Category Archives: Medicine Objects

7.2018 Workshop Offerings

OFFERINGS

Snohomish Thursday Farmers Market

Full Moon Fires

Children’s Circle

Soles for the Soul Moccasin Crafting Workshops
Adults ~ Babies

Drum Birthing Workshop
Rattle Crafting Workshop
Wing Medicine Workshop
Medicine Bag Workshop
Talking Stick Workshop

Private – Group – Experiential Workshops

 

7.2018 Workshops and a Work in Progress

A Work In Progress

What does it mean to live on trust? To trust absolutely?

 

A number of years ago I was on the phone with my teacher, he was sharing a story about how he came to live a life of trust. I could not help but reflect as I listened. My own stories, I could clearly see the differences in my life having come to a spiritual path. Yes, I’ve been doing this, I’ve been living on trust. I could rest a little easy and feel some good about myself and this business of living on trust. He continued, in his charismatic booming voice, by saying trust is not enough, he tells me, “We must trust absolutely! “.

 

Oh! This set me back on my heels. I trust. But, do I trust absolutely? In all moments? Within days I was given an opportunity, a test of my absolute trust.

These last many months, it feels as though I am, we are, constantly being tested. Absolute trust is required to stay sane, balanced, and right-sided. And action. Many actions. All our attention is needed in every direction. There is no being on the fence.

“The future which we hold in trust for our children
will be shaped by our fairness to other people’s children.”
~ Marian Wright Edelman

 

I write this as a small boat, with duel American flags, slowly motors by on the river below where I sit. What trust is required to be an American, to be a citizen of the world? How does one go on aware that there was not one Treaty ever honored with our Indigenous Relatives, on stolen land where immigrates are unwelcome, while their government systematically destroys people, sacred places, civil rights, and has it’s dirty warmongering hands in the destruction of foreign people and lands globally? To trust that this is all in divine order requires great strength, total surrender, and a willingness to face the terrible facts head-on – it hurts, yet the suffering of other living beings the world over is unimaginable. Rising in compassion and empathy, it is only absolute trust that carries me. I hearing the birthing cries above the commotions and distractions, above the motor of the boat drifting by. #RiseUp #Vote #Divest

One Human Family – Sending Up A Prayer

To you, your families, and your communities… Love…

All My Relations

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am created by Divine Light
I am sustained by Divine Light
I am protected by Divine Light
I am surrounded by Divine Light
I am ever growing into Divine Light

Swami Radha was my first spiritual teacher some 25 years ago. Her teachings woke me up to myself through the many practices of yoga. I was surprised to discover I wasn’t studying yoga. This powerful path was self discovery – body, mind, and spirit. Until then, I’d been a sleep-walker, in survival mode. I really worked it hard, this union of self/Self. I’m awake.

Even with this, it was a medicine way path that brought me fully into my heart. The Bear Nation showed me a way home to myself by way of the heart. A four chambered heart – open, full, clear, and strong – a unified, whole, integrated self.

“The mountains have always been here, and in them, the bears.”
~  Rick Bass
In the Light
FIRST DANCE
Gratefully, I was commissioned to craft moccasin for a Dancer, she hadn’t worn moccasin before to make her prayer. Prayers of health, help, and happiness, as well as her own prayers were held with every stitch. They came together so beautifully, red buffalo medicine. A brief and sweet exchange over tea, we wished one another off to our respective ceremonies. I returned home to find this photograph and an email in my inbox:
“I hope you’re not horrified,
these moccasin went to the depths and back with me. They were strong traveling shoes and I’m so glad for them.”  ~ CE

Horrified? Quite the contrary. The sight of the good Red Earth and her words brought me to tears of joy and gratitude. Worn only once, their first dance, four days, sacred shoes, sacred feet, dancing a prayer. So filled with Spirit, they are even more beautiful. It humbles me. It is an honor to be united in this way of making prayers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My own dance shoes. Fine dust permeates each layer of the sole, into cracked heels. As does the drumbeat. The songs. The wisdom. Into my grateful heart and spirit.

“What if we All came together
to pray for peace, unity, and justice for ten seconds? Just ten seconds.
Imagine how powerful our prayer could be in this sacred place.”
~  BR
What if? It’s all sacred.Join me, from wherever, however.
10am PST ~ Daily 10 SecondsAll My Relations

 

 

Morning Glory

“Good Morning! Glory!”!  It is a sweet memory to recall my mom’s singsong voice, waking me to each new day. “Good Morning! Glory!”

