For days I have sat with the idea of sharing the essentials of the ceremomny itself.  But there are so many issues with this.  As one elder said, there are so many tribes that people believe that one answer is all answers.  The fear I have in sharing anything is that each tribal ceremony is different based on the stories and culture passed down from their unique lineages.  But the interpretation is all Native American spirituality is the same. 

We have to walk carefully when sharing these ideas.  Even within a single group, there may be several types of lodges.  I learned three specific ceremonies from my elder and have experienced a number of others when sitting in other lodges.  There is no consistency for the ceremony.  For some the water is key, for others the heat, for another its the songs, and for another its the silent prayer.  There is really no way to understand before hand what to expect.  As always, following another person is best.  Asking the fire tender and staying open to the progress of the experience.

For me and our community the directions are an important part of the ceremony of pouring water on the rocks.  Each direction has a character, an energy.  There are for us at least 4 rounds for a complete lodge ceremony.  We honor the directions in each round to honor the progress and process of life passing from childhood to elderhood.  We honor the directions for the different seasons that the bring to the lodge.  We honor the directions to connect to the great circle of life. 

But in general each of the rounds, often called doors because the door is closed and openned... relates to aspects of the ceremony.  We choose a lot of variation but in essence the first round is gratitude for our lives, our gifts, the earth and what we have.  The second round is for prayer.  We like to pray for everything in our lives and ourselves last.  The third round is for listening... or recieving.  This is when spirit moves into us because we have gotten out of the way.  And the fourth round is for commitment to the new life we are going to have as a result of returning to the source, spirit. 

But if a lodge is about healing, the first round may be relase followed by the asking, followed by the healing itself and then the return and rebirth as a healed person. 

If it is about vision, sometimes we sweat first to get rid of obstacles, sing about the unknown, open to the vision and complete the task.  Four rounds, totally different.

The directions can aid us in which kind of round it is.  I am often called to start a round in the east with prayers of the new day and thanksgiving for our breath.  Then progress through the south, the west and then end with honoring the north which is where all of our lives are headed... we are all becoming elders of our lives, of our hearts, of our children and of the future. 

But this is not always true.  When I start in the south, I will ask people to release their fears, move to the west and be clear about their intentions, sit in the north with the power of the spirit and jump back into life with the east and a new dawning of their lives.  I like to call this an eagle lodge because the eagle is in the east and can guide us to higher levels of awareness. 

When I start in the west, it is often about healing.  When I start in the north it is often for the winter energies and the reflective look within. 

So it all depends on the intent of the lodge.   And finally, there are times when there are some more rocks, so we will do a fifth round.  I call these warrior rounds.  People go in the last round to push the last bits out and be as open to spirit as they can be.  I like these rounds for sobriety issues.  The final cleansing.

We have been in lodges that are 7 rounds long.  We know of some that are 11 rounds.  And there are lodges where no once was a direction indicated.  The participants just sang and prayed and prayed and sang. 

There are lodges that are connected to other ceremonies, Sun Dance, Making Relations (marriage included), Vision Quest.  But these are specific to each tribe's traditions aroud these unique ways to walk.

In all cases, Lodge is about rebirth.  Its about returning to the source and becoming who we really are by eliminating what we do not need through the steam. 

I would be most curious to hear about what others have experinced with this ceremony and what it meant to them when the rounds progressed.

All my Relations!

At many a lodge I have sat and watched people do many different things.  These things took a long time to learn about because not everyone did them at every lodge.  Or harder, some lodges it was not appropriate to do certain things while at others it was assumed that one just knew what to do.  So there are many things which rather than saying they are a part of sweat lodge, I would say, they may be at a sweat and knowing why helps one be in the space in a good and respectful manner. 

Let's start with the sacred pipe or chanunpa as the Lakota call it.  The sacred pipe is not a necessity at lodge.  In many traditions it stands alone or is considered too personal to be at an open community sweat.  It's good to watch and be aware of the pourer/elder and whether the pipe is an essential part. 

If the pipe is a part of ceremony, it is considered the start and the end of the official prayer part of the ceremony.  (The actual beginning and end is the fire starting and being put out.) When the pipe is brought out, people are encouraged to understand that prayer has begun.  We become very aware of our words when the pipe is out.  It is wakan, mystery, and a direct link with spirit.  That means that every word is prayer whether we are touching the pipe or not.  The pipe is often loaded at the beginning of the ceremony and then smoked at the end.  Sometimes it will come into the lodge for smoking, othertimes not.  And sometimes other pipe carriers are asked to place their pipes on the alter with the main one and load at the same time.   It is always a good thing to ask questions about this part of the tradition, or to follow closely another person. 

