The best summer I had was a winter in Baja California Sur, Mexico. If Mark Twain did not say this he had not been to Baja in the winter.
It was nice to spend almost three months in Baja, doing a lot of mediation and centering exercises, living sustainable and connecting with nature in a way that left me operating in the presence from my place of balance and stillness. It is a place of power, vision and deeper wisdom.
The confirmation of this was that I was invited to spend a week retreat learning about Sacred and Sustainable Wisdom, from one of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, Flordemayo.
One night, I am cooking dinner by an open fire when, Kitzia, a seed saver, poet and teacher of Earth wisdom, comes walking into our camp. This night, we where to have a sacred fire and she decides to stay and participate. And by the end of our ceremony, I am invited to meet with one of the Grandmothers.
An opportunity too reaffirming to pass up.
It turns out that Buena Fortuna, a diversity and seed bank, which grows dry tropical and wet tropical specimens of rare edible and medical plants needs some support. It is currently a place in transition from the work of one family to a seed genealogy and training center and could use some help with this transition and with a community pump that has died.
If anyone is interested in helping Buena Fortuna let me know and I pass it on.
It is necessary to grow and propagate seeds so the can evolve with the Earth. Seed banks that stick them away, in the ice, for hundreds of years run the risk of having seeds that will not be able to thrive in the conditions, that exist, when they are brought forth.
This work is important for diversity in the biosphere and more so now because, there is a law. going through the US congress (to protect us from receiving products, in the supermarket, with infectious diseases) that will outlaw family gardens and organic farming if passed in it’s current form.
It is time to protect the diversity left in our environment.
This is one of the reasons why Flordemayo came to participate a week long Sacred and Sustainable Wisdom Retreat in Baja.
Flordemayo is a seer and the Mayan Grandmother. She believes in prayer and action, keeping things simple in life and having a plan B to keep moving forward in life. The first thing that struck me about her was her grace. The next thing was the Bronx accent.
Flordemayo is like any grandmother, very practical and nurturing. The first night of ceremony she cleansed us with a bath of sacred herbs and taught us to nurture ourselves with a lullaby that her mother hummed to her. It was very relaxing and after the fire sleep was deep that night.
The Retreat was such where we shared ceremony, pray, lived and worked in community together. We stared each day in a circle giving gratitude for the day. We would eat a local and organic breakfast then have a group class at 10 am followed by lunch and a afternoon class at 3 PM, dinner and a nightly fire.
It was an honor to be able to participate and guide some ceremonies. In one we created a medicine wheel by going on a guided journey in groups of three and finding the medicine of our direction for a spirit guide before we knew the direction. We then pulled the direction and created our quadrant based on our vision as opposed to our knowledge of the direction.
The second night Flordemayo gave us some oil on our third eye to help us dream. That night the spirit of the Earth Mother came to me and wrapped me in a red cloth as a spirit of the garden sang to me and all at once the day broke in birdsong. A little later there was a modern lady surveying land for development while telling me her plans. Without words I place my head to hers and transmitted the wisdom of the Earth Mother to her and watch as she connected to the land and change her vision.
The next evening a Lakota woman showed up to our place to sing songs of prayer. She does not call herself a medicine woman, however she is blessed with prayer songs that to share with the world. As she said it was no accident that we where there that night in ceremony.
That night, I dreamt of an embrace with the high priestess inside of me. This was a sacred honoring of the divine feminine. As I held this dream in the pure light of ceremony and spirit the high priest, the divine masculine, came forth in me. It was as if the union of the divine inside of me started a chain for events where I now realize that all I do is sacred and my gifts are necessary and vital to bring forth in to the world.
There is now a path and a vision of a network of sustainable communities that encourage connection, learning and enhancing our world around us. A vision that will grow, refine and be brought forth soon.
We had many adventure. We visited a place with a waterfall at a sustainable farm and enjoyed many a meal, song and story together. We worked together to help bring forth a plan to help Buena Fortuna evolve into what it is becoming.
We had a breathing meditation were I got a vision for the place and share it with the community. It was quite an incredible week.
For the closing ceremony, I had the honor to bring forth a despacio ceremony. We create a prayer bundle using items collected from the garden and blew our prayers for Buena Fortuna and the world into this bundle.
During the cleansing with the despacio, Christine had her baby, Maddy on her back. As I cleansed Christine, I also got Maddy and touch the despacio to her third eye. After the ceremony, Maddy was looking at me very intently. She had notice me during the week,but never looked at me like this before.
As I was talking to her mother, I asked if she had ever connected to Maddy telepathically before. Christine said she had not and I looked over at Maddy with her big eyes and immediate connected to her and heard her voice in my head as I repeated to words to her mother.
“We did It, Bob. We turned the world around in my generation”!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
