Beauty Way Archives * Page 14 of 16 * Chiron Communications

The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century

The Call of the Land – Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century

In the context of the rapidly changing farm and food environment, Norlightpress author Steven McFadden has written a greatly expanded 2nd edition of The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century.

The new edition is an effective way for people to learn about and to teach food security. It’s loaded with model after model of ways for families, neighborhoods, communities, schools, and churches to meet the challenge of caring for the land and providing an ample supply of clean food.

The acclaimed 1st edition of The Call of the Land was named one of the Best Books of 2009 by Food Systems Network NYC. The 2nd edition, far more comprehensive, is making a deeper, wider, and even more positive impression.

The Call of the Land is an excellent outreach tool for schools and farms to help educate and build community support. The more the community knows about what sustainable agrarian initiatives are doing for the land, for food, and for life, the more strongly the community will stand in support.

While no single remedy meets the many challenges to our food and farms, hundreds of positive, creative options are already in place. This book sets them out plainly and powerfully. Every household, library, church, and school should have a copy.

The Call of the Land illuminates the paths forward, revealing a range of models to establish a sustainable agrarian foundation for the fragile high-tech, digital-wave culture emerging so dynamically in our world. We have commenced a transition the likes of which few are prepared for, but to which we all can respond with intelligence.

The book gives voice to a swelling chorus of millennial agrarians who are working in cities, suburbs, countryside schools, churches, companies, and campuses to create a clean, secure, sustainable food system as a healthy foundation for the dynamic, high-tech culture that is emerging.
deep agroecology, #deepagroecology

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Native Knowings: Wisdom Keys for One and All

Native Knowings: Wisdom Keys for 2012 and Beyond

Native Knowings: Wisdom Keys for One and AllThis original and powerful ebook offers a concise compendium of some North American (Turtle Island) wisdom teachings that are offered to help guide Human Beings through an era of transition.

Smashwords review: “An excellent read. Informative without being preachy. Exactly what I have been looking for. Bravo!”

Native Knowings is available in 10 different eBook and Smartphone formats at Smashwords.com as well as for the Kindle reader on Amazon.com (see link above).

The books is also available for all Apple devices from the iTunes and iBook stores.

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Reiki Training Classes

with Reiki Master Teacher Steven McFadden

Scroll down to Register for class

Reiki Training offers a disciplined foundation in hands-on, human-energy therapy. Everyone can learn. For parents, friends, health-care professionals, massage therapists, homemakers and others can complement their knowledge with understanding and practical skill in the realm of human-energy medicine.

Reiki training gives participants a foundational understanding of the traditions of energy work.

The training also conveys the practical capacity to employ one particular technique, Reiki, to support the well being and healing of people in stress. By extension the Reiki training also gives people the same capacity to support the health of their families and friends, their pets, and themselves.

Reiki is a simple, natural process for supporting health and healing. The Center For Reiki Research has developed The Touchstone Process to evaluate and document studies of Reiki effectiveness. Recent data shows strong evidence that Reiki is indeed responsible for a positive biological response in both humans and animals.

Every person has the ability to express healing energy through his or her hands. It is part of our human heritage.

In fact, laying-on of hands is among the oldest and most widely practiced of complementary healing modalities, dating back many thousands of years in cultures all around the globe. Reiki is a part of this extensive history; it is a particular approach to energy healing that disciplines and refines a basic human capacity.

My Lineage (pictured from top down) – Mikao Usui, Chujiro Hyashi, Hawayo Takata, John Harvey Gray, Steven McFadden.

Reiki can be used for relief of stress, for enhanced well-being, and for supporting the recovery of seriously ill or post-operative patients.
Reiki is also useful in helping to stabilize people in trauma or other distressed emotional states, as well as to ease the discomfort of people who are dying.

PODCAST @ REIKI – Early in 2017, my old friend Allan Balliett interviewed me for his wide-ranging collection of podcasts. We talked in depth about Reiki hands on healing. You can listen to or download the podcast

If you have questions, please use the contact form on this web page.

Class and lecture schedule

2017 – Level I Classes
Saturday, January 28, 2017 from 9 AM-4 PM in Santa Fe, NM

2017 – Level II Classes
Saturday, March 18, 2017 from 9 AM-4 PM in Santa Fe, NM

Level I Reiki Training gives students a foundational comprehension of energy healing, basic proficiency in the Reiki technique, and competency in administering a complete Reiki Treatment. Reiki I training includes:

Origin, history and purpose of Reiki.
Practice scanning
Four Reiki I attunements
Uses and potentials of Reiki
Practice of the Usui-Gray protocol
Legal and ethical considerations with Reiki
Demonstration of proficiency
Level I Reiki Certification
Evaluation

REGISTRATION FOR REIKI I – Tuition for the Reiki I class is $175.00. To register you may pay by debit or credit card using PayPal. Just click the button below.

Level II Reiki Training builds upon the foundation of Level I, and equips students with three specific techniques for amplifying Reiki energy for complementary care, and understanding of how to apply the Reiki techniques in specific situations, such as emergencies, care of the dying, and trauma recovery.

Through classroom practice, students deepen their knowledge and capacity of Reiki to earn certification as Reiki practitioners. Reiki II training includes:

Review of foundational Reiki principles and uses
Four Reiki II attunements
Three Reiki hand symbols to amplify energy
Reiki for specific conditions
Administering Reiki to yourself
Reiki in emergencies
Demonstration of proficiency
Level II Reiki Certification – Practitioner
Evaluation

REGISTRATION FOR REIKI II – Tuition for the Reiki II class is $200.00. To sign up for the class you may contact me by email and arrange to send a check, or pay online with a debit or credit card using Paypal. Just click the Paypal button below.

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On the Road: An Evolving Turtle Island Odyssey

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.”

Snyder 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.

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

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Final Embers of Hiroshima Peace Flame Expire in Ceremony at Big Mountain

hiroshima1 The fire that was ignited 57 years ago on August 6, 1945 when the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, was ceremonially extinguished by a band of pilgrims May 27, 2002 at Big Mountain on Black Mesa in Arizona, in a high desert range sweet with the smell of sagebrush.

In 1945 when the “Little Boy” bomb detonated 2,000 feet above Hiroshima, the city was instantly shrouded in an awful cloud. Witnesses beneath the cloud remember that they “saw another sun in the sky…” When the wave of light, heat and wind from the flaring atomic sun reached the ground it roasted to fine ash all that came before it. The wave raced outward until it reached the mountains on the edge of Hiroshima, where it was reflected to roar again through the city center. Over 140,000 human beings died during or shortly after the blast. Many more lingered — dying later, or developing genetic mutations.

Aftermath of the nuclear bomb.

A man named Tatsuo Yamamoto recovered embers from the Little Boy blast 57 years ago. His family, with the help of a nearby monastery, has tended the flame continuously ever since, feeding it with prayers of forgiveness, understanding, and peace. This is the source of the flame the pilgrims carried across America, the flame they recently extinguished on Big Mountain.

The Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage brought the flame to America in January, 2002 and then carried it cross-country, walking West to East. They began in Washington State at the grave of Chief Seattle, and took their final steps toward the East in May in New York City at UN Headquarters and the site of the World Trade Center disaster.

(To read about the background of the walk, and the walk’s earlier pilgrimage to the emergence point of Los Alamos, New Mexico, click here).

While led by Japanese Buddhist Nuns and Monks, the prayer walk included people of all colors and faiths. They walked not in protest, but rather with prayers of hope to end war and destruction. The walkers concluded their epic pilgrimage with multicultural ceremony, including traditional elders of the Hopi and Dine’ (Navajo) Nations at Big Mountain, one of the high sacred places of North America.

Four Corners: Spiritual Center of the Continent

While the Hiroshima Flame borne by the walkers has notable significance as a living representation of a redeemed spirit, the place where it was extinguished also carries immense importance.

Four Corners is a sacred region in the Southwest, long appreciated and honored by traditional peoples. Although the relationship between the larger Dine’ and Hopi governments, and between those nations and the US government and corporations, has often been a morass of conflict and confusion, the sacred teachings about the Four Corners handed down from antiquity echo — at some level — in the soul of every person involved.

Dine’ tradition holds that at the start of the present epoch of world history (Glittering World), the Holy People put four sacred mountains in four different directions: Mt. Blanca (Colorado) in the East. Mt. Taylor (New Mexico) in the South, San Francisco Peaks (Arizona) in the West, and Mt. Hesperus (Utah) in the North. In this manner, they established Dinetah, readily knowable boundaries.

Within the bounds of the Four Corners lies the formidable and imposing Black Mesa, and the ridge that runs along part of it, called Oyama by the Dine’, also known as Great Mountain or more widely as Big Mountain.

To the casual observer, Black Mesa seems a barren and inhospitable place, devoid of value. But to traditional wisdom keepers, this is high holy ground, an energy center of importance to the overall balance of life. For others, Black Mesa is a storehouse of natural capital, just waiting to be converted to bankable wealth. Evidence of this material value lies in the gangling high–tension power poles and lines which picket the mesa, the exceedingly wide and deep roadways, and the industrial installations of every description, including a private airport for mining executives.

Ceremony at Big Mountain

When the Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage arrived at Big Mountain about Noon on May 27, the pilgrims walked a half mile out onto the range, scanning the sagebrush and the blue sky, and chanting their familiar Namu Myo Ho Renge Kyo. Their combined voices sent the chant ringing widely across the mesa.

The pilgrims spiraled sunwise around a center point on the range, forming a multiracial hoop of about 50 human beings. In the center of the hoop, the native elders and walkers kindled a small wood fire from the Hiroshima Peace Flame. It roared to life.

When the fire was burning and buckets of water had been blessed, the pilgrims spiraled single file into the fire and to the bucket of water. One at a time, they anointed themselves with the water, and then with prayer each flicked a few droplets on the slowly dwindling flame.

The hour when the Hiroshima Peace Flame was extinguished, 57 years after it was sparked to life in an unprecedented nuclear conflagration, was a quiet, sweet, solemn moment in the high desert. It was marked in the distance by birdsong and children’s laughter. The Sun was high overhead. The people in the circle were relaxed and at peace in friendship. They walked off the range quietly, and down a dirt road.

