Coyote Wisdom

-- teachings from a native shaman

unedited pre-book version

Coyote woke me early the next morning. I could smell fresh coffee. Today we would walk into the hills. He told me that we would look for something, but he didn’t say what. Once we were walking he finally said, “We are looking for snake energy.”

Looking for snakes wasn’t exactly a thrill to me. It’s not that I’m hysterically afraid of snakes. I just have no desire for one as a pet. I also don’t want to be bitten by one, especially the rattle-snake, for I have an innate aversion to pain and death. Some Indian shamans go through initiation rituals whereby they are repeatedly bitten by the rattle-snake. This is to build strength and probably to build greater immunity to other poisons. It is also a way for the shaman to gain the snake spirit as a power-ally. I didn’t want to appear wimpish, but I decided to share my fear with my guide.

Coyote laughed. “No, I’m not leading you to a snake bite. In fact, if you see a rattler, you’d best keep a distance. The Way I’m teaching you is without tricks or machoistic challenges. Well, it’s not without challenges, but there is no reason to foolishly put ourselves in danger of sickness or death. We’ll probably encounter a rattler. This will be a sign. But it’s not what we’re looking for. We’re searching for snake energy, not snakes. You must learn to distinguish between spirit energies and their manifestations in form, and learn the difference between what you’re really after and the outward sign of this. Snake energy is one kind of energy. One of the more important kinds of energy. It is a subtle energy or spiritual energy. But it’s not really provided by snakes. They’re just manifestations of the energy. The actual snake energy is in the land. It’s found concentrated in certain places. Just as bear energy is concentrated in other places. In other words, certain sacred places have a concentration of a particular animal energy. It is this energy which is the original mother of that particular animal, so it is like going to the very source of the animal power. The source is in the land itself. This is one of the great secrets. But now the secret must be told because man has so much technological power that he can destroy the sources of life on the land. We must preserve sacred places. The problem is that average man has no sensitivity to these energies, so he would see no reason to preserve these places. It’s easy to recognize the sacred beauty of a waterfall, but less easy to recognize the beauty and importance of say, snake energy.”

“But why does one need snake energy,” I asked.

He said, “That is a good rational question. But it’s not easy to answer. A child might ask their parent why they need to eat fresh vegetables. And the parent just says that it is good for them. Until one discovers snake energy and works with it, one could not know why it is important. But I’ll have to give you some hints about it, so that you will be able to recognize it. It is a vital energy which comes up from the land. It feels almost electrical as it charges you up. Remember it comes from below you, up through your feet and legs, or up through the base of the spine. You can breathe it up into your power centre, the energy centre of the lower belly. Here you can accumulate the energy and store it. Once stored it can be used consciously at times, and it will also be used unconsciously or automatically by the rest of the body. It charges up the etheric body, the elctromagnetic body pervading the physical system, which is your vital energy body. Snake energy is the electrical nature of this energy body. It is balanced by a magnetic kind of energy, which we call bear energy. But now we are concentrating on the snake energy. Sometimes this snake energy feels like a sexual energy. That is because it comes up from the earth and passes through the sexual centre into the power centre. You could use it sexually and even store it there if you felt sexually deficient. But it is most useful if stored in the power centre, where it can then be distributed to other centres and parts of the etheric field.

As Coyote and I walked, he have me practices to do. He explained that these practices were absolutely necessary in preparation for being sensitive to the energies and for gaining the ability to accumulate them.

“First, you must learn to breathe consciously. Be aware of your breath at every moment of the earth walk. First you simply observe your breath. Don’t try to control it. Just be aware of it. If you can remain aware of the breath, you can develop a concentration and continuity of consciousness. The average person, who has made no practice of this, has no real continuity of consciousness. Their mind is fragmented. Their attention is scattered and jumping from one thought to another or from one outer attraction to another. So learn to maintain awareness of the breath, while you walk and while you are sensitive to your surroundings. You learn to walk in the breath. Eventually you feel as though your own breath and your own walk is in flow with a greater breath and a greater movement of life. Remember that your breath is your connection with the surrounding spirit of nature or of earth. If we develop a sensitivity to the spirit of nature surrounding us, while being continuously aware of the breath, then our breath comes into a sensitive rapport and harmony with the surrounding spirit. Then you are breathing With the surrounding spirit of nature, and you begin to come into unity with the greater life. The greater life is nature, is earth. This is your own greater life. You are not really separate from the greater nature of earth. The earth is alive. The earth is breathing alive. The spirit of earth is life. It is breath. Actually, the breath of life is one of the four great aspects of Divine Nature or Great Spirit. It is the element of Air, which I find as coming from the North Spirit. But I’m not interested in intellectualising about this. Breath and the spirit of life are real experiences, which do not require thinking or explanations. In fact, it is thinking which distracts from the true experience and the true development of consciousness. Consciousness is not thinking. It is an energy of light. And it is actually in the air. This is another great secret. Consciousness is in the air. You can intentionally breathe it in. We call this filling yourself with spirit, or breathing in spirit.

There are four great qualities of energy which can breathed. I’ll just mention two, so that you don’t start thinking too much about it. One is snake energy, which I sometimes call the vital electric energy. To be more simple, you can breathe in vital earth energy from below you and from the rocks. It’s also in the plants and trees, so you can breathe it from trees. You can also consciously breathe this out to help others, and you can simply be in the breathing of it, that is, be in the rhythm of this earth energy. Learn to do this while you walk in nature. Come into the rhythmic vital breath of earth. Then you are breathed. Then you are in the earth breath of the Mother. In this way you become in attunement and unity with the very vitality of life, and you feel in unity with the earth Mother or great earth spirit.

In teaching you about conscious breathing, I’ll tell you the two basic phases. First you must simply be aware of your own breath, your own vitality, and your own energy field. Learn to be collected in yourself, concentrating your energies with the breath, and developing an ability to not lose or distract your energies. This is the first phase. The next phase is becoming sensitive and in attunement with the source of this vital energy. This source is within the earth and within the land. Learn to breathe up this energy from the earth, then breathe out harmony and appreciation. Here you are receiving what you need from the earth. Take in all the good vital energy. On the out breath you just appreciate or give thanks. You begin to feel part of the earth, inseparably connected. If you continue with this, you will naturally and spontaneously come into harmony and oneness with the earth breath, and you will feel as though you are being breathed by the very spirit of earth. It is from this state of unity and harmony that true shamanic experience can occur, for this is coming back to our natural unity with the earth. You enter the rhythm and flow of the earth spirit. Your own breath becomes one with the Mother’s breath.

Then you are in true attunement with the earth. Then you truly experience who you are. You then know the greater you, the greater self, which is the earth being. This is the return to the earth, the return to our true nature, to our true self. It is a return to the Mother, but not a return to pre-consciousness. What I mean is that we are naturally born from the Mother, and we all have an innate connection to the earth Mother. But this connection is at first unconscious.

We begin to develop a personal consciousness, related to a personal power centre. This is what psychologists call the development of ego. It is part of the natural process of spiritual growth. Yet the average person, no matter what age, is like a teenager still celebrating their personal separation from the mother. Individuality is a wonderful gift of Great Spirit, and in its first stages it demands a kind of rebellion from collectivity. But nothing can really survive in complete separation. The ego, or the personal consciousness, must re-unite with the Mother or with the greater circle of life. This return can and ought to be a conscious return, so that the personal consciousness is not completely destroyed but is actually empowered by the return. By way of a conscious return to the greater life, the greater self is realised in the indidual conscousness. This is to do with the very purpose of human life. It is very difficult to explain without appearing to be paradoxical. One just has to understand it directly. Yet this is not merely an understanding of the head or the brain.

What is more important is the experience, rather than an intellectual understanding. And experience must involve the whole person, not just the head. Thus it must be an experience of the feelings, the sensitivity and the body. Spiritual realisation is not just a head experience. It is an energy experience, involving the body, the feelings, the breath, and consciousness. Unlike some other spiritual teachings, this Way is not simply about transcendence. Transcendence is one aspect of true realisation, but it’s not really the final aim. In fact, transcendence is not all that difficult to achieve. In this complete Way, we come into an energetic, vital, and sensitive realisation of spirit. We realize the full unity of spirit right here in our earth life, in our bodies, and through our breath. We are not trying to transcend the earth or the body. We are realising the absolute spirit pervading throughout all life, all earth, and eventually becoming one with the spiritual mind and heart of the earth.

Remember that the earth is who you are. That is what you will finally realize. In a greater sense, the whole infinite universe is who you are, yet it should not be forgotten that we are here to realize our earth nature, which of course is a reflection of the whole universe. Our divine purpose is here on earth. We can reach into the stars. We can gain spiritual inspiration from the whole universe of stars, just as we can open our minds to the creative imagination of the Great Spirit. Yet if we forget the earth, then we are forgetting the purpose for being here. My teacher said that the purpose of this earth life is not to get off the planet, as though this earth were some sort of lower hell, but rather the purpose is for our spirit to awaken and realize itself here on earth. Our purpose is to fully get here and fully experience the earth, then hopefully give something back to the earth and to life. The purpose for living on this planet is to finally get here. Most people aren’t. We are here to be here. We are living for the purpose of being fully alive. People presume that they are fully alive just because they get up in the morning. But the truth is that very few people are alive in the fullest sense. The average person doesn’t even have a clue as to their potential for being alive. Our potentials for greater awareness, sensitivity, and many natural abilities never have the opportunity to actualise. This is simply because our potentials never get tried. Our general problem is that as children we challenged ourselves and workied at developing abilities, as in speaking, reading, writing, counting, music, sport, etc. But then we get to an age when society says, “Now you are an adult. Go to work. Go to war. Go make babies.” The great delusion of this society is children have become adults. That is great joke. So called adults are merely large children who delude themselves into believing that they know the purpose of life and that they are now capable of fulfilling this purpose. The very people who lead the world order - the politicians, the business managers and capitalists - they went to college and people told them they were smart and they got good marks. But what did they learn? Mathematics, business, law? Maybe they learned to look good on TV or in their offices. They learned some small little bit of the whole picture of what life is about, and now they lead the whole world. Now they have great effect on the whole future of humanity and the planet. Is that weird or what? These children, who excelled in just a few classes in the whole university of life, are supposed to lead the world. The scarry thing is that these people, like most people, don’t seem to realize some of the most important truths about life and about who we are.

What I’m saying is that there is a lot to learn, which is seldom taught. A lot to develop in oneself, which is seldom tried. There are very basic skills or abilities, which are natural to the human kind, and these can only be developed with some practice, with intentional attempts. You wouldn’t learn to read or play the guitar without some practice, so you also need some practice to be able to see into a more subtle dimension of nature. You even need practice to develop consciousness. We presume that all human beings have consciousness. But this is a grand generalisation. There are many possible degrees of consciousness, and there are even different dimensions of consciousness. But nobody teaches us these things in school, where we just learn maths and reading and white-man’s history...

We continued walking up the mountain. Coyote said that real experience would only happen in the silence. I had to be in the silence, but at first he would have to talk in order to teach me.

“Talking about things,” he said, “is certainly not equal to real experience. The talk is only to give your mind a practical understanding of the work you need to do yourself. I can give you the talk, and I may even be able to lead you into some understandings, but I cannot do for you what you must do yourself. This we will call practice or work. It is what you must take responsibility for. Only you can do these practices or this work. If you don’t, then nothing real in this Way will ever happen for you. The moment you take responsibility for doing a practice, or re-orienting yourself to life in new way, then a whole range of possibilities open up. Basically you need to be committed to a self-transformation, a new way of being, or a new way of relating in the world. Then you need to do what is necessary in this commitment. Part of what happens along the Medicine Way is inaugarated by the elements of nature or by Great Spirit, yet another part must be initiated by you. In fact, your part in this new relationship must come first. You need to make some self-effort at expanding your awareness, increasing your sensitivity, and attuning to the greater elements and spirits of nature. I’ll just tell you, honestly, that you have to make very definite efforts. Otherwise, you really won’t get anywhere on the Path. This Way is not a talk. It is a walk. You can talk about things. You can think about these things, and thinking is just self-talk. But finally you need to walk your talk. And nobody else can do it for you. Most so-called spiritual type people are content with reading more books, hearing the latest chanelling, going to more lectures, or sitting around and talking about spiritual things, as though the spiritual path was all about new ideas. Ask them to practice something and they’ll find some excuse or they’ll go on to study and talk about something else.

What I’m sharing with you is a real spiritual discipline and it involves self-efforts. We call it work, but it doesn’t have to be thought of as work. Think of it as play. It is an applied effort, but it can always be fun. It is a way to explore, so think of it as a wonderful exploration, of yourself and of life around you. What you will have to remember occasionally is that your habits of mind and ego may start to get in the way. So the work is to ovwercome these habits and not let them hold you back. There may be resistance from the mind and ego. These become challenges. The way through these resistances is not to fight them head on, but to first observe them as they arise and second to keep your persistance in the practice. Eventually, what seems as effort becomes effortless, and what may seem as discipline becomes a joyful play. The resistances begin to disolve as you begin to enjoy the practice.

All of the practices are very simple and very natural. Begin with the breath and feeling the body connected with the earth. Then the breath begins to harmonise with the earth rhythm. And the energy of the body begins to harmonise with the earth energy. You just have to do it, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Breathe deep into the belly and on the out breath relax into a feeling of harmony. Feel your feet connect with the ground, and keep lowering your consciousness back down to the belly, the legs and the feet. Keep lowering your consciousness until you feel as though you are in the earth, until you are fully inside the energy of the earth. Then your breath will naturally begin to harmonise with the earth rhythm. As the consciousness and feelings are lowered into the earth energy, the breath will naturally come into a harmonious rhythm. It will be realxed and in balance.

The breath comes into the mother’s breath, becoming one with this greater rhythm. You feel more connected, relaxed, and in balance. The mother’s breath is an even, balanced rhythm. It is like a chant or a song, based on eight beats. Work with the drum and find a chant that follows eight beats. Don’t worry about the speed or tempo. Just follow what feels most natural. So your in-breath will be eight beats and your out-breath will be eight beats, and so on. This is the balanced Mother’s breath. If you practice with the drum and chanting, then you’ll get a feel for it. You never need to force the breath. The balanced rhythm will just come naturally, if you allow it and come into the feeling of it. It is truly coming back to your natural breath, which was your breath when you were one with the earth. The key is to relax into it. You don’t create the earth rhythm. It is already beating, and it is already known by your innermost essence. Just know that the balanced breath is already here. The great mother earth is already breathing in this balanced rhythm. So all you need to do is to feel for it and listen for it and attune to it. And if you do this while aware of the breath, then the breath will naturally come into this perfect rhythm and harmony. Once in this harmony, you’ll feel emersed in a great love, for you will be at one in the love of mother earth. It will feel as a transformation of your whole being. It will feel as a great healing. Then you will be breathing from the great love, and you will be in-love, in the energy and rhythm of love. At first this may be a rather quick experience but it is necessary that you first get a taste of it.

Once experienced you’ll probably start thinking about or maybe congradulate yourself on the achievement. But this will take you out of the experience and out of the balanced rhythm. So you have to learn to not interupt the experience with thought or ego. Just move into it, enter into it, and relax into it. Just learn to simply be in it and in the joy of it. It’s like being massaged or like having a warm bath. Just be in the experience and enjoy it. Again, the practice is to simply enter into the energy field, the love and the balanced breath of the earth. And just allow yourself to remain in this rhythmic energy, allowing yourself to be breathed by it, allowing yourself to enjoy the emmersion in love and healing energy. The love energy is like water and you become like a fish staying emmersed in the water and breathing in it. If thinking begins to take you out of this experience, or if fear takes you out, then simply go of those thoughts or fears, and relax once again within the earth energy and let yourswelf be breathed in its harmonious rhythm. It is a kind of surrendering, a letting go, and an allowing.

Instead of being and experiencing life from the head, which is the seat of the ego and thinking, you surrender back to the earth, allowing your center of gravity and your center of awareness to sink back down to the earth. Let yourself drop. Let thinking drop. Let worry drop. Let the ego drop. You see, the ego has developed a habit of maintaining itself in the head and feeding off the thinking mind. The ego, or that which people think they are, holds onto its own survival by constantly re-enacting a need to think about itself or to look at itself. It is as though the ego has to constantly look at itself in the mirror of the mind, and go “I”, I, I, I, and so on. The ego resists its own possible death. It resists a return to the earth. It resists dropping down to the earth. It may fancy itself as a great spiritual power, able to ascend into the heavens. Or it may fancy itself as an important persona in the world, wanting to rise above everyone else and proudly stand on top of the mountain, having great power over others and the earth. The ego doesn’t like to lower itself or humble itself. It doesn’t like to drop down to the earth, for this seems like a death, and in a way it is. Just study what our cultures and religions have taught, then you’ll see the fear and prejudice concerning this return to the earth. Lower is said to be bad. Higher is said to be good. We keep hearing from others, “Rise, go higher, be somebody,” etc. We have this imbalanced prejudice against surrendering back to the earth, against becoming at one once again with the earth mother. Of course, this tendency has its reasons. It is because life involves both individuality and collectivity. Individuality is related to this ego. The individual ego develops out from the earth nature. It moves out and up from the Mother, like a seedling rising up from below the soil. This is part of life. Yet it is not the whole cycle. Just as autumn balances spring, there needs to be a return to the earth. Surrendering must balance individual growth. Other lives of nature do this instinctively but we humans must do it intentionally and consciously.

Follow the breath. On the in-breath let the energy rise up like spring. Then on the out-breath let the energy sink back down into the earth, like leaves and seeds falling in autumn. Then again follow the in-breath. If you meditate on this rhythm of the breath, and move with it consciously, then you’ll understand the true Way, the balance of rising and falling, of ego growth and ego surrender.

This is the simplest and most important practice to make the earth connection and come back in harmony with Earth Spirit Mother. You can learn truth from the breathing practice, but more importantly you become transformed by the practice. Your own energy body, your mind and your feelings, are all balanced and harmonised as you enter the breath and magnetism of the living earth. Remember that you are not trying to create something, though in a way the practice is creative. Rather, you are entering and surrendering to what is already here, here before you were born, and here when you will die. It is the greater energy field, the greater love, and the greater breath of Mother Earth. Let yourself be nurtured by the living Earth Mother.

Once again I’ll tell you what to do. I might say it in different ways, and there are slightly different variations to the basic earth practice. First you bring all attention to your own breath, to the sensations of your physical body, and to the feeling sense of your own sensitive energy body which is like an egg surrounding you. If you cannot be aware of these three simultaneiously, then begin with just the breath and then add the physical sensation to awareness and then finally add the energy body. At least be aware of the breath and the containment of your own energy. We’ll call this part of the practice `self recollection’. It is re-collecting one’s own energy in one unity of awareness, and keeping an awareness of the breath will hold this energy contained and continuous. You might say that this phase is a self-containment or a protective individuality. It is steadily building and holding on to your personal power. It is concentrating and increasing your personal inner strength, as well as your sense of self or your self-presence. In this phase you discover the power of breath and the power of self-unity.

Now you can begin to increase this self-power or increase the strength of your energy-field. You do this by connecting down to the earth. On the out-breath you sink down a strand of awareness or light into the earth below, which connects down like a major root. Then on the in-breath you breath up strength and vitality. You breath in and up whatever you need, but basically you can breathe up vitality, strength and healing energy. It is also possible to breathe up love, peace, and harmony, which are all healing to the emotional part of ourselves. So now you have come into the second phase of the practice. First you re-gathered together all of your energies and self-awareness, concentrating all of this rather than the usual tendency to be disbursed and fragmented. Then, you open a connection to the earth below by mentally and emotionally sending down an energy ray of light or a kind of energy root. One might experience this as awareness descending down into the earth or as one’s feeling-sense descending downward.

And it is easiest to do this on the out-breaths. On the in-breaths you breath up the energy and nutrition that you need for increasing your vitality, your inner strength and your sense of personal power. Then on the next out-breath you once again descend down into the earth. Using visualization or imagination to help direct your awareness, you might see a shaft or root of light go deep to the center of the earth. The deeper you go into the earth, with the visualization and the feeling-sense, the greater will be the vital and healing energies collected. So you go down as deep as you can feel and imagine, or go down to the very center of the living earth, then breathe up and into you this good earth energy. You breathe it up into your belly, where it is accumulated and distributed out to the rest of the energy-body. This root connecting down into the earth is like an umbilical cord connecting you to the vital energies of the Earth Mother. Our physical umbilical cord has been cut, so that our bodies can be self-reliant.

Yet our etheric umbilical cord to the greater Mother earth need not be severed. Yet for most people this connecting cord to the earth Mother has shriveled or in severe cases has been severed. Thus there is the need for a healing or re-establishment of the earth connection. A true native person would probably never feel the need for such a healing, but for the westernized person this healing is of vital importance. It is not only important for personal vitality, but is most important for a sensitive and emotional earth connection. When this connection is re-established and continuous, then a person naturally acts and lives in a way that is sensitive and harmonious with the earth and all which lives from the earth.

So many problems, in individuals and in the world, stem from an unhealthy uprootedness and disconnection with our common earth Mother. Thus, we must re-root ourselves back to the earth, so that we branch out creatively from a common ground, from one love, from one harmonious rhythm. Can you see what I mean? Can you see the basic problem and the basic solution? If our energy, our rhythm, our feelings, and our awareness were to come up from the common ground of the earth, then we would once again feel as one people and in one harmony, and our sensitivity and actions would be cooporative and in harmony with the living earth. Maybe if people see the necessity of this re-connection, then they might make some self-effort for their own self=healing. And it does take a personal effort and responsibility.

People are so used to relying on others for healing and medicine. But this most important kind of healing, which will influence all other kinds of healing, must be a self-initiated healing. Nobody can build someone else’s earth-connection. There are so many types of healing these days, and many are very good. But such things as homeopathy, massage, or crystals cannot really make the necessary connection for you. Because this earth connection must involve your own will and decision, your own efforts and commitment. It must involve conscious breath and an undistracted continuous awareness. It must involve personal meditation and personal feeling. It must involve the totality of your being, the totality of your mind, emotions, body and will.

Because of your wrong habits of mind and feeling, because of your disconnection, you will have to do something radical about it. You have to see the need for this effort, this practice, for the need is to transform old habits and establish a new pattern of conscious life. It is as though one must enter a re-training program. But we are not trying to make some new rigid pattern or discipline. Rather, the necessary practices are to free the mind and spirit. They are meant to regain a stronger sense of self-integrity and personal balance, as well as regain our innate connection with the living earth and all the qualities and powers provided by our Mother Earth.

But without 100% commitment and effort in the practice, at least for a definite period of time, you will never get past the mere thinking about it all. For example, you must give the practice at least ten concentrated minutes, or a half hour, or a full hour, or maybe eventually a few full days. Then, you’ll have some real experiences and some real transformation will be possible. Otherwise, you’ll end up like most people, just thinking and talking about it, but never giving much time and effort to fulfilling the idea or the vision. I’m telling you straight. Whatever practice I tell to you, and whatever I say about the true Native Way, is not merely an idea or a new way of thinking. Positive and visionary thoughts are very important in this Way, but they are not enough.

This earth practice, involving the breath and energy, is certainly not merely a new way of thinking. Neither is it some kind of creative visualisation or spiritual vision coming from the imagination. Neither is it a kind of psychic intuition or perception. That would be an awful confusion. What I’m talking about is an energetic experience, rather than kind of psychic experience. It will feel as real as sex, or as real as tasting chocolate cake. It is Not merely a vision of the mind. It is completely real to the senses and to the feelings. In fact, this practice must involve the sensitivity and the feelings. It must be energetically felt. I am talking about real energies, energies which are felt like pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow. So the earth connection is certainly not just a mental experience. It is a living experience, involving the rhythmic breath, body sensation, and personal feeling. These three components, with complete and intense awareness as the fourth component, all make up the earth practice. If these four are all present in a continuous flow of the present moment, and if you also open up to the earth energy-flow, then you will naturally enter into the real experience of complete harmony and unity. It has nothing to do with thought. Nothing to do with positive thought or creative imagination. It is all to do with energy, feeling, awareness and breath. New visions and understandings may, of course, come out of this earth experience, but they will appear as secondary branches emerging from the deeper depth of this experiential unity.

You need to realize that the Native Way, and especially the earth practice, is an experience of the senses and of the feelings. The mind enters into this only as pure awareness or pure recognition. And your breath connects all of this together. The breath also connects your own energy field with the greater energy field of the Earth. If you could understand the importance of this, then you will be more motivated to do the practice.

People are motivated by different goals. One motivation for doing this practice could be for your own healing, balance and well-being. The earth practice will connect you to revitalising and healing energies. It will balance your energies. And it open you up to the earth wisdom and the greater spirit beings of the earth - animal, tree, and crystal beings. Another motivation might be for love and service to the Earth Mother and All Our relations. For as you reconnect with the Earth and deepen your attunement, it helps the whole earth grow in harmony.

The earth practice is also about cleansing and purification. I’ve already mentioned about bringing up the vital earth energy on the in-breath, while on the out-breath sinking your awareness and energy roots down into the earth. You can also let go of old energies on the out-breath. This is a feeling of surrendering all of your stagnate residue to the earth. Let go to the earth all of your negative energies or the energies you don’t want. Let go of your tensions, worries, and emotional sufferings. This will not harm the earth. The earth, the soil and the trees can absorb negative or unneeded energies. There will be transformed into positive and revitalizing energies. The earth can compost and transform our organic waste, and the trees can transform our air. Yet this process of transformation is not just physical. It works with emotional energies as well.

One of our biggest problems, as human beings, is our holding on to emotional stress and the residue of anger, worry, fear, irritation and suffering. So much emotional suffering is unnecessary. For a period of time, emotional suffering and stress may be unavoidable and possibly necessary to our human growth. For example, we might be justifiably angry at injustices, or we may grieve over the loss of a friend, or we may feel bad about hurting someone. There are many examples. We are emotional beings, and it isn’t wrong to feel certain reactions to life. So in a stressful circumstance, we naturally react emotionally and a period of suffering may proceed. The native way is not to suppress any emotions. We accept ourselves as we are. We let ourselves feel. We allow ourselves the intensity of emotions, whether it be joy or suffering. But a problem arises when we do not allow these emotions to be released. Part of this problem is when the emotion is not fully expressed. Then it’s suppressed and stored in the body or in the energy field. It can remain there for years or for the rest of your life.

Many psychologists know this and there are different therapies invented for the purpose of remembering these emotions, bringing them to consciousness, and releasing them by some form of expression. These can be very successful. Yet there is a much simpler way of releasing these suppressed or internalized emotions. This way does require one to remember them, though the memory may spontaneously emerge. The simple method of emotional release is to breathe out the emotional stress. There is no thought necessary in this. It is simply breathing out whatever feels to be stressful or unnecessary, and you breath it all out down into the earth. You can also sit or stand next to a tree and release it to the tree. This way is completely natural. It’s like eliminating waste products from the bowels. Yet we have to do this consciously and intentionally. You can’t hold onto to your pee. Eventually the body will let it go even if you try to hold it. But the emotional waste can be held indefinitely. And it is held until you intentionally release it through the breath. You must affirm to yourself, or agree, that you will let go of your contained emotional residue. I call this a residue because it feels like a sticky substance and it is a residue of the past. You can even do this in the moment of emotional reactions.

For example, if you suddenly become very angry or feel great disappointment or sadness, you can begin to release this to the earth. You wish to hold on to the emotion for a short while, in order to learn something from it, or you may wish to let it out in an outward expression. There is nothing spiritually wrong with this. But how long are you going to hold on? And can you fully release this emotion through outward expression? What I’m saying is that at some point, it is most useful and beneficial to begin consciously releasing the emotion to the earth, to consciously surrender this emotion, so that you can get on with the rest of your life. Some people will want to hold on to the emotion, or they will want to continually express it. They might even see the emotion as important to their unique personality. There are many motivations and justifications for holding on to there patterns of reaction. But I’ll tell you - it is most beneficial to release these stresses and sufferings as soon as possible.

So the practice of emotional release becomes part of the Path. The choice is yours. The ego may want to hold on if the emotion becomes part of the ego-identity. But this holding on will hold you back from proceeding along your soul path and opening up new potentials of yourself. The Way is to not become attached to your emotional reactions nor your emotional sufferings. It is simply not necessary. And it becomes a block to your further spiritual growth. Yet I should be clear here that I’m not recommending emotional suppression or becoming an unemotional person. As I said before, You first need to accept any of the emotions. Go ahead and intensely feel anger, grief, saddness, as well as love, joy, humor. None of the emotions are bad in themselves. Live through them in the moment of their arising. Otherwise you will become a dry, unfeeling person

Feelings and emotions are part of what human beings are. They are part of true living. Yet it is not beneficial to you to hold on to any emotion past its period of freshness. This is anal retention. Let the emotions be, in their period of arising, but also allow them to be released, so that they don’t carry on into the future and block out new possibilities of emotional experience. This willingness to let go of emotions is a process of detachment and surrender. For some people this is difficult and for others it is quite easy.

The practice is simple. You can be sitting, standing, walking or laying down. While remaining conscious of the breath, you bring awareness to the emotional self. Then begin breathing out to the earth any feelings of stress or unpleasantness. Breathe out and release any inner suffering. Breathe out and release whatever emotions you are holding onto or whatever emotions are sticking inside you. This will feel like a draining out of old bath water. It will feel as a cleansing of the emotional self. You might imagine a drain-pipe coming out and down from your bowels or from your stomach area. Then allow any old or waste energy to be released to the earth.

Know that the earth is not hurt by this. In fact, it is good for the earth, just as organic waste is good compost for the soil, or just as carbon dioxide from the breath is good for the trees. Keep releasing through the out-breath, releasing the stale energies and residues of the past. These stale energies have become sticky substances within your emotional energy field. They have also become blockages in the body. The breath acts like flowing water, breaking through blockages and carrying away the sticky old substances. Feel more and more cleansed and purified. You will need to continue this practice for as long as it takes, until you feel completely pure and cleansed.

In the beginning it will take at least ten minutes or so. To become fully pure it may take some hours. But as you become more proficient at the practice, the whole process may be completed in only a few minutes. If you do this continuously with attention and conscious breath, the past will gradually be released and you will be forever free of it. Let go of all distress and all that holds you back from fully being present and sensitive to the earth.

This cleansing practice is important for a few reasons. It is purifying to the emotional energy body, and purification is an essential part of true healing. It also purifies your connection to the earth. We each have an energy channel to the earth energy, like a connecting pipe, which can be obstructed by these emotional residues. The old emotional residues also obstruct our natural awareness. Thus, the cleansing practice is important to healing and to making a stronger conscious connection to the earth energies and earth wisdom. As you release the old and the unnecessary, through the out-breath, you will then be able to receive more of the vital healing earth energy through the in-breath. So the cleansing breath can be part of the earth practice, as you make a continuous rhythm of letting go on the out-breath and receiving new vitality on the in-breath. Here you are releasing stale energies and receiving fresh energies. The experience is truly revitalizing. Remember though, that this practice and this experience is energetically felt and the results are immediate. It is not a thinking practice. It is not something you just do in your imagination. You are working with real energies and you will directly feel these energies.

The earth practice involves cleansing, revitalizing, and energy-balancing. It involves being in touch with your own energy, body and feelings, as well as the breath. It is making an energy and feeling connection with the earth. It is bringing awareness down to the earth. It is becoming in attunement with the earth life and vibration. It is coming into a magnetic harmony with the planet and coming into the ever present earth love, becoming more at-one with the earth. It is opening our earth channel, so we can fully receive vital energy and love from the earth. The earth is our healing, but we have to consciously open to it and consciously release any residue blockages to the free flow of this earth energy. We need to allow ourselves to be healed and balanced by the Earth Mother. Then our feelings, our thoughts and our actions will spontaneously be in harmony with the Earth Mother and the purpose of life. The healing is on all levels of ourself. For this earth connection is cleansing and healing to the physical body, to the emotional body, and it brings our mind into attunement with the earth wisdom.

It seems that the more popular religions and spiritual teachings have forgotten the earth and the vital earth connection. Because of this, and because of our modern conditioning, we have become people disconnected from our earth roots. One might even say that we need to heal our conditioned sickness and imbalance. This self-imbalance is, of course, the cause of ecological and social imbalance. So it is important to take self-responsibility for your own imbalance. I don’t mean blaming oneself. I mean being responsible for doing something about it, because nobody will or can do it for you. The earth will be the healer and will balance you, but you must take the necessary steps toward the earth. You must take the time and effort to make the connection, which is to do the earth practice. It is as important as making an effort to eat good food and to keep the body clean. You must do this consciously. But because it wasn’t taught, like brushing your teeth or like eating a balanced meal, your tendency will be to dismiss the connecting practice as some sort of mystical thing or some form of a cult practice. But I’m telling you, this is essential. It is not merely one more therapy. It is the very basis of true healing. Don’t just be put off by the word `practice’. It is called a practice to emphasis that you need to practice it. You need to learn it, like you needed to learn how to read and write.

Eventually it doesn’t seem like a practice at all. Eventually there is no effort in doing it, because there is no ego struggle against it and no false conditioning having power over your will. Eventually, what I’m saying and what I’m suggesting you practice becomes a natural and spontaneous part of living. It is completely natural! It is coming back to your own true nature, which is the earth nature. The only reason it might seem to involve an intentional effort or possibly even a self-struggle is because of your false conditioning - which lead you astray from the breath of your own nature and from your inherited natural connection with the Earth Mother.

Once you realize about your conditioning, and that you have been lead astray by your culture and religions, then maybe you will be more motivated to come back to the earth. For in essence, all I’m really suggesting is that you release unnecessary suffering, be more conscious of yourself and energies around you, become revitalized, and feel the great love and joy of being at-one with Life-itself. Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that a good way of living? Well, this way is not really difficult at all, and it is not complicated. There is isn’t anything complicated or strange or unnatural about the breath, about sensing and feeling, about letting go, about trusting, and about receiving all the goodness that life or earth provides. You simply need to come into the conscious experience of this

But at present you, like so many people, remain disconnected, out of balance, and lost in your thinking head. You don’t know how to be continuously present with the earth or how to maintain your collective energies, or how to release old stuff, or how to consciously receive various energies from the living earth. But once you learn, and you must learn by practice and experience, then you will look back at how you once were and you will see a lost child, you will see yourself as a crawling, struggling child, yet unable to walk. I’m just helping you grow up, helping you to walk on your own, but I can’t do it for you. You have to make the effort. Children make an effort to walk almost naturally, but because of certain habits you acquired from this world you might not naturally make the needed effort. So I’m here to prod you along. Because of your social conditioning, as a teacher I cannot merely help you learn and grow, but I must also help you de-condition yourself.

It would be much easier to help you if all you needed to grow was encouragement and support, like if you were a plant needing water, sun and good soil. But unfortunately this is not enough for you or for most people, because you will resist the very first step of being firmly planted in the soil. You are not merely a plant needing nutrients to grow. You are a plant taught by society to resist the very ground within which you can grow. You are uprooted and first need rooting!!

You are not even fully present. Even you think you are, I can see from experience that you are not. You think you are here on earth. You probably even think you are already consciously connected. But you aren’t. You’re not fully present and you are not fully here on earth. Much of you, that is, much of your consciousness, is floating about like some disincarnated entity. Where are you? You are in an illusionary world of your mind. You must emerge out of your mind and back in your senses. You mostly lost in your own little mind, or lost in your disconnected thoughts. Therefore, you must make an extra effort to let go of your scattered and associative thinking. You come out from your mind and become fully conscious of the outer world, the world of colors, sounds, and real energies. You must develop the primal senses and the natural sensitivity. But you can’t do this if your attention is constantly distracted by thinking and by emotional residues. Thus, you need to develop a mental control or attention control. This is bringing attention to the outward purpose at hand or to the outer energies of the world. If the attention can stay in the outer senses or sensitive to outer energies, without habitually returning inward into thought, then you will learn to be more present and here.

I am not denying the importance of inward awareness, inner meditation, or mind journeying. The inner worlds are here for us to explore. Yet the inner journey must be balanced with the outer journey. People tend to think that the spiritual path is a path of the mind or a path of inner meditation. It is this, but not just this. The outer meditation and the world of the senses is as spiritual as the inner way. The spiritual world is the outer world, not just the inner world. The whole world of nature is a spiritual creation, an art-form of the Great Creator Spirit. Even the creations and technological world of humanity is potentially spiritual, IF it reflects the law of balance, love and harmony.

But if we follow a spiritual path which is prejudice against the outer world, the earth and nature, then we will become imbalanced and we will be living in an illusion. If a teaching regards this outer world of the earth nature as less important than some other world, then it will lead into illusion. If a teaching says that this outer world is an illusion, then this teaching is an illusion. All that other worldly stuff is mostly a load of crap. What is true is that there is a vast inner world of potentials and visions, and a vast invisible world of spirits and powers. There is an inner heaven or nirvana. There is an inner world of peace, love and beauty. Yet this inner world is not the complete goal and not any more important or spiritual than the world of outer nature.

Both the outer and the inner are flip sides of reality. The inner is the mind of Great Spirit and the outer is the expression of Great Spirit. Respecting both and living fully in both is the Way of balance and truth. There are lots of crappy things in this outer world, not of spiritual nature but of man’s false creation. Yet there are also hideous experiences in the inner world. Not all is good and true to Great Spirit. We have to discern the good from the rotten, the beauty from the hideous. We need to find what is fresh and good for us, what is beautiful and enjoyable. This discernment is part of our free choice. The crappy things, the unhealthy and ugly things are what is dying out, like rotting fruit. You don’t eat rotting fruit. You don’t eat compost. You simply let it rot and transform back to its essence. Then eat what is fresh and good for you. This is the Way.

Remember that there is an inner and outer spiritual work. Shamanic work can be done in both. For example, the shaman finds the good and beautiful in the inner world and in the outer world. He collects power and experiences from these worlds. He can also do transformative and healing work in both worlds. You can do this as well. It just takes a bit of knowledge and some applied effort. One of the problems people have is that they have no ability to remain collected and conscious in each world, in order to gain something or accomplish something in that world.

The person uncontrollably flips back and forth from inner to outer, then from outer to inner. And he cannot sustain his presence in either. He also gets them confused and often cannot distinguish what is an outer reality from what is an inner belief. I will teach you to go fully into the inner world, without being distracted by the outer. But first I must teach you to be fully in the outer world, without being distracted by your inner world. This is an ability you need to develop. It is invaluable. At present you are weak in both worlds, so you need to become strong and collected in one and then in the other. Then after developing strength in each, you will be able to to converse in both worlds simultaneously. But first you need to concentrate in one, then in the other. Otherwise you’ll remain weak in both.

Thus you must practice the outward meditation, developing the outward attention to the fullest. This practice is actually part of the earth practice. The fullness of the earth practice involves seven aspects, but if I tried to explain all of these at once, you might become confused. If you tried to practioce it all at once, you would become confused. So you must begin with one aspect and then another, until you develop each. Finally, with practice in each, all the aspects come into an integrated unity. Then what might at first appear complicated is realised as incredible simple and spontaneious. The first step I gave you was to re-collect the small degree of awareness you already possess. This held together and continuous by the conscious breath. You recollect your awareness, your feelings and sensitivity in one field of self-energy. This is being collected in your persoanl power, and the conscious breath holds this energy field together in a continuous flow and rhythm. Essentially, you feel your own collected enery and feeling of self-power. This strengthens your aura of power. You feel like you are within a collected energy field like an egg surrounding you. Practce this for five to ten minutes, in order to develop its strength and continuity.

Then you take the next step which is to open up the channel to the Earth Mother, connecting your own breath with the breath and power of the Earth. You sink down into the earth, rooting yourself deep inside the earth, while breathing up the vital earth energy to increase the power of your energy field. Now you have an open and flowing channel or pipe-line into the the earth, the source of vital power. Next you let go of all distress, negativity, old emotional rwesidue and release the blokages to a free flow of earth energy. This is the stage of cleansing and purification. It is also surrendering the past and releasing all fears in trust to the Earth Mother. As this is done, the tyour energy becomes fresh and clean, and a finer energy from the earth can be received. Next you enter into the rhythm and harmony of the earth, being at-one with the living earth beat. , and now you can walk in harmony, being at-one with the Mother though still being a unique and individual expression of the living earth. Next is the stage of opening up the outer senses and sensitivity to earth energies around you. Begin to really see the outer world, listen to the outer sounds, and sense the different energies of nature. This is becoming fully present and here on earth, in nature. You become fully present with the various lives of nature, sensing the grasses, the trees, the flowers, the land, and the animals and birds.

In this way you realize yourself as truly a part iof the natural world, conversing and interacting with the many lives and energies surrounding you on this earth walk at this very present moment. This practice is also about becoming fully here in the ongoing present moment or in the flow of the Now. Be Here. Be Now. Be fully present. Again, be continuosly conscious of the breath, the breath which is now an extension of the Mother’s breath. In this breath, the lives and spoirts of nature will recognize you, for you are a conscious extension of the Great Mother, you are a walking flower of nature. In this conscious breath you will be able to hear the nature spirits and converse with the trees and the birds. Don’t just believe me. Discover it for yourself. If you walk in the Mother’s breath, in consciouis harmony with the Earth, you sense and become aware of nature to a degree that you have never thought possible. You will eneter into the real world, free from the distractions and illusions of the conditioned mind You will begin to see and hear like never before. But begin on the simplest level. Just see and hear what is here, what is going on around you. Become fully outward in your attention, not thinking about what is around but just seeing, hearing, sensing. Open up the senses and just be here right now.

I suggest you find a tree friend. Sit by the tree facing outward. Keep you eyes and ears open. Breathe with the Mother earth. And breathe with the nature around you. Enter into the present moment which flows continuousy and without strain. Relax into the continuing presnt, and simply be here whenever you are. Just remain awake in the breath and awake in the here and now of the senses or the here and now of the world around you. Your mind will tend to distract itself with thought. Maybe worries and emotional stresses will emerge. This is your opportunity to let these go, l. What emerges from the emotions or from your mind is part of residue from the past which can now be released back to the earth. So you take a deep breath from the earth below, then release the thought or emotion on the out-breath. Then you come back to the rhythm a and feeling of harmony in the earth. Then come back to the sensing pract of the here and now.

Practically speaking, your first experiences of this will show you how distracted and and un-present your mind is. But if you don’t let the conditioned mind take you away from the practce, then everything that happens can be an opoortunity for transformation and increasing your shamanic ability. Like I said, whatever arises to distract you from being simply in the present moment without thought or past emotions, wican just be released. From the release you will gain in spiritual power. So treat all that arises as part of the whole practice, for if you can consciously release those distractions then ya healing has taken place. If all that you do is to practice releasing of past residues, then that must be what you needed to worlk on. In other words, you have to succeed at the first stages before succeeding in the next stages. You will find that as you first do stage five, you will fall back down and must begin again at stage three or maybe stage one. Don’t worry about it. Don’t let the ego pride get in the way. Just accept right now that you are a beginner. With a bit of extra effort and willingness, you not be a beginner for long. In time, if you persist and relax in it all, you will be able to sit by a tree or by a stream and just be there aware in the breath and in the flow of the moment, without any ego, without any irrelevant thought, without any emotional residues of the past to released and be transformedthought-. It is possible to combine all of the stages together. This will happen spontaneously anyway. For example, if you sit by a flowing strem, then breath with the flow.

Enter the flowing stream, while being fully present in the sensory experience. Let the stream help you release the past and be in the present. Simply practice contunuous releasing of the past, or continuous releasing of thought. Let all thoughts or worries flow down the stream on each out-breath. Then on each in-breath recollect yourself just in the flow of the present, recollect yourself in the here and now. Thus in this practice you come into a rhythm of releasing thoughts arising from the past and re-centering yourself in the flow of the present moment. . Surrendering and being, surrendering and being here. This is the rhythm of existence. In each moment there is death to the past and re-incarnation of the present. Death and new life. Soon in this practice, when the rhythm becomes perfectly balanced and relaxed, the two appraently opposites become as one flow. Then there is no more sense of releasing or of recollecting, for there is only being here and now within the flowing stream of the moment. The ego ceases to reflect uopon itself, and there is now ony the stream of the continuous pressnt. Try this and you’ll understand what I mean. It is truly liberating, and renewing as well.

So to sum of this earth practice, this one is about being fully present and sensitive in the outer world of nature. It’s about being fully present in the here and now, which is like a continuously flowing streamof living energy, living breath, living aw consciousness. It is absolutely not an imagination or posychic experience. You may see into the invisible world of nature spirits. In fact, this practice is mandatory as a foundation for such extraordinary insight. But you must begin with the very oridary reality of nature, as it is simply seen and heard and sensed., The ego doesn’t want to be merely ordinary, which is the biggest problem of psychic people. They are big egos not wanting to be ordinary folks. Psychics are the most difficult peoplke to teach because they resist the importance of ordinary experience. They think they are somehow beyond and more important than the ordinary world of nature and the senses. Thus, they tend to become lost in their own illusions.

The first step in acquiring a true ability to see the invisible world of spirits and subtle energies is to develop the ability to simply be in the here and now of the outer world, which means being in the ordinary senses. The outer senses help bring us firmly into the here and now. First truly see the ordinary colors and hear the ordinary sounds of nature. Most people don’t, or they only do this in short moments of outer attention. You must first develop a continuity of outer sensory attention. Then the invisible naturally opens up to you, not in a psychic kind of vision but in an outward seeing as real as any ordinary seeing. Seeing and hearing the nature spirits comes from developing the outer senses. You see and hear them through the outer senses, not through inner psychic vision. If you can become completely and continuously outward in your awareness, turning the mind outward rather than inward, then you will begin to see reality rather than just your psychic imagination of reality. Then you are on the path of learning from the outer world, rather than merely imposing your conditioned beliefs on the outer world. Be completely and presently outward in awareness, breathing with the outer world, then this outer world will truly open itself to you. Then you can truly learn from the natural divine world. Then you can truly receive what nature offers. Then you can truly see and hear what most people cannot. If you eneter completely into the ordinary natural world, and receive from this world, then a very extraordinary experience and wisdom will open up to you. First be willing to be ordinary, then you become extraordinary. First see the ordinary, then the extraordinary will spontaneously be revealed - not just through the psychic imagination but through the actual outer senses. If I told you all the possibilities of this, you would most likely not believe me. For now you will just have to trust me and make the effort yourself. Go outward. Turn the mind outward. Go into nature, into the flowing stream of the present moment. Breathe into nature. Breathe out from nature. Be fully awake to the outer world, sensing all you can and tingling with sensitivity. Make love with nature around you. Be in the energetic experience of it all. This is the most ordinary thing you can do in this life. Yet it is the most extraordinary experience in life.

2

The practice I have just been talking about is primarily about becoming present in the flow of the moment and outward in awareness. This is developing a concentrated yet relaxed mind, whereby awareness does not wander off with thoughts but finds it comfortable and interesting to just be in the here and now of sensory experience. In a way, the breath flows outward into the natural world, and we really begin to be with nature or the world around us.

The next practice carries on from this presentness and outwardness of the mind. One could consider this next practice as the other half of the practice just given. The breath and the awareness has now reached outward into the sensed world. Now the breath comes back, receiving from the natural world. The next practice can be called `receptive space’ or `receptive mind’. It is a different experience and way of being, than our usual experience or way of viewing the world. Our usual way of seeing is to view trees, rocks, birds, etc., as objects around us. You walk through a forest and make a mental note that these things are trees. Maybe you are so smart because you know the names of these trees. The usual way of seeing is not a pure seeing but is seeing a thought, or it is seeing a named object. Can you simply see what is there, simply seeing the tree? If you can sustain this seeing, then you are ready to for this next practice. The practice of receptive space is virtually a reverse of seeing. It is not an outward kind of seeing. Now you are probably perplexed about what I’m on about. What is the reverse of seeing? It is being seen.

What is the reverse of hearing? It is being heard. Our usual way of seeing is to look around from the I-centre, from the I-mind, and study the appearance of things. You look at the colors and shape of the tree. You recognize what the colors are and what shape it is. You look at each object around you and describe it or think about it, either to yourself or to another person, or maybe you write poetry about how it looks or about what it means to you. You do all of this from the I-centre, from the perspective of yourself. It is as though you are the centre of the world around you, and what is around is your world of seeing and knowing. It is quite natural to view the world in this egocentric manner, from your point of view, but it is not the only way.

It is only the usual way. In fact, the other way, which is a kind of reversal from the usual way, is so rarely experienced that it is difficult to explain. That is why you might remember to practice of reversal of ordinary seeing and ordinary hearing. Yet the true experience of this has nothing to do with thinking about it or “understanding it”. You simply have to experience it. And at first, like the other practices, you will probably find that you cannot sustain the practice for very long, which is why you need to practice it! But what is it?

Simply, it is allowing yourself to be seen and heard by the natural world around you. Instead of assuming that you, the `I-mind’, is consciousness looking out at things in the world around you, you assume that you are beeing seen and sensed by the rest of life. For example, if you’re walking through a forest of trees you are the sensed experience of each tree. Feel what it is to be an experience for the other lives of nature. Allow yourself to be experienced and known. Of course, this will depend on you assuming that the trees and other parts of nature are conscious and sensitive, which is part of the Native understanding. Begin with one tree, or it could be a certain rock, or maybe a bird.

It could even be the land you walk upon. You recognize that all of nature is conscious and sensitive. recognize that you are in someone else’s home. You are walking through the home of the trees and the rocks. Even the land knows you are here. You are being sensitive to the consciousness’ all around you. And from this new orientation to life, much will be learned and understood.

So it is a reversal of the usual perspective. Your usual way of viewing is like being an artist or scientist, then studying or describing the object-at-hand. The thing outside you becomes an object for your own purpose of seeing or describing. But in this new orientation, the roles are reversed. Now you are being watched and studied. I’ll give you one more analogy. Let us say that you are in the center of a group of people and you are teaching this group. Or let us say that you are a therapist and you are studying these people. That is the I-outward perspective. If this is reversed, then you are in the center being taught, or you are being studied by this group. That is the outside-to-I perspective. In one way you are an active consciousness. In the other way, you are a passive consciousness. The first way is like being a healer for the people around you. The other way is like being the subject for healing from those around you. Most people feel uncomfortable in the second way. Because the ego has to be humble, rather than outwardly expansive. So in the receptive space practice you walk through the forest or upon the land in humility or as a humble little ego. Then you are merely one life in the forest and part of the experience of those around you. This is quite different from the usual ego-perspective of being a perceiver of objects and appearances around you.

Can you simply allow yourself to be seen and known? In the receptive space, the world sees you. In a sense, you are simply passively listening to what the land, the trees and the rocks are saying. You are just receptive to being seen and recognised. Instead of reaching outward with awareness, you make awareness completely passive and just allow the spirits of nature to observe or experience you. When you do this, a new kind of experience will open up and a certain understanding will unfold. You will begin to feel the sensitivity and consciousness of the tree enter into your space. You will begin to hear and know the nature spirits, for their consciousness and wisdom will enter your receptive mind, as you allow this to occur. It is like being in the center of nature people and just hearing them speak. It is like feeling their consciousness reach out to you, rather than you reaching out to them. You must be peacefully aware in the breath, in order for this to unfold. In fact, the inner knowing will proceed in the breath.

The simplest way to practice this is to either sit or slowly walk in a nature area, and concentrate your awareness upon the breath. Allow the breath to be calm and relaxed and enter into a harmony with the heart-beat of the Earth Mother. Then become completely present in the outer senses. Then, while keeping the senses open and the breath in a continuous balanced rhythm, just relax into a receptive consciousness, simply allowing the energies and consciousnesses of nature to reach out to you. Allow yourself to be seen, and just listen for and feel what is given. Your mind is not thinking, not talking to itself, not explaining, naming or describing what is present around. Let the lives of nature sense you and possible speak to you. Let them study and describe you. Without any judgement or fear, just listen, feel, and allow them to experience you.

You can understand this as a necessary step in communicating with the lives of nature. If you are always reaching out with an active consciousness, or always describing, or always talking to nature, then the lives of nature won’t open up to you. First you must be receptive. You can’t talk and listen at the same time. So they won’t bother to befriend you if you are not willing to simply listen and allow yourself to be seen and known. You need to become vulnerable, in a sense, before a trust can unfold between you and the spirits of nature, and the receptive space certainly involves trust. It is not wise to do this practice anywhere, because it does involve vulnerability. Before practicing this, you should also feel strong in your own power. It is a shamanic practice, which is not given to weak or psychotic people. So one should be cautious.

Only attempt this when you first feel strong in your own self-presence and when you feel the environment is safe. If fears are brought up from doing the practice, then don’t just run away but breathe through the fears and regain your collected sense of self-power and personal presence. In other words, return to the first practice of recollecting your own energy and self-presence. But if you can first build up your collected energy and become completely here in the present moment of the outer world, and if the environment around feels safe, then you can practice this reverse perspective, this receptive and vulnerable space. It can be a very powerful experience. Your tendency will be to return to the usual form of experience, either because of fear or simply because of habit. But to develop this further, you will need to re-continue the practice and make a good effort to maintain the practice for longer and longer periods of time.

Eventually it ceases to feel so unusual or strange, as it begins to feel more natural. The final goal, if you need a goal, is for this receptive consciousness to be in relative balance and equilibrium with the active consciousness. It is no more important than the usual way of reaching out to the world from an ego-centric perspective. All that is important is that we develop this other way of experience, for the sake of right balance, because the ego-centric perspective is already very developed and virtually habitual. In the right balance, the person has power in both ways, They have power to reach out to the lives and spirits of nature with an active consciousness, studying and making note of certain features about things. This is like the power of talking to nature and directing the interaction. But the person also needs the developed power to become receptive and allow oneself to be the object of consciousness, allowing oneself to be seen and understood. This is like the power of being the listener. It is all about balance in relationship with nature. If you are habitually talking, thinking, or active in relationship to the natural world, then your relationship is obviously out of balance! Relax and allow a reversal of the roles.

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What seems contradictory is that the practice is to not expand consciousness and not to extend the senses outward. This will be the result of the practice, but only if you do the exact opposite. I see your perplexity. I’ve already explained the practice, in different words, but let me try once again. Instead of actively extending the senses outward, or expand the consciousness outward, in the usual perspective of reaching out and grasping the world, the practice is to just be receptive in the senses, be receptive as a sensitive being, and allow the consciousness of nature to grasp you. Instead of actively studying the world around you with an active mind, practice allowing the world to study you. In this way, you actually become sensitive to the consciousness of nature. You will feel like nature is observing you.

Nature does in fact observe you, but in your usual mode of perception you unaware and insensitive to this, because you are reaching out with the mind rather than allowing the nature consciousness to reach out to you. If you are not in this mental attitude of receiving and allowing, then you’ll never realize the conscious spirit or spirits outside of your own small ego. For the usual mode of perception views whatever is outside of the ego as objects. In this usual mode you might see these objects as living things, but this livingness will only be a concept or thought about the thing. If you want to really experience the livingness and consciousness of nature, you will need to be in a receptive space and allow conscious nature to reach you. If you can remain in this receptive space for at least a few minutes, being receptive to consciousness outside you, then you will have a real experience of this consciousness around you, rather then merely thinking about it or merely believing in it. And from in this receptive space, a line of communication opens, as you allow nature to observe you and speak to you. It is like an intensified silence in yourself and being extremely sensitive to the energies and consciousness around. It is like intensely listening to the spirits around you. So in allowing the energies of nature to come into your senses, you become more sensitive. In allowing the greater consciousness of nature to know you, you come into a greater field of consciousness, and thus there is an expansion of consciousness.

You in fact enter into a wider field of consciousness by receiving that consciousness. This receptive space is a kind of female attitude of mind. You are allowing nature to reach you and penetrate your space, rather than always reaching out and into nature - which is the male approach. Of course I am generalising the gender architypes to help you understand the difference between the two mental attitudes. There is no more I can say. Only experience will give you the understanding.

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The Native view recognises consciousness everywhere, not just in humans. Each life within the whole of nature is conscious, at least to some degree. I say this because not all lives of nature are fully awake all of the time, just like human beings are not necessarily fully conscious, even though the potential of consciousness is always present. That potential of consciousness, as well as the potential of love and wisdom, might be called the soul of anything. The soul is actualised to varying degrees. In many cases the spirits of nature are sleeping, which means their consciousness is not awake. The shaman can awaken the spirits. I’ll teach you this later on.

Many people nowadays talk about energies of the earth and ley energies. The Native people do not try to explain everything in terms of modern science. They will say that a spirit is strong or weak in an area of the land. Then do they mean energies when they speak of spirits? Yes and no. A spirit of the land, such as a mountain or valley spirit, has four main aspects or powers.

Each spirit of the land, as well a tree spirit or animal spirit, expresses a certain degree of energy, which is a vital energy since it increases the health and life flow of whatever comes into its influence. This would be equivalent to the meaning of ley-line energy or Ki in Chinese geomancy. It can be intentionally accumulated through right breath by the shaman and stored in the energy body around the area of the lower stomach, spleen and kidneys. We call this area of one’s energy field the personal power centre. One needs this earth energy for a vital health in the physical body and it is used in one’s directed muscular activities. It is also used in mental activities whereby directed concentration is required. Fundamentally, it is the primary energy used in any act of the personal will. We can acquire this vital earth energy from quality fresh food and from the air and water, and our bodies automatically work with this energy. But if the automatic mechanism of the body is out of order, then one needs to acquire and direct this energy consciously. The shaman learns to acquire and direct this energy consciously, in order to increase his power and abilities beyond what would be automatically possible. So with consciousness and intention, more is possible. This law applies to all aspects of shamanic and medicine work.

Another quality or power of the land is consciousness. This is what is usually meant by the word `spirit’ in Native languages. If a Native person walks up a sacred mountain to pray or to have vision or for healing, he or she does not just regard the mountain as an energy or energy vortex. There is this energy, but this is an expression of the spirit which is a consciousness. If we were only say that the earth has a vital energy or ley energy, then would be forgetting that the earth is conscious. So the land is alive with consciousness, as well as etheric or vital energy. This is very important to the Native View. For with consciousness the earth, the land, the rocks and the trees are aware of your presence and can directly communicate with you. In the practice of receptive space, we learn to hold the perspective that the land and the various relations of earth are conscious beings, or spirits conscious of you.

So the spirit of nature is a consciousness or a conscious mind, similar yet different from you. These spirits, or minds, are more primary and less complicated than the human. They don’t think and reason as we do. They have a simple language of communication, rather than a complex one like us. Yet their consciousness can be very powerful and can influence at great distances. This mind of the spirit is also a kind of memory. Rocks and the land contain memory patterns. Though the memories are contained in crystaline structure, the memory itself is like a mental impression. For example, the land and the rocks will record events and emotional patterns that have occurred upon it or nearby. Thus, ancient memories of our human history are recorded on the land, though if the land is torn apart or excavated, then these memories become destroyed. Certain shamans can hear and see these memories, these stories from the past. The land will also carry on and reflect back the more recent vibrations and memories. So if there has been love and celebration on the land, then people and future generations will feel these vibrations. If there is a history of violence and suffering on the land, people can feel this and it will have a painful effect on those who visit or live there. There are ways to heal these painful memories, which I’ll explain later. So we can learn from and work with the memory patterns of a place. Yet fundamentally, the Native Way is be present and in communion with the conscious spirit of the land. He practices the receptive space and thus becomes sensitive to this consciousness of nature.

He listens and thus hears the sound and vibration of nature wisdom. For example, the mountain spirit may guide the seeker along the way of wisdom. The seeker can also accumulate a greater consciousness from the radiating consciousness of the land. This idea may seem strange to the western man, that he could increase or expand his consciousness from the land. Yet the shaman recognises that the land, the rocks and the trees are all full of consciousness, which is a kind of power or energy in itself, and which can be acquired from these earth spirits. In essence, there is only one great consciousness, which is the consciousness or mind of Great Spirit, and of which the Mother Earth consciousness is a part. Our own human consciousness is a part of the Earth consciousness which is part of the Universal consciousness. So consciousness exists all around us, permeating all of space. One does not really expand one’s own consciousness, but rather one opens up to and enters into a greater field of consciousness or mind wisdom. This is the true meaning of expansion. Consciousness is not really yours, in separation from the greater consciousness of earth and the universe. You, as a consciousness, is just a part of the greater, existing within the greater Mind. So the Way is to open up your little mind to the greater mind surrounding you. Then you become that which you have opened up to. Our ordinary language makes it difficult to explain this, without appearing contradictory, so you just have to find the way to experience what I’m saying. In one sense, you enter into the greater consciousness of Earth, and you do this by dissolving any separation between your mind and the mind of Earth.

In another sense, you can regard consciousness as a kind of food or energy-substance, which you can receive and accumulate. For example, a shaman may seek out and gather spirit power from the land or certain sacred places. He can gather a vital energy from the land, but he can also gather a greater consciousness from the land. So in one sense, consciousness does expand from its acquisition. This can be done intentionally, but it is also done automatically by everyone to a limited degree. People who live in certain areas automatically and generally have a greater consciousness than those who live in some other areas, because of the quality and degree of spirit consciousness on the land. Remember that the Native Wisdom recognises the very source of consciousness to be within the land and in the lives on this land, and there is a distribution of consciousness across the land, whereby some areas have more spirit consciousness than others. If you consider this, you will learn much.

The easiest and most practical way to understand the shamanic view of consciousness is that we are all part of one greater consciousness or mind, and different areas of land contain different parts of the one earth consciousness. These various parts of the one greater consciousness are thought of as spirit-powers. They are like accumulations of light, which is probably the best analogy. The shaman enters into this light and allows himself to be filled with the light. In this way, he accumulates more light from the land, or spirit, and thus he becomes more conscious, mind-full and wise. The light, which is consciousness, may even speak to him, or you might say that he shares in the wisdom mind of the land. So the earth spirit light increases his own spirit light. He is them more awake in the greater light or consciousness of the planet. The secret is immerse oneself in this light of consciousness within the land, actually breathing it in and allowing it to radiate throughout one’s energy field and mind. Consciousness is, then, shared by the land, or by the spirit, and it is accumulated by the seeker. Yet the land loses nothing of its light by sharing it, just as one does not lose wakefulness by waking up someone else. Consciousness is not a limited kind of energy, so it is not lost when shared.

Now I have explained two power-qualities of nature-spirit and of the land, which are vital power and consciousness power. A third power-quality is an emotional energy which is felt by the seeker. In essence this is love, though it can also be felt as joy or peace or unity. It corresponds to the element of water. So the spirit of the land is felt as love. It carries love and awakens love in the heart of the seeker. So the shaman is able to receive and feel love coming from nature, from the land, and from the whole of Mother Earth. This love energy is healing to the emotional body, to the emotional part of oneself, and it is the flow which connects and unifies us with the earth. People who do not experience this earth love tend to feel disconnected with the earth and thus might abuse the earth and the land. But once you experience this love, you will naturally want to protect and help the land. Practice breathing this love into your heart and allow it to flow like water through you. Then your heart will naturally feel at peace and sing with joy.

This power of love is throughout the land, flowing through all of nature. Yet in so many places it has become blocked and hurt by the disrespectful actions of man. A sensitive person will feel this pain of the land. Some spirits of the land will even become angry in reaction to what has occurred or to what man is presently doing. This anger can be quite negative in its effects, though this negativity can be very subtle. The pain of the land also has negative effects on people, even if they are insensitive to it. In fact, many of the problems of social conflict, in various places, are at least partly caused by anger or pain on the land, which is a pattern repeating itself and being reinforced in a vicious karmic circle again and again. These problems will continue to influence the emotions of people, until they are healed or dealt with in a renewed positive manner. So the land on which we live and work can be positive or negative. It can flow freely with natural love, which is its original quality, or it may repeat the memories and pain of abuse. Virgin land and protected sacred land will naturally radiate love and healing to those present upon it and to those nearby. There are even ley lines of love, as well as consciousness, originating and flowing out from the naturally maintained power places. These flow lines can also be blocked or abused. The shaman will go to the power places of love and he will will walk along the flow lines of love, to recharge or heal his emotional body, to empower the love within. Or he may go to the hurt places to help heal and restore the love flow of the land.

Techniques for this healing work vary. Yet the essence of the healing is to clear away anydebree or pollution, the things that block the energy flow, and to facilitate the release or clearingof any pain or resentment held in the memory of the land. The healer then begins to re-establishtrust in the spirit of the place. He might bring certain sacred offerings, make certain prayers, and perform some kind of ritual; all for the purposes of respect and making connection.

But in doing this you begin to know more of the natural wisdom, because you are allowing more of the mind of nature to penetrate into and permeate your mental space. It is possible to increase your own power and add to the qualities of your being by allowing into your mind the wisdom of different parts of nature. This is another step of shamanic practice. It is receiving nature qualities. You do this by allowing a specific spirit-mind from the natural world to permeate your own mind. For example, there are many good spirit qualities of a tree, such as rooteness, strength, health and vitality, integrity, contentment and beauty. These are just possible qualities that you might experience. Discover in your own experience what are the qualities of nature. You might discover great assertive power in the raging sea. You might find a wonderful sense of peace in a calm lake. You might find a power or quality of self-integrity in the solidness of a mountain. You might find innocence and grace in a deer, or playfulness in the squirrel, or a sense of freedom in a hawk. In the Native View, the many lives of nature are our natural relations. They are our very ancient ancestors, so their spirit, their qualities and abilities, are potentials within our human nature.

The shaman focuses his mind and senses upon a specific part of nature, that is, the inner spirit of some natural form or life, then enters into the receptive space in order to receive the spirit-mind or wisdom-qualities. He consciously receives the spirit, the mind, the quality or qualities, into his space, into his own reality of being. In one sense, it is like catching a fish, because the shaman focuses outward to this part of Mother Earth. This opens the energy path from himself to the other life. It is like making a call to someone. You say Hello there. You set forth your intention to communicate by reaching out your concentration, and you keep the line open by not being distracted by unsettled thoughts and uneasy emotions. You breathe toward the tree or the bird.

But this is only one side of what is required. Now you must stop sending out the mind. You have already grasped the bird or the fish. You have already set up the connecting path. Now you must stop talking and begin listening. Now you must allow the nature spirit into your space. This is the receptive space. The next step is to let the spirit teach you and empower you. Let yourself be this spirit. Or let the spirit express through you. Become the bird. Let the bird take your mind for a ride in the freedom of the sky. This is part of the secret, letting the spirit possess you, letting the mind be taken. Of course, this may not seem right to you. It frightens you. And teachers will say do not allow yourself or you mind to be taken for a ride. That is because there is possible danger, if the person is not already grounded by their own power connection to the earth. Remember this is a shamanic practice. It is not for the weak, not for the scarred. Many of the shamanic practices have potential dangers. They challenge the person. So many people will not accept this teaching and not attempt this shamanic practice. Good! Nobody should attempt any shamanic challenge unless they have at least some self-confidence.

So back to the teaching... Let the animal spirit take you for a ride, which means your mind is so receptive to this spirit that it virtually identifies with the spirit life. There are two main steps or ways in working with animal powers, or any nature power. One is dialectic and the other is identification. Both of these steps proceed after the receptive space.

One step is to allow the particular spirit to teach you its specific wisdom and power-qualities. It may also offer itself as a protector or helper in your life. This step is fairly safe for most people, because the animal spirit always remains distinct from the personal consciousness. It is a very useful and practical approach to the animal powers, and you should work with this in a set-aside time of meditation. So the step here is to learn from the spirit by allowing it to speak, teach, or show you certain visions. The spirit may teach you something about yourself, something about your own cooresponding spirit-quality. Or the spirit may teach you something about what you need to do, in order to be more creative or in order to protect your integrity in the world. You can learn from the nature spirit, like you would learn from any teacher.

The other step or approach to receiving from a nature spirit is the identification practice. You identify with this form of life and feel what it’s like to be this conscious spirit. This is involves allowing your mind to be taken for a ride, or to be temporarily possessed by the spirit. It involves an even deeper state of non-ordinary consciousness, which would be a kind of trance state. In this practice, you need to fully allow the spirit to consciously act through you. In this way, the power-qualities of this spirit are directly and immediately experienced. They are directly known and digested in you. Thus they immediately become part of you, part of the wholeness of your being. You do not need to be forever limited by this spirit, as if you would now become only a bird, for the power-qualities are only being given a certain amount of time to be directly known in you, or as you. So just as the receptive space practice may seem paradoxical, this practice may seem so as well. Because, the allowing your mind to be taken by the spirit, or the allowing of an irrational identification to take place in your mind, will result in a direct assimilation of the spirit-powers. In a sense, your own mental body digests and accumulates the power-qualities of this spirit by, paradoxically, allowing the mind to become identified with this spirit and allowing the spirit to possess you and express itself through your mind. This may sound spooky. But it is like the play-acting imagination of children, whereby a child may become absorbed in the play-acting of being a certain animal. This experience is natural to Native children. It can become more intense and trance-like for shamans, if they dance and chant as an animal spirit. You may not get to the very extreme of this, as would some shamans, but you can do the same form of powerful practice to some degree. If you experiment or play with this practice to some extent, you’ll realize the benefits. But it is not just about animals. For example you might imagine a beautiful calm lake. Then allow this lake deep into your being, until the lake fills your whole mind, until there is nothing left of you but the calm lake itself. Forget everything about yourself. Forget all thoughts of who you normally are, and simply be the lake. You might even say to yourself, “I am this beautiful, calm lake. Let the calm spirit of this lake take over your whole mind and know itself through your mind. Meditate on being this lake and feel that you are this lake. Enjoy the feeling of calm in being the calm lake. This feeling of calm is the spirit-quality or power that taken over your experience, and in doing so your soul-being is absorbing this spirit- quality. Thus you are accumulating this certain power of nature. You are absorbing it into your mind, by allowing your mind to be absorbed by it. To some this will seem paradoxical, but to others it will make perfect sense. The secret is that, to accumulate the power, or to have the beneficial result, there must first be an unusual reversal of your mental attitude and a trusting allowance. You let the spirit get you before you get the spirit!

Remember that the spirits of nature can be focused upon in the psychic as well as in the actual outer world. A shaman may go out in the wild to find particular animals, or to see what animals reveal themselves. This animal represents and expresses the spirit of that animal kind. Thus, if the shaman meets with the spirit of this particular animal, he is meeting with the greater spirit of all those animal kinds. Yet the shaman may also meet with nature spirits on an inner psychic journey.

There are two different approaches to both the outer vision journey and the inner. In one approach let things happen, and in the other you use your personal power of decision. In the first approach, you wait patiently to see what animals or powers reveal themselves, either outwardly in nature or inwardly through your own natural psyche. You let Nature or the Great Spirit within you decide what you need. This is a passive approach, and in it you should always protect yourself by asking Great Spirit Father or Great Mother Nature to only bring whatever you need for healing, understanding, or personal growth. If out in the wild, you should ask the same.

Remember that everything which comes your way is not necessarily for your good. Don’t be foolishly naïve. If a big Grizzly bear comes at you, it might not be for your own personal good. Being trusting of Mother Nature does not mean that you ought to offer yourself as a tasty treat to wild animals. You ought to do what is natural, which is run like hell! If a forest fire were raging towards you, it would be foolish to walk into the fire, thinking that this was some needed lesson from Great Spirit. I’m simply saying that one should use natural common sense in any vision questing, whether outward or inward. If you instinctively feel something may harm you, then protect yourself or walk away from it. If there is a lesson to everything, as some say, then this lesson might sometimes be to walk away or avoid it. So in the passive approach one should always be cautious and protect oneself by asking Great Spirit Power or Mother Earth Love to protect you and send to you only good experiences for personal growth. But the other side to this caution is to mention that shamans do challenge themselves and are not frightened to venture into the wild. They courageously venture into the untamed wilderness of nature, though using a high degree of common natural sense, and they also courageously venture into the wild unknowns of the human psyche, exploring the many untamed parts of their own inner nature. They explore the outer and inner worlds, which is what most people avoid out of fear and distrust of nature and themselves.

The passive approach to this exploration involves a high degree of trust, but it is always augmented by initial prayers for guidance and protection and preparations of self-purification. In it one must still follow their natural common sense. So if you really feel that a certain place in Nature or a certain energy coming into you is not good, then the lesson to learn is to say `No’ and use your personal power of decision and the power of your personal breath to avoid the dislikefull energy or experience. Re-affirm your wish for the good, the enjoyable, the beautiful and the healthy. Learning to discern what is good and choosing the good with your power of decision is one of the most important shamanic lessons. Finally, there is a perfect balance between choosing the path and trusting the path to unfold. The shaman walks that fine line between choosing the power-qualities he feels are good and trusting the Great Spirit of the outer and inner worlds to provide what is needed for personal growth and overall good in the world.

The shaman is trusting of the Great Spirit and trusting in Nature, yet he also develops his power of discernment and decision. This involves a deciding approach to the vision quest and spirit meetings. For example, you might realize the need to acquire more bird power, or maybe you know that deer power is needed for a specific need or healing work. Then, you could go out in Nature to find the specific animal spirit. Or you could venture inside the Collective Earth-mind to meet with that animal spirit. Once in contact with the spirit-power, you might ask questions and learn from the spirit-wisdom, or you might acquire that specific power-quality by eating the animal or assimilating its quality in your own psyche. So in the deciding approach, you intentionally seek out specific power-spirits, of the Earth or of the Collective Mind. Then you learn from these, or you take them into yourself to make them part of your own personal power and self-expression.

Remember that the shamanic way is to learn from the inner and outer Nature, and to also assimilate parts of the Great Whole into oneself - which is an expansion of one’s personal consciousness, love and power. The shaman gradually contains more of the Whole, which enables him to express more of the Whole for the good of the world. Thus, the shaman uses both approaches in the Journey. If he neglected to experience the passive, trusting approach, and only use his personal will and decision, then he would prabably avoid new challenges and surprises by always being focused on specific aims. If one is never open to surprises and the unexpected, from the outer or inner Nature, then one avoids new lessons and experiences. And if the shaman were to never use his own power of will and decision, in determining the path, then he would never be exercising and expressing his own personal power, and he would also be too passive in relation to the expressed powers of others.

The shaman is not so naïve to believe that all things coming his way are necessarily for his own good or for the good of the Whole. If your life approach is simply and only to be passive and accepting to whatever comes your way, falsely thinking that all things in the world and all people in the world are good, then you are in for some painful lessons. Not all which comes from the collective outer world or from the Collective Mind is good or helful to you. So use your natural common sense and avoid walking through thorny brush. Avoid walking up landslide moutains. Some paths are simply better, safer, and more enjoyable than others. This is just common sense, which is what the Native teachings are about. The teachings warn that along everyone’s path there may be a possible spirit of deception. The spirit of deception can come at any time and anywhere.

It may come along the Nature Walk, and it may come from the Dream World. Great Spirit allows this, because it teaches you the power of discernment and decision. Certain spirits, images or experiences may come to deceive, until you learn and acquire your own power to discern and decide for the good. Once you know this lesson, and once you humbly ask Great Spirit to banish the spirits of deception, then you have passed the test of decision. Then, those deceptive spirits will cease to appear. But always be on-guard.

So in the passive approach, which is truly important to one’s growth, one still needs to beware of deception. One is open to the gifts of love and power, that are provided by Great Spirit Wisdom, but one still questions what is good and not-good along the Journey. If one neglects to question what is good, or what is true, then one is still open to the spirits of deception, which may come from anywhere along the Path, especially from the human world. How will you discern the good? How will you know? You will know in the truth of your heart, because your innermost Spirit-Wisdom has the power to know. You will know by your natural instinct, your natural sense of what is good versus what is harmful. This sense is natural to you, yet you must still develop it by exercising it. If you naively think that everything must be good, then this sense is never exercised and never developed. Look, there is a rattlesnake waiting in front of you along your Path. This snake may be a spirit-helper. It may be a friend. It may be part of your needed medicine. Then again, it may be a spirit of deception. It may be out to harm you, maybe to kill you. Maybe some sorcerer put it there to get you, to conquer you. The power you acquire, and even the more love in your heart, the more there may be a chance that a bad sorcerer or deceptive spirits may try to conquer you. So look carefully at the snake. Make certain in your heart of truth and discernment, that this snake is a spirit friend here to help you, before you trust that snake or before you believe what it tells you. You have to learn to apply a common sense and a natural instinct, though even here you need to discern what is natural instinct from what is conditioned fear. Maybe this snake is a spirit helper, but you shoot it because of your pre-conditioned of rattle snakes. You see, there is no simple answer to these questions. I can’t tell you what to do whenever a snake crosses your path. Because if you are walking alone, then only you can discern if this snake is a friend or an enemy. A man approaches you in white buffalo skins. Is he a true teacher of the Good Path, or is he a deceiver or an evil sorcerer in buffalo disguise? There is no simple definite answer. In the same way, there is no definite answer to what a dream symbol means. The final interpretation must come from your own heart of truth. If you simply and always followed some book about dreams and visions, then you would certainly be prime bait for possible deception. You might then be led up a false path, a path not truly your own. Just as if I were to tell you most definitely that anyone who comes along in white buffalo skins must be a great and wonderful teacher. And if I wrote this down in the bible of true native wisdom for all to follow, then would it not be a great opportunity for the sorcerers of deception to robe themselves in white buffalo skins? People are so easily conditioned by these kinds of bibles and so easily deceived. Just observe the state of the world, which is proof that the majority of people are so stupidly gullible. But remember also that deception does not just come from intentional sorcery. It mostly comes from people who actually think they are doing good!! From people who are writing more bibles, new-age bibles, or from people who are following certain definitive bibles of truth. My teacher warned me to not simply and naively believe everything I am told by so-called teachers, nor even by Native Traditions. Most of what we are taught is either misleading or superstition.

In the final conclusion we must test all things by experience and by natural reason. Otherwise we are susceptable to deception and to manipulation from others - whether that manipulation is intentional or or naïve. Thus, we each need to discover and develop our own power of discernement, decision and self-integrity. This is the Native Path. If anyone tries to convince you that developing your own personal power is wrong or un-spiritual, then this is omost often a sign that they want to manipulate you into following either their way or the way of the staus quo. Because if you do not have your own power, then someone else or something else will. ADD to the above -- the possible deception of inner vision, dreams, guidance and prophesies.

You may say that you give up your own power to the Power of Great Spirit. That is good, in one sense. But then don’t give up your power to the world or merely accept that everything in the world has been decided by the Great Spirit. That is a very foolish belief. Not everything that happens in the world, or in the world of your experience, is part of Great Spirit Wisdom-Love-Will. Not everything expressive from you is necessarily part of This either. But it could be. From where is the Will of Great Spirit going to come from, if not from you and me and from other natural creatures? It can come from the world around us, and it can from ourself.

But It can’t come from ourself unless It realises Itself in us, or unless we become This Will. It has to become personal. It has to emerge out from our own centre of expression, from our own mind, our own heart, and our body. So the meaning of personal power in the Native View is that it can be in opposition to the Will and Love of Great Spirit. It can be disharmonious with the greater Circle of the Living Earth. Yet it can also be in harmony and expressive of the Greater Love-Wisdom and Will. In this sense, we need to develop and affirm the goodness of personal power. Also, there is a battle of light and darkness in the world. People are helping to destroy the Earth. Whether or not this is an intentional act is not the issue. Personal power is being applied to destroy the natural good. This isn’t going to change by merely praying to the Lord or by performing a Sun Dance or a Ghost Dance.

The people of good heart and holistic vision must become warriors. They must develop their own personal power, to defeat the other personal powers of deception and manipulation. The great battle for the earth has been going on for hundreds, even thousands of years. And people of the good continue to lose the battle! Just as the white man killed off Indian children and the buffalo too, and continues to pollute and rape the earth. We need to empower ourselves. We need to stand up with our own personal power, and then stand up with a collective power of good.

Stand up and say “I am powerful. I have the Power of Great Spirit Love. The Great Spirit Power flows through me. Thus, I have great personal power! - to transform myself and the world towards a beautiful expression of harmony and love. The Power of Good is with us. And the power of illusion and deception will be destroyed!” I am humble and sensitive. But I am warrior as well! Let us combine our personal powers to destroy the evil parasites of the world. I’m not trying to make you into a fanatic. I’m just trying to incite some passion in you. But I’m not trying to get you to follow my passion. I’m hoping you will find your own passion. Then let your passion propell you into decision and action. Stand up warrior spirit of the Good, and may others stand by your side! Am I trying to incite a riot? On your mother’s ass I am! Coyote howled with laughter.

...... The final practice of the earth practice (8-fold) series is called the opening to Mother’s Love. Love is the greatest healing energy and the greatest transformative power. No other power is greater, not even sorcery power. The Earth is full of Love, full of Love-Spirit. This is the Great Mother-Love. The practice is simple but profound. Bring you attention and feelings down to the Earth, inwardly seeing the whole of the Earth below you. Begin to sense and feel the wholeness of this huge body below. Feel the whole planet-body, letting it all into your heart. You could even feel as if you were huggin the whole planet, like hugging a tree except this is much bigger. What is important in the practice is have a sense or feeling for the whole spherical planet. realize this whole great body as an energy-ball of Love. Then feel this wonderful great body of Love come close to your heart. In fact, let the whole body of Love enter your heart, letting it be received by your love. Allow this Spirit of Love to enter into you.

The essence of the practice is to consciously receive the Mother’s Love from the Earth. Feel your own need for love, and feel the earth as the source of Love. recognize the Earth-Spirit Love and receive this into you. Relax and let yourself be loved by the Mother Earth. People talk about the Love from the Father God in Heaven. They talk about the Love from the Virgin Mary. They talk about love coming from parents, friends and lovers. But seldom do people speak of the Love from Mother Earth. All the Love we need for our personal healing is right below our feet. It is right inside the earth and permeating the Earth. Love vibrates through the Earth. And we are actually within this vibration and this energy-sphere of Love. We are in it like fish are in the sea. But for the most of our days we do not realize it, or we quickly forget it. Even if we happen to experience this Love emerging from the earth-Spirit, we seem to quickly forget it. The practice is to open yourself to the earth-Love and consciously feel it, realize it, and receive it into your heart. In fact, let this power of Love fill your whole body and energy-field. Let it fill you like water. immerse yourself in this Love. Dance in it like a dolphin. Allow the love into you. Allow yourself to be loved. Let this Love, rising from the earth, heal you throughout. Let it cleanse and heal your heart and your whole emotional body. Let yourself be filled with love and let yourself be loved. Breathe the Love into you. Or let the love come into you through the breath. Let it come into you on the Mother’s breath. Let the Mother Earth breathe Love into you. Let yourself be filled with the Breath of Love, as it is breeathed into you from the Mother Earth. Feel the Mother breathe out this love from Her Heart, and as She is breathing out Love you are breathing the Love in.

The Mother wants to fill you with Healing Love. She wants to love you. She wants you to feel Her Love and receive this Love. She wants you to be healied by Her Love. So go for it. Breathe it all in. Receive all the Love you can possibly contain. Gather all this goodness inside your energy egg, letting your whole personal space be filled up with the goodness and healing of Love, as it is offered to you from the Earth. Take all you want, all you need, all you can. There is plenty to go around. Too bad there are so few who receive it.

Then, after fully receiving and filling up with Love, and truly enjoying and cherishing the feeling of this Love and being loved, you can then begin to breathe out the love you now have. You can now breathe out this very same love into the external world. Breathe the love out from your heart to the whole human family, to the whole animal family, to the whole plant and tree family, and to the whole rock-crystal family. Breathe this love out everywhere! It’s like providing needed water to a thirst quenched world. It’s like being a water spring of healing energy to people and lives everywhere. If people do not receive this nurturing love from the earth Mother, then perhaps they may receive the needed love from you. The giving, the sharing of the Love Spirit is as important as the receiving.

But first one must receive. And this involves Recognizing the earth Love and allowing it to enter oneself. You have to allow the Love to love you and to heal you. Allow yourself to be loved, and at the same time let go of the pain of not being loved. Let go of the pain of past hurts. Let go of any past resentments for not being loved. Let go of everything, and simply allow yourself to be loved, to be filled by Love, and to be healed by Love. Once you have received, once you are filled, once you are healed, then you literally overflow with Love and you become like a flowing spring of Love to the world. Feel this Love flow outward, healing the hearts and spirits of people everywhere. See this Love radiate outward, lighting up the whole world around you. This is the balanced practice of Love Flow. You receive the Love, or breathe in the Love, from the Greater Earth Spirit, from the Mother-Source of Love. Then you personally contain this Love. So now, you can be a source of Love.

Now, you are a sacred spring of the Love Flow. Now, you are a walking centre of Love, a walking lighthouse of the Love-light. You yourself are now a healer. You are now the instrument or the pipe by which Great Spirit Love breathes healing into the world. Yet you must remember one very important thing about all this. You must share this Love consciously, in the flow of the present moment. The practice of receiving love must be done with conscious intention, and it must be consciously experienced in the breath of the flowing moment. So too, the sharing love must be done with conscious intention. The sharing must be consciously experienced in the breath of the flowing moment. Thus, the Love comes out from your conscious will. Only then is the practice fulfilled. Only then is the sharing self-transforming and reverberatingly effective. Once you experience this, radiating love with cosncious will, you will understand something deep about the purpose of life and the meaning of transformation.

The outward sharing of Love, from the sensitive heart-space, is both a feelings and healing energies. Words are not needed in this silent expression of Love, and walls are no boundary. The Love travels instantaneously across the space of our spiritual vision. It can be directed to specific persons or places, or it can be shared generally with the whole world. You can send this Love out with intentional visualisation, combined with conscious breath. But of course feeling is also important, because this isn’t merely a mental experience. Love is a very special energy. It is the real force in life which unites us all in one spiritual family. You feel this Love as a family bond. It is a feeling of unity and wholeness. It is related to consciousness and wisdom, which can also travel instantaneously across vast spaces. Love comes from a dimension beyond this physical world and yet it can move through this physical world, if there is agreement to it and if it is allowed to flow freely. The outward love practice is a form of service-work to the planet and humanity. Love is everywhere, though often hidden, and it exists in a potential state within everyone. But it is certainly not always manifesting, and certainly not always realised and actualualised. Thus, Love remains in its potential energy state, and it mostly remains hidden. It mostly remains as a potential experience, yet it is possible that Love can be in our conscious experience every moment. Our work, once we realize this spiritual fact, is to help this Love become known and to help bring forth its actualisation, in the feelings and actions of people everywhere. We are needed in the evolutionary work of awakening Love from its potential state into its realised existence, and we are needed in the work of helping the Love to flow freely throughout the world. We awaken the Love and bring it out, as it were, by Recognizing the truth of Love in ourselves, in the earth and in all people.

Even if the Love is not fully apparent or manifesting, you can bring it forth by Recognizing it as already existing in potential. You can recognize, or see with the inner eye, this Love already existing as a hidden seed in the underground of life. You see it already there in the land and inside the heart of each living being. It is an essential aspect of the spirit in each life and in the spirit of the land and in the whole Earth Spirit. You can recognize this Love in the inner eye of your heart, because Love resonates with Love and Love knows Itself. In the same way, the spirit-aspects of consciousness and wisdom are recognised in others and in the earth by this law of reflection and resonance.

Like recognises like. You know truth from others when you hear the truth in your own heart resonate with what you hear. Unfortunately, people tend to believe and accept what others say, without the test of inner resonance.

Let me remind you again of an important role of human beings in the greater purpose. We can awaken and consciously bring forth the Love-power, by our recognition of the hidden Love and by our open heart to receive and feel this Love coming forth. We also have a role in the distribution of Love. We recognize and bring forth the Love on the in-breath, and we distribute the Love on the out-breath. The in and out breath represents and maintains the balance of this work. In the work of distribution, each person is responsible for being a conscious power-place, a walking beacon of light and vibration. In this way, the feeling and vibration of Love moves outward and is distributed throughout the world. It then shines from many places, from many centres of life. The One Love, then, spreads out everywhere in the world. It flows freely all around like water.

Love has certain properties that coorespond to energies scientifically found in the physical world, but it is not really a physical energy. It behaves similar to light, in that it can raditate like light, though not blocked by walls. So you can spread this love across the earth, as though you were a great lighthouse or beacon. This must be done, though, with conscious intention. To some extent the Love can flow out from your own space without you being conscious of it or without you indending it to do so. But the effectiveness of this will be very limited. The Love awakening and the love distribution is effective to the degree that it is conscious and intentional. Love behaves like light, which is its solar property, cooresponding to the aspect of fire-light. It also behaves similar to the vibrational properties of crystals and sound resonance. In this sense, Love behaves like sound or vibration. If you resonate with the inner sound of Love, then you becomes an active, conscious vibration of Love. Experience this by simply vibrating with Love-feeling, or by vibrating as a Love-presence. You become like a vibrating bowl of love, and these vibrations spread out through the space around you. You don’t need to force or push the vibration outward. It just naturally reverberates outward into space around. You can imagine yourself as a vibrating bowl. Or imagine yourself as a pebble dropping into the pool of water around you, and feel the gentle vibrating waves of love flow outward from your centre of being.

realize yourself as a centre of Love-vibration and feel this vibration gently effecting the space around you. Feel this Love-vibration help awaken and transform the whole world. In the same way, you can vibrate peace, or joy, or any other quality of your true spirit. Take time everyday to practice this conscious sharing of your deepest spirit vibration, helping to transform the world with Love, Peace and Joy. Feel the vibration transform the space around you, as you let the vibration of Love expand. In this way, your own aura of Love-spirit expands and is more effective in the world. You will be transforming as well.

Besides the radiating-light and the resonating vibration properties of Love, there is also a flow-feeling of Love. This may feel like water, like a flowing liquid substance. In this sense, you can let the Love flow out and across the land, as a watery kind of feeling, giving to all life the needed Love-feelings for spiritual or creative growth. Life needs these Love feelings for growth and for healing, just as life needs water. So spread forth the love-feelings, as though you were watering the growth of world beauty and harmony.

The fourth property of Love cooresponds to the element of air or space. It is the spacial Presence of Love. You can expand the presence of Love by expanding your Love-breath to the whole world. realize Love as a spacial presence, as a conscious presence permeating space. This is the Spirit-presence of Love. You can make contact with the Love Presence of the whole earth.

Then breathe in this Love Presence, like breathing in Love-space or Love-air, filling yourself with the air of Love. Then you become the space of love. Or another way is to recognize the Love-space permeating the whole planet, which is the Love-Spirit of the Earth, and then consciously enter into this Great Love-space, virtually loosing yourself in it. This we call entering into the Great Love-Presence. Then you breathe within this love, within this Greater space or atmosphere of Love. Being in it, you breathe in the Love and you breathe out the Love, thereby helping to distribute the Love-air.

Try both ways. Breathe into you the Greater Love Presence, the Love-air of the earth, containing and concentrating it in your own space, then breathe it back out to the world. In breathing out the Love, you are expanding the very Presence of Love. You are transforming potential energy into actual energy. You are receiving the potential energy of love, then giving out an actualised energy of love. We can do this for the benefit of other people, animals, plants, portions of land, or for the whole world. The other way is to enter into the whole Love-presence of the planet, which is entering into the Love-spirit of the Earth. This entering-into the Presence is done in a state of receptive space, as I already taught. It may seem as though you are entering into, but it may also seem as though you are dissolved in the Greater Presence. You enter into It, while simultaneously allowing It to permeate you. Then you simply breathe within this greater Space, or within this greater Presence, thereby distributing the Air of Love around the whole planet. Both ways are equally effective, though the experience feels different.

The essence of the receptive space orientation is to allow the spacial presence outside of you to enter and fill your own sensitive mind-space. The experience is as if your own sense of self disolves and all that is left is the greater space. It is as if the personal aura, or presence, is lost in the energy-presence of the surrounding space. In a sense, then, this is a loss of the personal ego. Don’t worry, though, the ego will return. But when it does return, after this time of allowing, there will be a certain amount of transformation and Earth re-connection effected.

Don’t worry about what this is, because any re-examining of the personal ego will disrupt the receptive practice. Basically, you have to trust, which means that the ego will need to courageously give this practice some space to occur. It is not dangerous, unless you practiced it in negative places, such as a dirty city or near a waste-dump. I mean, you need to be sensible in these practices. Find some beautiful and inspiring place to practice this - some place you naturally appreciate. Then trust and let go. Allow the space to enter you. Breathe it right in. Let yourself disolve in it. Breathe within it, through it, and all around it. Then you will know what I mean when I said that this may seem as if you are entering-into the space, yet it also seems as if the space enters you. What you will eventually experience is a complete balance between the active-expansive consciousness and the receptive-allowing consciousness. Eventually, there will be an undivided unity in the whole experience, whereby self-expansion and self-disolving become the very same experience. For now, this kind of talk seems paradoxical and perplexing. But the understanding is not that far off, if you do what I’ve said. In fact, the understanding through direct experience may only be ten minutes away. Coyote laughed. One more thing. These are not just practices to help you grow and have new experiences, even though they are certainly transforming. They are also essential in healing the land and the Earth, and in awakening and bringing forth the consciousness, the Love and the Wisdom of the Land. Basically the law is that the Spirits only come awake, and only become actually effective, when there is a receptive space for their own active consciousness, when there is a spiritual recognition and an allowing attitude.

Then the potential of natural spirit presence will become actual and effective. Otherwise, the usual ego-centric imbalnced perspective, in relation to the natural world, will keep suppressing this potential and keep arrogantly imposing itself upon the land, without any respect or recognition of the true spiritual nature of the land and its relations. Unless man begins to respect and appreciate what is naturally given, he will continue to rape the earth and impose his distorted ego image upon it. Hopefully we can reverse this modern trend.

I’ll give you an exercise to do, which will help. Find a place to sit where there is an openess or spaciousness in front of you. Begin to breathe your own presence outward into the space, expanding your consciousness and love into the space. Feel and realize and sense your conscious presence filling the space. This is the practice of presence-expansion. It is an expansion of your personal aura, your personal presence and power. You can actually do this anywhere. It is not imposing or harmful on others, unless you are expanding a negativity. The practice here is, of course, an expansion of good energy, of love and pure awareness. It is beneficial to the surrounding space. If you have doubts about the quality of your own energy or presence, then first do the purification practice and the Earth balancing practice, both involving conscious breath. So first feel pure and balanced. Anyway, after practicing the expansion of your conscious presence, you reverse the practice, reversing the perspective of spacial experience. Now, you become passively receptive to the wide space in front of you, which means you become passively open to the very presence or spirit-consciousness of the land, the space in front of you. It will often feel more difficult to maintain an experiential continuity of this, but the more you practice the easier it gets. To some people, this practice of receptive space may seem more natural and easier than the active-expanding space. Both are equally natural, though one may be less exercised than the other. What we are seeking by the practicing is an equal balance of these natural powers or abilities. So, the receptive practice involves a passive yet sensitive mind. The senses and the awareness do not reach outward, but instead they remain passive and receptive to what comes in from the outside, simply allowing and receiving. Don’t focus outward nor focus on anything in particular. You just remain in an open state of mind and in an intesified state of sensitivity. The mind here is a sensitive intrument, allowing and receiving impressions and energies coming in. The sensitive mind can fine tune itself to only receive certain kinds of impressions or energies, but in this practice the sensitive mind is just open to the conscious presence of the land, to the pure conscious spirit of the land. Then, you can consciously feel and receive the presence of Love from this space.

The practice of expanding your consciousness, or your presence, outward into the space around will increase the power of your personal presence. It will exercise the expansion of your magnetic aura. This will be helpful in other circumstances, where you want to be spiritually strong and protected from negative influences. Protections involving either talismans or psychic walls are never as effective as a strong and expansive aura, or personal presence. This expansive presence is both a psychic power and an energetic feeling. The experience of personal power will always feel expansive.

Opposite to the expansive power, yet complimenting it, is personal sensitivity. We could still call this a power, though it is not expansive. Like the expanding presence, it is a developed personal ability, but it is allowing energies to come to you, rather than expanding energy outward. With this ability you can feel and sense, as close to you, energies and consciousness from a distance. This development of sensitivity is as important as the development of an expansive presence and personal protection. For without sensitivity, one would be cut-off from knowing the feelings and needs of life around, one would be insensitive to others, and one would also not respond well to the world around. In order to respond to life with sensitivity and intelligence, one needs both sensitivity and expansive power. Many people fear sensitivity because they fear being harmed by the energies of others. Other people avoid exercising their expansive power because because they fear hurting others. But if we develop a balance of both abilities, then there is a protection from harm to oneself and harm to others. For then you are sensitive in how you expand your own energies, and you have enough expansive power to quickly dismiss any negative energies. One may feel a vulnerability in the practice of receptive space and sensitivity. Two things can be said about this. One, do not open yourself in the receptive space unless a)you already feel strong in yourself, and unless b)there is already a natural sense of appreciation about the space around you, rather than a natural sense of danger or negative energies. For example, do not open yourself in unsafe environments. Of course, you will already need at least some degree of sensitivity to be cautious in this way. Second, you can protect yourself in an auric egg before opening up. In this way, the energies coming to you in the receptive space will only reach the boundary of this auric egg. There you can test the value and goodness of this energy, before allowing it to enter into your deeper sacred space.

When you come into a new place or meet up with a stranger, and if you want to be sensitive to their energies, you may want to apply this practice by first meeting them at the boundary of your egg. This is done by strengthening your expansive power to about an arms length around your body. Simply breathe out a vital and conscious energy into the immediate space around you. This forms the auric egg of your emotional presence, or personal power, and it is also your greatest protection against any negative energies. Now, you have a choice. You can either completely insure protection by remaining in the conscious expansion of presence and virtually shuting off all sensitivity to this person or this place. Here you do not practice any receptive or sensitive space, which makes energies go out from you but not into you. This is surely the safest approach. But it is not always the best, and it is not always the approach you would want.

Because sensitivity is often useful and often wanted. Our life would be rather sad and cold, if we were never sensitive to others or to new spaces. Also, even if the person or place is suspicious or possibly harmful to you, it is often best to be sensitive in order to determine what they might do. In other words, a good martial arts practitioner would be wise to be sensitive in a possible battle, for then he might better respond to the challenge. What I’m trying to get across is that you need to develop sensitivity at a distance.

Being a sensitive person in this way is very different from being someone who is easily hurt or reactive to the energies or threats coming from others. The person who is vulnerable and open to attacks, threats, and stressful emotional energies, is a sensitive person without enough expansive power, which means they have a weak aura of protection. Meeting another person or energy at a distance means that the outside energy is tested at the boundary of your own energy aura, before it is either allowed in closer to the heart of one’s sacred personal space, or it is bounced back to the sender. If I simply allowed the outside energy to enter without first testing it, then I am vulnerable to emotional and energy daggers, negative thoughts, etc. I’m not trying to instill paranoia. I’m implying that there are all these bad people out there trying to get you.

All I’m saying is that the shaman applies certain useful techniques for insuring his own protection, while still trying to be as sensitive and caring as he or she can. In an obviously beautiful place out in Nature, or in the presence of your lover or friends, then you need not practice this. There is nothing weak about being vulnerable and deeply sensitive to others. In fact, it may be a sign of great strength and faith. But if you allow yourself to be vulnerable to any negative energies of people who you do not really know, then you are being rather stupid.

Being sensitive to and feeling positive and loving energies is the kind of vulnerabilty that increases the joy of life. But there is no good reason to allow negative energies into your deeper vulnerable space. If you practice being sensitive at the boundary of your emotional aura, then you are both receptively sensitive and actively powerful. It is a good balance. You are being emotionally sensitive, but not emotionally vulnerable. You sense energies, but not deeply in yourself, because they are sensed at arms length. It is like stopping the in-coming energies with an arms length, and saying, “Hold it right there. If you are a positive energy then I may let you come closer and be felt in my more sensitive sacred place. If you are not positive, then I acknowledge you but do not let you come any closer.” The inner you, your deeper sensitivity, is then detached or distanced from whatever happens at the boundaries of your emotional egg, though there will still be a sensitivity, or more like a sensing. The boundary of the aura operates like a sensing scanner, as well as like an energy shield. You’ll feel what this is. You’ll feel how it works. If someone throws an emotional dagger or bomb at you, then you’ll know the difference between catching it at a distance and catching right in the belly. Catching things in the directly in the belly can really hurt, as most people know. Most people allow themselves to be hurt because they have no guard.

How do you test what is there? How do you know what is positive or not? You simply know it. You simply sense it and the natural senses will instinctively know what is good for you or what is not. The shamanic rule here is to trust your own sensitivity instinct.

How else are you going to decide whether or not a person or a place is good and loving to you? Like choosing or accepting a lover, you have to just feel who is good for you. Remember that I am certainly not suggesting to close down your heart to people and places, nor am I advocating keeping everyone and everything at an emotional arms length. But this is something you should practice if you are uncertain about others walking your way, or if you want to first test a space before practicing the receptive space. Because the receptive space orientation is being completely open.

But then why not always practice the auric egg, the arms length approach? Why even take any chances by practicing the complete receptive space? Because, even though the arms length approach is partly a receptive space and partly an expansive space, there are extremely valuable experiences only possible in the complete receptive space, whereby you open up your deepest sensitivity and feel energies deep inside your own inner space. Being receptive at arms length cannot fully give you these experiences and cannot fully let into you certain energies of the world needed for shamanic development. At some point, then, you have to take the chance and not just keep all energies, people and things at arms length. You have to fully let in certain energies, in order to assimilate them. But, to be smart and at least somewhat cautious, you should practice the sensitive auric egg, catching energies at arms length (or more), until you feel certain that nothing is threatening. Will you ever feel that certain? I don’t know. What you can do is to practice slowly letting down the auric guard, and slowly letting the outside energies come closer, as you continually test them. In this way you let the good energies come ever closer to you, until they are right close. Then, If they still feel good, take the full quantum leap into absolute receptive space. Then, my friend, you will have taken a big step.

My task is to show you the possibilities of being human, to show you how to develop what is possible. There is no one right way of being, for all circumstances. That is why there are no easy answers. That is why nobody can tell you exactly what to do in all circumstances. Anyway, there is no absolute right and wrong. Having a balance is most often the best way. Yet even balance is not the absolute right way, because there are times when exagerated or one-sided behavior is best in the circumstance. Also, nobody can develop balance without first developing each side of that balance. For example, a Native teaching method is to gradually approach true balance by strengthing powers of the four directions. A balance of the four directions is the ideal, but this can only be achieved by first perfecting abilities cooresponding to each of the four directions. So the teacher might help you work with the south, and this work may seem lop-sided. That’s because it would appear to neglect abilities of the north. But in order to develop each direction or power of the whole self, one has to concentrate on that direction or power. This is why I’m giving you these different practices. You would be a very lop-sided, ill-balanced person if you only ever practiced the expanding space and never the receptive space. Or vice versa. Or if you only ever let in energies at an arms length, then you’d be missing something.

But if you never practiced that, then you would be either an endlessly expanding ego, or you would be an endlessly vulnerable emotional victim. And if you were never deeply sensitive and even vulnerable, you’d end up being a completely insensitive drab.

4

Basic practice:

Breathe in from the Earth below. Receive in gratefulness. Relax down to the Earth as you breathe out. Continue this Receiving energy and Relaxing energy, while sensing-feeling the living rhythm of Mother-Earth. Now just be aware of the greater rhythm below, and allow your own breath and energy to harmonise with the Earth-rhythm; continue until your whole energy-field of mind and feelings has become One with the Earth, until your breath is an extension of the Earth-breath. Now, identify yourself as the Earth-being and just be the living Earth-breath.

Relaxation and concentration are the two most difficult abilities to fully master. They are like opposites, yet they both balance and compliment one another in all real practices, in all healing work, and in all personal and group medicine work. Hold out your arms and hands, as if you were ready to receive in your hands a small baby. Now, keep the left hand open with palms facing up, but close the right hand though it doesn’t need to be a tight fist. The right fist is your ability to concentrate, that is, concentrate your mind and your energies. Without concentration there cannot be transformation or creative activity. Yet this will depend of relaxation, as well as concentration. Consider what it might mean to have a relaxed concentration or a concentrated relaxation. The right balance of these will be the key to everything.

Now, feel the sense of relaxation in the left hand. It involves the feeling of trust and surrender. Remember the Earth Mother. realize that the Great Mother loves you and is here to care for you. While you relaise this, take a deep breath, receiving this love from the Great Mother. Then on the out-breath completely relax and let go into this Great Love awaiting you below your feet. Do this again with the breath. Keep deep breathing in the nurturing love from Mother Earth, then relax in a feeling of complete trust as you breathe out. Keep doing this until you feel completely relaxed and in trust. This will bring you to the experience of trust, surrender, and relaxation. Remember that relaxation is a needed virtue on the physical, emotional, and mental levels of oneself. Practicing relaxation on each of these levels will develop one of the most valuable abilities within your power. Those who can fully relax and trust, in the appropriate circumstances, are halfway to being complete masters and shamans. This means being able to relax in trust within groups, ceremonies, in sacred natural sites, and especially in personal meditations.

Being able to relax in a deeply spiritual way, that is, relax in one’s full nature, depends on our trust, our trust of others close by, our trust of nature and life, and trust of ourself. This trust is not always instantaneous. But it will grow with time, as we let go of unnecessary fears, guilt, resentment, and the false pride that comes from feeling alienated and separate from Great Spirit or Mother Earth. The practices of cleasing and purification lead to this fullness of relaxed trust. These practices involve the letting go of unnecessary stresses, worries, rambling thoughts and emotional turmoils, which leads to your true spiritual nature. Only then can you relaxation and concentration in your true nature, and your true nature is the ultimate source of your spiritual power. Letting go may also involve self-forgiveness. We all make mistakes, but this is almost innevitable on the path of spiritual growth and realisation. If you recognize a mistake, then you have already passed the first step of a spiritual growth. The second step is self-forgiveness, and the third step after this is seeing and affirming a better way. Then the final step is manifesting the better way.

The key to relaxation is the out-breath and the pause before breathin in, while the key to concentration is the in-breath and the pause before breathing out. As we master both sides of the breath, a balance of relaxation and concentration is achieved, and both merge into a harmonious unity. The out-breath is never forced. It is a surrendering and letting go. Yet if you concentrate awareness and intention on this letting go, then full relaxation of the physical, emotiona and mental aspects can be achieved very quickly. The concentrated practice of breathing in, from the Earth or from the Great Spirit, will build your personal power and increase your capacity to hold more spiritual energies. Yet this concentration of energy and awareness will also depend on relaxation and trust. If you are tight or tense in the concentration, then the channel to the greater powers is contracted and small. So the more you can relax in the concentration, the more open will be the channel. Remember that you are like a channel and container for the Greater Spirit.

The key to spiritual growth is in the free flow of natural-spiritual energies, and the ability to direct and concentrate these energies. The free flow depends on relaxation and trust. The concentration depends on intention and conscious will. If the will is too tight, then the channel becomes too closed, though in some special circumstances this may be useful. If there is no conscious will and concentration, then the free flow of energies simply pass by, though in some special circumstances this may be valuable to experience. The pure mystic, or pure medium, allows the flow to pass by without any grasping, while the shaman or magician intentionally makes use of the free flow. Only you can find a balance in all this. Here is something to consider. If you put your hands in a flowing stream and keep the hands fully open, the hands will be cleaned but you’ll never be able to collect any water for your need. If you fully close your hands in a tight fist, trying to grasp the water, then you’ll never collect any water. You can only collect the water for your thirst when you cup your hands and intentionally bring the cupped water to your lips. Thus the hands are not limp, and neither are they tightly fisted. This is the shamanic balance.

In the practice of breathing in and up from the Earth, you are intentionally bringing up the energy and concentrating it into your own power centre or into your own body. In the beginning as you practice this, it may feel as though you are forcing the energy up. But the true way of achieving this is to relax and simply allow the energy to rise up as you breathe it in. The energy naturally rises, when there is an intentional opening and when there is a conscious will to bring it up through the breath. The will is used, and concentration is used, but there also needs to be an allowing and letting it happen naturally and spontaneously. Again, the key is balance, and only you can know what the right balance is.

One important practice is to bring up the Earth energy and allow it to fill your power centre and your heart centre as well. It is possible to force energy up into the power centre, but it’s impossible to force up love energy into the heart. So in this practice you have to allow the Love energy to rise up into the heart. Then, after a slight pause in the breath to feel the fullness of Love in the heart, you release this Love to the whole world or to the Nature around you. The practice requires relaxation in the emotional body and concentration in awareness. Breathe in all of the Earth vitality and Love that you can possibly contain. Then breathe out all of this in a wonderful flow of Love release and expression. Allow the Love to freely flow out from your personal centre into the world. There is no forcing in this and no need to push it out. The Love is simply allowed to release into the waiting world. Just relax and let it out. You’ll feel a wonderful and healing sense of self-release, and you’ll realize yourself as one of the sources of Love-expression in the world. The key to this is in the allowing of the release and in the conscious feeling of it occuring through the out-breath.

Another key is that through the in-breath the Earth Powers of vitality and love are being concentrated into oneself, into one’s own spiritual centre. Thus the Earth Spirit is accumulated in and renewing the spirit-body. But you don’t need to keep holding in the breath. Accumulation and renewing has been accomplished in this particular breath. Now, the breath and the energies need to be freely released. You won’t lose any energy, neither vitality nor love, when you release this to the world. I can’t fully explain why. It’s just one of the energy laws of spiritual dynamics. In fact, if you try to hold it all inside yourself, without a willingness and allowing of its release, there will be a certain loss. I can explain it this way. On the in breath the energies are accumulated in your own centre or centres. If you are depleated or weak, then you may need to spend some concentrated time in just accumulating. Just receive and don’t yet focus on the out-release and don’t worry what happens on the out-breath. Just concentrate on the in-breathing for awhile. But this concentration on just receiving will not take too long, if done with conscious intention. At some point you will naturally feel full, like eating until you feel full, or drinking water until your thirst is quenched. At some point you need to complete the full practice, like completing the full cycle of one great breath. The breath of release completes a kind of energy transformation. It completes an assimilation of the energy accumulated. But this is only an inadequate form of explanation. What is important is the willingness and feeling of the release.

It is not a forced willing. It is a relaxed and allowing willingness. It is a willingness to let the Love be released to the world. It is an allowing of this energy to be released on the out-breath. And instead of the free Earth energy being concentrated in the container of oneself, now this energy is freely released out into the greater space around. It is freed from the container. It is freely shared, and it feels like the Love expands out. So on the in-breath, energy is being concentrated in oneself, and on the out-breath energies are allowed to expand outward. What is happening here is that you are being a channel between the deep source of Love within the Earth Mother and the many lives or children of the Earth. You are consciously receiving and accumulating divine milk from the Great Mother, then releasing this milk out to all the children, to all our relations, to all the land, to all the plants and trees, to all the animal creatures, and to all of our human family in need of healing and love. You release this pure Love to all directions, and each direction can go to one of these four families of nature - the mineral, plant, animal, and human beings. Thus you are opening up a spring of Love and Healing Power always available from the Earth Itself, and being a conscious channel for this Power within the Earth to flow freely outward and through the many relations of this living biosphere. In a sense, you are bringing forth the potential energy into realised or manifested energy. For it is through our awakened consciousness, our intention, and our breath, that what is always available potentially can be realised and shared across the land. In this is a key to the very purpose of human beings, because our possibilities, our choices, our consciousness, and our love-wisdom is potentially unlimited.

In the essential Native tradition there is the belief of a Great Spirit pervading all of life and having certain powers relating to life and death, leadership and prophesy, healing and teaching, and creative inspirations of the human soul. The Great Spirit is basically an idea of God, though this God-idea may be somewhat different from certain Christian beliefs. Great Spirit is the Greatest, or for some people Great Spirit is the Only. What I mean is that you might think of Great Spirit as the greatest Power on Earth or in the whole Universe. Or, you might think of Great Spirit as the greatest Wisdom-Mind, or Consciousness, or Love. If not the greatest, then Great Spirit is the Only True Power, the Only True Love, the Only true Wisdom-Mind. Whether you think of It as the Greatest or as the Only, the Great Spirit is essentially known in at least four Ways or Aspects. These Ways may be thought of as the Directions of Great Spirit, Who is Wisdom-Guiding, Creative-Power, Love-Compassion, and Beauty-Manifesting. These coorespond to the North, East, South, and West of a Native Medicine Wheel. Native people may think of the Great Spirit as one of these four aspects more than the others, but they would not argue that Great Spirit is not one of these. This is, thus, similar to most, though not all, Christian ideas of God, saying that God is All-Powerful, All-Loving, All-Knowing, and All-Beautiful. Some Christian theologies believe their God to be quite distant from our everyday Earth life and the natural world. But in the Native View the Great Spirit is ever-Present with us and especially pervades the natural world. For most people the Great Spirit has not only created this world, but also remains ever-active in the world, bringing special gifts of healing, guidance, success or victory to those who sincerely pray and who prove themselves worthy of this special grace. To some Native mystics and shamans, the natural world is the on-going manifestation of the Power-Love-Wisdom of Great Spirit. This natural world, including the natural person, could be viewed as a spiritual embodiment of the Great Spirit. In other words, all that is good and beautiful is either the creative work of Great Spirit, or it is part of the actual embodiment of this Great Spirit. We would say that Great Spirit is Beauty-Manifesting, because natural or inspired beauty must ultimately be the work of the Creator, or as some would say, beauty is the Great Spirit manifesting It’s Power of Love-Wisdom in creation.

If such is the Great Spirit, then what is the meaning of the Earth-Mother? The Earth-Mother, or the Great Earth-Spirit, is ultimately a portion of the Universal Great Spirit. The Earth is a planetary embodiment of the Great Universal Spirit. Our Earth-Spirit is essentially the same as Great Spirit, though not as universally vast. Since Great Spirit is either the Greatest or the Only True, then Earth-Spirit must be near-to-greatest or a portion of the Only One. This makes sense in the Native View, as the Earth-Mother is thought to have all of the four main Aspects of Great Spirit, such as Wisdom-Mind, Creative-Power, Love-Compassion, and Manifesting-Beauty. This is how we think of Nature, in the greater sense of there being a Spirit of Nature, such as Mother Earth, Who is Powerful, Creative, Loving, Intelligent-Wise, and Beautiful. Earth-beauty is certainly not just an abstract idea, and neither are the other Aspects.

Beauty is evident in Nature, in forests, on shores, on mountains, in valleys, and even in the sunsets. In fact, the very idea of beauty seems to come from the natural world, as found in one of its many prime examples, the blossomed rose flower. Neither can anyone deny that Nature, or the natural world, is intelligent and creatively powerful.

Thus, the Earth-Nature is essentially viewed in the same ways as Great Spirit, so we can understand the Earth as an embodiment of Great Spirit, or as a part of the One Pervading Great Universal Spirit. It is also important to note that in the Native View the Great Spirit and the Earth-Mother are not merely ideas and are certainly not anthropomorphic projections onto inanimate physical laws and processes. The Great Spirit and Earth-Mother are Living Beings, Conscious, Loving, and Willful. They are not just ideas, and they cannot be reduced to physical energies. It is not enough to say that there is One Great Light-Energy pervading the Universe, or that there is one Great Law of the Universe. Energies and laws are aspects of Great Spirit and of the Earth-Nature, but Spirit cannot be just reduced to such inanimate ideas. The energies we discover, either by scientific method or in personal experience, are of the Great Spirit and Nature, yet these are effects and not the ultimate causes. Real Cause is in Spirit, which is a Consciousness or Mind, not simply an energy. Or, let us say that Great Spirit IS an energy, though a Conscious Energy. Now we are at the truth behind the matter. Energies and laws are discoveries. They are real. Yet they are effects of Conscious Spirit or Conscious Mind. They are not the causes of creation, but are rather the creations, or effects, of the Creator-Spirit.

So in the Native View, the experience of Consciousness cannot be denied. Spirit must possess consciousness. Our own consciousness is the greatest mystery of science. Great Spirit God cannot be any less conscious than we, but must be the greatest Consciousness there is. And any Powers of Great Spirit must be Conscious Powers, not merely inanimate energies or laws.

If Great Spirit is a Conscious Power or Being, then The Spirit must also have Conscious Choice and Conscious Aim or Purpose. The natural laws and the various kinds of energy are part of Great Spirit’s Conscious Choice and Purpose. Therefore, the Great Spirit is not bound or limited by any natural laws or energies, because Great Spirit chose or willed these laws and energies into existence. Thus, in the Native View, for the most part, the Great Spirit is the creator of natural laws, so is unbounded by these laws, which is how miracles and unexplainable phenomena are possible. The Great Spirit is conscious, which is true of any spirit, and Great Spirit has Purpose and Will. Great Spirit is, thus, a Conscious Will or Conscious Purpose. This, of course, involves Love and Wisdom, and the manifestation of this Will must require a Power to transform and give life. One Native View, which is slightly different from the above view, is that the natural laws and processes of manifestation are reflections, on this plane of existence, of the Inner Nature of Great Spirit. In other words, this views life as a reflective picture of all that Great Spirit is. Even if much of life does not seem perfectly good and beautiful, there is still the essence of perfection in all life. This essential reflection of Great Spirit within all things will come forth in greater and greater perfection, as the kingdoms of nature and humanity evolve.

This understanding of Great Spirit is only slightly different from the previous View of Great Spirit as Creative Will. The difference is quite subtle. Instead of viewing Great Spirit as the creative artist or inventor of this world, Great Spirit can be viewed as the Inner Being of this world, whereby the natural laws, energies and processes are unfolding reflections of this One Inner Being. The outer is, then, a reflective embodiment of the Inner Qualities and Truths of Great Spirit. So in this View, Great Spirit is not merely a distanced Creator but is the unfolding Spirit of the natural world, including the human evolution. Then, this evolving world of nature and humanity is not merely a creation of the Creator, but is the actual embodiment of Great Spirit or the Inner Spiritual Qualities. This does necessarily imply that all things and events are perfect reflections of Great Spirit Truth and Quality, because the perfection of this Embodiment or Manifestation of Great Spirit is evolving and unfolding through time and freedom of choice. In fact, the Great Purpose IS this evolvement, or this unfoldment, and the true purpose of human beings is to consciously bring about this perfection of Great Spirit on Earth, through our own lives and through a cooperative world.Thus our own purpose here IS the Great Purpose.

We often say that Nature is good and beautiful. But is it? In one sense, we can view all things of Nature, including ourselves, as good and beautiful, if we can see the greater picture and ecology of these manifestations. Though in another sense, we can view all events and life as evolving towards a greater perfection of goodness and beauty. Both views are right in their own sense. It is easy to see flowers as beautiful and an abundant harvest of food as good. But what about droughts, harmful insects, and destructive huricanes? It would appear that natural phenomena is not always good or beautiful. We see the beauty of a lion, but do we see the beauty of a lion chasing after a baby deer and ruthlessly ripping it apart? If we look narrowly at specific actions in the natural world, we do see a ruthlessness of Nature. But rather than judge these actions by our ideals for human behavior, we need to view these things as part of the overall beuty and intelligence of Nature. We need to stand back from specific instances and see the greater picture or greater eco-system. So if it is difficult to see the good or beauty in specific natural acts, especially with killing, maybe we can see the good and beauty in the greater picture or processes of Nature. So rather than argue over the idea that this natural world is always good or not, we can suspend any human judgement and view any natural catastrophes or apparent ugliness as part of a greater process of the evolving Earth system.

For example, the destructive huricanes and droughts, which are certainly not good for certain communities on Earth, can be understood as inevitable processes of the earth system or as necessary to the greater ecology of the whole Living Earth. It may be simply unavoidable that huricanes are part of the Earth system and certain places will be hit by such destructive forces.

In other words, what is good for the Whole cannot necessarily be judged from any limited perspective. From our human perspective, we need to adapt to the greater processes of Nature, and we cannot expect that all events will necessarily be for our good. So we need to accept that the Good of the Whole comes first, and we can do our best to adapt our own lives to that which we cannot alter.

Male and Female....

We can see how the Earth-Spirit is a part or reflection of Great Spirit. In this view, the Earth-Spirit is not essentially different from Great Spirit. The Earth is the Great Spirit present in this particular place and time in the Universe. Thus, the Earth-Spirit has all of the essential powers and qualities of Great Spirit, but is limited in comparison to the infinite or the Greatest Power. Our human spirit is related in the same way. It is more limited and less powerful than the whole Earth-Spirit and Great Spirit, yet it reflects all of the same, to some degree.

Yet in the Native View the Great Spirit is thought of as the Great Father, while the Earth-Spirit is thought of as our great Mother. Many people consider these archetypal gender modes to be unnecessary or possibly misleading. If we deeply consider the reality of an Almighty Universal Spirit, pervading and structuring all that is, it does seem rather arbitrary to view this Great Spirit as a Male-Archetype. The Ultimate Spirit or Power must be beyond Male or Fe-male, must be Androgonous. This ultimate intuition of Great Spirit, beyond gendering, can be called the Great Mystery.

I will attempt to explain the meaning of the Great Spirit as Great Father, but you must remember that the Ultimate meaning of the Great Spirit is really beyond any gender-archetype. You just have to understand that there are different ways of viewing fundamental reality. Each is right in its own sense of meaning, and there is no contradiction implied here. People simply use language and names in slightly different ways, so we need to understand the intended meaning behind these names. In one system of thought, there is a trinity of the Earth-Mother, the Father-Spirit, and the Great Mystery-Spirit (which many people call Great Spirit. I’m just trying to clarify what might seem confused. Some people will use the name Great Spirit in the Ultimate sense which is beyond gender archetype. In this sense, the Earth-Spirit is like a portion of this Great Spirit. Then again, some people will use the name Great Spirit in the sense of the Great Father.

In this sense, or meaning, the Great Father-Spirit relates in a special way to the Great Earth-Mother. In fact, this gender-archetypal relation is more usual in Native conversation and ceremony. The Great Spirit, in the Father-sense, permeates and impregnates the Earth-Mother, as penetrating Light from the Sun or as rushing Wind upon the Land. In this View, the Great Spirit comes down to the Earth from the Sky and moves through all life as universal Power, Consciousness and Love. The whole of related life is understood as the Whole Earth-Mother, while the inspiring and powerful inner spirit of this life is understood as a portion or movement of Great Spirit. In a more defined cosmological structure, we can speak of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother as complimentary opposites. As human beings, we come from the Sky and are born from the Earth. Our Divine Parents are Earth and Sky, so we are equally both in our essence. This means that our own spirit is partly Sky-Spirit and partly Earth-spirit. Thus we can each identify ourself as an Earth spirit and as a Sky spirit. Realising this is important for a balanced sense of self. You might meet some people who are more extremely identified with one of these. Very earthy people are more concerned with practical earth responsibilities. In ordinary language we say they are down-to-earth people. Very sky-like people are more dreamy and imaginative. We might say they are more up in the clouds, though this is not necessarily a negative connotation. Each extreme has its positive virtues, as well as its negative side-effects due to an imbalance.

Being very earthy without enough sky-consciousness can result in an experience of drudgery and almost a bondage on earth. Being very sky-like without enough earth-consciousness can result in impractical visions and an inability to manifest the vision or inspiration. Yet the sky-consciousness offers an experience of freedom, self-expansion and unlimited possibilities.

The Sky World is also known as Freedom-Sky, because here the mind is free and unlimited in its spiritual vision, and it is the Realm of Possibility. It is said that the Great Sky above, including the whole universe of stars, is the very Mind of Great Spirit, and that everything good on Earth was originally just an Idea or Vision in the Sky-World. So too was each unique life on Earth. You were once a Possible Idea in the Mind of Sky, until you became part of the Cloud World and finally rained down upon the Earth as a Seed of Potential. This Seed is your self-essence originating from Father-Sky, from the Sky-Mind. It is nurtured by Mother-Earth Land and by All Living Relations. Without Mother-Earth you would not have grown to be who you are. Without Father-Sky the very Idea of you would never have been.

Mind and spirit is free in Father-Sky and is grounded in Mother-Earth. Remember that we come from both Earth and Sky, and that we are both Earth and Sky. In the Native View, this is remembering the Great Father above and the Great Mother below. Without a heart connection and respect for our Mother below and Father above, we are then out of balance and not wholy human. You need to realize this Power from below and this Power from above, not just with the mind, but with the feelings and senses as well. Earth and Sky are, thus, the primary polarities in the Native Spiritual View, and as polarities they are naturally thought of in gender-type. But this is not merely a psychological projection. There is reality in this Father and Mother sense of Spirit, even though it would be a naïve projection to view the Earth-Mother just like a human mother or like a wise-old witch, or to view the Sky-Father just like a human father or like an old wise man. In accepting any spiritual archetypal views of reality, we need not become too literal in our beliefs, while at the same time not simply reducing all reality to scientific inanimate laws and energies. The archetypal imagination, which is our natural creative imagination, is part of the Great Mind or Knowing. It is as much of a way to the Truth as are the senses or scientific instruments. From this spiritual imagination we acquire spiritual experience and knowledge, just as from the physical senses we acquire physical experience and knowledge. Spiritual and archetypal truths can also be justified by the simple fact that people experience and feel this way. Thus, beyond any reasons for the belief, we can simply note that Native people naturally feel and image the Earth as their Great Mother. They also tend to feel and image a Great Father-Spirit above, Who can empowers and guide those who ask and are willing to receive. The general belief is that the whole Sky-World is filled with many different power-spirits and spirit-guides, yet all of these are somehow part of the whole Great Father-Spirit. So too is the Earth filled with many nature-spirits and helpers, yet all of these are part of the whole Mother-Earth.

The natural feeling-sense of there being both a Great Mother and a Great Father, as the spiritual essence of both matter and space, is itself a significant experience. It should not be regarded as just a cute idea or as a belief held by other people. Because the very feeling and experience of this Mother and Father Spirit is actually needed for a psychological balance and healing of the human being. So this is not just a belief, and not just fanciful thought or childish imagination. The Mother and Father Spirits are Real, and the experiential feeling and vision of these is important to our spiritual growth. You will re-discover a long lost sense of spiritual and psychological balance, when you open up to and give reverence to both Father-Sky and Mother-Earth. It is foremost a feeling-sense of the Father and Mother, rather than any picturesque image of them. They have no particular image or appearance, just as the greater nature spirits have no particular look. Psychics and artists may see and produce images of Great Mother or Great Father, or of any other spirit for that matter, but these are inevitably limiting in their truth. Whatever you see or someone else sees with the inner eye or spiritual mind will only be one possible appearance, though some art-work on these can be quite inspiring and evocative.

As already said, the Earth-Mother has all the essential Spirit-Qualities as the Great Spirit Itself. Yet, we can view certain Qualities as especially powerful and evident about the Earth-Mother. We say She is a Nurturing Spirit, Life-Giving and Healing, Ecologically Intelligent, and a very Sensitive Consciousness. She loves unconditionally and loves ecological diversity. She is a Unity of Diversity. She is Beauty-Manifesting. She is essentially all qualities of true Mother-Spirit. The Father-Sky Spirit has its own distinct Qualities that stand out, though the Great Father is essentially no less than Great Spirit Itself. We say that Our Great Father is the Guiding Spirit, the Transformative Thunder Power, the All-Knowing Conscious Wisdom, and the a Loving Creator. He especially loves great acts of courage and gifts of beauty made on Earth. He often challenges the true seeker, so that more of their own creative potentials and powers may come forth to blossom. He is the Warrior Spirit, the Protector Spirit, the Hunter Spirit, as well as the Guiding Spirit of Compassion. He gives us that part of our human spirit which is imaginative, visionary, creatively couragous, a seeker of spiritual knowledge and wisdom, and the will to evolve a better life on Earth. In the Native Way, we look up to Great Spirit-Father and we feel down to Great Spirit-Mother for help and empowerment, and we give thanks for what has been given and for what will be given. Once this balance is found, you will walk the good Red Path of the Earth with natural sensitivity and responsibility, and you will fly along the Blue Path of the Sky with spiritual vision as a conscious free-spirit. In many Native traditions the Earth-Spirit is associated with the Bear-animal and the Sky-Spirit with the Eagle-bird, though other animals could be also appropriate.

Our sun, the Solar Spirit, is often thought of as the Great Spirit, or the pure embodiment of Great Spirit. Some people view the sun as a Great Mother and some as a Great Father, but we need not argue over which is correct. It would seem more intuitive to view the sun as a Father-Spirit in relationship with the Earth-Mother, for all that lives here comes from the nurturing womb of the soil and energised by the light of the sun. So we will consider the sun as the Father, though we do accept that the Solar-Spirit has Mother Qualities as well, just as the Mother-Earth possesess, in essence, all Qualities of Great Spirit. What matters most is to have some form of sacred relationship with the sun, with the Solar Fire-Light.

Let us now consider the sun as the pure embodiment of Father-Spirit, or Great Grandfather-Spirit. Again we need to use a more intuitive form of logic, and not get trapped in just a one-dimensional logic. Thus, we can view the whole Sky-realm as the pervading Mind-space of Father-Spirit, while also understanding the Sun to be the embodiment of Father-Spirit. The essential Qualities of the Sun are Light and Fire. Light is the power of mental illumination, which is consciousness. So the Sun is the power of Consciousness, the primary essence of all Spirit or spirits. Your own consciousness, or spirit-illumination, is a portion of the Solar Light. So is the Earth-Consciousness. You are, essentially, the Solar Light here on Earth, which enables you to have conscious experience and conscious intelligence. You can also share this Light with others, as well as receive more of this Light from other relations. We contain and radiate this One Light. We are walking light-houses.

One of the advanced shamanic meditation practices is to journey into the light of your consciousness. Close your eyes and become relaxed and centered. Then let the mind become quiet and clear of thinking. If you can do this, and you will if you practice, the mind will become empty and spacious. The phys. Body will be left behind for awhile, though you can still be in the conscious breath. This is an experience of the spirit being free in the great space of Sky-Mind. You are in the experience of pure Sky, or pure Mind-Space. At first this may be an experience of darkness, yet there will be at least some light pervading the space. This is the pervading light of your consciousness, though it is really the Light-Consciousness of Great Spirit.

Now you are ready to journey deeper into the Light. You may see a dim light in the space, or it may seem as though a dim light surrounds you. Which ever it is for you, you can now go into the Light. This partly a journey into the Light and partly an allowing of the Light to engulf you. Both the willingness to journey and the willingness to allow are essential to the final completion of the practice. The final completion is a merging into the Great Light, by coming into the Light and allowing the Light to disolve any thought of you being separate from the Light. So at last, there will just be the One Great Light. There will be only Unity and the realisation that you are the Great Light. You will then be the Sun-Spirit, the Great Light of the Sky-Mind, and this Light will radiate out to all creation, or you will fill all Space with Light. This is called the transmutation of spirit into Light, where all sense of the separate self is completely lost in the One Light.

The other Quality of the Solar-Spirit is Fire, and you can practice going into the Great Fire, in the same way as going into the Great Light. Light and Fire are in essence the same, yet there is a subtle difference in the experience. Fire has a dual quality of Inspiration and Purification. One practice focuses on the purification of the heart and mind. You see the Great Fire of the Sun, then go into the Fire to eliminate any self-impurities and feelings or thoughts of self-separation from Great Spirit. This is a willing act of surrender and sacrifice, yet it is wonderfully liberating. Surrender and purification are qualities of the ritual Sun Dance and also of the traditional Sweat. All of the traditional rituals are of course important in their physical enactment, but these can also be done in meditation practices. It is the inner experience which is finally transforming, and all rituals are tools for helping one enter into a personal experience and inner transformation.

Besides the practice of Fire-purification, there is the practice of Fire-inspiration. Here, you enter into the fire of your own heart. The conscious breath can be used in this, by going deep into your own heart space on each in-breath and relaxing in the heart on each out-breath. If done with intention and concentration, and without the thinking mind, you will find the spirit-fire of your heart. This is your spirit-will or spirit-inspiration. It is a warming fire and feels nurturing and good. First, come closer and closer, on each in-breath, to this warm fire within the heart-space. Know this as the source of your life-inspiration, the life-spirit within. Then realize this inner fire to be the actual Solar Fire or the Fire of Great Spirit. Keep meditating in this realisation, and be in a state of receptivity to the Inspiring-Fire of Great Spirit. The continuing experience of this brings you into a pure relationship with the Creative Source and it also empowers and energisies the individual spirit - to be a pure extension of the One Great Spirit.

Remember that you can also return to this Great Fire within. It is the Fire of Life, of inspired creativity and service. Thus you will always be able to connect with the Source of Divine Inspiration, which is the Source of spiritual will. You can also develop a similar relation with the Spiritual Light, for the Great Light of Sun-Spirit can always guide you along the Good Path, the Path to your growing awakening and joful bliss, as well as the Path to your true creative service on Earth. Let the Light of Great Mind-Wisdom, the Wisdom-Light of Great Spirit, guide you from Above.

Our powers of consciousness, creative vision and assertive-will come from the Father-Sun. Our powers of sensitivity, community-love and adaptive intelligence come from the Mother-Earth. Pure consciousness and psychic vision are Solar Qualities of the Great Light.

Natural sensitivity and practical mindedness are Qualities of our Earth-Nature. The Father-Sun gives us our strong will, which can manifest as a warrior spirit, artistic spirit, or teacher/leader.

This Solar-will is the source of our individual assertive will. The Mother-Earth Nature is essentially an adapting and ecological Spirit-quality. Balancing the individualism and creative assertiveness coming from the Solar-Father, the Earth-Mother gives us our feelings of relatedness and community caring, as well as our holistic-ecological intelligence enabling us to adapt and harmonise with the rest of life. The warrior-spirit comes from the Father-Sun, as do the spirit-qualities of courage and bravery. Yet this warrior-spirit is an inspiration to protect the Earth-Mother and her children, while warring for personal status or greed is simply a perversion of the essential solar force. The true warrior fights for love, beauty, goodness and justice. The Father-Sun energy is electrical, radiatory and sometimes explosive. The Mother-Earth energy is magnetic, harmonising and often yielding. Remember that both types of primary energy are needed in the growth of any life, on a physical and spiritual level. There are nurturing nurtrients and energies in the Earth-body, giving needed food for growth. Yet all lives need the Solar energy as well, which is like an energising electrical current. The Solar Spirit-energy is, of course, in and around the Earth, for it has been impregnating the Mother for millions of years.

Thus one can find all Solar-Qualities contained in the Mother-Earth, or one can collect these powers directly from Father-Sun. All things and all lives have both the Solar and Earth energies, to varying degrees. Even though all mineral-rocks, plants, and animals obviously of the Earth-Mother, some are considered more Solar in their qualities. For example, the clear crystals and tourquoise, corn and sacred tobacco, the horse and eagle, all are more associated with the Sun.

If we respect and nurture both the Father and Mother Qualities of our being, then we become well-balanced individuals in harmonious communities. In the Medicine Wheel teachings of the Four Directions, where the Four Elements come into play, the Air and Fire of the North and East are of the Father, while the Water and Land of the South and West are of the Mother. Though all of the Elements and Directions form a complete balance in this Earth-life. We are made of earth, water, air and fire, both physically and spiritually. They are all used in healing and balancing the whole person. The earth-mineral element is directly associated with the physical body. Water is associated with the feelings, especially love. Air is associated with the mind and clouds associated with the dream-world. Fire is associated with the inner will and creative inspiration. This Firey Will comes directly from the Rising Sun in the East, and it is finally manifested in the physical dimension of the West where the Sun sets. Yet this manifestation requires the Air-power of mind in the North and the Water-power of feeling in the South. Thus we need a balance and integration of all Four Directions and Elements.

Also, all of these Elements are both Cosmic Powers and individual powers. In the Native View, self-discovery and understanding comes from a study of the whole world around us, including the Sky-world, as well as a study of ourself. Thus, self-truth is both within and around. The Big-Self is all around us, and the little self is within or wherever you stand. Yet the little self is a reflection of the Big-Self. Just as our own powers are the Powers of Great Father and Great Mother, Great Sun and Great Earth, and all of this is really a reflection of the One Great Mystery-Spirit, the Essential Being at the heart of all powers, all beings. So we respect the Unity and the Diversity, the Within and the Around, which is all Great Amazing Mystery.

Spirit of achievement Is another Solar quality. The fundamental power of the Sun-Spirit is the Fire of Will, which is within us. The will-power is the essence of our personal spiritual power. Yet in its pure power alone, it is power without purpose. The will-power can direct the mind and the body and can transform the energies of earth, but in itself it can be destructive. The power needs a purpose, and this purpose is to do with Earth. The Mother-Love and the beauty of harmonious relations gives purpose to the will-power. Thus, the power of will can accomplish good if it is guided by the Earth-purpose of love and beauty. We are given pure Power from Father-Sun, yet this must be balanced and guided by the Love inherited from the Earth-Mother. Love gives purpose and reason to power, and intelligence is needed to manifest this Love-purpose for the good of the whole. In the Native View, personal will-power is a virtue, though it is dangerious without love and wisdom. We are encouraged to discover and develop our inherent power and to use this power to bring into our personal life more enjoyment, abundance, and beauty. Personal achievement and enjoyment is considered good in the Native View. Yet the good of the greater whole, or the good of the community, is always primary and more important than personal achievements. As long as the good of the whole is considered most important, there is nothing negative about personal achievements, enjoyments, and success.

The Spirit-Essences of Father-Sun and Mother-Earth combine in us to form our essential human spirit. It is will and assertivenss combined with love and holistic wisdom. It is a creative power combined with a sense of purpose. We can view the human spirit of will in four aspects, or four basic directions. There is the will-to-achieve - to manifest one’s abilities and be a co-creator on Earth. There is the will-to-know - to understand our relations and ourselves, and to realize our human purpose and spiritual unity. There is the will-to-enjoy, or to have love in life - remembering that love and enjoyment are divine gifts. And there is the will-to-serve or cooperate or share with all life - which comes from the Spirit of Compassion and Giving. This is the will to share what we have and give something back to life as a fair trade for being given life. So we accept the goodness of personal will, having such purposes or aims. We accept the virtues of achievement, creativity, knowledge, self-realisation, enjoyment, loving-relations, service, cooperation and sharing. All combine to form the balanced Good Life.

The one who realises and expresses the spiritual Qualities of the Mother and Father, the Earth and Sun, is the true Prophet, Teacher, Leader, and Healer of the world, which is identical to Christ-consciousness. The prophet of love and harmony is the potential within us all, not limited to Jesus or the return of a Jesus. The Prophet, or Divine Leader, can be anyone, male or female, and is not limited to any one person. It is one who is directly inspired by Spiritual Will, Love and Wisdom, and thus inspires or leads others to follow in the same Way. This is the Divine Light living on Earth, born from Earth, compassionate to all living beings, yet always free in spirit. This is the Divine Child, beyond male or female, expressing the Divine Balance or Wholeness of the Mother and Father. Women and men may have different roles to play within a society, but the True Divine Child can be either man or woman. The Native View has no limitations of man or woman. There are ideas and idealisations of masculinity and femininity in native cultures, but the freedom of the inner spirit is always primary, and men and women are encouraged to express all of the Qualities of both Earth and Sun. The greater ideal is spiritual balance, though it is recognised that individuals may have certain abilities and interests which are distinguished in the community. So although the greater ideal is balance, there is total respect for people excelling in some talents or roles, more than others. Just remember that we each have an inherent potential to realize and express all of the Earth and Sun Qualities. We just need to tune into such potential within us.

The intuitive realisation that we come from both the Earth and Sky is demonstrated in the old stories. Many stories say that we come from the stars. Others say we come from out of the earth. But once we acknowledge our heritage from both the Father and the Mother, we cannot be satisfied by a one-sided view. To test our own beliefs we need to feel what the truth is, that is, feel the reality of each story. Do you feel that you come from the stars or from the Sky-world? Most people in spiritual movements think from this view. There is good reason for this, because one feels to be as a free spirit living in the limited reality of the physical Earth. We often speak of being trapped on Earth, and in the Christian religion God or Spirit is cruxified in the world of Matter or the four directional cross. Liberation from the Earth is often the aim in this religious view, a return to the Father or to Nirvana-Heaven. There is truth and merit in this view, but in itself it is one-sided and produces an imbalance in people and cultures.

Our sublte western conditioning at this time gives pretense to this view, because most major religions are sky religions, whereby the Father-God is viewed supreme over the Mother-Goddess. More ancient religions may have viewed this in the reverse, and there is historical evidence that Mother-Earth religions were converted to Father-Sky religions. This is evidenced in ancient Crete, Egypt, Persia and India. Maybe this trend was needed in the balance of things, in order to free our indiduality and creative power of the human will. Yet maybe the trend needs to now be reversed back again to the Mother and more community-minded relations.

Let us acknowledge that we are free spirits from the Sky, that we are travelers in the universal Mind. Yet let us also acknowledge that we are born from the Earth and grow out of the Earth. Both are the reality, just as we come from the father’s electrifying sperm and the mother’s magnetic egg. Let us also feel the reality of the Mother story. In this view, or feeling, realize that you grow up from the Earth, like plants, and you are always rooted in this Earth. You come from the land, from the plants, and from the animals. This is your heritage. You are mineral, plant and animal, though your spirit is still a portion of the pure Light of the Sun and Stars.

Your mind-spirit can still be free in the Sky-world, but your body, senses and emotions will always be rooted in the relational life of the Earth. Let us celebrate this rootedness in the Earth-ground, feeling our connection to the Mother below and all our living relations of the rock, plant and animal kingdoms. Let us acknowledge that we are originally seeds of Light from the Sky-Father, but this seed needs a nurturing ground from which to grow. The seed of Light, then, grows up from the Earth-Mother, receiving nurturance from Her, and opens itself up to receive more Light from the Sun-Father, in order to grow in further realisation. Thus, the Father-Sun and Mother-Earth are respected equally, within ourselves and in our outer experience.

There is a practice you can do to balance this alignment between the Earth below and the Sun above. It involves breath, visualisation, and feeling energy. As you breathe in, visualise and feel the vital life-energy from Mother-Earth rise up into the belly, then into the heart, then up to the Sky above as an offering. As the Earth energy rises up from the heart, see and feel it being offered to the Sun above. You might feel as though your very spirit is being offered up to the Sun-Light. Feel the sense of self-liberation in this love offering. All of this can be done in one in-breath. Pause in the breath for a moment to feel a complete freedom in the Sky-realm of pure Light. Then, on the out-breath, consciously come back down into the heart, then the belly, and finally down into the earth, bringing the Light from above down through your body and deep into the Earth. As you peacefully let out the breath, you naturally descend back down to the Earth. The descension of Light is not forced but naturally descends down as you allow it. You become a pure channel for the descension of Light, allowed down through the out-breath. Just allow it to happen, but see and feel it happening. As the last of your breath is released down into the Earth, truly feel the Light go deep into the physical Earth. Then, in a pause before again breathing in, feel the comfort of being in the nurturing womb of Mother-Earth. Then repeat the breath. Consciously rise up with the breath, offering your life-energy to the Sun, then allowing the Light to descend through your body-channel and into the Earth. This practice done intentionally for just a few minutes will make a balanced alignment between the Earth and Sky-Sun, with you in the middle.

One also needs to practice both Earth meditations and Sky meditations. Do these separately with full concetration and intention. The basic form of Earth meditation is to firmly ground consciousness into the body and Earth. The focus is downward and concentrated in the outer senses and in the feeling of being fully grounded. One concentrates on being fully present in the Here and Now, fully conscious in the breath, and fully aware in the senses. Sense and feel the earth energies, and fully be awake to the sensed surroundings. Because most people are so discarnated from their bodies and so lost in their rambling thoughts, this practice can be very transforming and the experience may even seem out of the ordinary. Don’t just presume that you are already grounded in the earth or fully awake in the earth-senses. This is not a thinking-about-it practice. Leave behind thought and opinions, and bring the mind right down into your body-sensations and into the earth. The practice only really succeeds if you can continue the intention and concentrate awareness with full intensity on the breath, body-sensation, and feeling the earth energies. As this practice advances, you reverse space, as I previously taught. You become completely receptive in the feeling-senses to the earth reality, until you finally feel totally identified with the Earth, until you feel as an inseparable part of the living Earth, and your breath feels to be in perfect rhythm with the heartbeat of the Earth. This is best done outside in Nature, in a forest or meadow, on a mountain, or along a beach. You can do it while walking, standing, or sitting. It can be done with eyes closed, for the eyes are just one of the outer senses, but at first it is better to have the eyes and ears fully open to the outer world, because our tendency is to go inside the mind or to metally drift when our eyes are closed.

The basic form of the Sky-meditation is relatively opposite. It is more like what most people regard as meditation or spirit-journeying. This can be done with eyes open, but is much easier with eyes closed. There are two basic forms of Sky meditation, the one being very focused and intentional, while the other being more drifty and spontaneous. If you practice each form, you will eventually be able to maintain more of a balance or blending of these two types. I won’t go into this much right now, because there is too much needed to be said, and possible forms of Sky meditation are vast. The basics involve a kind of liberation from the body and the outer senses, though at least a thread of conscious breath is often helpful in order to not just fall asleep. These are not sleep meditations. A part of the mind may go to sleep, to allow certain dreams to occur, but these dreams are most useful if they are conscious dreams and if they are firmly registered in the memory. One form of Sky meditation is to fully go into the Dream-world, where guidance and insight may be symbolised or directly expressed in a visionary dream. In this form, the shaman goes into deep trance or deep dreaming, and actually surrenders the conscious will to the Dream Guides. There is firm conscious intention preliminary to this dream-journey, including preparatory purifications, protections and direct questions to the Dream Guides, but then surrender and trust replaces the conscious will, as the shaman fearless gives his mind over to his Guides or to Great Spirit Wisdom. He goes into a deep trance or dreaming state, but he is able to remember the dream-time when he comes back to earth and the body awareness. This ability to be directly guided and to remember is a developed skill, though some people seem to be naturals in it. The practice I give you will not involve such a deep trance where the conscious will is completely surrendered. Because it is best to develop an ability to maintain a focused intention, while simultaneously allowing spontaneous vision and guidance from the Sky-world.

In this way, the visionary journey is somewhat directed and remains purposeful to the conscious mind. Though obviously one cannot direct the guidance, for if one were capable of this then one would not need guidance! So a receptive space and surrendering trust must be maintained, to allow for the unexpected and spontaneous guidance. What the conscious-will does is to maintain an attentive focus on whatever is given in the higher realms of Sky-Vision, rather than allow the mind to drift into ordinary thoughts and ordinary dreaming. The will maintains a kind of attentive interest in what is being given or in what shall be given. It keeps the mind centered in the purpose of the meditation, whereby the mind is either in concentrated receptivity to Guidance, or in receptive expectancy - ready like a cat, to inwardly hear or see any communication from the Higher Sky-world. The basic balance in this meditation, between conscious will and receptive space, is very much like the balance of any good conversation between a student and teacher. The student must stay awake in receptivity, and not simply drift or fall into ordinary sleep. And the student should take responsibility in asking questions or in seeking to personally understand what is given. The student’s role is primarily be in a receptive space, and yet this itself requires some intention, a continuity of consciousness, and an ability to see or hear more clearly what guidance is trying to be given. The teachings of the Sky-world cannot break through a brick wall of self-resistance or apathy, and you should not expect the Higher Guides to constantly wake you up or bring you back from your ordinary mental drifting.

So, when you take some responsibility in this form of meditation, while also allowing and consciously receiving Guidance from beyond the ordinary mind, then good insights and visions will begin to happen. You do need to trust, that is, trust in the Greater Wisdom of Mind and trust in yourself. Remember one more thing, which might sound paradoxical. The Great Wisdom-Mind, the Great Sky-realm of Spirit, is outside and above the ordinary mind or ordinary you. Yet It is all within your mind. It is all within you.

5

Our essential will-power and individual assertiveness comes from Father-Sun, while our feelings of relatedness and living community come from Mother-Earth. These correspond to the Elements of Fire and Water, respectively, the firey will and the flowing feelings of relatedness.

Freedom comes from Sky-Father and responsibility comes from Earth-Mother, and these correspond to the Air-Space and Earth-Ground Elements. Balance these polarities and you will be the Divine Child in expression, a child of Earth and Sky, a living expression of the Great Spirit-Father and the Great Earth-Mother.

The Solar Power is like an electrical power, while the Earth-power is like a magnetic power. Though remember we are speaking of essences, because the Solar power is of course found and manifested on Earth. So you can get the Solar power from Earth or directly from the Sun-Spirit. Special sites, such as sacred mountains, collect and transmit the raw Sun-Spirit Power. This energy also moves along special ley lines along the land. It’s like an electrical charge between the Solar Power points of sacred hills and mountains. It mostly goes in straight lines, but these will curve in places according to what is on the land. It can also be intentionally directed by stone alignments or by sacred alters or even by trees and hedges.

Shamans collect and direct power from the Power Points and Power Lines. But remember that you already have great power within. So it is rather foolish to go around collecting this power, before finding it within yourself. First discover the power you already have. Most people have not, and those who have rarely know how to use their power for good. Thus, the first step is to find the power already within, and also find the love and wisdom already within. We see many people with great power, power over others and power over the rest of Nature, but they rarely have love and wisdom. If you don’t know your own power then find it. Find it right now. If you do know your own power, then find your love and wisdom which balances and gives purposeful direction to this power. Looking at humanity in general, we seem to have too much power in relation to love and wisdom. This doesn’t mean power is bad. It just means power is out of balance. So find the love and the wisdom within. In the balanced Path of the Medicine Wheel, we need to find or nurture four fundamental things within ourselves. These are power, love, wisdom, and beauty. Finding your own power, you can then make love, wisdom, and beauty manifest on Earth. Finding your own love and wisdom, you can then use power with good purpose and help the greater whole achieve beauty and harmony. Finding your own beauty, you can then appreciate yourself and share this beauty with others. All four are part of the sacred balance.

If you feel that one or more of these is lacking in your realisation and expression, then face that Direction. Using the ritual tool of the Medicine Wheel, your power is in the East, your love in the South, your wisdom in the North, and your beauty in the West. Ask the Spirit of that Direction to emerge from within yourself. Give thanks as well, knowing in good faith that this Spirit is already within you. If you don’t have this faith, then at least ask to be shown this Spirit within you. If you ask sincerely and remain receptive for a time, then it will be revealed. For some people it will seem that these Spirit-realisations come from outside of the self. For others it will seem that they come from within. Both perspectives are true, for they are within and outside as well. Try both perspectives. If viewed as coming from outside the self, you will need to receive the Spirit into you.

For example, affirm and feel, “I receive the Spirit of Love into my heart,” or “I receive the Spirit of Wisdom into my mind.” You will learn by experience how to do this, if you are sincere. But don’t just say it and expect it all to happen. You need to really feel it, or meditate in it, and you need to give it concentration and time. It is not like reciting some quick prayer.

Like all Native practices, there needs to be an intensity of personal experience, of feeling and realisation. Once you open up to receive from the Direction or Quality you need, you need to experience it as present. This is completed when you can truly give thanks for what has been given. Once given, it is now recognised in yourself. Now meditate for awhile on this Spirit-Quality of yourself. Give the experience time to be fully digested or realised. You might also allow spontaneous images or symbols to emerge which are connected with this particular Quality. Fully explore the experience, enjoy it, and let it expand.

So even if you begin by viewing the Spirit-Directions as outside of you, and receive them, you finally experience them as inside or as being you. If you begin with the other view, that the Spirit-Quality is already within, then allow the Quality to fully emerge from within and expand in the space of Here and Now. recognize this Spirit as your own spirit-quality, and meditate in it, giving time for the feeling and realisation to digest. Once you learn how to do this with the basic Four Directions, then you can work with any Spirit-Quality. You can find the Spirit of Peace or the Spirit of Joy within you. You can find one of the Great Animal Qualities within you, or allow it to be received in you. The possibilities are almost endless, once you learn by experience how this magic works.

Heart

As I said, there are practices to do with connecting with the Earth and with the Sky and Sun Powers. These practices bring us into alignment and right relation with the Sources of Power, Love and Wisdom, that is, with the Greater Wholeness surrounding us. We call these the Earth and Sky practices, and they relate us to the Powers below and the Powers above. Yet, there is one more type of practice, or meditation, which brings us centered into the Powers within. These are meditations of the heart. Our own heart centre is the centre of our own being, our own truth and our own power-presence. Our own being is like a medicine wheel, and the sacred space of this is the heart-space. It is here that you deepen the understanding of yourself and unfold the Spirit within. This Spirit within is of the Mother below and the Father above, which merge together in the heart that is in the middle. So in the heart, there is found a synthesis of Earth and Sky Qualities. There is the electrical fire of the spiritual will and the magnetism of love-relatedness. There is the spirit-quality of freedom and the spirit-quality of responsibility. All of the qualities of Love-Wisdom are within the heart-space. There is personal inspiration, sincerity, caring, and beauty. It is important to find these qualities within you, as well as around you. You can find beauty in the four kingdoms of the Earth-world, and you can find beauty in the Visions and Qualities of the Sky-world. But also find beauty in yourself. This is an inner beauty, though when expressed there is outer beauty. The inner beauty is in your sincerity, in your caring, in your creative inspiration, and in all of your true spiritual qualities coming out into expression.

Meditations of the heart are the most simple practices, and because of this there is a tendency to not spend time in doing them. Yet these could be the most important practices of all. I’ll give you the basic instructions, but then explore what works best for you. Sit. Close your eyes. Become aware of your breath. Begin with the first steps of the Earth-practice. Relax tensions in the body and drop all these tensions down to the Earth. Relax and release all emotional tensions. Let go of all thinking or the need to think, simply allowing the mind to drop down to the Lake of Peace in your belly area. This dropping down to earth can be thought of as a journey to peace, or as a dropping into the waters of peace. This whole process of relaxing and releasing ordinary tensions and thoughts will take at least five minutes or more. Just give it as much time as needed. And remember to use the breath as a tool to help relax and release and bring energy down from the head. Simply be aware of the breath-rhythm.

Bring in fresh energy from the Earth below and release old energies down to the Earth. As each breath is released, follow the breath as it falls downward. This will bring the mind down into the relaxed peace of your lower lake. When all your energies and thoughts have finally settled, your mind and emotions will be at peace, like a calm lake settled upon the Earth. Just relax and be at peace in this feeling. So once you are poised in this relaxing peace, you can begin the second stage.

Observe how the breath naturally comes into a relaxed, peaceful rhythm. Now sense the Earth-Mother below. Sense the rhythm of the Earth and the breath will naturally come into this harmonious rhythm. You are now in harmony with the Earth. Remember now the Father-Sun.

Allow yourself to raise up to the spiritual sun above your head, then come back down again to Mother-Earth. Do this in one rhythm of the breath. This will connect you with both the Mother and Father-Spirit. Now feel the Sun above draw your consciousness up from the Peace-Lake of the belly into the heart-space. There is no forcing in this, but rather it is a sense of floating up into the heart. This really happens naturally, for once the peace is attained your spirit will naturally float up to the heart.

Now you are in the sunlight of your own heart-space, and you are consciously breathing within this space. Feel the warmth of love in this space. Just feel at peace in the heart-centre of your being. Here begins the journey of self-discovery, or self-recovery. Some call this soul-retrieval. Know that all of your self-power and self-truth can be found in the depths of your own heart-space. So now let the journey unfold. In this space there is infinite sky and infinite light. You will experience either light or fire, or both, in this space. If you feel the fire, then journey into the fire. If you see the light, then journey into the light. Go deep. And as you make this conscious journey within the fire or light, gradually come more and more into receptive space which is an attitude of discovery. But you are discovering about yourself, rather than about other things. In this meditation there may be appearances of animal-spirits or voices and images of other beings, but realize that everyone of these is really a reflection of your own truth.

Whatever is discovered in this heart-space is a power or truth-quality of yourself. You may experience various feelings, images, and even voices. These are all reflections of your own soul, or true-self, and you should make some effort to recognize the truth or power presented in this meditation of self-discovery.

There is a kind of balance in this between being active and receptive. You need to be active in consciousness, which basically means staying awake or aware, though you can let the body-sensations fall asleep. There is also an active sense of going deeper into yourself, deep into your most inner truth which is found in the light or fire of the heart. And there is also the need to be active in understanding, which is an active will-to-know the truths, qualities and powers of your inner being. If you maintain a strong intention to understand what is revealed in the heart-space, then you will gradually, spontaneously recognize the meaning of any feeling or inner vision.

The receptive attitude, which is also necessary, is an allowing of self-truth to spontaneously emerge from deep within. Let truth unfold on its own. Allow what is within you to be revealed. Sometimes it is like an inner child coming out, saying “Hey, remember me?” Then again, sometimes it is like the birth and expansion of a quality or feeling that is completely new and unexpected, rising out from the depths, like a blossoming flower emerging from its hidden seed within the ground. So the inner journey meditation to know thyself, and to re-claim your inner powers and qualities of being, involves both an active intentional consciousness and a receptive attitude of discovery (or self-recovery).

The Wind-Spirit energizing practice: Stand up. Use the arms. Bring up through the in-breath the vital power of the Earth, the prana of earth, into your personal power centre of the lower belly. Then breathe-out this earth-power, unrestrictedly, as if you were the Wind-Spirit blowing Air-power wherever you wish. Breathe-in as much of the Earth-power as you can possibly contain in the whole field of your power centre. Remember that this centre is not just in the body, but expands out from the body. Imagine if your belly were so big that your outstretched arms would just reach your big rounded belly. This is how large your power centre could be when it is very powerful and expanded. Though for most people the power centre only extends about a half-foot outside of the physical body. This practice makes the personal power centre expand out to an arms-length and even beyond. In fact, during the out-breath, visualise and feel your breath going out in front of you into infinity. So the practice is actually very simple. You breathe-in the vital Earth-power, strengthening your personal power centre in and around the lower belly. Then, in a relaxed rhythm and flowingness, this vital power flows through your centre and out into the infinite space in front of you. You breathe-out this power out into space. You can even make a sound like the wind blowing with a controlled force into the world. It is also helpful to use your arms and move the whole body with this practice, as in a slow and controlled dance. As you breathe this way, visualising and feeling the energy-flow in this rhythm of up and in, then through and out. There should be no break between the in-breath and out-breath. There is a slight pause between the in and out, but no break in the energy-flow. In other words, the whole rhythm needs to be smooth, even and relaxed. It is controlled, though relaxed. And even though controlled, there is a sense of allowing the Earth-energy to rise up with your breath and spontaneously flow out with your breath. You may also feel that the power is releasing out during the out-breath. This is an energising exercise, yet make note that the out-breath and release of the power is as important as the in-breath accumulation. The energising is accomplished through both parts of the rhythm. The power must flow outward. Otherwise, there is a blockage in the channel and without a clear flowing there will be no recharging of the person. This practice accomplishes a clearing of the personal power centre, a clearing of the channel between your own connection with the vital Earth power and the expression of this Earth-power through you. You can think of the personal power centre as having two aspects, One is to receive vital power from the Earth, and the other is to release or express this power out into the world. So when there is a clear channel and flow for this, that is, when the power can unrestrictedly be received and freely expressed, in perfect balance, then this centre of the person is in a continuous energy-flow. The whole body will immeditately feel energised. You can even circulate energies throughout the whole body, once you have mastered this practice. Just remember the natural law, that energy or power can only be increased if the whole cycle of energy-flow is increased. This means that empowerment is not just about receiving more, but also about releasing or expressing the power outwards. And one needs a clear channel for the in-flow and directed out-flow. When there is a good, clear flow of power, coming in and going out, then there is a true flow of energy moving through the physical body and the aura energy-field.

Usual problems of imbalance will be found in restrictions of either in-breath or out-breath. Some people feel that they are continually giving or expressing energy, but they can’t seem to re-connect with the energy-source. They go and go until they drop, then recharge during a needed sleep or even a break-down. These people are restricted in the in-flow of power from the Earth, and they basically need to consciously receive and allow the energy to come up from the Earth through their in-breath. Other people, opposite, are restricted in their out-breath. They easily receive, but they block the free flow of release or expression. Maybe this is a fear of losing power. But you don’t lose power in expressing it! You complete the flow, which is true power! These people need to freely let out their power. They need to let the vital energy be released through the out-breath. Let it all go. This is part of the complete flow of energy. Then, fill up once again. The more one can let go, the clearer is the energy-channel and energy-flow, the the more power can move through you. There becomes a perfect rhythm of filling oneself, then empting oneself, and soon there is just be the feeling of energy-flow, whereby you will be filled and empty all at once, continuously. The more you receive the more you can give, and the more you give the more you can receive. This is the natural law in which we live. It is definitely true of the vital energy flow and it is also true of the love-energy flow. So after mastering this practice involving the personal power centre, you can begin applying the very same priciples to a Love practice involving the heart centre. In the Love practice, you breathe in Love from all around you, or from the Great Mother below you, then breathe out this Love to all creation, or to specific relations, friends, etc. Find the perfect flow, the perfect rhythm of the in-breath and out-breath, like gentle waves coming in onto the beach, then back out in a relaxed, unrestricted rhythm. In this, you may feel the sense of beauty and unity with all of life, and you may naturally move the arms and body in your own personal dance of Love reception and expression, dancing the Love-Flow.

Sky practice: going up to the Mountain..

Going up into the Dream Clouds. Going to the Spirit-Medium Moon-Being, where you see a reflection of your inner powers inherited from past lives on earth. See who or what you are in the Magic Mirror of the Full Moon, that which is within you from the past. Review these images and feelings and powers from past lives, then acknowledge the Present Truth of whatever is discovered, bringing powers of the past into the present. The Sunlight meditation.

Great Sky Meditation: Your own mind is part of the universal Mind. In fact, your mind is the Universal Mind, for there is really only One Great Mind, as there is really only One Great Spirit. Wonderful possibilities open up when you realize that there is only One Mind, just as there is only One Sky, and you are an explorer journeying through this Universal Mind-Space. It is not just your mind that is being explored. It is the One Mind. This is the first key to realize. It is also true, though, that there is an innevitable limitation to your exploration and to your openess of Mind. And it is also true that what you discover in your journey of Mind will be particularly relevant to your own life and to your own specific questions and inquiries. In this respect, then, you only discover a portion of the great Mind, and this portion can be regarded as `your mind’ or as your own understanding. Therefore, we do speak of `personal’ revelations, visions, guidance, and understandings.

You can take the viewpoint that Great Spirit Mind reveals what you particularly need at the time, for your own personal growth, for your own life-direction, and for your own way of helping others and the world. If you can trust in Great Spirit’s power to reveal what you need, then all you really need to do is to open the mind and receive what is given. This is the very essence of the Sky Journey or Sky meditation. You simply free the mind and open the mind and remain receptively awake, allowing Great Wisdom to reveal truth, vision, and guidance. In this statement are the basic keys, but because of your conditioning and limitations, it is not necessarily easy.

Your power to freely journey in the Universal Mind is dependent on how developed are your spirit-wings. One wing is the power of mental concentration, or staying conscious. The other wing is the power of freed spiritual imagination, which is a freedom from the limitations of ordinary thinking and practical logic. Each mind develops its peculiar habits, which become conditioned limitations. For example, you might be skeptical about spiritual visions or you might think that Sky-visions are mere flights of fantasy. You may not have faith that your own mind is inherently a portion of the Great Mind, or that you have the power to journey in the One Universal Mind. Or maybe you are fearful of letting the mind be free, like a fear of journeying through unknown places. Maybe you are fearful of the truth, or fearful of what may be revealed by Great Wisdom. There are many conditionings that can hold you back from a free flight in the Sky-Mind. These are your personal limitations, and it is up to you to break through these barriors. realize that you hold yourself back and no one else. Maybe the conditionings were brought on by other people, parents, or culture, but it is now up to you to break through the conditioned mind which weighs heavy on your true spirit-wings.

So the first step is letting go. This is usually a process of mentally calming down, surrendering the thinking mind, and allowing the mind to enter into a natural silence. When you come into the inner space of silence, the mind appears to be more expansive, more vast, and more free to explore this open inner space. The process of calming the mind, and letting go of conditioned and ordinary thought patterns, can be helped by using the practices of mental cleansing, coming down to the Earth, and being aware of the breath. This all has to do with surrendering the ordinary thinking mind, until there is nothing left of mind but the essence of consciousness and silence. It is, finally, relaxing in the quiet nature of mind, just being and breathing consciously.

Once there is a relative degree of peace and silence in the mind, and in the body as well, you can begin to affirm your freedom and the powers of your spirit-wings. Begin to really open the mind and realize your freedom within the infinite Mind of Great Spirit. Know this mind as the Mind of Great Spirit, and realize that Great Spirit is right here to guide and enlighten you. Once you realize that you are not alone, and that this is not just your own personal mind, then you are freed from the illusion of separation which is what ultimately limits people. Know this mind as the vast Sky of Spirit-Mind. That is, it is the portion of Infinite Sky of which you are now conscious. You need to free the imagination. Imagination is beyond ordinary thinking and ordinary logic. As such, imagination is the fullness of Mind. It is the freedom of Mind. Wisdom and new insights will come through the imagination, and not through ordinary logic or conditioned thought. Another word for this power of imagination is intuition. It is a conditioned belief that imagination is merely fanciful, unreal and untrue. Of course, there is always the possibility of impractical fantasies, but remember that without the human imagination there would be no creative arts, no tools, no visions of a better world, etc. Creativity begins in the imagination, and spiritual visions come through the imagination. Thus, the imagination is needed in spiritual vision and in creativity. When truth comes through the imagination, we say it is intuition. So let the imagination be free. Let it be open. Open up the intuition, which means opening the mind to spiritual vision and insight. To reiterate, the whole mind needs to be open and free. In order to be open, the mind must be intensely conscious, receptive and free. In order to be free, the mind must relax and surrender the worrying and chattering habits of ordinary thinking and conditioned logic. Let the mind be free and open within the great expanse of the inner Sky-world. In a sense, your limited mind, which is the portion of One Mind that you are now open to, must open itself further, opening to the rest of its infiniteness. The limited mind-view, a portion of the One Mind, is opening to the rest of Mind. In one possible experience, it is like coming into a Great Council Meeting, a great meeting minds, whereby you become open to a greater Wisdom Circle, or open to a greater Collective Mind. Try this. Open your little mind to a greater Collective Mind, to a greater portion of the Universal Wisdom-Mind. This is known as entering the Great Council, and the right attitude is to enter into the Group-Mind. This can be done with conscious intention and active imagination, though you must finally come into an open receptivity and allow truth to spontaneously come through the imagination. This is just one of the possible Sky-meditations, one of the possible approaches to wisdom. It may happen spontaneously in a vision, yet it is possible to catalyse this vision by way of your conscious intention.

Remember that you can always do something positive to help the spiritual vision come, rather than just being passive. Knowing how to use conscious intention is the key to shamanic mastery. Think of it as taking the initiative to phone a teacher for help, rather than merely waiting for a teacher to phone you. There is nothing incorrect about taking the initiative, or actively asking a question, as long as you have respect. Spontaneous visions and guidance may still come to you, but it is also in your power to help make this possible. Thus, in the Sky-meditations you learn what you can do to facilitate and speed up your spiritual growth and enlightenment. This will always be learning a balance between active intention and receptivity, or between the active use of imagination and allowing wisdom to spontaneously come through the freed imagination.

Learning how and when to be active and receptive is a great key to Wisdom-Mind. Generally, you must take a more active role in the beginning stages, and gradually the active intention surrenders over to a more receptive mode. In the active mode, you hold a firm intention, or concentrated approach, in relation to the Greater Mind. This may include having a definite question or purpose in approaching the greater Wisdom. There are three possible approaches, or attitudes, in Sky-meditations. You can approach the greater Council, or Group Mind. You can approach your own Spirit Teacher or Guide. Or you can more generally approach the overall Universal Wisdom-Mind, or Great Spirit. These three approaches are different yet essentially the same. Because even if you approach the One Great Spirit-Mind, you may still be guided by Spirit Teachers within the One Mind, and if you approach a specific Guide or a greater Group-Council this will still be part of the One Spirit-Mind. A forth possible approach, or attitude, is to become receptive to your own inner Wisdom, but of course this is essentially the same as opening to the One Wisdom-Mind, since Great Spirit is already within you or your mind is already part of Great Universal Mind. Each of approaches are equally valid and valuable.

Which ever, the beginning stage involves a conscious intention and imaginative approach. This means that you begin with intention, or will. You might refect for some moments on what is your intention or purpose in doing the meditation. This may include a short reflection on what you are aiming toward and the approach you will take. It is very effective to hold in mind for a few moments a question, whether this is specific or more general. The meditation will have more chance at being succesful when you begin with either a question or a purpose in mind, though you can still present your question or purpose to Spirit when deeper into the meditation. An even more important aspect of intention is the fundamental intention to open the mind and be receptive to higher spiritual vision and guidance. Your intention is essentially to approach and come into a higher, greater wisdom. This means staying conscious, because the wisdom needs to be received and recorded by the conscious mind. If you merely go into a passive sleep, there may be a chance for a dream vision, but it is more likely that you will simply enter ordinary sleep and never really have any experience of higher wisdom. So make a firm intention to remain conscious, and keep maintaining this consciousness throughout the Sky meditation or journey. Remaining aware of the breath will help. But remaining conscious does not mean thinking. The thinking mind is coaxed into sleep, while the pure awareness, or observing mind, remains awake. Although this involves an active intention, or maintained tension of awareness, it is really an actively receptive awareness. I’m not trying to confuse. What I mean is that you must be mentally receptive, or consciously receptive, and this continued receptivity requires an active intention or will. You know what this is. It is just like being very intentionally awake and receptive in listening to a teacher or friend. While the general approach is to be receptive, there may be some continued effort required in order to maintain this receptivity.

I also mentioned the need for an imaginative approach. This means that you can use the active, creative imagination to catalyse an expansion of mind and a relationship to greater wisdom. For example, you can imagine walking up Wisdom-mountain to meet your Spirit Guide, or you can imagine transforming into a spirit-bird then flying high up to the Sky-Council, or you might imagine Great Spirit as a Light ahead of you that beckons you closer to hear a needed wisdom. The different possible imaginings are the different approaches in Sky-meditations. Using the active imagination does not limit the wisdom, and it does not preclude a more spontaneous imagination or vision. The active approach simply sets up the possibility, like setting up the stage. It gives a certain structure, but it should not be too imposing on spontaneous vision. As in art or music, an intentional structure can help unfold spontaneity. For example, we get together for a music Jam and we chose a general jazz structure or a general folk structure, but this doesn’t rigidly structure what can spontaneously occur within that framework. So the active imagination should be regarded as a tool or pathway, but not the final aim or purpose of the meditation. The final aim is needed wisdom and guidance, and this must come from out of the Sky, emerging spontaneously and not pre-arranged. By analogy, if you go to a teacher for guidance and new insights, it would be foolish to pre-arrange or impose upon the teacher what this wisdom will be. You cannot pre-arrange or intentionally structure your own learning. That would be ridiculuous. If you already knew what you need to learn, then you wouldn’t need to go through the process of learning. Thus, one should be unconditionally receptive. Ultimately, listen to the teacher. Accept what is given by Spirit-Mind. Rather than tell the teacher what to say. Or rather than guide the meditation or vision-journey in just the way that you think is best.

You can take an active role in guiding the meditation, but this is only to generally structure and catalyse spontaneous vision and guidance. It is used to set the stage for receptivity and being guided from outside the ego or limited mind. For remember that the very purpose of Sky-meditation is to break free of the limited mind and ego, and to explore and have relation to what is spiritually greater. The general rule of thumb is to begin with an active intentional imagination, along with active concentration, and then gradually give way to a receptive imagination or receptive mind, as the higher and greater Wisdom-Mind begins to speak and bring forth new vision and insights. As you work more with this, and as you trust more in Great Spirit being intimate in your mind, then the higher truths, insights and guidance will simply come naturally and spontaneously whenever you ask a question or approach Spirit with the intention to listen and receive.

There are two obstacles often found in Sky-journeys. One is the habit of thinking and desiring. The other is the habit of falling asleep whenever the mind is relaxed or without thought. The beginner will find that when relaxed and receptive the mind often returns to old habits of thought, or that emotional desires and fantasies take over the meditation. The remedy for this is to re-intention the mind to the higher purpose, or begin working again with active intentional imagination. This is also the remedy to falling asleep.

We make a distinction between the higher-greater wisdom-mind and the lower-limited desire-mind (or conditioned-mind). There is nothing necessarily wrong or bad about desire or desire-mind. It is just important to distinguish between desires and wisdom. It is natural that we have desires, such as desire for food, survival, pleasure, sex, respect, power, success, wealth.

Of course, desires can be over-demanding and over-excessive, as in desires for wealth at the expense of others, or power over others, or manipulated sex, etc. Most people would agree that desire can become excessive, over-demanding, destructive, and sometimes perverted or neurotic. Yet, in Native Teachings desire is not some intrinsic evil and it is not simply the opposite to wisdom. We say that desire is funadmentally natural to all beings, yet may not always be wise or condusive to goodness and beauty in the world. We don’t try to kill desire, but we do look at it with some discrimination and weigh the desire with wisdom. We hold many different desires. Some go along with each other, and ohters clash. Without any self-wisdom, one would be a mixture of many desires and thus one would often be in self-conflict. Each desire is like one person in a tribe. We can respect each desire, like respecting each person, but we cannot allow one person, or one desire, to rule all others in the tribe. We cannot let the good of one person decide the future for the whole tribe. The whole tribe, and the whole collective of natural relations, must always be of greater importance than just any one person, or any one desire.

Though essentially natural, desire is always limited in its perspective. Each desire sees its own aim and nothing else. Its like an arrow pointing in just one direction, ready to set forth to its particular aim. Yet wisdom is a greater, wider perspective. Wisdom upholds the good of the whole, of all relations, without being partial to any one desire over all others. Wisdom is about wholeness, relatedness, and collective good. This includes you and me, but not to the exclusion of everyone else. This includes your desires, for wisdom takes desire into consideration, but wisdom does not necessarily agree with all desires. Thus, wisdom and desire may be at odds. Desire will want wisdom to be such and such, that is, to uphold the desire. But true wisdom may be different and it may not agree with desire. So we make a distinction between desire-mind and wisdom-mind, for the two may be quite different, and sometimes you have to choose between the path of desire and the path of wisdom, and if you choose one path you may need to give up the other path. Again though, we are not saying that all desires necessarily conflict with wisdom. Natural and non-excessive desires are often in harmony with wisdom. And as we desire wisdom, our desires become more in line with wisdom. The same that is said of desire can also be said of habits and conditioning, for these are not necessarily bad or harmful. There are good habits, like the habit of cleaning up after oneself. There are good conditionings, brought about by education, as in a conditioning to respect elders and sacred space. Yet, as with desire, habits and conditioning should be distinguished from wisdom. They may have wisdom, but not necessarily and often not.

Conditioned thinking, emotional habits, and ego-desires are the primary obstacles that hold one back from true freedom in Wisdom-Mind. They are powers within you, powers to be respected, and without them not much would happen, but they need to be tempered with wisdom which is an impartial respect for the greater whole. Wisdom also comes from a greater perspective, that is, wisdom can guide one’s life-direction from a wider perspective, rather than letting each desire, or each habit, as it arises, lead one’s life. Remember that desire-mind is based on habit and is always limited in its perspective. Yet, although limited, the desire-mind is the personal mind that asks questions and seeks answers from Wisdom-Mind. This is the highest form of desire-mind, the desire for Wisdom and Guidance. This desire, or this intention of desire-mind, can be helpful in the Sky-meditation, espeically in the beginning stage. But one will often find that the Sky-meditation is disrupted by the whining, the chatter, and the impulsiveness of desire-mind, called lower mind. The root causes of such disruptions may be quite natural, and again, I’m not implying that some lower evil causes disruptions in the meditation. I’m merely saying that disruptions may occur and that these are from the lower desire-mind. The desire for wisdom, guidance, and spiritual attunement is suddenly forgotten, as some other desire or impulsive thought takes control of the mind. If the mind is observed during the process of meditation, it will probably be discovered that your mind is continually loosing control and taking a journey guided by one desire-thought after another. You may observe that you are being guided and controlled by the desire-mind, that is, different desires and desire-based thoughts are continually taking possesion of the mind, and continually competing for attention. We are so very used to this, that we are ordinary unaware of this pitiful fact. It is only in the quiet of meditation, and when you attempt to give full attention to a higher form of Mind-journeying, that you finally notice how uncontrolably impulsive your mind really is. But don’t despair! The remedy is at hand. Just keep returning to the higher intention, the conscious intention to journey into higher Wisdom-Mind. Return awareness to the breath, and begin again to surrender the thinking desire-mind, surrendering ordinary thinking and impulsive desires. Surrender irrelevant fantasies. Give up every thought or desire that makes you forget your higher intention and which lead you into habitual thought-dramas. Basically, give up all thinking, all thought, all desires, and only focus on one essential aim which is to have a clear and open mind, receptive to higher Wisdom, Vision, and Guidance. Do not allow the desire-mind, or habitual trains of thought, to control your higher spirit intention and to spoil the meditation. If lower desires and thoughts do arise, then just say hello, giving it a moment of attention and acknowledgement, then tell it that the time is not appropriate and that it must wait below consciousness. Release it and let it fall back down into the underworld of the personal mind. Or, what arises from the lower mind may be something in need of resolution or in need of an answer. Maybe you can find this resolution or this answer from the Wisdom-Mind. Thus, whatever comes from lower-mind can either, be released back down below the level of attention, or be brought to Wisdom-Mind for resolution or guidance. Either let it go as an irrelevant obstacle, or let Wisdom-Mind solve the conflict-at-hand. This is treating whatever arises with either dispassion or compassion. Either way, the lower-mind is not allowed to control or lead the meditation, for the very essential purpose of Sky-meditation is toward the aim of having Wisdom-Mind guide and lead lower mind, not the other way around.

The reason I am mentioning all this to do with lower mind is because certain parts of lower mind can become active when the mind comes into a receptive mode. The Sky-meditation requires a receptive mind, yet the problem may arise that when this is receptivity is achieved, a part of the lower mind now has the chance to jump into awareness and maybe even appear as guidance. This will always be rooted in some form of desire, which is why we call it desire-mind. So you might be wondering how it is possible to tell the difference between the higher Wisdom-Mind and the lower-mind possibly posing as guidance. There is this possibility of deception, but there are ways to tell the difference. One, you can know the truth in the heart centre. In other words, your heart can recognize truth from deception. It can deeply feel what is true and know the difference between wisdom and mere desire. If the mind can be sincere to the heart, there can be no deception, not even self-deception. Second, the desire-mind will tend to take the mind for a ride, and consciousness in the present moment will tend to diminish. When there is a present-moment consciousness, or an attunement to light in the present moment, then desire-mind has little power to deceive and take you for a ride. Remember that desire-mind is always habitual, so it will tend to take you out of the present moment. Whereas Wisdom-Mind will almost always seem very in-the-present. I say `almost’ because Great Wisdom can lead you in a dream-path or maybe even take you into a possible future-time. What it will not do, though, is to re-run old thought sequences. The other assurance to being guided by Wisdom-mind, rather than desire, is to continualy aspire towards Wisdom and to continually leave desire behind in the journey upwards into higher mind.

Besides there being a possible problem with your lower mind, there is also the possible problem of being misled by `lower spirits’. People who have an interest in spiritual mediumship or in channeling the deceased are most prone to this problem. So are gullible types of people.

Spiritual skeptics and rational types of people are least prone to such problems, and once they go beyond their excessive skeptism and conditioed reasoning, they will acquire greater contact with true Wisdom than the spiritual mediums and gullible types who are prone to deception. One thing should be remembered about lower spirits. They are always convinced about what they tell you, always convinced about their wisdom. They have no idea that they are misleading or deceiving you, because they believe they are infallibly wise. Many believe they are the great wise ones or even great gods. They are not intentionally deceiving, except in rare cases, and they usually appear to be selfless and desireless. All of this makes the problem more difficult to weed out. Generally speaking, if you have `many guides’ then all but one are probably deceivers. But if you can recognize one primary Spirit-Guide, then chances are this is not a deceiver. Thus, people with many guides, or people who tend to see a new guide everytime they meditate, are most likely being deceived. Or shall we say, they are deceiving themselves? Of course deceivers are not always wrong or misleading, just as anyone you meet is probably correctly insightful at least some of the time.

The point is that it is ultmately foolish to merely trust whatever is given in Sky-guidance, unless you know that the Wisdom-source contacted is definitely and certainly Wisdom. Only if you are certainly in a very high and expansive Space of Mind, which is definetely high Wisdom-Mind or definitely a High Spirit-Guide, should you trust whatever is given. Even this should be tested with your sincere truth-resonance of the heart. The source of wisdom-teaching should be certain and definite, because if you are truly in that Space, you will most definitely know it without any guide having to tell you. If you have any doubts at all, if you are not completely certain, then you are most definitely Not in the Wisdom-Mind, because if you are in Wisdom-Mind you most definitely know it!

The remedies and the tests for solving this problem of lower spirits are basically the same as what I already have said regarding the lower-mind, since these are spirits controlled by their lower minds, or, they are spirits deceived by other spirit deceivers. The best suggestion is to always aspire to the highest wisdom. Always aspire to reach the highest Space of Wisdom-Mind. And do not settle for less. Always aspire to be in contact with your own highest Wisdom-Guide, and do not settle for less. Let anything less return to itself, and maintain your own power of freedom from all lesser spirits. Be firmly conscious and surrender only to the very highest. And always remember that you have the inherent power to be free from all deceptions and from all spirits lesser wise than yourself. Remember that freedom and be in that freedom. Then there is nothing to fear and nothing to worry about. Once you decisively abolish all lesser and lower spirits, and affirm your sincere intention to contact the highest and most expansive Wisdom, then nothing can really stop you from the Great Journey, the Great Discovery, as long as you hold the power of expansive consciousness and high intention. Then, once you reach the most high and expansive Space of Mind, all you need to learn is to remain consciously receptive in the Deep Silence. In this silence, you present your intention or question, but then you must wait in receptivity and in trust, giving some time for the wisdom or vision to emerge from the Great Silence, to emerge into conscious recognition. Then, be grateful for what is given, however short or simple it may seem, and go on to make use of this wisdom. Those who do not make use of the wisdom given to them will probably not be given anymore guidance, not until they use what is already given. If you pray and pray, ask and ask, meditate and meditate, but receive not, then it is probably because you have not made use of the wisdom already given earlier. See if you can remember what wisdom this might be. Then hold this to Wisdom-Mind and ask if this be your true wisdom. If yes, then you must go on and make use of it before anymore wisdom is given. Sometimes there is a need to interpret images and visions. There is mich to say about this in books. But whatever is given would not be given in that form if you had not already the ability to interpret and understand it. If you don’t know what something means, then it is either not part of Great Wisdom or you are not making any real effort to understand it. All which comes from Great Wisdom, however symbolic, IS understandable by you, if you make some effort to recognize what is meant. Great Wisdom does not reveal to you things which cannot be understood by you. That would be quite pointless! So if it is of Great Wisdom, then you must be capable of understanding it and of making use of it. It is all a matter of recognition. Your highest mind and your truthful heart will be capable of Recognizing the meaning of any symbols or images given. There will be this instant recognition, because down deep and in your highest conscience, you already know the truth and the right path. Great Wisdom-Vision is just reminding you, just sobering you up!

6

Many people want visions. Just like they want excitememnt and stimulation from the outside world, they also wantexciting drama in their inner world. I’m not being negative about excitement or about exciting visions. But if t But the motive for visions may be merely another desire for movie drama. What is important is the meaning and the power behind a vision.

Otherwise it is merely another temporary happening in one’s life. Vision and guidance should connect with one’s real life. You need to question yourself about the pupose of life, or about your purpose in life. As I said before, the medicine wheel of balance can remind us about pupose. You need to find purpose in your own heart, but I can suggest what may be found. One great purpose is enjoyment. Life is to be enjoyed. Another purpoase is knowledge. We have an inate desire to know more about oursleves and the world. But is knowledge enough? I don’t believe so. Another purpose is the development of personal powers or abilities. This is the power to make things happen, good things, beautiful things. And the forth purpose is service or giving to life. . All of these great purposes are interconnected and can compliment one another. This is true balance. You want knowledge, visions, guidance. But this is not enough. You also want to BE and DO. Being shown a vision or being guided is not the end all. You want to be identified withb this wisdom. You want to be this wisdom. You don’t just want to be guided by a great teacher or Guide. You want to be a great teacher and healer. This is spiritual enlightement. It is being and readiating the truth, the love, and the healing power.

Remember that part of the Sky-meditation is to bring the visions and guidance into the heart, which is to assimilate knowledge into one’s own being.

Identification is an act of self-empowerment. It’s when you identify with a certain quality of spirit, or power, or wisdom. In its more abstract form it is self-power or a self-quality of being. Yet in Native shaminism this quality or power might be embodied in a an animal spirit or some other nature spirit. It might also be embodies in a spirit guide or inner teacher. Visions may come of a particular animal spirit or spirit guide. This being presents itself to you in order to share some wisdom, guidance, or a certain quality of power. It comes to you from another world, and you make a relationship with this being. You learn from the being and receive what is given. The spirit helpers do not force their will upon you, nor do they force you to follow their guidance. It is given as a suggestion, like a teaching or advice from a friend. So you learn from the teaching and decide if and how you are going to apply this in your life. You should always test any advice with your own inner knowing of the heart and feel if this guidance resoantes as true in the heart. Yet you can go another step with this. Because often a spirit-ally comes to give you its power. It comes to share its quality of power, empowering you with its own power. Here, you begin in a relationship but you come into an identification. To take this step, you must identify with the spirit-being. You envision yourself as this being and having this wisdom and this quality of power. You see the being as a reflectionn of your own potential, then see yourself as this being. Feel what it is like to be this animal or this guide or this great teacher or healer. Take on its wisdom and its power. In this way you become more of your own potential, and you really know the wisdom and power from being it. Remember that you have the potential to be anything, to have all of the great wisdom and be all of the great power. So you first have a vision, or you are given a vision. Then you become the vision, which is to envision yourself as this and assimilate what is given to you as a reflection of your own potential. This becoming is a further step from knowledge or guidance. Becoming the wisdom and the power is really what you want. Then you can share it from yourself. This is much more profound than mere ly having guidance or merely channeling guidance.

Another way to see the whell of balance in terms of purpose is to acknowledge the divive elements. We seek an expansion of the mind or of knowing. This expansive mind is self-realisation, where there is unity of self within the great Mind of Spirit. NextThis is related to the element of Air in the North. Next there is the element of Fire fin the East. This is self-passion, the inspired will.Without passion, inspiration, or spirtual pupose, there doesn’t seem much significance in life. This inner passion is the passion of Great Spirit. It is that part of the Great Passion which is yours. Next there is Water in the South. This is the flowing feeling of loving relations. We all want to feeel love and feel loved. We want to feel the water of love flow through us and move through others. We need this love like we need water to live. And we need to share love when we find it flowing in ourselves. Without feelings and without love, life seems insignificant. And next is the element of Earthiness. This is the ability to be practical and to be successful. Success comes in many ways. It is merely about bacquiring more money or possesions. You decide on what success means to you. But the element of Earth shows us The power of earth gives us the ability to be practical, efficient and successful. . Combine this practcalness with passion and determination from the East, and you will be moving toward success. Combine these with an exapnaded knowing mindand with the flow of love, and there will be true success on all levels.

It is first important to `feel’ an identification with an animal power or spirit guide. Thought and visualisation can help as well, but the feeling-of-being is most important. You can also regard the vision of a spirit helper as reflection of yourself, and you might think of the vision or image as a mirror reflection. That is, consider the mind as a mirror of different parts or potentials of your whole Being. A vision of a Taecher or Guide can regarded as a reflection of your furure self or higher self-potential. . Use the imagination, or the power of envisioning, to see yourself as being this Teacher or Healer, feeling and seeing yourself with all of this good-will, love, wisdom, and spirtual power.

The self-identification with an animal quality or power is known as known as `taking on the animal’ or `taking on the power’. This basically an assimilation into consciousness of the power or self-quality that is already within one’s potential, or within the realm of one’s sub-conscious underworld, that which is presently dormant and unrecognised but is now being recognised and acknowledged. It is a change in perspective from something being regarded as outside of oneself to being part of oneself. You need to some work in this change of perspective and assimilation of the potential. You need to see and feel yourself as this being, this quality or poiwer. It may seem rather new or even unusual, but you take it on, like a role or character. Or, it may be recognised. You may recognize this as part of yourself.

As you recognize the quality-power, or as you feel this self-idenitifcation, an assimilation takes place. , and the conscious self is filled with greater ability and more of its potential quality-powers.

Sky-meditations: Open mind, expansive mind, spacious mind, and One Mind.

The greater spirtual inspirations are Truth, Love, Goodness and Beauty.. : The four guiding spirits, or the four Directions of Aim.

Mediational experiences can be intensely significant and transforming. Yet all of waking life, in the world of relations, can be intensely enlightening, loving, enjoyable and beautiful. All of living can be motivated by the four guiding Spirits, and all of these can all be experienced in conscious life.

Add:

These are the teachings of Conscious Practice and Accelerated Sellf-. These are the meditations of Earth, Water, Air and Fire.

Finding one’s Earth: The Below.

Finding one’s Sky. What is Above.

Finding one’s Fire - in the Centre, the heart of Truth and Personal Power. .

Finding the Water of Love - Feeling one’s Relations and connections in the Medicine Circle of Life. Flowing Harmony and the Dance of Life.

remember also the purpose of Challenge, to do with Fire and earth. Having the inner Will and the working practically to manifest the Vision and the Love within.

Exploring one’s Living Myth. What is your self-vision as an Archetype? How Wwdo you see yourself as a Hero or Heroin? As a protagonist in the Story of Life. What is your archetype in Life your Storyare you UnfoldmentVision? This is how the Great Spirit inspires you. This is your Higher Spirit, or your spiritual Inspiration. .

Come into a Group-Mind, a Group Love-Wisdom. . Then radiate this, express this, from your personal centre. The Collective Spirit, then, becomes individualised. .

The Stars are our Great Grand-parents, with Spider-Woman as the Haed Medicine Woman, Teacher and Healer. She is the Head-Keeper of the Star-World. We can also connect with ancient Earth=people, who were closest to the Original Time and closer to the Original Primal Source.

We seek love, peace, freedom, and beauty in life. Wyet if we first find these qualities within ourselves, independent of what is going on in the world around us, then we will have what we seek without being dependent or attached to happenings in the outer world. Then, we can still seek these qualities in the outer world, but we can do so without over-desperation, impatience and attachment. In fact, once discovered within oneself, we will more easily find and even create these qualities in the world. And we will certainly be more able to recognize them when they happen to come about.

Flowing water is Calming, is Cleansing, is Energising, and is Harmonising/balancing. It can also bring one into the present flow of time. One cam also listen to the water-spirit for its particular message or teaching.

Each part of Nature has its unique mesaage teaching for us as individuals. This is not the all of what we need to know, but it is at least a part of the whole Wisdom.

A Crstal can be purifying, energising, harmonising/balancing/centering, and can be used for divination. , or for bring an enlightenment on any subject. It can awaken us to something needed. It can teach us some message for ourselves or for another. One can even ask the crystal to be a dowsing instrument, to find a certain vibration or problem. One can use it in the hand and feel the right resonance. Then as you go over the patient, you will feel any disharmony. In other words, the crystal can be used as an implifier of whatever vibrations are encountered, and this can be useful in diagnosis. . Then, through an intentional change in its vibration, to match the healers, it can amplify the healing vibratiuon to that area. . The crystal can be used as a mesaage receptor from the spirit-worlds, or as a mesaage-prayer transmitter of thought, intention, and feelings to other worlds.

Prayer to Great Spirit is an offering of heart to Sky, an offering up of one’s heart truth and sincere asking for help. It is also an offering up of heart-felt thanks for what is given and thanks in faith for what shall be given in due time. This is essentially a relationship between the heart-truth of the creature-human and the Creator God. In this relationshi, which is like the relation between child and Father, tone can share their complete sincerity, knowing that this is a communication with a Greater Loving, Intelligent Power. . One shares all that is natural to share in this relationship with the Great Power. Realising one’s dependency on Great Pervading Spirit, or Great Creator, one naturally gives thanks. This is not done in some set formula or recitation, though there are traditional prayers of thanks. The Creator aSpirit does not care so much about what language or words are uased in prayer. What matters is the sincerity, the truthfulness, and the feeling of the prayer or thanksgiving. Besides gratefulness and appreciation, one can also share one’s concerns or what troubles the ehart. And one may also ask for what feels to be needed, towards the purposes of health, harmony, love, and beauty. Go ahead and feel free to ask for help, ask for guidance, or ask for healing. Though it would be impolite to always be asking for help without giving thanks for what is already given. The Great Spirit accepts our sincere prayers and grants them in time, if they are in harmony with a greateand needs of the Whole. One cannot expect the Great Spirit to treat us as more important than anyone else including animals, and trees, etc. The good of the Whole is always more impoirtant than the good of individuals. Yet each individual is special in the eyes of Great Spirit, as special as would be a child of Loving Parents. It is good to make time for personal and group prayers, including thanksgiving. It might be true that Great Spirit-Mind knows us already, better than we probably know ourselves. Yet the inner gratefulness and the needs of a person need to come into consciousness. Once we are conscious of our true needs, then we understand ourrselves better, and this is what Spirit wants. Then, Spirit would like us to ask, with sincerity and with humility, for help. This humility is good asThe Spirit hears our awakened sincerity well.

What are the great spirit qualities? These are Spirit-powersfrom the Sky World. They are embodied in All Our Relations, especially noted in the animals and in developed human beings. The Spirit-Powers inspire us and they are the reality of ourselves at the deeper levels of our being. You can think of them as powers, or as spirits, or simply as potential qualitiesof a human beings.g. For example, the spirit of leadership is a power which may be potentially in many people, but only a few seem to find and develop it into their conscious personality. The spirit of leadership is one of the greater Spirits, and when it comes on Earth people recognize it. This spirit, like all of the greater Spirits, are transpersonal. That is, each of the Spirit-powers can be found in and can manifest through many different people, which is one of the ways in which different cultures, times (and religions) are similar in essence. So the Spirit-power is a transpersonal essence, a spiritual essence, available to many though brought into manifestation by fewer.

The Great Spirit is is the Great Leader, the Great Spirit Chief. The Spirit-powers come out of Great Spirit, or the Great Mystery. Yet they are also the essences of who Great Spirit is. Each of these greater spirits are unique and distinct in themselves. Thus, you may be inspiried by the spirit of love, or the spirit of nurturing, or the spirit of healing. . They are transpersonal powers, and many people may inspired and manifesting of any one of these spirit-powers. These are all part of the Being of Great Mystery. They may be thought of as spirits, powers, or qualities, at the essence of animal and human souls. In animals they are more distinct, and in humans they are more refined and

There is the spirit of intelligent planning and the spirit of discovery. There is the spirit of organisation, of creative spontaneity, of invention and viosining, the spirit of exploration, of playfulness, of sensitivity, of cooperation, of gracefulness. , devotion.

Here is something you can do. Make a Mediciine Wheel of the twelve moons, representing the cycle of a year. Each moon will be one of your inspiring spirit qualities or powers. Each will pertain to a unique quality or archetype of the Self. Begin with the question of Who am I? or what are my potential spirit-powers? Consider what are your strengths of character. Yet do not limit yourself. Write down Qualities which you believe as your spiritual potential, or as what you truly want to be. For example, you may have a vision of yourself as a great healer, or as a great teacher or scientist or leader. Write down the vision of yourself, the inner dream of yourself, how you see yourself ideally. What is the Ideal You, or the person you truly wish to be. Then see if you can find the faith in yourself to be this quality or this archetype.

awareness - breath - feeling - body: these 4 make the experience Real and transformationally actualised. Add to these the techniques of creative imagination/-visualisation,..

Practice: in vital from below -- out love from heart centre Remember that the giving-expression is as important to transformation and empowerment as is the receiving-allowing.

Earth practices are about:

cleansing, healing, reconnection, attunement, revitalising, refreshment, feeling of love-connection+ energies, magnetic harmony + in rhythm, Oneness-Unity, Realisation of Greater Spirit-Self.