I am sitting out on a bench, looking toward the Sister Pines this morning. I have been out for over an hour, watching the light of the new day grow. In the time just after the sunrise colors ebbed, there were tiny birds darting in and out of the boughs of the trees. They seemed to prefer the middle Sister whose branches are most tightly gathered. I would say that these are springtime birds, aside from the fact that it is February first and the temperatures will drop tomorrow night back into the 20s. This morning, they sang and chased among the trees until the sunlight began hitting the needles. Then, they were off somewhere else. They did not come for the seeds that I tossed on the ground yesterday afternoon. Why eat ‘store-bought’ when nature is bringing mosses and fresh shoots of grass up through the soil – and the invisible bugs along with them.

I love the way that the first sunlight and the breeze that accompanies it create a glistening and dancing in the pine needles. I watch the treetops on a nearby ridge wave and sway as though greeting the sun. Sitting here, just being, is still a challenge for me. Bill read to me from Thoreau this morning:

Sometimes, in a summer morning … I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst  the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around and flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveler’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.

—Thoreau, Walden, “Sounds,” 1854

It may take some time (and a bit warmer temperatures) for me to learn his attentiveness.

This morning, I did my chanting to the land. Adding the vibration of my voice, and the thoughts of my mind: openness/spaciousness, fulfillment/completion, compassion/heartfelt love, joy/playfulness, and creation/bringing into being. This chant always invites me to connect with the light within and to feel the Scared Light flow through me and outward into the world.

As I sat and watched the sun begin to shine through the corridor of the Sister Pines, I imagined a stream of water running along this fold in the land. I am not thinking of finding the old irrigation pipes or digging and lining an artificial stream bed and pond. I am seeing the water rise up from underground as it enters the land, finding a natural line of flow among the trees to a small dip at the northwest end. I am not sure if from there is overflows the pond to go onward through the land, or if it finds its way back underground there, leaving a full water source for the critters of this place.

I know that a lift in the water table here is the opposite of what all the evidence would say is possible. But since the transformation of my relationship with the Earth is part of a huge transformation back to balance among all the living beings, I invite water here. I invite the trees, bushes and grasses at the northeastern corner of the land to spread and become forest again. I invite the coyote and the hawk, the hare and the deer, the microorganisms and creeping things within the earth all to return in balance for a wild and natural space. I ask the Spirit of this land and of this wide valley to give creatures safe passage to this land and to provide what they need to thrive here.

I can see in my mind the rolling of eyes and hear the clicking of tongues as people read my crazy ideas. For me they are far more sane than the dystopian images many are holding these days.

I know that the focus of my thoughts and the opening of my heart to the world I want my grandchildren’s grandchildren to experience is part of my dedication to being a vessel of Divine Light and Love. It opens me to the land’s teaching on how to support a renewed vitality and harmony of life in my little corner of the world.

Sitting on the bench, letting the day gather around me, I remember that I have been brought here because this land, Black Butte, Mount Shasta, and all the living beings here have offered themselves as my teachers and guides. The sun and stars, clouds and wind, snow and rain are all expressions of the Sacred Source and the web of life. I am here because I am one of this living beings who has been called here to thrive.

If all of this is intriguing to you, take it as an invitation to find a place in nature where you can sit and watch some part of the day unfold around you. Feel the breeze and the sunlight, and notice the creatures around you. Let the habit of talking to yourself in your mind ebb. Be still and listen to the subtle sounds of the breeze and the chirping of the birds. Feel yourself welcomed into all the beauty and life that surround you.

(My primary calling in this life is to be a vessel though which the Light, Love and Life of the Sacred Source flow to the world. I dedicate my life to using my spiritual practice of shamanic journey and my writing to bring healing to the Earth and all living beings. To empower this work, I seek ongoing support through Patreon.) 

There is a figure who has been a symbolic guide through the entire process of moving from a typical American lifestyle to one focused on Earth-centered living. She has emerged in guided meditations, shamanic journeys, stream of consciousness writings, and as the author of letters from my future self. She is an archetype of me at the point when I am living the life that is most fulfilling and congruent for me. I call her, Woman on the Mountain.