When holding the pipe, it is always a good thing to have one hand, often left, on the stone if it has a stone.  The stone is very soft and can break if it falls, so it is passed from person to person with hand on stone for safety.  "Don't let the stone fly" many say, "it longs to return to the earth." The stem may be decorated, we are always careful with our other hand to touch the feathers or bundles, or things that are tied on it safely.  Anyone may smoke.  It may be filled with tobacco... it may be just herbs like red willow and bear root... but it is not a requirement to smoke.  To touch one's shoulder with the tip of the stem in honor is the same as smoking.  To turn the pipe in a clockwise, or sunwise direction, honors all the directions.  To touch the ground or hold it high honors the earth and sky.   One normally prays silently with the pipe unless asked to pray as it is past, but not always.  Some will add community prayers to this time of the lodge. 

Often the pipe is placed on the sweat alter outside the door of the lodge.  When there, we also try to walk in a clockwise circle around it, the fire and all things.   Clockwise, or sunwise, is for many tribes the direction of creation because it is in harmony with the day moving forward.  The sun starts in the east, circles to the south overhead and ends in the west.  So walking in a mindful way around things is about lifting up and creating new and good energy for everything around us.  To go backwards, which will happen at special times, may mean we are trying to uncreate, destroy, or undo somthing.  It may also mean to focus inward or downward into our selves.  But it depends.  There is a lot of agreement about sunwise, there is not with the opposites.  But there is always a reason for everything we do if we understand and ask about the intent of the ceremony.

Lodge is about growing to understand.  We cannot judge someone who is new and does not understand.  If a new person comes and asks to place a blessing on the fire of tobacco, they may not understand the sunwise way to work.  We are thankful of any gift of prayer for and with the fire, but its always good to ask the firetender before doing a good thing like this.  Then they may share in a good way some of these other ways to walk around the fire. 

Firetenders are amazing people.  On one side they are resilent and forgiving and a wealth of knowledge about the lodge because they are there to help people understand.  On the otherside they are sharp and tenacious because they are the protectors of the lodge.  So many firetenders become sharp with defense and forget the nurturing power of the fire.  It's easy to get lost in the heat.  But the best will accept mistakes.  Its always good to ask about things when near the fire and the firetender...

We try to not cross the line that connects the fire and the alter.  This is a hard one for many to understand.  The alter of the fire and the alter of the lodge are connected especially when the pipe is out.  Crossing the line breaks the flow of energy into the lodge.  When I was at this one lodge, the fire was up and the alter down a small hill.  The alter was right in the middle between the trees.  It was hard to walk clockwise all the time down around the alter and up around the fire.  But it kept me mindful of the sacred ceremony that was building and building.  The prayers become stronger when we all know this.  But nothing is diminished if we do not know this. 

The last thing that many lodges do is create prayer ties.  These are small bundles of cloth with tobacco, sacred dirt or corn meal which is tied to a string and then sometimes tied together as a community to hang in the lodge.  Sometimes people hold their ties through the lodge.  Sometimes they are left on the alter.  Each bundle is made with sage burning, with prayerful intent. 

My favorite ties are when everyone sits and creates them together and share in conversation about their lives.  They are connecting with each other and the talk is sacred talk to me.  It becomes a way to be mindful together.  Prayer ties are not required, but are a beautiful way to create mindfulness and prayer building up before the pipe comes out.  After the lodge it is good to burn them in the closing of the fire.  But again, its good to ask about them and find out how specific lodges work. 

In many cases ties are personal and are not required.  They are done by people who are sitting and preparing themselves alone with their thoughts so they are ready in heart, mind and body to be completely open to spirit.  The number of ties depends on the ceremony and intent.  We like to make 7 personal ones for each lodge for the seven directions of our lives.  My elder asked me to create between 40 and 75 for each alter that I create before the sweat to call in the major and minor creation spirits of the lodge each time.  I have made many and I have made only one at times.  Focusing intent is the goal of the ties.

We smudge a lot for the lodge.  Sage tells the spirit that we are trying to do a good thing in a good way.  Sage pushes bag bugs away which the natives knew by observation.  Thus it was beleived that it pushes bad thoughts and spirits away.  Sweat grass often is used as smudge.  It is feminine and is about emotions being held in a sacred way.  Cedar is burned for the ancestors of the lodge, for the plants and standing trees of the lodge.  It is very strong and meant to focus our prayers with our whole body and mind recognizing the ancients and the children.  Bear Root is my favorite.  It is for healing, vision and deep prayers of intent.  It is very subtle though and very personal while being a very strong medicine for the lodge.  And Tobacco whether herbal or nicotine type is for truth.  Tobacco in any form when burned was to help us know that we are telling the truth.  This is why the natives smoked the pipe when making a commitment to something.  Only the truth can pass when it is burning.  Thus we are very mindful of our words because they are truth whether we know it or not.

