It is said in many native ways that the strong spirits of shamen and healers trouble the Great Spirit more when they leave the tribe open to dire illness without them. So saddened the gods become, the heavens cry rain. When five spirits, all strong leave this earthly realm, finding their way along Creator's path, it is well to remember that their leaving marks new beginning as well. Today, at least in my neck of the woods, the sky is crying. It is well to remember the old ways, not just from the last hundred and fifty years, but back through the ages, where cultures developed that still surpass our imagination in their intellect and engineering skills. We often think of past ages as "primitive" or backward, but often they had a more solid sense of their own freedom, their willingness to listen to stories, or create stories themselves.
I am a storyteller and I had always felt a great selfishness, as if I did it for my own benefit. In the past moon, a great hero and mentor of mine stated that the story exists for only one person and that is the listener. I can say, ball or horse or book and What I may mean is what those things are for me...however when the assemblage is recreated in your mind, it is your ideas of them that create the story...it is entirely inside and made up by you! The rewards as well, for me are miniscule...no matter how obscure a story I may choose, I may have told it a dozen times in different ways before. My "real job" as a spotlight operator and stagehand compares somewhat to the storyteller's craft. The light tells you where to look, what you see is from your own unique perspective. The storyteller may use the same words each time a story is told, but from those select words, all manner of different perspectives can and do occur.
Think of it, like a Popsicle. The storyteller lays out the vessel's dimension and puts in the stick, which later becomes like the skeleton of our freezer pop. then, the fruit juice is added (this might be like the chance you get to change the flavor an infinite number of ways, through your interpretation), but the real work is done by you, the listener, freezing the entire lot into a crystal vision made solid by your changing the phase of the information through your apparatus. This is why spiritually strong people begin to resemble one another. They always seem easily amused, plain spoken (omit needless words) and thoughtful. Trying to find words that convey timeless truths of our existence without "flavoring the raw materials" too much takes great care and concise precision. You can feel the love pouring out of them, endlessly.
The fish trap exists because of the fish, once you have gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. -Ha Fiz
Like the love that the sky has for her divine creatures, all creators, even the storytellers feel the need to give others something. If any of this was done for solely one self, the perpetuation of the species would stop. The most hopeful act one can unleash on the world is to plant a tree, but the second is talk to strangers. Finding friends we have not met yet involves a transformation from inwardly focused and independent to one of community focus and integral to a larger tribe. Many powerful "spirits" will be falling, great dislocation may follow. When buggy whip manufacturers went out of business, they only had a few employees, so the economy could absorb their numbers seamlessly, but when finance, or the military are no longer needed, or we just stop paying the price for petrochemical domination by the oligarchs, whole cities will crumble, much like Detroit, and a new way of thinking about community will emerge. People who love their place and sanctify mother Earth in the spaces around them will find ways to persevere, those who do not will have a much more difficult time.
The greatest spirits that we encounter can teach without being preachy, lead us to inner dimensions that even we may not have known existed within us and have infinite compassion for how we may be perceiving the world around us. The best teachers and guides know a bit about our inner world and the perception of it as well. A great friend flies out for an adventure today and losing proximity weighs like a mini death on me. Rites of passage require that we let go of the person whose transformation we honor and respect, allow them to go completely into their new personage and not hold them to their former limitations or expectations. Upon the rebirth, we must acknowledge the newness of who they have become. Learning in a moon what you may have missed for ages changes the time signature of life forever. I have had many life changes in my first half century, some took place within moments, while others took years of development and practice. Even my Great Lakes Bike Trip, which only lasted eighty days, brought back a deeply changed man.
When spirits leave, part of us goes with them, perhaps the rain comes to knock down bits of our spirits (that otherwise might follow our beloved to the afterworld) to keep those bits earthbound where we can recover those most essential things from around us. This is why, whenever a bird shits on someone's head, I think of my father and why flowers put me back in grandma's backyard. We can reabsorb that part that gets cleansed from the air by the rain. Our spirits can be renewed and nourished as the flowers around us break bloom, the skies clear and the air, cleaner after the storm begins to feed the springs and wells not only of our environment, but our hearts as well. An age old remedy for feeling displaced, rejected or overlooked is to collect and drink the morning dew. Perhaps this is a way to reawaken dreams and let moon energy enter your body. I'm sure that there is a physics to describe what our ancestors knew implicitly. I'm just not sure that I will live long enough to see it proven so. The way things seem to be going, even scientific proof would be rejected by flat-earthers and conspiracy theorists for decades more.
