Moving Forward

In my latest video blog, I share how I brought my spiritual perspectives and intuitive practices to the practical and complex task of moving. We are now settled in our new home in southern Arizona and feel very much at home surrounded by the beauty of the Sonoran Desert.

This new environment has welcomed us with beauty and inspiration, with glorious sunsets, open desert landscapes and sunshiny days. In this environment, my work is blossoming and taking on solid form in more video blogs and as a 6-week small group exploration of “Living What Is Real.”

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LIVING FROM THE DEEPER REALITY

WEDNESDAYS, JULY 13 – AUGUST 17, 2022
2:00 – 3:30 PST

Our group will explore the Reality of Life as an interwoven web of energy flowing within, around and through daily life. This Reality connects us with the life force of our soul; the movement of energy within our bodies, and interwoven nature of All that Is.

Each session I will present an aspect of this broader life perspective, and an experience to help you embody it. After a week of practice, we will gather again to share our experiences, discuss our personal evolutionary paths and share to the next packet of material.

Our materials will include: simple QiGong breathing, guided meditation, Bön chant, honoring the soul, and working with intuitive inner guidance.

Cost: $150.00 per person
Contact Me to sign up and to receive a PayPal invoice
or request physical address to send a check.

Limited to 8 people

New Challenges / New Reactions

We all face challenges in our lives when what ends up happening suddenly diverges from what we planned. Each time we face an unexpected shift, we get to see what thought patterns and assumptions automatically kick in to manage our sense of safety and well-being.

Bill and I hit this process at full speed this week. Without doing either of us humans harm, the motor home that we were preparing to sell decided to leave our lived in a different and more dramatic way. Our reactions were new and surprising, reflecting the benefits of the inner work we have been doing as part of preparing for the move.

A Different Kind of Move

My husband and I are beginning the process of looking for our next home. This is not an unusual experience for the two of us. Throughout our married life we have moved every three to five years, often within the same community. They have been practical moves, determined by what our lives and work called for at the time.

This time is different. Drawing from my work with the Unseen World, through shamanic journey and other practices, we are focusing envisioning what we want and need, and on clearing old thought forms that may get in our way.

Reconnecting

For a couple of months now, I have been in an intake mode in my life. I have listened to two or three hours of inspirational material each day, including the Avalokiteśvara chant from Plum Village and lectures by Jean Houston, Marianne Williamson, Caroline Myss, Thich Nhat Hanh, Sandra Ingerman and Lee Holden.

Jean, Marianne and Caroline have emerged in my life since January. They share a spirituality and perspective of us all being “One living breathing spiritual, biological and environmental organism.” Their lectures give me new words and images to use as the current shift in human consciousness makes some of my old ones wobble.

Qi Gong has taken on new depth for both Bill and I. Its meditative nature is emerging as I find the movements expressing the patterns of nature and the energy which unites all living beings. Images of the life energy and the love of the universe flowing into Mother Earth and from Mother Earth outward to nurture the web of life, are now part of my movement practice.

I have been doing daily drumming and journey practice. (I always hate to say that I do something daily, because once I release this to the world, there is usually a counter pull and I stop doing that particular thing for a while. You probably know that experience.) Sometimes it focuses on “Welcome and Tender Release,” which I wrote about in April. Other times, I add my drumming and singing to the vibration of all who are doing ceremonies for healing and renewal. I have begun doing a brief shamanic journey each morning before getting out of bed, to seek guidance for the day. This morning the message was, “Look with a long view.” And “It is time to go back to writing.”

From the outside, these weeks of “stay at home” look much the same as our life before. We had been hiking with a group once a week, taking occasional excursions to Medford or Klamath Falls, and making more frequent trips to “pick up a few things” at the store. I remember in January not being sure how I would keep a commitment to use the car only 5 days a week to ease our carbon footprint. Now, I go out to the grocery store once every 10 days, and make one other trip out each week to walk/hike and do errands.

