In this brief video clip, Chief Phil Lane shares his understanding of a key ancient teaching of the Americas: the reunion of the Eagle, Quetzal and Condor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IDOFyv9Zdw
Remembering an Epic Walk for the Earth
Walking under the sign of the Whirling Rainbow
Nineteen years ago today – June 23, 1995 – a small band of pilgrims set out walking from the Atlantic to the Pacific on an epic journey that I have come to regard, and to write about, as the Odyssey of the 8th Fire.
The saga of their journey is well worth knowing, for it remains critically relevant to the journey all of us are making now through an era of profound change upon our Earth.
As well as the tale of the pilgrims’ travels on foot across Turtle Island (North America), Odyssey of the 8th Fire is the essential story of their meetings with dozens of traditional, learned elders of North America. They gifted the pilgrims with messages to deliver to all the people.
Reading Odyssey of the 8th Fire online is a demanding quest. The story is exceedingly long. Because of this, and because many of the elders who are part of the story noted that their teachings take both time and attention to understand, I recommend this literary pilgrimage be undertaken step by step, over a span of eight months or so.
Odyssey consists of a lengthy Prologue, and then 225 accounts, one for each day of travel. Those journal entries are ordered chronologically.
By engaging this online account of the epic walk one day at a time, a reader can make a steady eight-month literary and spiritual pilgrimage from East to West across Turtle Island (North America). The journey proceeds place to place, elder to elder, teaching to teaching.
“I ask you to listen not just with your minds. I ask you to listen with your hearts, because that is the only way you can receive what it is — what we are giving. These are the teachings of our hearts.
“This walk is going to take eight or nine months. There are lots of elders out there across Turtle Island, and they have many beautiful teachings, many teachings that all the people need now. It is our hope, it is our prayer that they will come forward now that the Eastern Door is open
“It is our prayer that they will meet us as we walk; that they will teach and share what they understand from their hearts. Be patient. Listen to the elders. You need patience to receive these teachings. It doesn’t all come at once. You need patience.”
– Frank Decontie, Algonquin – June 23, 1995 – First Encounter Beach, Massachusetts
Spring 2014 – Falling into a Supermassive Black Hole
Note Well: A news story from The New York Times (2.18.2014) reports: “A gas cloud named G2 is about to collide with Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy…”
Our galaxy, which we know as the Milky Way, is known as Hunab Ku in Mayan Cosmology.
The noteworthy galactic event that the Times reported on is on track to play out in March or April of this year, at Sagittarius A, which astrologers reckon as located at about 27 degrees of Mutable sign Sagittarius. This degree of the sign of the Archer is at the very center of our Milky Way Galaxy – Hunab Ku), and it will unfold this Spring just as the much-heralded Grand Cross of 2014 is manifest in the Cardinal signs of the Zodiac.
Metaphysicians regard these planetary and stellar events as noteworthy and significant in accord with the ancient astrological dictum of correspondence: As above, so below.
Hunab Ku – image by Jose Arguelles, is a Mayan-inspired symbol for our galaxy.
To quote again from the Times article: “…(this) black hole lies just 26,000 light-years from Earth. (The actual event, of course, took place 26,000 years ago.)” This means that the gas cloud G2 was drawn into the center of our galaxy (Hunab Ku), some 26,000 years ago, but it has taken the light from that event that long to reach earth.
This 26,000-year span matches the cyclic period of time defined in the Mesoamerican (Mayan) Long Count Calendar.
The Long Count calendar was famously forecast to complete, and then to roll over into the start of a new cycle (5th World) at or near the date of December 21, 2012, just a year and three months ago.
Click here to read the rest of the Times article about the impending Black Hole event of 2014. Click here to watch a Youtube video clip simulation of the Gas Cloud being drawn into Hunab Ku – the center of our galaxy.
- Artist’s impression of the event (image from www.eso.org)
Stunning Sunbow Illuminates Moscow
On Sunday, January 19, Valera Yangurazov, a passenger on a Moscow train, videotaped a dramatically vivid Whirling Rainbow (Sundog, or Sunbow) illuminating the sky in Russia. You can watch the short video on this page.
