Wild Woman – Page 29 – Karen's New York Love Affair

Red hot summer

Summer is here and it’s a hot one. At least in BC and the Pacific Northwestern states. I’ve previously written about the Fall, Winter, and Spring quarters of the wheel of the year, and now it’s time to take a look at summer.

Summer is in the south quarter of the wheel, and it is the time of childhood innocence, compassion, and strength. Red is the colour, and the entry Red wheel rolling gives you an idea of the playfulness of the south. It is the time when growth is lush and bountiful, and we get to kick back and relax, soaking up the warmth of the sun. Life is bursting everywhere, and the aliveness of this is one of the qualities that the south brings us.

Mouse is the animal of the south, and if you imagine things from a mouse’s point of view, life is very simple. We see what is in front of us, at ground level. Details, and the parts of the world that are very concrete and tangible.

Red can be seen in the rushing of the blood, whether through exercise or sensual pursuits, and indeed sexual energy is strong in the south part of the wheel. All of the sensual expressions and experiences of the body. Embodiment is what the south can teach us. Imagine the turning of the wheel from spring to summer as a time to bring your inspiration and spiritual awareness (the gifts of the east) into concrete, embodied form for your people.

Warm summer blessings!

Wild Vancouver nights

Last night I went for another run and skinny dip in the Seymour River. This time I went down the Twin Bridges trail, which is closed for trail work. I felt worried as I ran down the trail and saw that they are widening it and gravelling it. The sign said they would be replacing the bridge as well. I was worried that they were planning to allow vehicular traffic on this wild woody trail, bringing noise and air pollution to disturb the magnificent stillness of the forest. I was also concerned that the traffic would disturb the wildlife. And that this would be one more enroachment on a wonderful wild place that we are fortunate to enjoy near the heart of Vancouver—it’s just an 11 minute drive to the forest and river, from my house in East Van.

I thought about the arguments I would make against this work they are doing. That we need wild, untouched places. We evolved as a species among other animals in the wilderness, and we need wild places to go to. In fact, we need the wild places to be there even if we don’t go to them! I worried about this for most of my run, and noted the web site and email address to use to raise my concerns.

The site says:

Twin Bridges Replacement Project The first bridge to cross the Seymour River was built in 1907-08 and was dismantled in 1992. It carried a water main across the river and provided east-west access for pedestrians. A second bridge was built in 1926 and is the only bridge remaining on the site. This bridge will be removed and replaced this summer and will thus continue to serve as an important southerly crossing for both utility operations and public recreation.

Huh. That sounds pretty innocuous, but are they going to allow general traffic on the trail? I will still need to check this out by contacting them.

So after I memorized the web address and decided to follow up on my concerns, I was nearing the end of my run and I stopped to give Reiki to two of my favourite trees near the top of the Homestead Trail. I was worried that these two friends might be cut down, the way that a whole stretch of trees had been lower down on the Twin Bridges trail. It had hurt my heart to see the trees gone, laying as stripped logs beside the road.

As I gave Reiki to the two trees that I have often visited with and used to stretch against, I heard a twig breaking. I thought it must be a cyclist, though that didn’t really make sense since it was almost dark. I turned back onto the main trail, and guess what I saw… A black bear loping across the trail! What a blessing. What a confirmation that these woods are precious and I must do what I can to help protect them. As I paused by the path, looking in the direction where he had gone, I heard bear rustling around in the nearby underbrush, and sent some Reiki to him too. I was so happy to have this brief encounter with bear people.

When I got back to Lynn Valley Road and started the drive home, another magical visitation occurred as a long-tailed weasel crossed the road in front of me and then disappeared into the woods. And as I turned onto the road leading to the freeway entrance I smelled skunk. What an amazing city, to have so much beauty, with the buildings and people and machinery all coexisting with the awesome natural world that cradles Vancouver.

To top off the evening, the Vancouver International Fireworks were happening when I got home, and I did my post-run yoga on the deck overlooking the Burrard Inlet, watching the fireworks erupting over the city, and the stars emerging overhead. Wild Vancouver night!

