i'm okay with that. the sun rose in my morning dreams, and the extra hours put pink exuberance where wan dedication would have been. praise weather.
my sunrise ceremonial plan wet and chilled, i dropped deep into contemplation when i finally rose from my cloud. the ceremonial life is my way, but the teachings of the wheel are not to be heard by my terrestrial ears - all this is learnt through the vast river of knowledge and experience in which i swim, the many gracious and well-worn mentors who bless my days with their beauty and wisdom. better that way - my understanding is an innerstanding, a synthesis of information and experience, a personally grown wisdom. i laugh as i oscillate between "i want a teacher!" and "i am the teacher." and "all wisdom is inherent in the divine hologram of incarnate experience." in the mayan (arguelles) i am lunar worldbridger, part of that definition being that i "polarize in order to equalize".
why, yes. yes i do. the pendulum is my horse.
anyway, spent half the day channeling my own understanding of the wheel, mapped and graphed, key-worded and archetypally codified, far from exhaustive (aaah, the infinite journey of archetype). then finally, almost confusingly, the bright sun burst through the dispersing clouds and the land re-issued that sweet and insistent invitation to her skin that had been pulsing in my inner hearing for the week.
yes, yes, i am coming... quick, quick, it is late to spread land between me and other monkeys. abiquiu, i come for your mojo.
abiquiu is northwest of here, mesa country and rolling hills. that sublime, masterful sculpture of ancient terra that once was ocean floor flushes and waves before the astonished spirits eyes in gently painted tones of powdery green, deep rusty red, rich brown and deep blackened brown, softest pre-dawn blue... gnarled tufts of juniper and pinon pine dot the gentle angles of the hills, a beautiful accent on the symphonic dance of demure colors. and always there plays a magical renaissance sky overhead, the creative studio of the elements radiant for the joy of being and the beholder. where better to purge the flotsam, purify the spirit, invoke the essence, honor creation? it is a breathtaking temple of natural grace.
a single fine white mesa with a special tilt to its top called me to the flame, graceful and sparkling, rising slightly above its earthen surroundings. a sky temple, carved of ivory. a mesa is a mountain with its top gently raised by a band above the body of the mound. i've climbed a lot of mesas in my earth journey, but never one like this - when i reached its base and began to scale the curve of the mound beneath the band, i embraced the strange phenomenon that it is crafted out of some kind of white, powdery sand. truly seeming as a deliberate sculpture, its form is that of the desert but its mass is porous, and it crumbles in the hands as one climbs. being the lizard that i am, i climbed anyway, caution not even be damned, caution wasn't even entertained. this is how i do.
along the mound, which is steep, there runs one long sensual ridge, up which scampering is a pure delight. at the latening hour, the bright sun shone directly into my eyes, causing sweat to stream down into them and tiring me quickly. it occurred to me as i climbed the ridge that the mountain was actually very steep and if i got to the top, getting down was going to be a bitch.
something about climbing, though. just go.
so i got to the band, and there was no readily visible place to climb it. i began to traverse the body of the mesa and it became apparent that there probably wasn't a good place to scale it because the band of a mesa is usually straight up or slightly curved to overhang, which is fine when the rock is solid. when the rock is crumbly and the mountain is steep, that's not fine. so, sun blazing in my eyes and the mountain offering me the challenge at the price of my skin, i continued to traverse, looking for the way off or up to the top. i found one potential portal of ascension where the band narrowed and there were only a few feet of scaling to pass to the next slope towards the top. i put one foot on a ledge of soft stone, pressed on it gently with my weight to see if it would hold, and decided that if i hopped from there to the handhold that i could see, i could scramble over the edge and be fine on the slope.
as i stepped, i felt the stone twitch beneath my foot and before i could actually grasp the handhold i was reaching for, it gave way beneath me. the sound of tumbling stone fell away below me as i gripped the mesa with my body, willing myself into place. that one stone that i had stepped on? that one rested against my now dented shin with a new red spot to mark my presence and my passage. it was a great deliberate movement of faith to lift my foot so it could fall, laughing at me, away down the slope. then a great, bemused silence surrounded me as the last tiny pebbles pitched and rolled away, and sudden signals of pain arrived from all the little scratches on my bare skin. blood offerings. no worries.
fuckin' hell, man. this loveland of mine is a sharp kiss.
laughing and giving thanks that i didn't fall down the side of the mesa over cacti and into the chasm beneath me, i opted not to be attached to the glory of the top and to instead float down into gentle communion with the grass on the plains and the much gentler rise of the brown mesa right beside me.
i think you have to fly to an ivory castle anyway, right? or go around the backside. HA! next time.
by then, of course, my clothes (my Ceremonial Solstice Whites) were sweaty wet and dusty, so i took them off to walk the plains naked. i was beside and below the gentle mountain that had so captured the heart of georgia o'keefe, the black mesa. its top is broad with a great sloping skirt of hills radiating out from it in all directions, and it does indeed, emanat an arresting pulse of graceful elegance. of this mountain she once said "perhaps, if i paint it enough, god will give it to me". i think god did, and it is she who sits there still, painting the sky with her ephemeral brilliance. it is only the desert that offers a sky blessing like this. great drifts of cloud piled upon each other in interdimensional layers with light playing through them, a game of hide-and-seek played by god and form. some edges pearlescent, some masses infused with an etheric light, some faces flat grey, rays of sun shining through openings in great shafts of blessing light, angels dancing in their yellow-golden glow, all woven on the vast blue fabric of infinity stretching behind.