Then came whirlwinds. The breeze had blown freshly all day, sweetened by the newly sprouted sage, and it made standing in the open sun comfortable. But after the ceremony things changed. Powerful whirlwinds arose in succession and presented themselves directly before the pilgrims with a harsh, dusty moan. Just as the Wind Nation had spoken dramatically weeks earlier as the walkers carried the flame into Los Alamos, New Mexico, so it spoke again through mini–tornadoes that swirled right up to the walkers, then changed direction. The whirlwinds did no damage, but demanded attention.

Until Human Beings Live in Harmony

After the ceremony the walkers and several residents of Big Mountain gathered to share a simple feast, and to talk among themselves in the shade of a shed. Several traditional elders addressed the walkers at this time, to thank them for coming and to speak of how they see things in the world.

Hopi Grandfather Martin Gashweseoma

Hopi Grandfather Martin Gashweseoma, 78, spoke briefly. He reminded people of the crucial importance of the Four Corners Region, and of Black Mesa and Big Mountain in particular.

As he had explained at UN headquarters in 1993, and on many other occasions, Grandfather Martin told of how, at the beginning of the present–day 4th World, by Hopi tradition, the people who had survived the great flood that cleansed the Third World assembled at Four Corners. From there they spread out in the Four Directions to live out their destinies.

Before the human beings parted ways, Creator established Four Nations, told them they would come together again towards the end of this Fourth epoch, and gave each the responsibility for one of the Four Elements: the Black Nation to keep the water; the Yellow Nation to keep the air; the White Nation to keep the fire. The Red Nation was instructed to caretake the Earth, hesaid,to hold fast to traditional ways, and to protect Four Corners at all costs, and without violence.

They were told that there is great power under the land. If this power is allowed to escape, he said, it would result in great destruction.

Traditional elders recall in their ways that the Hopi were instructed to remain as custodians of this region while war still stalks the world. Four Corners is a microcosmic image of the entire planet. There are specific knowings that refer to Black Mesa and Big Mountain, teachings that warn they should not be dug into.

Still Under Siege

There is an ongoing war for Big Mountain, a war older than a generation that is waged with legal edicts and bulldozers on one side, and prayer, song, and dance on the other. Because Black Mesa is a key center of spiritual energy for North America and the world, and because it represents a hornet’s nest of crucial karmic and environmental issues, it is an issue that should be of intense interest to everyone.

It is a bitter irony that American corporations and government have targeted one of the principal sacred sites on the continent, and exploited it with technology, ripping it open to fulfill explicitly material intentions.

Speaking in the Dine’ language (interpreted by a relative), Grandmother Louise Benally told the walkers, “Here we are still at war with the U.S. Government over energy. I feel like I am still living in the 18th Century, when the cavalry started harassing us. Dineh people remain on Black Mesa, and oppose the forced relocation of traditional peoples so this place will not be taken over for the coal and uranium that are here. We have a spiritual responsibility to this place.”

Black Mesa

For over 20 years, Peabody Coal Co. has been strip mining Black Mesa for coal, and consequently, residents believe, reducing the water table and causing radioactive pollution as uranium deposits are disturbed. Over 30 billion gallons of water have been sucked up from the aquifer at Black Mesa by coal company pumps, then mixed with pulverized coal, and used to slurry the mixture to a power plant in Nevada, where the guts of sacred Black Mesa is burned to provide power for the Las Vegas strip. Meanwhile, family wells on Black Mesa have dried up. So have the springs. Some elderly people in the Black mesa region must travel up to 50 miles to get drinking water.

Crisis is upon the Four Corners again this summer. The fire element is wildly out of balance, and that has impacted everything. No one has ever seen a year like 2002. Wild fires are burning hundreds of thousands of acres throughout the Southwest. Elderly Dine’ who have herded their sheep, goats, and cattle here for generations, say they have never seen a drought so ferocious. More than 7,000 stock ponds have dried up across the Dine’ reservation. Thousands of head of livestock are dying or expected soon to die from lack of water and grazeable forage.

bmelders The assault on the material resources of Black Mesa continues. Peabody Coal Co. is planning on expanding operations by opening a new mine, which will ultimately infringe upon Big Mountain itself.

“It hasn’t changed,” Grandmother Louise Benally told the pilgrims. “The feds still want our energy, and they still want our land. There has been coal mining here for 20 years. Now the land is drying up. We feel ourselves drying up, too.”

Black Mesa elders remain determined to stay on their ancestral lands. They need support to hold this spiritual center. Some of the strongest support they have received over the years has come from the people of the Yellow Nation.

Spiritual Friendship

Twenty–five years ago a friendship was inaugurated among the traditional Dine’ and Hopi at Big Mountain, and the Monks and Nuns of the Nipponzan Mihogi Order. The friendship began during “The Longest Walk,” a pilgrimage organized by various American Indian movements. This walk journeyed from the Pacific to the Atlantic to call attention to a host of issues of concern to indigenous peoples.

Pilgrim Tom Dostou

Traditional elders from the Four Corners region decided that the Big Mountain issue should be a part of this effort. Over the course of the walk they informed all the Indian nations about coal mining on Black Mesa, and the relocation of Dine’ people. Traditional people have been resisting government–mandated relocation for over two decades. Despite their resistance, thousands of Dine’ men, women, and children have in recent years been forcibly removed to a barren area, far from their ancestral homes.

Buddhist Monks and Nuns joined the Longest Walk, and they were touched by what they learned about Black Mesa. They walked and prayed the whole way alongside the Indians. Later, through the 1980s and into the 1990s, several Buddhist people lived at Big Mountain to help defend it. In this way traditional Dine’ and Hopi and the Japanese people became a family. As portrayed in the newly released film, Windtalkers, earlier in history, during World War II, they had been enemies.

The friendship deepened when people of the Yellow Nation joined people of the Red Nation at Sundance. According to long–held Lakota tradition, the Sundance ceremony was to someday travel throughout Turtle Island, and to bring many Nations into the Sacred Hoop of Unity. The first Big Mountain Sundance was held in August 1983.

The intention of the Lakota Sundance in Dine’ country was, and remains, for purifying body and mind so that the people of Big Mountain can defend the ancient lands. The people dance to strengthen themselves spiritually. Although harassed and challenged, the Big Mountain Sun Dance still happens every summer.

Steps Along the Trail

With this background of friendship, it was natural that the Hiroshima Flame carried by the walkers should, in the end, guide them to Big Mountain, not far from the place where the uranium used to build the Hiroshima bomb was long ago dug from the Earth.

After the feast and the remarks of the elders, the walkers had an opportunity to reflect on their pilgrimage. They said that, as a group, they felt good about what they had accomplished. They said they had been faithful, and that they listened to spirit the whole way. They never made decisions on any other basis.

flamr The Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage had its origins in the year 2000 under the inspiration of Tom Dostou while he was in Japan. At that time he was entrusted with a spark of the Hiroshima Flame (the source flame remains burning in Japan). Tom conceived the vision of returning the flame to where it had come from — not as a protest, but as a necessary deed of spiritual redemption, because not only the people of Hiroshima had died, but also many native peoples were poisoned by the uranium dug up, without spiritual permission, on their lands.

Tom passed his vision to Jun Yasuda of the Nipponzan Miyohoji Buddhist Order. Then they started walking. They walked 1,300 KM in Japan, and then brought the flame to America. Over the months and miles of the walk, there were many remarkable developments. At the start, they could find no plane willing to carry the flame across the Pacific to North America. But at last they secured a boat ride to Hawaii, and by serendipity arrived at Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 2001 — 60th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing.

Sister Jun Yasuda at Oyama

That bombing raid by Japan killed over 2,400 people, crippled the US Pacific Naval Fleet, and radically accelerated the world war which later ended at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Kahunas at Pearl Harbor

In Hawaii the pilgrims were welcomed by a delegation of Kahunas, the traditional Medicine People of the islands. The Kahunas took them to the former site of a sacred shine on the island of O’ahu, overlooking what had once been an uninhabited tropical lagoon. This quiet lagoon, held as deeply sacred for generations by the indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands, was dredged and bulldozed to create the military base of Pearl Harbor. For the Kahunas, there was an obvious karmic link between the desecration of one of their sacred sites and the bombs that later rained upon the military base.

The Kahunas and the walkers also journeyed to Mount Kilauea, carrying the Hiroshima flame into the volcano’s caldera. The pilgrims arrived in Mexico on Dec. 15, for the major spiritual festival honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Hiroshima Peace Pilgrims after the final ceremony.

Hiroshima Pilgrims at the final ceremony.

Then they walked for months from the grave of Chief Seattle on the West Coast past nuclear installations in Hannaford, WA, Los Alamos, NM, Huntsville, AL, and elsewhere. Walk initiator Tom Dostou rejoined the walk in May in New York City for the UN and World Trade Center vigils. Thus the walk finished with the circle completed, the hoop whole.

“We followed the flame,” the walkers said. “We were not carrying the flame, but carried by it.” At the end, the flame led them to Big Mountain to add the awakened forces of their pilgrimage to the defense of the Earth and the cause of peace.

– 30 –

Nota Bene: Roberta Blackgoat, respected Big Mountain elder and lifelong defender of sacred lands, died in April, 2002 at age 84. For obituaries check the Big Mountain web sites

To learn more:

Black Mesa Indigenous Support

Hopi Notes

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Redeeming an Unholy Fire: Pilgrimage to the Poisoned Heart of Avanyu

Los Alamos, New Mexico — Here in this place of Poplar and Cottonwood trees — where fire has at times bellowed up from the earth with catastrophic consequence — a purified flame of nuclear energy returned on February 26, 2002 to its spiritual, intellectual, and physical point of origin.

The flame, flickering in a lantern borne by pilgrims on foot, was largely unrecognized and unacknowledged in Los Alamos. Still, the pilgrims completed the work of spiritual redemption they had come to accomplish, and then they walked on toward the East, planning to arrive in New York City on May 12, 2002. Their visit to this place of fire is of marked spiritual significance.