All of thest things are around the lodge in many ways.  It is about mindfulness as my firetender/teacher said.  It is about helping us connect to each other, to the heart of the matter and to let go of the other spinnings and dramas of our lives.  And all this mindfullness when shared in a good and gentle way, heals people, the earth and returns us to our source however we see that to be.  Mindfullness helps us prepare to go into the dark of the lodge and be completely present to what will unfold.

Those are just some of the things that one will see around the lodge before it begins and as the space and ceremony builds.  Anyone should never be afraid to ask questions of those who have been there, the firetender and the hosts as well as the pourer (if they are open to questions).  Medicine men and holy men become their path through sharing their ways in a good and simple way.  May everyone have the experience of knowing these gentle elders who are true to the red road as I was.... Our elder was and is a gift for the world. 

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

Sweats are, of course, steeped in Native American lore and mythology.  Those of us from the outside often wonder what it all means, these songs, these chants, these spirits.  The lodge is of course for any and all faiths, spirituality and beleif systems.  But an understanding of the ground of prayer for the Native Americans would no doubt be helpful to many who walk into these ceremonies. 

Westerners are used to an abstract or father god who is often very personal and loving.  They are used to saints, intermediaries or even angels.  These sky energies have a rich archology in the mythology of the western religions and mind-set.  But the earth, the mother, the ground on which we live is often treated as only temporary in favor of the moment after life.

The Native path is very practical, very in the moment.  It's about living a good life and realising how much love there is right here in relation to our envionment, family and tribe.  Even philosophical ideals like an abstract god are a new movement within the spirituality of the native traditions.  The essence of creation is in the mysteries or mysterious.  For Lakota this is wakan... Wakan just means mystery.  We don't know where or why this is the way it is. It just is, and that's a mystery.  Wakan is the realm of spirit which is a very active force in the lives of the people.   Spirit behind things may be very directed, moving in a logical way, or it may be random.  Wakan was a way to maintain a relationship with that mystery without defining it completely because with our limited veiw we cannot.

Most wakan are simple natural things.  Like a cloud is a cloud but it is alwo wakan... It is a mystery of life, and from it comes the rains.  The sun is a big wakan, and from it comes the heat of life, the source in many traditions of life itself.  The moon likewise.  We moderns with a history of monotheism do not remember when the wind, the moon, the sun and elements were considered active spirits in our lives. Paying attention to them meant survival and life.   We now have a one god which united all them.  Jehovah, the judge, as originally known or Yhwh the femal spiraling wind on the hill... are now one and the same.  Instead we have the 99 names of god, which eludes to the natural mysticism of our ancient past.  Our ancient lives so dependent on the mysterious workings of the earth and nature. 

The native path reminds us that no matter how far we go in developing our technology and knowledge of the workings of the world it's still a mystery.  We know how the sun works, and no longer think of it in terms of a god, but in reality even the scientists sit in awe of the workings of the sun.  Sitting in Awe is wakan.  If we take all the wakan together we have Wakan Tanka, which to the Christian Missionaries, was interpreted somewhat loosely as one god for the Lakotas.  And over time, Wakan Tanka has become a very central part of the spiritual dynamic of the native path.  Yet, it is inconceivably large - tanka meaning large.   And almost too big to pray to or involk in life. 

So why not pray to and with the wakan of the sun, moon, wind, earth, stone, stars.... no matter what we learn or know, behind it all is the Wakan Tanka which is the mystery of life.  The sweat is thus a grounded place where we release what is no longer necessary in our lives and we return to the simplest level of life... our breath.  We give thanks to the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind and all the wakan, mystery, of life itself. 

Without any one of these things we would not be who we are.  Why not pray in thanksgiving.  We know as we grow, that these impersonal forces can't be changed in their course by our prayer, but we can be changed in our course if we think we can live without these elements.  Without the sun, there would be no life.  Without the moon there would be no life on earth.  Science has continued to prove that these elemental things are essential in part and in whole.  And that means they have simply proven the mystery is truly mysterious..... Here we are returning to our bodies, our lives, our breath.  So why not celebrate it, pray with it and for it all.  We are not asking for faith in something way out there, but love and knowledge of what is right here in our presence, life, love, the earth, the elements. 

