to all of us who are “on the road” in an era when extreme circumstances call out for our presence and our intelligent healing participation.

A Primer for Pilgrims delivers nonfiction insight, excitement, inspiration, adventure, and more. It’s available in 10 different eBook and Smartphone formats through Smashwords, and also available for Kindle through Amazon.com and for all Apple devices such as iPad and iPhone in the Apple bookstore.

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Let us now Praise a Worthy Man: Grandfather Commanda at age 90.

© – Copyright 2003 by Steven McFadden

William Commanda marked his 90th birthday on Nov. 11, 2003. He is worthy of honor for having attained great age in a sacred manner, and for having accomplished great good over his many years.

Grandfather William Commanda (author photo, 1996)

Grandfather William Commanda (author photo, 1996)

Grandfather Commanda is a traditional Algonquin Elder from the Kitigan Zibi Reserve in Maniwaki, Quebec, Canada. He is the Keeper of three Wampum Belts: the Seven Fires Prophecy Belt, the 1700s Belt, and the 1793 Jay Treaty Border Crossing Belt. I’ve known Grandfather since 1989 when I met with him then related part of his story in Chapter 2 of Profiles in Wisdom: Native Elders Speak About the Earth.

At many times and in many ways, Grandfather has expressed his understanding that it’s crucial for all the children of Mother Earth to come together at this time with one heart, one mind, one love, and one determination — to create a fitting legacy for all our children and our children’s children.

Among his many accomplishments, Grandfather provided guidance to the 1995-96 Sunbow 5 Walk from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean — an epic pilgrimage under the sky sign of the Whirling Rainbow.

As the Sunbow 5 Walk made its way from East to West under Grandfather’s guidance  in 1995 and ’96, I kept a daily journal.  Over the course of eight months, the pilgrims walked south from First Encounter Beach on Cape Cod, Massachusetts to the Qualla Boundary-Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina. Then the walk turned west for the long stretch to Los Angeles, finally turning north to end in Santa Barbara, California, on February 2, 1996.

By way of a 90th birthday tribute to Grandfather  Commanda for his sure guidance throughout that long walk and far beyond, I offer below some written sketches of him as I recorded them in my journal along the way.

The journal begins with an account of a Thanksgiving Day gathering, seven months before the first steps of the long walk:

Day 0 – Thursday, November 24, 1994 – In the last few moments of a weakly illumined night, tar-dark clouds roiled and raced over all. Then just before the Sun pulled above the horizon on this piercingly cold Thanksgiving Day, a west wind raked across the hills and valleys of Massachusetts.

stor-creative-commonsThe wind spiked out over Cape Cod Bay, frothing the blackened waters into angry, spitting caps. A great, bitter wind was upon the land and the sea. Still, the people came. In the face of icy needles cast by the unrelenting gale, 40 people broke from their cars into a wild, scattered search for a place with a scrap of windbreak. They needed protection, for they had arrived to light a sacred fire at First Encounter Beach, just five years before the Millennium.

We found a low place, a depression about four feet below grade of the road on the West, and marked by a wispy picket of marsh grasses to the East. The people gathered and piled driftwood shoulder high in a tipi form, then held up blankets and huddled close around Tom Dostou, sheltering him as knelt to strike a spark. The wind raged, the spark struggled against the screaming elements. Then the fire came. Within moments it was big, strong, and wild. ?Under the guidance of Algonquin Grandfather William Commanda, the group of about 40 people — representing all the colors and many of the spiritual traditions of the world — formed a circle and began the ceremony.

We had come to help open the Eastern Door, one of the spiritual gateways to North America, and to pray for a planned prayer walk of some 3,700 miles that would start from this same beach, and from this same sandy hollow, in seven months. In the minutes after sunrise on Thanksgiving Day, 1994, as the people huddled in blankets about the wildly blowing fire at First Encounter Beach, a sacred song was sung. Pipes were filled then lit. Grandfather Commanda prayed in the Algonquin language. Then Tom Dostou called on four people to speak: one person representing each of the Four Directions, the Four Colors.

Months later the Sunbow pilgrims walk west. (author photo, 1995)

Months later  the pilgrims walk west (author photo).

When the ceremony ended that cold, windy Thanksgiving morning, we hurried back to the shelter of our vehicles, and fired them up to travel 15 miles to the home of Tom Dostou and Naoko Haga on Bank Street in Harwich, Massachusetts. A river of coffee awaited us, to wash down a wild smorgasbord of turkey, squash, doughnuts, pies, sweet rolls and butter.

After we feasted, Grandfather Commanda settled into an arm chair by the fireplace in the sun-filled living room. He laid out on the carpet a prayer cloth. Upon the prayer cloth he set some of the ancient, elegant Wampum Belts that he has been entrusted to keep since the 1960s: the Seven Fires Belt, the Jay Treaty Belt, and the 1701 Montreal Treaty Belt.

The belts are about four inches wide, and perhaps three feet long. Two of them are beautifully crafted of beads made from wampum, the white and purple shell of the Quahog clam. The softly colored cream or purple beads are strung together with rawhide to serve as records of important agreements, occurrences, or understandings. As I understand it, an elder who reads the wampum does more than faithfully remember what the symbols woven into the belt represent. He or she also communes with the spirit of the wampum beads — for each bead bears its own living vibration, the quahogs being among the Earth’s oldest creatures.

Together the linked wampum beads form a coherent field of meaning that is alive in time and carries authority. The wampums not only serve as records of the past, but also reflect the present and the future. They are a link to Creator’s mind, Grandfather said to the 30 people crowded into the living room. “I don’t own these belts. I just keep them for the people.”

With the support of his helper, Frank Decontie, Grandfather Commanda told the story of the first belt, the oldest belt, the belt of the Seven Prophets and the Seven Fires. His understanding of this has been deepened over the years, as he has interacted and shared with other Anishinabe elders such as Eddie Benton-Banai. Part of the teaching of this wampum belt, the part about the Seventh Fire, indicates that “new people” would arise at a time of great troubles. These new people would have an opportunity and a responsibility to retrace the footsteps of the ancestors to find the sacred ways that had been left behind long ago.

It was at this time, as I heard Grandfather recount it, that the light-skinned race would be given a choice. If they choose the right road, then the seventh fire would light an eighth and final fire: an eternal fire of peace, love and brotherhood. But if the light-skinned race makes the wrong choice of road — the road of greed and materialism — then the destruction which they brought with them on coming to this great Turtle Island continent will come back to them, causing much suffering and death.

“It is time to walk,” Grandfather Commanda told the gathering that Thanksgiving Day in 1994. “It is time to retrace the steps of the ancestors and find what was left by the side of the trail. It is time to walk now.” ?When Frank and Grandfather finished speaking, Tom Dostou (Nabesse Pishum) huddled with guest after guest, making plans for the long cross-continent pilgrimage that would start in just seven months, in June, 1995. Tom was to be the head man. He had been afire with the idea of a long walk since the Cry of the Earth Conference in New York in November 1994 — and since he had participated in a second walk for native rights in Canada. The walks had stirred him deeply.