On Turtle Island (North America) there are many sophisticated and distinct teachings from ancient times. Yet there is one widely held understanding about the great story of the continent, a story that concerns the origins of human beings and their relationships with one another and the Sacred Hoop of life that supports them. In the beginning, some traditional elders say, Creator established four nations of people and gave each the responsibility for one of the four elements. The Red nation to keep the Earth; the Black nation to keep the water; the Yellow nation to keep the air; and the White nation to keep the fire.

In the beginning, it is said, the four nations lived together as one and shared their gifts. Then came a time when it was necessary for spiritual growth that the Four Nations disperse to the Four Directions and live apart. Over time they could develop as human beings and master the mysteries of their element for good or ill, according to their free will. Earth, air, fire and water — the peoples went apart.

At a crucial juncture of world history, the story relates, the four nations would come together again on Turtle Island. By intermingling again, it was said, they would have an opportunity to share and teach — to put their gifts together in a new and beautiful way. If they neglected to do this, if they were distracted by fear and greed, then the people would face a monumental challenge.

The imminence of that colossal challenge — a global convergence of war, environmental destruction, earth changes, and social chaos — was illuminated by the courageous spiritual deed of 30 pilgrims on February 26, and by the sacred fire they carried. Their story is worthy of note.

Walkers Behind the Storm

A bruising, roaring, dust–choked wind preceded the pilgrims and their flame. The stinging dust storm ripped across northern New Mexico and the streets of Los Alamos all day Monday, Feb. 25, 2002. Then that evening as the winds finally eased, 30 motley peace walkers entered Los Alamos bearing their flame. They quietly moved into the Unitarian Universalist church for the night, to share a meal and shelter.

The region they entered — now called Los Alamos — has been a fire center since pre–historic times. It was widely known and marked as a special node of material and spiritual fire, a place to be enaged only with the utmost respect. Now it is more widely known as the birthplace of the atomic bomb, and the home of the nation’s nuclear weapons, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Pilgrims walk east from Los Alamos
toward the Sangre de Christo Mountains.

Los Alamos is built on the eastern flank of The Valles Caldera, one of the largest “dormant” volcanoes in the world — a vast, sleeping source of molten fire from the bowels of the planet. “Caldera” is the Spanish word for cauldron. Such a place on earth is formed from massive but infrequent eruptions. After the eruption — much like a nuclear bomb but without poisonous radiation that endures for hundreds of thousands of year — the blast hole fills with volcanic ash and pumice. Scientists say the vast, 15–mile diameter Valles Caldera last erupted a million years ago, and that it is now dormant.

When American scientists were drawn to this region in the 1940s to build the atomic bomb, they were — as a matter of mystical consequence — being magnetically drawn to the most potent and significant fire center of Turtle Island.

Carrying a Lantern

The prayer walk that came to Los Alamos in late February began January 15, 2002, at the grave of Chief Seattle in Washington state. A small band of pilgrims, coming from nations all over the world, began a walk across the US carrying a lantern with a flame ignited from the fires started by the nuclear bombs which obliterated Hiroshima, Japan.

They are walking without recriminations, grievance or protest, but rather in solidarity with life and in peace. They seek mainly to give people an opportunity to partake of the flames’ redeemed meaning and power.

Nuc-Bomb The flame the pilgrims carry was ignited 57 years ago and has been tended with prayer ever since. In1945, after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, a man named Tatsuo Yamamoto walked into the ruins of the city to look for friends and family. In shock and anger, he collected some of the embers still smoldering from the bomb and carried them home.

Yamamoto’s grandmother preserved the embers and kindled a flame, which was used to illuminate the family’s prayer altar. For Yamamoto the smoldering embers symbolized his rage over what had happened; for his grandmother it symbolized love and the memory of the over 300,000 people who died directly from the atomic blast. Thousands of other human beings later died of cancers and related illnesses, or suffered mutations, directly attributable to the bomb’s nuclear radiation.

Over the next 12 years Yamamoto’s grandmother kept the flame with honor and respect. During this time Mr. Yamamoto underwent a complete change of heart. The flame on the altar transformed for him from a flame of hate and hostility into a flame of respect and love. Thanks to his family and a nearby monastery, the flame has been burning — surrounded with prayers and incense — since the moment of the Hiroshima blast on August 6, 1945.

Through the last decades the prayers of the people of Japan — and others around the world — have transformed that fiery expression from material to spiritual. The flame no longer harms people and destroys no life. It has become a quiet but potent focus of light and peace.

The 2002 Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage includes people of all colors and faiths.They say their effort is not a political statement, but a spiritual act. By walking and praying for peace, they say, they focus a common hope of all peoples and a common prayer for our mother the earth.

The Pilgrimage was organized by Sister Jun Yasuda, a Japanese Buddhist nun, and Tom Dostou, a citizen of the Wabanaki Alqonquin Nation in the Northeast region of Turtle Island. Jun San and Tom have been joined by peace pilgrims from around the world, an international group of all colors and faiths.

Material Realization

The very nature of the walk, and the very fact that the redeemed flame was returned to the source, promps realization. They symbolize a crucial choice the world must make now. That choice is between an essentially materialist culture fenced in by desire and dogma, or a fundamentally free culture that respects the living spirit in all of life.

atomicBomb The nuclear bomb is an ultimate expression of materialism. When the atomic scientists of Los Alamos took the secret of the atom — the fundamental particle of matter — and developed it into a weapon of mass destruction, they unleashed a scathing, wrathful demon of fire rather than a higher angel of warmth and illumination.

In splitting the atom scientists realized the core power of matter. In using it against life they became immersed in awe of and deference to the ultimate death—dealing expression of materialism. This can be seen as a failure altogether to recognize and respect the spirit that resides in all sentient beings, and as trespass against a universal spiritual law: thou shalt not kill.

In works such as Lyrics from the Book of Nature and the Second Coming over Lindisfarne, Welsh poet Charles Lawrie has expressed the excruciating polarity of this choice in vivid terms, describing his inner images in response to the first nuclear explosion.* His thoughts, even in paraphrase, are arresting:

Contrast the eye–scalding light of the world–shattering bomb, against the radiant light of authentic spiritual revelation as in the Transfiguration.
Contrast the flash of heat that causes sands to melt to glass, against the warmth of love which touches every human being.
Contrast the blast wave of sheer energy moving swiftly out as a destructive shock, against the moral impact of what humans feel in response to the revelation of the indwelling spirit and the shame of their personal imperfections.
Contrast the death–dealing nuclear radiation (potent, invisible, lacking honor) against the life–giving radiance which comes from nurturing other people and the earth we share.
Contrast the mushroom cloud, the crown of an anti–king (who dispenses death, illness and suffering), against the coming in the clouds from the East, the radiant sky forms crowning a heavenly source of grace.

Vigil at the Place of Avanyu

At sunrise on Tuesday, Feb. 26 the walkers arose at the Los Alamos Unitarian Universalist Church. They meditated for an hour, ate breakfast, and set out on a short walk downtown to the Los Alamos County Skateboard park. What is now a place for children to play, 50 years ago was the site of the first plutonium processing plant. There the walkers and a small band of local supporters formed a circle.

Shannyn Sollitt of Santa Fe, who guided the walk through the region, trumpeted loudly through a conch shell to honor the Four Directions. The Nichiren Buddhist monks chanted their familiar central tenet, Odaimoku: Na Mu Myo Ho Renge Kyo, “the Lotus Sutra of the True Dharma.” Tom Dostou called upon several elders, who made prayers according to their traditions. Shannyn Sollitt called upon the Los Alamos National Laboratory to use their intelligence and skills not in service of war and death, but rather in service of life.

And then the pilgrims went on, walking about 10 zig–zag miles through Los Alamos, prohibited by federal security from getting close to any of the many “sensitive areas” around and about Los Alamos. The US Energy Department banned the walk from approaching any of the labs, and from walking on any of the public roads that pass the labs.

Since the walk came not for confrontation but to perform a spiritual service, the organizers changed the route without complaint. They walked and held vigil as close to the labs as they were permitted, and then they walked on.

Place of Avanyu, sealed off within Area G in Los Alamos, NM – now desecrated by the world’s largest nuclear dump.

In the afternoon the pilgrims walked further with the flame. They set out from nearby White Rock, New Mexico along Pajarito Rd, to the barbed–wire fence outside the Los Alamos Lab’s Area 54, Area G. This is a global wonder, the world’s largest nuclear waste dump. According to Shannyn Sollitt, over 50,000 drums of contaminated nuclear waste, plus additional unlined pits and shafts some of them leaking their infernally toxic contents, the waste slowly seeping into the earth to poison it and the scarce waters below for hundreds of generations to come. The DOE says it plans to to bury an additional 2.7 million drums of waste here over the next 65 years.

Just behind the barbed wire and the warning signs which impotently strive to seal Area G off from the rest of the world, yet clearly visible from the road, are rock cliffs marked with a petroglyph.

avanyulosalamos The glyph was carved into the rock face of the outcropping thousands of years ago by the indigenous Pueblo peoples, whose descendents still live nearby. There are such petroglyphs all over North America, serving as signs and signals of importance to native peoples.

The Hiroshima Peace Flame walkers stopped and formed a circle across the road from a particular petroglyph, the carved image of Avanyu. Avanyu is depicted as a great serpent with a lightning–bolt tongue. According to tradition, Avanyu represents the sacred waters of the earth and sky, and the lightning-bolt can be understood to respresent what modern spiritual scientists might refer to as Shakti, cosmic electric fire with the capacity to enlighten, or to burn and destroy if employed without wisdom.

Beholding this ancient stone carving, the walkers viscerally understood that the place where they had come — Los Alamos, the city of nuclear fire — had been built directly upon what has for many thousands of years been considered to be a sacred site.

In this place formerly regarded as worthy of high respect, our National Lab has dumped ton upon ton of desecrating nuclear poison.

Message on the Wind

prayerW From the place of Avanyu, the walkers proceeded — drumming and chanting each step — about seven miles to Tsankawi, a prehistoric site that is now part of Bandelier National Monument. Tsankawi is a spectacular place high on a mesa overlooking the Jemez Mountains to the West and the Sangre de Christo Mountains to the East.