Ultimately the earth, our mother, from which all life emerged, is the central spirit of the lodge.  And we pray that the mother will continue to nuture us.  We also pray that humans will wake up and recognize that there is no human without the earth.  If we destroy even one part of all the wakans, and spirits which our ancestors prayed to, we can potentially destroy ourselves.  Thus returning to the basic human connection with the earth, maybe we can wake up the the real balance necessary for our children's children's children.

Very practical, pragmatic, the earth based native path is. What if we loved the earth and all the elementals as much as we loved the abstract distant god?  Maybe that love would awaken in us a respect and a love of each other right here and right now that is beauty itself - the wakan of life.   No abstract philosophy can destroy us from beyond.  So it is with sweat lodge prayer, simple songs about walking simply on the earth.

We have recently been grounding our vision on the earth and settling our work with the lodge on the land.  Many people advertise about sweats.  Even writing about them is an advertisement, but as we were at a gathering lately, I was glad that we choose to share lodge by word of mouth. 

Many people become lodge converts and then run off thinking that sweats can be done in any old place.... by anyone.  And while it is true that sweats can be... I have grown to respect the more traditional path of slow patience to the rapid path of advertising growth and consumerism. 

As I have noted, lodge is in a different energy than our normal modern lives pull us into.  As several have noted to me, the best part is being able to release and let go of everthing about our lives.  And then what comes to bear is what may be more truly wholely themselves/ourselves.

Sweats are for so many intentions, ceremonies, and sacredness it is hard to define just what a sweat is all about.  But what came to us is the central fact that sweats serve communities.  They serve the various and different medicines (skills or talents) which people hold in community.  I the ancient times, sweat served the tribe.  There was a cheif, there were warriors, there were gatherers, there were hunters, firetenders, there were holy men, there were children, storykeepers and many more, all living together and working towards the common goal of survival and life of the tribe.  The lodge came together for cleansing, for healing, and for significant ceremonies.  The people of the tribe knew what to do because they lived together.  They had both an unwritten and a well communicated understanding of what came together to create sacred space.  While everyone was sacred and holy, there were few holy men.  While there were many fires built for many purposes, there were few firetenders for the sacred lodge.  There were few storytellers, drummers, flute players. 

Today everyone wants to be everything when they start on a spiritual path.  But the community suffers when everyone has/does everything.  The community does not link and connect one to the other for the survival of the whole.  We think that because we are independent and can do it all that we are free.  But this is a fate-filled illusion.  We are not free, we are just unaware of how much we need each other and how necessary it is to have all these medicines working in concert.  If we try to do it all all the time, we end up being nothing and only half of what we could be for the circle.  "no man is an island...."  Thus it is critical for lodges to gather and respect that not everyone can pour, not everyone can sing, rather we should celebrate those that can and be in the center of who we are to be what we are.... rather than something we are not.

To come into this kind of balance, the tribe had a way to help the young find their way.  Not force them to become something they are not... rather, seek and find the vision (not as exciting as it sounds) to become themselves almost in complete silence of the tribe and service to the tribe.  An elder, cheif, medicine person, or healer would never tell a person what they are or what visions are good or bad.  Rather, it was believed with great knowledge and experience, that spirit takes care of the whole thing.  If a new vision did not work well with the tribe as a whole, no one said it was bad.  Though that vision may need to grow into a different direction or separate from the tribe... each person was allowed to grow it wisely and slowly in the direction they felt guided.  

So it is with lodge.  We found as we did less, became more open to asking for what was needed, like wood and materials, then the community grew and takes care of itself as we hold the sacred center of the lodge. Singers come, firetenders are attracted to the lodge, healers are there.... it happens organically when we let go of the edges and hold to a central belief that people are in their medicines.   A lodge is not the pourer, it is not the fire tender, or the singers, or the person who leads prayer ties.  It is all of them in their own medicine.  It is recognition that nothing works in a vacuume, and by sharing we all are more than the sum of our parts, and thus we are free......  Truly free to be, give and share in a good way.

Sweats are for people to reconnect to themselves recognize their medicine at their hearts and become more fully what spirit intends them to be in this life.  And to share and give it all away, cause you can't take it with you anyway.

Peace!

Why would anyone be attracted to this ceremony?  What is it that keeps this ancient rite so active, so necessary in our times?

One of the more interesting things about sweats is they are not a church ceremony.  Church as many of us have discovered with experience, is a repetition, a weekly experience which connects one with time passing.  The very act of the sabat is an act which makes the euro western mind aware of time passing.  The place of the church in the midieval community was one of marking that time passing, connected to the planting cycle for the survival of the community. 