so slowly, so slowly, climbing the graceful slope of the brown mesa to it's top to look out over the valley. the land, blessedly free from the slavery of the level, rises and falls in it's own rhythms, so feminine in its curves and swells. the lake laid there on the plain between rising forms of weather worn ancient mountains, a flat expanse of pearlescent blue laid into the fluctuating earth colors that seem to dance in the wind. those ancient mountains layered on each other stretching back to the horizon, softening in shades of blue as they peered out from behind each other as curious and elegant animals may. such perfection in this transient beauty. such love and healing, such being and wisdom.
each step a question and a prayer as i rest deeply into every breath, knowing that what i thought was truth is now underscored by an awareness so much more vast that there can be no assuming anything about anything, least of all about myself. i have heard the call, i have come as an answer, and a deeper stillness and presence than ever have i held is asked of me to know what the call is for, what the answering will mean for my being.
i felt my mind racing, chattering along about things that weren't there - stories, so many stories, all perfectly valid, all perfectly inconsequential. not here, not the moment. mind business. busy-ness.
so much more discipline to cultivate.
i laughed at myself a lot yesterday. learned a lot. grew in understanding.
and i walked. the sun shone intermittently as a game with the clouds, a chill but not cold wind blowing over the crest of the magical mountain, very little of the suns kiss to the skin, but much of its magic in the sky. a beautiful plateau lays across the plain from the mountain, and to its edge i walked, to a spot where i laid down and drank a brief sunkiss into my naked temple. purification. sensual saturation. the earth, the rain and sun come to me as lovers, soak the skin to madness, rapture. pure healing. no mind. the wind blows over me and i slip, deeply breathing the dampened earths saturated musk in through my cells, through my skin, through my loving creation. slip, relinquishing my body, a gift to the sky, through the veils into pure communion. trance.
drink deep the fleeting light. grow a garden of beauty within the temple in which all of creation may dance. i am eden.
i laid there long in trance, sinking into the sound of the birds, the wind, the silent open space of earth. then the breeze suddenly chilled at the same time that the light darkened, and i sat up to see where the storm was coming from. the storm, lit from within with a golden fire, was flowing over the mountain, consuming her. the streaks of rain flowed softly between her and i, a veil of life over a fertility dance. i had mere minutes before it came for me. i took my rain coat out of my pack and wrapped it around the pack to keep it and my boots dry, and stretched my naked vessel into the arc of the oncoming tempest. so cold the wind that flew against my skin, penetrating my fears and flushing my resistance. my earth cells contracted against the expansion of my transcendent being into that gift of fresh sky water, but for this had i come and into this would i gratefully go.
"naked in the storm" is this time. it has been my metaphor, and up 'till then had been a statement of suffering, of enduring. now was given the time to transform the tenor, embrace the storm through my ferocious devotion to loving grace, and to be liberated in this embrace. now was the time for "naked in the storm" to be carnal grace, original passion, primal healing. joy.
first softly the rain began to fall, pattering frigid against me, and the current of cold that rushed through me took my breath, began to draw the blood in from the edges of my form towards my heart. where the rain touched, my skin contracted. the spaces between kisses was warm and still expanded, so a wondrous undulation of temperature flowed and flowered through my skin. i stood still on the plateau as the storm enveloped me until a rhythm grew up through my feet into my body and moved me into dance with sky, earth, elements, self.
then ferociously the rain began to beat down in thunderous sheets. i ran, leapt, twirled, jumped, danced in its raging tide. i laughed insanely and innocently. i howled and called the animal kin in their own voices. screaming a fierce and guttural scream, i purged the poison that had been churned by the weeks of trial, endowing it to the storm who took it with honored grace and swept it away over the plains. then i sang, weaving the tale of becoming into the universe as the clouds moved across the sky, and in that way that only the earth can love you, a rainbow began to grow. as the storm rolled over me, and as i screamed and danced, the rainbow grew to arc perfectly across the sky, a whole crescent of spectral beauty, drawing me into its magical portal of transformation.
another of michie's gifts.
i screamed a name into that great arc of creation, and the call came back from across the plains. as i raised my voice, my prayers, my becoming into the golden storm now almost passed over me, the coyote clan raised their song in solidarity. i could hear in their tones that there were big beauties and little new babies, and they were singing with me, welcoming me to their hearth, witnessing my journey. then, as i lowered my arms back down towards the earth, the thunder rolled in closing, blessed my ceremony, and completed my circle.
dripping wet, naked and noticing that i was very cold, i went back to my bundle, unwrapped it from its protection (raincoat! what a miracle) and re-arrived in to the tangible world through the portal of my clothing. my hands had that thick, not-quite-functional feeling of freeze, so i held them in my armpits as i wandered around the base of the mesa back towards my little red time-machine.
the light was slowly vanishing from the land, the sky moving more steadily in its progression from wild golden fire to muted prussian blue. distantly the thunder of divine council rolled across the land in the contours of the storm, traveling to nourish and inspire the earth and its creatures. wet desert has a smell that is the beginning and end of the world. it is the most grateful, rapturous, joyous, sensual, blissful scent that could ever bless the senses. it rose around me every step i took towards the regular world, soaking into the olfactory sense of my being, into the energetic signature of my soul as a perfect romance, as a guide, a gift, a remembrance.
i am a desert child. she dances for my joy and i sing for her pleasure. we are kin, symbiotic and devoted to our love and its fulfillment.
this is the joy of place.
the truth of love.
the beauty of being.
this is what matters.
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