I had a
place in mind to do a vision quest someday.
It is possible that every place in the desert or forest could be a good
vision quest site, but lies dormant unless it has a reason not to. When a site thinks somebody should do a
vision quest there, it seems to try to catch their attention. I went out to this one while it was snowing
last winter because it had been on my mind.
It was a big, complex area, with dozens of trees, two dry washes running
through, and an open field with a side canyon.
It had a sense of presence about it.
I made a
small fire, let it burn down to coals, and smudged myself with purifying
herbs. I offered cornmeal and water to
the spirits and all beings in that place, doing a slow, 360 degree spin. I looked at every tree in turn. It felt like each one was looking back at me,
as if for that moment, it was a spirit standing there. I felt like I was in the middle of a city of
spirits. They definitely had my
attention. The spirits don’t put on a
show unless there is a good reason for it.
I figured there was something to learn here, and this would be a good
place for a vision quest. A deer walked into
view. It saw me, snorted, and bounded off
at speed. Hunting season had just ended. Sister deer, I thought, I’d be spooky
too. I nonetheless felt a lingering
sense of welcome from the deer spirit.
One of our lodge members had expressed desire
for a “gnarly” site. This would fill the
bill. The canyon narrowed where the
trees were, becoming a bottleneck for animals coming through. The tracks and trails suggested that there
would at least be cows. I think we made
too many jokes about ideal mountain lion habitat, because our friend backed
out. I felt sad about it, because he may
have missed an important opportunity. When
we went there to look at the site, he found a place in the middle of four
ponderosa trees that seemed to fit him perfectly. When he sat among them to try it out, I got a
sense of deeply grounded solidity, he and the trees together, extending down
into Mother Earth and opening into Great Mystery.
It might also have been a trick on
me that day, or a chance for the spirits to get through to me. I’ve been facing issues of loss and impermanence
this year. Nothing looks good through
eyes of fear. While we were out that
day, making a fire, smudging and addressing the spirits, a sharp flash of joy
and rightness cut through my depression.
Oh right, I remembered; this is what I like; this is where it’s at. I gathered the spirits were telling me I
should go out on vision quest as soon as possible. I had just been out the year before. Usually it takes me two years to process one
and get back in the saddle. Vision quest
is hard, and I didn’t feel up for it this soon. For whatever reason, though, something told
me I was out of time and I’d better do it.
Years
ago, I went to a seminar in Winslow for mental health providers working with
the Dine or Navajo people. One medicine
man who presented was emphatic about the need to take action as soon as a
person knows they need a ceremony. “When
someone knows they need a ceremony, they need to stop everything that they are
doing, and make arrangements for the ceremony, right away.” It has to be priority. No waiting around for a convenient time or
when they feel like it. I agreed
wholeheartedly. I thought I had been living
that way, but maybe I wasn’t.
Late
last winter, my husband Charlie and I drove to California to visit his sister
in the hospital. We were almost home
when we stopped for lunch at the Pilot truck stop, east of Kingman. We parked at the edge of the parking lot and
took our coolers out to make sandwiches.
A raven was standing in the grass about 15 feet away. I asked Charlie, who knows a lot about birds,
“Is that raven OK?” “No,” he said, “it can’t fly.” We sat for a while, eating sandwiches. The raven remained motionless, head down, feathers
fluffed, the very picture of hopeless dejection. It looked like it was about to fall
over. I asked, “Well, do you want to try
feeding it?” “Yes,” he said. So he cut up a bunch of cheese and tossed it. The raven exploded into action, running
around grabbing all the cheese in its beak, then retreating to a large rock to
stuff it down. In the animal world, the
stomach is the safest place for food; nothing can steal it if it’s already been
eaten. Other ravens landed around him,
but none of them tried to take the cheese.
Other than flying, this appeared to be a perfectly capable raven.
I felt awful
about this bird’s situation. I also felt
terrible about my sister-in-law’s situation, and my husband’s situation, both
of whom now have brain damage. Creator
was pushing my face into the side of life that I never want to look at: fear, suffering
and death.
A few
months later, I noticed a raven lurking in the underbrush around the
house. It slipped through the grasses
and rabbitbush, occasionally hopping onto low tree limbs. It moved with care and deliberation, head up,
eyes alert. It walked into the shed and
back out, and along the front of the porch.
This was very unusual behavior for a raven. Apparently it couldn’t fly. Sympathetically, I decided to help it out by
giving it some pieces of bread. Ravens usually
adore food scraps. This one reacted
warily to the bread; as if it had never encountered such a thing before. It walked away, going about its
business. It reminded me of a
roadrunner, albeit a big, black, shiny one.
I guessed it adopted this lifestyle and has found it entirely workable.
I didn’t
much like the message I was getting from these two ravens. Life had dealt them the
same disability, but they were handling it differently because they had
different attitudes. I never want attitude
to be the answer. I don’t want hard things
happening in the first place. I knew,
however, that I needed to thank Creator for this reminder of a powerful tool. I was in the process of preparing for vision
quest, and this was undoubtedly a gift of much importance.