Red wheel rolling

I was driving over the Second Narrows bridge tonight, feeling high from a run by and skinny dip in the Seymour River. It was dusk, but the street lights hadn’t come on yet on the north side of the bridge. I was groovin’ on Led Zeppelin, as I am wont to do after running in the mountains. Feeling fine. I was listening to Led Zep IV, which I just picked up on CD recently. The song was what some say is the best rock’n’roll song ever, Stairway to Heaven—though my personal fave of all time has got to be Gimme Shelter by the Stones—and I was feelin’ the magic. I crested the bridge and the key to the universe was revealed once again:

And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all, yeah
To be a rock, and not to roll, and not to roll, don’t make me roll…

Oh wait, that’s the live version off The Song Remains the Same. I often insert the live bits when I belt out the lyrics in the privacy of my own car. And I was really getting into it tonight!

Anyway, just as I was reflecting that the answer to the mystery of the universe was to be a rock and not to roll, I saw the most amazing thing. A red wheel was rolling along in my lane. It must have been doing about 70. I was doing about 80 and passed it. It was about 6″ high, and rolling right down the lane! And it was red! And it was rolling!

What does this mean? Could Led Zeppelin have been wrong after all? Is this a sign that the key to the universe is to roll, not to be a rock?!! And if so, how do I do that? Turn cart wheels? Roll in the hay? Play roulette? Rolling actually sounds a lot more fun than being a rock, which doesn’t get to do much but sit there and wait for a glacier to come along!

Meditation on impermanence

chocolate

tea

phone service

no chocolate

no tea

no phone service

Fried and fit to be tied

Well, before I even had a chance to text the picture of the new antenna from my cell phone to my email, the new power adapter was fried. Dang!

All that “Searching for service” was for naught, since the power adapter had fried after less than a day of receiving phone calls. What gives around here?!

Positive thoughts about not being able to receive phone calls in the house at Monkey Valley:

It gives me a reason to take the phone with me on runs, where I get reception at the higher elevation, and talk to friends while I’m running. Makes the hour go by more quickly.
It makes me be more intentional about when I use the phone. I have to really need to use it to go to the trouble of going up on the roof.
It means my day is not constantly interrupted by phone calls, and I choose when to collect messages and return calls, preserving the retreat-like atmosphere.
It means I don’t waste time talking on the phone, and get more done.
It helps me with that Greta Garbo “I vant to be alone” thing.

Ah well, it was good while it lasted. Kind of like relationships with men. I guess I need to take a look at my object relationship with my phone! I can’t get no satisfaction! Sounds like the frustrating object relation to me.

Chairway to heaven: the efficacy of ridiculousness

There was a breakthrough at Monkey Valley this week. For two years now I have been suffering with my cell phone here. I could only get a signal by standing on a bench on my back deck and holding the phone in the air, or by climbing up on the roof. Not great for those 7:45 AM conference calls with my client in winter with -10 C temperatures! Not to mention wind and rain…

So I finally forked out some cash to get a power booster, hoping that this technology would allow me to use the existing Yagi antenna on the roof to channel the digital signal to my phone inside the house. So I went to Kamloops, and got the power booster (second trip, and after many preparatory phone calls with different providers). I brought it home, and hooked it up, hoping this would be easy for a change.

I put my phone near the inside antenna and saw the discouraging message “Searching for service.” Shit! I took the phone up on the roof to see what kind of signal I could get, and got about two bars. I called Telus to see what was up, and confirmed there were no outages in the area. So something was wrong with the setup. Maybe the Yagi had broken down since I last used it with my old analog 3-watt bag phone a few years ago, before Telus forced us all to switch to digital.

I thought the best thing to do would be to test the antenna by moving it higher up on the roof, to where I was standing with the cell phone when I got two bars. But how would I support the antenna? I looked at the spot, and saw my dining room chair balanced on either side of the roof ridge, with the antenna strapped to it. Okay, that might work…

So I went in the house, got a chair, and hauled the chair up onto the roof, along with some trusty duct tape. I went to the antenna, and tried to pull it out of the plumbing outlet pipe in which it was lodged. It wouldn’t come. I pulled and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. I pulled some more, cursing to give myself more power. Finally the antenna budged, but the pipe came with it. Darn! But since it was loose anyway, it probably wouldn’t hurt to pull it some more. I pulled the pipe out as far as it would come, gaining about three and a half feet of height for the antenna.

