ART OF STALKING: DAILY LOG BOOK

DAILY LOG BOOK

The Art of Stalking is, of course, the art of Stalking The Self.

Once one enters the realm of Shamanic Consciousness, time becomes a much more expanded situation.  The personal consciousness, or, I should say, Awareness, is naturally limited to the immediate moment.  Memory augments this moment from its film archives, to give us an edited picture of reality.  In Shamanic Reality, the personal consciousness is not enough to register the totality of each moment.  And the concept of Time becomes a moment of opening one’s eyes in the deep end of a swimming pool.

To demonstrate this to me, one year on Valentine’s Day, Marilyn Monroe wanted to do a painting.  We were in the large studio in Ellensburg.  She took me downstairs, and over to the Starlight Café.  But it was closed, so we walked down the street to the Oak Rail Tavern, where we had four pints of ale, and four shots of tequila.  We walked back to the studio, quite tipsy, and we did the painting, throwing paint all over the substrate already positioned on the Painting Floor (otherwise the Yoga Floor).  When we had finished, I passed out on the small carpet in the Healing Area.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I realized what had happened.  The painting turned out ok, and I mounted it for display.  At some point, I remembered.  Just as I was passing out, I had witnessed a miracle!  There was Marilyn Monroe, running around the painting floor in glee, in her Spirit Body, stark naked of course.  What a charming sight.  It showed me the time lag between what happens in Spirit, and how long it takes to reach normal human consciousness.

For that reason, a Shaman lives a more or less isolated life, so that the minutiae of daily living doesn’t block the visions  of Shamanic Reality.

And since much of Shamanic Reality unfolds over the course of many days, weeks, months, or moon cycles, I early on realized I had to keep notes of everything that happened during a day.  So I started keeping a journal.  But I’m not very good at journaling, so it became just a log book.  I note everything I do in a day, and what time it happened.

This is very helpful in matters of personal health.  I keep track of my daily stool.  What does it look like?  What affects it?  What types of foods, and what Shamanic Events, influence my stool?  It is very interesting to note the effects of Shamanic occurrences on the physical body and the environment.

For this reason, we keep a close watch on the daily manifestations of the phases of the Moon.  We are now dragging the bottom of the Dark Moon phase.  New Moon is in two days.  People are psychotic and withdrawn.  I am hyper and intense.  This Dark Moon is different from most others in that regard.  I feel we are moving into something new.

With the New Moon two days away, I am reminded that the New Moon phase is actually upon us, and that it lasts for a couple of days past the exact opposition of the moon to the sun, until the appearance of the first Crescent Moon low above the horizon in the West, just after the sun disappears behind the Cascade Mountains.  So we have several days of a very delicate energy, in which ceremonies can come to completion, and transitions can be made to a new time.

(The photo shows my log book where I keep it during the day, on my work table, which is directly in front of my Trance Chair, where the light comes in from the window.  In background is my Meditation Vortex, against the wall, and my Yoga Floor [also the Healing Floor].)

MORNING MOONGLOW THROUGH CLOUDS

Sometimes the moon drags on like a bad movie.  Any time after Full Moon can be called the Dark Moon phase, depending on how you feel.  Knowing what part of the cycle you're in can be a big help if times are difficult.  You can usually count on some kind of change as the cycle progresses.  If nothing else, following the lunar changes gives you something else to think about.

In Yakima (Yakistan, as I like to call it), we're sheltered from the rain of the Puget Sound area by the Cascade Mountains.  We're in the rain shadow.  More than that, we're in the 'donut hole'.  The weather hits the Pacific Northwest from the Bering Sea, coming over Vancouver Island and Puget Sound before hitting the mountains, which catch most of the moisture.  The mountains run all the way down the Pacific Coast, but are broken near Portland, where the Columbia River enters the Pacific.  The winds come through the Columbia Gorge, some distance south of Yakima, and circle up the backside of the Cascades, bringing us an unusual South Wind, called the Chinook, after the salmon of the Columbia River.  It's usually a warm wind, bringing air from the desert southwest.

Yakima is tucked in behind Mt. Rainier, at the tail end of this northward Chinook flow, which mostly travels to the east of us, so that satellite photos show an area of zero clouds right over Yakima, even in stormy weather.

This summer has been long, hot, and very dry.  Hundreds of wildfires have plagued the Eastern Washington forests, as dry lightning has hit us several times during the summer.  Smoke has been a constant factor in the atmosphere.  Temperatures have been unusually high, and it's still warmer than usual for this time of Autumn.

This morning, Friday, as I went out for my daily pre-dawn check-up on the premises, I noticed a faint moonglow in the east, blurred by a thin layer of cloud cover.  As predicted, the weather is changing, a few days before the New Moon on Monday.  The clouds are very welcome at my house!  I'm more suited to the moisture of the Seattle area.  Even though the UV index is much lower this time of year, my aging energy field is very sensitive to the intensity of the sun under the lack of moisture in the skies.

This waning moon time has been very busy for me, after suffering from the intensity of the summer.  Lots of projects getting ready for winter, which can hit very abruptly, any time now.  And I've been learning the art of the Despacho Ceremony.

Practicing this ceremony is a very good way to bring together the many strands of energies which run through the tattwas of your life-path.  The practice of lunar observation and the culmination of the moon phase in ceremony of this type calls for bringing exact definition to aspects of the journey which need to be changed in some way, or celebrated.

The Medicine Energies are strong in my apartment and in the yard I've created.  It's time to corral these energies and bring some concrete benefits to my life and practice.  I missed the moment at the last moon phase, due to incomplete preparation and interference from Marilyn Monroe.  So I'm giving it another try this time.

I've been able to invent some techniques and develop some equipment which will help to gather and hold the specific energies I intend to work with.  Now I have a few days to bring it all together and perform the Kooti Ceremony to cut the cords binding me to The Monroe.  This time, I have the Ayni Ceremony tools which I lacked before.

Now, I just have to manage to control the energies of my life-path with enough discipline to be able to bring off the ceremony at an appropriate time.  Hopefully, the change of weather accompanying this change of the moon will enable the authorities to lift the ban on outdoor burning which has been in effect most of the summer.  I realized that my last burning would have been a violation of the practice of Ayni, or 'right relationship', because of the burn ban in effect at the time.

There are so many factors which shape the tattwas!  I enjoy developing the discipline to recognize all the relevant forces which affect the ceremony, and learning ways to work with them to achieve a harmonious outcome.