Beholding the natural beauty of the Sunbow as I watched the video, I immediately recalled how that vivid sky sign played a key role in the Odyssey of the 8th Fire,
The Sundog is the rainbow gone Full Circle around the Sun. This natural phenomenon — said to be especially relevant to our era — is also known as the Sunbow or Whirling Rainbow.
Odyssey of the 8th Fire tells the true story of how the Sunbow served as a central motivating image for a band of pilgrims who walked across America. I had the honor of being with them and of keeping an online, nonfiction journal about that epic walk and the teachings that became available through the many steps we took.
Day 7 of the 230-day online journal reports on some of the relevant science and lore associated with the SunDog, or Sunbow, or Whirling Rainbow, and it explores the natural phenomenon’s relevance to our era. If you follow this link, and scroll about halfway down the page below the picture of the Sunbow, you will find the teachings.
Tales of the Whirling Rainbow: Myths & Mysteries
Tales of the Whirling Rainbow is a journalist’s account of some of the key myths and mysteries of the Americas, and an electrifying exploration of how those myths are resounding in real time.
Veteran journalist Steven McFadden weaves the living myths together seamlessly. Like an atom of gold, this wee book radiates deep beauty. It delivers authentic inspiration for our 21st Century souls.
Tales of the Whirling Rainbow conveys critical insights into core wisdom teachings at the heart of North America’s unfolding saga. Respect for these knowings is fundamental to our survival and spiritual development.
As the Sun awakens and Earth changes intensify, our lives attain high velocity. At this time and in this manner, elders across The Americas informed the author, the human beings who are the different colors and faiths of the world will have opportunities to heal their web of relationships with each other, and with the natural world.
You can order print or eBook versions of this small treasure via this link to Amazon.
Talks
Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working with groups both large and small from coast to coast, and abroad. I’ve spoken at conferences, workshops, and seminars, as well as in banks, insurance companies, hospitals, forests, farm fields, fire houses, bookstores, churches, libraries, and colleges.
My gift is to offer audiences inspiration and empowerment by speaking about visions and practical ways to realize them, grounded in expertise and experience.
Contact ~ Steven McFadden
Click here for more information.
Wise elders say that we have only this generation
to come into a harmonious, inter-connected way of living,
or our human family will be extinct!
I invite you join me and
my colleague Brooke Medicine Eagle
for an amazing, complementary gathering of wisdom keepers
beginning November 16th:
RETURNING TO EARTH ~ BECOMING FULLY HUMAN
Moving Through Current Challenges into
Thriving, Sustainable, Respectful Life
focusing on empowering you with
real, workable, sustainable solutions
for our current personal and global challenges.
To register for this free summit, please follow this link.
Sample Talks and Workshops offered by Steven McFadden
The Call of the Land: Deep Agroecology ~
Our relationships with the earth, with our local environments, and with our food are being actively challenged. Agroecology and deep agroecology are intelligent, sophisticated, and effective ways to meet and to transcend those challenges, establishing a clean, healthy foundation on the earth for our food and for the next evolutionary step of humanity. We can respond wisely and decisively to the chaos in our climate and culture, for the present and for future. My talk on The Call of the Land offers facts, experiences, ideas, and ideals leading to the well-being and upliftment characteristic of deep agroecology.
Tales of the Whirling Rainbow ~
Gather round to hear true, dynamic tellings of some of the key multicultural, multifaith myths and mysteries of the Americas, and to consider how those legends may resound helpfully in real time. They are stories worth knowing.
The ominous reality of hate-mongering and cultural division are symptoms of a deeper crisis of meaning and purpose. Because these stories arise from the deepest roots of the Americas, the Tales of the Whirling Rainbow can be of high service as we pass through the present cultural and environmental tempest.
Odyssey of the 8th Fire ~
It is my honor to be able to sound a drum, to offer flowers, to take a place in a circle, and to relate the true, epic saga of a multicultural band of pilgrims who made a prophetic journey walking from the Atlantic to the Pacific under the dramatic sky sign of the Whirling Rainbow, and the sure guidance of traditional keepers and spiritual elders of North America. Through this saga, and interactive telling, we may engage the elders’ great and generous giveaway of understandings about our land, and our lives together upon the land.
