A MESSAGE FROM POWER

[PS -- as soon as I posted this, a huge gust of wind blasted out of the south, filled with dirt and grime, and smashed the geraniums on my porch!]

The Sun joined the Moon today in a message from Power.  “Power” is a force in the universe which comes to the Shaman as a guide or messenger, or in many other guises.  Michael Harner and Carlos Castaneda and many other teachers use Power as an introductory helper for their apprentices.  It is a very enjoyable enterprise to ‘court Power’, and Harner’s book, The Way of the Shaman, as well as others, gives a good account of how to do this.  This is a very good way to enter into the beginnings of a true relationship with the energies of the natural environment, which eventually become a key ingredient in the Medicine Energies.

I use the lunar cycles as an introduction to the energies of the natural environment, because we don’t have to trek to the wilds to observe them.  Today would be the day, third day from the New Moon, to expect to see the first of the crescent moon low in the Western sky, just after the sun goes below the horizon.  In my project of developing skill at the Despacho Ceremony, I am deciding that this day is more appropriate for Ceremony than directly at New Moon.  There is such a crowd at New Moon!

In developing the proper aspects for the Despacho, there are many forms of energetic vibrations that I have to take into account.  As a Shaman, I observe these energies through my Energy Field Awareness.  The Energy Field Awareness never really shuts down.  Unlike most people, my Energy Field Awareness is susceptible to a most pernicious source of energy – Marilyn Monroe.

This morning at 5:00 am, she woke me with one of her trademark dreams.  She presented me with a small box, with the word BEDBUGS stenciled on it.  That got me right out of bed!  I remembered that I had forgotten to take out the garbage last night.  I put on my slippers and hauled the dumpsters out to the alley, checking to see if the frost had hit the plants yet, as forecast.  Apparently not.  But some dog had scored a direct hit in the crushed gravel of the parking area beside the alley.  I got that cleaned up, and went back inside to start my day.  The Internet showed me that my utility bill had gone up $10, and was due three days earlier than usual.  Within fifteen minutes, I had received a noticeable batch of negative inputs!

I turned on the TV for the local news and weather, and had my usual dates and nuts and coffee from yesterday’s Thermos.  A package of info began to unfold within my deeper consciousness.  The ‘bedbugs’ message was pointing me to her attitude toward the people I had met at the Tai Chi studio.  I went over to the vortex to sit, and picked up my tom-tom.  During the drumming, my energies opened further, and I could see that Marilyn Monroe was into a serious penetration of my life force.

One of the first spirits I was introduced to during the onset of my Initiation as a Shaman was the Samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, one of my former incarnations, in whom Marilyn Monroe had also been incarnate, as she is with me.  Musashi was the author of The Book of Five Rings, a manual on the strategy of swordsmanship.  From that book, I picked up a strategy called ‘The Feint of Going-With’.  You allow the opponent to force you into the moves he wants from you, knowing that you will be able to perceive the exact moment to turn the forces against him.

So I decided to go with Marilyn Monroe for the time being; to let her penetrate me however she would, so that I could discern her purpose.  In a moment, I got up and pulled the I Ching out of retirement.  I had put it away weeks ago, after decades of using it daily, so that she would not have that access to my energies.  (Lao Tzu, my original contact on the I Ching, had taught her to be the ‘voice’ of the oracle on January 1, 1993.)

I tossed the coins and received hexagram #54, The Marrying Maiden (MM).  This hexagram is her ‘signature’, having her initials, and referring to the unfortunate situation of the woman taking the initiative in the relationship.  It changed to #21, Biting Through.  My first thought was that she had decided to get out of our relationship – it was a dead end.

I continued with my morning, and got ready to catch the bus, to go over to North Town Coffee for my daily poem and drawing time.  As I came to the bus stop, I saw Power in the sky.

The sun was low in the southeast sky, surrounded by the wisps of clouds typical this time of year in Yakistan.  But then I noticed a distinct wing at the sun’s left side.  Its feathers were long and slender, and fanned out like a cluster of double-edged swords.  A winged sun… as I looked, I discerned a stout tail of hawk feathers.

The bus came, and I got to my coffee, and instead of beginning my poem, I got the beginning of my image for my drawing: the sun, with its wing of swords.  So I sketched it in and went back to cogitating about what to write.  But I was interrupted by the Moon.  I reached over and sketched it in as a thin crescent ‘ear’ on the right side of the sun.

This conjunction of moon and sun seemed to tell me that today would be the day to consummate my Despacho ‘Kooti’ Ceremony, to ‘cut the cords’ between me and Marilyn Monroe.

After my walk home (a mile), I decided to have breakfast, and after breakfast, I lay on the yoga floor to initiate the RDSE (rest, digestion, sexual energy) sequence of Ayurveda.  I was there for over an hour.  This is what happens when Marilyn Monroe is ‘feeding’ on my energies.  When I got up, I drove back to the coffee shop with my computer, to have a free blended mocha and write this.  It’s mid-afternoon now, and I’m wondering what will happen next.  Will there be a ceremony?  (I cast another I Ching before coming over here, and it recommended a Ceremony…  --but everything must be ‘correct’….)  We’ll see.

Next day…

Well, I got home, and there were things to do, and I was anxious.  There were blockages all through my energy system, my mind and my body.  After I finally got settled in from the journey to the coffee shop, I found myself wandering around looking for the next thing to do.  I was mumbling to myself.  Then I knew it was time.

I went out to the sacred grove next to the parking area along the alley, and everything seemed ok.  The tall sunflowers, and the huge sprawling vine of the squash from Sergio’s garden next door, which grew up into my tree and on into the parking area, hanging large squashes high in the branches, proved to be an effective screen to ward off the killer chi from the alley and the apartment building across the way.  Lots of plants and the plywood fence screened the fire area from Sergio’s yard, and no one was around.

I got my tiny pieces of wood, a few splinters from a cedar shingle, some newspaper, and went outside to put a fire in the large cookie tin.  The fire burned nicely, and I brought out the small despachos I had prepared, with the bay leaf quintus wrapped in napkins, and a note regarding the aspects I desired to be eliminated.

One by one they went into the flames, were consumed, and soon the ceremony was complete.  No hay problema!

I looked up to see the strong crescent of the moon just above the horizon to the south and west, not at all obstructed by the darkening gray cloud bits strung throughout the sky.

Everything had gone well – quite well, I thought.

Last night I had two dreams.  One, in deep sleep, showed a man’s face.  He was dead.  He had brown hair and a trimmed moustache/beard.  His face appeared to be perhaps covered with water.  The second dream, just before I woke up, was very similar.  A man’s face, same sort of beard, but maybe not the same person, equally dead.

During my shower, (a very good place for knowledge to emerge from the energy body / or the Medicine) I realized that the man had been Jesus.  Already volunteering for next moon’s despacho!