Sunbow - Whirling Rainbow

Sunbow – Whirling Rainbow

With his wife Naoko Haga, Tom shared a vision of the Sundog, or Whirling Rainbow. When this natural phenomenon occurs, a full 360-degree circle of a rainbow appears in a wide ring around the Sun. Tom and Naoko spoke of it as the Sunbow, and added the number 5 to it to signify five colors of human beings: Red, White, Black, Yellow, and Brown. The long walk, Tom said, would be called the Sunbow 5 Walk for the Earth.

The Sunbow, or Whirling Rainbow, represents an emerging understanding. In some indigenous communities, it is considered a sign from the Creator. It has long been held that a time of great change, or transition on the Earth, would be signaled by an increase in the number of visible Sunbows.

These full-circle rainbows around the Sun, elders say, may be understood as a sign to people of the necessity to live a life in respect and harmony with all the creations that make life possible: plants, animals, waters, minerals, winds, and other human beings respecting all races and religions. But there is a lot to learn about the Sunbow. We are just at the beginning of our understanding.

Day 14 of the Sunbow 5 Walk – Thursday, July 6, 1995 – As they were making their steps today the walkers realized that they had covered a far stretch of road over two weeks. They had walked across Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and then West along the shore of Connecticut toward New York City. This day — the 14th on the road — the walkers covered about ten more miles across New Rochelle and the Bronx, ending at the Willis Bridge on the margin of Manhattan.

Though the walking distance was short, it took over five hours for the walkers to make all the steps, for the way was congested and the road was hot to the point of torment.

koyaanisqatsiValaine Lighty and Erika Haga looked about them as the walk approached New York City, and they discussed their experience. Reaching for descriptors, Valaine asked: “Have you ever seen the film Koyaanisqatsi? That’s what it was like.”

Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi word and concept. It means chaos, or “world out of balance.” From 1975 to 1982 a film was made under this title depicting traffic, pollution, hatred, and the desecration of the earth, air, and water — all set to a musical score by Philip Glass that intensifies the experience to an excruciatingly painful degree.

Throughout their long day on the road, Valaine, Erika, and the other walkers, heard horns honk and various machines ratchet, throb and grind. They saw jagged stretches of pavement, burned-out buildings, graffiti, trash, people engaged in furious argument, and drug dealing. They saw unattended children bawling on the street, beggars, and not a few people just sitting and blankly staring. They saw a woman try to cross the street and almost get run over by a car. They heard her cry out: “What? Do I not exist?” For the walkers this overheard cry of frustration and despair seemed to epitomize the voices of far too many souls in the modern world.

The walkers prayed as they went. They put down tobacco in places where they saw trash, decay, or suffering. They contemplated their visions, and their mission. They kept walking. ?Meanwhile, Grandfather Commanda and Ned Pashene (Naskapi Cree) arrived in New York via Air Canada, to accompany the walkers to their meeting with officials at the United Nations on Friday.

After Grandfather and Ned got off the plane and greeted the walkers, they told everyone the story of their difficulties in crossing the international boundary from Canada to the United States.

They had been detained and hassled at the border by immigration officials — as they often are — because they are not citizens of the US or Canada, but rather First Nations people. In being stopped at the border, Grandfather said, there was for him always a bitter irony. That’s because, in addition to the other sacred artifacts he keeps, Grandfather is the keeper of the Jay Treaty Border Crossing Belt.

Aa_Jay Treaty Belt 1793A belt of beads is the traditional Algonquin device employed to record the solemn and binding agreement they entered into in 1793 with the US and Great Britain. This was a time when the newly formed government of the United States was defining its corporate existence upon Turtle Island and the Canadian nation did not yet exist. Native nations were full and equal partners to the treaty, with the same standing as the United States and Great Britain. But the Algonquins did not use black marks upon paper to keep important records; they used beads woven into beautiful, long-lasting belts.

The Jay Treaty has many provisions. One article stipulates that First Nations peoples would always have the right to freely cross the border between the US and Canada. After all, the native people had never drawn lines on the earth to define regions, but rather had accepted the natural boundaries of the earth. Native peoples considered the idea of drawing lines on a map, and designating them as “real boundaries,” to be both artificial and arbitrary. Many of their traditional tribal homelands overlap what is now the US-Canada border.

As agreed upon by all parties, the Jay Treaty states explicitly that Native Americans may travel freely back and forth across the U.S./Canadian border, and that this is a permanent understanding: “The Indians dwelling on either side of the…boundary line… {shall have the right} freely to pass and repass by land or island navigation…and to navigate all the lakes, rivers and waters thereof, freely, to carry on trade and commerce with each other.”

The way the Algonquin people recorded this permanent agreement — as with all important matters — was to fashion a belt of beads in a pattern that would plainly symbolize the understanding. For the most important agreements, they used beads fashioned from the shell of the Quahog clam (venus mercenaria), known as wampum in Algonquin. ?Grandfather Commanda is the contemporary keeper of the Jay Treaty Belt — but that is of scant relevance to US or Canadian officials when he crosses the border. He gets hassled anyway, just as Native American people often are when crossing. As Grandfather put it, their right to recognition as Native people is often not respected.

On this July day, after a long delay and intensive questioning by border officials, Grandfather Commanda and Ned Pashene were finally admitted to the United States, and traveled on to New York to join the walkers at the United Nations.

Day 15 of the Sunbow 5 Walk – Friday, July 7, 1995  – At 9 AM  the walkers met at the Willis Bridge and began walking down Second Avenue to 44th St. and then over to United Nations headquarters, which sits close by the shore of the East River.

The House of Mica - UN Headquarters

The House of Mica – UN Headquarters

As the walkers passed through Harlem many people offered warm smiles, and said “good morning.” It was an easy journey, and their spirits were peaceful as they walked and prayed. The walkers soon reached the technological and bureaucratic wonderland of the United Nations (UN), perched upon the fabled $26 island acquired through an infamous 1626 trade between the Manhattan peoples and a company of European merchants.

While at UN headquarters the walkers met with Delphine Redshirt, the chairperson of the UN’s Committee for the “International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (1995-2004),” and with Elsa Stamatopoulou, an official of the UN’s Centre for Human Rights. The Sunbow walkers and Grandfather Commanda had come to reiterate the messages presented during the prophetic and historic “Cry of the Earth” conference in 1994.

Grandfather Commanda opened today’s meeting with a prayer, and then Ms. Stamatopoulou welcomed the walkers to the UN. In her remarks she outlined what the UN was doing for the Earth and for indigenous peoples.

Tom Dostou responded with a brief speech. “Many of the nation states that belong to the UN are afraid of indigenous peoples. But we have no guns, no money, and no systems of power of the kind that they need to be concerned about. We have our spiritual basis. That’s about it. We don’t want to overthrow the nation states and create more fear, hate, and harm. That won’t help anybody. We don’t feel we ‘own’ the land, but rather that we are all — every color, and nationality, and religion — tenants on the Earth Mother. Indigenous people are trying to help show the industrial-commercial nation-states how to live on the land, how to be in good relation with it. That’s something that we all need to know. It’s important, and it’s important now.”

Grandfather hold the belt.

Grandfather holds the belt.

