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Edited on Wed Aug-05-09 12:00 PM by GliderGuider
I'm back, and way too much happened in those three days and nights to condense it all here. I'll put up an article on my web site in a few days, and post the link here.
For now here are the highlights:
I took the advice of people on the board to take bug spray and fruit juice, and to build a fire. All were most welcome, thank you for the suggestions. I got a lot less dogmatic as I settled in and let events simply unfold as they were meant to.
The place I chose was so perfect it felt manifested. It was secluded and beautiful, just inside the treeline of some gentle unused woodland adjacent to the back meadow of my parents' farm, only a fifteen minute walk from their home. Just off the deer path into the woods I found a Druidic circle of trees (maples, not oaks) where I set up my camp. That section of woods was anchored by three enormous ancient beech trees. They told me later they were grandfather, father and son. The grandfather, who had passed on, stood beside my camp. Piles of slash and deadfall nearby provided fuel for my campfire. Two chainsawed tree stumps became a meditation seat and a table for my water jug. The paths that had been cut through the woods a few years ago were lined with wild red and black raspberries.
I took no tent, just a piece of plastic for a rain shelter, and in the end I didn't even need that. The weather was perfect, for three days and nights it didn't rain. It was ferociously cold one night though, and I woke up twice to re-lay my fire.
I was welcomed in by soaring turkey vultures: three were above the concession road leading to my parents' farm as I drove in; one flew over low as I was unloading my car; then two flew low near me as I set up my camp, and as I walked out to the edge of the meadow one of them circled me and called.
The first day (Saturday) was jangly, with lots of racing thoughts and post-sundown anxieties. I did open the space well though, and there were guides and guardians aplenty. At dusk the woods and the field beside my camp lit up in the most magnificent visual feast of fireflies I've ever seen. It was as though the Earth Mother had put on a welcoming show, for which I gave her my gratitude.
In the middle of that first night, in the grip of my inner fears, I lost faith and wanted to know what time it was. I'd stashed my watch in the end pocket of my duffel bag for the duration, so I picked up my flashlight to find it. When I snapped on the light, that end of the bag was covered with a seething carpet of black ants. They weren't on anything else in the camp, just that one pocket that held the watch. I burst out laughing, and told Her, "OK, OK, I get it -- no watch!" I never saw the ants again.
I spent the days meditating, both in sitting meditations and walking meditations along the forest paths. I spent a fair bit of time nude, and I wondered what it would look like to someone who might come to investigate the drift of smoke in the woods, to see this middle-aged pot-bellied bald guy standing naked in front of a campfire drumming and chanting :-)
By the middle of Sunday a deep peace had descended. The solitude was a huge gift -- whenever I emerged from a very deep meditation into that wordless state of Being, I wasn't pulled out of it by the need to communicate.
On Monday morning the visions came. First there were two, and after each one as I lay on my mat staring up into the trees, the vulture that had called to me when I arrived came and circled twice low over the canopy. A third vision came that night at sundown. It was a restatement of the second one, but more emphatic. The message was, "If you wish to travel this path, you must accept that all the shadows of humanity, even the very darkest, live within you. You must acknowledge and integrate all of them in order to become whole." I think it's going to be a long journey.
On Tuesday I did a very long walking meditation, and then sat in meditation for an hour or so. When I stood up my hands began to pack up my camp. There was no decision, no questioning, no talking myself into staying or leaving -- I was simply complete. I closed the sacred space, thanked everyone that had been there for me, drummed my new power song (that came to me on the first night) to the four directions, and hiked back to my parents' house.
My parents and I sat around a light lunch in their sun room that faces the back of the farm. Through the window I saw the vulture soar in over the distant tree line and circle above my empty campsite. I felt a tinge of regret that I wasn't out there to say goodbye. Three minutes later there was a flash of movement in the window, and I saw the vulture flying low towards the house. He circled right over the house and gave me time to run out onto the back lawn. I looked up as he soared less than 50 feet above me, the feathers on his six-foot wingspan individually visible. He cocked his head and for a moment we stared straight at each other. Then he lifted his head, dropped a bird bomb on the maple tree beside the house and flew away.
I'm still speechless. Thank you to everyone here for their support. Thank you to the Earth Mother and the Sky Father, to the Goddess of the Moon and the God of the Sun; to the spirit guides who held me as I worked; to my ancestors and those who walked that land in ages past. Thank you to the four spirits I chose to frame my quest: Awakening in the East, Passion in the South, Grounding and Homecoming in the West, and Wisdom in the North. Thank you to my totem animal, the turkey vulture, especially the one that stood watch over my quest. Thank you to my teachers, both living and passed on, and to my parents who held space for me even though they didn't know what that was. My deepest gratitude goes to my partner, lover, teacher, guide and soul-mate Estelle who showed me the path and helped me realize why I should walk it with her.
Namaste,
Bodhisantra (aka GliderGuider, aka Paul Chefurka)
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