Some communities choose to do sweats in a similar fashion, connected to the calendrical changes and time passing.  But sweats are not in time nor connected to normal time.  Almost immediately, upon sweating, it became obvious to me that there was something different about sweating.  It took me out of the time cycle that I was addicted to repeating.  Now even sweating every full moon, was challenging to my early training.  Because sweats don't really start "on time" or end "on time."  The length of a sweat completely depends on the participants that are within. 

As Edmund Hall noted in his Dimensions of Time, there is an obvious need for us to understand the vast differences in time and its connection to our lives.  He discovered that the Hopi's worked their feilds at different times a day because of the clan relationships which had developed over hundreds of years.  Imposing a 9-5 work day, was so out side of the Hopi style of life, that the roads in the 30's could not be built without his complex development of work schedules connected to familial relationships within the tribe.

Likewise, the average modern individual, cannot conceive of a ceremony outside of the time structure that we have become imposed to walk for money and power.  So this is really the attraction of the Sweat.... It reconnects one to a more natural cycle of  life.  The sun, moon, the stars, the breath of life.  This is not to say that other traditions are not connected to similar things, but rather that the purpose of that connection has become driven by the consumption or the acquisition of wealth.  Sweat is not about acquisition or consumption.  It is about letting go.  It works opposite of the normal flow of our modern drives.

This is a primary reason that I see the sweat being so necessary and popular.    Those who connect with the lodge feel that their lives are set aside, they can fully move into spirit time.  It's not an 8-10 am weekly experience. 

Second thing that really attracts people to sweat, is the natural elements of the lodge.  It is, as I have often said, about fire, water, air, earth.  It is about the simplest things of life, breath, cleansing, being present to the moment.  It can be about anything, healing, vision, prayer, needs, desires, and many other intentions.  But at the root the only thing one can say for sure is that the earth is brought in as hot rocks, water is poured on them, with herbs to make steam, we breath, we pray, we chant.... something happens. 

As a result, there are literally hundreds of ways for the sweat ceremony to be shared.  And each sweat is unique to the time, people and energies that are gathering for that moment.  For those of us who live predictable lives in the mainstream of the modern life, it allows us to let go of that.  Sweat allows us to reconnect with our bodies, mind, and spirit to be linked back to what is really important.  And so its flexibility across time and culture makes it the perfect experience for our current moment.

These are but two answers to the above questions.  I am sure there are many others which individuals have for their attraction.  But these cross and connect most of those that share in lodge together.

Living in such a beautiful space and being able to finally commit to creating land which reflects our lives, so much has come into clarity around the sacred sweat, inipi, and creating sacred space.  For years we wandered and learned from many elders, teachers and experiences.  Recently we were cateloguing how many sweats we have been to and how many differing pourers have shared sacred space with us.  Over 20 different elders have poured sweats for us from no less that 12 different tribes, cultures and backgrounds.  It astounded me when I realized the depth and breadth of the experiences which we have had. 

Years ago, when I was drawn to sweats through visions and dreams, it never occured to me the wide and diverse path that would be walked to come to know this sacred ceremony.    While I am hardly and elder in the sense of age, and don't claim to be an expert in the multicultural ways of the lodge, the experiences have brought a sense of ground and awareness about this, one of the most ancient of human ceremonies found in every corner of the world.  And I don't pretend to understand what other continents share in this kind of ceremony, if they are in any way connected to their deep human roots.

First, it should be clearly stated that no one, not one culture, creed or path owns the sweat ceremony.  Not one people, tribe or nation can call themselves the originators of the true sweat lodge.  Circles have been found dating to as long ago as 40,000 years which makes the roots of the ceremony and the act of sweating in community one that was shared by the proto-indo-european people from prior to the native american migrations.  Yet in north america today, it is the native american tribes that feel more closely linked to the ceremony than many other cultural groups. 

The reason for this attachment is rooted in the act of conquest by the indo-european people starting around 500 years ago.  These people were often, though not exclusively so, disconnected from their own spiritual roots which respected the earth ceremonies.  Christians in particular became people of the book and the word over the ceremony, vision and the experience.  But it was not until post civil war days when the soldiers had nothing to do but cause trouble that they spread like the plague out into the west and frankly destroyed much hope of the rest of us making peace and connection withour native brothers of the plains.  Even still, many of the settlers, being people of the book, were none-too-open to understanding their more inclusive neighbors the tribes of the plains. 

But let's take a moment.  It was also true that the tribes themselves were in somewhat of a quandry for hundreds of years, there was a conflict of resources, disease, borught by the spanish pig, and the unfortunate infancy of several nation-state attempts by tribal units to create national federations.  Thus peace and old glory days of the past are not as accurate as some would give them credit for having.  It was a very human environment of change in the face of many a crisis.