After this statement Tom rested and Grandfather Commanda opened his medicine bag and withdrew the Seven Fires Wampum Belt to show it to the walkers and the UN officials. The Seven Fires Wampum Belt is primarily dark, purple wampum beads, with a pattern of seven white diamonds, each diamond representing a ‘fire,’ or epoch of time. The middle fire is represented by a double diamond, indicating the promise of an Eighth Fire, or epoch, if people heed the foundational lessons of honesty, love, caring, sharing, and respect.

Grandfather Commanda explained to everyone about the belts, briefly telling the meaning of each of the seven diamonds shown on the belt (representing the Seven Fires).

I noted the core of his message during a phone conversation later that day that day, Grandfather told the officials: “We are in the time of the Seventh Fire now. That’s the reason for this Sunbow walk. We need to maintain our honesty, and to bring things into keeping with the way the Creator intended. That way we can bring the double-diamond at the center of the belt together, to make one diamond representing the lighting of an Eighth Fire. That fire does not have to burn or destroy, but can illuminate this world that we are part of. It’s up to us which way it burns. We have the choice now, and can use our will as we want. It’s up to the people.”

“The first key in this healing,” Grandfather said, “is forgiveness: to forgive those people, and nations, and races that we feel have done us harm. We may not forget, but we have to forgive. That will begin to heal the hurt. We have to forgive ourselves, too, for the harm we have done to ourselves and to others. It’s very difficult. It’s not easy. But that’s what’s required. Those are the teachings that have been handed down to me. That’s part of what the wampum belt is about, and that’s what I have to share.”

“If all the races will come together,” Grandfather Commanda said at the UN, “and stop doing what they are doing, it can begin. Forgiveness, peace, love, respect — those are the four important things. With all of that, then the waters can again be pure, the air can be clean, the Earth can be healed, and the children can live. Whether it will happen or not, we don’t know. The people have the choice. The time to choose is now. We pray for the good things. That’s why the walk.” Many months later.

Day 224 of the Sunbow 5 Walk — Thursday, February 1, 1996 – The rain kept coming on and off. We all sat on logs and chairs and tarps around the main campfire at Circle K Ranch, in the hills just to the East of Santa Barbara, California, on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. From the coals they cared for, the firekeepers had built the blaze up big. We talked for a while, getting ready for the closing ceremony that was planned for the next day, and we looked around the circle at ourselves, soggy and tired.

Sitting by the fire near the end of the odyssey - Ned Pachene, Joe Soto, Grandfather Commanda.

Aroundthe fire at odyssey end: Ned Pachene, Joe Soto, Grandfather Commanda.

Grandfather was wearing his silver cowboy hat with beaded band, and a black vest as he sat by the fire, with his daughter Evelyn at his side. Someone had placed a blanket on his chair. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter he had brought with him, dated January 26, 1996.

He read the letter aloud: “Greetings Walkers, It is very pleasing to hear that you have completed your walk. It has been a difficult journey, and you have certainly sacrificed yourself for this sacred purpose. This walk is a history that will be remembered, respected, and honored…You have done your job, the message is delivered. May the California Sun shine into your hearts and minds. – Frank Decontie, Algonquin Nation.” ?Grandfather folded the letter back into his pocket, and looked up. “No more walking after this,” he said. “Let nature talk to us. Observe it. We’ll see if the people will listen.”

– end –

Note: By the time of his death at age 97 in August 2011, William Commanda held many honors from both Native and international nations. He was holder of a Key to the City for Canada’s capital of Ottawa, and had also been recognized with the highest civilian honor the nation offers, Officer of the Order of Canada.

Some teachings from Grandfather Commanda’s tradition can be found at this link.

Steep Uphill Climb: Messages from the Mayan Milieu

©- Copyright 2002 by Steven McFadden

In early Autumn 2002, Carlos Barrios journeyed North from his home in Guatemala to the Eastern edge of the Four Corners. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the tail of the Rocky Mountain spine of North America, Mr. Barrios spoke in a knowledgeable manner about the Mayan tradition and the fabled Mayan calendars.

The Mayan calendars are an object of intense interest for many thousands of people right now, because they focus upon the watershed date of Dec. 21, 2012. Everything changes by then, it is said.

With a cultural heritage including thousands of pyramids and temples, and a calendar that has proven itself to be astronomically accurate over millions of years, the Maya tradition is widely considered to be a mystic key to the soul of Turtle Island (North America).

Carlos Barrios

Carlos Barrios

In public talks and in private interviews, Mr. Barrios laid out his account of the history and future of the Americas, and the larger world, based on his understanding of the Mayan tradition as both an anthropologist and an initiate. He spoke also about the path he sees ahead from now until the Winter Solstice of 2012.

The range of teachings and insights offered by Mr. Barrios must be considered in the context of the realpolitik in his American homeland. The Maya of Guatemala, their pyramids, and their calendar have endured not in a new-age Shambhala of love and light, but in a milieu of treachery, beatings, torture, rape, and mass murder. Mr. Barrios himself is viewed critically by some knowledgeable about the calendars and teachings, including some traditional elders who feel he has betrayed them.

Decades of Darkness
For 30 long years right-wing Guatemalan governments — supported both overtly and covertly by the US government — waged a terrorist war against the people of the land, murdering over 200,000 citizens, many of them indigenous Mayan people.

small.guatemalaWhen the war finally wound down in the 1990s, the United Nations Truth Commission conducted an 18-month investigation.* The UN found massive violations of human rights by the government of Guatemala with the complicity of the US government. The UN report stated that acts of “aggressive, racist and extremely cruel” violence descended to the level of genocide directed against the country’s indigenous Mayan population.

When Amnesty International studied the Guatemalan situation in recent years, they came to an arresting conclusion. They wrote that real peace could come only through confronting Guatemala’s “Corporate Mafia State.”*

They described this corporate Mafia state as an “unholy alliance” of certain national and international economic actors, who work alongside sectors of the police and military and common criminals to control ‘black’ industries such as drugs, arms trafficking, money laundering, car theft rings, illegal adoptions, and kidnapping for ransom.”

About the great dark shadow that has hung over the south-most part of Turtle Island, Mr. Barrios observes: “These injustices began five hundred years ago and continue to this very day in all the Americas. The Indian Wars have never ended…I think the power holders in the developed world see it as necessary to destroy the indigenous peoples, or at least to destroy their culture, because they are not ‘consumers.’ The American Dream is built on the back of the Third World…But that is a false distinction for there is no Third World. There is only one world. We are all part of that one world, and we are all due respect.”

While Guatemala has ostensibly been at peace for the last eight years, it is a disturbed peace. The war continues to have a residual impact on the people. Human rights violations still occur regularly, and even international human-rights monitors have been under threat.

Still, in the view of Mr. Barrios who came of age during the war, there have been improvements. “There are no armed guerillas, and the police and army are more decent, more respectful,” he observed. “Because there is more human respect now, we can try to find a new life.”

One eventual consequence of Guatemala’s long-enduring climate of terrorism, has been mistrust and criticism. From this few are immune. Accusations are often aimed at people who purport to speak of the Mayan traditions. Mr. Barrios is enmeshed in this matrix of uncertainty. He criticizes others, and he is criticized himself. He has become a figure of controversy for some traditional Mayan elders.

