Category Archives: Ceremony

Ceremony, Drums, Medicine Objects, Rattles, Workshops

A Black Horse Appeared

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Well, I depend upon no one’s heart (or courage) but my own, so thinking this, I look for horses.   ~  Song of Self-Reliance sung by Old Buffalo

A few weeks back, the Fire Circle was coming to birth drums.  I journeyed to seek out the medicine that wished to come forward for them as we had not discussed anything in specific.  I am no longer surprised yet I am always amazed at how directly aligned the wisdom comes through – it is always exactly in keeping with the path of the seeker.  Black Horse, unambiguous definitively black, appeared.  While familiar with the medicine of Horse, having read several old stories, I went in search of more.  I wanted some details that might help me understand what this medicine in particular was bringing forward.

“I am from the Void where Answer lives. Ride on my back and know the power of entering the Darkness and finding the Light.”  ~  Dreamwalker

When the Fire Circle gathered, we took time to ground in with one another sharing where we were at and what were we needing at this time.  Up to this point, their medicine waited quietly.  While I listened to their shares, I well with emotions – Black Horse was precisely what is needed.  When they were complete, it was my turn to share, a dark horse* previously unknown is now prominently in the room.  Overwhelming, overflowing agreement that this day will be the beginning  of what is sure be a powerful journey.  Black Horse had come to offer the Mystery in magical ways.

And indeed, four black horse drums were birthed and are making magic known in the lives of their caretakers.

Not usual, after the drum heads and laces have been cut unused hide is so inviting .  Every scrap speaks.  Black Horse has come calling, work with me for your highest good.  From some of what remains, I have sewed rattles, taking this opportunity to ride into the Void, into my dark places and bringing back the Light.

I have been on a spiritual path for some time now and naturally life and questing have guided into some dark places.  Last summer’s Sun Dance, I was gifted/guided to explore deeper, to make a concerted effort to attend to my shadow work.  Surprisingly, my shadow work isn’t what I thought it might be.  It has been far more gentle than I was anticipating.  It’s the Medicine and Light, the Ceremonies – they support my personal path and healing process in incredible unimaginable ways.  And self-love.

“Self-Love is Always the Answer.”  ~  Northside Dream Circle  

Dip into the Void and bring back the Light
Dip into the Void and bring back the Light

Sewing with this Black Horse – the hide is soft like butter, easily pierced by a sharp needle, no resistance when pulling the stitches tight.  This feels so symbolic, like grace accompanying every prayer and stitch, tightly woven into the process of healing the shadows with Light.  This Black Horse teaching me not to fear those places within with steadfastness, gently lifting me up to the light of day.  Spaciousness occurs.  The gravitational pull towards Light, riding this swift horse, I am delivered unto myself in a good way.  There is still working to complete these rattles – as of yet no voices – what will I hear?  Their handles incomplete – when sanding and polishing, finding the “fit” in my hand, what can be garnered?  Already I’ve been gifted with freedom, bravery and generosity.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

Consider the workshop calendar.  Let us make a time together, to sew rattles, birth drums from any number of medicines, Black Horse among them to carry you deeper from the shadows into Light.  The Medicine of All Nations supports our walk at this time.  Blessings…

*The idiom dark horse refers to hidden talents, potential, victory and gains in power.

 

Ceremony, Children's Circles, Creating for Creating's Sake, Drums, Medicine Objects, Moccasins, Rattles, Wing Medicine, Workshops

Autumn 2015 Offerings

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Children’s Circles:  September 12, October 10 and November 14 – Our gatherings begin at 1pm and generally complete by 6pm.  We gather with respect for one another and our Mother Earth.  All the nations our Mother supports are greeted with gladitude and gratitude.  We come together to learn and to have fun, share a healthy meal, create, explore and vision for ourselves and the future.  Our Circle welcomes all ages and identities with open hearts.  Bring your parents of other adults to share this time. Suggested exchange $40. 

Drum Birthing:  October 18 and November 15, 9am until complete.  The medicine of the Four-legged and the Standing Ones come together in a sacred way when we set our intentions towards birthing a drum.  Each workshop is held in a respectful way, honoring tradition and ourselves in the process.  Drum birthing is ceremony, a time for joyful prayer and a labor of love that lasts a lifetime.   Please RSVP allowing me to properly prepare for your presence and your drum.  Exchange $225.

Fire Circle Drum Birthing:  September 27, 9am until complete – private circle.

