A couple weeks ago it hit the fan for me.  It, was my relationship to my spouse and what really counts; my heart and how I treat me and empower myself.

So, the natural thing to do? Quest… seek within, pray, find love reflected in nature right back at me… seek the smiles from the Universe & the Divine.  So, I did.  I called up my shaman friend Sarah Finlay and asked her if I could camp out on her land for three or four days.  She acquiesced.  So, I packed up my bag, my tent, my ceremonial pipe, my drums and writing utensils, a bit of food and hit the road.

After a powerful stop with Sarah, a journey with her hand at the drum and a connection with my journey spirits & hers, I drove to Woodbury, VT with a heart full of gratitude for what the Universe was already offering me.

I arrived at Peter Clark’s house (another shaman friend) beside Sarah’s land in what truly felt like the sticks to me 20 minutes north of Montpelier on typical Vermont dirt roads.  Peter kindly explained the lay of the land for me and allowed me to fill up my five gallon water jug as I headed out onto one of the roads leading onto Sarah and another shaman couple’s (their neighbors) land.  I drove out into a large 8ish acre field and parked up seeking a good place to pitch my tent.  Right after arriving a large fox ran away from me within the field and into the forest, my first greeter!  I found an ideal little grove of young trees with no undergrowth and a nice canopy above.  I was scoping this location out when I found a slew of wild turkey feathers which I took as a good sign from the “give-away eagle” that this was where I should camp and setup my medicine wheel.

I spent a bit of time locating some nice stones, which was not hard here-there were slate and quartz crystal rocks everywhere, to build a nice wheel.  Satisfied with the results I gathered my ceremonial pipe and sage for a prayer ceremony before setting up camp.  While offering my prayers to my spirit guides and the six primary dierctions; East, South, West, North, Great Spirit (up) and Earth/Divine Mother (down), when I turned to the north, direction of wisdom, a butterfly seemed to appear from nowhere behind the large quartz crystal stone at that direction, flutter by and just as quickly disappear.  I noted this consciously with an intention of further exploring butterflies message.

I set up camp took a walk, made a small fire, cooked a little dinner, and played my drum beside the fire for a short while before hitting the sack for the night.  The night was full of noises and reminders of how alone I felt, though surrounded by life.  At one point a shrieking howl from a coyote, very close by, woke me with such a start!   It realized how long it had been since I had camped like this, and between then and now how much fear had built up in my own energy field.

I awoke late, getting much needed rest. I said a few prayers in the medicine wheel and began looking for some stones to begin an “Icelandic shamanic initiation ceremony” Sarah had recommended I try the day before.  The process is to sit for four hours grinding two stones together.  I realized I had only one way to time myself and that was my phone, which was in the car so I walked out onto the field to get it, all the while planning to come back to the circle to begin after a bit of food.  But, instead, after grabbing my phone I walked around looking for a few stones.  I found a nice easy to hold one, then noticed a couple nicely protruding large boulders sticking from the ground in the middle of field and quite unexpectedly decided to sit down right then and begin.  I set my timer and began. 

It was  a trying four hours.  I thought of many friends and family, my children, my wife, and I explored all that was taking place in my life as I observed my surroundings and ground.  It is quite something to endure this ceremony, quite a revelation.  As I was coming to a close, with about two minutes to go it began raining slightly and increased as I completed the four hours.  By the time I finished it began pouring huge raindrops and I stood and danced and expressed my gratitude to the surrounding trees for bearing witness to an opening of my heart and cried openly as I shouted for joy and felt rushings of elation and beauty in the midst of rain and the reciprocation from the heavens.  I began singing and shouting to the clouds which responded with ominous cracks of thunder directly over me and brilliant flashes of lightning within the low hanging clouds that dumped water on my body.  After a good while of this I felt a chill and began heading back to my camp.

Returning to my camp I found a wet sleeping bag from a leaky tarp over my leaky tent!  For a moment disheartened by the prospect of this wetness, I looked up at the trees to see a tiny little bird perched on top of a broken off tree bathing gloriously in a shower of pouring rain.  I was thrilled at this and decided to follow suit and stripped naked to perch myself under a crooked tree that poured a gushing stream of rain off its bend right onto my head.  I bathed with joy and elation at the continued height of the amazing moments I was already experiencing after only the first morning!

After drying my tent as best as possible, and placing my sleeping bag in my car to hopefully (and it turns out quite successfully) dry it out, I retreated to my tent and journal for a couple hours of prayers, writing of this awesome morning and my revelations in it all.

Barely a day had passed and I felt so fully supported by the Universe, the Great Spirit, Mother Earth and my own heart that I found that afternoon of napping and journaling just simply ideal.  If that had been the end to it all, nothing but joy would be present.  But, amazingly it moved on. 