The World will Not End
volcanguatemalCarlos Barrios says he was born into a Spanish family on El Altiplano, the highlands of Guatemala. His home was in Huehuetenango, also the dwelling place of the Maya Mam tribe. With other Maya and other indigenous tradition keepers, the Mam carry part of the old ways on Turtle Island (North America). They are keepers of time, authorities on remarkable calendars that are ancient, elegant and relevant.

According to Mr. Barrios, he is a historian, an anthropologist and investigator. After studying with traditional elders for 25 years since the age of 19, Barrios says he has also become a Mayan Ajq’ij, a ceremonial priest and spiritual guide, Eagle Clan.

Years ago, along with his brother, Gerardo, Carlos initiated an investigation into the different Mayan calendars. He studied with many teachers. He says his brother Gerardo interviewed nearly 600 traditional Mayan elders to widen their scope of knowledge.

“Anthropologists visit the temple sites,” Mr. Barrios says, “and read the stelas and inscriptions and make up stories about the Maya, but they do not read the signs correctly. It’s just their imagination. Other people write about prophecy in the name of the Maya. They say that the world will end in December 2012. The Mayan elders are angry with this. The world will not end. It will be transformed. The indigenous have the calendars, and know how to accurately interpret it, not others.”

The Calendars
Mayan comprehension of time, seasons, and cycles has proven itself to be vast and sophisticated. The Maya understand 17 different calendars, some of them charting time accurately over a span of more than ten million years.

The calendar that has steadily drawn global attention since 1987 is called the Tzolk’in or Cholq’ij. Devised ages ago and based on the cycle of the Pleiades, it is still held as sacred.

Mayan Cholq'ij - an image of the Mayan Tzolkin calendar used on the Altiplano

Mayan Cholq’ij – an image of the Mayan Tzolkin calendar used on the Altiplano

With the indigenous calendars, native people have kept track of important turning points in history. For example, the daykeepers who study the calendars identified an important day in the year One Reed, Ce Acatal as it was called by the Mexica. That was the day when an important ancestor was prophesied to return, “coming like a butterfly.”

The One Reed date correlates to the day that Hernando Cortez and his fleet of 11 Spanish galleons arrived from the East at what is today called Vera Cruz, Mexico. When the Spanish ships came toward shore, native people wereS waiting and watching to see how it would go. The billowing sails of the ships did indeed remind the scouts of butterflies skimming the ocean surface.

In this manner was a new era initiated, an era they had anticipated through their calendars. The Maya termed the new era the Nine Bolomtikus, or Nine Hells of 52 years each. As the nine cycles unfolded, land and freedom were taken from the native people. Disease and disrespect dominated.

What began with the arrival of Cortez, lasted until August 16, 1987 – a date many people recall as Harmonic Convergence. Millions of people took advantage of that date to make ceremony in sacred sites, praying for a smooth transition to a new era: the World of the Fifth Sun.

From that 1987 date until now, Mr. Barrios says, we have been in a time when the right arm of the materialistic world is disappearing, slowly but inexorably. We are at the cusp of the era when peace begins, and people live in harmony with Mother Earth. We are no longer in the World of the Fourth Sun, but we are not yet in the World of the Fifth Sun. This is the time in-between, the time of transition.

As we pass through transition there is a colossal, global convergence of environmental destruction, social chaos, war, and ongoing Earth changes. All this, Mr. Barrios says, was foreseen via the simple, spiral mathematics of the Mayan calendars.

“It will change,” Mr. Barrios observes. “Everything will change.” He said Mayan Daykeepers view the Dec. 21, 2012 date as a rebirth, the start of the World of the Fifth Sun. It will be the start of a new era resulting from — and signified by — the solar meridian crossing the galactic equator, and the earth aligning itself with the center of the galaxy.

As John Major Jenkins has written in Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, at sunrise on December 21, 2012 — for the first time in 26,000 years — the Sun rises to conjunct the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic, describing in the sky a great cross of stars and planets. This cosmic cross is considered to be an embodiment of the Sacred Tree, The Tree of Life — a tree remembered in all the world’s spiritual traditions.

Some observers say this alignment with the heart of the galaxy in 2012 will open a channel for cosmic energy to flow through the earth, cleansing it and all that dwells upon it, raising all to a higher level of vibration. This process has already begun, Mr. Barrios suggested. “Change is accelerating now, and it will continue to accelerate.”

If the people of the earth can get to this 2012 date in good shape, without having destroyed too much of the Earth, Mr. Barrios said, we will rise to a new, higher level. But to get there we must transform enormously powerful forces that seek to block the way.

A Picture of the Road Ahead
otneroadFrom his understanding of the Mayan tradition and the calendars, Mr. Barrios offered a picture of where we are at and what may lie on the road ahead:

The date specified in the calendar — Winter Solstice in the year 2012 — does not mark the end of the world. Many outside people writing about the Mayan calendar sensationalize this date, but they do not know. The ones who know are the indigenous elders who are entrusted with keeping the tradition.

“Humanity will continue,” he contends, “but in a different way. Material structures will change. From this we will have the opportunity to be more human.”

“We are living in the most important era of the Mayan calendars and prophecies. All the prophecies of the world, all the traditions, are converging now. There is no time for games. The spiritual ideal of this era is action.

Many powerful souls have reincarnated in this era, with a lot of power. This is true on both sides, the light and the dark. High magic is at work on both sides.

Things will change, but it is up to the people how difficult or easy it is for the changes to come about.
The economy now is a fiction. The first five-year stretch of transition — from August 1987 to August 1992 — was the beginning of the destruction of the material world. We have progressed ten years deeper into the transition phase by now, and many of the so-called sources of financial stability are in fact hollow.

The banks are weak. This is a delicate moment for them. They could crash globally if we don’t pay attention. One critical period is October and November 2002. If the banks crash in these months then we will be forced to rely on the land and our skills. The monetary systems will be in chaos, and we must then rely on our direct relationship with the Earth for our food and shelter.

The North and South Poles are both breaking up. The level of the water in the oceans is going to rise. But at the same time, land in the ocean, especially near Cuba, is also going to rise.

A Call for Fusion
fusionsunAs he met with audiences in Santa Fe, Mr. Barrios told a story about the most recent Mayan New Year ceremonies in Guatemala. He said that one respected Mam elder, who lives all year in a solitary mountain cave, journeyed to Chichicastenango to speak with the people at the ceremony.

The elder delivered a simple, direct message. He called for human beings to come together in support of life and light. Right now each person and group is going his or her own way. The elder of the mountains said there is hope if the people of the light can come together and unite in some way.

Reflecting on this, Mr. Barrios explained: “We live in a world of polarity: day and night, man and woman, positive and negative. Light and darkness need each other. They are a balance. Just now the dark side is very strong, and very clear about what they want. They have their vision and their priorities clearly held, and also their hierarchy. They are working in many ways so that we will be unable to connect with the spiral Fifth World in 2012.”

“On the light side everyone thinks they are the most important, that their own understandings, or their group’s understandings, are the key. There’s a diversity of cultures and opinions, so there is competition, diffusion, and no single focus.”

As Mr. Barrios sees it, the dark side works to block fusion through denial and materialism. It also works to destroy those who are working with the light to get the Earth to a higher level. They like the energy of the old, declining Fourth World, the materialism. They do not want it to change. They do not want fusion. They want to stay at this level, and are afraid of the next level.

