Black Horse Symbolism

I recently did a deep meditation, seeking guidance regarding a life-changing decision. I closed my eyes and stilled the chatter of my mind by focusing on my breath as I inhaled and exhaled. The first image that popped into my mind was the spinning vortex of a tornado in the distance. Tornadoes tend to represent worry and anxiety, spinning out of control. Tornados are a sign you must slow down and regain clarity and calmness in your life. Since tornadoes destroy everything they come in contact with, dreams and visions about them could represent your unacknowledged desire to carve a new path for yourself.
 

Next, I saw the Tashi Gomang Stupa, located about two miles from my Crestone, Colorado home. Since the time of the Buddha's death around 483 BCE, Buddhists have constructed stupas to contain the relics of enlightened teachers. A stupa is an architectural rendering of the Buddhist path, the stages and aspects of enlightenment. When a great Buddhist teacher leaves his or her physical existence, the body that remains is considered to be permeated with the very essence of awakened mind, possessing tremendous intrinsic power and blessings. The appropriate vessel for containing these relics is a stupa.
 

Each stupa is designed according to ancient sacred geometry; situated on land selected for its beneficial properties and graced with the sanction of the elemental forces. Through its design and contents, a stupa is regarded as having the power to transmit the essence of awakened mind, on the spot, to anyone ready to receive it. The Buddha said that whoever sees the stupa will be liberated by the sight of it. Feeling the breeze around the stupa liberates by its touch. Having thus seen or experienced the stupa, by thinking of one's experience of it, one is liberated through recollection.
 

Atop the golden spire in the center of the 42-foot-tall bell-shaped stupa, I saw a winged horse wind vane spinning in the wind. The wind vane represented my unsettled emotions; the weather of my mind. One cannot forcibly subdue an emotional struggle by an exertion of the will. If you attempt to force stillness upon restless emotions you will only create deep inner conflict. Equanimity must develop naturally out of the tranquility of a meditative state. I focused on the stupa and it instantly brought me calm and clarity.
 

The Black Horse
 

The next imagery that I saw was a galloping black horse. Black horses are messengers and carriers of positive, mysterious energy. Seeing a black horse in your meditation means there is an energy that is about to enter your life. This energy will have a positive effect on your life, though it may not be obvious at first. This energy can come into your life in a myriad of ways. It could be a person, a career change or an unexpected event. Actually, it could be anything. The key here is that the sequence of events that will be set into motion by this energy will have an overall positive effect. If you see a black horse, be on the lookout for something extraordinary on the horizon.
 

Black horses symbolize the ability to overcome obstacles and come out on the other side. It is also widely known to be a symbol for death. This does not always mean death in the literal sense; in this case it means leaving behind things which no longer serve you. The black steed symbolism is both death-defying and death-seeking. In other words, it is symbolic of death and rebirth. It signifies the closing of one door and the opening of another. It can also symbolize the need for you to take a leap of faith. Trust your intuition even if you can't see the reason or the result.
 

If a black horse appears in your life, you may need some reassurance that you are powerful enough to take on any challenge that comes your way. While many people hold on to things that no longer serve them out of fear, you must be brave enough to take the power and do what you need to do in order to come out on the other side. A black horse is an omen of powerful and courageous transformation. The notion of death and rebirth portends that the black horse will bring an end to things and relationships which no longer serve you. In doing this without fear or hesitation, the horse is transforming and creating a better version of you.
 

Horse medicine teaches you to be true to your authentic self. Though you may be quite attached to your plans, ideas, self-image, social position, security and relationships, it is time to strip away old ideas and habits; eliminate the outmoded or worn out. Dive into the problem without thought of immediate gain or purpose. This is the end of an old cycle and the beginning of a new one. Now is the time for bold action.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse Calls for Unity

All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer: Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, calls on people from around the globe to gather at sacred places on June 21 and join in prayer for the healing and protection of Grandmother Earth.
 

June 21, 2022
 

We warned that one day you would not be able to control what you have created, that day is here. Now we must unite once again to create an energy shift upon Grandmother Earth. She cannot take any more impact from all the selfish decisions being made.
 

We have come to that place in this time upon Earth, to now make a stand together. To unite -- each in our own sacred life-ways we have chosen to walk, whatever religion or belief, go to your sacred spaces and join us in these special prayers for the Earth on June 21st. It has been proven we can create miracles when we unite spiritually.
 

Many white animals have shown their sacred color throughout the world now, and they continue to communicate that we are at the crossroads. We have walked through two years of losing many relatives through a terrible disease, and so have the animals and plant life also continue to suffer. The imbalance of Mni wic'oni (water of life) causing droughts and fires to severe flooding is everywhere, and I feel more suffering is to come from all these poor choices that are being made.
 

I humbly request a time from each of the two legged in this world to send a prayer to heal our precious Earth and the balance of Mni wic'oni to be restored. Begin to prepare in your homelands to unite -- All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer -- for the sake of Grandmother Earth, our source of life not a resource.
 

In a sacred hoop of life where there is no ending in no beginning.
Chief Arvol Looking Horse
19th Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe

 

Source: Last Real Indians

5,000-Year-Old Drum Discovered in Britain

A Stonehenge-era chalk drum is the "most important piece of prehistoric art to be found in Britain in the last 100 years," according to the British Museum. The 5,000-year-old drum, discovered within an ancient children's burial site, is going on display for the first time. It will be unveiled, six years after its discovery, as part of the "World of Stonehenge" exhibition at the British Museum.
 

The drum was found on a country estate near the village of Burton Agnes in East Yorkshire, England in 2015 when a routine excavation had to be carried out so the owners could erect a structure. During the routine excavation, a team of archaeologists with the independent company Allen Archaeology found an ancient burial site. Within the burial site were the remains of three children, aged 3 to 12, whose bones had been intertwined for millennia.
 

"They were cuddling," according to Mark Allen, the founder of Allen Archaeology. The drum was placed above the head of the eldest child, along with a chalk ball and a polished bone pin. Archeologists do not believe the drum was used as a musical instrument despite the name. It was more likely a piece of sculptural art, a talisman, or, perhaps, a toy for the children. The grave is a rare find, because ancient people in Neolithic Britain would usually leave bodies for cremation or to be eaten by crows.
 

And the drum is so significant because it is "one of the most elaborately decorated objects of this period found anywhere in Britain and Ireland," the British Museum said. The carvings on the drum, which show spirals and triangles, feature a "butterfly" motif. They are artistically similar to other objects found at Neolithic sites in Scotland and Ireland, Wilkin said, suggesting that prehistoric communities were in communication with each other despite significant geographical distances.
 

"This drum is particularly intriguing, because it basically encompasses a sort of artistic language that we see throughout the British Isles at this time, and we're talking 5,000 years ago," project curator Jennifer Wexler said. The discovery comes more than 100 years since the unearthing of the Folkton Drums. Three similar chalk drums were found in the village of Folkton -- around 15 miles from Burton Agnes -- in 1889. "We've been waiting for over 100 years for another one of these amazing objects to come up, and for it to come up with children -- again -- is astonishing," Wilkin said.

