Calling Our Spirits Home: Gateways to Full Consciousness
Chapter Seven
The Seasons of Our Times
If the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear as it is⏤infinite.
⏤William Blake
It is white-knuckle time for me as my companion and I are headed for the motorway leaving London. I am not used to sitting on the “other than English” driver’s side without a steering wheel upon which to rest my hands. Not that I don’t trust my driver companion, mind you, but my head is still whipping around at every lane change and my internal voice silently squeaks as we make turns. My foot on the non-existent brake pedal has a highly developed reflex action.
We are headed for the Cotswolds and Rollright Stones, one of many Neolithic stone circles that dot the British Isles. Stonehenge, of course, is the most famous one. I had been to Stonehenge years before, long before my feet were firmly planted on the Seeker’s path. Back then I was just inching my big toe over the line to sense how bumpy the path might be. By that time, Stonehenge had been subjected to the sacrilege of graffiti and was being protected by wire fences to keep visitors at a distance. Even so, my first sight of that circle of giant stones in the middle of nowhere was accompanied by a fluttering in my midsection and my inaudible “ahhh.” Later as my friend and I were walking around the periphery of the circle, I began to sense something that was new and strange to me. I queried my companion, “Do you feel that?” I stood still and felt a sort of shimmering in the soles of my feet that found its counterpart in my lower front teeth, along with a sense of lightness in the upper part of my cranium. I didn’t know then that my body was naturally receiving and responding to the powerful energy of the place.
Earlier on our present trip my companion and I sought out Avebury, yet another stone circle. It was well marked by road signs that directed us to a large parking lot, and then a footpath crossing a field. At the end of the path was a very large circle whose circumference was close to a mile, with stones as tall as eight feet placed every so often. Small present-day posts stood as substitutes for any absent stones. Opening the small gate that led into the circle and picking my way around mud puddles, I had walked slowly, pausing periodically to capture the circle’s energy. Once I even placed my back up against one of the stones. Still, I was not able to pick up a ‘sense’ of the place⏤no energy whatsoever. As I glanced around, I began to understand why that might be so. A few houses, a pub and a small shop for the tourist trade were resident in one end of the circle. Besides this infringement, a main roadway dissected the Avebury henge neatly, further desecrating the circle’s original perfection and sweeping away any sense of the sacred.
There are no signs to Rollright Stones. We can attest to that. We have been round and round the area feeling we must be getting close. After all, we have driven through the tiny villages of Great Rollright Stones and Little Rollright Stones at least a few times. We’ve asked directions three times, once from a woman in equestrian dress riding her horse along a narrow lane. She told us that “it’s just a bit of a way” in a farmer’s field. We can’t miss it. Invariably, we take another wrong turn. I am getting the feeling that the Rollright Stones do not want to be found.
Finally, we see one lone stone jutting up from the earth on the right just as we were told we would. There is nowhere really to park the car, but we pull off the road onto some flattened grass on the shoulder, noting where others have been before us. I gaze at the lone megalith. The equestrian had said some call it the King’s Stone. A falcon is perched appropriately on its highest point. As I approach the falcon remains on its perch until wary of my purpose, it flies off. It is interesting to me that this one stands over here by itself in the field, while the others are across the road and through the trees. Of course, back when the stones were laid it was probably all forest with little evidence of human presence. Still, this stone stands apart. I am curious about its purpose and wonder if it is the guardian stone. The guardian would watch over and protect sacred practice.
Rollright Stones are rich with mystery and legend. One story goes that an unnamed Danish king and his men invaded England. Upon arrival in this area, the king consulted a witch to foretell if he would be King of England. The witch gave him these instructions.
Seven long strides thou shalt take,
And if Long Compton thou shalt see,
King of England thou shalt be.
As the king began striding, a small hill rose up magically from the ground barring his sight of the village below. The witch then pointed to him cunningly.
As Long Compton thou canst not see
King of England thou shalt not be.
Rise up stick and stand still stone,
For King of England thou shall be none.
Thou and thy men hoar stones shall be
and I myself an elder tree.
