“We are the miracles we are searching for,” says Afia Walking Tree. Women rediscover their ancient birthright that traces women as the earliest known shamans whose religions revolved around the beating of the drum.
Afia Walking Tree and Drum Amazonz take a stand, utilizing mastery and miracles of the drumz saving our planet with poignant percussive dexterity…riveting drumbeats… vocal invocations…ancient stories… heart opening messages of love! Walking Tree’s fervent passion is felt in her musical dexterity. Her drum songs, invocations of joy, love, and liberation, are held with riveting drum vibrations. Drum Amazonz Dance is the unfolding of miracles of liberation through women’s drumming.
SkinSongs: Women on the Drum
Sat., Oct. 27 8pm and Sun., Oct 28 at 2 and 6 pm
Dance Mission Theater 3316 24th Street, San Francisco CA 94110
Dance Brigade presents 3 shows with women drummers representing different musical cultures of the world. The number of women redefining percussion traditions and drumming for art, spirituality and healing grows every year, especially in the Bay Area, as more women are rediscover their ancient birthright that traces women as the earliest known shamans whose religions revolved around the beating of the drum. This showcase of local talent will inspire, delight and invigorate. There will be a Healing Circle with Vicki Noble after Sunday evening show. For complete program information please see www.dancemission.com
Afia Walking Tree and Drum Amazonz take a stand, utilizing mastery and miracles of the drumz saving our planet with poignant percussive dexterity…riveting drumbeats… vocal invocations…ancient stories… heart opening messages of love! Rooted in a core belief that we are the miracles we are searching for, Afia Walking Tree is joined by talented Drum Amazonz: Querido Galdo, Larissa Montfort, Shawn Nealy, Mar Stevens, and Jeni Swerdlow. Walking Tree’s fervent passion is felt in her musical dexterity and ability as a performer and facilitator to inspire all she encounters. Her drum songs, invocations of joy, love, and liberation, are held with riveting drum vibrations. Strands of Afro-Caribbean, Cuba, West African, Jazz, Hip Hop, R&B genres are only the beginning of what constitutes Walking Tree’s contemporary sound; giving this world-class percussionist-songwriter-performer-visionary an evolutionary edge that is magical and fiercely innovative. Jamaican born and raised, Afia Walking founded Spirit Drumz in 1996, a non-profit organization and institute for leadership and drumming. Drum Amazonz Dance is the unfolding of miracles of liberation through women’s drumming.
“During the 1988 drought, white farmers in Ohio asked (Leonard) Crow Dog
to perform a rain ceremony for them. He did, and the rain came down."
Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog, Epilogue
“It’s so hot and dry; everything is dying,” complained my neighbor before downing the last drop of water from her bottle. Arizona’s high desert country lay parched and cracked. Plants bowed limp under scorching days and bone-dry nights. Residents worked outdoors in early hours only, while evergreen trees released needles in a last ditch effort to conserve moisture. Everyone agonized over the prolonged drought.
Traditionally, Southwestern tribes invoke nature’s blessing through ceremony. What if the cure for drought, I wonder, is simply honoring weather spirits? So, rather than focusing on complaints, I found myself organizing a Pray-for-Rain Ritual.
I placed an ad in the local newspaper: Pray-for-Rain Ceremony, Thursday 7 pm. Airport Mesa. Did I cover all the bases for an event: date, time, place, intention and publicity? That following Thursday, nine people gathered.
To set a sacred space on Airport Mesa, we sprinkled cornmeal in a ceremonial circle, a practice gleaned from Native Americans. We positioned aquatic objects—a puppet whale, a ceramic alligator, a bronze otter and a stuffed toy dolphin—one at each of the four, main directions—North, South, East, West. In the circle’s center we placed shells, pearls, coral, and pictures of marine mammals—anything that conjured a connection with water. Finally, we burned sage in an abalone shell as each participant invited the smoke to purify all thoughts, feelings and actions.
I initiated the plea by addressing each of seven directions— North, South, East, West, The Great Above, The Great Below and The Great Within. “We call to the Great Guardian Spirits of the North, the Grandmothers and Grandfathers of midnight, mystery, winter and the great bear. We give thanks and appreciation for your work in the world and your presence in our lives . . .”
After that, each person invoked names of “moisture spirits.” Neptune, Roman sea god, come forth. Sedna, Inuit mother goddess of all ocean creatures, be with us. Maui, Polynesian god of the oceans, join us, please. Over and over the group chanted: “Moisture Spirits Return.” We shuffled and twirled around the circle, padding, so that our feet sounded like rain hitting the ground. We sprinkled water from a large sea shell and chanted the mystical words: “O-shoo-wa, O-shoo-wa! Moisture Spirits Return.”