The walkers climbed to the top of the mesa with the Hiroshima flame, an indigenous woman from Ecuador, and two Native American elders from the nearby Santa Clara Puebo — whose ancestors once inhabited Tsankawi. With the sun setting in the west, the elders guided a simple ceremony, emphasizing peace and respect for all of the Sacred Hoop of life.

“You will need to be strong,” said Erwin Rivera, one of the Santa Clara elders, “for you will be called cowards and traitors. But it is an act of courage to choose sanity and peace when others are choosing hate and war.”

“Right now,” the elder said, “the Valles Caldera has the exact same technical classification that Mount Saint Helens had up until the time it exploded in a massive eruption. The scientists say it is dormant. But the caldera is not dormant, only sleeping. Some of our elders say it may have to awaken some day to cleanse all the poison that has been dumped here.”

Atomic Aftermath

HomageWind The wind people, the messengers, brought the flame home to its point of origin, having purified it with their chants, prayers and incense. They offered it to the people of the city without rancor, recrimination, or challenge. They offered the flame with understanding and hope. And then they walked on.

Not one scientist, not one of the new keepers of the fire, came out to behold the flame that was still burning from the nuclear holocaust started 57 years ago by the work done here. No one bore witness.

Except for a handful of locals, the newspapers, and the UU church, the walk was overlooked. Scientists and citizens drove by with barely a flicker of recognition or interest. The only people paying attention were the County Sheriffs. In marked cars they diligently shadowed the walk all day, remaining politely distant.

After the day in Los Alamos the walkers were hosted for a meal and sleeping accommodations at the Rio Rancho community center. The next day — February 27, 2002 — the peace pilgrims departed the Los Alamos region quietly to walk East. On that same day, USA Today reported that radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests across the globe has caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths in U.S. residents born after 1951.

This information was obtained from an unreleased government study. Coupled with findings from previous government investigations, it suggests that 20,000 non-fatal cancers – and possibly many more – also can be tied to fallout from weapons tests. When fallout from all tests, domestic and foreign, is taken together, no U.S. resident born after 1951 has escaped exposure, the study says.

Also on that day, to sound an alarm about the rapidly growing danger of a nuclear conflagration, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved their famous Doomsday Clock forward two minutes closer to midnight. The scientists wanted to highlight the dramatically mounting dangers of political instability, the wide availability of nuclear materials, terrorism, and the aggressive unilateral stance of the US government.

The Hiroshima Peace Flame Walk will continue in the eastern half of the United States until May 12, 2002. It will end its eastward trek in New York at United Nations headquarters and at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. Later the walk will return the fire ceremonially to the Earth at the Arizona mine where the uranium for the Hiroshima bomb was dug from the ground.

To read about the end of the walk months later at Big Mountain on Black Mesa in Arizona, click here.

*For more on poet Charles Lawrie and an essay on the spiritual implications of the nuclear bomb, see “Nuclear Power, the Royal Stars, and the Destiny of Humanity” by David Tresemer, Ph.D. and Robert Schiappacasse

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Cachora Comes to the Holy City: Don Juan in Santa Fe

Copyright 2002 - by Steven McFadden

Saturday night, January 12, 2002 — two days before his 88th birthday, a man named Cachora, spoke with an audience of about 170 people at the Church of Religious Science in Santa Fe, NM, a city noted for its spiritual history and destiny.

An elder of the Yaqui Indian Nation, and a Nahual (man of power), Cachora has remained a mystery figure for decades. But now he is coming forward from his homeland in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico into the public realm. It is time for this, he says. Chachora says says he is the real man who is portrayed as the enigmatic shaman don Juan in the series of books by Carlos Castaneda: Journey to Ixtlan; The Teachings of Don Juan; and so forth.

With a bright canopy of stars in the night sky, and just hours before the Capricorn New Moon, the Santa Fe teachings began with a Chief’s song offered by Golden Eagle (formerly Standing Elk). He is an Interpreter and Chief for the Yankton Lakota Sioux peoples of South Dakota. Golden Eagle drummed and sang to honor Cachora, and to honor all the Chiefs who serve the Sacred Hoop.

Cachora appeared dark and intense at first, his eyes shaded from the light by a black sombrero. The hat was formed with a humble downturned brim, and crowned with a single golden eagle feather set in the right side of the woven band. He stood straight and strong through the night. Except for when he was speaking, Cachora kept his hands joined together over his solar plexus, above his red tunic, but behind his deerhide vest edged with cowry shells.

Even the shade of a hat could not long conceal the elder. He showed himself to be radiant in health, lithe, open of heart, filled with deep sincerity and hearty humor, and welcoming to all the people. One observer said he seemed “as solid as a beam of mesquite,” a famously tough tree. A human being of attainment, he demonstrated throughout the evening his faith that this potential rests in every human.

Cachora said that he knows 4,000 plants, and how they can be used medicinally to help people heal. He said he spends his time in the mountains, to study and to gather plants, and to teach his apprentices. But recently, Cachora said, he had been guided by Sprit to come forth and teach more widely in the world.

After a few brief introductory remarks, spoken in Spanish and translated to English, Cachora invited any and all questions. “Come on,” he said over and over, “ask.’

Here is a synopsis of Cachora’s translated remarks through the evening, as paraphrased by this reporter:

He was asked his thoughts and feelings about the earth and humanity right now, with everything that is going on in the world? I believe the future of humanity is opaque, he said. We are not seeing much in the way of peace and harmony.
Earth changes will continue to come upon the Earth, and a comet, too.
Santa Fe is sacred. Remember this. There would be plenty of water here, no crisis, if the people take care of the land and perform their ceremonies and prayers — no matter which spiritual tradition — and respect the earth. “If you give offerings, there will be plenty of water.”
The plants and trees are sad. Dry. They are not respected by the people for the crucial contribution they make to our lives. Gather and use them with respect, always offering a prayer. Don’t mistreat them. “Plants are our life. We must care for them.”
Cachora mentioned that his father had long ago worked in the mines near Santa Fe, and so he knew the area well. I know the caves and the mines here, he said. They are sacred.
Through the evening he several times made dismissive remarks about the books of Carlos Castaneda and claims that they might in some way accurately represent him or his teachings. Of Castaneda, Cachora twice said that he was “un pinche loco.”
Cachora answered yes, when asked if there were traditional teachings in his culture about people of different faiths, colors, and nationalities coming together at the time of global crisis, and uniting in mutual respect to work for the health of the earth and all that lives upon it. He said this process — what many would call an unfolding of the legend of the rainbow warriors — is happening now.
There’s not too much we can do about government, and wars, and harmful corporations, but we can work on ourselves. Pray and purify yourself. Don’t be ashamed of yourself. Love and accept yourself. Follow your vision.
Thank Creator for the day, every day. Sunrise is the best time to do this.
Purify yourself. Do it with prayers at sunrise. And do it with Purification baths (Sweat Lodges) at the time of the Full Moon. Meditate and pray in the mountains. This is necessary in the world now.
It’s better to meditate outdoors, where you can be in direct contact with the forces of nature.
Keep your diet to natural foods, with no chemicals and no genetically engineered components. For health, food should natural and clean, as Creator designed it.

At the end of the teachings, Golden Eagle closed the circle with his drum and a spirit song that, he said, Lakota people sing to honor Pte San Wi (White Buffalo Calf Woman). We have had this song a long time, he said, it was given to the Lakota the first time White Buffalo Calf Woman came among the people: 16,000 years ago.

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Massive Majestic Medicine Wheel Ceremony to Help Heal Our Earth

turtle2 While dwelling amid the high mountains along the North American Continental Divide, Bennie LeBeau of the Eastern Shoshone tribe experienced a torrent of dreams and visions, especially in 1999. The visions directed him to set in motion the plans for a massive Medicine Wheel Ceremony.

Over the last year Bennie has become aware of many sharply distressing changes in both land and animals at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. These changes are becoming even more ominous right now, he says, and they have prodded him into direct action to bring his visions alive.

The huge Medicine Wheel Ceremony that Bennie envisions is intended to be a mass spiritual event. The ceremony is set to take place at High Noon on Saturday, May 8, 2004 at more than 20 sacred sites in the American West, and at many other sacred sites elsewhere around the world, including Australia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Ireland, Germany, and the Middle East.

The Grand Teton peaks in Wyoming –The Four Grandmothers Standing Tall – will serve as the center of this Medicine Wheel. The long spine of the Rocky Mountains runs roughly North and South in the Wheel; and the circumference reaches from California deep into America’s heartland. Simultaneous prayer ceremonies at other sacred sites around world will help to re-attune the web of subtle energy pathways that envelop planet earth.

“All nations, all peoples are invited to participate,” Bennie said, adding, “all nations, all peoples are needed to work together on this — the black, white, yellow, and red nations of Mother Earth.”

map-red A Medicine Wheel is an ancient spiritual tool with a history of widespread use all over Turtle Island (North America). Stones are set to mark the Four Directions of North, South, East and West, and also of other major points. In this manner, if done with knowledge and respect, a sacred space is defined. Within that space, the people can direct thoughts, feelings and actions toward a unified idea.

The Medicine Wheel also helps people to be grounded physically, to properly orient to the Four Directions, and thus to have a clear sense of where they are. That foundation of stability gives a reliable base for high spiritual work.“The Earth is drastically out of balance now,” Bennie LeBeau says. “This Medicine Wheel ceremony will strive to re-set the basic tone — or vibrational pattern — of the West, and by extension help to re-attune the whole of the earth.

Message for Peacekeepers

I met Bennie LeBeau in Placitas, New Mexico on February 9, 2004. He had driven down from Wyoming to meet with some members of a group called the Spiritual Elders of Mother Earth, a network of indigenous people from 21 different tribes in North, Central, and South America.

The elders began coming together as a group in 1999 in response to the global crises of environment and culture. Their traditional teachings have long warned that such crises would arise.

The elders say they understand from their traditions that part of their original instructions as human beings was to serve as keepers of the Earth. They were also told that one day they would have to step forward in a time of extreme crisis and lead — to educate people about how to restore balance — for the survival of life on earth would depend upon them remembering and acting in a sacred manner.