The Lost Art of Resurrection

An excerpt from my memoir, Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism.

 

Like a golden luminous jewel, Palenque perches above the lush tropical rainforest in the foothills of the Chiapas Highlands of southern Mexico. Humid air hangs heavy in this jungle acropolis overlooking the coastal plains of the state of Tabasco. Shrouded in morning jungle mists and echoing to a dawn chorus of howler monkeys and parrots, this temple city has a serene, mystical atmosphere. In antiquity, the Maya city was known as Lakamha, meaning "big waters." Tranquil spring-fed streams meander through the city and the temple summits offer spectacular views of the ruins and surrounding jungle. Flourishing in the seventh century, Palenque is an architectural masterpiece of unsurpassed beauty and spiritual force.

Palenque's most prominent structure is the Temple of the Inscriptions. The elegant temple crowns an imposing eight-stepped pyramid 75 feet above a great plaza. The temple gets its name from hieroglyphic inscriptions on three stone tablets, known as the East Tablet, the Central Tablet and the West Tablet, on the structure's inner walls. These large carved tablets emphasize the idea that events that happened in the past will be repeated on the same calendar date. The edifice was specifically built as the funerary monument for K'inich Janaab' Pakal, also known as Pakal the Great, ruler of Palenque in the seventh century.
 

Deep in the heart of the pyramid, Pakal's remains were found in a stone sarcophagus, wearing a mosaic jade death mask and elaborate jade jewelry. The intricate carving on the top of the seven-ton sarcophagus lid itself is an iconic piece of Classic Maya art and was crucial to understanding how the ancient Maya viewed death and rebirth. The magnificent bas-relief shows the cross-shaped World Tree -- which manifests in the dark night sky as the Milky Way or "White Road" to the Underworld -- and Pakal's relationship to it in death. The king is depicted at the moment of his divine resurrection in the unen or infant form of the lightning deity K'awiil, ascending from the Underworld on the starry Milky Way road to paradise and eternal life.
 

At Palenque, the Maya carefully encoded instructions for gaining eternal life in their architecture, art and hieroglyphic inscriptions. The Maya believed that the real purpose of our lives is to grow ourselves into godlike beings of power and beauty. Survival of the personal aspect of the soul was the goal for Maya shamans. They believed that there are two souls. Every human being has a "life soul," one that is linked to the body and that, should it depart the body, would cause death. It remains within the body until the moment of death. There is also a second soul, or "free soul." The free soul can roam free from the body without harming the person. It corresponds to the dream or astral body. Upon death, it journeys to the pool of souls from whence it may reach back to us and communicate with us through portals to the Underworld -- caves and pyramids.
 

The resurrection of the free soul was what the ancient Maya shamans hoped to achieve. The Maya believed the soul to be regenerative to its core; ultimately its purpose is to regenerate itself. The human soul manifested from the Otherworld paradise through the portal jaws of the great Vision Serpent. If it succeeded in growing into its divine potential by nurturing itself through education and ecstatic bonding with the gods, it could recreate itself after death wearing its own individual "face," then dance forever on the surface of the infinite otherworldly sea. The lightning-serpent energy that fueled the soul's resurrection came from the rain deity K'awiil.
 

The Maya shamans believed death is "behind the times," caught up in a previous and less advanced era, lacking knowledge of the art of resurrection. There is a dramatic difference between the idea of resurrection and a belief in the soul's immortality. Resurrection -- raising up again -- means that something has truly died and then brought back to life. Immortality, on the other hand, assumes unbroken continuity of the soul's existence after the death of the body.
 

The ancient shamans of Palenque built a resurrection generator on a large elevated plaza in the southeast corner of the city surrounded by jungle covered hills. Archaeologists call this ch'ulel "power plant" the Cross Group or Temple of the Cross complex. It is made up of three pyramid temples arranged in a triangular pattern. The shaman architects who designed the Cross Group believed they had discovered the earthly site of the three hearthstones of creation. In Maya cosmology, a triangle of three stars in the Orion constellation represents the hearthstones of the cosmic fire the gods had set to begin the present world age. Using geomantic divination, they detected the location of the invisible stones and built the temples over them, forming the shamanic infrastructure that powered the resurrection process.
 

The Temple of the Cross is the largest and most significant structure. They placed it on a hill at the northern apex of the cosmic hearth. On the inside back wall of the temple sanctuary, they installed a carved stone tablet depicting the branching World Tree at the moment the Maize God lifted it to the sky. At the western corner of the triangle, they constructed the Temple of the Sun and erected a tablet on the back wall portraying warfare, human sacrifice and a shield adorned with the Jaguar Sun God. At the eastern corner of the hearth, they built the Temple of the Foliated Cross honoring the deity Unen K'awiil, a personification of young maize, and placed within it a tablet showing the World Tree as a maize plant. It depicts King Pakal, wrapped in his death shroud, rising up from the Underworld in his "resurrection body."
 

The shaman-astronomers arranged the pyramids so that as the night sky wheeled through its yearly cycle to reenact the events of creation, the three temples would engage this celestial pattern and reactivate the sacred time of that first awakening. On August 13, a date the Maya associate with creation, the night sky goes through a cycle from dusk to dawn that recounts the story of the transition from the third world into the fourth world when humans were created. During that evening, when the stars and constellations took up their creation-resurrection positions, and the glowing Milky Way/World Tree rose in the heavens, the temple complex came alive with Otherworldly forces.

"The Shamanic Bones of Zen"

In The Shamanic Bones of Zen: Revealing the Ancestral Spirit and Mystical Heart of a Sacred Tradition, celebrated author and Buddhist teacher Zenju Earthlyn Manuel undertakes a rich exploration of the connections between contemporary Zen practice and shamanic or indigenous spirituality. Drawing on her personal journey with the black church, with African, Caribbean, and Native American ceremonial practices, and with Nichiren and Zen Buddhism, she builds a compelling case for discovering and cultivating the shamanic, or magical elements in Buddhism -- many of which have been marginalized by colonialist and modernist forces in the religion.

Manuel is an ordained Zen Buddhist priest who previously led the Kasai River Healing Sangha in Oakland and now lives in New Mexico where she leads the Still Breathing Zen Sangha. For many years Manuel has also practiced singing, drumming and ceremonies from a variety of Indigenous traditions including Caribbean, Native American Lakota and Vodou from Dahomey, Africa. She writes, "I wondered: if the shamanic bones or Indigenous roots that were suppressed in the rising of Buddhism were unearthed, would the practice make more sense to practitioners, especially to black, Indigenous and people of color?"