The king and his men were said to have suddenly turned to stone; and the witch elder tree can yet be found in a nearby hedgerow. Another more likely source says that the stones comprise an elaborate sundial reserved for communal gatherings. Another practice involved childless women pressing their bare breasts against the King Stone presumably in hopes of conceiving. Males chipped away pieces of the stone to carry away to war as a lucky charm. Although, the Danish king himself was not so lucky. This last practice probably explains the stone’s concave nature and its pitted surface.[i]
I leave my companion with the guardian megalith and make my way across the road and proceed between the trees on a small winding path that leads to a clearing. I bless the owner of this plot of land for leaving it so. For here in the clearing protected by trees is an imperfect circle of stones approximately fifty feet in diameter. Many of the stones reflect human stature. I experience an intimacy here, despite the bitter chill in the air. I don’t know if it is due to the grandeur of the trees playing with the power of the circle, or if it is the relatively untouched feeling of the place. I find that the circle speaks to me and issues an invitation. I move into it at its eastern point where the path seems to lead and slowly begin to traverse the circle in a clockwise fashion. Inexplicably, my body is drawn to stop in certain spots. My body releases me to move on to repeat this pattern that is not a pattern, until I have completed one revolution. Having come back to where I started, I have a sense of being pulled to the center. Standing stock-still in the middle, I am transported in space-time. But my body has not shifted. Indeed, there is a crack in time here that marks a doorway to celebrate sanctity. It holds the memories of ancient rituals, sometimes dark. As I entrain with its history, I step through an opening into myths of the sacred that lay beyond time.
Light the Lamp That Carries Us Home
There is a Mystery that exists⏤one for which there are no words. Words are inadequate for the places that Mystery can take us. To be reunited with the Light is the soul’s ultimate journey. Our memories have grown dim and the Lamp seeks to be lit once more. We need the rekindling that takes us to those places where we can be Light itself and know that Light is always with us.
In her teachings on prayer, sixteenth century mystic Teresa of Avila urged, “Draw near, then, to this good Master…” Teresa used the metaphor of “The Interior Castle” to express the innermost place where truest connection abides, there being successive dwelling places from the exterior to the core interior that speak of our pilgrimages.[ii]
Just within the interior wall of the castle, or first dwelling place, our attention is diverted and diligently focused on worldly possessions and business affairs. While in Teresa’s day these things may have been distraction enough, in this day we are perhaps even more greatly tested. For here, we have allowed the technological whirlwind of our world to rob us of our heritage. As we are driven from one activity to another, the noise channel continually sounding and EMFs[1] emitting, time speeds up, figuratively and possibly literally cutting off our breath. But there was an age when time could stand still. It still can. Teresa wrote glowingly of the practice she called “recollection,” a form of prayer. During recollection “the soul collects its faculties together and enters within itself to be with its God” knowing the fundamental truth that Divinity is very near⏤indeed, within us.[iii] There are many paths to this same place. Once we have that awareness, it is only our unwillingness to choose a path that stops us from getting there.
We have forgotten how to lay our bellies upon the ground. Indigenous and ancient peoples have always had the wisdom of this innate need and a finite understanding of the means to get there⏤means that many of us have forgotten. In the name of ‘Progress’ we have been taught to denigrate these beliefs and practices and cloak them with taboos. We have somehow taken on the idea that little is sacred. Even in the mainstream practice of church-going, those people who still participate and haven’t broken off to form their own brand of church, more often than not, gather for the social benefit, merely going through the motions of rituals once hallowed. Yet, if we listen to Teresa of Avila, countless other spiritual teachers through the ages and the open chambers of our hearts, we know that everything is sacred.