Bennie LeBeau

Bennie LeBeau was born on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming in 1950, and is an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe. He served in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam in the early 1970s. In the years after his military service, he supported himself mainly through outfitting, taking people out fishing and hunting in the mountains.

Bennie told me that he began to have visions when he was in his late 20s, while guiding hunters along the Continental Divide. He went to the local Medicine People to ask for help in understanding, but they were unable to offer interpretations. So Bennie lived with the visions.

Bennie said he eventually came to understand on his own what his dreams and visions meant: “The land is out of balance. The bio-electric energy of the earth is being profoundly scrambled and disturbed by mines, electric transmission lines, railroads, highways, damming of the rivers, and also from development of factories, trucks, cars and so forth. War is adding to this.”

“It’s time to do something important, to reconnect the energy. So many sacred sites are not kept, not tended. But this is what is needed, for things are out of balance, out of harmony. It’s extreme now, and it’s time to come together around this, the old ways and the new ways. Every human being has a stake in this, no matter their color or their spiritual tradition.”

Talking with the Elders
To bring this massive, multi-tradition Medicine Wheel ceremony about, Bennie was inspired to travel and talk with representatives of the indigenous Nations near the waters and mountains of his vision, and also with other cultures. He began his journey in January, 2004. “I am to ask for assistance in re-activating these sacred sites,” Bennie explained. “We must all do our parts as humans to bring about harmony.”

On February 10, 2004 — the day after I met with him — Bennie journeyed west from Placitas to the Turquoise Mountain (Mount Taylor near Grants, New Mexico). This is one of the sacred mountains that mark the Four Corners area of Turtle Island (North America). Turquoise Mountain is a massive dormant volcano, towering more than a mile above a vast desert plateau.

Turquoise Mountain (Tsoodzil) Mount Taylor, New Mexico

With Leon Secatero of the Canoncito Navajo, a Grand Elder for the Spiritual Elders of Mother Earth, and Red Eagle of the Cherokee Nation, Bennie visited with the traditional keepers of Turquoise Mountain: Navajo Grandfather Martin Martinez and his wife, Grandmother Janíce.

Bennie told them of his dreams and visions, and also of his plan. Grandfather Martin, who is in his 90s, was pleased to hear it. He told Bennie that his visions were in harmony with the Navajo teachings and prophecies that he keeps. He also mentioned that with his wife, Janíce, he had a vision of a multi-tradition ceremony to be held near a holy spring on Turquoise Mountain. They wanted to realize their vision.

As it happens, in the context of the 600-mile radius of the Medicine Wheel of Bennie LeBeau’s vision, the Turquoise Mountain of New Mexico is in the South position — the South Mountain.

In the Medicine Wheel teachings of Turtle Island the South is a direction sometimes represented by Mouse. Mouse is so small and defenseless against the rest of the world that he must rely on trust and instinct to live. Much larger forces of Spirit are at work in the world, and Mouse understands how humble a creature he is in relation to all this. But good and surprising things can happen when trust leads Mouse to make a bold move for survival, guided by Spirit.

“This was prophesied a long time ago,” Grandfather Martinez told Bennie and the other elders. “I am glad you have come and taken responsibility to be a messenger.”

“The mountain is the pillar, our helper,” Grandfather Martinez said. “It listens to us when we are in harmony with the stones, trees, clouds, waters, and stars. This is the wholeness that keeps life together. We will communicate with the mountain.”

Grandfather Martin gave Bennie his blessings to go forward and make his Medicine Wheel Ceremony a reality. He said it was a good mission and that now is the time.

All the elders traveled up onto the flank of Turquoise Mountain after their meeting. There by a sacred spring they made ceremony together to prepare for May 8. Grandfather Martinez also initiated the drum that Bennie had made for himself, a drum laced with symbols representing the Medicine Wheel ceremony.

Grandfather Martinez shared with his guests some Navajo lore about Turquoise Mountain — the South Mountain of the four sacred mountains of the Navajo, known to them as Tsoodzil, the Blue Bead Mountain. (Turquoise Mountain is sacred to several other native groups as well; all have been invited to the May 8 ceremony).

Grandfather Martinez said there were giants on the mountains in the old days, and they were the guardians. Some were good, and some were not. The giants have gone, but their energies are still around, and a lot of it is negative energy. The negative energies and entities are coming back strong now, and it is affecting the people.

mine-arial In the context of Grandfather’s words, the ravaged land all around Turquoise Mountain bespeaks an ugly story. Over many years large-scale mining has dug up and released uranium for the sake of eternally toxic nuclear energy.

“We need to do ceremonies continually to strengthen and cleanse and empower,” Grandfather Martinez said. “It is very important to do this now. The ceremonies help to keep the negative forces at bay.

Grandmother Janíce told the circle of elders that the ceremony would put in place another set of vibrations. “The ceremony will happen at a time in the spring when all the plants are surging with new life,” she said. “If we come together in respect with the plants, she said, we can use this energy to help bring about the intention of the ceremony.”

Grandfather Martinez spoke of the Medicine Wheel ceremony as a universal wake up call. The mountain ranges have sovereignty over lines of energy that radiate around the entire earth. Thus, he said, the ceremonies we do encircling the Rocky Mountains will radiate out to other points.

Grandfather noted that many people and groups do things individually, their rituals or ceremonies. “That’s okay,” he said, “but right now Mother Earth and all the living things upon her have need of something more — something where all the people are together and of one heart, one mind.”

The May 8 ceremony that the elders have envisioned for the South Mountain, Turquoise Mountain, is to be a Blessing Way. That is how it will happen. Drums and singers from many nations will pass the song from sunrise on May 8 until sunset, and some may choose to sing in the night. “We will also be calling all our ancestors to be with us in this ceremony,” Leon Secatero said, “that we may all reconnect with our ancestors.”

There will be a particular emphasis when High Noon comes to the Four Grandmothers Standing Tall (Grand Tetons in Wyoming). That is when ceremonies in the entire Medicine Wheel will also be putting a focus on being of one mind and heart, expressing their gratitude for Creation by raising the vibration to its highest level.

For the elders of Turquoise Mountain in the South, the ceremony will also mark the starting time of an effort to establish a permanent public park on part of thier ancestral lands, so that people can go there to pray and make ceremony when they feel called. They also envision a healing center.

While Bennie initially saw the massive Medicine Wheel ceremony-taking place over a 600-mile radius, reaching out from the center point of the Four Grandmothers, Grandfather Martinez saw it more globally. They came to agree that everyone who chooses to participate, at whatever holy sites are accessible to them anywhere in the world, would be invited and welcomed.

One Heart, One Mind, One Circle
The call for people of all nations, races, and traditions to participate in this massive Medicine Wheel ceremony comes at a time of widespread military conflict, and of profound environmental damage to the earth, the wind, the fire and the water. It is also a time of intense culture war.

The same kinds of passionate forces that bitterly pit religion against religion, race against race, and political party against political party, are also at work in Indian Country. There are many factions.

Not everyone endorses the idea of White, Red, Black, Brown, Yellow and Rainbow peoples coming to participate together in ceremony.

But the intention of the Medicine Wheel Ceremony on May 8, 2004 is for something all people can hold in common without dispute: the realization that a healthy earth is necessary to our survival, and to the survival of our children and grandchildren.

In responding to his visions and by calling for this ceremony, Bennie LeBeau is forcing the issue. Will Native peoples open their ceremonies and share their teachings? There are lots of strong viewpoints on whether this is a good thing.

Bennie says the indigenous tribes will have to open up and teach. He is well aware that not all tribal groups will welcome this.

“Some tribes will open, some will not,” he told me. “Each will make their own decision. This is going out to the world. There is no set ceremony. People may follow their own hearts and traditions. They know their holy places and their Medicines. But we must all do it together. There is no one person who is in charge. It is up to the people.”

“The old traditions alone will not work to meet this current challenge,” Bennie said. “Things have changed. We need to take the best of the old and add it to what is emerging. This is the medicine that we — and our Mother Earth — need now.”

Bennie says that the big mess the world is in now is the very reason why the ceremonies were preserved for so many generations, against such overwhelming persecution. “This is why the ancestors suffered and sacrificed, to save the songs and dances that set a tone of harmony in the relationship between the human beings and the earth, for the universe which provides our essential sustenance of food, water, and shelter.”

The May 8 Medicine Wheel ceremony is intended to bring the people together through a unified vision on one day and to be guided by Native American neighbors and relatives, who have a millennia-old tradition of ceremonies to respect and maintain the balance of life on Earth.

About this diversity of viewpoints, Grandfather Martinez said, “Our gratitude will answer all the questions. We will be energized by this ceremony, making connections with all our relatives, all our cultures. All cultures must be valued and welcomed, not one left out.”

The Massive Scope of the Medicine Wheel
The boundaries of the May 8, 2004 Medicine Wheel Ceremony that Bennie LeBeau has envisioned reach in a huge circle, touching on major sacred mountain peaks and bodies of water. He has interpreted his vision as “The Magnificent 19 + 1 = 20.”

The planned Medicine Wheel ceremony covers an area with a radius of some 600 miles. The Grand Tetons in Wyoming – The Four Grandmothers Standing Tall — are at the center of the wheel, and 19 major mountains and waterways mark the perimeter of the wheel. The idea is to have ceremonies happen simultaneously around the whole wheel while centered on the Four Grandmothers Standing Tall, and stabilized in space and upon the Earth by the traditional Four Directions.

Center of the Wheel – The Grand Tetons.

The ceremonial points around the perimeter of the Medicine Wheel are located in close proximity to these sacred sites:

. Lake Sullivan, North
· Saskatchewan River
· Qu’appelle River
· Souris River
· James River
· Missouri River
· Platte River
· Arkansas River
· Cimarron River
· Colorado River or (Lake Mead)
· Lake Tahoe
· Okanagan Lake
· Turquoise Mountain (Mt. Taylor, NM)
· Mt. Humphrey (Flagstaff, AZ)
· Mt. Whitney
· Mt. Shasta
· Three Sisters
· Mt. Rainier
· Lake Louise

The vast scope of the Medicine Wheel.