Although the sky remained blue and the air hot, dusty and laden with pollen, we felt uplifted. In acknowledging the weather-spirits, something had changed, a shift in the atmosphere, if only in our attitude.
“Try taking zigzag steps,” someone suggested. “That’s the Native American symbol for
“Moisture Spirits, we bless you. Moisture Spirits, come forth. Pour Forth! Be fruitful and multiply.” We zigzagged around the circle. An atheist drummed. A Catholic prayed. Two pagans sang. Three evangelical Christians praised while a curious agnostic looked on. “Water Spirits, come forth. Pour forth! We love you, Moisture. We appreciate you, Rain.”
At sunset, a cool breeze softened the evening sky as a few wisps of clouds gathered. We continued to dance, drum, chant and praise. We continued to invoke Thunder Beings, Rain Makers, Moisture Spirits, Lightning Launchers and Cloud Makers
“Did you feel that?”
“A rain drop?”
“I felt one!” It started to sprinkle. Together in awe, we turned our faces skyward toward gathering gray clouds. Water droplets fell on our hands, faces and on the ground.
“Blessed be the Rain Makers!” Someone shouted.
“Blessed be the Moisture Spirits!” Others chimed in.
Suddenly, everyone was dancing, shouting and cheering with shared exhilaration while cool drops of moisture kissed our faces. The sky darkened. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed and the rains poured down. Hallelujah!
“Thank you, Moisture Spirits!”
“Thank you, Rain Makers!”
That night I learned where two or more are gathered, in a shared sacred intent, Spirit joins in and answers our prayers.
For further information on influencing the weather,
look for Rainmaker's Prayers Anthology, Shinan Barclay, editor
forthcoming on amazon.com
PLEASE JOIN US AND HELP HEAL THE PLANET
A plea from Flash Silvermoon:
We here in Florida are suffering with a horrible drought as are many places in this country while some places are in flood..what to do what to do!!
The group mind is a very powerful thing as many of you know so I am proposing that we all get together and do a Ritual for Rain and Global Balance as we need everyone's weather to improve.
Date June 8, 7pm wherever you are.The Moon is in Pisces , a water sign!!!
Place- for the Gainesville Florida area-the boatramp on Melrose Bay at the bottom of Trout Street call me, Flash 352 475-2432 for more details.
This will be a very simple ritual. We will use a broom to stir the water and shake it to the 4 directions and above and below -- Native American style.This place is the Springhead for the entire SantaFe River System so it is a good and powerful spot.
If you are out of town or unavailable to come out here you can use a bucket instead of the lake and use your broom in the same way praying for rain and also Global Balance with weather.
I am hoping that a good number of folks show up in Melrose to really give it a good release.
WHEREVER YOU ARE THIS WILL ONLY TAKE 1/2 HR and if you can't get out please visualize the process and see just the right amounts of rain where needed and peaceful weather where needed.
BLESSINGS FLASH SILVERMOON
flash@flashsilvermoon.com
http://www.flashsilvermoon.com
"With global warming, is there a break in the chain of command?
A missing meteorological link? For centuries, with ceremony, prayer and rituals to the sky gods, indigenous peoples lived in harmony with nature." Shinan Barclay "Rainmaker's Prayers"
"We are all part of the One Life that manifests itself in countless forms throughout the universe, forms that are all completely interconnected."
--Eckhart Tolle, "Stillness Speaks"
BE FRUITFUL AND PROSPER
“Why pray for rain?” a neighbor asked last week, learning of my latest writing project—Rainmaker’s Prayers Anthology. “What we need is a sun dance.” Frost covered her garage roof as we stood bundled in sweats, boots and jackets. In our
Oregon coast maritime climate showers are the norm. Through the coastal fog, the sun resembled a pallid gray, forty-watt bulb.
Yet, each day I’ve noticed that our celestial source rises in its arc, a little higher, a little more southerly, sometimes, even casting its warm rays through my window, over this keyboard and onto my welcoming hands. “Blessed be Apollo-Helios! Blessed be Vesta!” In my practice of honoring the spirit within life, I use Greek and Roman mythological names to greet the sun.
Early Egyptians recognized the connection between the human world and the elemental world, calling non-physical intelligence, “neters.” The Hopi people of
Northern Arizona call nature gods “kachinas.” Pueblo Indians of New Mexico honor and celebrate Corn Woman and Butterfly Maiden. Many indigenous tribes dress up and reenact the dance of a deity while in our western culture, on Halloween, we become superman and space men or impersonate goblins and ghouls.
