Notes From Sings-Alone

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

My mind is very literal. I have known this verse (Psalm 46:10) all my life. I have taken it to mean that we should hush and pay attention to God’ magnificence. For the past six months the Spirits have been teaching me about the Navajo prayer, “Let me Walk with Beauty in front of me; Beauty behind me; Beauty above me; and Beauty beneath my feet.” As I have noted in earlier blogs, I am puzzled by their insistence that I learn about this.

Walking in beauty has so many layers of meaning. Like most spiritual things Indian, there is the obvious truth with at least four strata of truths beneath it. It is important to live with our eyes open and see the beauty of the earth around us, in the skies, and beneath our feet. That is the obvious teaching. But what lies below it? How does one walk in beauty when he is surrounded by ugliness? What if she lives in a slum with nothing but decay and violence all around. What if you lived in Iraq, in terror of the extremists, in terror of foreign powers? Where is the beauty in that?

The Spirits began to show me that walking in beauty requires a change in mind set. Somehow I must immerse myself in the sacredness of this world. I understand that We are all part of The Great Mystery known by many names, that somehow the essence behind the obvious in all Creation is God. We are sacred because in our core, we are in God, with God, and, in a limited sense, we are God. Walking in beauty means to know our connection with God and be immersed in the sacred unity of all things.

There is a single portal into the sacred. It is taught by all the mystical traditions of all the great religions of which I am aware. It is the portal of silence, of no mind, of thoughtlessness. Whether in temple, mosque, synagogue, monastery, or sweatlodge, the teachings are the same. Upon entering a sweatlodge or a sacred ceremony, we turn off our analytical minds. We stop thinking about the ceremony so that we can fully absorb it. The power of the ceremony is directly proportional to how well we do this.

Thinking distances us from experiencing. Observe a tree but start thinking about the tree; it’s species, it’s height, its circumference, and thought by thought, you lose the experience of it’s “treeness.” It is no longer vivid and kin to us. Typically, we see an unusual tree, and just for an instance, we are in relationship with that tree. For a nano second it is right there and something clicks between us and the tree. But then we start thinking about it. Maybe we remember that there was a tree just like it in our yard back home. Then we remember playing under the tree and who we played with. Step by step our mind leads us away from the immediacy of experience. The same is true of experiencing an animal or fellow human being. And it is certainly true for communicating with the Sacred, the Spirits, even with our own sacred essence. The more we indulge the internal dialogue about the Spirits, the less likely we will ever hear them.

Walk in beauty. Stop the incessant mind chatter, the constant commentary that we erroneously identify with ourselves. Move into the silence. To be in beauty in the deepest sense, is to enter the silence, or as the Psalmist said, “Be still and know that I am God.

I could go on but will stop here. My blogs are few and far between now as I have been directed to put all this in book form. Keep checking in from time to time and I will let you know when the book, tentatively titled “Conversations With The Grandmother: Walking in Beauty will become available. Mitakuye Oyas’in

Hello all….

The past month has been very challenging and instructive. I have not written a blog because I have been consumed with a two week trip to Patagonia (Argentina), and after that, packing and moving my 96 year old mother to Massachusetts.

The trip to Patagonia was quite interesting and challenging. Beginning with a couple of days in Buenos Aires which is much like any European large city, we began to travel south through the high desert country of Patagonia until we ended up in Ushuaia, the southern most city on Earth. It was right across the straits and Cape Horn from Antartica. On the way, we saw thousands of penguins, many sea lions and elephant seals, Guanacos, red foxes, gray foxes, rheas and other wild life. We climbed and hiked on glaciers and trekked through miles of woods.

After Patagonia, we had 5 days before flying to Florida to begin packing my mother for her move to Massachusetts. It was so difficult for her to see life long possessions going to someone else. The later stages of life are a process of giving up and shrinking into smaller and smaller living spaces. We left Florida in clear weather on Thursday the 13^th and landed in Providence, RI at the beginning of a fierce snow storm. We were the last flight allowed to land. After us, the airport was closed. It took 4 ½ hours to drive to Mom’s new home. We were all exhausted at the end of the trip.

The Grandfather Spirits have continued to work with me even during these difficult times. If you have followed my blog, you know that the Grandfathers have been teaching me much about Walking in Balance and Walking in Beauty. I have been trying to understand the teaching and will be talking more about it in future blogs.

Those who have participated in my workshops know that some of the exercises involve sitting with a plant or a stone without thinking about it…just being present with it and learning from that experience of immediacy. I have come to think of walking in beauty as “sitting” with an object without defining it with our minds. We destroy many of our opportunities to experience beauty because we are constantly thinking and anticipating rather than being present without assessingvarous inforjmation about the object. It is so difficult to turn off our mind chatter, our constant replaying of situations, our thinking about what we might have done or what we would surely do. Walking in beauty is much more than just a nice concept, it is all about being fully human and present in this dimension.