Good Morning Everyone ~

Snohomish is wild and wonderfully overgrown with white Morning Glory. It’s everywhere. It seems that not even the tamed and tended gardens are free of it. Morning Glory is a messenger encouraging me to break free of old habits, to be more creative, dare to live spontaneously, and to keep blooming anew day after day. Morning Glory wakes with the dawn, then exhausted it languishes as the sun disappears on western horizon – a full circle, a ceremony in each day. Pure white and funnel shaped, the flower is symbolic of both drawing energies in and sending energies out – how will I be in community now? What will I learn of myself? What can I offer? Can I receive? The heart-shaped leaves ask me if am I grounded in my body? In my body, the heart is allowed to lead, the mind can follow. The stretch of the many vining tendrils remind me to embrace what life has to offer, to express myself fully. Am I? Morning Glory connects me to the wealth of my inner reservoir where I acknowledge myself and honor Source.

“My life is my message.”  ~  Mahatma Gandhi

By experiencing the natural world as our messengers, we can see from a fresh perspective – with medicine eyes and a medicine heart.  An old yet new way of being human, in alignment with creation.

Offering workshops, circles, and mentorship throughout the summer season. I look forward to sharing time with you. Until then, I bid you all a glorious morning, noon, and night, and beautiful strides in the South.

All My Relations

Spiral Dance

Life is one great big learning curve.  A spiral dance.

“Energy moves in cycles, circles, spirals, vortexes, whirls, pulsations, waves, and rhythms—rarely if ever in simple straight lines.” ~ Starhawk

I caught myself in fear. Unraveling the tangled thread of it I found judgment, which showed me clearly that even in the kindness of giving a gift fear can have ugly hooks.

It’s the odd thing that sticks in ones psyche that prevents peace in the heart and creates fear and story in the mind.  Tis the case with me anyway.  Medicine work is always my teacher. It seems the New Ones coming in at this time are Sages or Wisdom Keepers, knowing so much more than me – again bringing me a lesson as I prepared to stitch baby moccasin, inviting me to examine and understand myself more fully, to be more self-aware and to see plainly another layer in the spiraling learning curve of my life.

An aside, my Guides have been talking with me. They are saying, It is the time of Peace KeepingIt’s time now to hold the vision of the Green Grass Walk in bare feet. The Green Grass Walk is a time of Peace Keeping. Even as I write that I feel it as a Circle.  I am, we are I believe on a Peace Keeping mission.  To be at peace in our hearts, to spiritually awaken to the presence of peace, rekindling our rhythm and relationship to our Earth Mother, to attune to a higher vibration. Peace movements are happening all around the globe. I am gratefully holding this vision, the visceral sensation of bare feet walking on green grass.

Peace. Peace. Peace my Sisters and Brothers. Peace.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

Hector and Golem

“…Hector the Collector
Loved these things with all his soul–
Loved them more then shining diamonds,
Loved them more then glistenin’ gold….” 

I’ve been watching the changing landscape of winter – both the night sky and what can be seen of earth from where I stand.  The lake is full to overflowing.  Only the Oak trees are dressed with leaves now, the rusty-brown color of their death.  Waterfowl are on the move, some landing for a bit of respite, others with somewhere else to go.  Geese left their unwanted feathers in the yard this morning.  Songbirds are plenty.  And the Moon, differing with each day/night – she’s not particular when she’s seen – she just goes on shining, pulling the tides as they rise.  There is snow in the mountains this winter, quite a lot – I’m hopeful for a slow melt – life-giving water.  Uranus has moved direct, Mercury has gone retrograde again.  I feel so small.  Humbled.

Life is precious.

I’m not a Tolkien fan.  In his writings though, he created Golem and I have always found the fervor with which Golem seeks and cherishes his “precious” to be oddly heart warming.   And I’ll admit to feeling a little like Golem before medicine work came into my life.  My precious was how I felt about the random feathers or bit of bone, and stones and driftwood that I had amassed.  Precious, all of them.

Ever since medicine work revealed itself to me, it is clear why I am Hector the Collector.   And since then too, much of the natural bits, gifts from Maka, have long since been incorporated into some sacred object that has gone home with someone else.  These things were never meant for me.  I was only the custodian.  They were not my precious.  Mind you, I still have a collection of miscellaneous and random bits.  I am no longer attached.  They are not mine either.  Mine is an illusion.

What’s precious though is an infinitely long list.  Life is filled with what is precious – every second, every breath, the New Ones, our Elders, those who are on the front lines for Peace and caretaking Mother Earth, those who are making certain the children are fed and animals are cared for, family, friends, communities and Circles, the medicine work and the Seekers, et al, and on and on.

In this changing landscape of winter, as the sun drops beneath the clouds and a gentle rain falls, light is cast is across the water.  A duck quacks.  Life is precious.  Life is good and so very precious.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

 

Save the Date ~ LOVE Offering

Save the Date!  February 16, noon until 6pm.

Mark your calendars and join in to raise abundance for the Cocoon House, because every child deserves a home.