But the Dawes act truly can be pointed to as the most evil act to pass through Congress.  An act which literally crossed the first ammendment off the map, and actively pursued the conversion of the native americans with christianity.  The act empowered the catholics, lutherans, presbyterians and several other denominations that applied to do so, to create schools, oppress the ancient rites and ceremonies and on a whole destroy the native religion of the tribes whereever they could.  Combine this with the over zealous soldiers trying to keep their jobs, and you have the nightmare of the late 1800s for the people of turtle island.  If this happened to the christians, and it did under emperors in Rome, imagine the historical anger and backlash that occurs, and did. 

But as luck would have it, where many of the other ceremonies were suppressed and forced underground, the sacre sweat was accepted by christians as symbolic of baptism and healing found in many christian sects.  The sweat beacme church structure and thus became the syncretic ground for all ceremonies for many of the tribes.  Thus we find the sweat moving out of the sidelines and into the center of the religious life of many plains and western tribes.  Within this, a hybred occured where other ceremonies emerged in the 50's when the Dawes act and much of the reservation times were receeding into the past and the tribes were able to practice their ceremonies in the open - mostly because they had served the country well in world war 2.  Isn't that nice. 

But here the story becomes more difficult to follow.  What emerged from the sweat ceremony and from reservations all over the country were unique ceremonies which the people had kept hidden from their christian oppressors.  The young adults were scrambling to learn from their elders, often without the benefit of being native speakers of their own toungues.  They learned as elders of the late 40s and 50's yearned to pass on their knowledge before they died.  Thus came a group of developing elders who, for reasons of pure love of the path and spirit, opened the ceremonies to anyone who would listen, white, red, yellow, brown or whatever, in the name of preservation.  It took time to reassess identity, and become connected to these ways. 

My own elder went through numerous hardships to carry the traditions forward, yet consider the future at all times.  He found the nexus in the covenant of the pipe, the sharing of the sacred inipi, sweat, and the stories passed down to him by his father, uncle and elders.  He served all people, no matter the color and tried his best to share all this with his own tribe.  He was honored by many and challenged too.

It is sad that our government, on the verge of awakening in the late 60's to a movement of identity which spread throughout many minorities, chose to see the native as a threat to national security.  And thus the second battle within less than a 100 years broke out in the early 70's which moved many to anger and frustration at the direction native culture, ceremony and land was going.

The sweat ceremonies suffered as a result.  It became bleeded out into many sub-groups and people who with all the best intent, copied rather than walked the traditions forward in a good way.  By copying, I mean they knew the form, but not the intent and love of the ceremony.  They could do the act, follow rules, but knew nothing of the reasons for them.  This is not to say that the whites and multi-races did this to the natives....everyone did it to everyone.  The takers had their day.  Native stole from native, whites from natives, natives fron whites and vice versus.  In an age of extreme identity crisis, white people were rounding the corner and coming home to the earth.  Knowing that the children of the 60's needed more than their parents drive for change, they needed ground in ceremonies that were real and effacacious.  The natives too were suffering the same identity crisis.  Being some of the most over-studied people on the planet.  They became shy to share with yet another person who would simply write a book, like all people of the book, thinking that would be the location to find the truth of the path and the ceremonies.  It lacked vision and depth when treated this way.

Then White Buffalo Calf Woman came again.  She visits every 86 years or so.  The elders who had learned in the 50's chose to share with those that came to them in a good way.  They saw her telling them, that the tribe would look very different in the future.  And so they chose to teach anyone of any color the truth of walking the path, not from a book, but from experience. 

Now they are all gone, these elders who met with White Buffalo Calf Woman.  They have passed across the bridge.  We are left with a world that hopefully can come to peace about the ceremonies. 

This is enough for now.   Respectfully out of love and compassion for all people in strife and searching, I write as my elder had taught me.  We are all related.... We are all native americans now, because we are all here togehter.  Maybe we can work together in hope.........

Our medicine, our predilection is distinctly bound up with our initiating form (birth).  And as a result it is directly connected to the assemblage point as well as connected integrally with our relationship with the world as it is.  Medicine and Predilection is discovered and honed over a life time.  The Sorcerer is able to see that our predilection is both a trap of repetition and a gift of freedom because it allows one the hint of a pathway to being and not being (the gateless gate, the doorway to third attention).  In the abstract predilection allows for conversation and varieties of experience to be shared among those who know their own medicine/predilection well.
 