Celebrate Santa Fe’s Community Farms
– Meet Your Ambassadors to the Earth –
If you love clean, fresh, local food, then you will want to head to the Farmer’s Market on April 17, 2018 to Celebrate Santa Fe’s Community Farms, an early evening educational get together. The public is cordially invited to join with some of Santa Fe’s pioneering community farmers and authors to sample, delicious, healthy local foods, and to explore visions of how Santa Fe can become more food secure and food healthy.
The first annual Celebrate Santa Fe’s Community Farms event is set for Tuesday evening, April 17, from 5:30-7 PM at the Farmers Market on Paseo de Peralta. Donations to help defray costs are welcome.
Learn about what’s happening with local community farms, and engage with dynamic agrarian visions of what is possible for the Santa Fe community.
Sponsored by Beneficial Farms CSA, the early evening celebration will feature samples of local food, and several short presentations from local farmers and authors, including Thomas Swendson of Beneficial Farms, Mark Nelson of Synergia Farm, Steven McFadden (author of Farms of Tomorrow, and The Call of the Land), and also (other speakers ? This list is all male. We should invite a woman to speak. Who?). Tejinder Ciano of Reunity Resources will fill us in on the destiny of the historic Santa Fe Community Farm at San Ysidro Crossing.
You are cordially invited to join with your Santa Fe neighbors to Celebrate our community farms, and to explore the possibilities for supporting our local farms, increasing our local food security and food health, and helping to strengthen community.
Reiki Training – I’ve been practicing and teaching the art and discipline of Reiki hands-on complementary healing for almost 40 years. I offer Reiki training classes in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Everyone can learn Reiki healing, and everyone is welcome. Certificates awarded. You must complete Reiki I before taking Reiki II. For more information or to register, click here.
Odyssey of the 8th Fire – June, 2015 marked the 20th anniversary of the first steps along the Odyssey of the 8th Fire. To celebrate it, journalist Steven McFadden will sound the drum, tell the tale, and show an 8th Fire film relating the fundamental wisdom teachings of North America.
This one-time evening event – Odyssey of the 8th Fire – is set for Thursday evening, June 25, 2015 , 7-9:30 PM at the Unitarian Church of Lincoln, 6300 A St. Lincoln, Nebraska. The Odyssey is free, although the storyteller will “throw a blanket” to cover costs.
Storyteller McFadden will relate the true tale of a great prophetic pilgrimage from the Atlantic to the Pacific which began precisely 20 years ago — a pilgrimage which remains suspended in mystery. The journey began in the east at the Atlantic sea, then the pilgrims walked for eight months across the Heartland, fading at the Pacific’s Western Gateway.
In the unfolding of this true tale, learned elders of all nations make a great and generous giveaway of the teachings they carry for human beings.
If you’d like to sit in the circle and hear the story, you can join the Facebook events page for Odyssey of the 8th Fire.
Watch the trailer for the film at this link: http://imagicapictures.com/_movies/Trailer_8th_Fire.html
Books
R.I.P. Mishomis, Grandfather William Commanda
- At the UN – Grandfather Commanda (center) displays the Seven Fires Wampum Belt
at The House of Mica – UN headquarters on Manhattan Island.
Dear Relatives – Grandfather William Commanda died early on the morning of August 3, 2011, two days before the start of his annual gathering in Maniwaki, Quebec, Canada. He was 97 years old.
Among the many accomplishments in his long life as a protector and defender of the land, Grandfather served as Spiritual Advisor to the Sunbow 5 Walk for the Earth in 1995-95, a walk chronicled in Odyssey of the 8th Fire. The story of Grandfather’s leadership of this epic walk is also at the heart of the project to create an audiobook based on the nonfiction Tales of the Whirling Rainbow. I am honored to have known Grandfather, and to have traveled with him, since 1989. He was a remarkable man with a brilliant soul.
Rest in Peace, Mishomis (Grandfather)
* * * * * * * *
One vivid memory of Grandfather’s resolute nature comes from Friday, November 24, 1995 in the desert to the west of Rio Rancho, New Mexico. It was Day 155 in the Sunbow 5 Walk for the Earth, what I have come to describe as the Odyssey of the 8th Fire. In his 80s at the time, Grandfather served as Spiritual Advisor for the walk and its epic quest across Turtle Island (North America).