I journeyed and prayed and smoked my prayer pipe, and ended the day by making a beautiful birch bark rattle, finishing a leather pouch for my medicine cards, and added several new feathers to my ceremonial pipe.  I finally turned out the lantern and drifted off to a deep sleep.  During the night I was awoken again by coyote, this time multiple howls… amazing to hear!  Then later by a bear howl!  WOW, what a sound.  (I only found out a week later what it was)

In the morning I woke with a plan to follow up on a reading of Butterfly, whose medicine speaks of transformation, which suggested in my medicine card book to do a “butterfly spread” reading relating to my present situation.  This spread is four cards; East = egg, the fostering of an idea or the beginning of a process of transformation; South = larva, the busy part of preparing for and “working” or “doing” to bring about transformation; West, the cocoon, or actual transformative process to bring about the completion of transformation; and North = the completion and result of transformation, the butterfly.

Ok, the reading was F’ing amazing…. Raven (Magic) as a seed.  Raven brings us the unknown, connects us to the void, that which we do not know, the mystery of ourselves or our process. Powerful card for me.  My exploration into my personal quest is about finding me, finding my own empowerment, and it began in the world of Magic, faith, unknown circumstances and great mysteries of this world and others I touched upon many times in my life.  Perfect.

In using cards to “Divine” and understand ourselves we throw our self to a higher power.  Many people feel it is foolishness, but I say God, the Divine, Great Spirit can come to us in any way.  If we ask with sincerity, with an open heart for this knowing to connect with us in a way we can best understand, then the answers will come.  We only have to turn to that higher power and believe.  It is said in many cultures: “take a step towards God and God takes a hundred steps to you”.  So my journey was multi threaded, as it always has been.  I turn to nature, I ask the animal spirits, I ask God in His form as Krsna, I ask the Great Goddess, in Her form as Radhe, and the Divine Mother & Mother Earth, I ask Them to guide me and I have seen that with an open heart, They do.  And it continues to BLOW MY MIND, which is good, cause then my heart can come through.  Cause I kid you not, one’s mind can not grasp it, what the Divine will bring to you in the light of your heart. 

So, where was I… oh yeah.  In divining through my choice deck of cards, medicine cards, I have rarely, if at all, dealt with contrary cards.  This is when a card is upside down.  But on this day I had many.  I came to know that one can use a second card if the first is contrary to better know the meaning.  So, for South (larva, you recall – “doing”) I pulled contrary Spider.  I came to understand that spider, who is a great creative energy, producing some of the most beautiful creations on our planet; their web, was showing me that the creation of my life has become an entanglement for me.  It is not clean and clear, but an entanglement.  To understand how to overcome this entanglement I pulled contrary Turtle!  Turtle, an embodiment of Mother Earth, tells me I have not been vigilant in returning to the Divine Mother and that through doing this through my connection to Mother Earth, I will balance my creative energy and my own “creation” that is my life space.  WOW… sorry, call me wacked… no problem here, cause this is so F’ing dead on it, yes, BLOWS MY MIND!

Now, along comes contrary Weasel in my western card, cocoon.  Weasel is very keen, very clever & has a keen sense of observation.  It is said that a chief could send a scout with weasel medicine out to scope out another tribe or enemy and they would come back with not only the number of warriors but the number of stitches used to sew the enemies moccasins cause he is so observant.  Talk about keen awareness!  Contrary Weasel medicine, though, shows that one is not using those skills, but being dumbed down.  Ok… so clarification please Great Spirit!?  How does this pertain to me?  What do I pull… well at this point I shuffled again cause these contrary cards were doing my head in… kinda hard to understand (though now I can see they were perfectly clear… but that can be hard to see when we are right on top of something, know what I mean?).  Nevertheless, after shuffling again, contrary Possum!  Sigh.  Ok… but upon reading and understanding possum medicine better-that guy who plays dead.  Why does it play dead?  Cause it doesn’t want to have to fight… Possums can fight, you know.  But instead they choose to play dead and avoid the pitfalls of the emotional struggle of the fight.  Contrary Possum medicine though, is one who rolls over and plays dead, not for his own good, but to protect someone elses emotions.  One who doesn’t want to hurt someone will play dead to their own needs rather than hurt the other, walk on egg shells, all that.  Holy SH*%! This has been a huge part of how I have lived my life for thirteen years.  And the result has been totally dis empowering.  So contrary possum is basically saying to me, “Hey Rad, stop playing dead to your own needs, cause it ain’t helping you, and it ain’t helping anyone else.”  Be real.  Love yourself and your fears, face ‘em, love ‘em and go through ‘em.  No matter what anyone else tells you.  And certainly don’t wait for anyone else to be a certain way to be you… just do it pal! 