The Swing of the Pendulum
But there are those who sought to take this heritage from us. Not seeing the worship of Nature and her mythologies the same as devotion to God, the early Christian Church saw the practices as a threat and tried to wipe them out. Politically, the Church fathers were very astute. At the time, a popular religion called Mithraism celebrated the birthday of Mithras, the Sun God, with festivities on December 25. The birthday of Jesus of Nazareth was unknown, but probably actually took place in the spring. At any rate, it was considered unimportant because only the death days of saints and prophets were celebrated then. To celebrate a birthday was thought by the Church to be plebeian, and therefore a sin to even consider doing so for someone like Jesus. But by the early years of the fourth century C.E., Mithraism had gained such popularity that there existed a distinct possibility that it could overwhelm Christianity. Church politicians weighed strategies and chose to give Christians a birthday to celebrate⏤on December 25, in direct competition with Mithras. Ironically, first proclaiming that that day would be commemorated through meditation, fasting and Christ’s Mass, a solemn prayerful event of one upsmanship for he who made the sun, the Christmas season is now predominantly celebrated with revelry and shopping. In spite of those early Church fathers, we have thus reverted to our pagan tendencies![iv]
The political fabrication of Jesus’ December birthday was not an isolated incident committed by Christian priests and scholars. Persons interested in the true origins of the Old Testament could study world religions older than Christianity and see for themselves that the stories are very similar or the same. Many of the stories were taken directly from the Goddess culture. The name The Bible even came from Byblos, which was the City of the Great Mother and the oldest continuously operating temple. The legend of Moses parting the Red Sea was originally performed by Isis on her way to Byblos.[2][v] Any researcher would also note that there are other inventions and omissions for the express purpose of ensuring Patriarchy and the power of the Church. Only the banned Gnostic Gospels still retained some indication of the prominent role of women in teaching and ritual. They alluded to the fact that Jesus actually had sought to strike a balance and also had twelve female disciples and that Mary Magdalene was the leader of all the disciples.[vi]
Just the same as Catholicism sought to wipe out the beliefs and practices of the native peoples they had come to ‘save’ by placing their own churches directly over sacred sites, religious misogynists strived to obliterate women’s power and declare them evil. It breaks my heart to think of the story told to me by a friend. When she was just twelve years old, breaking into puberty with her woman’s cycle just ahead, she attended an Episcopalian camp. One day when she was alone, a priest started to walk by her, but turned and said sternly and directly to her, “You are Original Sin!” At the time, she had no idea what that meant, but knew that it was very bad. The poor child turned and ran into the woods to find solace. Who knows how long it took her to remove this blasphemy from her psyche? It is only perhaps that the priest cannot be blamed for his insensitivity and hatred for the female when this attitude within the Church had been prevalent and taught since around 300 C.E. Tertullian, a struggling celibate from Carthage, preached that Woman was “a temple built upon a sewer.”[vii] Clearly, all those zealots down through the ages should have kept the wrestling of their own personal sexual demons to themselves.
But the pendulum started swinging the other way some time ago. The consecration of Nature and the worship of her deities never completely went away; although it was forced underground for centuries because of the realities of persecution and murder committed by the predominant religions. With the weakening of the Church, we are seeing that adherents, usually from Indigenous cultures, are gleaning the best from both worlds. The legally established Native American Church uses the plant teacher peyote as the entry point that takes them deeper into spaces to connect with the teachings of the Church. Originating from the Caribbean and spreading in the Hispanic culture in the United States and Brazil, Santeria, or Lukumi as the syncretistic religion is also called, combines the worship of Orisha from the Yoruba and Bantu people from Africa and Roman Catholicism. In San Juan Chamula, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, I had the privilege of observing the Tzotzil Maya worshipping in the Catholic church on the main square. There were no pews. Instead, people were sitting alone or in small groups on the floor of the cathedral with hundreds of candles lit in front of them, standing in their own wax. The candles ranged from birthday candle size to foot long tapers, depending on the nature of the prayer. When candles burned down, a boy would come to scrape the candle wax from the floor to ready the space for the next person. The walls were lined with painted statues of saints contained in glass cases. A curandera was chanting for the small child held by the young mother sitting on the floor next to her in front of a shrine. Although carrying out rituals in the Catholic church, the Maya⏤simply genuine in their devotion⏤were making offerings in the form of candles, incense and Coca-Cola to the local earth deities. This somehow seemed much more relevant since they were unspoiled farmers living in close alignment with the Mother.