Manuel speaks in deeply personal rather than theoretical terms about the underlying shamanic reality of Zen practice. Such awareness is crucial for the development of contemporary Western Zen. Displaying reverence for the Zen tradition, creativity in expressing her own intuitive seeing, and profound gratitude for the guidance of spirit, Manuel models the path of a seeker unafraid to plumb the depths of her ancestry and face the totality of the present. The book conveys guidance for readers interested in Zen practice including ritual, preparing sanctuaries, engaging in chanting practices, and deepening embodiment with ceremony. The Shamanic Bones of Zen will turn your conception of Zen inside out.

Return of the Sacred Feminine

"The world will be saved by Western Women." --Dalai Lama
 

We live in an age of accelerated change and transformation. It is a head-spinning, anxiety-inducing time. We see severe climate change, devastating oil spills, species dying off, and a deadly global pandemic that has affected everything and everyone. We find corruption and stagnation in business, politics and religions around the world. We see worldwide systemic racism, inequality and oppression. We see mass social delusion, extremism and a plethora of misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories. We witness fear, anger and hopelessness in our communities.

 

None of the countless issues we face on this planet today can be resolved by our current masculine, left-brain analytical thinking. A functioning, sustainable whole requires the feminine and the masculine to be integrated within the individual and within humanity as a whole, and we are increasingly aware of the dysfunctional results of millennia of human development based almost solely on patriarchal, masculine value systems. The patriarchy has now reached a toxic degenerate phase. After the leak of the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito opinion that will most likely overturn Roe v. Wade, we see the true patriarchal hatred of, contempt for, and prejudice against women. With autocrats like Vladimir Putin, we see the twisted rage of the male ego, which turns cruel and psychopathic, given unlimited power over others.
 

The feminine wasn't always subordinate to the masculine. According to world mythology, it was the Earth, Nature herself, who provided our oldest ancestral forefathers and mothers with the concept of the Great Mother and with a value system based on Nature's ways and cycles. The Great Mother was a symbol of life itself, for all life emerged from her womb. She sustained all of life through the nourishment she provided, and all living things returned to her upon death. Therefore, the Great Mother was seen as the life-giving, nurturing, creative and intuitive force. 
 

The feminine principle stems in its origins from this nature-based concept, as the female body exhibits the same patterns and cycles as nature. Consequently, the feminine was seen as the life-giving, nurturing, sustaining and life-embracing force, the creative vessel of life that contained, birthed, nurtured and protected. Not surprising, then, that ancient people respected the feminine. The power of the feminine as a calm receptive energy is the key to bringing balance to the world's excessively masculine state -- in other words, aggressive, extroverted, loud, superficial, materialistic, ego-driven culture.

Meeting My Spirit Guide

An excerpt from my new book, Shamanic Journeys: An Anthology.
 

My journey into shamanism began in 1988 when I learned how to take a shamanic journey. Learning to journey is the first step in becoming a shamanic practitioner. Once I learned to journey, my shamanic training began. I sought out and met my spirit helpers and guardian spirit. I made friends with the spirits of Nature. I communed with the archetypal realms of the collective soul. The spirit world became my classroom, and the spirits became my teachers. My first powerful journeys took place outside in the wild, immersed in the natural world. They were transcendent flights of the soul that I shall never forget.
 

I remember riding my bicycle through the forest one summer day when a monarch butterfly flew directly into my path. The butterfly is an archetypal symbol of transformation, transmutation and the human soul in world mythology and religion. Virtually all cultures have marveled at the process that transforms a caterpillar into a fluttering butterfly. When I encounter one of these remarkable beings, I stop and observe them carefully. I have learned to trust these endearing spirit guides. I once had the soul of a deceased relative appear to me as a butterfly on the day that she passed away. The butterfly landed on my nose while I was hiking that day. I felt her presence and knew that she was with me. Butterflies have brought me messages from my ancestors and guided me to specific places of power in the web of life on many occasions.
 

The monarch butterfly fluttered across the road in front of my bicycle and into the pine forest. I felt the urge to follow it. Over the years, I have learned to trust my intuition and follow my inner urges. This is a common form of communication and instruction by helping spirits.
 

I got off my bike and pursued the butterfly into the woods on foot. When it paused or changed directions so did I. If I lost sight of it, the monarch would soon reappear. Eventually, the butterfly led me to an area of disturbed soil under the forest canopy. I found several badger burrows dug into the sandy pumice soil. Badger is a spirit helper who connects us to our inner knowing and helps us see below the surface of things. The energy felt different here. There was an electrical tingle in my hands and scalp. I knew instantly that this was a power place for me -- a place to journey.
 

I returned the next day on my bike, bringing a Walkman cassette player and headphones so I could journey listening to the sound of drumming. I also brought a voice activated micro-cassette recorder so that I could narrate and record my journey as it transpired. This can be distracting at first, but it is one of the best ways I know to make sure you are getting all the information your helping spirits are giving you. On my first journey sitting near the entrance to a badger den, I encountered some very influential teachers.

The drumbeats carry me away on the wings of an eagle. I soar high over South Sister (a volcanic peak in the Central Oregon Cascades) and then dive into a cave on her south flank. Clear quartz crystals shimmer from the walls, floor and ceiling. I transform into a man and follow a narrow path through the crystal cave. The path leads me through a labyrinth of twists and turns until the cave ends abruptly in a wall of crystals. A small portal appears in the wall and sucks my awareness into a dark tunnel. I spiral downward and come out of the tunnel onto the rim of a red mesa. I see a pueblo below me at the base of the mesa. I hear drumming and chanting and see many dancers.

Suddenly, I become one of the dancers. I gaze at the man who plays the booming drum. He wears a ceremonial kilt, sash and red headband. He smiles at me and chants loudly. At the sound of his voice, I transform into a golden eagle and take flight. I circle the pueblo and then glide over the desert. I soar towards the sun high above the Earth. I see the Earth below transform into a beautiful crystal globe. I fold my wings and plunge to the Earth below. I fly across the desert to the ruins of an ancestral Puebloan cliff dwelling built high in the alcove of a towering sandstone cliff. I fly into a doorway and transform once again into a man. 

 

I look at the floor of the room and see the white bones of a human skeleton. The skeleton rises, transforming into a beautiful Pueblo woman wearing a royal blue shawl and a radiant white knee-length manta-dress embroidered with corn designs. Her black hair is styled in a traditional butterfly whorl. She wears white buckskin moccasins and a woven red sash around her waist. She walks toward me and gently caresses my cheek with her hand. She smiles and says, "I am your guide."  

 

I clasp her outstretched hand and we both transform into golden eagles. We fly away from the cliff dwelling and soar high above the desert. As the sun begins to set on the horizon, we separate and I return rapidly to the red mesa above the pueblo. I enter a small portal in the top of the mesa and retrace the passage back to my body.

The spirit guide I encountered in the preceding journey became my mentor in the ways of the spirit world. Known as Corn Woman or Corn Mother, she is an important deity archetype in Pueblo mythology. She represents fertility, life and the feminine aspects of this world. The importance of corn deities in Pueblo mythology reflects the importance of corn in the Pueblo diet. Each pueblo performs a ritual Corn Dance to honor Corn Woman and pray for rain, growth and fertility. A drummer and a chorus of chanting men support the lines of colorful dancers who move in a continually changing zigzag pattern. The dancers make gestures to indicate their requests to Corn Woman: lowering the arms depicts the lowering clouds, moving the arms in a zigzag motion denotes lightning, lowering the palms signifies rain, and lifting the hands symbolizes the growing stalks of corn.
 