In fact, about the height it would have been strapped to the chair. So what the hell… I went inside to check the reading on the cell phone and lo and behold: four bars!!! It worked!!!

The ridiculous notion of the chair on the roof led to the solution: the antenna just needed to be higher. Since I had contractors coming this week to do some other work (Brent and Tom of Tri-Ross Construction—great guys), they agreed to mount the antenna with a more permanent solution than sticking it in the outlet pipe with duct tape, and they also fixed the pipe I had dislodged. Wow! For once the new problems I created were easy to solve. And now I have indoor phone service at Monkey Valley.

My first phone call was a real thrill let me tell you! By the fourth call, not so much! And today, the darn reception was down to “Searching for service,” even up on the roof. Well aren’t we all! So unfortunately, I am still at the mercy of the whims of the universe as to whether some mysterious force chooses to send the signal my way or not. I guess that’s pretty much what life is like. At the mercy of a mysterious force, which sometimes sends visions of dining room chairs on roof tops.

Praying for the non-religious

Continuing with the story of the sweat lodge, one of the elements that was very moving was the praying. As a person who doesn’t follow a Christian tradition, prayer has often seemed impossible for me to do. If I don’t have a god I believe in, how can I pray?

In the sweat lodge, I found that participants pray in many different ways. Some are Christian and pray to god, some pray to great spirit or creator, some pray to the spirits of the directions, or to the ancestors. The invitation is to pray, but there is no designated entity to whom we pray. For me this frees the act of prayer from its connection to Christianity, and allows the intention of the prayer to emerge more clearly. The act of praying opens one’s heart through having good wishes for the well-being of oneself or another.

In Buddhism, the practice of maitri or metta is similar; it is a prayer for oneself, others, and all beings to be happy and free from suffering. This type of practice is usually done in stages, beginning with oneself, and moving on to those we feel appreciation towards, friends and family, those we are neutral towards, those we find difficult, and then towards all beings.

In the sweat lodge, I didn’t consciously choose this progression of people to pray for, but found myself spontaneously praying for a friend who was dying of cancer, and then members of my family, people I had fasted with, and my spiritual teachers. I felt moved to be praying for people and expressing my caring for them in this way, but what was really astonishing was when I prayed for people that I had a problem with. By allowing myself to feel caring for the health and well-being of people whom I felt had hurt me, my heart opened in a new and surprising way. I felt myself to be much bigger than the small, hurt self I had taken myself to be in the interaction when I felt hurt. Instead, I was a more expansive being who was big enough to offer prayer for my teachers! And from this expansive place, forgiveness occurred. Later I noticed a shift in my feelings towards those I felt had hurt me; the reactive charge was gone.

This remarkable, unforeseen outcome of prayer was one of the many gifts I received in the sweat lodge.

Here is a prayer for at the end of life, or perhaps for when one faces the symbolic death of the vision fast:

Great Spirit

when we face the sunset

when we come singing

the last song, may it be

without shame, singing

“It is finished in beauty,

it is finished in beauty!”

– Evelyn Eaton, I Send a Voice

Blue turd on the window sill

A recent discovery at Monkey Valley inspired me to write this homage to John Denver:

Blue turd on the counter makes me happy
Blue turds in my bed can make me cry
Blue turd means the mouse has found the poison
Blue turd means the mouse is going to die

I was very moved by this ditty, although not as much as by the original song by Mr. Denver.

Drumming for the vision fast

I was interviewed this week on Vancouver’s Co-op Radio (CFRO 102.7 FM) about the vision fast. The interview was for a radio show called Conscious Living. Listen to the interview to find out more about this thing called a vision fast. The interview concludes with a song for calling in the four directions, which I wrote about last time. When you click Log In, you are given a chance to register for the show’s web site. You must do this before you can listen to the MP3, but it only takes a minute or two.

I smudged myself with sage before going downtown to do the interview, and asked the spirits of the seven directions to be with me and help draw those people to the vision fast on July 5 – 11 at Monkey Valley who would most benefit from the ceremony. May it be so!

