Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Self-care: the NEW New Year's Resolution

Hi friends,
I have not written in two weeks now, mostly because I have been on an increasingly strict Ayurvedic cleanse called the Ejuva Program for most of January. I am in the final five days! This program goes from simply adding a set of herbs and a psyllium-husk drink into your normal three-meals-a-day routine, in phase one, increasing the number of sets of herbs and psyllium drinks each week, and decreasing the number of meals, till you get to phase four: four sets of herbs and psyllium drinks, and zero meals (but fresh fruit and veggie juices are permitted). The depth of the cleanse is apparent in that I am barely able to formulate words, and for each five letters I type, I make about three mistakes! (Ok I am exaggerating about it but seriously, I am on another planet mentally.)

Still, I want to say a word here about the tradition of the New Year's Resolution: that happy spark of enthusiasm so many have when approaching the New Year, when each "resolvee" plans to finally lose that weight, add on that exercise program, quit that bad habit, etc. ALL of which involve "D-O-I-N-G," which is why they most oftentimes fail. These programs and regimes are strictly based on a masculine approach to power, which is power OVER. Attempting to put something into, or take something out of, your life, based on a mental concept of some perceived reward (I will be skinnier, more fit, stronger, healthier, etc.) None of those things are wrong or bad... but what is unfortunate is that many of us do not accept ourselves as we are NOW. We adopt these resolutions to try to change ourselves into the people we want to be. And why? Because we are not happy with ourselves the way we are. And so we try to change, with all our will, and fail, and then of course have more ammunition with which to beat ourselves up. I have done this particular New Year’s dance SO many times!

So how to get out of this cycle? Well, I am 27 days into my cleansing program, and am actually fasting on veggie juice - in the winter, no less - and while I am finding it challenging on some levels (cold!), overall, it has been easy to continue. Why? Because I am not doing it for any other reason than to take care of myself. I have no other goal. I don't care if I lose weight; I don't worry about what others think. My entire goal is about self-care. I want to promote the healthiest, happiest body of which I am capable, and as I became aware of some problems with my elimination system over the past few years, (which really have been with me through my whole life) here I am doing a four-week cleanse in the middle of the winter and (mostly) loving it. Frigging awesome!

So, I sign off this week in the very happy (and increasingly less murky) depths of resetting and rejuvenating my digestive and eliminative systems. I thank the Spirit for giving me the time and space to do this inner work, as well as for the strength to stick to it.

Blessings of self-care to you all,
Harmony

Monday, January 16, 2012

Teens, Sweat Lodges, and more...

Hi friends,
I already forgot my resolution to write this every Sunday - so here I am, playing catch-up again. How quickly I get distracted! I have a good excuse, though. I was out in Williams, Oregon yesterday, putting on a sweat lodge for my daughter's boyfriend's 21st birthday. He asked me to do this for him... something I consider to be a minor - no a major - miracle. And typically, our 10 am departure time quickly became 11:40 am; there was no additional fire-tender, so many of the kids had to step up and help in new ways, which took explaining time; we returned home, exhausted, around 6:30 pm, and then there were burritos to build and eat. Truth is, you really can't rush teenagers who have been up half the previous night to get anywhere on a schedule, even if it is something they want to do.

Amazingly, going to sweat lodge is just that - something they want to do.

OK, to backtrack a bit, I have been studying with a teacher for the past five years, and just recently (last winter) received the blessing to begin 'pouring water' as they say: which means running or facilitating a sweat lodge. I have had the incredible good fortune to have been given a piece of land to use - for a year - as the site of my sweat lodge altar. The land couldn't be more beautiful. It sits in a clearing with a bordering creek, with no close neighbors, out in the country where the air is fresh and the human-made noise is minimal.

The model of this lodge comes from the Fuego Sagrado Vision Quest camp. It is much like a traditional Lakota (northern Native American) sweat lodge in many ways - with some very distinct differences. This is not the forum to go into all that, but if anyone interested wants to know more, give me a call. Or come out to Williams to a sweat!

Switching to a separate track of my life, my passion for the past decade has been to find an authentic way to work with teens, to help them in the difficult transition from kid to adult. To give them a safe space, a sacred space, in which to be themselves. I got my Master's Degree in Education and became a public school teacher, thinking this was a way to accomplish this. Not true. The public school system is a lot of things, but a proponent of the authentic self? Not even close.

My daughter, bless her heart, has been brought up around ceremonies, and continues to choose to participate in them. Last year, she asked for an all night prayer meeting, which we scheduled for her 17th birthday in November (11/11/11!) and in order to prepare, asked for me to run a lodge for her and nine of her friends. This was this past October. Since then we have had four teen sweats, most of them attended solely by teens (the one we did right before the solstice was an exception, with many adults in attendance).

Which brings me to say that my two worlds have met, finally, and good things are stirring... Sacred ceremony is a perfect vehicle for connecting with the authentic self. The sweat lodge is, on the surface, a simple purification ceremony. But there is so much more to it that that.

And so, my daughter and her teenaged friends are coming to the sweat lodge, and I am unbelievably grateful and overwhelmed... and aware of the incredible amount of angst they are carrying and wanting to do something to help and doing something to help but not sure it is enough and wondering what the F@#*! is going on in our society where the teens feel just so shitty and alienated and depressed. Ok yes I remember as a teen I was stressed and angsty and tried my best to make myself numb by partying all the time. But the 'future' was something that people still believed in back then. Now? 2012? Everyone's waiting for the end of the world! The teens are so afraid that everything they know is going to disappear, and that they are not safe. They feel so disconnected from everything. There are no jobs; kids are dropping out of high school, making money however they can (illegally, most of the time), and, the way it seems to me, helping each other cope through the worst of it; basically raising each other. We need connection! We need the village! We need our elders! Other adults who are not their parents who can be there as positive examples.