The drummer I met in my spirit journey later manifested as a human guide in the physical world. Like the drummer in my journey, he wore a red bandana around his forehead and carried a drum. The shaman's name is Jade Grigori, and he mentored me in shamanic drumming.

The Seven Principles of Hermeticism

Hermeticism is an ancient religious-philosophical tradition based primarily upon writings attributed to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, an amalgamation of the Egyptian God Thoth and the Greek God Hermes. Hermeticism was largely a product of religious syncretism, drawing together themes from Judaism, Hellenistic philosophy and mythology, and classical Egyptian religion. The surviving writings of Hermeticism are known as the Corpus Hermetica, which is composed of a series of letters from Hermes Trismegistus, wherein he tries to enlighten his disciple. These letters were lost to the western world after classical times, but survived in the Byzantine libraries.

Throughout its history, Hermeticism was closely associated with the idea of a primeval, divine wisdom, revealed only to the most ancient of sages. In the Renaissance, this developed into the notion of an ancient theology, which asserted that there is a single, true theology which was given by God to some of the first humans, and traces of which may still be found in various ancient systems of thought. As a divine fountain of writing, the Hermetic texts contain the natural laws of the Universe. Knowing these principles will broaden your viewpoint, expand your horizons, and aid you in the pursuit of fuller, happier, more meaningful life. The Seven Hermetic Principles are:

1. The Principle of Mentalism: All is mind, the Universe is mental. The structure of our Universe is thought, mind and consciousness. Consciousness determines the form of our experience. Consciousness is the "theater of perceptual awareness." It is the collective consciousness of humanity that shapes physical reality. We are the Universe made conscious to experience itself. We are mind. We live in a Universe of mind. From photons to galaxies, life is conscious intelligent energy that can form itself into any pattern or function.
 

2. The Principle of Correspondence: As above, so below; as below, so above. Humanity is a microcosm of the macrocosm we call the Universe. Each human being is a hologram of the Cosmos, a weaving together of universal information from a particular point of view. Essentially, we are the Universe experiencing itself in human form.
 

3. The Principle of Vibration: Nothing rests, everything moves, everything vibrates. The Universe is made of vibrational energy. Everything in the Universe, from the smallest subatomic particle to the largest star, has an inherent vibrational pattern. The entire Universe is created through vibration and can be influenced through vibration.
 

4. The Principle of Polarity: Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of complementary opposites; like and unlike are the same. A dual or binary progression underlies the structure of reality. At a fundamental level, the laws of the Universe are written in a binary code. The binary mathematical system forms the basis of computer languages and applies to everything from crystalline structures to the genetic code.
 

5. The Principle of Rhythm: Life is a rhythmic existence. Polarity gave birth to the pulse of life. Pulsation gave birth to time and material form, while the intervals of pulsation remained timeless and formless. All things are born of rhythm and it is rhythm that holds them in form. Rhythm and resonance order the natural world. Dissonance and disharmony arise only when we limit our capacity to resonate totally and completely with the rhythms of life.
 

6. The Principle of Cause and Effect: Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause. Nothing happens by chance. Everything that we see in our world is a result of causes. For every effect in your life there is a specific cause. The intent and actions of an individual (cause) influence the future of that individual (effect).
 

7. The Principle of Gender: Gender is in everything; everything has its masculine and feminine principles; gender manifests on all planes. In the Hermetic texts, masculine energy is described as active, projective, expansive and corresponds to spirit. Feminine energy is described as passive, receptive, nurturing and corresponds to matter.

"Shamanic Journeys" Book Release

It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of my new book, Shamanic Journeys: An Anthology. This book is an anthology of shamanic journeys that I have taken over my 35-year exploration of shamanism, the most ancient and most enduring spiritual tradition known to humanity. Each inner journey has a unique story about what led up to the trance experience, and what I learned from it. They were powerful life-changing events for me. Journey work is therapeutic and liberating. My trance experiences were healing, insightful and empowering. They often triggered the cathartic release of suppressed emotions producing feelings of peace and well-being. The process restores emotional health through expression and integration of emotions.
 

Shamanism is based on the principle that innate wisdom and guidance can be accessed through the inner senses in ecstatic trance. We can engage the blueprint of our soul path through the vehicle of journeying. Shamanic journeying is a time-tested medium for individual self-realization. We can journey within to access wisdom and energies that can help awaken our soul calling and restore us to wholeness. It heightens our sense of mission and purpose, empowering our personal evolution. I invite you to journey with me into the inner realms of consciousness.

 

What is Shamanic Journeying?

Shamanism represents a universal conceptual framework found among indigenous tribal humans. It includes the belief that the natural world has two aspects: ordinary everyday awareness, formed by our habitual behaviors, patterns of belief, social norms, and cultural conditioning, and a second non-ordinary awareness accessed through altered states, or ecstatic trance, induced by shamanic practices such as repetitive drumming. The act of entering an ecstatic trance state is called the soul flight or shamanic journey, and it allows the journeyer to view life and life's problems from a detached, spiritual perspective, not easily achieved in a state of ordinary consciousness.

Basically, shamanic journeying is a way of communicating with your inner or spirit self and retrieving information. Your inner self is in constant communication with all aspects of your environment, seen and unseen. You need only journey within to find answers to your questions. You should have a question or objective in mind from the start. Shamanic journeying may be undertaken for purposes of divination, for personal healing, to meet one's power animal or spirit guide, or for any number of other reasons. After the journey, you must then interpret the meaning of your trance experience.

The drum, sometimes called the shaman’s horse, provides a simple and effective way to induce ecstatic trance states. When a drum is played at an even tempo of three to four beats per second for at least fifteen minutes, most novices report that they can journey successfully even on their first attempt. Transported by the driving beat of the drum; the shamanic traveler journeys to the inner planes of consciousness.

Contents
Introduction
1. Meeting My Spirit Guide
2. The Moon Goddess
3. The Guardian Spirit
4. The Storm
5. Drumming in Boynton Canyon
6. The Navajo Storm Pattern Rug
7. The Sweat Lodge Ceremony
8. The Great Kiva
9. Healing the Land
10. The Medicine Tipi
11. Spirit Horse Falls
12. The Pyramid of the Magician
13. You are Kukulkan
14. The Mystery of Death and Rebirth
15. The Earth is a Drum
16. The Rainbow Bridge
17. The Feathered Serpent
18. The Snowy Owl
19. Breitenbush Hot Springs
20. Guardian of the Pipe
Appendix A. Taking the Shamanic Journey
Appendix B. Ten Good Reasons to Take a Shamanic Journey
About the Author

Writing a Spiritual Memoir

As an author and blogger, my days are spent writing stories and blog posts. When I first entertained the idea of writing my spiritual memoir Riding Spirit Horse, I asked myself: "Why should I write my story? Will anyone care about it? Will anyone read it? What does it matter?" Of course, we can talk ourselves out of anything because ultimately very few of us will live extraordinary lives or have remarkable stories from the past. Nevertheless, I believe in the value of writing our stories because the life it could change may not be a reader's but our own.
 