Why would anyone want to do a think like go without food for three days, alone in the woods, with only a tarp and sleeping bag for shelter? I think it takes a certain kind of person to be interested in this type of adventure, and a certain yearning in the soul. I believe that all humans yearn for connection with nature, because we evolved as a species for tens of thousands of years in the natural world. But nowadays, living in cities, many people do not hear their heart’s call to be out in nature. Or they may misinterpret the call as a yearning for something else, or drown it out with one of the substances so readily available to us for such purposes! So I think the vision fast ceremony appeals specifically to people who already feel their connection to nature, or who are aware of wanting to build or strengthen this connection. After all, there are many paths for gaining spiritual and psychological understanding that do not involve this level of physical discomfort!

Then there is the yearning to know yourself more deeply, to find guidance or healing, or to mark a life passage in a significant way. Perhaps you might feel the urge to test yourself, and gain a sense of confidence or strength from knowing you have passed the test. Certainly this is one of the functions the vision fast has served historically, as a right of passage from adolescence to adulthood. Since many of us never experienced or marked this passage into adulthood as a teenager, for some adults this might feel like an incompleteness that the vision fast ceremony can remedy.

When it comes to finding guidance, healing, inspiration, and self-knowledge in nature, the process is very mysterious. Time alone on the land opens us up. It makes our ego shell more permeable, usually in a safe and gentle way. It deepens our senses and our awareness, opening us to knowing and interacting with the natural world in a different way than we might experience on a weekend hike with friends. Being alone and not having to interact with others is actually a great gift, which allows a portion of our regular unconscious functioning (to maintain a self image, monitor how the other person is feeling, make sure the relationship is okay) to work for a different purpose. All of these factors, and the physiological changes brought about by fasting, can lead us into altered states of consciousness, where information is available to us in a new way.

This type of opening into the unknown is not for everyone. It takes a courage and a curiosity. A willingness to look foolish (or at least, dirty!). It takes a wanting. This is why on the School of Lost Borders vision fast program page they have a statement to warn away those who might be entering into this too lightly: “Or just forget that such a wild idea ever came into your head.” I love that! Enter at your own risk…

Singing in the sweat lodge

As I mentioned earlier, there were four rounds in the sweat lodge: The first round was for calling in the ancestors and spirits. The second round was for praying. The third round was for healing. And the final round was the “going home” round. At the beginning of each round, more rocks were brought in. During the round, Munro used a dipper to scoop water from a bucket and splash it onto the rocks, creating steam and raising the heat in the lodge.

Each rock was blessed with herbs as it was brought in. Herbs commonly used are cedar, sweet grass, sage, lavender (for gentleness), copal (resin), and osha-root or bear root. Each has its own magical scent, but I found that the osha-root was especially captivating. I later learned that osha is associated with dreaming and helps one to realize that there is magic in everything, including each one of us. It helps to lift a veil between the conscious and unconscious worlds. Osha is a powerful, spicy-smelling root that was sometimes ingested to cause a sweat or fever that could release toxins from the body.

During the first round Munro taught us songs for welcoming in the spirits of the seven directions. Here is one of the songs. I have adapted the lyrics slightly. Each line is repeated twice.

Power in the East, standing there, we are humbly praying
Power in the South, standing there, we are humbly praying
Power in the West, standing there, we are humbly praying
Power in the North, standing there, we are humbly praying
Power in the Sky, standing there, we are humbly praying
Power in the Earth, lying there, we are humbly praying
Beloved in my heart, abiding there, we are humbly praying

When I was out on the vision fast, I added lines to pray for individual people:

I pray for Dorrie, I pray for Dorrie, I pray she is warm and safe, I pray she is warm and safe…

Another song he taught us is the Stone People song for honoring the grandfather stones:

Stone people, stone people
Stone people, stone people
You are the first people, thank you for coming, thank you for praying with us
Stone people, stone people

This is a great, simple song that can be adapted to honour all of the creatures in the natural world: tree people, cactus people, sky people, cloud people, grass people, ant people, and so on. I made up lots of different lyrics during my vision fast. Singing to the plants and animals is a way of opening my heart to connect with them and appreciate them. It is also a lot of fun!