This morning when I first got up I heard a song bird singing. It felt as if the strings of my heart had been plucked. Wishing to prolong that, I went into the front yard and sat in one of the garden chairs to practice my nature meditation. I closed my eyes with the aim to listen with the ears of the heart.

The birds did not disappoint, as they continued with their songs and conversations. What I needed to do was to calm the mind so that I could truly hear them with the ears of the heart.

After about 5 minutes of this practice, I noticed that my mind was calm and serene.

It didn’t take long, upon entering the house, for agitation to creep in. Just a little thought, something I had read on the internet. But, remembering and valuing the serene state of mind, I have the choice to return. Remembering my recent experience, I watch my breath and I listen again.

Thanks for a new morning, for another opportunity to continue making my mind my friend.

The shaman is the mythmaker, and the source of his faith is his own experience of the Divine in Nature… the shaman… the individual whose “testament is Nature itself, whose hymns are the music of the rivers and the winds.” I would like to believe that such people exist like I once believed in Santa Claus.

— Alberto Villoldo, Dance of the Four Winds, 97

Santa Claus is said by some to have an origin in shamanism (John Matthews, The Winter Solstice).

Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things… as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

(Thanks to Angelika Fey-Merritt for this quote.)

I am training to become a mesa carrier with the Inka Medicine Wheel. The sand painting process is a kind of healing collaboration between myself, Pachamama (Mother Earth), and much more. This process is one of many that are part of the ancient Inka Medicine Wheel training/initiations. For me, it is alive, challenging, and full of discovery.

When you start to crack open, don’t waste a moment gathering your old self up into something like you knew before. Let your new self splash like sunlight into every dark place & laugh & cry & make sounds you never made & thank all that is holy for the gift, because now you have no choice but to let all your love spill out into the world.

— The Story People

About 23 years ago I created a logo for myself that was prophetic. I discarded it when it began to seem “old fashioned.” As I reclaim my “returning to the Mother” identity, this logo has surfaced again with new meaning. As I walk my path, step-by-step, the logo has arisen again to meet me.

This morning I woke up with the palpable sense of ‘drinking.’ I was aware that I am always drinking things in and that I get to choose what that will be. Will it be critical thoughts? Will it be Nature’s beauty? Will it be sacred teachings? Will it be pure light? I can experience myself as light drinking light, and that is sublime. This is spoken of as the ‘ground luminosity’ in the Tibetan Buddhist teachings.

I found myself looking at the artwork on my calendar as I drank my morning coffee. I was able to focus on the divine details of the work, to drink in these details, while being aware of my breath.

Details often elude me, perhaps because I live in a world of flowing energies. I have wanted to pay better attention to details for a long time (“Caress the divine details.” — Natalie Goldberg, my writing teacher). I was grateful to be able to drink in the divine details with ease.

I have just completed the West direction of the Inka Medicine Wheel training.

http://www.inkamedicinewheel.com/

So much happened for me during these four days and I am still processing. But I know that I have been freed in significant ways. I have “left behind” certain impediments through this training, and I have been able to succeed in areas I have been struggling with for some time. Thank you to the Q’ero lineage and to the teachers who have aligned themselves with it to bring it to me.

Here’s a toast to a day,  a week, a year, and a life– of drinking the sublime through pure light and through the forms that manifest in this world.

WHAT TO REMEMBER
WHEN WAKING

What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.

Willaq Uma– the fully integrated human being without neurotic tendencies and at one with the natural environment and spiritual worlds.

— The Road to Q’eros Messages from the Andes