Visioning Drum ReUnion: September 19, 7pm-10pm on Echo Lake.  An invitation is extended to all drums that have been birthed at Soul Proprietor over the years.  Migrate back to the waters of your birth to join in a Drumming Circle to Vision for the rebalancing what is needed at this time.  Let’s come together with joy-full hearts, clear intentions, prayers and expansive dreams for the future – our drum beats and voices raising the frequency in a good way with a fire as our company to transmute the challenges of our times.  Bring your friends no matter where their drums were born, they are welcome.

Feeding the Fire Ceremony:  September 26, 4:30pm until complete.  Women and girls of all ages are invited to gather for a Feeding of the Fire Ceremony where we will learn more about honoring the feminine through the natural way.  We’ll light a fire, share stories and songs, we’ll feast afterwards.  RSVP please for further details.

Rattle Crafting:  Turtle Shell Rattles October 11, Rawhide Rattles November 1, noon until complete.  Craft and sew in a good way an ancient instrument to call yourself home to yourself,  move the energies, releasing what may be stuck from this lifetime as well as ancestral times, celebrating your wholeness.  A rattle is a tool for shamanic healing work and personal ritual.  Every voice is unique, every stitch a prayer.  Sit in community, share yourself to whatever degree you feel called to, sing, laugh and create – the possibilities are as limitless as the sky.  Please RSVP your intention to join in allowing for proper preparation.  Exchange $75.

Moccasin Crafting:  October 24 & 25 and November 21 & 22 – our moccasin workshops are taught in two day workshops – 9am to 7pm each day.  Tough yet tender, Buffalo medicine supports your walk in the world and shares with you the abundance of right action.  Buffalo hide moccasin are incredibly comfortable and can be worn daily as well as for ceremony or special occasions.  These moccasin are custom fit to your feet, a measurement and foot tracing is needed in advance allowing for a pattern to be sewn prior to the workshop.  This is easily arranged between us.  Style choices and the adornment possibilities are endless.  Exchange $275.

Medicine Bags:  October 4, noon until complete.  A medicine bag is personal.  What strengths do you wish to support?  What needs to be augmented at this time?  Craft a medicine bag for your connection and protection.  Whatever your needs, medicine is the grounding and underpinning that shelters you in life.  As always, a prayerful protected container holds us in our work together.  These days are community days yet the deeply personal component often makes for times of silence and reflection – it is always the right combination of call and response between each person and the Mystery.   Please RSVP your intentions allowing for proper preparation for you.  Exchange $75.

Talking Sticks:  November 8, noon until complete.  At this time, many are coming together in many ways for the rebalancing of our lives and for our Mother.  Coming together in a Circle is powerful healing medicine.  Using a Talking Stick while in Circle creates greater respect for the person speaking, for their story and the heart behind their words.  Are you leading a Circle at this time?  Perhaps doing so has tugged at you for a long while.  Now is the time.  Now is the time for each of us to step up and step into our power to birth forward the future.  We are here at this time by agreement, by our choosing – let’s come forward in a good, true and beautiful way speaking our truth, allowing others to do the same.  There is healing work to be done.  Crafting a Talking Stick brings powerful medicine and voice into the world.  Please RSVP your intentions allowing for proper preparations.  Exchange $100.

Wing Medicine:  September 13, October 31, November 28, noon until complete.  This is where my work with medicine began.  My Uncle, from many lifetimes ago called, reminding me why I came here at this time.  The joy I feel for the Winged Ones was not the whole story, there is so much more.  The Winged Ones are a powerful ally offering themselves as healing tools.  There is no limit to their healing potential – what is needed?  These ally are here to help.  Feel free to bring your own medicine if you already carry something and receive the guidance for crafting a secure handhold that protects your medicine.  Please RSVP your intentions so I may properly prepare for your presence.  Exchange $75.

With Gratitude

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

 

Ceremony, Thoughts About This and That, Yoga

What If I Surrender?

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What would that look like?

Allow.

Soften.

Trust.

