journeying to a place of power

where once the mighty Columbia thundered

for ten thousand years in this sacred gathering space

blessing all tribes with life abundant

sustaining a path of harmony

~

in the blink of an eye, the waters were stilled

when a dam was built fifty – eight years ago today

we come together to write the new story,

a tale of redemption, healing and hope

~

may we re-member our grandmother’s roar

at the confluence of the river’s shore

flowing together evermore

~

traveling like salmon today, wending through the river into the confluence of past, present and future… hearing about the original people inhabiting this earth for thousands of years, learning of the lost sounds of the falling waters still echoing today in the hearts of the w’yam who are on a mission to restore beauty, blessing the seven generations…

Pilgrimage of the Marrying Maiden

two years ago, a friend and i experienced a most magical celebratory journey on March 7 and it was capped off with this double rainbow which portended overflowing abundance for us all and my daughter in particular… now, two years later, we travel again to rainbowville, this time to initiate my daughter as marrying maiden…

under this arc of color flanked at both ends by gold, mothers come to welcome the maiden into another cycle, into a larger circle, a circle uniting heaven and earth, a deepening and widening, a dying and rebirth, separating and joining…

descending into shadows, the mothers shine light on the crooks and crannies encouraging the daughters to trust in the heart to guide the way along this new path of beginning, being the transformation of surrendering to higher purpose, divine marriage…

“I will give you a talisman. Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? Will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away.”

                                              —Mahatma Gandhi

walking the path of heart ever deeper into peace, i carry this talisman, this image of the holy lander, the pilgrim, merging with the great beyond, being one with beloved community, all our relations… this image of the pilgrimage touches me so deeply and breaks my heart wide open… to be living my deepest desire, to be one with all that is, to always being peace and love even in the midst of enormous suffering, this blessing makes every step a beautyway… how i love walking home with you into our one heart…

still, i float in the sky feeling like these budding tree coming alive hours after returning from today’s  pilgrimage across the river to another state where we undulated over a land bridge bringing us to the river’s edge…

as we sauntered along the path, every step takes us into another time when many tribes lived as one on this outpost in the Pacific Northwest territory… it is a moving experience to meander over the bridge memorializing the linking of earth and water…

may the circle always be unbroken,,,

Faced with our mortality, we get to choose how we live… Oliver Sacks recently learned he has only months remaining and he is choosing to live in the deepest, richest, most productive way he can realizing he is ocean. In his own words:

Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

This is not indifference but detachment — I still care deeply about the Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality, but these are no longer my business; they belong to the future. I rejoice when I meet gifted young people — even the one who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases. I feel the future is in good hands.

I have been increasingly conscious, for the last 10 years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

~

listening to hum now

whispers from the watery womb

singing of abundance

~

ingesting this wisdom,

the food of the goddess, inspires moving mountains

and singing dreams alive

~

a journey of courage

across the vast wide ocean

singing blessings

~

planting seeds of peace

in the gardens of earth mother

singing eternally

~

~

i’ll meet you there

in a field of heart consciousness

to create a world of love

~

love sharing this journey, this pilgrimage of the heart with you…