To surrender, to transform, to become – from our Soul centres – we allow the rich, dark, gestational world of the Dream Lodge to work on us, to work in us, in whatever way and in whatever time is needed for transformation to take place. We allow new pathways and new frequencies for messages to come in.
As the need for doing and accomplishing external goals fades into the background, I allow myself to sink deeper into the fallow season – pulling me, lowering me, cradling me in a place where I can receive those messages without distraction. Sometimes, I recognize the voice that carries them – they are the words of my own truth, gradually forming in my throat.
In the beginning of all things, wisdom and knowledge were with the animals; for Tuawa, the One Above, did not speak directly to man. He sent Animals to tell man that he showed himself through the beasts, and that from them, and from the stars and the sun and the moon, man should learn… For all things speak of Tuawa.
The Mystery is always a mystery (2:25 pm, 1.17.15, Anchorage, Ak)
When the fullness of time comes, a sacred voice at the heart of us cries out, shaking the old foundation. It draws us into a turbulence that forces us to confront our deepest issues. It’s as if some inner, divine grace seeks our growth and becoming and will plunge us, if need be, into a cauldron that seethes with questions and voices we would just as soon not hear. One way or another, the false roles, identities, and illusions spill over the sides of our life, and we’re forced to stand in the chaos.
Pure love, pure joy: wrapped in the quilt-in-progress (9.2.14, Anchorage, Ak)
Across many cultures and generations worldwide, women have gathered around quilting circles, kitchen tables, church basements, community halls, and bonfires. We yearn to be nourished with food, to be healed, to sing together, to give and receive emotional support, to connect to the sacred, to know the stories of our ancestors, and to be guided as we transition from one life stage to the next. We each need these traditions in order to embody the fullness of who we are, and pass along the wisdom we gain for generations to come.
Raven, me, and the city (2:25 pm, 1.17.15, Anchorage, Ak)
You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe. An intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dance.
–T.S. Elliot
Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.
Telling “Frau Holle” at the Anchorage Folk Festival 1.18.15
And so, instead of trying to ‘fix’ our lives, instead of trying to neatly resolve the unresolvable and quickly complete the epic story of a fictitious ‘me’, we simply relax into utter not knowing, unraveling in the warm embrace of mystery, sinking deeply into the moment, savoring it fully, in all its uniqueness and wonder.
And then, perhaps without any effort, without any struggle or stress, without ‘you’ being involved at all, the true answers will emerge in their own sweet time.
– Jeff Foster
Storytelling at its most profound level is able to take us into this space. Indeed it has been used for this very purpose for a very long time.
