Jan 1, 2017

On my north facing wall hangs a painting of four horses and riders and a drum I made with a white buffalo painted on .  Drum artist Rose did the artwork.  This was a collaboration of drum maker and artist – crafts and art.  I have come to know the truth of the Mayan cosmology that time is art.    My home is my “gathering mesa”  I first have to make my space safe for me.  I smudge, pray and meditate and find that still small place in myself where I am connected to spirit.  When I come out of the dream is when I am most alive.  How I salute the sun each morning.  Seems when I take loving care of myself, everything else is taken care of.  North is mind and mindfulness.                      

The North direction on the wheel is the element of prayer and air.  The breath of life.  My class ” The Teachings of the North” begins on January 10, Tuesday evenings in “Heartspace”, above the store at 2239 E. Burnside St.  7-9.  This is a great way to break addictive patterns with a conscious choice to be with others physically rather than on a computer screen.  Technology abuse has become rampant, and having spaces to actually sit in circle and speak from our hearts and listen with our hearts ear.  The older I get, the less I know, yet I am hungry to find new mana for my soul, and the drum circles and classes do that.  I call it a teaching and healing circle, for the only way we change is by relaxing and letting go gradually. 

There are legends among the plain tribes about how “White Buffalo Calf Woman” brought the pipe and its teachings to the indigenous peoples.  Some dream of the pipe being offered to them and they refuse it.  The beautiful maiden destroys the desiring brother and offers the pipe to the brother who beheld her beauty, yet had no need to possess her. She gave the brother the seven lessons of pipe and told him to go tell his people of her coming.  As she left, she transformed in a white buffalo calf.  The lessons are:  Health, Happiness, Help, Respect, Compassion, Quietness and Generations.

 

I work for the lessons of the sacred tree and the 12 steps.  This work clears the confusion and we become more mindful.  4th and 5th step inventories can help clear our chakras and barriers to my aliveness (becoming hollow bones).  I can then walk in balance.   Working and playing the 12 steps, we transcend lower nature into noble passions and rise up like the phoenix and flow down like the water into father earth –  the “Green Man”, who is mans deep connection to our wild nature. and engage with Persephone as she rises from the lower world in spring.   

The treasures of the heart are denied those who seek with hidden agendas and intentions, craving only money, power and control.  The treasures of the Medicine wheel are gained by Volition, if we work hard to uncover our barriers we have built against love, ease and grace.  Inventory and self examination purify our hearts so that once more we can splash our love around through loving, playing dance and music!

The treasures of the spirit world are inside of each of us, and  like AA’s promises – they come by working for them.  They come to the pure of heart who are open to receive.  The pipe is a symbol.  It consists of stem and bowl, and represents the yin/yang of bowl being woman and stem man.  When the two are joined together we reclaim our wholeness and whatever you pray for will be given.  I have learned over many years to pray for spirits will for me and for ease and grace, for if I pray for strength, I am asking for “Tests to strengthen me”.  I have had enough “tests and swords to my heart and have inflicted my own swords from ignorance.  The first rule of recovery is suit up and show up.  Then trust spirit, clean house and do your joy.  Creator leads the willing.

My life force – the air that I breath is the element of the North Gate .  The North is detachment and its teachings of the unseen, yet real – the dream, Imagination, prana (life force), the breath of life, and our first and last breath.

In the Teachings of the North directions, we are connecting with the ones who have gone before us and the ones who dreamed us.  We come from the dream-time, the stars.  We are star people.  We journey each night into the dream and if we are lucky,  given a new beginning each dawn.  Many make well intended “resolutions” only to abandon them with guilt and shame as the wheel turns.  In the north we gather the seeds to plant in the spring.  What are you planting and if you intentionally ask your guides to reveal, you will gradually open to receive.  The fertile void is where the self destructive fires can transform into creative fire and noble passions.  Drumming, Talking circles and ceremonies like sweat lodges help us burn away the beliefs that separate us and reunite our wholeness – the seven colors of the rainbow.  There are seven classes that precede the Spring Equinox sweat lodge.  Walking a spiritual path takes preparation and getting order into my chaos.  Sharing our burdens lightens our load, and sharing our blessings multiplies them!

This week is Men’s drumming, and I hope to see my beautiful male friends for a little Ceremony, ritual, sharing and improvisational magic.  Blessings, Patrick