We do not have time to cry over spilled milk. The oligarchs have poisoned our earth air and water, the time has come for change and we must all do what we can to create the lives we desire, the lives we hope for, even the ones we pray for...they just don't happen, we must make them occur. Turn off your tee vee, get to know your neighbors, plant some seeds, nurture them and they will grow. Releasing the energy of those who depart is the only way to make sure that they arrive whole on the other side anyway...why hold someone back if you truly love them? Right?
 |
| This artwork is a miniscule portion of one of the Beehive Collective's works. It is in the creative commons. We must feel the power of manatee's drum to turn around the corporate land train that threatens life on the planet. |
I am a storyteller and I had always felt a great selfishness, as if I did it for my own benefit. In the past moon, a great hero and mentor of mine stated that the story exists for only one person and that is the listener. I can say, ball or horse or book and What I may mean is what those things are for me...however when the assemblage is recreated in your mind, it is your ideas of them that create the story...it is entirely inside and made up by you! The rewards as well, for me are miniscule...no matter how obscure a story I may choose, I may have told it a dozen times in different ways before. My "real job" as a spotlight operator and stagehand compares somewhat to the storyteller's craft. The light tells you where to look, what you see is from your own unique perspective. The storyteller may use the same words each time a story is told, but from those select words, all manner of different perspectives can and do occur.
Think of it, like a Popsicle. The storyteller lays out the vessel's dimension and puts in the stick, which later becomes like the skeleton of our freezer pop. then, the fruit juice is added (this might be like the chance you get to change the flavor an infinite number of ways, through your interpretation), but the real work is done by you, the listener, freezing the entire lot into a crystal vision made solid by your changing the phase of the information through your apparatus. This is why spiritually strong people begin to resemble one another. They always seem easily amused, plain spoken (omit needless words) and thoughtful. Trying to find words that convey timeless truths of our existence without "flavoring the raw materials" too much takes great care and concise precision. You can feel the love pouring out of them, endlessly.
The fish trap exists because of the fish, once you have gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. -Ha Fiz
Like the love that the sky has for her divine creatures, all creators, even the storytellers feel the need to give others something. If any of this was done for solely one self, the perpetuation of the species would stop. The most hopeful act one can unleash on the world is to plant a tree, but the second is talk to strangers. Finding friends we have not met yet involves a transformation from inwardly focused and independent to one of community focus and integral to a larger tribe. Many powerful "spirits" will be falling, great dislocation may follow. When buggy whip manufacturers went out of business, they only had a few employees, so the economy could absorb their numbers seamlessly, but when finance, or the military are no longer needed, or we just stop paying the price for petrochemical domination by the oligarchs, whole cities will crumble, much like Detroit, and a new way of thinking about community will emerge. People who love their place and sanctify mother Earth in the spaces around them will find ways to persevere, those who do not will have a much more difficult time.
The greatest spirits that we encounter can teach without being preachy, lead us to inner dimensions that even we may not have known existed within us and have infinite compassion for how we may be perceiving the world around us. The best teachers and guides know a bit about our inner world and the perception of it as well. A great friend flies out for an adventure today and losing proximity weighs like a mini death on me. Rites of passage require that we let go of the person whose transformation we honor and respect, allow them to go completely into their new personage and not hold them to their former limitations or expectations. Upon the rebirth, we must acknowledge the newness of who they have become. Learning in a moon what you may have missed for ages changes the time signature of life forever. I have had many life changes in my first half century, some took place within moments, while others took years of development and practice. Even my Great Lakes Bike Trip, which only lasted eighty days, brought back a deeply changed man.
When spirits leave, part of us goes with them, perhaps the rain comes to knock down bits of our spirits (that otherwise might follow our beloved to the afterworld) to keep those bits earthbound where we can recover those most essential things from around us. This is why, whenever a bird shits on someone's head, I think of my father and why flowers put me back in grandma's backyard. We can reabsorb that part that gets cleansed from the air by the rain. Our spirits can be renewed and nourished as the flowers around us break bloom, the skies clear and the air, cleaner after the storm begins to feed the springs and wells not only of our environment, but our hearts as well. An age old remedy for feeling displaced, rejected or overlooked is to collect and drink the morning dew. Perhaps this is a way to reawaken dreams and let moon energy enter your body. I'm sure that there is a physics to describe what our ancestors knew implicitly. I'm just not sure that I will live long enough to see it proven so. The way things seem to be going, even scientific proof would be rejected by flat-earthers and conspiracy theorists for decades more.
We do not have time to cry over spilled milk. The oligarchs have poisoned our earth air and water, the time has come for change and we must all do what we can to create the lives we desire, the lives we hope for, even the ones we pray for...they just don't happen, we must make them occur. Turn off your tee vee, get to know your neighbors, plant some seeds, nurture them and they will grow. Releasing the energy of those who depart is the only way to make sure that they arrive whole on the other side anyway...why hold someone back if you truly love them? Right?
No comments:
Post a Comment