I know this is raw. I am out of time (that would be a good trick if it were literally true, don't you think?). Send some prayers our way, or to your local teens, wherever you are. If you have some time, or can make the time, become a mentor. Take a teen to a sweat lodge, or put one on for them. Relate instead of react! Remember how it was when you were a teen. What, if anything, do you wish had been different? Make that your offering.

Thank you , Creator, for preserving the sweat lodge ceremony until this day. We SO need these ceremonies to remember what is really important, what is truly sacred in this life.

Aho Mitakue Oyasin.
Harmony

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Vision Questing in Colombia

Greetings and Happy New year!
I am so motivated to be who I AM and to do the things I am meant to do in this new year! I am excited to once again share this journey with you. I trust in the Great Spirit, in the Divine guidance that is available in every moment, to inspire my words, and to lead any who might benefit from reading them here to this offering.

Last night was the first ceremony marking the start of the 2012 Fuego Sagrado de Itzachilatlan - Colombian Vision Quest Camp, so I feel inspired to share about that vision quest process and my experiences there over the last five years. First, a short introduction. The Sacred Fire of Itzachilatlan tribe (Itzachilatlan is the term for the combined North, Central, and South American Continents) is a tribe by practice, not blood - which means anyone (with approval and invitation by an elder in the tribe) can come and participate in the Vision Quest. The process requires a commitment to four years of vision questing - "going on the hill" - and four years of support at the camp.

My beloved partner Sean is probably sitting in the ceremonial sweat lodge (in Spanish, temescal) right now, getting ready to go out for his fourth year on the hill. He will be there from today, January 8, until the morning of January 21 (see below for a short explanation of our vision questing model). Several other Americans and many, many of our Colombian brothers and sisters will also be on the hill during this time. All prayers are welcome!

In our tradition, each year of the process starts with an intention, and builds on itself in subsequent years. Thus, in the first year, a person goes out for four days with the prayer of 'Humility." During these four days, they fast from food and water, and their only possessions on the hill are a wool blanket, a mosquito net, a poncho, the clothes they are wearing plus one extra layer, a small medicine plant, and a prayer tobacco, rolled in a corn husk, which they must keep safe (dry). There are no artificial fabrics, no paper, no distractions, no tent, no tarp - nothing man-made between them and the earth and sky. They are surrounded by four directional posts (prayer stakes) bearing the colors of the directions, and three more posts representing the other three directions - above, below and within - stay in the east 'gate' during their first year. Around these directional stakes are strung their personal prayers - 365 tobacco ties - forming approximately an eight-foot square space. This is where the vision quester will pray during their time when they are "planted" on the hill.

In later years, the form of the previous year is repeated, with more days added, and with a different focus prayer. In the second year, questers ('buscadores' in Spanish) go on the hill for seven days; in the third year, questers go on the hill for nine days; and finally, in the fourth year, questers go on the hill for thirteen days. Each year, support - in the form of food and either medicinal tea or water - is brought to the vision questers after the initial four-day fast, at prescribed intervals.

Fuego Sagrado de Itzachilatlan Vision Quest Camps camps exist in many other countries in addition to Colombia, such as the United States, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Mexico (where this model started), and Spain.

I completed my fourth year of the vision quest last year. It was my fifth year traveling to Colombia, and my second attempt at my fourth year of vision quest - which is a story I will save for another time! When I think about how to put into words what I have learned a result of this process, I actually do not know what to say. I am a completely different person now than when I started this process. I am certain that vision questing has augmented every other spiritual or other training I have ever undertook in my life. It has pushed me further than I ever thought I could go. The experience of fasting from water for four days (several times!), in particular, has brought me to a deeper appreciation of what is truly important and sacred in life. Vision questing is a path for the true warrior, and I am happy to acknowledge that as I am a spiritual warrior in this lifetime, being put to the test in this way really worked for me. Yet my experience is so uniquely my own, to share it, it seems, might encourage or otherwise engender comparison, or competition, with other paths, with others who have vision quested using a different model...

And so despite my intentions for starting to write this particular story, I find that what I can say about vision questing is not what I thought I would say. My teacher once said that he could offer 'wisdoms' or teachings all day long, but that to truly understand them, one had to live them, experientially. Vision Questing is like that. No one can tell you how it will be for you, or what you will learn. No one can tell you if it is even a good idea for you to go. It really is a calling, and when you hear it, as I did, you suddenly know what you have to do, and nothing will stand in the way of your answering that call. Vision questing is one way to access our true and authentic connection with Spirit, the (apparent)lack of which is the source of so much of our yearning. It is an authentic way to learn about simplicity, discipline, balance, stillness, focus, prayer, gratitude, acceptance, release, responsibility, humility, and much, much more.

Thank you to all of the chiefs, medicine people, medicines, helpers, and participants who continue to make this prayer a reality. Thank you to Chief Tekpankalli for being the channel for this model, and to my teacher, Alberto, for holding the Sacred Fire in his heart the way he does.

I realize that I have not followed my previous model for this blog, in which I included quotes from a song, a book, wisdom from the ceremonies, etc. I think from now on I will do that if called, but not all the time. Trying to stick to that form eventually drove me to stop writing this blog the last time, because it required so much prep time in finding and compiling the material.

I do have a book recommendation, though.
It is The Presence Process by Michael Brown.
This book contains an amazing 11-week procedure for self-discovery and many, many pearls of wisdom. It is worth your time and effort if you are looking for 'causal' change. To find out what that means, read the book!

Blessings and love to you all in this new year.
Harmony