Writing a memoir encourages self-reflection and self-examination, which can stir up long-buried emotions. Looking back over the arc of my life was a cathartic process that purged repressed emotions linked to events in the past. As I read through my journals, I relived past events that I had tried hard to forget. It was difficult but very therapeutic. I also rediscovered many fond forgotten memories, evoking nostalgia and a warm sense of joy. In writing my story, I feel like I have integrated all of my life experiences into the present moment. I remember who I really am and how I got here. I am truly more whole.
 

The process of writing a memoir becomes a meaningful and fulfilling journey to wholeness. The past self is fully integrated with the present self. In large part, this is the power a good memoir evokes in both the writer and the reader. Healing takes root through storytelling when the author makes self-discoveries. When those discoveries are revealed in a well-crafted narrative, the author has the makings of a compelling story. As author Thomas Larson puts it in his insightful book The Memoir and the Memoirist, "a memoir imaginatively renders our evolving selves and critically evaluates how memory, time, history, culture, and myth are expressed within our individual lives."
 

So I would encourage you to write your own story. Writing helps you claim a conscious identity, grounding you in a firm sense of self. Writing your story is very empowering. It helps you find your own unique voice. Through writing, you begin to make meaning of your life. It's a fundamental human need to know our past, how it links to the present and where we fit in. Many of us walk around in a fog of past events that we never fully understood or processed. When you write your story, you create an ordered pattern out of past events, and thereby construct meaning. You form a clearer understanding of who you are and how you got to where you are.
 

Once you have expressed an understanding of what your story means to you, you can then share it with others. Though we write for ourselves, a story implies both a narrator and a listener -- it is created for the purpose of sharing meaning and understanding. Stories help us connect with others and create relationships. For those of us who feel alone, our stories act as bridges to others and build community. Our stories allow us to be known and seen, understood and appreciated.
 

Willa Cather, an American Pulitzer Prize writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, once wrote that: "There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before." When writing a memoir, we may each be telling "the same stories," but we do it with our own unique use of language, imagery and style, which to me is what's most important. Every story has its own distinctive personality, tone and feeling.
 

Writing our life stories is an inner pilgrimage of transformation -- both cathartic and enlightening. We cannot help but grow, expand and change through this conscious probing engagement with our inner worlds. We learn more about ourselves and often bring closure to unresolved issues. Transforming our life into words is one of the most creative pursuits we can engage in, fostering a great sense of achievement. So treat yourself to the experience. Forgive yourself for past mistakes, embrace the past sorrow, appreciate the good times, and start writing your legacy!

The Importance of Corn Deities

First grown in Mexico some 5,000 years ago, corn soon became the most important food crop in North and Central America. Throughout the region, Puebloans, Mayans, Aztecs, and other Indigenous peoples worshiped corn deities and developed a variety of myths about the origin, planting, growing, and harvesting of corn, also known as maize. Secular and ceremonial life centered around the growing cycle of corn. Corn became an archetype planted in our collective unconscious.  
 

In the process of writing my spiritual memoir, Riding Spirit Horse, I discovered a recurring theme. One motif that keeps repeating itself in my shamanic journey and trance experiences is that of corn. On my first shamanic journey into the spirit world in 1988, I met a spirit guide who became my lifelong mentor in the ways of the spirit world. Known as Corn Woman or Corn Mother, she is an important deity archetype in Pueblo mythology. She represents fertility, life and the feminine aspects of this world.
 
The importance of corn deities in Pueblo mythology reflects the importance of corn in the Pueblo diet. Each pueblo performs a ritual Corn Dance to honor Corn Woman and pray for rain, growth and fertility. A drummer and a chorus of chanting men support the lines of colorful dancers who move in a continually changing zigzag pattern. The graceful dancers turn and pause, then turn again, creating a sweep of movement that ripples through the line like a breath of wind through stalks of ripening corn. The dancers make gestures to indicate their requests to Corn Woman: lowering the arms depicts the lowering clouds, moving the arms in a zigzag motion denotes lightning, lowering the palms signifies rain, and lifting the hands symbolizes the growing stalks of corn. It is a dance that evokes the timeless Pueblo way of being.
 
On my first pilgrimage to the Maya pyramids and ceremonial centers of Mexico in 1995, I had a vision of the Maize God, giving me insight into the mystery of death and rebirth. The Maya Maize God is a mythical dying-and-reviving god who was killed by the Lords of the Underworld, brought back to life by his sons, the Hero Twins, and emerged from the Underworld as corn. For horticultural societies like the Mayans and Puebloans, maize is the substance of life. Its growing cycle is a metaphor for the death, burial and rebirth of humans. When the corn seed from the harvest is blessed and interred in the earth, it is as though a dead human is buried. The embryonic seed germinates in the dark, moist earth and begins to grow. The corn plant turns its leaves toward the light of the sun, growing taller and taller. At the end of the season, when the corn cobs are fully ripe, it is as if the dead person surfaces to join the living. Just as darkness gives rise to light, so life grows from death.

Kamloops Indian Residential School

A haunting image of red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside, with a rainbow in the background, commemorating children who died at a residential school created to assimilate Indigenous children in Canada won the prestigious World Press Photo award on April 7. The image was one of a series of the Kamloops Indian Residential School shot by Canadian photographer Amber Bracken for The New York Times. 
 

It was not the first recognition for Bracken's work in the Amsterdam-based competition. She won first prize in the contest's Contemporary Issues category in 2017 for images of protesters at the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.
 

Her latest win came less than a week after Pope Francis made a historic apology to Indigenous peoples for the "deplorable" abuses they suffered in Canada's Catholic-run residential schools and begged for forgiveness.
 

Last May, the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc Nation announced the discovery of 215 unmarked graves near Kamloops, British Columbia. Established in 1890, it was Canada's largest Indigenous residential school and the discovery of the graves was the first of numerous, similar grim sites across the country.
 

"So we started to have, I suppose, a personification of some of the children that went to these schools that didn't come home," Bracken said in comments released by contest organizers. "There's also these little crosses by the highway. And I knew right away that I wanted to photograph the line of these crosses with these little children's clothes hanging on them to commemorate and to honor those kids and to make them visible in a way that they hadn't been for a long time."

 

Source: World Press Photo

Storytellers and Drums

An excerpt from my new memoir, Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism.
 

In the fall of 1991, my wife, Elisia, and I decided to travel for several months visiting bookstores and promoting my first book, The Shamanic Drum. At the time we were living in Bend, Oregon. We put our personal belongings into storage and ventured south through California and the Desert Southwest. We visited national parks and the Pueblo villages of Zuni, Acoma and Laguna.
 