On the inside, this time hit me at a soul level. In the early days of the crisis, I was nearly exuberant with the possibilities offered by the whole world being forced to pause and breathe. Bill decided to create a “retreat in place” until the end of the year to aid him in turning his focus from the outside world to his inward journey. Our practices are different, but we have the same goal: to allow the spiritual nature of life to sink from head and heart, into bones and blood. My life has been leading to this moment, but not in terms of some special outward gift I could offer to others. Instead, my life-long spiritual journey has led to a new call to trust the mysterious and unexplainable connections of Web of Life and Web of Light.

I can not define that for you because I am only starting to discover it myself. I sense that it reveals itself to everyone in terms and images with meaning for each one, so there is no need for me to even try to describe the indescribable. For me it is “Earth-centered living,” rather than ego-centered living. It calls me to remember my place within the flow of the love of the universe, and rejoicing in being a single cell in this amazing organism which breathes together throughout time and space.

I cannot promise to write often. I cannot promise that I won’t post something every day. I just do not know. That may be part of the shift. I feel less in charge of planning the course ahead and more at ease allowing this whole glorious being of Earth to heal me of my separateness and teach me the ways of love.

I would love to hear how your journey has been unfolding in these unusual times. Please use the contact link for your comments and sharing.

Images of Springtime

I wanted to share with you some pictures of Springtime at our home near Mount Shasta. This time of Stay-at-home has allowed us to move from late winter into glorious springtime, which invites us to work on some projects, tend the land and enjoy the life and beauty of this place.

Rock Garden Bill One of Bill’s projects has been constructing a rock garden near Salvia in Rock Garder the cabin. He loves interesting rocks and this is the kind of space he enjoys creating. With the addition of a few flowering plants from the back meadow, there is now more color at our doorstep.

Bill Qi Gong 1 We had long known of Qi Gong’s roots in Taoist practice, but recently learned, that its origins spring from shamanic dance. It’s slow, flowing movements enhance the movement of energy through the body, and connect the heart and mind with all of nature. I love doing my afternoon Qi Gong under the trees and feeling rooted to the earth and lifted by the sky.

Nancy Holding up the sky

We had a week of good rain and now that the sun is out there are tiny wildflowers among the grasses. I feel like there are a dozen expressions of life volunteering in the Water can and flowers corners of the yard and throughout the meadow-like field.

Grasses and Flowers

But of course, when the rains and sunshine mix, there is also the need to cut the grass. Mower Bill This is Bill celebrating the arrival of a new electric lawn mower. It is much easier than the old push mower. It may be hard to keep him from trimming the lawn every few days.

Stay well. We send our love to all of you.

Bill and Nancy Martin

Congratulations to Michelle

Sixty-First Birthday

A year ago, I took a transformative birthday hike which gave a surge of flow to some things we were already considering and brought to life others. I shared that experience in my post “Birthday Hike.” At that time much was still unformed, theoretical, and experimental in the unfolding of a human life, lived in harmony with nature. I did not know then what it meant to live an Earth-Centered life, in the service of the Earth and all living beings. It has been an amazing year.

Last year, after my birthday hike, I returned to a rented 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom house that was tucked up on the north face of a wooded hillside. The house was enfolded by Dogwoods, Pines, Cedars and Manzanita. The outside critters were pets, having been fed by hand by the previous tenant. We too were tame, throwing out apple and seed in the evenings and watching chipmunk and squirrel; blue jay and deer gather for this staged encounter. Our sky was very narrow, leaving the house in the shade much of the year, and yielding little of moon or starlight.

This year, I returned to our 30-foot long Winnebago motor home, and its lovely small shower. It sits in a meadow-like setting with a dozen or so adolescent pine trees at the near side of the 3 acres. We look out at the cinder form of Black Butte, with the silhouettes of trees marking its outline against the sky. The canopy of the heavens is wide open to bring sunshine through the days and the shifting patterns of moonlight across the nights. The Milky Way stretches leisurely across the sky when the moon is young, and the sun appears at a slightly different point on the mountain side each morning.