Predilection and Medicine is also built up by the stories of the past, the stories of the present and the stories we tell ourselves in our heads.  The ancient shaman/sorcerers fell into the trap of thinking that second attention (dreaming) was the way to freedom.  They became obsessed with the abilities of their individual and selfish medicines to drive the initial gift of the assemblage point into another position, thus creating a solid second attention but certainly not un-writing the pattern of gathering intent and just creating new perceptions which they thought they could control.  They became very adept at manipulating intent from these positions but were never far from the initial position of the assemblage point called first attention.  This is why they called them by number, these different attentions, because we attend to them, hone them and repeat behaviors to stabilize and justify them. 
 
When one speaks of third attention, it could easily be just another bundle of perceptions within the same game.  Since our predilection/medicine is both an internal bundle of fibers and an external shape to our luminescence, the ease with which one can shape and change depends on how much energy we gather from letting go of useless patterns to intend and create new and un-explored pathways in territories not yet seen.  These views beyond the patterns are abstract flights.  The less tie we have to our self absorbed patterns, our justifications, the more fluid and open we can become to these flights.  These flights are the touches of the infinite, the place beyond our luminescence.  Un-writing as much connection to it all including our medicine helps us not only fully  become our medicine/predilection etc as it  releases us from the patterns of our ordinary lives. 
 
Recently I was challenged by an amazing woman in seeing, if you will, the pathway beyond.  She was drawn to this doorway in ways that no one else can understand because of her predilection/medicine.  She often is, and often will be a trailblazer in this way.  It is because of her ability to move so quickly to that doorway (bad image)(there is no door) and beyond to the abstract, that those of us, me especially, get lost in the finger of the pointing and respond with an aching at our souls because of the threat to the old patterns.  It has always amazed me that she sees beyond all patterns so quickly.
 
Meanwhile, it amazes me how so often some medicine keeps a constant child like view and makes sure that the understanding and the care of our spirits are in line with the constant changes.  Love for no reason at all pushes this medicine to energetically endure massive amounts of shifts while maintaining the rock steady place of care where these individuals are at and wants us all to be at.
 
Some wander far and wide and often without a single attachment to the point or to each of the positions of the energetic points they have been or will be in.  Like a dragonfly this medicine can dart quickly because attachments is so sparse to any attention.  Seeing all things as just attention, they cares not for any and yet for all.  In being this they are constantly energized by the shifts of others and the continual contracts with awareness which are made daily. 
 
Other kinds of medicine stabilize the moment with actions and thought.  This stabilization means that perceptions are written on these beings in that moment.   Centralizing on the moment, the moment becomes fully absorbed.  And in being fully there, they can now unravel it to the extent that few realize and then with a sword cut away the dross which affects freedom (because that position of the assemblage point is now theirs). 
 
There are others who simply energetically imbue the moment with intent, any moment, but can’t for the life of them create any reflection and thus any solidity to that moment, relying on others to solidify it for them and reflect it back in beauty.
 
There are those whose predilection is to capture a million stories of a million ways and hold nothing of their own.  They walk between the many assemblages of energy watching the unfolding dream/story in a million places. 
 
Our predilection/medicine is written on our lumin-esssence and in our assemblage of perceptions often called the assemblage point.  Each of us is guided at some point to begin to stretch beyond our current world view through un-writing our patterns and obsessions.  If we do so well, we begin to grab onto the infinite, grab onto Intent rather than intention and slide over to the workings of infinite mystery. 
 
We are attracted to others who are on a similar path as we begin to light up other places in our awareness and the abstract.  We are attracted to people who have made similar commitments of the spiritual warrior, and are seeking the non-self important drive of this kind of journeying and wandering.  We are attracted because the world’s obsession to maintain the fixed position of its self gratifying assemblage point makes us infinitely sad.  We are attracted to the great wandering beyond this karma into greater beauty together. 
 
Thankful, I am, at being in relationships with some amazing people who are the most enticing and engaging people I have ever known.  Thankful I am to have so many great friends who echo this journey in their own way from their own predilection.  Thankful I am that the doorways to greater perception are opening in a way that scares us all to death, yet at the same time drives each moment so beautifully. 
 
Predilection/medicine is a gift of Spirit.  To argue for or against it is folly.  To journey deep into it, is freedom. As Nitche said, “To name the devil, to recognize its fullness, is to see it as an angel driving the soul towards freedom.” He also noted, “Be careful when battling monsters lest you become a monster yourself, and when looking into the abyss, the abyss looks into you.”
 
Thanks for the view.  Thanks to everyone, especially my mate, for getting me over myself and into my predilection so squarely that freedom truly is a different choice beyond the patterns. 
 
I look forward to the wandering ways of the seers as they open more doorways to perception.
 