Slowly, too, women have been resuming their rightful places as leaders in spiritual traditions. With the founding of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the British Isles in 1888, women began once again working magic as equals alongside men in ceremonies.[viii] Not since the near obliteration of the Celtic tradition when priestesses were declared witches had this openly happened.[3] In the last number of years, several religions began ordaining women. By 1995, the Anglican Church numbered more than twenty-two hundred female priests and four bishops. But that same year the Pope reinforced the stance taken by previous popes⏤no female Roman Catholic priests.[ix]
Rooting for Knowledge
In ever increasing numbers, people across the globe are seeking ways to reconnect to the roots of knowing. This New Age movement forms an umbrella encompassing anything from Tarot divination to energy healing to UFO hunting. Many of those inhabitants of what Teresa named the first dwelling place smirk behind their hands, or more openly, at “New-Agers.” Then, they may secretly shuffle off to psychics for the answers that they themselves cannot find. For the most part, we are dwellers in rootless societies who are scrabbling for any answer because our cultures no longer provide us the means to entrain to what we intuitively know is there. As technology and the material world have advanced, those cultures and groups who know have been pushed increasingly to the fringes of society or been made extinct.
Physicist-writer Dan Winter makes a very good argument as to the correlation between states of health and ecstatic process. Exultation or meditation brought on by transcendental experiences rides the waves that settle into our cell biology thereby strengthening our immune systems. “A cell membrane with ecstatic joy folded onto its surface is like a tapestry made of fine silk, compared to one made of coarse burlap.” He also theorizes that the spread of AIDS in Africa maps the areas where genuinely practiced tribal ritual has taken a downward turn in favor of the material desires touted by Western culture.[x]
Perhaps our youth are feeling the absence of ritual and sacredness in their lives most. Not having the maturity to deal with these feelings is often dangerous. From all accounts, the rise in bizarre crime committed by adolescents and the rise in teenage pregnancy are rampant. Finding no rites of passage with guiding elders to carry them into responsible adulthood, these misguided children are creating their own rites from the reflection they see played up in the media. So children join gangs. Children initiate children. With no wisdom and sacred intent to guide them, the leap is often tragic. There is no foundation from which to make the jump. Girls are better off than boys in one sense. With the onset of menses, their bodies signal a clear passage, but without a society that supports the power of their blood they struggle with that understanding.
Re-membering
Those philosophies and practices called New Age are largely misnamed. In most cases, they are lifted from sages with centuries of wisdom attached to them. Many of us, recognizing our own emptiness, find that it is now time to re-member what was previously lost to us, but that we innately know is there.
Native peoples and ancient cultures have long recognized that the natural elements are indispensable to our very Being. If we are Divinity manifested, then so it holds true for everything around us. There is nothing to be conquered. If we hold a dominion mentality, we hold that we are conquering ourselves. How does this serve us? We must remember that this universe existed long before we were here and will likely continue long after the human race may pass. There is a power in its sacredness⏤a power on which we can draw.
The Great Spirit is our father, but the earth is our mother. She nourishes us. What we put into the ground she returns to us, and healing plants she gives us likewise. If we are wounded, we go to our mother and seek to lay the wounded part against her, to be healed. Animals, too, do thus, they lay their wounds to the earth.[xi]
⏤Bedagi of the Wabanakis Nation
At the National Folk Festival, the Flint Nation Singers, Mohawks from New York, were on stage. The lead singer was explaining, “The band holding the deerskin on the drum represents the cycles in life⏤women’s cycles, growing cycles. There is not a date when we hold a ceremony. We hold it when the cycle starts. We hold ceremony when the strawberries are growing in the forests, the real strawberries not the ones cultivated by the farmers. We hold ceremony when the thunders come and when they leave.” The symbology and celebrations interwoven with the lives of Native peoples and those people called Pagans or Wiccans grant Nature no more than the consecration she is due.
It is hard to remember that the vastness of the Cosmos even exists if we live in a city with crowding and concrete all around. Long before I understood the urgings of my unconscious, my fingers would itch to dig in the flower and herb garden in my inner city backyard. Doing so, I would grow relaxed and feel somehow nourished as my Mother absorbed through my hands and bent knees anything that may have been troubling me. Sometimes I would lay full length on the ground greedy for her nurturing and lose myself staring at the sky. Or, I would lay full on my belly nose to nose with her blossoms. It was only later that I came to have a conscious understanding of my actions.
I didn’t know why I was clear across country in the Southern Utah desert, in the middle of nowhere. At the time, I was a city dweller who had never intended in my wildest dreams to be where I was⏤camping for the first time with a group of people I did not know. My family and friends thought I had gone off the deep end. So I had⏤into the beginnings of a deep journey for which I foresaw no end. I had responded to a notice of a desert experience with Peruvian shaman Américo Yábar, after being powerfully drawn by my intuition to do so. Understand that, at the time, I had little knowledge of exactly what a shaman even was. I just knew that I was supposed to be there.