I promise to write much more about this later. I notice that I have mentioned Patagonia in my previous blog.  Frankly, my mind is so fried from all the moving and packing, that I had forgotten I had written about Patagonia already.  What a thing of beauty, the depleted brain….yeah, sure!

Metakuye Oyas’in

Sings-Alone

HAU, Y’ALL.

It’s been a while since I have entered a blog. Right now I am too brain fried to write anything intelligent. We just returned from two weeks in Argentina/Patagonia where we did a lot of hiking, glacier trekking, horse back riding and getting close and personal with wildlife….penguins, sea lions, elephant seals, llamas, lots of birds and other critters. We were as far south as one can get…just across the straits from Antarctica.

Now that we have returned home, we are on our way back out. This time we head to Florida to pack up my 96 year old mom and move her to Massachusetts.

In spite of all the rush, the Spirits have been teaching me so much about walking in balance and walking in beauty. I had no idea that there was so much to know about this, and I will be sharing it with you in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say for now, it is one thing to aspire to walking in beauty but quite another thing to do it. We were surrounded by miles and miles of desert in Patagonia. It was interesting and different, but beautiful? Hardly. So, how could I walk surrounded by beauty in that place. Stay tuned for the true and final word about beauty walking(grin).

Mitakuye Oyas’in

Listen Up

Do you know why there is always humor and clowning around Indian Ceremonies? The Grandfather above and all the Spirits around us are loaded with humor. I am a case in point.

One of the last things I ever wanted to do was to write a blog. I wasn’t even sure what a blog was and definitely didn’t know how to proceed with one. My good friend and brother, Rich Young, set it up. All I had to do was write.

Spirits told me that this was one of the ways They wanted me to take the teaching to the non-Native community. I agreed to do it if they would give me the subject matter. Well, sometimes they did and sometimes they were silent. As I read back over my blog entries, I think I can pick out the silent times. The material runs from the profound to “duh.”

Last night I had already written a blog when I went outside for my evening meditation and prayer. I was told to get back to the computer and remind everyone about the importance of taking care of the Grandmother.

So here goes–

We know that Mitakuye Oyas’in means “All My Relations.” All that we do in life, we should do in relationship with the whole Creation. Grandmother Earth is the totality of creation for us. She must be our first concern, the first to be protected, the first to be honored. Today, She is sick and we all are in jeapardy becauses human beings have not put Her first. She has been exploited, raped, dishonored in a million ways, most always in the service of money.

The multinational corporations have shown no regard for the Earth nor for any of her children, human or otherwise. To get at coal, they will cut the top off a mountain, letting the rubble fill the valleys. Their violations of the air, water and land are too numerous to count and you know them anyway. The sad part is that instead of our government protecting the Grandmother and all of us, our politicians have been living off the largess of the corporations and their lobbyists. This is true of Democrats AND Republicans. Look at the candidates. Why are the lobbyists supporting certain ones above others. The only possible reason is that they see the particular candidate as more open to their influence and control. What other reason could they have.

We are moving toward the most important election of our life times. The continued existence of life as we know it is at stake. It is pretty clear that we are in for some big changes in our life styles. It is also clear that the hard times will lead to a renewed and more balanced life for all of us. In the meantime we have to do everything we can to protect the Grandmother and all Her children including ourselves.

Get involved in the electoral process. Use your best judgement. Speak for your candidate and ask your candidate to stand for Mitakuye Oyas’in.

In the meantime and in the face of all the obstacles, walk in beauty. Walk in balance.

Mitakuye Oyas’in.

Creating A Sacred Space

There are at least two kinds of sacred spaces, probably more. There are locations on the Grandmother where her energy is especially strong. Some call these “energy vortices.” Some speak of the intersection of Ley Lines, I think they are called. Whatever name you give, these are especially important places in which to do ceremony, meditation, and prayer. To do a Vision Quest on one of these spots could be a mind blowing experience.

We have a place like this in Michigan where we hold Vision Quests in early summer. Last Fall just before returning to our home in Massachusetts, I invited a friend who is a professional psychic/channeler to visit our place. Just standing on the spot where we do Vision Quests took his breath away.

But you don’t have to be in one of these special places to create a sacred space and “sit” with your Spirit helpers. Land is made sacred by the prayers of the people. We have a sweatlodge in Massachusetts where we have prayed and done ceremony for the past ten years. It is now a sacred space and you can feel the Spirits when you are there. I will be going down by the Sweatlodge in a few moments to spend time with my teachers. I have no doubt that I will be walking on sacred ground.

If you want to create a Sacred Space, do this. Choose your spot carefully. The more beautiful and private the surroundings, the better. Build a small fire. A kindling fire would be fine. Smudge the area with sage smoke. Offer pinches of tobacco to the Four Winds, the Sky Beings, and Grandmother Earth. As you do this, visualize yourself building a sanctuary on the earth, beneath the sky and surrounded around by the Grandfathers. You now have a Sacred Space in which to pray and listen. Do this over time and that Space will become sacred all the time. The Spirits will be waiting for you.

Mitakuye Oyas’in