Now… It took me from first thing in the morn to about 3pm to get this far.  Each card I sat with for several hours, writing, considering, walking in nature, hiking the road.  At one point right after pulling and reading about Spider (larva-caterpillar) I went to take a pee in the bushes and one of the rare moments of sun filtered through the trees and illuminated a small green caterpillar floating by on its thread of silk.  Moments later I walked into a delicate spider’s web breaking it back to only a few threads.  That moment, a gift as a clarification, showed me how I need to destroy my web, my life creation, back to a few threads so I can rebuild it with fortitude and integrity… but more… with HEART… and that that could happen by reconnecting with the Earth Mother along the way would make it real, or better, TRUE.  Hows that for communication!  Nothing unclear there… moments like this kept on coming. A few moments later I was reflecting on something a wise person was telling me a few days before; “You will know when your vibration has risen to an appropriately heightened level for the transformation of the coming age when animals approach you unafraid.”  I was praying to understand this when moments later a rustle in the bushes and a couple fuzzy black ears told me a bear was in the bushes not thirty feet from me eating berries!  We had not detected each other even though we were so close to one another.  In pausing to watch what she was doing she finally noticed me and bolted back away from me through the forest snorting warnings of which the birds chimed along with.

While walking at one break I heard rustling in the bushed a hundred yards away and I stopped and watched and listened.  Out of the bushes came a black bear mother, followed by her little cub!!!!  I walked further up the dirt track to a clearing I could see were berry bushes and waited for them.  Slowly they came and the cub playfully jumped into a tree taunting mom.  What a thrill!  I left them when the mother sensed me, not wanting to upset her.

The forth card I pulled late in the night and was again, awed and face against a deep fear.  A fear of my own power, my own purpose, and the unknowing of it, the fear of not knowing gripped me as I drew Owl in the North, in the place of completed transformation. Owl is feared by many due to its stealth and keen knowing.  Owl sees in others what they can not see in themselves.  Owl is full of the ability to see into the darkness and draw understanding and insight.  Owl moves with such stealth in this way that many fear and are afraid of this wisdom or power/medicine.  Thus, true with myself, I am not fully aware of this power, but I possess it I know.  My fear is in the darkness, ironically, and it is wrapped up in the dogmatic fear of the culture I work and mingle with… the culture of this western “civilization”.  I am taught through the superstitions of a corrupted society that I should fear that which I do not know.  Owl is full of that unknowing from where I have sat and been conditioned. 

That night this fear set in.  I wanted to crawl into my tent full of fear and go to sleep to get away from it.  Before I did this I tried to face it in the darkness.  I walked away from my fire and camp right into the darkness of the field with a sky dark from clouds… black as pitch.  As I reached the place where I ground the stone I stood taking it all in, listening.   I heard in the woods at the edge of the field, some five hundred yards away sticks breaking beneath somethings feet, something large.  Then, I heard the rustle of the grass… whatever it was was moving in my direction.  The fear was rocketing through me and I decided it was time to head back.  I moved quickly, acting as though I was not afraid, as if someone might see me, while within I was deeply afraid as if I were to run I would become terrified.  The fear crawled up my spine as I made my way through the darkness towards my dying fire.  I stoked the fire but felt the fear crawl up my spine every time my back faced the darkness, the unknown.  Thus, at this point I crawled into the tent desperate to sleep and move away from the fear I felt.  But even as I did I felt a draw back into the woods to face it. 

Alas, I did fall asleep, for a time, but I was awakened as something scuttled down my tent and ran across the dry leaves away from the tent.  I forced sleep again, shivering with fear.  Later I heard the same scuttling, but realized this time it was a drip of water.  I felt each time I awoke I needed to re-enter the woods and face the darkness, but pushed the thought away.  Then a drip came again, but this time it somehow came through the tent and sprayed my face!  To this day I don’t know how it came through, but it did!  “Ok”, I said… ” I get it, I’ll get up!”  So I did.  I put on my pants, hoodie and coat and crawled out of the tent with flashlight, at first, then turned it off and walked back through the darkness to the field.  I came to the grinding stone and felt a need to sit with it and grind some more, so I did.  I sat and ground with no timer, so made the decision to grind until the sun came up.  It was almost pitch black at the time, and I believe I sat for at least three hours waiting until I caught a glimpse of the sun, not wanting to stop before it was actually over the mountains, which was hard to tell due to the many clouds.  It was a beautiful sunrise and up to the full rise I felt the many animals I had connected with surrounding me.  The Owl was silhouetted in the trees, as was the mother bear and her cub and even the coyote.  The trees stood with me in all their beauty and splendor as I ground and ground, looked within and saw my own beauty and explored again my journey with many beautiful people in my life.

I retreated to my tent after the grind and napped.  After I awoke and had a light breakfast and cleaned up my camp, I packed the car and drove to Montpelier to meet with my dear mother.  I met with her to act as a bridge person to help me transition out of the quest back into “my world”, entangled web and all.  She supported me beautifully as I spoke to her of my journey and heard of hers while I was away.

Now was my time to return to my world, my challenges and my duties, but now with a mission… a mission to rebuild and a mission to foster and continue to nurture my opening heart and self empowerment as I now had seen so clearly through vision and communion with the Divine.