After departing Laguna, we visited friends in Albuquerque. We spent the night in Albuquerque and then headed north to Santa Fe. We stopped at Cochiti Pueblo along the way. Cochiti Pueblo is renowned for its deep-toned ceremonial drums. Cochiti drums are crafted from hollowed logs, usually aspen or cottonwood--trees native to the high desert climate. Wet cowhide is stretched across the hollowed log and fastened with rawhide lacing. Different cowhides create different tones, and experienced Cochiti drum makers know the characteristic sounds of different skin types. Drums may also feature traditional artwork on the rawhide drum heads.
 
We arrived in Cochiti on a Sunday and roamed the sun baked streets of the ancient adobe pueblo looking for drum makers, but none were open for business. We circled the great round kiva that stood at the heart of the village and then spotted a hand painted sign in front of an adobe home: "Storytellers Here." A storyteller doll is a clay figurine made by the Pueblo people of New Mexico. The first contemporary storyteller was made by Helen Cordero of the Cochiti Pueblo in 1964 in honor of her grandfather Santiago Quintana, who was a tribal storyteller. It looks like a figure of a storyteller, usually a man or a woman, and its mouth is always open. It is surrounded by figures of children or animals, who represent those who are listening to the storyteller.
 
We parked in front of the house and knocked on the door. A smiling middle-aged man opened the door and invited us into his home. He invited us to sit down on comfortable armchairs in the living room and asked if we would like to see some of his daughter's storytellers. We nodded our heads, and he called out to his daughter to bring out her pottery. A dark-skinned, beautiful young woman entered the room with some of her exquisite hand painted figurines. Elisia purchased one of the storytellers and thanked them for their hospitality. The Cochiti people are known for their hospitality and friendship towards visitors who are welcomed to many of the annual ceremonies. I asked them if they knew of any drum makers open for business. The man shook his head no and suggested that we visit the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe where Pueblo artisans sell their wares.
 
We headed north to Santa Fe and made our way to the Palace of the Governors. The Palace of the Governors is an adobe structure located on Palace Avenue on the Plaza of Santa Fe in the historic district. It served as the seat of government for the state of New Mexico for centuries and is the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States. Pueblo artisans display their handmade wares on blankets under the portal of the Palace of the Governors. We strolled the plaza and admired the fine work of the artisans, which included pottery, textiles and jewelry made of traditional materials such as turquoise, coral and silver. At last we came upon what I had been searching for: Cochiti drums. Renowned Cochiti drum maker Gilbert Herrera sat on a folding camp chair with his drums displayed on a colorful blanket. Gilbert, a fourth generation drum maker, learned the craft from his father, Redbird. I purchased a log drum with a deep resonant tone and complimented Gilbert on his fine craftsmanship.
 
From Santa Fe, we drove to Taos and visited the famed Taos Drum Company. The owner gave us a tour of the large drum making facility. I left a copy of my book with the owner. We then visited the shop of resident artist and third generation drum maker Frank Mirabal in Taos Pueblo. Mirabal, a Taos Pueblo Indian, followed the example of his father and grandfather and became a drum maker. He acquires and processes the hides: deer, elk, buffalo, horse and cow. The frame of each drum is made from a hand-hollowed log of aspen or cottonwood: trees from his area that will not dry and crack easily. The pitch of the drum depends on the diameter and the depth of the drum.
 
We purchased three of Mirabal's beautiful log drums, one of which was later gifted to Wallace Black Elk, a traditional Lakota elder and spiritual interpreter. Born and raised on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, Wallace was one of the original spiritual advisors to the American Indian Movement, a grassroots organization formed to address issues of poverty and police brutality against Native people. He was present at the occupation of Wounded Knee and was instrumental in the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978.

Conflict and Unity: An I Ching Perspective

Russia's barbaric invasion of Ukraine is a nightmare turned into reality. I feel compelled to write a post about it as my personal reflection, but also as my small contribution to the joint learning process. The ancient time-tested wisdom of the I Ching could perhaps help us to understand and resolve the complex issues and conflicts that lead to violence and war. The I Ching is an ancient Chinese text and divination system which counsels appropriate action in the moment for a given set of circumstances. For 5000 years, people have turned to the I Ching to help them uncover the meaning of their experience and to bring their actions into harmony with the interests of society and the cosmos as a whole.

 

In the I Ching, there are several hexagrams that offer insight into war. One is Hexagram 6: Conflict, and another is Hexagram 8: Unity. Hexagram 6 describes a tense situation with a high level of contention and strife. Conflict develops when one feels himself to be in the right and runs into opposition. Escalating conflict is a no-win situation, therefore the hexagram counsels compromise and resolution. To carry on the conflict to the bitter end has exceedingly harmful effects even when one is in the right. Conflicts in which one party is not sincere inevitably lead to subterfuge and distortions. Conflicting parties can profit from the advice of a truly wise mediator. Clarification will bring about understanding and resolution. There is little chance of success without a unity of forces.

 

Conflict, in essence, is the absence of unity. We live in a conflicted world and very often we experience conflict ourselves. In fact, conflict is so pervasive in our polarized world that we take it for granted and deem it to be an inevitable part of life. This perspective has significant consequences; among them is the fact that by taking conflict for granted, our efforts to resolve it often fail and conflict turns into violence.

 

Hexagram 8 essentially describes unity as the binding force within society. It represents the idea of union between the different members and classes of a state and how it can be secured. Unity is a conscious and purposeful convergence of two or more diverse entities in a state of harmony, integration, and cooperation to create a new and evolving entity or entities. The hexagram portends that a leader with a strong and guiding personality will be the center of union. It emphasizes that joining people and things through recognizing their essential qualities is the adequate way to handle it. It counsels that those who do not seek to promote and enjoy union until it is too late will be left out in the cold. Conflict within weakens the power to conquer danger without.

 

Unity is the fundamental law of existence. Life takes place in the context of unity, and when the law of unity is violated, conflict and violence is the outcome. Everything that exists is the outcome of the law of unity. At the physical level, the law of unity ensures order and stability in the way subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, stars, and galaxies cohere and operate in a harmonious and integrated manner. At the biological level, the very process of formation and continuation of life is dependent on the proper operation of the law of unity. The same is true at the social level. Families are happy, healthy, and stable when unity exists between all its members. Communities prosper and are safe in the context of unity, and nations advance in every area when peace is present. At all levels of human life, unity, rather than conflict, is the fundamental operative and creative force.

"Riding Spirit Horse" Book Release

Happy vernal equinox! I hope you're safe and remaining hopeful despite the horrific world events taking place. It's a head-spinning, anxiety-inducing time. The past two years of the coronavirus pandemic have been filled with unprecedented challenges and uncertainty. Immersing myself in a writing project was my way to cope with a global pandemic that has affected everything and everyone. The isolation and prodigious amount of free time provided fertile ground for writing my life story. So it is with great pleasure that I announce the release of my autobiography, Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism. 