The dark power of the declining Fourth World cannot be destroyed or overpowered. It’s too strong and clear for that, and that is the wrong strategy. The dark can only be transformed when confronted with simplicity and open-heartedness. This is what leads to fusion, a key concept for the World of the Fifth Sun.

Mr. Barrios said the emerging era of the Fifth Sun will call attention to a much-overlooked element. Whereas the four traditional elements of earth, air, fire and water have dominated various epochs in the past, there will be a fifth element to reckon with in the time of the Fifth Sun: ether.

The dictionary defines ether as the rarefied element thought to fill the upper regions of space, the Heavens. Ether is a medium that permeates all space and transmits waves of energy in a wide range of frequencies, from cell phones to human auras. What is “ethereal” is related to the regions beyond earth: the heavens.

Ether — the element of the Fifth Sun — is celestial, and lacking in material substance, but is no less real than wood, wind, flame, stone or flesh.

“Within the context of ether there can be a fusion of the polarities,” Mr. Barrios said. “No more darkness or light in the people, but an uplifted fusion. But right now the realm of darkness is not interested in this. They are organized to block it. They seek to unbalance the Earth and its environment so we will be unready for the alignment in 2012. We need to work together for peace, and balance with the other side. We need to take care of the Earth that feeds and shelters us. We need to put our entire mind and heart into pursuing unity and fusion now, to confront the other side and preserve life.”

To Be Ready for this Moment in History
Mr. Barrios told his audiences in Santa Fe that we are at a critical moment of world history. “We are disturbed,” he said. “We can’t play anymore. Our planet can be renewed or ravaged. Now is the time to awaken and take action.”

“Everyone is needed. You are not here for no reason. Everyone who is here now has an important purpose. This is a hard, but a special time. We have the opportunity for growth, but we must be ready for this moment in history.”

Mr. Barrios offered a number of suggestions to help people walk in balance through the years ahead. “The prophesized changes are going to happen,” he said, “but our attitude and actions determine how harsh or mild they are.”

  • We need to act, to make changes, and to elect people to represent us who understand and who will take political action to respect the earth. Meditation and spiritual practice are good, but also action.
  • It’s very important to be clear about who you are, and also about your relation to the Earth.
  • Develop yourself according to your own tradition and the call of your heart. But remember to respect differences, and strive for unity.
  • Eat wisely. A lot of food is corrupt in either subtle or gross ways. Pay attention to what you are taking into your body.
  • Learn to preserve food, and to conserve energy.
  • Learn some good breathing techniques, so you have mastery of your breath.
  • Be clear. Follow a tradition with great roots. It is not important what tradition, your heart will tell you, but it must have great roots.
  • We live in a world of energy. An important task at this time is to learn to sense or see the energy of everyone and everything: people, plants, animals. This becomes increasingly important as we draw close to the World of the Fifth Sun, for it is associated with the element ether – the realm where energy lives and weaves.
  • Go to the sacred places of the earth to pray for peace, and respect for the Earth which gives us our food, clothing, and shelter. We need to reactivate the energy of these sacred places. That is our work.

Many Mayan elders and knowledge keepers may be eliminated in the next few years, Barrios said. For the first half of the current Katun (20-year period) the dark side has a lot of power. But that will pass 3 to 4 years from now. The tide can turn. Amazing things are going to happen.

One simple but effective prayer technique is to light a white or baby-blue colored candle. Think a moment in peace. Speak your intention to the flame and send the light of it on to the leaders who have the power to make war or peace.

We Have Work to Do
According to Mr. Barrios this is a crucially important moment for humanity, and for earth. Each person is important. If you have incarnated into this era, you have spiritual work to do balancing the planet.

He said the elders have opened the doors so that other races can come to the Mayan world to receive the tradition. The Maya have long appreciated and respected that there are other colors, other races, and other spiritual systems. “They know,” he said, “that the destiny of the Mayan world is related to the destiny of the whole world.”

“The greatest wisdom is in simplicity,” Mr. Barrios advised before leaving Santa Fe. “Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It’s not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It’s encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way.”

– END –

Carlos Barrios is the author of Kam Wuj: El Libro del Destino, a book published in Spanish that explores Mayan teachings.

For background see these reports:

UN Truth Commission Report on Guatemala

Guatemala: Twenty Years Crying for Justice

Guatemala’s Lethal Legacy:
Past Impunity and Renewed Human Rights Violations

General information on 2012
http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk

 

Chiron’s Cave

      * Chiron Communications Youtube Channel

Blossoms Unfold in an Age of Flowers

 Excerpted from Chapter 11 – Legend of the Rainbow Warriors – by Steven McFadden

We’re in transition, that’s for sure. By that I mean the rate of change around the globe–climate, business, education, technology, etc–is cracking along at a wildfire pace: in our faces. We’re moving decidedly toward some new state of life. To add to the wealth of speculation about what some qualities of that new state may be, I offer yet another descriptor–one with mythic unifying attributes: the Age of Flowers. I wrote this chapter in the mid-1990s as a facet of Legend of the Rainbow Warriors, an exploration in nonfiction mythology. Now in the summer of 2024, it feels worthwhile to publish it online and to make it more widely accessible.

Moving Around the Spiral

Ven. Dhyani Ywahoo has spent much time contemplating the traditional calendars of the Americas and the Orient, and the concept of a new cycle emerging.

A teacher in the Etowah Cherokee tradition and also a recognized teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, in the Nyingma and Drikung Kagyu lineages. Ven. Ywahoo teaches from the Sunray Peace Village in the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains, toward the crown end of the Appalachian mountain spine, along the Eastern flank of Turtle Island (North America).

Dhyani says that many Indigenous people have paid attention to the transition described in Native  calendars. “The age ending has been a time when people have gathered information about building and about inventions to make life better,” she explained. “Now it’s time for people to recognize that the inventions are a creation of mind, to put aside such inventions as cause harm, and to bring forth and further develop those activities that benefit all beings and benefit the future generations.”

“We are moving around the spiral, coming again to a place of whole civilization, of true planetary consciousness. What we see now are the fever throes, the end of the fever’s nightmares as the sickness and poisons leave the system. Just how well the culture, the people, go through this time is really dependent upon the calling of the light, because in a time of purification the light makes clear the places of darkness.

“How much the planet will suffer, how much the people will suffer, is really determined by the consciousness of groups. It is no longer a matter of just individuals finding the light within themselves; it’s really necessary to establish a network, to rebuild those areas of the Earth’s web that have been harmed by unclear thinking.

“According to the way we are taught, and the seeds that are being planted, the new calendar that has begun is to manifest peace–an age of peace. The elders have asked–this is a large council of elders, so they speak to Central and North American people–that the morning after every full moon at about 10 a.m., that we gather flowers and go outside and look to the Sun, to the flowers, and to the heart of the Earth. In so doing, we bring more solar energy and flower wisdom to the Earth, because the new age is an Age of Flowers.

“Flowers give light and joy. They also have a very subtle consciousness. They have a unity of mind. Flower energy is peaceful, and flowers are great medicine. By meditation on flowers, we can reduce the inflammation caused by aggressive habits of mind. Flowers are our medicine for the next age. In this new time, flowers will become very significant as teachers and healers of humanity.