One of her key characteristics is her total ease in her life and in her setting. There is no tension or worry, no watchfulness or feeling of being unduly challenged by life. She is calm, confident and relaxed in her place within the natural world.

I was trained as a “problem-solver,” and for me, all of the world is a problem to be solved. I have been an “uncertainty” junky. I still sometimes define my life by what challenge or potential challenge is holding my attention at the moment. It can be in my own life, the life of someone I love or the general dis-ease in our shared experience on the planet.

To move from where I am now, to being Woman on the Mountain, will require dropping some of my old ways of seeing the world. Conditioned thought habits, based in the language and structure of my culture, have formed a cataract-like lens before my eyes. They fog over the creative flow of change and the beauty of diversity. They leave visible the shadows of self-doubt.

I have made a number of life transitions through the years. I have moved from basing my spiritual practice in Christianity, to Zen and now to Shamanic journey. With each transition, there has been the need to incorporate new rituals and language while following the deep common light that moves through them all. This transition from being uneasy to being at ease will require a similar shifting of lenses and ways of talking about the flow of my life.

For now, I am immersing myself in a new way of experiencing the world. I am focusing on what connects me with the sights, sounds and rhythms of nature. I hope to learn the wonders and wisdom of the plants, animals, streams and mountains that surround me.

To learn this new language, I am spending more time listening to all the living beings of the land where I live. I want to learn both their sounds and their interwoven connections with one another. I want to sit quietly and hear subtle difference between the sound of wind in the cedar fronds and among the pine needles. I want to sense the direction of a breeze by where it touches my face. I want to sense the seeping of water into the earth and imagine its course around rocks and into the roots of trees. I want to notice when the small birds and other creatures around me are aware of a change in their surroundings, so I too can be alert to something new.

It will take time. It will take a shift toward discovery and away from problem-solving. It will help to relax and allow many imagined troubles to float on by unnoticed. I will gradually learn the language of the land and the living beings who share it. Slowly, like the emerging light of a new day, I will sink into my appropriate place within nature. One day, I will find that in my cells and in my soul, I have become Woman of the Mountain, at ease with my place within the web of life.

Happy New Year! In the flow of Nature, today is the first day of the light returning to the Earth in the northern hemisphere. I find it a great time for a new beginning in the flow of my own life and in relationship to the world transformation we are experiencing.

Yesterday, we celebrated the Winter Solstice in two phases. First we released the past and any habits/beliefs that we do not want to carry into the new year. Second, we received wisdom for our way forward with the question, “What do I need as I live from my deepest gifts and life purpose?”

It has been windy here on the Mount Shasta property. The huge pine trees, with there nearly bare long limbs with tassels of long needles at the ends, have been dancing and bobbing wildly the past few days. The wind has been the energy to wake me in the night to do shamanic journey work, and the one who called us outside yesterday to receive wisdom.

Walking around the property, feeling the wind and listening with my heart, I was guided to release the following things:

1) My focus on the mundane aspects of living this life with its specific challenges. I can not let my days be about the logistics of living an Earth-centered life in a motor home with the support of a warm cabin. It is time to just live with no special thought required. This is my life now.

2) My obsessive anticipating, calculating and carefully parcelling out our monthly income to pay our bills. There is a flow of resources which is sufficient for our basic needs. It is a flow I have experienced throughout my life, and it does not require my repeated attention to sustain us. Focusing of this only distracts me from the creative flow of offering the gifts that are mine to give.

3) My myths of not having the discipline, determination, motivation, stamina, or connection with creativity to complete the book I am writing. If I do not release these mental anchors, they will slow the unfolding of the words, pages and chapters of the book I want to let emerge into the world.

Returning indoors, I wrote these out. We then held a ceremony to feed these into the flames in our fire place and released them with the smoke to be transformed.

The second phase was to move directly into drumming and journey to see what ways will open before my feet. I received wisdom from the embodiment of my future self, who I know as Woman of the Mountain. I will share some of what she told me.

What you will share does not come from within you. Instead, the work that you are doing flows through as the culmination of the sacred work done by those seven generations, fourteen generations and twenty-one generations ago. They tend the well-spring of creativity which is the source of your words and creative work. Your task is to come with gratitude to these helping ancestors and to allow your work to move through you as a gift to the generations that will follow you.