 

In this spiritual memoir, I recount my journey into shamanic practice. It has been a lifelong process--a path that continues to unfold. I am sharing my journey and learnings because many people in today's world are being called by Spirit to become shamans or shamanic practitioners. A yearning exists deep within many of us to reconnect to the natural world. It is a call to a life lived in balance with awareness of Nature, of Spirit and of Self. We live in a culture that has severed itself from Nature and Spirit. Humans have lost touch with the spirit world and the wisdom of inner knowing. The spirits, however, have not forgotten us. They are calling us to a path of environmental sanity, to rejoining the miraculous cycle of Nature.
 

The narrative of my story moves from my first ecstatic experience as a youth at a church revival to my mystical shamanic awakening in the wilderness, transformational pilgrimages to sacred places, working with indigenous wisdom keepers, to the experiences that prompted my writing, particularly my trance experiences "riding the drum" or Spirit Horse. Studying with Native elders and shamans, I discovered my shamanic gifts as a drummer, storyteller and ceremonialist.
 
A journey into shamanism is a pilgrimage of the soul. My journey has taken me down many spiritual paths. As a youth growing up, I embraced the teachings of Christ; I later studied and practiced the teachings of Taoism and Buddhism, all of which have their roots in shamanic practices from the earliest tribal communities. Shared core principles and truths weave a common thread through all spiritual traditions. This golden thread runs through the lives and the teachings of all the great prophets, seers and sages in the world's history.
 
Ultimately, all contemplative spiritual practice leads to the evolution of conscious awareness and union with the divine in the present moment. The perennial wisdom traditions teach us that the "here and now" is eternal, unchanging and omnipresent; it should be the primary focus of our life. When we are not present in the moment, we become a victim of time. Our mind is pulled into the past or the future or both. The present moment is all we ever have. The eternal now is the fundamental ceremony of life. When we bring ourselves fully into the present moment, our life becomes a spiritual practice and an opportunity to ride in beauty on the windhorse of authentic presence! I invite you to look inside Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism and to view the official book trailer.

Joseph Rael's Sound Peace Chambers

Joseph Rael, whose Tiwa name, Tsluu teh koy ay, given to him as a child at Picuris Pueblo, means "Beautiful Painted Arrow," is widely regarded as one of the great Native American holy men of our time. He was born in 1935 on the Southern Ute reservation to a chief's granddaughter and a Tiwa-speaking Picuris native. At about age 7, shortly before his mother's death, he went to live in Picuris near Taos, NM, where his visionary powers were developed until, at about age 12, he began to assist the village holy man in curing practices.
 

He was educated both at Santa Fe Indian school and public high school before getting a BA in political science from the University of New Mexico and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For a number of years he worked in various capacities in Indian health and social services in both New Mexico and Colorado.
 

At age 45 he quit his social services job to devote full time to teaching and following his visions wherever they might lead. In 1983 Joseph had the vision to build a Sound Peace chamber, a kiva-like structure where people of all races might gather to chant and sing for world peace and to purify the earth and oceans. He built the first such chamber at his then-home, a trailer park in Bernalillo, NM, and shortly like-minded people began to build Sound Peace chambers in other locations.
 

At present, Sound Peace chambers have been built around the globe. Writes Joseph, "My vision is that through sound we will bring about peace and other important vibrations. Sound can teach us a way to create without destruction." Meanwhile, Joseph began leading ceremonial dances, based on his visions, with participants from all races and nationalities. "When you dance you are expanding the vibrations of insight and manifestation," he writes. "I created three dances -- the long dance, the sun-moon dances and the drum dance -- for these spiritual gifts."
 

Joseph teaches that "Every dance, every ceremony, is both for you and for the cosmos." In 1999, Joseph retired from active leadership of the dances he had begun, turning them over to a new generation of his students. Joseph Rael is the author of a number of books, including Being and Vibration, Sound: Native Teachings and Visionary Art and his autobiography, House of Shattering Light. He is also an artist. His paintings, like his ceremonies and teachings, are based on his visions. They have been called "portal" art, because they open a doorway into alternate dimensions of reality. As a Native American elder, Joseph Rael has spoken before the United Nations and addressed a conference of military officers at the Pentagon on the role of the warrior in the modern world.

Give Peace a Chant

Dear friends, I know that our hearts are united in prayers for the people of Ukraine. Please join me at your altar, shrine or sacred space to chant for peace. Many devotional chants are mantras -- single words or phrases repeated over and over. Mantras are truly indestructible positive energies, meaning that they remain in the universe indefinitely for the greater good of all. One of the most simple and powerful mantras we can chant is "Om Shanti." "Om Shanti" is an ancient Sanskrit invocation for peace and is usually chanted three times to become "Om Shanti Shanti Shanti."

Like many mantras, this one begins with "Om." The word "Om" is believed to constitute the primal sound from which the universe constantly emanates. Chanting "Om" attunes us to the eternal oneness of all that is, unifying body, mind and spirit. The word "shanti" means a deep and profound level of peace. The meaning of "Om Shanti Shanti Shanti" is "Om, peace, peace, peace" -- "peace of mind, peace in speech, and peace in the body." It is also believed to harmonize the three lokas or cosmic realms: heaven, earth and the underworld.

When pronouncing "Om Shanti," the "Om" should be allowed to resonate throughout the body including the cavities in the head. The "a" in the word "shanti" should be long and drawn-out like in the word "father." The "a" is two beats long. The "t" in the word "shanti" should be pronounced pressing the tongue against the teeth; this sounds different than the English version of "t". Breathe in through the nose and voice the sounds as you exhale through the mouth. When chanted with love, devotion and sincerity, the positive effects are greatly accentuated. Send that positive energy like a beam of light to the people of Ukraine. Imagine that light enveloping and protecting them. Click here to listen to the mantra pronunciation and performance. Here are 22 meaningful ways we can help Ukraine.

Drumming for Peace

My fellow drummers, please join me at your altar, shrine or sacred space to drum and pray for the people of Ukraine. Our prayers do not have to be complex or eloquent; just simple and sincere from the heart. The power of prayer should never be underestimated. Words have the power to transform substance. As responsible human beings, let us affirm a world of peace, harmony and balance. Let us cultivate care for life and one another. See things as they are, in process of change, without fixation on imbalance. If we focus on conflict, we will get more conflict. However, if we focus on peace we will get more peace. As soon as we focus on a goal, the Universe will take us in that direction.
 

We can put our prayers into the drum and then send them out into the circle of life on the voice of the drum. The sound waves of the drum create a bridge to the spirit world. When we play a drum, the sound can be heard throughout all realms of the spirit world. Through the drum, we can engage the spirit world to effect specific changes in the physical world. All change begins in the spirit world and then is manifested in the physical world. In the shaman's world, all human experience is self-generated. Experience is shaped from within since the creative matrix of the Universe exists within human consciousness. For the shaman, changing reality is not just an ability, but also a duty one must perform so that future generations will inherit a world where they can live in peace, harmony and abundance. Aho!

