Tree Life Initiation
Harbin Hot Springs, California
2010

My soul has been craving a sweat lodge
Yet somehow the universe
Was blocking me
From that sacred space
I honor the blocks
Yet still keep reaching my body
Towards the possibility
Of hot sacred space

Arrive at the last lodge of the season
At Harbin
To find that it is full
Again
I am to sit out
I surrender

There is a reason
It will clarify

I watch everyone enter lodge
As I sit outside in the sunshine

After the first round
Several people exit
I lean my forehead into earth
As I enter in
To sit next to one of my soul brothers

Hot grand-father rocks
Home
 
Last round pushes me into new
Spaces of heat
I want to lie down
But feel spirit wants me to sit
So I sit as air around me melts away
Breath

Just as I feel I can’t live through another
Moment
All eases
As I slip into a new space
Of endurance

All this training
Is about building endurance
Is about pushing through all
That one believes is
 
I feel my head space fill with heat
I feel my heart space split slightly
Reminding me of one of the grand-father rocks
That entered lodge in the shape of a heart
Cracked with orange glow coming from within

Another song
More heat
Heat intensifies
If only I could lie my head on the earth
Yet I feel spirit wants me to sit
And I feel I want myself to sit
So I sit

And feel heat slip deeper
Into spaces within me
I begin to boil within

My breaths feel shorter
Wild grandmother priestess
Pours more water onto the rocks
I feel the moistness wrap around
The base of my spine

Earth calls me
Yet I sit in the fire
 
I sit through fire
I become fire

We finish with Amazing Grace
I envision the man who wrote the song
Once a slave-trader
Who got caught in the storm of a life-time
With a load of slaves chained up in the bowels of his boat
As enormous waves flung the ship in
Every direction
As they all looked into the eyes of death
Songs arose out of the bowels of the ship

The slave-trading captain
Fighting for his life in the wild ocean
Felt the power of slave song
Rise into his soul
Instead of screaming in fear
The slaves united in soul
Pouring their life juice into sound
As waves pounded them
The captain swore into the dark night
That if they survive
He will free them all

They did all survive
He turned the ship around
Freed them
And freed himself
Pouring his life juice
Into writing Amazing Grace

In the fire of lodge
I sing Amazing Grace
Sending my deepest gratitude
To the grandfather rocks
Who are giving up their life essence

For the first time in lodge
I’m able to chat with the rocks
I’m able to chat with Source
I’m able to chat with White Buffalo Calf Woman
I’m able to share my deep gratitude
For this sacred space
That has contributed to my
Awakening

A-ho

Door opens to sunshine
I walk outside feeling energy surge
Through me
I squat down to the earth several times
Close to passing out
And then I go down onto my knees

Energy surges through me
My entire body shakes with it
I think that I’m having my first
Seizure
Yet I’m certain that one doesn’t have clear thoughts
During a seizure
My entire body shakes
As if dying
Kundalini energy swirls upwards

My hearing dims
My body weakens
 
Although there are many people around
No one approaches me to help
As is my process
I make my way alone through it

I rise from the earth and
Unsteadily walk towards a large tree
With wet grass spread below it
I lie down on earth
 
I feel earth energy enter my body
From below
I feel earth energy flow into me
Everything tingles
Everything vibrates

I become One with the earth

Branches of the tall tree Goddess
Reach down all around me
I feel cool moistness of earth below me
And I am held in tree arms
I am held
I am fed
I am bathed in sacred light

Words download into me
Images download into me
I float in sacred space

One with the essence
Of all life

When I stand
My goddess necklace breaks
I knew it would break in a sacred moment
And she does

I stand in deep gratitude
Beneath tree goddess
On our earth

Later when I walk alone
Through the forest trail
My hearing has dimmed
So that I feel sunk in deep within

“What is happening?” I ask Source
“Am I going to be OK?”
I don’t feel myself here fully
I’m not sure where I am

“Everything will be fine,” says Source
“Right now, you’re walking mostly
in Spirit World
You’re more with us
Than on this forest trail
Where your physical body moves.”

I take that in
I continue to walk slowly
Each footstep echoes deep within me
I feel each cell of my body connecting
With earth below
And feel the echo
Through my dimmed hearing

I look around at the beautiful forest
I look down at my wet body
Sweat-soaked sanguine turtle wrap
Covering my naked flesh
I walk slowly
Feeling alive
In this new light body
That I come into
More
Each day.

******************************WE ARE ALL STARS***************************

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