As Bennie LeBeau explains it, “the intent of the ceremony is to place back into balance those lands, mountains and bodies of water that are now out-of-balance due to reckless development. We will use our drums, songs and dances to re-vitalize these sacred sites. Working together as the ancestors once did, we will re-attune these sacred sites. Our ceremony will become an important tool to teach all people the importance of our Mother Earth.”

Bad Vibes

Yellowstone geyser

According to Bennie, it is important to understand the relationship of the energy lines that link place to place on earth, and also the earth with the heavens. These energy pathways are like the nervous system of the human body and its wiring system, he said. The lines (ley lines) make up a matrix, or a network of energy for the body of the earth, and they can be adjusted the way a human body can be adjusted with acupuncture.

Bennie said that right now bad vibrations have built up to massive levels, and are stressing out the Earth Mother as well as many of her people. One clear evidence of this distress that is of particular concern to him is seismic activity in and around Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, near the homeland of his Eastern Shoshone tribe.

Geologists call Yellowstone a super volcano, because of the massive caldera of molten fire beneath the park. Over 10,000 geysers — including “Old Faithful” — rise from the depths of the earth. Yellowstone has more geothermal activity in one concentrated region than all the other sites on the planet put together.

Bennie LeBeau says that recent eruptions, 200-degree ground temperatures, bulging magma, 84-degree water temperatures in the lake, and a massive, unexplained die off of elk tell him that something big is happening at Yellowstone right now. The earth is profoundly disturbed.

He notes the following: in July, 2003 Yellowstone Park rangers closed the entire Norris Geyser Basin because of bulges in the land and excessively high temperatures. Ground temperatures on that bulge reached 200 degrees. It became a dead zone for fish, trees, flowers, and grasses.

Some geologists have speculated that if the massive caldera we know as Yellowstone were to erupt, every living thing within six hundred miles could be affected with devastating consequences.

The long-term effects of such an eruption would also be severe. Thousands of cubic kilometers of ash would shoot into the atmosphere, blocking light from the sun and dropping global temperatures, just as in the case of a nuclear winter.

Park officials disagree with this assessment of the situation. Franklin C. Walker, Assistant Superintendent of the National Park Service, addressed these concerns in a Dec. 12, 2003 letter to the chairperson of Eastern Shoshone Tribe “From the perspective of geologists, the Yellowstone volcano is not preparing to catastrophically erupt. No indication of increased volcanic activity is evident.”

Yet since then three earthquakes have rattled the ground at Yellowstone: A 5.3 mg quake was reported on Feb. 6, 2004, a 3.5 mg. quake hit a week later on Sunday, Feb. 15, and then Saturday Feb. 21 a 3.2 mg. quake struck.

Further, as reported by the Associated Press on March 12, 2004 the elk herds in Yellowstone Park are suffering a massive and mysterious die off. Since Feb. 22, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has discovered over 300 dead and dying elk. This mass die off is unprecedented and unexplained

Of note, Yellowstone Park is also the site of a legal, on-going Buffalo slaughter. The Buffalo are killed to prevent them from becoming “too numerous.” In native understandings, Buffalo are widely considered to be healers of the earth. The places where their hooves touch the soil are especially fertile.

Now — early in our new milennium — at Yellowstone the joined rhythm of buffalo hooves is being replaced by the throb of snowmobile engines, and also by the sharp, invisible, unceasing waves from a 100-foot high cell-phone tower that has just been erected. The new tower overshadows Old Faithful and the entire Yellowstone historic district.

Bennie sees all of this as distinctly ominous. He is determined to do something about it. He says one important, helpful, and peaceful way to respond to the whole mess — Yellowstone and the global megacrisis — is with ceremony. He says his visions have shown him that ceremonies can serve the earth in a way similar to the way acupuncture serves the human body.

If the abuse of the earth continues, Bennie believes, things may get so far out of balance that Yellowstone will roar loud enough for everyone on the planet to hear the cry of pain.

The collective songs, dances, meditations and prayers of the Medicine Wheel ceremony set for May 8 will be directed to the Earth with the intention of respect, gratitude, and healing.

Protocol of the Medicine Wheel
As Bennie envisions the Medicine Wheel ceremony, the Eastern Shoshone from the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming, and others from the area who choose to participate, will gather at the center of the wheel, in Grand Teton National Park on May 8. They will combine their songs, chants and drums.

At the same time other tribal nations, groups, and cultures near the other 19 sacred sites around the perimeter of the Medicine Wheel will use their songs, chants and drumming to vibrate and bless those areas.

This vast Medicine Wheel around the Rocky Mountains of North America will be in relation to, and supported by other ceremonies at sacred sites in North America and around the world — wherever people choose to gather together in respectful ceremony. The whole of the Medicine Wheel will come to its highest expression in the hour when High Noon comes to the Four Grandmothers Standing Tall.

Turquoise Mountain — the South Mountain on the Medicine Wheel — has already committed to ceremony under the guidance of Grandfather Martin Martinez and Grandmother Janíce, and many other elders and Medicine People from nearby Pueblos. With Grandfather Secatero, the elders established a Protocol for the Turquoise Mountain Ceremony and made the Protocol available for others to consider.

Many other points on the Medicine Wheel are set, while some are yet to be organized for ceremony on May 8.

Lake Sullivan with tall pine trees in the North direction.

“This is to be a joint effort,” Bennie said. “I call to all my relatives to come forward now, and help to make this Medicine Wheel Ceremony happen in a good way using their own protocols, and joining together in one mind, one heart at High Noon on May 8, and to remember the Four Grandmothers Standing Tall and Yellowstone in the center. We must be in the highest form of sacred thought while in prayer. We must work in a straightforward manner. There should be no disagreements as to who is right and who is wrong, for the mountains and rivers of this Medicine Wheel have already had enough of this.”

“The vision showed that this undertaking would be a joint effort working together in peace. We shall bring back peace of mind to our hearts, to our spirits, and to our homelands. We will release the bondage of negative thoughts and prejudice for the betterment of all living things.”

In a Beautiful Manner
“We need to do this dance,” Bennie said. “We need to fulfill this vision, and I cannot do it alone. It needs to be done by all the people, all colors, all faiths. They will come together from all directions.”

No one need change any religious or spiritual beliefs to participate, Bennie said. There is only one central, non-controversial thought form that participants will be activating with their meditations, songs and dances: respect and gratitude for Creation.

From his many dreams and visions, Bennie has developed a sense of what kind of impact the Medicine Wheel ceremony can have: “When the sacred mountains and waterways have been set back into good order and harmony, Mother Nature will be re-orchestrated in beauty. We will see a significant change in the attitudes of all those living inside and outside the wheel.”

“After the ceremony the Indigenous Nations, groups and cultures that have participated in the manifesting of this vision will work together. This will awaken and re-integrate the ancient teachings of the Indigenous Nations as brothers and sisters.”

“Together we can do this in a beautiful manner. Together, we can bring balance and harmony back to the land. It needs to happen now. So be it.”

In closing, Bennie articulated a point that he, Grandfather Martinez, Grandmother Janíce, and the Spiritual Elders of Mother Earth agree upon: “The human race is depending on us for we are the keepers of the earth and its sacred wisdom. As the Hopi teaching instructs us, ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.’”

RESOURCES

Film about the ceremony – The Sodizin Ceremony: the Reunion of Mother Earth with Her Children

Turquoise Mountain Protocol

Bennie LeBeau’s Home Page
http://www.shrinesandsacredsites.com
Spiritual Elders of Mother Earth
http://www.spiritualelders.org

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Winter Festival: A Mystery Thinly Veiled

“Festivals are not merely the commemoration of historical events or personalities. They are in and of themselves, each year, spiritual events carrying a significance that grows and deepens with the developing phases of human evolution.”

— Rudolf Steiner

rising-sun-background-nasa For most of us, for much of the world, the heart of Winter Festival lies obscured behind the veil of outer celebration. Yet the veil is translucent. Through it, with a willful gaze, we may behold the mystery of the low-hanging Sun as it seems to stop, heralding the onset of the north wind and the clear, hard bite of winter. Through the veil we also may sense something else just beyond our grasp – something vast, poignant, resonant.

Annually at this festival point in December the celestial rhythm of Earth and Sun come momentarily to pause – a cyclical stillness that moves us inescapably into the deep, the dark, the other. At this Winter point, consciously or unconsciously, we set an inner pattern to guide what we will weave in the outer world through another solar cycle. We dream the dreams that will flower in another season. How much more powerful if we know we are dreaming? How much more beguiling if we know nature is inviting us to peer through the veils?

— If we do not wakefully intend,
we are subconsciously compelled —

Many thousands of people have awakened to the realization that spiritual forces are part of our daily lives. Would not enormous benefit arise if this perception were widely gained, not through acceptance of dogma, but rather through direct, authentic experience and perception?

Although little appreciated for this attribute, festivals are an effective way for us to connect with basic spiritual realities, and to be reminded of our highest aspirations. Festivals stand as potent opportunities for human beings to make gestures and enact deeds — alone, with our families, and with our community — and thereby uplift and sustain the larger culture while the earth cycles round the Sun. This is because, rightly timed, festivals occur at the ‘points between.’

Festivals and the Earth

reeds Like reeds in a basket, human life is interwoven with the life of the earth. All our food, water, clothing, and shelter come from her body, and arise with her natural rhythms. Our skin and bones are likewise formed of her stuff. Our moods, thoughts, and capacities are not wholly independent of this relationship.

As earth has a rhythm, so do all the creations which inhabit her. Those rhythms are related. To lose or forget this relationship — as many people have in their modern lives and diets — is to invite discord into the individual life, and eventually into community life as well.

A rhythm is a cyclic process that, by definition, is connected not to a theoretical or artificial division, but to something real: the waxing and waning moon, the earth’s revolution around the sun, our in-breath and out-breath, and even our digestion — which begins with the rhythm of chewing and progresses through peristalsis.

Human response to the basic rhythms of the planet is plain enough. We have definite, measurable reactions to fundamental cycles such as day and night, and the seasons. These responses are well charted by medical technicians, yet at the same time there are subtle inner rhythms in both planet and person, rhythms that mirror the level of either harmony or discord in a life.

