They can be a great help—–words.  They can become the spirit’s hands…and lift….and caress.“The Spirits Hands” – Meister Eckhardt 

I wrote this in 2013, and edited it..

What a wonderful weekend we had in the beauty and mystery of bear creek and nature.  Words, silence, space and drumming.  On Saturday, as we were sitting in circle by our medicine wheel

, and a doe and her faun came to visit us.  Spirit was there, and magic was afoot.  Bear Creek contains the mysteries, which exists in the present moment.  The Mysteries is where truth meets beauty and heals the people and culture.  Mysteries can put us in a hypnotic trance or altered state.  The term mesmerized came form the research of Franz Mesmer who began this work in the 1700’s and was most popular in Europe, Germany and America.  Benjamin Franklin was involved in a scientific study to prove the presence and healing power of “animal magnetism”. (including the indigenous people’s belief that animals have powers and can heal us.) I have been mesmerized many times in nature.  The verb mesmerize is to hold the attention of (someone) to the exclusion

of all else: “she was mesmerized”; “a mesmerizing stare”.  The 28 classes I teach a year is all based on the sacred circle, or wheel that is eternal.  In order to earn the “gifts” of each direction, we must learn about releasing the victim/predator consciousness and move from wannabes and “I need to” toward willingness, which sets in the center of the circle. (your own hoop)

In recovery, acceptance and willingness are the keys to earning the promises much like the medicine wheel, and the gifts of the four directions which have to be earned through will or Volition.

Volition has five steps

The first step of volition is attention.  In my years of play therapy I practiced the Zen of “ball watching”, often referred to as tennis.  My teacher was an ex professional tennis player and holistic studies master. We would go three to four times a week for hours with the simple agenda to hit the ball to each other.  I hadn’t played like that since childhood, and was resisted to the idea, since my agenda had been to “beat” someone, and then to sabotage myself. I slowly broke my addiction to competition with others and began to come to my senses – in this case my eyes. His mantra was “to see or not to see”. He would often catch the ball and ask me which way the seams were turning? I went from “I don’t know” to actually seeing the ball, and not get caught up in planning results (looking at where I wanted to ball to end up rather than seeing the ball) and noticing I was holding my breath.

and what my breath was doing, teaching me to be totally absorbed in the ball, truly seeing and detached from thought…seeing each moving shot anew.  This would lead me into an incredible state of concentration, where time disappeared, my body started making moves that I had no idea it could make, all following my commitment to see the ball.  I have entered t

I have entered that same state on a day of fly-fishing.  The path to the mysterium is the walk into nature. Angeles Arrien in her book “The Second Half of Life” refers to the gates of wisdom, the passages we are invited to pass through, and one of these is the clay gate, which is about sensuality and sexuality, calling this gate “the gate you will never understand”  The creative fires in me were awakened this amazing weekend.  I am in town for a day, and I head back out to bear creek to feed my soul and spirit.  The four places to tend to the soul’s fire are the deep woods, the mountains, the desert and the seashore. I am learning to tend my souls fire by being in nature. Blessings, Patrick