Vagabonding as a Spiritual Path

The natural world is my muse and sanctuary -- a place for refuge and discovery. My most memorable moments have been in the outdoors. I have hiked thousands of miles of trails through forests, deserts and mountains. Having spent much of my life traveling and trekking, I still crave adventure and new experiences. Vagabonding or nomadic wandering is a unique way of living, a spiritual path to authenticity, self-awareness and solitude. Solitude allows time for self-examination, relaxation away from urban stress, and a chance to meditate, contemplate, or just zone out for hours at a time. Many of my most memorable experiences took place during solo journeys into Nature. The longer the solo immersion, the more transformational the experience.

In October 2011, I felt Spirit calling me. I felt compelled to travel to the sacred sites and power places that beckoned me. I followed my intuition and deepest instincts. I traveled with my drum and medicine bundle to shamanize the meridian system of Mother Earth's numinous web, which is the planetary counterpart to the acupuncture meridian system of the human body. At the intersection points of the planet's energy web exist holy places, power spots, or acupuncture points. Like acupuncture needles, humans are capable of maintaining the harmonious flow of the planetary energy meridians by making an Earth connection at power places.

Many magical things happened during my two month pilgrimage. I camped at Panther Meadows on Mount Shasta. I hiked among the oldest living things on the Earth in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. I soaked in the healing waters of Umpqua, Buckeye, Travertine, Whitmore, and Keough Hot Springs. Indigenous people worldwide believe that where fire and water mix at a hot spring is a sacred place. A water deity, usually a goddess, resides in each spring. People make pilgrimages to thermal springs to connect with the goddess and to supplicate the benefits of her healing graces. The sacred ambience of the place, its geothermal energy and the pilgrim's relationship to it, is sufficient to fulfill the pilgrim's aspirations.

I ventured south through California and explored the Owens Valley area on the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest. Before returning home in early December, I planned a four day desert exploration. On day one, I visited the Sleeping Lizard, which is an ancient vision quest site located in the Volcanic Tablelands north of Bishop. This site is sacred to the Owens Valley Paiute people, who use alcoves in the rock for vision quests. I took a journey back in time to visit the ancient ones who etched petroglyphs in the volcanic rock.

Next, I drove up the Whitney Portal Road towards the trailhead that hikers climb up to Mount Whitney. Unfortunately the road to the trailhead was closed for the winter. I backtracked down the road and camped in the Alabama Hills, located in the shadow of Mount Whitney just west of Lone Pine. The rounded weathered contours of the reddish-orange foothills contrast with the sharp ridges of the Sierra Nevada to the west. Throughout the last century, the Alabama Hills have appeared in hundreds of films and commercials. During my visit, a Quintin Tarantino project (Django Unchained) was being shot there.

In one day I drove from Mount Whitney (the sacred masculine), the tallest mountain in the continuous 48 states, into Death Valley (the sacred feminine), the lowest elevation in North America. Shortly after entering Death Valley National Park, I took an eight-mile detour north along the Saline Valley Road to visit a Joshua Tree forest at Lee Flat. The Saline Valley Road is very rough and progress was slow, but I eventually reached the magical forest. A cold wind buffeted me each time I left the confines of my truck to hike and photograph the forest. I would have camped here for the night if not for the high elevation and bitter cold wind. I camped instead at Panamint Springs Resort, 22 miles inside the western border of Death Valley National Park.

The following day, I explored Darwin Falls and the remote Panamint Valley adjacent to Death Valley. I camped for the next few days at the far northeast end of the South Panamint Dry Lake, a small wetland, grassland, dune system and mesquite bosque. The warm sulfur springs of this desert oasis provide habitat for frogs, shore birds, marsh hawks, and wild burros. A short-eared owl visited my campsite each evening at dusk. The stars bathed the cold desert in a warm glow. Few things are more serene than the deep stillness of the desert on a starry night. In that stillness, I am reborn, forever changed.

Oh, how I love vagabonding. Shamanism is deeply rooted in Nature and a nomadic lifestyle. The emphasis is on the individual, of breaking free and discovering one's own uniqueness in order to bring something new back to the group. Like drumming, nomadic wandering alters your ordinary everyday awareness. It is another means of habitual pattern disruption for reimprinting on alternate realties. When you leave home, meet new people, experience new stimuli, and process new information, you're soon intoxicated on a natural high. As Ed Buryn, the godfather of modern vagabonding puts it, "Vagabonding is nothing less than reality transformation, and its power is not to be underestimated."

Our Milky Way Galaxy Vibrates Like a Drum

According to astronomers, our Milky Way galaxy is warped and vibrates like a drum because of the influence of two companion galaxies. Astronomers say peculiar drum-like vibrations in our Milky Way galaxy may explain why it is warped, and similar explanations may apply for other warped galaxies. The researchers said the effect is due to the most prominent of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies, a pair of galaxies called the Magellanic Clouds. They are stirring up with the Milky Way's dark matter, an invisible substance that is thought to make up more then 90 percent of the weight of the universe. The interaction creates a warp in the galaxy that has puzzled astronomers for half a century. The warp, most obvious in the thin disk of hydrogen gas permeating the galaxy, extends across the Milky Ways 200,000-light year width. A light year is the distance light travels in a year.

Leo Blitz, professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues charted this warp and analyzed it in detail for the first time, based on a new galactic map of light given off by the  hydrogen gas. They found the gas layer is vibrating like a drumhead, and that the vibration consists almost wholly of three notes, also called modes. These notes would be unimaginably deep by human standards some three million octaves, or scales, below the note called middle C on a piano. This means that if a piano could play these notes, it would require a keyboard about the width of Iceland to do so.

It's not uncommon for astronomical objects to exhibit some sort of regular vibrations, like musical instruments, so that they can be said to be playing notes. Which note depends on the vibration speed. A study last summer found that a violent quake on the surface of a compact type of star called a neutron star left it playing the note of F sharp.

Although the Milky Way's warp has been known for almost 50 years, astronomers previously dismissed the Magellanic Clouds as its cause because the galaxies combined masses are only 2 percent that of Milky Way. This mass was thought too small to influence a massive disk equivalent to about 200 billion suns during the clouds 1.5 billion-year orbit of the galaxy. But Martin D. Weinberg of the University of Massachusetts joined Blitz to create a computer model that takes into account the Milky Ways dark matter. The motion of the clouds through the dark matter creates a wake that enhances their gravitational influence on the disk. The wake stirs a vibration at the center of the dark matter blob pervading the galaxy. This in turn makes the embedded galactic disc oscillate. When this dark matter is included, the Magellanic Clouds, in their orbit around the Milky Way, closely reproduce the type of warp observed in the galaxy. The model not only produces this warp in the Milky Way, but during the rotation cycle of the Magellanic Clouds around the galaxy, it looks like the Milky Way is flapping in the breeze.