There are deer and hare; chipmunk and lizard; sparrow, hawk, golden eagle and swallow in the meadow. I saw a long, thin gray snake one day, and we chased a coyote away one night because it was disturbing our near neighbor’s dog. We still water a small area near the motor home, and scatter some seed for the smaller birds. I have set up a small tub of water near the far fence, sheltering it between bushes and overhanging it with dried manzanita to provide a safe place for the smaller creatures to drink. They are all shy and wild and wonderful.

Last summer, much of my time was spent trying to enliven my bookbinding and book repair business. I put in more hours, went to more craft fairs and took on more challenging repair projects. It didn’t work. The business died beneath me and, in releasing my identity as a bookbinder, the last obstacle was removed from shifting to a full-time motor home life. By December the equipment and supplies were in storage. All of those materials are now seeking a new set of hands to put them back to their intended use of making beautiful books. I hope that my ads with several bookbinding schools will catch the eye and imagination of a new bookbinder.

The practical challenges of living as two individuals in a small home are finding their own solutions. We are playing with our schedule to allow times for independent function. We find true appreciation of the good food, beautiful surroundings, comfortable home and freedom to live simply in relationship with one another and with the Earth, which this home on wheels supports. We are each following our own unique path in ways very different from all of the shared work we have done in the past. We are encouraging each other in our self-understandings that I am more of a mystic than I had realized and Bill is very much the wise elder and mountain hermit.

I had been doing Shamanic Journey for over a year when I turned 60. I had completed a couple of courses on line with Sandra Ingerman and Don Oscar Miro-Quesada. I had met my power animals and journeyed to several places of healing in the Unseen world. Images and messages from this journey work provided guidance, encouragement and vision for the transition that took on its practical form in the late fall.

This year, nourished by many more shamanic journeys, hikes in amazing natural beauty, and continued learning from my teachers, I have settled into this as my path and work. The transformation of the World requires the dreaming into being of that transformation. What takes form in ordinary reality must first be envisioned, tended and drawn through from the Unseen World. This is not the work of my human will, but as a living channel of the loving, healing, creative energy of the Sacred Source flowing through me. My work is to deepen my relationship with the creating heart of the Earth/Source/Creator through experiencing it in my shamanic journeys and chanting.

I hope to be able to weave together a book of the threads – images and insights I can bring back from the Unseen to the Seen expression of Life. I can not describe this work well, but I know the feeling in my core – the focus of my consciousness, my life, my love in celebrating the sacredness of the Earth and her expression in all living beings. The dedication has moved from theory to daily practice, and is now supported by a teacher and shamanic drumming circle here in Mount Shasta.

Over the months ahead we will each continue to discover how to share our gifts with others. I will do my work for the benefit of all, as all shamanic work has always been done. I will write when the words flow, or when a poem wakes me from sleep. I will send honor, respect, balance, clarity and harmony out into the world with every step I take in my hiking. I will discipline my mind, so that my thoughts are adding light, love and renewal to the Web of Life.

You are always free to come to this website and follow my unfolding life path. Please, share this with others who you feel would enjoy the journey. If you find that it resonates with your being, please explore your own ways of connecting with the Light, Love and Life of the Sacred Source. I would love to hear from you about what you discover along the way.

(The photos are of Black Butte to show how it towers above us here, and the tree line up the southern slope.)

Coming Back Into Focus

IMG_E4828 I can not even begin to explain the blending of factors that has led me to fall silent these past six months. I am still watching as Grandmother weaves together the mixture of threads of my life transition to give some form to the experience. I know that it is more complex than I could have imagined. I know Bill and I went straight against all we knew about the ways in which multiple changes add to the stress on the body and mind. I know that we were blessed beyond measure by our family; the Spirit of the Huachuca Mountains and San Pedro Valley; the living beings that surrounded us; and the help of those in the unseen world. I also know that it will take time for me to integrate our winter in the desert. I will share that process with you as it takes a more solid shape.

For now, I want to return to the blog as I return to our home on the skirts of Mount Shasta. We have come back in our motorhome, Brego, and are living about one mile and a world away from where be began on December 1 of last year. Brego has become home in a deep and stable way. I am familiar with the rituals of folding out the bed and spreading out the blankets when it is time to sleep. There is a pattern for washing and rinsing dishes to put a minimum of soap and food particles onto the land. I fill jugs of water from the faucet for our drinking water and other uses for the time being, while Bill solves the issue of air in the fresh water pump. We take wash tub baths and try to do part of our laundry by hand. In sum, we are finding how to live congruently with this home and in harmony within our natural environment.