“Flowers move with the Sun; thus they have a certain committed solar consciousness. They know the proper relationship between Spirit and Earth. The flowers remind us to look up to heaven and to actualize the solar energy in our own lives–to speak more clearly and to act more clearly.

“Flowers are the medicine we need for balance and tone,” she said. “The old people say that when properly prepared–and some of the preparations can take as long as twelve years–flower essences can widen the frequency response of the human mind. They increase our sensitivity. But they need to be prepared with prayer, right offering, and dedication. Flowers can remove the poisons of incorrect thought and stir the body to its fullest health.”

Quickening

According to Ven. Ywahoo, one way the flowers are teaching humanity is through their pollen. In recent years…doctors have reported an increase in the number of cases of hay fever, other allergies, and asthma. As Dhyani explains, “Through the movement of flower pollen in the air, we are all being quickened. That quickening for some is frightening, and it also brings a reaction–just like when someone takes a homeopathic remedy. First, they may become a little bit sicker, but it’s really the sickness being exaggerated so that the organism can be awakened to heal itself.”

“The whole issue of allergy,” she says, “is really an issue of the planetary system and not the human system. In some instances the Earth and the people are so out of alignment with one another that anything natural is disturbing to the human body. For years we’ve been taking artificial vitamins, and for years our food has been grown with artificial fertilizers. So the natural kingdom has been made an enemy, and the body and the immune system respond as if nature were an enemy. This is a result of years and years of improper drugging of the crops.

“By releasing their pollen, flowers are trying to attract the attention of human beings. The plants do that specifically. Plants do have minds and they have alertness and consciousness, and they can change,” Dhyani explained. “Notice also that the atmosphere’s quality is changing. Certainly there’s less oxygen. There are more heavy metals and acid in the air. So the plants are working even harder to transmute these things, and in their efforts for transformation the plants that survive become more potent.”

Jitterbug Perfume

In the late 1980s, best-selling author Tom Robbins published a novel entitled Jitterbug Perfume. The book contains a chapter with a peculiar title: Dannyboy’s Theory (Where We Are Going and Why It Smells the Way It Does). In that chapter the fictional characters contend that humankind is about to enter the floral stage of evolutionary development.

Although the book is a novel, within this chapter Robbins offers some illuminating facts about human brains and the quality of their consciousness.

Specifically, through his characters, he notes that reptile consciousness is cold, aggressive, self-preserving, angry, greedy, and paranoid. Of note, neurophysicist Paul McLean has pointed out that within our skulls we modern-day human beings still harbor a fully intact and functional reptilian brain: the limbic lobe, the hypothalamus, and perhaps other organs of the diencephalon. When we are in a cold sweat or a blind rage, he says, our reptile brain is in control of our consciousness.

Robbins explains that human beings also have a mammal brain, called the midbrain or mesencephalon, and that characteristics of mammal consciousness are warmth, generosity, loyalty, love, joy, grief, humor, pride, and appreciation of art and music. In late mammalian times–the last several thousand years–human beings have developed a third brain, the telencephalon, consisting principally of the neocortex, a dense rind of nerve fibers about an eighth of an inch thick. This part of the brain is molded over the top of the existing mammal brain.

Brain researchers were initially puzzled by the neocortex. What is its function? And why has it developed? In his book, Robbins concludes that this third brain is a floral brain, corresponding to the evolving stage of human development.

Flowers extract energy from light. Likewise, neuromelanin–one of the principal chemicals in this part of the brain–absorbs light and also has the capacity to convert light into other forms of energy. Consequently, Robbins notes, the neocortex is light sensitive and can itself be lit up by higher forms of mental activity, such as meditation or chanting.

Thus, Robbins writes, “the ancients were not being metaphoric when they referred to ‘illumination.”‘ They were being literal.

Jitterbug Perfume brings forward the encouraging idea that we are moving gradually toward a dominant floral consciousness: “We require a less physically aggressive, less rugged human being now. We need a more relaxed, contemplative, gentle, flexible kind of person, for only he or she can survive (and expedite) this very new system that is upon us. Only he or she can participate in the next evolutionary phase. It has definite spiritual overtones, this floral phase of consciousness…”

“As our neocortex comes into full use, we, too, will practice a kind of photosynthesis,” Robbins writes. “As a matter of fact, we already do, but compared to the flowers, our kind is primitive and limited. For one thing, information gathered from daily newspapers, soap operas, sales conferences, and coffee klatches is inferior to information gathered from sunlight. (Since all matter is condensed light, light is the source, the cause of life. Therefore, light is divine. The flowers have a direct line to God that an evangelist would kill for.)”

“With reptile consciousness,” Robbins concludes, “we had hostile confrontation. With mammal consciousness, we had civilized debate. With floral consciousness, we’ll have empathetic telepathy.”

 

A Modality of Healing

Since the early part of the twentieth century, flowers have emerged as an effective modality of healing. Specifically, in the late 1920s a British doctor began experimenting with flowers as remedies for human disease. The results of his experiments opened a whole new field of health care that began to blossom throuh the 1980s and onward.

Edward Bach, M.D. (1886-1936) practiced traditional medicine from 1914 until 1918, when he became interested in homeopathy, the healing modality founded on the principle that like cures like: in other words, that small doses of whatever is causing a problem, intelligently applied, can bring about a positive healing reaction within the body.

Bach was an outstanding doctor, held in high regard by both orthodox and homeopathic physicians. In 1928, he became interested in flowers and began to prepare homeopathic remedies from various blossoms. As time went on, he observed excellent results from these medicines. Working steadily until the time of his death, he developed 38 individual flower essences as well as the popular Rescue Remedy, a combination of several flowers used to alleviate trauma.

Bach believed that bodily ills were only symptoms. He wrote that the ills of the heart and the spirit should instead be the focus of a healer’s attention: “It is our fears, our cares, our anxieties, and such like that open the path to the invasion of illness.” Dr. Bach also believed that the overweening materialism of our times has caused us to focus almost exclusively on the physical aspects of disease and to pay scant attention to the underlying or spiritual causes.

In response to this perception, Bach developed a new branch of herbal and homeopathic medicine that employed flowers to relieve mental distress. With this system, problems could be dealt with on an inner level. Specifically, he created his flower remedies to heal attitudes such as anger, resentment, remorse, lack of confidence, greed, and anxiety. Bach believed that by correcting harmful mental attitudes, one could prevent a disease from becoming established in the body. If one treated a disease at the energy level, he posited, one could avoid having to deal with it later as a gross physical malady.

 

How the Flowers May Heal Us

Flower essences are part of an evolving branch of the healing arts known as vibrational medicine. With vibrational medicine the subtle energies of the human body are influenced gently and non-obtrusively, through means such as color, light, sound, fragrance, and the essences of flowers. The theory underlying these modalities is that all living things, including human beings, have energy that flows in and around the body in particular patterns. Those energy patterns are directly related to–and in fact may even be the mold for–the physical form of the body. Therefore, if one can bring a person’s energy patterns (or energy bodies) into vitality and balance, then theoretically there will be a corresponding shift in the person’s physical health.