Yesterday morning before grocery shopping for our camp kitchen, I had a strong need to be on the earth. To be outside and make my prayers.  Early tomorrow morning we meet in ceremony.  Greeting the trees, I am distracted from my purpose. The Star Magnolia (she’s awesome!) is filled with spider webs glistening in the sunlight and buoyant in the breeze, at the center of each a Spider.  As I look over the tree at the many webs I discover a web under construction.  What a marvelous mesmerizing gift watching a Garden Spider weave her home and source of sustenance.  I notice how she adjusts her body to the variances of the arch of her circle.  Her diligence of purpose.  The way she creates.  I see her footing slip in the breeze causing a mistake (?) in the web’s form.  It doesn’t slow her down in the least.  She tacks and returns to the direction she wants to go.  Her medicine teaches me resilience.  To move forward.  Leave the past behind.  Choose where I want to go.  Stay focused.  To be at my center and source within.  And Go! make your ties, get moving, there is much to do!  Indeed. I go sit in the only green place in the yard, shaded by the Monster.  I make my prayers, they feel powerful, witnessed by more tiny spiders crawling all about me, chartreuse and pale yellow-white.  Spider power!  Gratefully, shopping took the rest of the day so I ordered pizza.  The delivery person helped me carry my new cooler (*which doesn’t fit in my trunk! doh!) into the house.  (too big and too heavy!)  Allow for help.  Surrender to a new limitation, another lesson.

In my yoga practice this morning Adho Mukha Svanasana invites me to submit.  I do.  Surrendering.  What am I holding?  Where?  Let go of story.  Come into alignment with my heart.  Release.  Soften.  Mind my mouth, no tension there.  I feel a healing in my throat.  Pilamaya!

Humbly.  I have a burning question.  Why is the human species so violent?  I heard Jerry Jampolsky speak on the Summer of Peace saying, “Why is a victim’s question that keeps us in our suffering.  Surrender, it is happening for a reason.”  Well crap!  If I had a nickel for every time I asked why, why, why.  What if I surrender to this question and just go pack and make ready for camp?  What if I surrender and trust?  Trust = Happy Heart!  That’s what!

Allow.  Soften.  Trust.  A good way to walk into ceremony.  This is my vision quest.

In gratitude for the People who have come before to show us this way, for the patterns and agreements laid down over time.  Pilamaya for this ceremony.  For the Circle coming together in this way.  For all Nations who will greet us on the land, for our Mother Earth.  Our prayers.

I offer prayers for the Salmon Nation who are struggling at this time.  For the Water.  Water is life.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

(*thankfully my best friend Scott loaned me his truck!)(allowing)(again!)

 

 

Ceremony, Drums, Moccasins, Workshops

A Handle On It

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How am I doing?

My front screen door has never fit well into the frame.  A few days ago, I am pulling hard, it takes an effort to close the door and snap.  In a split second, I’m on my butt with the handle broken off in my hand.  Unharmed and laughing.  I right a stack of books, toss the handle in the trash.  Then toilet won’t flush – the handle mechanism rusted through.  Hmmm.  Two broken handles in one day.  What is this telling me?

How am I doing in the practical?  How am I doing in the mystical?

NTD kitchen – No dairy.  No grains. No broccoli. No shellfish. No sugar.  No problem.  The menu and shopping list and time.  There is such abundance, we will eat well from the bounty of our Mother.  In gratitude, I offer a blessing for the water, the earth and the hands who tended the seeds, the salmon, fisherman and four-legged.  The meadow remembers the patterns of our feet dancing gratefully to give back to our Grand Mother Turtle, for her infinite generosity.  She knows we are coming.  I feel my connection.

Moccasin commission for a dance helper – completed  with the help of Osprey, Eagle, Pileated woodpecker and Dragonfly.

A drum birthing day is scheduled for the day after my return from the Night Turtle Dance ceremony.  I have prayed and prepared, hides and hoops are waiting.

The screen door handle remains broken.  The old toilet handle has been replaced with a “universal” handle.  Oddly this mundane object leaves me feeling a connection to the whole.  I feel the need to test it by reaching out, speaking – connecting the desires of my heart with the want of the mind.  How am I doing?

There’d been a chartreuse green cricket-like bug in my bathroom, I’d seen it on two consecutive nights.  This morning I found it treading water in the toilet (ironic), I scooped him out, set him free.  A juvenile Nuthatch crashed into the slider – there seemed to be a collision between him and a gray squirrel, the squirrel ran off.  I gathered up the little bird, flopping on his back, held him tenderly and singing until he flew away into the Noble fir.  And a Crane fly tangled in an abandon spider’s web, I rescued him from the stickiness and watched him fly free.  Not even noon, already three lives saved.

“…and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do – determined to save the only life you could save.”  Mary Oliver, The Journey

There’s an orphan juvenile Wood Duck on the lake, doing the only thing he can, saving himself.  How am I doing?