I know this is Valentine’s Day and what a perfect day for a ♥LOVE♥ offering!  Savor a leisurely morning in self-love.  Arrive at noon. Create a LOVE stitched rattle offering.  Complete early enough for more of the same self-love, shared-love kind of evening.

Let me explain myself… Whilst listening in prayer many months ago, they said make rattles with the homeless.  Hah? What? Excuse me?  A little clarification here please, because a rattle isn’t what I would think a homeless person might need.  This is me, arguing with Spirit, trying to make sense of it in my head.  Of course I cannot.  Each time I applied my mind, no obvious answers arose.  Never forgetting yet sort of putting it out of my head time passed.  After a while it comes up again.  No clear way forward. Then again.  And yet again.  Finally (I’m slow sometimes), I realized I’m in my head. Get out of my head for a solution and into my heart.

More than 34% of the total homeless population is under the age of 24. Cocoon House is a non-profit that conducts outreach to, and provides short and long -term housing for homeless and at-risk young people, including their children. Parents of teens can also find support for themselves and their families at Cocoon House so that young people do not become homeless.

The more I settled into my heart about this project, the more possibilities have come up as potential ways of following through on this request to serve.  And the challenges remain.  I am fully ready.  I have extended an offering to make rattles with homeless and been politely declined, “…our population isn’t interested…”.  I have been forward, offered as in-depth an explanation as possible.  Yet, every time, my request, regardless of how imaginative I’ve been in delivering the idea of crafting rattles with the homeless at drop-in and extended stay shelters, the offering has been rejected.

Undaunted, the idea of a gathering, of inviting people to come together to make a Love Offering flew out of my heart.

What I am suggesting and asking is that we come together in a Circle of loving support to sew rattles.  I am offering to hold space and host, teach the crafting as needed, I will offer all the materials. I’ll offer my prayers.  I am asking that you make an offering of your time, your hearts in crafting, your prayers and any monetary amount you can make.  All of the abundance collected, 100%,  will be gifted to the Cocoon House.  I encouraged you to feel free to take the rattle home with you, gift it to another or gift it to the Cocoon House.

In all my thinking about this, it is quite clear why a homeless person could benefit enormously for the medicine of a rattle, in a multitude of ways.  One step at a time though. I am hoping there will be so many of us coming together in Love and Compassion that we raise the vibration to help put an end homelessness.  All are welcome.

Thank you for your consideration.  Thank you for joining in community, to be in Love and make an offering with me, with Spirit, with the medicine of healing.  Please invite your family and friends.

Pilamaya! Pilamaya! Pilamaya!

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

 

Winter 2015 Offerings

Open ~ Medicine Gift Crafting:  Create whatever you wish! How can I support you?  Announce your intention to attend, thank you.                 ♥ Offering ♥ Gratitude

  • December 12
  • December 13

Wing Medicine:  Craft a feather fan to cleanse and clear in your personal life and for professional practices.

Primary flight feathers of the Wild Turkey
Primary flight feathers of the Wild Turkey

Drum Birthing:  Send up a call, let the beat of your drum harmonize with the heartbeat of our Mother Earth.

The Hazelnut Circle Drum Birthing Day
The Hazelnut Circle Drum Birthing Day

Rattle Crafting: Move the energies, call your guides, meditate  and journey with these powerful tools.

Turtle Shell Rattles
Turtle Shell Rattles

L♥VE Offering  ~  Fund Raiser for Cocoon House

  • February 14 ~ Please Save the Date!  Details TBA soon.

Soles for the Soul:  Moccasin are for everyday wear, for ceremonies, moccasin for life!

Butter soft moose hide moccasin
Butter soft moose hide moccasin

Medicine Bags:  Personal, protective and private – honor the medicine that comes forward for you in a good way for the new year.

Talking Sticks:  Are you one who has been called to form a talking circle?   Many have in these times and it is good.  The talking stick is a respectful way to share and listen to what is on one another’s hearts.

Zsa Zsa's birthday Talking Stick workshop
Zsa Zsa’s birthday Talking Stick workshop

Leather Crafts:  Come sew, stitch your best intentions into the leather, create what you have a need for.  There will be cake.

Leather Pouches
Leather Pouches

Children’s Circle:  In a sacred way, each circle date is a unique exploration into the natural world.

  • December 19
  • January 9
  • February 13
  • March 13
Jill and Evander crafting medicine shields
Jill and Evander crafting medicine shields

Feeding the Fire Ceremony:  Celebrate the feminine by feeding the fire with Grandmother Moon.

  • January 22
  • March 25
Full Moon Feeding the Fire Ceremony
Full Moon Feeding the Fire Ceremony

Looking forward to spending time together working in a sacred way.  With gratitude.

Mitakuye Oyasin  ~  All My Relations

 

A Black Horse Appeared

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.