I also asked for wisdom about the Spiritual Direction work that I will begin offering in 2020. Her response was:

Again, do not think of this as something of your own intellect and experience to be given to others. Instead, let yourself sink into the sacred relationship of trust and honesty as you experience it in the Unseen canyon lands. This is the container needed for both listening and companionship along the inner journey.

In deep gratitude for the ceremonies and wisdom of the Solstice, I step into this New Year.

Over the next few weeks, I hope that you too will take time to release all of the past that clings too heavily, and to find the deep well-spring to fuel the living of your life’s purpose in the year ahead.

There is nothing like a blizzard, bringing a general coat of 2 feet of snow and drifts of 4 feet, to bring the reality of winter home. Unless perhaps it is the second storm in the same week making that level 4 feet with a 6 foot berm from road edge to rear of Subaru. We weathered this first pair of storms well, but it has made clear that living in this close relationship with nature calls for adaptation and flexibility in our plans

Brego, our Winnebago, is 30 feet long and requires a good sized circular drive in the back field in order to turn around to nestle back in to the electric hook-up and the wind shelter near the cabin. That means that taking him out to empty the holding tank, or to refill the built-in propane tank would take major snow clearing. From the vantage point of a gentle fall season, that seemed like a simple matter of waiting for a break in weather, and using the snow blower to clear a path.

When the snows came, we found that the snow blower starts, but has little enthusiasm for moving in any direction. It lacks a reverse gear and seems to lean all it’s considerable weight into the ground when you try to push it up any modest incline. So, it basically refuses to work beyond clearing level paths between cabin and trailer porch (where our extra wood is stored) and Brego.

Our first instinct, rippling up from our past life, was “Of course we need a new, lighter, efficient snow blower. That’s obvious!” But, recognizing all the expenses of the fall, and using some adaptive thinking we discovered that we really don’t need it. The berm calls for shovel work. Working on it gently, we cleared an opening for the Subaru in two days. We have all we need to be snowed in. There is no place we need to go. So, a snow shovel and whatever modest help this old dear snow blower can give us will do just fine.
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We are approaching the propane question two ways. We will check to see if the local delivery service will wave their minimum fuel amount if they top off our tank when they are delivering to neighbors. We are also leaning into the availability of electricity to heat Brego with space heaters to the levels I am accustomed to (See my blog “Preparing for a Winter Flow). It took me a few days to realize that I do not need to leave the motor home at ice box temperatures to conserve fuel and keep the electric bill down. I just need to be conscious about when I need heat and when the warmth of bed or an extra layer of clothing allows me to turn the heater down low. We did buy a simple heating pad to warm the foot of my bed before I crawl in at night, and I celebrate that luxury.

In preparing for the first drop of temperatures into the single digits, I have added to Brego’s internal insolation. There are various materials up under the dashboard to block the air flow from around the gas/brake pedals. Over the four main windows, old blankets  provide a fourth layer, and drape down to the floor. There are rubber-backed mats along the aisle way, a heavier curtain on the doorway, and there are pillows tucked up in the ceiling vents. I can’t think of much more that I can do to keep the heat in and the cold out.

In terms of the holding tank, there is also a duel solution. First, I have begun using a night bucket as much as possible. That experiment is going well. With my aging knees and hips, it is not quite as easy as ten years ago when a night bucket was standard equipment for the hermitages at the Zen Practice Monastery. I am grateful for the experience of all those retreats that makes this seem more natural now.

Since the shift in Brego’s mobility came as a surprise, I have also learned that I can empty the holding tank, one bucket at a time. It took about an hour, and six trips to clear his tank from being 35% full. But I now know that if it is necessary, I can care for that need as well.

And today, five days after the snows stopped, it is warm and rainy. Who knows, we may be able to get the motor home out just fine. We will wait and see how things look the next time we need to move him. So, adapting continues, as a breath-like expanding and contracting. We see what is possible in the moment and remain grateful through it all. All we need flows into our lives and we are learning how powerful it is to live in this intimate relationship with land, weather and life.

(Our deep gratitude to those who have given us regular support through our Patreon pages. It makes a world of difference in our lives.)