We just returned from our first “unplugged” camping experience up along the McCloud River. Our original plan had been a very brief touching down with our son and his family, and then out into the open lands doing dry camping (without electric and water hook-ups). But somehow life had other plans. The connection with family was one of the threads in our weaving of this new chapter of our lives. The time we spent with them extended through the winter and the dry camping just never came into place.

One week after getting back to home territory we found the time was right. The weather was perfect. We were in Fowler Campground – a lovely area right at the edge of the river between the Lower and Middle Falls of the McCloud River. This has been a wet and snowy winter and so the falls and river are especially captivating. I hiked for hours each of the four days we were there and Bill combined writing, hiking and gathering wood for our morning and evening fires. We had the sense that this was the life we came out to experience. This is what we are walking toward so we can more fully appreciate and serve the web of life. For me, it was a settling back in with cherished land.

I feel like I am just waking up from a complex, beautiful and disorienting dream. My practices of greeting the day, and doing shamanic journey and ceremony were present in Arizona, but somehow they were sharing my attention with a great deal of learning, living and adjusting. Now there is a sweet feeling of asking permission to sink back into the amazing energy field and companionship of Mount Shasta and all the expressions of nature here. The practical aspects of life continue their pull, but here it is the devotion to the healing of the Earth and All Her Children which promise to fill my days.

Age Matters On This Journey

Even as I invite people of all ages to seek their expression of Earth-Centered Living, the “after 60” part this journey does have an impact. Sometimes, I can pretend that age does not matter – that life experience balances physical energy and stamina. Yet, part of this choice is to look clearly at its challenges as well as its blessings.

I got a small lesson on physical flexibility the other day. I was enjoying a solo hike in Ramsey Canyon, having walked about 50 minutes to my lunch/turn around point. I was 3/4 of the way back, considering other hikes on future days, when my toe caught on a rock and I took three off-balanced steps before fully regaining my footing. My first thought was “Good, I didn’t fall.” My second was “I just pulled something in my right thigh/hip and I’m going to have to hobble back to the car.”

In the end, the injury was very minor, but suddenly I was flooded with the sense of vulnerability — out on my own, having our only vehicle with me, having a less limber body than 20 years ago… I can not always count on being able to hike. I need to find ways to let my body rest when these small pulls happen to this aging body.

Will and I are experiencing another challenge that is common to those who set out in new directions in their retirement years. We find ourselves reaching a physical/mental exhaustion point. While young people fuel their adventures on adrenaline; as older introverts, we have been running on serotonin. After three months of stress and new challenges, including the sense of having left everything and all familiar ties behind, our serotonin and dopamine reserves are at a low ebb. We find our best healing option to come to a full stop and rest.

We will hold steady here with our son’s family near the Huachuca Mountains in southern Arizona. All we need to maintain our motor home is easy to obtain here, and Brego continues to prove a comfortable, sustaining home.

We are spending more time sitting beside the San Pedro River, allowing the stream to flow by with all its nurturing tones. Our walks are shorter, and allow exercise without pushing ourselves to fatigue. Pampering ourselves is becoming a daily practice, as we gather familiar books and DVD’s from the library, eat healthy flavorful foods, and work with materials that nurture our creative spirit. It is a time for very few rules and a large number of naps.

We have been telling others for decades about the impact of multiple major stressors on a person’s overall health. As a friend pointed out, we have hit a overabundance of major life transitions. To those of you considering Earth-Centered living in a full-time motor home framework, I would encourage you to stay close to your current community as you make the transition. Establish a new set of rhythms with support of friends and familiar places in nature that nourish your spirit. Try to carry your current work life into the next phase, at least at first. Allow the changes to unfold more gradually. And if this is not possible for you. Then learn the glories of sitting quietly, sinking into the generous beauty of nature, and taking a good rest.