As viewed from the perspective of the classical four elements (earth, fire, water and air), floral healing approaches can be said to fall within the realm of air, specifically within the realm of Aquarius, which is the third and highest of the Zodiac’s air signs. The classical figure of Aquarius is not pouring out water, but rather waves of energy. Aquarius has long been said to rule electricity, high technology, flying, forward progress. In human beings the Aquarian impulse can be expressed as a cool detached intellectualism, the scientific mind. Aquarius is yang, and can be exceedingly dry.

In the context of our times, one might well ask, where does the yin or feminine energy come from to balance the yang-masculine energy of Aquarius. A likely response is from the flowers–which are a yin expression of the Aquarian air impulse.

One leading organization in the development of flowers as a healing modality has been the Alaskan Flower Essence Project. The project describes this aspect vividly: “Flowers,” the project’s brochures say, “are light patterns of truth, beautifully expressed in physical form.”

Flowers are the highest, most beautiful, most refined part of plants. They are said to correspond to the human soul. Flower essences may influence the subtle electrical energy field of the human body in much the same way acupuncture does, albeit more gently, and less obtrusively.

Flowers become an evolutionary force in the consciousness of the person who uses them. They are not the cause of the healing or the health that results from their use; rather, they are agents that support the free will and clear intention of the person who seeks to heal him or herself.

 

The Soul of Nature

Richard Katz and Patricia Kaminski are the founders of the Flower Essence Society (FES). Through this organizational vehicle, they support research and educational programs that deepen public understanding of flowers as a medium for healing.

FES teaches that flower essences address health in a broad sense by strengthening the link between body and soul. The organization professes that flowers can be used to treat a wide variety of disorders such as stress, addictions, depression, fear, emotional repression, and jealousy. They can also be used to enhance creativity and spiritual awareness.

“With flower essences,” Richard Katz commented, “we are seeking to bring spiritual light into our lives. Forty years ago, with the nuclear explosion, we split apart matter to create light. Now the generation that was born in that time has matured and is deciding whether to continue to split apart matter to create light or to radiate it from within. Never has the choice been clearer.”

If this is an Age of Flowers, and if flowers are to become our healers and teachers, then what have we got to learn? As Richard Katz sees it, “Flowers are the soul of nature, and they give it expression through color, form, and fragrance. Flower essences are the art and science of bringing the balance of nature to the human soul.

“Most remedies are intended to make us feel better, but flower essences can help us heal our souls and find our life direction. Perhaps the most healing experience you can have is to be aware of your life purpose.”

To help a person develop awareness of and to take steps toward fulfilling his or her life purpose, Katz recommends one of three specific flower essences, or a combination of all three: Mullein, Walnut, and Wild Oat. He suggests that the person place a few drops of the flower essences under the tongue and then relax, repeating this process rhythmically, several times a day for several weeks, to internalize the subtle qualities of the flowers. To strengthen the process, the person might also use affirmations, either of their own design or as suggested by a supplier of flower essences.

The Flower Essence Society has published a pioneering booklet on this theme, entitled Affirmations: The Messages of the Flowers in Transformative Words for the Soul.  As the booklet explains, “Affirmations are a specialized activity within the larger field of meditation, contemplation and prayer. They are simple, directly evocative words which enable the soul to work toward positive, specific goals of inner development. It is a tenet of all spiritual teachings, as well as business and professional training programs, that the ordering of thought and the harmonizing of feeling has a powerful impact on our ability to manifest change, both within ourselves and within the world.”

Affirmations are not magical words that immediately bring fortune or fame; rather, they are verbal tools that can help the personality to develop virtue and moral strength in accord with the real needs and capacities of the soul. Here, for example, are the original FES affirmations for two flower essences relating to life purpose:

Mullein
I hear the spiritual call that guides me.
I stand true to my inner guidance.
I bear aloft the torch of my Spirit Light.
 

Wild Oat
I am clear in my life direction.
I express my soul’s purpose in my life activities.
I create and attract the opportunities I need

At this juncture of world history many people sense the compelling forces of change bearing upon civilization–and they may also sense that it is part of their personal soul mission to engage and to help steer the Earth aright toward a clean, just, and peaceful state. For them the Age of Flowers has potential to resonate as an insightful frame of reference, and also as an auspicious soul call audible to the inner ear.

This essay excerpted from Chapter 11 – Legend of the Rainbow Warriors  nonfiction mythology by Steven McFadden

Descansa en paz – R.I.P. Maestro Alberto Taxo

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Don Alberto Taxo crossed into spirit on the cross-quarter, February 1, 2022.  That’s the moment each year when the Sun crosses the point in time and space that dwells halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.

In passing Taxo left a legacy of kindness, respect, and spiritual intelligence. He also left illustrious teachings for all of The Americas.

To acknowledge Maestro Taxo’s death, and to honor him for all he gave to the world through his years of life, I offer a story.

It’s the story of the day that Taxo walked upon on the great plaza that sprawls before the entrance to the House of Mica (United Nations Headquarters) on the island of Manhattan. A man of respect, gratitude, and natural grace, don Alberto generously helped bring those qualities forward through an important ceremonial day.

It was Wednesday, August 9, 1995. I remember it vividly. It was the 48th day of the Sunbow 5 Walk for the Earth, a dedicated band of travelers on foot from the Atlantic toward the Pacific. I was among a small group of those Sunbow pilgrims that day. We journeyed to the UN specifically for ceremonies marking the first annual occasion where member nations of the UN would—at least on paper—formally recognize and honor the indigenous peoples of the world.

Whirling Rainbow

As the ceremony began mid-day, the murky Manhattan sky above the gleaming facade of the House of Mica, brought forth a sunbow, the rare, natural phenomenon of a circular rainbow hoop around the Sun. The whirling rainbow held its form and presence in the sky for over 90 minutes, the entire duration of the ceremony.

Altogether about 250 human beings—representing all nations, all ways—gathered on the UN’s plaza. But note: not one official from any of the world’s incorporated, industrialized nation states showed up to acknowledge, to listen, to engage.

Chief Oren Lyons, Onondaga Faithkeeper and professor at the State University of New York-Buffalo, served as master of ceremonies. He offered a gracious welcome. “For many hundreds of years,” Chief Lyons remarked, “it has been a daily struggle for the indigenous peoples of the Earth to survive. So we are happy to be here. We are happy to have survived.”

Delphine Red Shirt, Lakota, Chairperson of the NGO Committee on the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People, led a moving pipe ceremony. As she stood on the plaza before the UN and under the rainbow hoop around the Sun, she lifted her pipe high to honor everything, all relations, the sacred hoop of life.

Then Maestro Alberto Taxo came forward. He was a middle-aged then, about 40, hailing from the Andes Mountains of South America, a master Iachak of the Atis (Kichwa) people in the Cotopaxi region of Ecuador. An Iachak is someone who embodies and shares the wisdom of his tradition for the benefit of others, a leader for the community.

On the broad UN plaza, singing in Spanish, Taxo lifted a lilting, enchanting song honoring all Creation. As his final notes faded, everything became deeply still, a moment of grace.

Then Taxo began a brief oration. He spoke of the condor of the south and the eagle of the north, a reference to the widely-known teaching that one day the great sacred birds of both North and South America would fly together, cooperate, and establish a healthy, sustainable future that merges high intelligence with full, open hearts.