As practice has been my watchword of late, I have been focusing on this idea of intent/Intent.  Often I see this as a great web of life.  I see it in the quantum level of being, the random interactions of all the energy packets.  Seems that this world is so chaotic that the only thing keeping us together is Intent.  So this quote makes sense to me:

"      Intent is present everywhere. Intent is what makes the world. People, and all other living creatures for that matter, are the slaves of intent . We are in its clutches. It makes us do whatever it wants. It makes us act in the world. It even makes us die. When we become warriors, though, intent becomes our friend. It lets us be free for a moment; at times it even comes to us, as if it had been waiting around for us." CC Eagle's Gift

I act upon my artwork and work, but it seems that when I don't act, but rather flow into it and keep my intent simple it becomes very clear.  Intent moves through intent and the hand moves.  Recently I created a Buddha painting.  But it was filled with intents and thus not Intent.  And while being compressed like an iceberg, it was explosive like a sunburst.  And thus had no unit or organization.  Intereseting practice to have so many intentions. 

Deep within the recesses of silence is the second mind.  Found this quote which stirs to one to action:

      "We are not naturally petty and contradictory. Our pettiness and contradictions are, rather, the result of a transcendental conflict that afflicts every one of us, but of which only sorcerers are painfully and hopelessly aware: the conflict of our two minds! One is our true mind, the product of all our life experiences, the one that rarely speaks because it has been defeated and relegated to obscurity. The other, the mind we use daily for everything we do, is a foreign installation.
      "To resolve the conflict of the two minds is a matter of intending it. Sorcerers beckon intent by voicing the word intent loud and clear. Intent is a force that exists in the universe. When sorcerers beckon intent, it comes to them and sets up the path for attainment, which means that sorcerers always accomplish what they set out to do.
             "Intent can be called, of course, for anything, but sorcerers have found out, the hard way, that intent comes to them only for something that is abstract. That's the safety valve for sorcerers; otherwise they would be unbearable. Beckoning intent to resolve the conflict of your two minds, or to hear the voice of your true mind, is not a petty or arbitrary matter. Quite the contrary; it is ethereal and abstract, and yet as vital to you as anything can be. " - Carlos Casteneda

Unfortunately, that which is truly important is often lost by the trappings of the life and detail of the unimportant.  It facinates me the extent to which the voice in the head is wrapped up in the first mind.  It is in fact the first mind.  Intent can only be approached as well as the abstract with utter detatchment.  A practice that gets one into much trouble with the people of the first mind.  People of the first mind create beleifs and as a result their world view does not allow for any other perspective or perception.  To eliminate this attatchment takes ultimate self sacrifice, courage in the face of those who would pull one back to the old way.  Thus detatchment through the breath the purest of disciplines.

When detatchment has been practiced and the discipline is gained in silence, then the voice of intent can be declared.... because there is no oposite to the voice of intent.  If the practice is not there then the first mind attacks the second to restabilize its belief in the dilusion of itself and nuetralizes intent.  While the mechanics are easy to say, the practice is quiet difficult.  But not unattainable.  It opens one to the beauty and perception of the world in a manner that was always there but now crystalizes the clarity and beauty of love for no reason at all, and peace from the equanimity of true balance.

Recently I was sitting in front of a peice of paper with a number of blotches and skid marks which though random in their formation were what I had intended, somewhat.... So this pattern of very wetly developed color had dried and my mind looked at it with a blank slate.  Where to go now.  I knew what I intended.  Now as to intent, I no longer intend a specific picture because no matter what my production falls short of what my mind sees, rather I intend a feeling, idea, or thought and then flow with the breath until the image and forms emerge from the field.  So here I was blank slate and seeing this as a "problem to be solved" rather than a journey to be explored.  The landscape of the mind/heart/art was right there but what would emerge was not even close to me. 

In cases like this, I start laying down lines, putting paint in some places but its all so tentative the beast called the judgemental mind began to attack and I am stuck.  Sometimes I would stare at the black marks and lines and start to push into it things I have done before, and that works sometimes, but I am easily bored, even with my own work, so that did not work at all. 

Finally letting go of everything I just retreated into pure relaxation and let the mind go completely quiet, I even let go of the intention for the work.  Then things began to hover before me like ghosts and the answer was there all a long as though it had always been there.  And the hand moved to a new beat that was remembered from a before that never was. 

I think that this is how life can be approached.  Recently a friend asked me how I envision my work, or how I use my visions to make art (same thing really).  I became aware of the above and thus the words are here.  Life too is like this.  When confronted with a mystery a situation, a gordion knot of being and living.... this is how I solve it.  So I focused the same process of intention/nonintention at my work place and the same result surfaced.  The answer was there all along. 

Breath in breath out.........

Intent fills in the rest of the picture when we stop intending.