Finding Brego

As so often happens in this journey, things have unfolded more quickly than expected. We had planned on waiting to look for our home on wheels until after Christmas. Then yesterday, we found it, after Will did a search and discovered signs that pointed to the right place to find it.

Preparing for the trip to Tucson yesterday, we sang and called in the Spirit of the directions and of this beautiful desert. We opened our hearts to be of service to the Sacred Source. We asked to be certain about this decision, since this is a relationship with a “good horse” as well as a new home. We decided that we would like the sales person and that we would know instantly if we were in the right place.

It unfolded with small and large signs – the RV dealer is “Freedom RV” which mirror’s Will’s blog of Freedom, Simplicity and Joy. A horse symbol appeared on the advertised model we went to look at — horse and the name Brego having come to us during ceremonies and drumming. This 15-year-old, well-tended, 30-foot Winnebago was being sold on consignment by a woman who left it fully equipped from dishes to repair manual – much in the same way we left our rented house for the next family who moved in after they lost everything in the Paradise (Camp Fire). On top of it all, I had sensed for weeks what Brego would cost and that was what we paid (plus a modest fee for the dealer to go over the whole creature and replace any worn parts.)

We drove Brego a bit in an empty parking lot and that gave me the courage that I can ride this big creature. Once all the repairs are done, they will give us several hours of orientation – training us in the care and feeding of our new companion. They even include an over-night stay at their lot so we can try everything before we drive it down to Sierra Vista.

Maybe the most important development of the day was the breaking through of my tender heart. Since the busy weeks before leaving Mount Shasta, I have been living in such a tense way that the tears have not been able to flow. I was teary eyed much of the day yesterday – overcome with the grace and generosity of the Universe as we live into our vows to be of service to the Earth and all her Children.

We do not know where the road will lead us, but we move one step at a time, looking to our hearts and the wisdom of sacred helping ancestors, animal guides and the unseen world. We will enjoy each day we share with family, and every new path and trail we discover.
Thank you all for your companionship and encouragement along our way.

A special thanks to those of you who contributed to our Tiny House fund a couple of years ago – this is our new tiny house. I also deeply appreciate the people who had loaned funds to NW Bookbinding to help me move forward in that direction, and have forgiven those loans with this change in life direction. I hope still to pay forward the generosity all of you have shown.

Getting on the Road Together

One of the greatest joys and greatest challenges of the journey is staying in synch with the man I love. This is very much a shared calling – yet it is the calling of two individuals who each must follow our deepest wisdom and overcome our worst fears. At times, the most we can do is be with the other person when the waves crash over him/her and allow our presence to provide a reference point as our beloved reemerges.

As we did the final clearing up around the house, we hit a wall. This is not moving from one house/apartment to another. There is no destination that we are planning to reach and no “fixed abode” that is at the other end of migrating to Arizona. We are not moving a household, we are lightening our load for travel on through our lives. Once we shifted to packing as though we were moving halfway around the world to an unfamiliar culture, the barriers eased. We are not trying to find out how much weight our ox can carry forward, but seeking to become light enough to fly.

There is the feeling that we have been preparing all of our lives for this next chapter, and at the same time, none of that preparation fits this set of circumstances. It calls both of us to connect with the core of our inner power and wisdom, standing with as much clarity and purpose as possible. At the same time, the vulnerability of it all draws us into a new intimacy and honesty with one another. There is no room to walk away or conceal emotional weather. We are learning not to refute nor take on the uncertainties of the other. We are not asking the other to be strong; to know what to do; or to walk with equanimity through this unknown territory. We are simply pledged to walk with one another through it.

We are currently with friend in Chico, where we lived for 17 years before moving to Mount Shasta. The familiarity of the place and the warmth of our hosts and friends is giving us some breathing room. Upper Bidwell Park has offered broad, blue skies; slightly muddy trails and open vistas. Yesterday, there was a large golden hawk riding the currents over the rolling hills. A wonderful reminder of the invitation to keep our heart light and open to be carried on along our way.

(While this post was written Dec. 3, it seems an important step along the way. So, I will post it today, and follow with news of more recent steps in the journey in the coming days.)