It was through Don Américo that I was first exposed to the powers of the Cosmos and our abilities to call upon them. He taught me how to hold up my hands to the mountains, rivers or stars, draw in their energy and transfer that energy from my hands into my own heart. I could literally feel the transference. Later he taught how to further shift that energy to another person’s body for healing. One afternoon we were sitting in a natural rock amphitheater having listened to him preparing us for our next practice. When he held his arm straight above his head and said, “We will call upon the wind to help us.” There was not even the slightest breeze or sound of one, just the hot sun pounding down on us. But presently I began to hear winds whistling down the canyons. They broke around us within a few seconds of Américo calling them. The skeptic in me said, “Yeah. Sure.” But similar events were to repeat themselves over and over and make a believer of me. My introduction to the Q’ero Indian tradition provided the juncture that would propel me forward, and that I would go back to time and time again as the foundation for my learning.
Perhaps the larger vision came from a wizened old seer. A small group of us were ensconced in Don Américo’s ancestral home, dating from the fall of the Inca empire, remote in the high Andes Mountains. For me, there wasn’t a more magical place⏤the power of that land and night sky alchemically mixed with the simple peacefulness of the setting.
Ancient Don Miguelito, who truly looked not to be of this world, cared for the garden fashioning unexpected ‘rooms’ by draping vines, adding a stool or bench made from branches just sturdy enough to hold a person. He carefully preserved the sanctity of these sacred spaces by sweeping the dirt with his broom made of twigs, removing any stray leaves or brush. He created a true invitation that any contemplative found hard to turn down.
Miguelito was a respected shaman in his own right, coming from the nearby Mollamarka Indian village. One day he offered to give a reading using his traditional oracle, coca leaves. The session was held at night. When I came to my reading, I found a surreal setting instead of the normal place where we took meals. The room was candlelit, there being no electricity. Miguelito in his usual threadbare attire was seated at the table with candles. Moonshine coming through the windows assisting his concentration. Spread before the candles, masses of coca leaves were laying on his mesa.[4] Over the glow of the tapers I acknowledged Don Américo and his daughter Arilu who were seated to the left of Miguelito. Having no facility with Quechua or Spanish myself, Américo would translate for Miguelito and Arilu would, in turn, translate the Spanish into English for me.
Miguelito was bent trance-like over the leaves, sifting them with his gnarly fingers and muttering under his breath. He acknowledged my presence by motioning for me to sit down on his right with a slight gesture of his hand, barely looking up. Presently, he picked up a few coca leaves and began chewing them, still muttering between chews. After a short time, he spit them out onto the table. Moving his hands over them he seemed to be noting where the pieces fell, perhaps in relation to each other or to the other leaves on the table. Then, he began to speak in a low guttural voice. Stopping, he turned and looked me directly in the eyes as though searching for something and then went back to the coca leaves continuing to speak for a few more minutes, conferring with Don Américo. Then, he sat back waiting. When the translation finally came, Miguelito’s words seemed quite unlikely to me. “That storm we had the other night? ” I nodded. How could I not recall it? I had started awake in the middle of the night to thunder like I had never heard before. Lightning had lit up the room from its savage dance across the mountaintops right outside my window. I had sat up in bed watching the storm for the longest time wondering if all was safe. “The lightning was for you. Its filaments are inside you now. I’m surprised that it was for you.” No more surprised than I was, as he sat there nodding. I just looked at him in wonderment, unclear of his meaning. Then, he abruptly got up from his chair, came over to me and starting rooting through the hair on the top of my head with his fingers. “Ah, there’s where it went in,” seeming now satisfied with his finding he sat back down.[5]
Since that time, I seem to ride a fast train, the speed of which keeps increasing. Often when I have spiritual epiphanies, I feel the tickling of an electrical charge on the crown of my head. The energy of Nature has continued to strengthen me and bring me joy. When I gaze with intent upon the mountains where I now reside, their gifts flow into my heart and exit back into the world through the tears that come to my eyes and the actions that inform my daily life.