The basic pattern of a rhythm is simple enough: activity-rest/activity-rest/activity-rest. Yet there are distinctions, variations, accents, and permutations. These are punctuated by celebration at various festival times: the planting festival, the harvest festival, the thanksgiving festival, and so forth — all natural to the life of a healthy community.

When we fall out of harmony with nature’s rhythms, there is a conflict, or arrhythmia, that eventually manifests itself in our lives in a perceptible way as a physical malady or a psychological disturbance.

As individuals and as a culture, we need strength, inspiration, and reaffirmation of the deep truths so we can begin to live their goodness out in our daily lives and so help to restore balance to the planet. There’s not much doubt of that.

When entered into consciously and respectfully, festival can be one of our most powerful tools for bringing our lives into harmony with a larger natural rhythm. I see The Winter Festival as a key to this understanding, for even though the mystery is said to be at its deepest in this time, the veils are exceedingly thin.

A Basic Planetary Rhythm

While one may appreciate intellectually the lofty-sounding concepts of rhythm, or unity, the raw power inherent in them is unavailable until it is acknowledged, called, experienced, and then consciously expressed.

For this reason, for thousands of years, people have come together during the festival times to invoke spiritual energies, and then to express them in dance, song, feast, laughter, theater, and ritual.

Four great festivals mark the turning points in our planetary breathing rhythm: two solstices, two equinoxes. At these turning points, we have opportunities to pause, moving our attention from matters of survival or amusement, to the very forces which bind us with the Earth and with eternity — forces which can remind us that we are not solitary creatures living isolated lives, but rather threads in a phenomenal tapestry of life that includes everything from the sand to the stars. Through the theories of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Uncertainty, and Superstrings, modern scientists have begun to glimpse this spiritual fact.

cosmicneb One illuminating expression of the yearly cycle and its festivals is presented by Evelyn Francis Derry in her book, The Christian Year, which offers a series of eloquent word pictures. Through autumn and into winter, she suggests, the earth inhales, drawing life forces deep within her blue-green body. The planet’s surface becomes bare and still at this time, but below she is most active. In a sense, the earth is thinking deeply the thoughts which are being sent down to her as light from the planets, stars, and swirling comets that mark the limitless expanses of the sky.

When the earth exhales in spring, life returns to the surface. The vitality expands in summer and the planet’s surface covers itself with visible proof of life: leaves, blossoms, buzzing insects, and rising passions. In a sense, earth puts forth what she has thought in the winter in the form of summer’s growing and flowering things. As the cycle of the year continues around its spiral wheel toward autumn, the earth begins again to inhale, to draw the life forces back in.

In the same way, we human beings withdraw into the bodily house in wintertime, concentrating our forces inwardly so that the sense of self is strengthened, and the forces of will are consolidated. Then as the sun’s light and warmth increase, human life begins to expand “from the self-centeredness of winter to the world-centeredness of spring and summer, reaching upward and outward with the scent and color of the flowers and plants.” As the Earth breaths, Derry suggests, so do all the creations which inhabit her, including human beings.

Festival of Identity

Festivals move our awareness into the upwelling streams of the life current because we are acting out and thus experiencing our dreams, our visions, and our aspirations, writes David Spangler in his book Festivals in the New Age. He observes that festivals are exercises in creative imagination. They give human beings the opportunity to assume roles which represent their true and essential cosmic nature.

Spangler warns that without this kind of rhythmic celebration men and women forget their dreams and visions. They lose touch with the festival within, and become spectators rather than fully alive people who are consciously connected with the power, wisdom and joy that reside within.

By taking the opportunity of festival we can explore through actions and images what it would be like to fully live the highest possible vision of our own lives. That is why, in our own times, it seems no longer sufficient for us to simply walk unthinkingly through the ancient rituals and modern commercial banalities that constitute our holidays — they cannot possibly fulfill the purpose of festival for us. We know it, though we suffer our desperation in silence.

Rudolf Stiener, a spiritual scientist who lived at the turn of the 20th century, offered provocative insights in The Festivals and Their Meaning. He indicates that festivals are in and of themselves, each year, spiritual events that grow and deepen with the developing phases of human evolution.

As I read him, Steiner is calling our attention to the idea that there is a particular quality to each season — a subtle shade of feeling for the Earth and for humanity that has never been before and will never come again in quite the same way. This is what leads up to a given festival, and gives birth to the quality of the soul mood that infuses, for example, Winter Solstice and Christmas.

What precedes the Winter Festival, and so builds much of the character we can experience during it, is the season of Advent — four weeks of preparation, four weeks of looking forward and waiting. Advent is a time for quiet contemplation, for what is to come is a revelation of what Christians advocate is the greatest mystery available to aspiring humanity.

bluesun At the time of the Winter Festival we are naturally drawn to contemplate the course of the Sun — it hangs so ominously low in the sky we cannot help but notice it. As the Sun conquers the cyclical darkness, which has been deepening from the moment of Summer Solstice until Winter Solstice, there is a sacred pause in the collective breath of Earth and humanity — a moment when we can recognize that we, too, may ultimately triumph over the darkness in our lives.

One great symbol of this ultimate triumph has come to be the birth of the man named Emmanuel, or Jesus, who became the Christ. Evelyn Francis Derry describes the significance of this event in her book: “When Christ appeared on Earth the whole nature of human spiritual life was changed. Previously men and women had found the Divine Presence outside themselves — shining down from the heavens and reflected back to them from nature. The birth of Christ signaled that henceforth people were to turn inward for the Divine Presence, to listen to the still small voice speak from within.”

As the good books relate, Jesus was not born the Christ. He attained Christhood when the Universal Spirit, the Christos, descended into his being while John baptized him with water in the River Jordan. By accepting Universal Spirit as a personal truth in that moment, Jesus brought forth an identity which bridged the gap from humanity to heaven — the Christ Spirit.

Christ later proclaimed ‘You are the Light of the world…what I can do, you can do; in fact you can do even greater things.’ For centuries men and women have tended to bypass that part of his message, and instead to place his individual personality upon a pedestal. Now, I feel, is a time in history when we are being asked not only to listen to that overlooked part of the message, but also to respond — not with supernatural miracles, but with recognition of and respect for the living spark of Divinity in all things, including ourselves.

Jesus was a human being and he lived his life to demonstrate human capabilities. His directions were explicit: The kingdom is within. Look there and you will find it. Seek that kingdom out above all things and when you find it all things will be added.

Thus what we can celebrate at the Winter Festival is not so much the birth of one man, as Western culture now emphasizes, but rather the potential that his birth symbolizes: the potential for each human being to fully recognize the Light within, the Universal Spirit, the Christos. This is the Christmas Mystery, a mystery veiled only by our own unwillingness to believe in ourselves. We lack the faith, it seems, to recognize and experience that we are, each of us, capable of being that good, that beautiful, that holy.

David Spangler tells a wonderful story to illustrate this point. “One of the most popular books ever written, one of the world’s best sellers, was a novel called “In His Steps” in which a group of individuals decided to live their lives as if they were the Christ.

They asked themselves before every action not ‘What Would Jesus do?,’ but rather: ‘What would I do if I were the Christ?’ This transformed their lives and society.

“The Festival of Identity, the Festival of Christmas, ideally should give to each person the chance to experience the drama of the Christ identity.” Spangler writes, “…to live the story, to objectify the vision so that the power of the Christ becomes real and meaningful in his life and he sees it as part of himself and not simply as an aspect of an historical story.”

But we are timid about pretending to such greatness. On the most apparent level it seems so preposterously beyond reach; yet on another level we may recognize that if we do not reach for the heights we will remain stuck in the depths.

Advent to Epiphany

Even though we are well advised to borrow from the wisdom and traditions that have been handed down to us, I believe we are called upon to create meaningful rituals for the changing times in which we live, and for the future. For rituals to be effective, we must infuse them with our own individuality and dreams. In this way we can empower ourselves and our culture; we will be enabled to see our lives in relation to the high spiritual concepts symbolized by the great turning points in the collective cycle of breath.

In a time when some aspects of religion seem intent on limiting the range of human spiritual expression, when dogma spawns rigid ideologues and both domestic and international terrorism, the world desperately needs men and women courageous enough to face spiritual realities on their own terms. Such men and women will dream the great dreams of peace within, and of peace on earth. Then they will reach for the loving power of their full identity. When they have accepted and experienced this universal spirit, they will be empowered to project their identity into the world in a way which will help to create balance and harmony among the community of life that is the earth.

This revolutionary process of identification need not happen within the brief span of one day, Christmas Day, for each year we have the four weeks of Advent to prepare, and the Winter Festival itself actually lasts for 12 days and 13 nights.

Evelyn Francis Derry points out that during these days and nights the outer world is marked with a quiet which is unlike the quiet at any other time of the year — not the quiet of anticipation, but the stillness that occurs only when something wonderful is happening, something that must not be disturbed. That is the time for us to open ourselves to the mystery of the Winter Festival. Through song, dance, laughter, right action, feasting, prayer, meditation and ritual, we are inviting this great mystery to play itself out in our lives.

Sparked by the Winter Solstice on December 21, the Winter Festival begins on the night of Christmas Eve and continues until Epiphany on January 6th when we celebrate two major events. We mark the Baptism of the 30-year old Jesus by John the Baptist — the moment when the Christ Spirit is said to have first entered fully into the being of a human, the time when the infant who was born with the returning light has matured to fulfill his destiny. He becomes identified with the living spirit.

January 6th is also the date when we celebrate the arrival of the Three Kings who study the stars, the Magi, at the stable where the infant Emmanuel lay in swaddling clothes. The three earthly kings, Caspar, Melchoir, and Balthazar come bearing gifts of myrrh, gold and frankincense to symbolize all that humanity had attained through evolution until the time of this sacred birth.

Adoration of the Magi by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625).

Although they have already been seeking for a long time, it takes the Magi that much longer, twelve days, to find the manger and come to a full realization of what has happened. Likewise, each year we may need 12 days for our understanding, our insight, our epiphany. If we invite epiphany, though, it is sure to come to us, in whatever way and at whatever level we are ready to realize it. But then to fully incorporate the power and insight of the Christmas Mystery we may need even more time. That is why, rightly understood, the Epiphany Season which begins on January 6th spans the next four weeks of the calendar year. The depths of winter thus become an opportunity for assimilation that balances the four weeks of Advent, our time of preparation.