A’ho Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

Summer 2015 Workshop Schedule

Ceremony, Drums, Moccasins, Thoughts About This and That

Parched

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The BC fires smoke has me feeling pinned here at the lake.  The sky is matte gray, slightly moist.  The water is flat save for the circles created by dragonflies touching the glass.  The trees that ring Echo Lake are still brilliant green against reflection and sky, yet I feel thirst.  The lake level is quickly receding.

Each day I bless the water.  This has been my practice since the past spring equinox.  There is only one Water.  It flows in all forms.  You. Me.  The big water – Grand Mother Ocean.  Rivers.  Snow.  Blessing the water is blessing myself, blessing us and our Mother. Our unique, as we know it , planet blesses us with fresh water.  Our home, our Mother, gives us life.  Water. Is. Life.

On my circle walks, I find the Timothy grass waving in the breeze, it is taller than I am now.  Some of the Bracken fern are too, a few out stretch the grasses. The look strong like their ancestors the beginning of time.  Why didn’t I pick those fiddleheads?  (missed opportunity) The orchard  grass is chest high, blooming, beautiful.  I find the Horsetail is petering out already, weeks early.  Out my kitchen window are giant fireweed, perhaps 12 feet tall.  They number fewer than a dozen of  plants.  How old I wonder?  It looks as though it will be a banner year for blackberries, the bushes laden with hard green berry buds.  But will it?   I’ve seen a lot of shriveled berries too, petrified ornaments among the withered canes.  Lack of water.  I think of the bears.  What is the high country like?  Down here it is parched.

I was very disappointed Inslee didn’t call for conservation measures NOW when he declared draught in Washington.  I am doing my best now to conserve.  Join me?

I think I was 16 when I had a vision of myself as an old women.  I was in the desert, wind chimes all around (ha!).  Will the patterns persist?  Is the desert coming to me?  What does the future hold for us?  The Polar Pioneer en route.  Bought and paid for politicians.  Stupid Humans.

“Every day brings more news that Shell’s 2012 near-catastrophes weren’t a fluke,” said Travis Nichols of Greenpeace, which organized protests while Polar Pioneer was berthed at Terminal 5 at the Port of Seattle.

“Last week we learned Shell will only be able to drill one well at a time because they deliberately ignored the Obama administration’s regulations to protect walruses.  This week we learn the company can’t keep its fleet in working order even before it reaches the Arctic.” ~

Off my soapbox now but still banging the drum.  I’ve got moccasin patterns to sew, happily.  The blue full moon and ceremony is coming soon.  Wopila Grand Mother Turtle for your generosity!

A mother Northern Flicker is feeding her juvenile son at the suet now as I write.  It’s a good day to be alive.  A good day to be still, be silent, open to the countless gifts that surround me.   I’m breathing and finding balance.  Making an offering.   Over and out.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

Ceremony, Drums, Medicine Objects, Moccasins, Thoughts About This and That

And Ye shall Receive

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Who said, ” Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.”?

In my ties for the Tree the first year I went to the Dance, my overarching prayer was to truly know and integrate self-love.  I’d been dancing around the notion for a several years unable to really connect my head and my heart.  In the year that followed, an unexpected initiation brought an answer to this prayer.  My second dance, how do I multiply abundance was a concern I took to the Tree.  A subtle shift of perception opened the way forward, again answering my pray.

Leading with my heart and managing my mind/ego, among other things, came through the day I left for the Dance.  I’d thought I had procrastinated my ties.  Instead, I realized that unconsciously I had waited.  Waited until I could get out of the way allowing for what was really needed to come though.  I had waited for my ego to get out of the way.

The Dance was a hard one in many ways and still I felt cradled in exactly the best way possible.  Incredible lightning and thunder, a downpour.  Intense heat.  Dust.  Confrontations with myself.  Uninterrupted connectivity to the Tree.  A full moon.  The drum.  Songs.  Opportunities to listen.  Hearing the sound of my flesh being cut from my body, incredibly loud in my ears, like stormy ocean waves crashing to the beach.   The fullness of my prayers.  Babies.  Catching my ego flare.  Ravens on the wing, their voices evoking joy in my body and calling my attention to them over and over.  Raven, who’s medicine supports my going into the darkness of my mind to bring out the light of understanding as loving kindness to illuminate my heart.