Fueling the Mystery
It is clearly time to break free of the shackles that have held all of us in the last two millennia. Woman reflects her mirror image of Earth, both being vessels from which spring all of life⏤The Life Giver. How could it make sense to omit this Spirit? Life Giver and the male Spirit of Life Preserver are opposite sides of the same coin. All need be honored. The ways of honoring we choose make no difference to the Divine, as long as they ring true in sacred and respectful intent for all of Nature’s Beings.
We may choose to traverse the ritual circle in solitude or in community. When we set aside sacred space, whether within our hearts or a physical place, we create the intimate intent of respectful expectancy that fuels our awareness. In this space we find that we are well protected by Light’s Guardian. Sacred practice is a means and not the end. It serves as an entry point allowing the Great Mystery to awaken and move through us…to carry us on the winds of sanctity.
[1] Electromagnetic fields
[2] The Goddess Isis was known in the Egyptian and Roman mysteries as the Creator from whom all arose.
[3] The Occult, witchcraft and magic were declared evil by the Church in its quest for power. In reality, these ancient traditions were seeking spiritual transformation and interventions through metaphysical means such as divining, visioning and ceremonies. These methods are the same as prayer and ritual employed by the Church, just a different flavor. They are both metaphysical with the same intent. This point does not include offshoots of the Occult or the Church, such as satanic cults who use methods for ill purposes, or the five hundred years of the Inquisition or equally horrendous activities done in the name of religion.
[4] Literally translated from the Spanish, mesa means table. But it also refers to the woven cloth in which a shaman stores and carries sacred objects and serves as an altar covering.
[5] Traditionally, the presence of lightening or a lightening strike has powerful shamanic interpretations.
[i] Internet Websites: Britannia and The Cotswold Hyperguide, The Rollright Stones.
[ii] Teresa of Avila. Translation by Kiernan Kavanaugh, O.C.D., and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. The Interior Castle. Mahwaj, New Jersey: The Paulist Press, 1979. 14.
[iii] Ibid. 14.
[iv] Charles Panati. Sacred Origins of Profound Things: The Stories Behind the Rites And Rituals of the World’s Religions. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. 215–217.
[v] Barbara G. Walker. The Woman’s Encylopedia of Myths and Secrets. Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 1996. 96.
[vi] Ibid. 100.
[vii] Panati, 187–188.
[viii] Mary K. Greer. Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press. 1995.
[ix] Panati, 198.
[x] Dan Winter. The Role of Ecstatic Process in the Health of the Immune System And the Treatment of AIDS And Cancer. Internet Website: www.danwinter.com.
[xi] McLuhan, 22.
All events described in this book are true. Some of the names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.
Bio
Carla Woody is a spiritual mentor, writer and visual artist. She is the founder of Kenosis, an organization based in Prescott, Arizona, supporting human potential since 1999 through life enhancement coaching, retreats and spiritual travel programs working with Indigenous leaders and healers in the US, Mexico, Central and South America. In 2007 she founded Kenosis Spirit Keepers, a volunteer-run 501(c)3 nonprofit organization to help preserve Indigenous traditions threatened with decimation.
Table of Contents
Part I. THE NATURE OF THE JOURNEY
Chapter Two: Awakening to Consciousness
Part II. INVOLUTION
Chapter Three: Cultivating Mindfulness
Chapter Four: The Masks We Wear
Chapter Five: Things Buried Deep and Tended Well
Chapter Six: Bootcamp for the Soul
Part III. EVOLUTION
Chapter Seven: The Seasons of Our Times
Chapter Eight: Staying in the Field
Chapter Nine: The Un-Namable Sacred
Chapter Ten: The Pilgrimage Home
Permissions: The author has given great effort to locate copyright holders of any material other than her own that have been quoted in this book, and regrets if any have been inadvertently overlooked.
Calling Our Spirits Home: Gateways to Full Consciousness
Copyright 1999 by Carla Woody. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be directed to: Kenosis Press, P.O. Box 10441, Prescott, AZ 86304, info@kenosis.net.
Also by Carla Woody:
Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage. Read in Illumination Book Chapters.
Portals to the Vision Serpent. Coming soon to Illumination Book Chapters.