Through the twelve holy nights from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, the night sky reveals itself with sparkling clarity. Yet darkness dominates. We are called upon not to shrink from the darkness and silence, but to embrace them — to step out at night under the starry firmament and behold its majesty in awed silence. In this way we receive fully the blessings of the light sent down.

Farmers may walk their fields on these nights, imagining the crops that will grow in the season ahead; writers, painters and musicians may hear the muses sing more engagingly; every person has the opportunity to capture the living vision anew – to gaze outward at the stars, and to be filled with their burgeoning light.

The Winter Festival is a mystery renewed every year, a spiritual event happening again and again. Those who are awake in this season, those who pause in their breath along with the Earth Mother and recognize the rebirth of spirit in all creation, find something magical growing within — they find something truly worth singing and dancing about. Insight is stronger. The path of life has opened more clearly. They are fortified and uplifted for the coming cycle of the year, fully capable of radiating that which has been born in them: a mystery no longer veiled, a light shining in the world.

– End –

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Arising from Sacred Land, Aiming Upward

On an August evening in 2009, Doug George-Kanentiio offered a ten-minute oration while the Sun was setting. Choosing good words, he spoke about the power of great art, about our prophetic era, and about our relations with the land and each other. At the end, he gave voice to the emerging vision of establishing an Indigenous University in America.

Sacred Rain Arrow, by Alan Houser.

The microphone Kanentiio stood at that evening was set on land about twenty-five paces from “Sacred Rain Arrow,” one of the sculptural masterpieces created by the late Allan Houser. Kanentiio’s talk was part of a benefit event for Go Native Arts, hosted in the garden of the Houser Estate about 20 miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

An hour after Kanentiio’s oration, his wife Joanne Shenandoah stood before the same microphone. By this time the stars had emerged, and Jupiter was strong in the sky to the East. Joanne faced south, centered herself, and gave voice to the enthralling Prophecy Song from her Orenda CD. She was supported with harmonies arising from daughter, Leah, and flanked in the West by the beseeching bronze presence of Sacred Rain Arrow.

We are now reminded
to be aware of our place upon this earth.
and to fulfill our obligations to ourselves,
our families, our nations,
the natural world, the Creator.

The words sing, we are to awaken.
Stand up, Be counted,
for you are being recognized in the Spirit world.

– Joanne Shenandoah – Copyright

Several days after the benefit event, I met Kanentiio again amid a crush of people by the Plaza bandstand at the annual Santa Fe Indian Market. We found a quiet place to sit and talk.

To answer my questions about the land, Kanentiio began telling of where he was born and raised, Akwesasne Mohawk Territory on the shores of Kaniatarowanenneh (St. Lawrence River) at the New York-Ontario frontier. The Mohawks are part of the Iroquois Confederacy, and the Keepers of the Eastern Door. Their confederacy is the oldest, active participatory democracy on Earth. With its Great Law of Peace, the Confederacy was a direct example and inspiration for the U.S. Constitution.

A former editor of Akwesasne Notes, Kanentiio is also a founder of the Native American Journalists Association, and the author of several books, including Iroquois on Fire: A Voice from the Mohawk Nation. In collaboration with his wife, Joanne, he is co-author of Skywoman: Tales of the Iroquois.

For many years Kanentiio served on the board of directors for the National Museum of the American Indian, and he is currently serving on the board for the Parliament of the World’s Religions, the largest interfaith gathering on Earth. Steadily growing in scope and influence, the Parliament will reconvene this December in Melbourne, Australia.

As we talked in Santa Fe, Kanentiio reminded me that Mohawk Territory straddles the border between the USA and Canada. It’s territory that’s in both nations, and it’s in neither. “Akwesasne is a nexus,” he said. “It’s situated at a juncture of land and water that is of considerable strategic importance. We straddle the St. Lawrence River at what were once known as the 25-mile rapids.” These rapids serve as a key natural valve of flow in relationship between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.

“Historically at Akwesasne the lives of the people were interwoven with the land and the water. People were called there because the place had all the resources necessary for life, and those resources gave stability to the people and to the community. That provided the Mohawk people with a high degree of cultural continuity, and it gave us a certain power and purpose. We always had that.

“Then in April of 1959 there came a break with this pattern. The St. Lawrence Seaway came into being, and our whole way of life changed. The natural, free flow of the living waters at 25-mile rapids was choked with locks. That energetic change fractured our community. It messed up the fishing grounds, and it separated the people from the water and from the land. We began to metamorphose from a vigorous people to a sedentary people. We became wage earners for the first time, dependent on money, and we began to lose our language. That brought about a huge change in values, and a whole generation of our children began to change from that point onward.

“When traditional indigenous peoples are separated from the land, then there is a break in trust in relation to the land – a break that goes both ways. We don’t trust the land, and the land doesn’t trust us. But you must have that trust. When we don’t communicate with each other, and when we don’t communicate with the land, the relationships become abrasive.”

In this context, Kanentiio mentioned Handsome Lake (Ganyahdiyok), the legendary figure who brought Gaiwiio (Good Words) to the people over 200 years ago. Among his life experiences, Handsome Lake was given a vision of the future. He foresaw environmental disasters including air and water pollution, and he offered prophetic cautions.

“Handsome Lake and others warned us that the final assault on the Iroquois – the greatest danger – would come from within. That’s what’s happening now,” Kanentiio said. “In terms of ideals, the Iroquois Confederacy represents something very good. But things change. Metamorphosis has continued and is continuing today, but at a faster pace. In our tradition we have in our creation story an important part about the twins, one twin of the good mind and one twin of the bad mind. That’s something to remember. These twins are always present.”

“Smuggling of tobacco and narcotics, and gambling — whatever commands a profit — has created a narco-culture at Akwesasne,” he said. “Our good, traditional Iroquois values of humility, compassion, simplicity, generosity and communal service have been replaced by greed, intimidation, violence, and death.”

After hearing this, I told Kanentiio of a meeting that happened about 17 years ago in Montreal. I found myself sitting beside the widely known and respected Hopi messenger Thomas Banyacya in a hotel lobby after he had given a talk. As we conversed, Grandfather Banyacya told me that long ago, when the Earth had gone through another epic metamorphosis, gambling had been the precipitating factor. “That was the last straw,” Banyacya told me. “When the gambling and all its related problems built up to a certain level, that triggered the great flood that cleansed the land.”

After listening to my story, Kanentiio responded. “We Indian people are supposed to be the custodians of the land, but what we are doing now is running casinos. We are sidetracked. We have lost sight of what we are supposed to do. The bright, shiny thing along the path has enticed many of the people to become lost, to lose track. Handsome Lake warned of that a long time ago, and now it’s everywhere.

“The Earth is beginning to stir,” he said. “She’s beginning to express the dreams and visions of long ago. The Earth is showing us that she’s increasingly upset with us. The Earth is beginning to arouse. There will be huge changes in this time of reckoning, of healing, until the balance is restored. We are very close now. It won’t be subtle. Big winds will come. The Earth will shrug its shoulders.

“We are not able to change this movement toward purification,” Kanentiio said, “but we know some things will survive. The Confederacy will endure in spite of itself. That is a shared understanding among traditionals, that despite all the odds the Confederacy will survive and go on, as the larger world will also go on in a new way.

“People feel the urgency of the changes now, and many are motivated to do things. That’s good. Preserve what you can. You have to leave something good and tangible behind.

A particular thing that Kanentiio would like to help leave behind is an Indigenous University for North America.

“A few years ago, Vine Deloria, Jr. thought maybe we could take the system of formal education, which had been used to undermine traditional native societies, and reverse it’s impact by creating our own institution based on the university system,” Kanentiio said. “We would create a formal, accredited university where native knowledge keepers would have a place to teach.

“We have native colleges, but an Indigenous University could in time meet and exceed universal standards for learning, and provide formal instruction in all native arts and sciences, of which there are many. It would have a high emphasis on online study. That’s a dream of ours.”

The Indigenous University would be open to everybody on the planet, no restrictions of race or religion. ”That is typical Iroquois,” Kanentiio explained. “Our way is to make it possible that people come to a meeting of the good mind. To get there, you need to sit in respect with one another. You have to invite people from all walks of life and viewpoints to share information, and you have to listen to one another.

“We have the ideas to create an Indigenous University,” he said. “What we need now are the physical and financial means to bring it about.”

: Joanne Shenandoah and Doug George-Kanentiio

In a related effort to weave indigenous viewpoints into the world’s larger framework, Kanentiio and Joanne — as well as other native peoples from North America and around the world — have become involved with the Parliament of World Religions. “We have in part managed to get the Parliament to adopt a native perspective on the Earth: to regard the Earth not as a commodity, but as a being.”

Kanentiio serves on the board of directors for the Parliament. He noted that the theme of their December, meeting will be ‘Reconciling with Mother Earth.’ “My hope for this Parliament,” he said, “is that teachers from world’s various disciplines, Jews, Evangelical Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Roman Catholics, and many more — can get together again in Melbourne and finally acknowledge that Earth is a living planet and should have standing. If spiritual leaders accept that, and take these spiritual understandings to their nations and congregations to make it a guiding principle, then that’s a good thing.

“We feel the real revolution in human society will come about through these spiritual changes,” Kanentiio said. “It has to happen there first, on the spiritual level. Once we change the spiritual, then the politics will follow.

“For me,” he said, “the roots of this understanding go back to our Iroquois value that all human beings have equal worth, if not necessarily equal abilities. Everyone’s life has meaning. Some are singers and healers, and some are cooks or builders, but each one of us has the blessings of existence. To cultivate this, to acknowledge, to have gratitude for being alive. You can always do that. Our lives are not casual, not by chance. We have been directed here to this time and place, and we are meant to take all of our life experiences with us, all the joys, suffering, and pain, and to take it with us with good mind when we return to the place of living light. That makes the light stronger for the generations to come.”

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