- Grandfather Commanda (author photo)
Grandfather was leading us from Atlantic to Pacific to meet with and learn from wise elders of all traditions, and to seek out “what had been left by the side of the trail long ago” as described in the Seven Fires Prophecy.
But our grand pilgrimage for peace and unity had hit the wall of human nature by the time we got to New Mexico. We had been arguing viciously among ourselves, and fractured into four or more groups — each group filled with suspicions and hostility.
As we arrived at a desert knoll to hold our council and air our ferocious grievances against each other, the wind rose. It blew so hard — 45 to 50 mph — that the air literally began to scream across the desert. The unrelenting desert gale blew stinging sand into everyone and everything. The storm rocked across the desert relentlessly, whipping ceaselessly through our gathering as we huddled low on a dune, seeking a windbreak. We prayed.
In the western desert, Grandfather listened to us for a long, long time, and then confronted our brokenness. His hands shook and his eyes filled with tears. He wiped his tears and then spoke. “No,” he said. “This is not my way, this is not the way. You must all stay together. You must stay in unity.”
He was unshakeable on this point: “You must all stay together as one group, one circle,” he said. “You can’t kick people out of the hoop. That’s not the way forward. You must find a way to stay together…You cannot fulfill the Seven Fires teachings any other way…”
In this manner it was settled. We were all to walk together — one reconciled, reunited walk.
* * * * * * * *
With the help of his companion Romola Treblecock, Grandfather Commanda developed his own website, a Circle of All Nations. Among the many treasures in his spiritual legacy to the people, he left his vision for Asinabka – an indigenous guided island for personal and planetary healing, located downtown in the river that runs through the heart of Ottawa, Ontario and Hull, Quebec. Grandfather Commanda’s final vision is only part way to fulfillment. It needs wider support to come to full realization.
Pyramids Added to True Tales of The Whirling Rainbow
Ever since writing and publishing Tales of the Whirling Rainbow last September, I’ve been tinkering with it: improving the content, layout, and adding photographs. This January I decided to add a new chapter about the thousands of pyramids and temples in Meso-America, and the role they have in the teachings about the transition of the Mayan Calendar on December 21, 2012.
Temple of Ku’Kulkan – the grand pyramid El Castillo at Chichen Itza, on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.
The full title of the ebook is Tales of the Whirling Rainbow: Myths & Mysteries for Our Times. It is available in over a dozen ebook formats, including Kindle, Nook, PDF for any computer, and also in iPad, IPhone and Smartphone formats, and its sold at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other popular online retailers. For now, the most up-to-date version of the book is available at Smashwords.com.
The new chapter, based on interviews with traditional Mayan Daykeepers, expands the scope of the book by exploring the key role of the 21,000 pyramids and temples of Meso-America as they figure in the 2012 teachings of the Maya. This elaborate network of sacred centers, the Mayan Daykeepers told me, has a key energetic role to play in keeping the balance as Earth Changes intensify, and our human lives attain high velocity.
The tales offer many dynamic insights associated with 2012, including the role the Sun may play. The true tales are told in plain, precise language, creating a quick but deep investigation into the mythology of this moment in time. “The calendar of 26,000 years is new for the dominant civilization,” Mayan Daykeepers told me, “but the calendar portends big changes.”
New ebook: Tales of the Whirling Rainbow
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve written and published a new book Tales of the Whirling Rainbow: Myths & Mysteries for Our Times.
The book is my account of some of the key myths and mysteries of the Americas, and an exploration of how those myths are echoed in real time. The true stories in the book arise out of my experiences over the last four decades, and also out of the venerable tradition of storytelling.
This ebook is in part a pastiche of elements I have written for other books and articles, now woven together in a new telling both by the context of time as 2012 approaches, and also by the living, mythic image of the whirling rainbow.
In his book Transformations of Myth Through Time, Joseph Campbell noted that a society that does not have a myth to support it and give it coherence goes into dissolution. “That,” he wrote, “is what’s happening to us.” And that, I feel, is why it is worthwhile to tell the rainbow tales again in yet another way in this ebook, to contribute a word picture of what I regard as a supporting and coherent myth for our times, a mystery to engage the fullness of the contemporary soul.
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