Summer Journeying to the Amphitheater

Reminder from Mano: Soften your heart and send love to the flowers in your garden.

This blog will be Barbara’s writing about her two-month commitment in the summers to spend several hours in the amphitheater each day. First, though, comes my introduction. The three-way agreement among Barbara, Mano, and me is that I will start each blog with something personal. When Mano suggested to Barbara three and a half years ago that she ask me to help with the blog, we both expected that I would just edit and present her notebook writings. However, at our first meeting Barbara received the suggestion, from Mano I believe, that I was to add my own perspective, become involved in the conversation. Who knows what would have happened if we had gone the other direction! I recently read something that encouraged people to look every evening for the miracle that had graced their day. I suspect that Barbara’s intuition was one of my miracles.

This month I thought of prefacing Barbara’s sacred daily pilgrimages with some of my notes from David Abrams at the Lama Foundation workshop I mentioned in last month’s blog. David is full of ecstasy and the longing to preserve diversity, in nature and in humanity. The ecstasy, the “being in love” comes through “tending the boundary between the human world and the more-than-human world.” If I become too preoccupied, too busy, and cut off communication, or fall out of relationship with a “more-than-human field”, all of my human relationships can become brittle. For after all, those close to me cannot possibly fulfill all of my mighty needs and longings. So I must remember that I can go out and consult with the trees.

Now I am going to cut the David part a little short in order to include an even more personal observation . . . my early morning dream today. (But please check out David Abrams, Becoming Animal, to see how full of juice his words are, and how full of singing.) So there I was, in the dream, back in the rec room of my childhood home. Barbara was teaching a circle dance to several women from the Lama workshop and we were having a little trouble getting our feet to move properly. I suddenly perked up, popped into a new state of energy, and was able to do the “step-two-three, together” rhythm—albeit imperfectly. Then I realized that some of the stuff in the room was junky, or broken, and I started to clean it out. Would by father mind? I wondered, but then I quickly remembered that he had already died.

We are free, then, to dance without ancestral restriction, to sing to the trees, to recover old wisdom and discover the new, acknowledging the sacredness of place—in this case, Barbara’s amphitheater—but also our own. Here is her story.

The world calls.
Emails demand to be answered.
Desk work, postponed too long, is screaming for attention.
And promises made to self to drink water, exercise, brush teeth long and lovingly (no more quick touch until it tastes good).
People to connect with, family to attend to.
The world calls.
I want to, I will get to, will answer the calls . . . soon.

But for now, Nature, Mother Gaia, the Beings of the amphitheater—
their call has priority.
It is not the loudest call I hear.
It speaks so softly,
I know from experience that
if I don’t respond
I may lose the ability to hear. 

And so I go.
Computer over my shoulder
Scarf around my neck
Sun hat on my head
Jacket for warmth as I drive Betsy on
the familiar road.
This is my third year of daily travel to the
amphitheater for the two months of summer.
I call it my Summer Journey. 

When I arrive I open my heart, greet the Mother Tree and say,
Mother I am here; I have come home.

Moving into the amphitheater proper
I greet the great circle of trees with Presence.
I open my heart and say hello.
Hello to the god and goddess of the temple in the East
Hello to the God and Goddess of the temple in the South
Hello to the God and Goddess of the temple in the West
Hello to the God and Goddess of the temple of the North
Hello to the place of the rising sun
Hello to the place of the setting sun
Hello to all those who live above
Hello to all of those who live within
Hello to Gaia
Greetings to the dwellers within this sacred place.

I open my heart, silence my mind to sit in your presence.
I am available to interact with any who wish to come.

I wait to see if anything happens.
What does my imagination see?
What does my imagination hear?
I wait and record in my computer what, if anything, happens.
I wait to hear a voice, one I recognize or a new presence. 

I often spend time lying on the earth,
often sing songs to the beauty of nature around me.
Every day I do an ink stick drawing
to honor a request the Nature Spirits have made.

Over and over I say to the space around me:
You are so sweet.
There is such a sweet feeling present here today.
Thank you, I love you. 

I will be going now.
Does anyone wish to speak before I leave?
Sometimes from behind me I hear a voice in my imagination say,
Yes, I want to speak.
And then I record the conversation on the computer
and leave when it is over.

Day in day out,
I make this journey daily for the two months of summer,
usually staying one or two hours, perhaps three or four.
Beyond that, I go when I am called.
In the last 29 years of living on this precious land, I estimate
I have made this trip 7000 times.
I used to walk.
Now Betsy and I travel together.
And always, all ways the Beings of the land
are there to greet and bless us.