Often it is said, “when the eagle flies with the condor a lasting peace will reign in the Americas. It will spread throughout the world to unite humanity.”

As author Michelle Adam notes on her blog, “…like many native elders, he (Taxo) carried a 500-year-old teaching of his indigenous ancestors to prepare for an immense change for the earth and humanity, a ‘Pachacuti,’ that would occur at this time in history.”

Quetzal – Wiki Commons

The eagle and the condor would unite, some elders say, through the agency of the ethereally beautiful Central American quetzal bird. “Those of the center will unite the north and the south,” Mayan elder don Alejandro Cirilo Perez has proclaimed for decades. He also has worked to make this particular vision real.

The teaching foretells the coming together of two great powers: Eagle (the power of the mind as exemplified in the industrialized nations of the North) and Condor (the power of the heart, and connection with nature as expressed in indigenous ways of the South). Heart and mind.

House of Mica (UN)

Standing before the House of Mica in August 1995, don Alberto said the condor and the eagle have already met. The time for the fulfillment of this teaching is now.

He said the eagles of the north cannot be fully realized without the condors of the south, nor can the condors ascend without the eagles.

Taxo commented directly on the relationship between the technology-based cultures of the world (yang, or masculine, eagle in character), and the earth-based, or native, cultures (yin, or feminine, condor in character).

As he succinctly explained, profound social, political, and spiritual currents are at work in indigenous nations all around the globe. These dynamic currents parallel the vividly obvious dynamic currents in the technology-based cultures. The currents parallel, but do not generally intersect.

Mass, corporate media shuns this knowledge and these parallels, don Alberto said. Consequently, the public remains deprived of information about these crucial parallel developments, and thus the two sacred cultural currents of North and South America (eagle and condor) have difficulty finding each other to fly together.

But, Taxo said, they will find each other. In time eagle and condor will fly together in cooperation and peace.

A few weeks before Taxo’s death, in concert with natural rhythms on the Winter Solstice of December 2021, anthropologist Shirley Blancke published her book, The Way of Abundance and Joy: The Shamanic Teachings of don Alberto Taxo (Destiny Books).

In her new book Blancke writes, “The Condor gift that don Alberto (brought) to the lands of the Eagle is Sumak Kausay, which means Abundant Life in Kichwa. It is the indigenous Andes’ basic principle of living. It requires a kind of awareness, a living in the moment that entails a deep ability to feel connected to what is around us and appreciate the gifts nature and life bestow on us constantly.”

We all have that ability, Taxo taught. We need not behave automatically, like robots.

Kaypimi kani, kaypimi kanchik, elder Taxo taught: here I am, here we are. Fully present. Fully awake. Fully connected.

Through the example of his life, through circles and books, and through Shaman’s Portal and other communication vehicles, Maestro Alberto Taxo shared his teachings for many years. He encouraged all people, all nations, all spiritual pathways to cultivate a high level of awareness, respect, and gratitude. He taught that what is necessary for now and for our future is an authentic and graceful connection with the whole, the great hoop of which we all are part.

Now don Alberto Taxo has crossed to spirit. He rests. Descansa en paz. May he rest in peace.

Deep Agroecology harvests a five-star review

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My award-winning book on farms, food, and the future has earned a 5-star review from Kimberlee J Benart at Readers’ Favorite.

If you’re interested in integrating modern sustainable agriculture with ancient native wisdom to meet our future food needs while regenerating our planet, Deep Agroecology: Farms, Food, and Our Future by Steven McFadden is for you.

The term “agroecology” has been used since 1928 to refer to the merger of agronomy and ecology, but it’s now a growing international movement with broader goals.

“Deep agroecology” is “our next natural, intelligent, and necessary evolutionary step” for a better, cleaner, healthier, more just world through the transformation of agriculture from an industrialized and chemicalized agribusiness model to a holistic approach which supports a culture of respect for the earth and all life on it; a culture in which farmers are our heroes. An extensive list of resources is included and a subject index is provided.

In Deep Agroecology, Steven McFadden gives us an impressive and impassioned in-depth treatment on one of the most important topics of our day: caring for our earth so we can feed the people who live on it. Add the issue of water resources management, which is interconnected with agriculture, and we survive or we perish on the direction we take.

While in today’s world we’re accustomed to turning to technology to find our solutions, McFadden reminds us that we have deep cultural roots which need to be brought to bear as well: the wisdom, clarity, integrity, and spirit-centeredness of indigenous peoples.

With the skill of a seasoned journalist, McFadden ties together topics of agrarian science, economics, and ancient spirituality in an approachable style that gives the reader not only food for thought but inspiration for action.

Highly recommended.

Deep Agroecology 2020: Wise, Noble, Gallant

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“Agroecology is the future of farming, and its principles cannot be practiced soon enough. Agroecology is a major global force or movement that’s going to be gaining recognition and increasing credibility.”  —John Ikerd, agricultural economist

As I came to appreciate while learning about agroecology, the subject has depth, breadth, and sophistication. Agroecology offers a penetrating critique of the status quo for farms and food, and also a far-reaching, environmentally enlightened, justice-based vision of better ways to care for land, plants, animals, and people.

Rather than a mechanistic formula for domination of nature to produce profits for a small group of investors, the core ideas of agroecology arise naturally from living, rhythmic, biological appreciation of the world and the life that inhabits the world. Consequently, the global movement toward agroecology has the capacity to recognize and to employ systems that bring human needs into right relation with the needs of the natural world.

As University of Nebraska-Lincoln Professor Charles A Francis noted in Agroecology: The Ecology of Food Systems, food systems are vast and fragile. They exist in the multiple and interacting matrices of our increasingly complex national and global cultures.

Agroecology recognizes farms as ecosystems embedded in broader landscapes and social settings, with which they interact continually and significantly.

By way of introduction Francis writes: “We define agroecology as the integrative study of the ecology of the entire food system, encompassing ecological, economic, and social dimensions.”

In consilience (or convergence) these many disciplines yield vantage points for studying the food system, for developing a broader set of criteria for evaluation beyond monetary profitability, and for transforming the farm and food system in a manifestly healthy way.

Agroecology is an umbrella concept that has been refined in recent decades, developed, and made ready for wide global implementation. Now is the time. Agroecology embraces organics, biodynamics, permaculture, urban ag, and a host of other sustainable, forward-looking initiatives grounded in justice for people, animals, and the land from which we all draw our sustenance.

Image by M Ameen from Pixabay

This is new territory for many, but it’s natural territory. Farmers cannot enter this territory successfully alone, though. They must be accompanied in various purposeful ways by the communities and households who receive their bounty and who take it into their bodies.

My intention in writing a new book on the topic — Deep Agroecology: Farms, Food, and Our Future — is to explain to a general audience and to students what agroecology already is, and to embed the concepts and practices more purposefully in the public mind. At the same time I saw an opportunity in writing to reach deep into our native roots in the Americas, as well as to add emphasis to subtle dimensions of agroecology, realms of critical mystery.

Another motivation for writing Deep Agroecology was to again make available, as many communicators have done through the millennia, a reminder that inspiriting yourself and then caring actively for the Earth, the sustenance we derive from it, and the communities we are part of, is a high, noble, and heroic calling. It’s especially gallant at this juncture of time and circumstance.

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