My
husband came in one morning this summer and said there was a rattlesnake out by
the sweat lodge. “Do you want to see
it?” “No,” I replied. But I went out to take a look anyway. It could be I was going to have to do
something about it. The trouble with rattlesnakes, and part of why they are
powerful medicine, is there is no ignoring them. I found a diamondback of modest size, lying
in a convoluted lump next to a juniper tree.
This was strong medicine alright.
I couldn’t get over it being near the lodge. We needed to figure out what it meant, but in
the meantime, we couldn’t have a rattlesnake hanging around. What if it decided to actually live in the
lodge? Mice live in it. Why not a whole food chain? Sacred medicine or not, we had to take it
away.
I pushed
the snake into a trashcan with a very long object and put the lid on. We drove it seven miles east to Padre Canyon
near Twin Arrows. Padre Canyon is hot, dry and remote; a good place
for snakes. Furthermore, the property is
owned by the Hopi tribe, and snakes are part of their lore. In our opinion, this was a fine animal
messenger, and we wanted to treat it with respect. This situation was not its
fault. It was just minding its own
business, doing Creator’s bidding. Now
it was rattling nervously in a trashcan. I thanked it for its service as I
tipped it out, wishing it all the best.
I thanked the spirits for guiding us and giving us this medicine. I hoped the snake was OK. It was almost completely torpid. I’ve heard they can be like that when they
have just shed their skins.
Our
lodge members agreed that snakes are about transformation. I think they are right. When I meditated on it, I got a sense of open
doors behind me and closed ones in front.
The new doors won’t open until the old ones close. If I can do my part to close the old doors,
there will be a lot of assistance from the Universe providing opportunities for
love and service. In other words, things
will start to happen. This was clearly
medicine for my upcoming vision quest.
To me, medicine means both a mental heads-up and divine assistance in
accomplishing something. The spirits always seem to want to give me therapy
more than visions. So from the ravens, I
was encouraged to employ a creative, can-do attitude, and from the snake… I
wasn’t sure. Hopefully the spirits would
know the specifics.
A lodge member gave me a deer
antler this spring. She said I was
supposed to make a pipe out of it. I
could not for the life of me figure out how to do this. It was too curvy to drill one of the
necessary holes. I watched a video on
YouTube of a guy making a deer antler pipe.
First he cut it up, then, selected particular pieces for drilling. He assembled the drilled sections into a
beautiful pipe. I was duly impressed. I
didn’t want to cut my antler up, however.
It had a strong sense of presence about it. I didn’t want damage its
aliveness or diminish the deer magic by making too many alterations. I don’t know that this would happen, but it
seemed like it might.
A couple of weeks before going out,
it occurred to me to drill in through the side of the antler, as near to the
end as possible. It would be smoked from
the side, rather than the end. This
would solve all the technical problems. When
I lifted it up to my head in that position, it looked like I was being a deer. This was radical! Nobody smokes a pipe from the side. I marked the holes out and planned
strategy. This idea felt right, but I
was worried. It’s hard to drill pipe stems without messing them up. I prayed, asking the antler for its help if
this was what it wanted. The pipe turned out great, and I am certain
the antler itself had a major part in the whole thing. Sacred objects are like that. They have strong opinions about how they
should be and what they should be used for.
We have a lot of pipe stems. It was nothing that we planned. Someone would bring a chunk of wood, or I
would think I wanted to make one out of this or that. Even before I start
working with a future pipe stem, I get a feeling about what kind of spirit is
inside. Once we got a stack of ponderosa
pine firewood, and an eagle came to mind whenever I thought about it. Finally I went out and pulled out pieces
until I found one with an eagle in it.
When the stem was done, it stood for the East direction of new
beginnings. It took some mulling to
figure that out. I thought it might have
been about Father Sky, but it had a feeling of the difficult-to-grasp, and a
river flowing east.
The new deer antler pipe
represented the South direction. For us,
the South holds the qualities of innocence, gentleness and vulnerability. This may not sound like powerful medicine,
but it is. Whenever I sit in the South
direction during a sweat lodge, it wipes me out beyond reason. This is probably because I learned early in
life that toughness is safer, and I am resistant to anything else. The South is also a place of acknowledgement
of powerlessness; that in truth, we have no power over ourselves or our lives
apart from what we receive from Creator.
To think we have anything else invites weakness of ego and delusion. To know we are utterly dependent for
everything on Creator provides the inexhaustible strength of acceptance,
letting go, and selflessness. It was clear to me that I was going to get
instruction about the South when I went out on vision quest.
Other South-directed things had
been happening. The pile of stones I
gathered for use in my exit and return sweats had a warm sense of all-is-well
cheeriness about them. A silent herd of
deer grazed through the yard one morning, one by one effortlessly hopping over
the barbed wire fence and disappearing into the trees. Their medicine was that of vulnerability and
acceptance of their brief time on earth as transitory creatures. At some point each of them will die and be
eaten. Creator was not letting me off
the hook about facing the realities of life. And apparently, I needed to see with the eyes of the stones -- that it was all OK.
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