I came away from the Dance with more questions than answers.  My landing, or re-entry as some folks call it, was immediate and intense.  Day one, I laid low, oddly baking a peach pie in 90+ degree heat.  I avoided the festivities of the Fourth of July.  I found it a BS celebration.   Freedom and independence really a bore that pissed me off.  Freedom and independence my ass!  Not for the Indigenous Peoples, nor the African Peoples, or even the exploited Chinese.  How can I possible celebrate when this truth lay beneath the colorful noise of fireworks?  Sometime during this day was the first time I got a message about how the prayers in this years ties would be answered.  Then again the next day, the same message and a tool for guidance.  Medicine that has waited for the right time to come forward, augment my work.  I admit, I’m afraid.  I turn in, I laugh in the face of my fear – for on the other side of darkness is light, liberation, a happy heart.   Isn’t this what I prayed for?  Yes, and still, I wasn’t ready for shadow work.  It’s time though.  No more dipping my toes into the dark waters.  Time to dive in.  Having medicine for my personal work, having medicine be my work in the world, I shall receive.  My willing heart will lead me into the scary crevasses of my mind.  The medicine and self-love will illuminate the darkness.  Everything I want is on the other side of fear.

These ways are “not old ways, they are alive and we are living them today”, said an Elder.  Just like the dust in my moccasin, the Tree and the Dance are alive in me.  Answering my prayers.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

 

 

 

 

Ceremony, Drums, Medicine Objects, Moccasins

The Dance

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I’ve felt the tree calling for months.

I’m packed.  I have a lot for one person. The creäture comforts of being human .  The outdoor plants, watered and moved to the shade on the West of the house, to spare the precious water in the predicted heat.  Water. Is. Life.

I procrastinated my prayers until this morning, feeling the importance.

What is before?  What am I moving towards?  Gratitude for where I’ve been.  Who I’ve become.  It’s hard work showing up to myself.  I undertake it gladly.  The past is behind me.

Prayers for my fractured family.  Grosbeak medicine coming early this morning.

Ina Maka.

To move from the heart.  Trusting my head will stay out-of-the-way long enough for grace to move through me.

Prayers for the human family.  Worth.  Healing.  Enough.

The bones of my Ancestors.   My feet dancing patterns in the dust, on the bones of my Ancestors.

In gratitude.  For. All. Who. Will. Dance.  Prayers of blessings and protection.  In. Gratitude.

The Mystery.

All into the ties.  The robe.

From my heart.  For the collective.  For All My Relations.

A’ho Mitakuye Oyasin

 

Ceremony, Thoughts About This and That

Leaning In

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I am feeling the pull of ceremony.  The Dance.  Grandmother Turtle under a blue moon.  The hill – a vision quest.

As I enter into the month of June, which the Gregorian calendar marks as the middle of the year, I find myself reflecting on an entire year.  The Sundance ceremony, a ceremony of life and rebirth, ushers in the new year just after the summer solstice.   Since last year’s ceremony, I pause to consider, who was I at this time last year?  What have I learned about myself?  And where am I going now?

A few days after the dance last year, I dreamed of three red fox.  The medicine of fox teaches me to keep my head down, to find greater comfort in silence and become invisible.  In my lifetime, I have fought this, feared being invisible – if I am not seen then what is my purpose or value?  I recognize myself as both anonymous and known when I look into the mirror.  How am I the same?  How have I changed?  I recount the lessons of this past year when drawing on the medicine of fox served me well.  And the times when I would have been better served had I been more like fox and remained silent or hidden.

Some recent soul doctoring has led me towards unification of self.  Integration into a greater understanding of myself as a whole.  With this I am finding a new sense of peace of mind and heart.  I am watching for patterns – personal and ancestral – asking what else can I turn towards and heal?  I hold myself accountable for bad habits.

Recently I saw a photograph of an old lover that a mutual friend had posted on Facebook.  My first thought was how he looks just the same.  My next thought was how different I am.  In the years since that relationship the changes in me have been many and mighty.  I look back at the woman I was with tenderness and not judgment, with compassion and self-love rather than blame.  Surprisingly, I find myself grateful for who I was then, offering myself kindness.  Increasingly I am more and more satisfied with who I am now recognizing the miles I have come to get to this place of self-love, knowing there are miles to go to be the best version of myself possible.  Who I will become as I lean into the unknown mystery called the future?

What prayers will I take to the tree?  I have prayed for a long time for those who will dance their prayers, for those who will hold the container of ceremony, for those how will cry for a vision and be there to support.  I have prayed for the land, for the water, for the ancient ones who carried these ways forward.  Prayed as I served in preparation for these ceremonies.  I am asking myself now, what prayers will I say for me?  Who do I want to be next year?  What will I manifest with integrity and intention?  Perhaps I will stumble and fail, learn the hard way – this too a gift in the process of my life and constant rebirth.   I am grateful for it all.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations