PHOTONIC MANIFESTO IX

PHOTONIC MANIFESTO

A work in progress

by Yeshe Dorje

Ode

John <per@apk.net> wrote:

Tony: That last installment was good. Having been married twice ( 2nd one
is 8 years in ), I understand what you're going through. And, I also
believe it is a crucible ( marriage ). Good luck, keep writing. Love
yourself!! Always love yourself in the highest. ( and not STS love, I
believe you know what I mean ).

> Namaste Attached is the latest installment of the Manifesto for May Day!
> May all beings be free! Does it seem like more than a coincidence that
> Uruk, ancient Sumerian city is discovered during the war. That the Germans
> opposed the war and it is they who uncover Giglamesh now for these times?
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2982891.stm
> The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It
> comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay
> tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical
> King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE).
>
> This is interesting in light of the recent theft of the Museum and burning
> and looting of the Libraries.
>
> We can choose to be part of this adventure, I do.
>
> Tony Peru

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Peru [mailto:tonyperu@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 4:18 PM
To: John Tokar
Subject: Re: Happy May Day!

John:

I have incormporated your email as the beginning of the next chapter

please have a look and let me know if you have any objection to this.

Tony

John <per@apk.net> wrote:

No problem at all. I appreciate your thoughts on paper; I wish ( as perhaps you do ) that more people on godlike would read it. I'm not sure how long you've been on the board ( myself since last September ), but the quality of posts and thought-provoking material has seriously declined. There were some truly good minds contributing; now I have to pour through posts to get good nuggets of information. Thanks again. I've made great strides to free up time for myself; several years ago I was making 6 figures, driving fancy cars, buying all the latest and greatest gadgets etc. One day I picked up my daughter for the weekend ( visitation , she's 13 ) and she asked what time we were going to my work on Saturday. Since then I quit my job, only work as much as I have to ( 38 hours or so a week ) and devote all my time to research and attending my daughter's functions ( she excels in sports and school, choir etc. ). Fortunately my wife now is very cool about time and understanding what I'm doing. I literally spend as much time as I possibly can doing 'research'; to me nothing else matters at this point ( materialism ). By research I mean my own spiritual quest. Contrary to popular belief, not all Americans follow blindly. I had my blinders ripped off ( fortunately ) several years ago when I was introduced to Robert Anton Wilson.

John:

Thanks for your thoughts, I’m not sure that we’ll share an enthusiasm for Wilson but I appreciate your interest in his theories. About marriage as a crucible, I have been incredibly spiritually fortunate with my partners, what is to give light must endure burning… now my wife is in medical school, we are not estranged but I do have my own place, and we are expecting our child in July…. so this amazing transition on the planet has us in an incredible dance creating a new relationship...

If you enjoyed and finished May Day so quickly I know you will love the next chapter. I feel more excited about the last few chapters than the beginning, but perhaps this is because I am feeling that our conscious connection has us rushing into stars... and that our child was conceived during intense solar activity is magic… Look, the blood really did appear on the walls and the purification of my negative karma in Graz continued and a few days later as I flew to Tucson all my cells aligned with this magnetic storm:

I received great blessings and there was a magical three days with Anci where we were completely open and loving with each other. It was then that Amrita Emmeline was conceived. The shining ones come to bring peace to our planet. She is a Kalachakra baby and she will be born in July. But it was a healing experience a few Junes ago that the voice of the moon recalls now, broadcasting the healing vibration which flows into Milarepa’s Shelpuhk Cushing Dzong, the cave of the Crystal Bamboo Tree. We enter this cave. As we look around us above the glowing crystal tree, we see garlands falling as offerings from the universe, and everything shimmers with celestial radiance. The birds sing, the birds are a good idea. I want you to just sit and listen to mind. What is this mind? This is the theme of the of the Manifesto. Who is the thinker?

If we are to remain passive and listen… I think I am Ganymede. But which Ganymede am I? Ganymede is the Greek ‘happy genitals’. He is the quintessential boy in the passive role. The Latin form of his name yields the word Catamite, a term referring to the passive partner in anal intercourse. Ovid includes the story of Ganymede among those tales that Orpheus tells as he mourns his failure to bring Eurydice back from the underworld. As Orpheus himself now turns from women to become a lover of men - whether because no other woman could replace his bride or because he now regards all women as faithless - he sings of "boys whom the gods have loved and of girls seized with unlawful passion".

I am coming to warn of the flood, this is my purpose. A flood of love. Plato’s Phaedrus describes the kind of love he sees Zeus and Ganymede as modeling, he says that the lover finds he cannot contain all the flowing stream of love that pours in upon him, and so some of it, like a breath of wind or an echo, returns to its place of origin. It re-enters the eyes of the beloved and thence "reaches his soul and gives it fresh vigor, watering the roots of the wings and quickening them to growth, whereby the soul of the beloved in its turn is filled with love... He feels a desire - like the lover’s, yet not so strong - to behold, to touch, to kiss him, to share his couch, and now ere long the desire, as one might guess, leads to the act." For Plato, Ganymede serves as an image of a beloved who is himself stirred to love by being loved. The legend says that upon hearing that Ganymede was to be cup bearer as well as Zeus' lover, the infinitely jealous Hera was outraged. Therefore Zeus set Ganymede's image among the stars as the constellation Aquarius, the water carrier. Aquarius was originally the Egyptian god over the Nile. The Egyptian god poured water not wine from a flagon.

In Dante’s Purgatorio we find this nugget in his ninth canto:

"I seemed to see in a dream, an eagle poised in the sky, with feathers of gold, its wings

outspread, and prepared to swoop. And I seemed to be in a place where Ganymede

abandoned his own company, when he was caught up to the supreme consistory; and I

thought within myself, ‘Perhaps it is wont to strike only here, and perhaps disdains to

carry upward in its claws from any other place.’ Then it seemed to me that, having

wheeled a while, it descended terrible as a thunderbolt and snatched me upwards as far as

the fire: there it seemed that it and I burned; and the imagined fire so scorched me that

perforce my sleep was broken."

What is to give light must endure burning, and in this sacred Canyon I am setting myself alight.

I am the Ganymede who is lit by the sun and this is my Ode to Oak Creek Canyon solstice Saturday, not solemn but with a grateful heart and presently joyous tears fall betraying my love with the solstice woman. I feel sudden surges of energy, bliss bursts which flow through me as I drive through the Canyon.

When all sense of freedom is gone I will remember this day as the portal to eternity.

"I love you" is all you think to say when upon stopping here in the shade neath the aspen leaves and ode to oak creek trees which this pause is. Here you see so many shades of green. And over there across the road you have fallen in love with the sandstone jutting out at the slight bend in the highway. "I love you" is all you think of as you gaze at this Hopi warrior face. Erosion has carved the man into the rock, an eight foot face with jutting square chin wide lips wrapped back, stern side up with his broken nose, its bridge more prominent than the tip. This brave has real pronounced sandstone bones casting a shadow upon sunken cheeks and as you gaze at the face you notice the cubist cleft forehead. It is split so perfectly there in the center of the head so that the split stops in the bridge of the nose and the left side of his head is slightly falling towards you. The inside of the wound is a flat groove, smooth grow the perpendicular lines on the forehead. There are horizontal lines across the face from the cleft on down and the tall Ponderosa Pine behind gives the head perspective. Then behind the brave I see a head-to-head cheek-to- cheek band of Marcel’s Duchamps’ braves descending a rockface. They appear, some twenty in number, descending the naked sandstone staircase and grow with sponge toffee brown, their jaws all a series of skeletal projections with the heads cut from the same pattern of erosion. If you look at anything in this Canyon you can look closer and know all of the people come to the Canyon to lose their minds.

Ode to Oak Creek Solstice Summer Day with the summer crowds and the fact is that upon their return home the people may say there were so many nice people out and they might not mention anything about crowds. I see two women and find them both very attractive and think of Lilith and then there is this large young woman in her late twenties with a fresh flushed pink face wearing oval-framed gold-rimmed spectacles. I realize I want to be extra friendly just because she is large and so I say "Hi! Its a beautiful day" and she says "It sure is". And then with her back against the tree as she sits beside the Creek she looks at me and smiles this grand sunshine smile and as I walk by I notice her boyfriend has been hidden perfectly by the tree. He’s standing skinny and poor boy with a camera in his hands and says:

"What’s happening?"

"Everything" I immediately respond and he laughs and says:

"That’s the perfect answer, in fact that’s the only answer".

Ode to Oak Creek Saturday sitting on the stone sun with prismatic circle light through these leaves and sunglasses. The voices, I keep thinking about the voices I am hearing and the Four Tops sing ‘I’ll Be There’ "Reach out, c’mon girl and reach out to me!" The voices ask me to take their hand.

Shadow and light along the creek small clump of dark green razor weed and then up further there in the sun bright taupe feathery wheat and decaying stalks of last year growth bent back by the Creek in high spring flow. Now the Creek is calm and the sun finds its way through the trees and into the bottom of the Canyon to warm the water and the stones, all of it having been much further North at one time or another. All the way down here to where this boy and his father skip stones, Dad is teaching his son how to skip stones.

I am ready to go on my vision quest and I think of my father, my teacher, the wisdom within the Light. This ancient being who is a black hat magician and the most powerful warrior within a gentle loving compassionate man. He is amongst us teaching the wisdom he acquired while venturing into the Light as he spent twenty years in a Chinese prison. My teacher is now rebuilding the Temples of Tibet for the benefit of all sentient beings. I think of this Being’s defiance of Beijing and his earthly mission to spend those twenty years in prison studying the Dharma, what a glorious opportunity! Despite the apparent hardship and torture, the death and destruction wrought by ignorance, the ancient masters knew the truth of these times. So they, the Tantric masters, purified their karma through many lifetimes that they might give us the teaching in this time of tribulation. I think of the victory banner which waves within the teaching and I love my teacher, I love the gift he has given me, this ability to see the Light.

As I go down to Vulture Rock, down into the solstice vision quest of Oak Creek, I know this is the Mayan Red Moon #9 tone, the ninth day of the Year Four, Storm. The emerging magic portal of the prophecies awaits. As I approach I think of the time when this portal was discovered many many many moons ago by a medicine man seeking his medicine, and marked by him as a power place with a white cross within a maze, a maze which outlines the shape of the cross. As I walk down through the spiny claw scrub and over the big round granite and limestone round boulders on the floor of the creek, I think of my Master, my Teacher. As I move through the Canyon, stepping and jumping across the stones in the water to the smooth sandstone splinter of the canyon walls that had fallen into the river. Here on this rock in the middle of the Creek, I once was naked cavorting in the sun with Rory on the warm afternoon when I found my voice, this big voice came out of me here. As I walk over this rock where I found my voice I think of the two shaman who led me to this place and I feel the message of spirit which flows towards me from every direction.

I cross the fallen log over the deep and fast flowing water and I know I will not falter because I walk with spirit and I am protected during this journey into the truth of existence. I think about why I am going on this vision quest. As I walk across a great expanse of ancient stones left when the river cut this gorge I look at all these trees fallen this way and that with their skeletal deadwood and I wonder about the names of the thorny so many shades of green bushes and small trees, all these knee-high sharp-toothed plants eating the light.

I think about what the shaman said about my quest and I think about how he brought me here and showed me this place, not saying directly that this is where the quest would create the vision, but now I am aware he had already watched me walking here in this moment. As I get closer to Vulture Rock, which is this sandstone and limestone flatiron monolithic formation rising fifty feet up from the middle of the Canyon floor, I realize the Rock was once an island in the river so that the top is limestone cut wild by water and wind and the sandstone is smooth carved by fast flowing currents. I think about what my Master said when I asked him who I was. I think of dreaming of Ganymede. I think about what I said to Rinpoche that day. I said who it is that I think I am, and I think about how desperate I am to know who this ego truly is, because I know I truly do not know.

I think of the Bardo Thodol retreat. My head is a lamp, this is what I thought. My head is a lamp and there is a light on inside my head and the lampshade has patterns and revolves. My consciousness is outside the shade, looking in towards the light. I am a satellite of love, the moon, the Earth revolving around the Sun. I am being pulled inexorably towards the surface of the Sun where I will be absorbed into Divine Consciousness.

When I get to the power spot, there in the cool shade of the sandstone eight foot low cave-like cutaway carved under Vulture Rock by the rushing of cold mountain water, I think about snakes. If I was a snake on this hot afternoon this is where I would wait for night. I feel the fear of letting go, I feel the fear of the unknown, the exchange of joy and suffering. I let go of the thoughts of the snakes and I rest in a half-lotus position letting my field of vision relax so that I am not focusing on any objects. I stop thinking, think, stop thinking, think and watch my thoughts as my consciousness is what is mind.

I focus my attention upon a grain of sand illumined by the sun. Letting go of thought very quickly establishes contact with the voice within the Light. What is that yellow light down there between the rocks? A universe opens.

A voice in my head says:

"Yes this is very interesting, what is there in that yellow light in that grain of sand? What have you come to learn?"

The voice guides me back to the light each time my mind begins to fill with thought, I empty my thought into the Light. I feel the energy of the Light all around my body as a powerfully pleasurable sensation warm and sexual which makes me aware of creating space in my first three chakras and I draw up energy from the earth into the unit, this Ganymede. Arousal, sexual arousal makes me think of the teaching do not attach do not grasp… let go… I struggle with my sexual urges and images in my mind looking back into the Light in the grain of sand there below me I stay in the moment always in the moment. What is that yellow light? I have a very strong erection and feel a hand caressing me and I think of the petroglyphs of the shaman with this erection, the sacred phallus connects with the earth goddess, I feel holy union within my body I feel connected to the earth… do not attach… do not grasp… what is in the light? The voice responds to my thought.

"There is Light behind the light. What is it you want to know?"

The voice of the Light thus asks me, and I immediately respond.

"I want to know the Truth."

"Everything is Light."

I feel my body filling with the Light and an ecstatic soul kiss of solar love, all the colors of light there within me and all about me. Then the voice says:

"This is the love within the Light. There is nothing to fear."

I perceive all humanity as interconnected with this Light, all of us part of the same organism with humans as individual patterns of light vibration. I feel myself explode beyond my physical body so that my awareness travels out into the Canyon, the forest and creek and the sounds all become part of my consciousness and I am the birds singing and the cicadas gnawing and clicking all the billions of beings chewing the light so that I might hear it.

In this tense present the gift is all about us. As I am looking out I am looking in. The world is light, all is light, look behind the light… what is behind the light? It is more light. What is this Light? The light continually expands… there is wisdom in the Light, the wisdom in the light is Light. Everything is a continuous exchange of light, the world is a telecommunication device, there is no separation of nature and man, we are nature and our job is to communicate. You understand everything you perceive to be light, this is our connection for we are all this Light. The light is brighter the more we vibrate love, only vibrating love with everyone you meet seems impossible. So love all of this light and see us all as light and know the interference pattern is fear, fear is simply darkened light, the shadow is still light, so there is nothing to fear. There is far too much within this light to attempt understanding, the fear comes from incomprehension, confusion, and we try to make sense of a senseless world. We need to surrender ourselves to the light, everything we will ever need to know is within the Light.

Trust that even now in your moment of reading this far away from the Canyon where I sit we are the same, we are light, movement and light. Everything is an exchange of light energy and the wisdom within the light is LIGHT. There is wisdom within the light and as you sit and read this have faith that you do not need to understand the light, just know that you are the light and that all the wisdom of eternity is within you. Allow your body to become a field of light, the light expands so that you cannot discern any sense of separateness with all the light around you. Relax into the expansion of all this light.

Dive into the expanding light, swim in the colors and then come on back and look at what you’ve been doing in all that light, you are the frequencies of light. And when you feel the light and hear the frequencies allow your voice to become a diamond cutting the light. Thus have I heard the voice of the roaring.

See the light in every living thing, there is light in stone. Have compassion for all of the confusion we live in and let go of making sense, stop making sense. We live in a senseless world of sensory confusion which in truth is an infinite exchange of light which cannot possibly ever be described. All we might attempt is to make each word an envelope and fill the words with light, for each word contains the wisdom of the Light.

I think to ask the light a question:

"O.K. give us the schematic diagram of Light."

"Everything you see is the diagram of Light. It is our eternal journey home into the Light."

I look into a field of colors and all I see is light patterns not objects and I focus on a yellow light, as if there is something very important about the yellow light and I think there is something behind this light and as I concentrate on the yellow light a voice within me says: "What is it you want to know? Yes look there, there is something in that yellow light! What is behind the light in that yellow light?"

I keep thinking that beyond all of the light which I see, there is still more light which I do not see. There is more light which I am unable to comprehend and within the light beyond conceptual thought is the light within all light. It is the light which creates this voice within me, the wisdom within the Light.

I feel as though I am suddenly creating this dodecahedron energetic light field, a telecommunication device forms energetically all around me and the voice of the light says:

"The journey. Go ahead you’re ready."

I am aware of the vehicle I have created by my perception of sacred geometric lightforms, but I feel fear creating interference until I remember ‘I am the Light’ and in that instant I fly through the light into the very bright light. I am moving light, rushing to the stars… I see galaxies and the void and I perceive my body as all of these linked disks of light, light spheres… and as I vibrate love or fear every cell of my being responds. And Ganymede learns that the more we vibrate love the brighter we become.

The points of light in our world, the sun and moon… the comets and the stars are full of light, what is this light? We live between great seas of blue light in a vibrant green lightworld. We cannot begin to comprehend what this light truly is, it is beyond conceptual thought. There is a frequency within us, the silent frequency of light. Within this frequency is all of the wisdom and nurturing you will ever need. Grandfather sun and Grandmother moon, the union of the consorts, place the frequency in mother earth and each of us are a telecommunication device which connects to this frequency. Once one learns to communicate, development of spiritual navigation techniques is transmitted at a rate which will never exceed your ability to convert this knowledge into right action. You will make mistakes and you will do things you know you do not want to do because you need to learn again that this is no longer the way you want to do things. This is the way we learn to let go of the person/role model we once were.

We each have played a social role which fundamentally disconnects us from our psyche. Our hearts and minds are therefore not in union. This is the root of all suffering, for a mind without heart tears itself to pieces.

The silent frequency is the Truth within Love and Love is the Wisdom within the Light. This is all we need to know, how to feel love. How do I love every person without judgment; how do I live in truth with all of my actions so that I cause harm to no one; how do I love myself so completely that I heal the ancient schism between man and woman? How do I know there is no past nor future, only this tense present? I have faith! I trust spirit, I love the light. I AM THE LIGHT THAT I AM.

I listen to the birds and know their song, I see the angry men and feel compassion until I see only confusion and then I send a blessing to all those who suffer and know they have the same song as the birds. I become aware of the passing of time, how much time? So much time happening in no time at all! This journey through an eon instant and the voice returns. The voice never leaves. It is always, all ways. "This is Light, all is Light" and I look into a star and again I am thinking what is the light within the light and I hear "The Wisdom of the Light" and I wonder what is the wisdom and the answer is "The Wisdom Is Love". I start to sing a harmonic sweep of the love light frequencies so full of love am I, I am. My voice grows more and more connected with what I perceive and I feel this union taking place within my consciousness of my body and the light all around me as if my voice connects me to a greater more whole awareness of the Canyon and the cicadas respond and the birds cascade chirping and twitters of ancient songs they were created to sing and I realize in this moment is the sound I am making. I am in the sound I was created to make and I feel my body become this sound. The audible life stream.

My entire being is squeezing the air from my lungs past my larynx and nasal passages as I constrict various muscle groups with this heretofore unknown precision so the frequencies I create are so pure and strong they frighten me. I am speaking a new language, asking incomprehensible questions. The voice returns and asks:

"What else do you want to know?"

I think of words, what are words… what makes words so powerful and how are they connected to all of this light.

"Make each word an envelope of light, place light within all of your words."

I sing again with this new voice of the roaring, this deserted part of the Canyon is perfect because how might a stranger feel if they were to hear this sound? I am free of self-consciousness and I am throat singing with the joy of harmonic light body freedom.

I sit again in the stillness of no thought, empty my mind of thought to know only the perception of light, no thoughts and stillness affords peace when suddenly there is this breathing at the back of my neck, I hear panting and feel sniffing whiskers and it is getting late and I think of magic coyotes. I have seen the coyotes wandering through the Canyon, this is where they live and there have been no people around in this secluded spot, Vulture Rock is well off the trails so this must be a coyote breathing behind me and this is a test for me to trust spirit… have no fear and do not move. My mind calms, everything is light, the coyote is light, no fear of light is possible when you know we are all light, everything is light we are all the same. Do not let the fear come, do not let it create an interference pattern. The animal jumps down from the boulder I am sitting upon and pads its way up the rocks and I look to see a Golden Retriever.

What is the wisdom in the Light, how does the wisdom of the Light manifest what I see and how does it help and guide me? This is all beyond comprehension, there is no way to comprehend… it is best not to try to cognitively understand. FEEL the LIGHT, simply allow yourself to feel the bliss of the Light and allow yourself to purify so that the intensity of the feeling gradually increases and the more you transcend afflictive emotions the more the Wisdom of the Light pervades your being and the special qualities of the Light are manifest in your actions. This is the exchange between the Wisdom in the Light and your being, this is the benefit of being human, as spirit acts through us and the more we feel love the more spirit is able to act in this dimension in which we perceive ourselves to exist. We all suffer here until we discover the Wisdom within the Light. I feel as though I am being held by these giant hands, as if I am protected and nurtured by the hands of the Canyon.

I realize there is nothing more that I need to know from this place, I have complete faith that there is no further way of describing or understanding how this all transpires. This explanation I am relating is merely another schematic diagram, one of humanity’s many efforts to comprehend what is beyond conceptual thought.

Two dogs, one black the other the golden retriever, run towards me and I look up and there is a woman about thirty feet away in the shadow of Vulture Rock. Its getting late now, there is more shadow, just dusk light left and I wonder where this woman came from.

"Where did you come from?" I ask.

"I live here, I live just above this rock."

She has a radiant smile. I immediately find her mysterious and attractive and wonder why she has appeared now during my Quest. I think she is a messenger and I think she might be God. She has this long lean body well taken care of and she’s wearing this tight-fitting spandex athletic outfit of faded salmon pink tube-top and black shorts.

"You look like you live here." I respond with a sense of wonder thinking that she seems made of the sandstone which surrounds her. Her body and facial features very closely resemble the patterns in the rock.

"What brings you here?" she asks.

"I’m in the middle of it."

I smile and then laugh and she laughs as well.

"You picked a very powerful place to be, very safe and supportive."

She’s looking at me quite intently now as she says this and both of us are curious, we sense kinship.

I want to tell her about everything and manage to say the surface of how I feel.

"I was feeling very safe, well taken care of and nesting in this light, I kept thinking about all of the light here and how good it feels."

"The light" she laughs "well I’m going to get out of here while there’s still enough light to see. Have a wonderful evening."

"Happy solstice" I say and bend down to do up my shoes thinking I want to talk to her and find out who she is. How did she happen upon me here? What is her significance with what I have just experienced? I want to join her and she’s walking away from me not waiting nor asking me to join her and I sense or fear she is uncomfortable meeting a strange man here in the woods as its getting dark. But she knows the way out of here and I have been so full of light it is hard to adjust my eyes to the darkness creeping up from the floor of the Canyon.

I realize she could show me the way out because its getting dark now and I am unfamiliar with this part of the Canyon and she’s gone and I’m walking faster over the big boulders and thinking if I was a snake this would be when I would come out to eat, so much cooler and darker now there under the dead trees and in the spiny brush full of thorns and claws. I am surrounded by an aggressive nature with scorpions and spiders and creatures with too many legs, so many frightening thoughts present themselves here in the darkness and I want to control the fear by not thinking. But I must think I must find the river and cross it, I can hear it but the stones are not a trail they are a jumble of chaos and it is hard to see. The moon, the moon is not here with me and suddenly I have gone from a world of light into the darkness of fear.

There is the river, so grateful for the sight of the river but this is not where I crossed earlier and its too fast here to find a way and I have to walk south to the fallen tree and the rock where I first found my voice. There is no trail visible and I begin walking through all the scratchy claws of the plants which thrive beside the river and I think of what crawls when up ahead I see the tree fallen across the river and I feel protected and wonder at the power of fear to interfere with my sense of protection. I know I am protected and guided but I have to get out of the Canyon right now and there’s still the river to cross and I’m going too fast across the log and over the great naked rock then into the darkness of the old creek bed with its field of round stones and no path. Which way did I come from? I walked this way before, only twice, but never in the dark and I can’t remember which way I should go and I’m tripping-too-fast-full-of-fear-falling-down upon dead decaying trees and thorny bushes and now there is snake fear and coyote fear and I am calling out to the woman who lives here but there is no answer.

I am shouting out "Hello! Hello! Can anyone hear me?" because now I am not even sure of the direction of the Canyon wall and the path I walked down. I am going in the wrong direction. Fear is the wrong direction, I am going to have to stay here in the darkness until the moon rises high enough over the Canyon which will be at least four hours and I have to get out of here right now! Which way is out I have gone too far in this direction I must go back and I’m tripping can’t see falling down into what?

I remember the teaching, I am guided and there is always the path, when the lightning flashes look for the path and not up at the lightning. This is obviously part of the vision quest, just not as pleasurable in this moment of terror. Lost. "I ask the spirits of the Canyon to guide me through the darkness and up into the light. Help me to overcome my fear."

My legs are bleeding from all of the claws tearing at my flesh as I stumble through the bushes. I find the small brook which the shaman had stopped at. This small brook where the water had been blocked and was becoming stagnant because it was obstructed by branches and dead leaves. He bent down and moved the stones and pulled away the debris so that the water flowed again.

"See what a difference a change in the energy makes as you allow flow, see the movement as you remove obstacles."

This is the creek which I worship, this whole place is full of light, how could I come to any harm here? Its just not possible. The Canyon will protect me and guide me.

There are snakes everywhere and this is Arizona so full of Republican snakes which is even worse and I smile groping my way through the darkness along the tiny brook which I crossed somewhere just up ahead I know there will be the path. If I find where the shaman moved the stones I find the path but was it here? I am not going in the right direction. I’m not sure and its so dark now and I have turned around a few times. Which way is out? Which is back the way I came?

I stumble through the murk and swamp of fetid water and chance upon the place where the shaman moved the stones. He showed me the way out on our way in! I claw my way up the side of the canyon looking up at the blue almost night sky and feeling so strongly this need to get into the light. My goodness me! There I was bathed in the Light and the darkness rose up so suddenly and now I want to feel that Light there at the top of the Canyon. I look around me as I scramble up and see myself leaving the darkness behind as I get closer to the top of the canyon. I am actually feeling the darkness and fear recede. Finally I get to the top and put my hands on the ridge and raise my head up to look around and see where I have come out, thinking I’ll have to walk along the highway and there immediately in front of me is the wheel of my car! I shout out and pump my fist into the air, I’ve climbed out of the fear right to my ride home!

Its Solstice Saturday night and there’s a party and I drive into Sedona where I find a room full of men and women dancing. Soon my adventure carries me collapsing onto the floor to writhe amongst the sweating mass of human frequencies. I lay on the floor with a bunch of people I have never met, each of us resting our head upon another’s stomach lying together in a pile of limbs and torsos. Its an exercise one of the women has suggested and soon we are a heap of laughter. The full moon is rising outside and I see my voice connect slender threads to the light of the full moon all of us moon units of light singing until we are all rise until we are there together upon the vortex energy of the mesa rising above Sedona. A Dine Sundance man and a wise woman stand in the middle of the circle we create and explain they have earned the right to carry the Chenupa by dancing under the sun and moon for four days and four nights without food or water.

I listen to the shaman’s voice and drum and rattle. His is a big wise voice which spent five years in prison and has overcome drugs and alcohol and violence. Five years in prison taken under the wing of his prisoner Dine brothers. Another wise man from a prison camp this Yacqui Mexican shaman Sundancer tells us of growing up with the Jesuit brothers and learning Latin and tasting the holy wine and knowing the wine is so powerful because that first taste led to so many nights of drinking and a lifetime of suffering. This brave warrior is telling us he knows the healing power of the Light and he shares the words of his father and Grandfather and the ancient ones which teach us that we are here to honor the woman.

"We must honor the woman, we are here tonight to honor the woman because she is much stronger than the man because she bears the children and she is creator energy, she is Mother Earth. We must respect and honor the female and heal the earth, walk with dignity and treat each person as if they are a part of you ‘cause they are."

Within the vortex, we are sitting in a large circle, sitting out on the sandstone under a great full moon and listening to this man and woman describe the Chenupa and the reason we pass the pipe and smoke the sacred tobacco together. I see in them holy union of masculine and feminine energy and they speak with the wisdom of the light. They sing songs, very old songs which worship the earth and the moon, l’Abuelita. The pipe is a union of male and female, the bowl is feminine and the stem is masculine. The bowl is made from the red stone of Minnesota where all of the blood drained into the earth after the great flood. The shaman says this is the truth, "you don’t have to believe me but my fathers told me this is true and this story has been passed down since the time when the flood happened and I honor the elders by knowing their words are truth. We must always respect the elders."

The two of them each have a pipe and they pass the pipes to each of us so that we will put a small pinch of the sacred mixture of tobacco and herb as we say a prayer and the Dine word for ‘my relatives’. The bowl is lit and we know the fire of herb and tobacco sends our prayers out into the spirit world. We do not inhale because this traps your prayer in your body, so you say a prayer and release the smoke without inhaling. As the pipe is passed from person to person in this circle of souls we are told more stories and songs are sung celebrating life and spirit and as I gaze at this man’s face I recognize it from the sandstone rock carving at the side of the highway which I was staring at this afternoon. The faces I saw were a premonition of my journey into the light and not knowing I would be smoking from the Chenupa and yet knowing now as I take the pipe and pull the smoke into my mouth and not thinking a prayer at all I am clear of intention and I see light the brightest white light as I gaze up at the moon and I exhale into the air hanging beams of smoke light. The smoke fills with the moonlight and comes into my open mouth, smoke light mingling with the unspoken not thought prayer and the prayer is for the Wisdom of the Light to prevail over all darkness until all suffering is ended for ALL SENTIENT BEINGS.

We must all find our way through the dark night of our soul and this is my message from the other side, it is so full of love and light here and I send it to all of you in the belief we are all one.

All the loss presents itself for purification. It is there to use in learning how to let go and then gradually you do learn the emotions within you that keep you from feeling self-love. Self-love is loving the light within us, loving the light we are. How could we not do so once we realize the light is there?

First you must face all of the fear. What is the face of fear? It is thought without light.

Matter is infinitely small units of light within the expanse of space, so that we move energetically as light waves upon the frequency of the Great Central Sun. As this frequency changes we evolve our consciousness through purification. As much as possible we eliminate the fears within our human existence, this is the truth of the path of light. And yet we live lives which are the opposite of this purpose. Wherein we perceive and manifest more and more fear exponentially with our wrong-headed awareness.

Allowing yourself to be guided by an inner voice takes great courage but this is the ancient story of our people, we have always had great courage in exploring new lands and bringing our children up in a tradition of love and respect for our fellow beings. This is our heritage as we enter this new world beyond the third dimension. We are but a further evolution of the species trying to find its way to the light, this journey home up out of the darkness.

So as I smoke this Chenupa I pray for all sentient beings and feel joy in the union of male and female within us all.

It is a tense present we offer pristine with possibility. We let go of what was and embrace what will. It is the courage of the embrace which guides us into the future and the less we expect the more we know. Yet somehow I know more in some moments than I expect to know. Like what will happen in the future. Somehow I knew when we each were placing the pinch of sacred herb into the two Chenupas, as we placed our prayers into these red clay bowls of purification, somehow I knew that I would smoke the first puff from her pipe as his would be finished. And as his pipe was passed towards me around the great circle of moonlight people I knew once it found me it would be done and this beautiful female Sundancer would hand me her Chenupa.

The fresh hit of her tense present not inhaled but held there in my mouth and slowly exhaled into the moonlight so that I felt the union of masculine and feminine energy complete in this ceremony. The ancient worship of l’Abuelita with the spirits dancing in sexual union upon the flames which is the fire within us all. The warmth does not leave until we die, what is this warmth? The warmth leaves and we let go of this body which we have borrowed, this present of tension we use to evoke the masculine and feminine union of our soul, the twin energetic snakes about the central channel of our spirit - the caduceus of love. Somehow in the moment of seeing two pipes there was the anticipation and then the knowledge that everything I had done in so many lifetimes was leading to culmination in this moment as the Sundancer passes me her Chenupa and I cannot think of a prayer as the smoke enters my mouth and I offer my prayer to the moon.

Continued