Last Wednesday, despite blue skies and sunshine an icy wind blew in from the north. Having lived in Alaska, thirty miles above the Arctic Circle, I know the feel of an arctic chill. I’d just transplanted some seedlings—sugar peas, spaghetti squash, naturisms and coreopsis. Then I carried trays of kale and butter-lettuce seedlings from their window perch inside my cottage to the garden table outside. I hoped that the sprouts, showing first leaves, would soon strengthen in the sun.
Home late from a twelve-hour caregiving job, I had dishes to wash, bills to pay and the following day’s commitments to line up. I was in bed, lights out, when I remembered my fragile seedlings, still outside. “Oh no.” I was too tired and the night was too cold to get up and venture into the wind.
The next morning frost whitened the top of my car and ice coated the windshield. In pj’s and slippers, I rushed out to the seedling trays and inspected the miniature leaves. Tiny moisture baubles covered their green tendrils. With my thumb I gently brushed the wet leaves and felt that the seedlings were frost-free. “Thank you, Dear Ones!” I spoke aloud.
While transplanting, I’d called on the Overlighting Devas of my garden, and of each vegetable and flower and, I had asked the Nature Spirits to protect and strengthen the young plants. O.K. so talking aloud to my plants might look foolish.
But, through conscious communication with nature spirits, gardeners at both Findhorn in Scotland and Peralandra in Virginia have created amazing results. A simple recognition of nature spirits aligns the gardener with the energy of stewardship, kinship and co-creation.
“Be fruitful and prosper,” I’d said as I’d pressed new earth around their roots. This is my silent prayer for loved ones and kin—leafed creatures, two-legged, four-legged, creepy crawlers and winged ones. It works. Twice now, each of my plants has survived a hard frost. My garden has become a reflection of spirit.
COMMENTS? FEEDBACK? QUESTIONS? email me at
shinanbarclay [at] gmail dot com
rainmakers2007 [at] yahoo dot com
Engage the Co-Creative Presence of the Natural World
“What is required is something very simple. It is the ability to drop to that place within you that yearns to truly hear, see, and understand; to open to the desire for wisdom and ask whatever your gaze rests upon to teach you, caress you, or simply blend its energy with yours.” andguardian spirits. Living with the Inuit/Eskimo people in arctic Alaska and the Hopi, Apache and
Bartholomew, “From the Heart of a Gentle Brother.”
Navajo in Northern Arizona, I joined their prayers and observed astonishing results. Since then I’ve had a kinship with thunder beings, tree spirits and garden divas.
Many people in our western culture have a personal relationship with Christ while the Chinese and Afro-Americans honor their ancestors. Native Americans pay tribute to all their relations. Other people spend life running around with small flashes of awareness when the power source of a Niagara Falls awaits recognition.
‘Prayer’ is a way of connecting, plugging into an electric socket, a power source.
To me, Shinan Barclay, prayer is a conscious attunement that produces a clear frequency which enables resonance, vitality and co-creation. Rainmakers’ prayers were once the jurisdiction of shamans. Now that consciousness is available to all.
In times of climatic change, we can link with Guardian Spirits through intention and incantations and thereby create harmony.
Meister Eckhart, a 14th century monk and mystic said that prayer can be as simple as saying "Thank You."
Comments???
email me at
shinan.barclay [at] gmail dot com
or
rainmakers2007 [at] yahoo dot com
WHO’S POLLINATING?
“Wear something sexy,” my 74-year-old jitterbug partner writes, reminding me of the big band dance this Sunday. Although I’m a woman of several personas, my “femme fatale” costume has been gathering moss and has less motivation for me now, than sleep had for an awakened Rip Van Winkle.
“Wanna pollinate?” I use to smile at my husband in my earth-woman prime. But now, another kind of pollination dominates my thoughts. Our friends the bees are in trouble.
The silencing of bees strikes terror into my heart. News reports, of the disappearance of millions of bees, have me emailing biologists and calling lobotomists. The biologists give me a scientific take on the environmental disaster while the lobotomists share information on how to sever an apparent imbalance in the cerebral synapses that cause one planetary species
to exterminate their fellow species. Who would create a brain-numbing, bee-killing insecticide?
Then, amidst bee, biologist and big band emails, I click on a set of photos sent by a feminist friend. The images represent actions taken by a variety of enraged women whose personal pollinator went amiss.
I’m shocked to see several large axes impaled into the shiny metal
of a new jaguar. Another photo is of a small plane flying over a huge crowd at an outdoor baseball game; behind the airplane, a sign says: “xxx has a tiny dick.” The next image of a freeway billboard, reads like a giant telegram; the womanizing “slime-ball” husband is named and it’s noted that his devious deeds are on videotape.
Why not put some of this righteous rage to work for the well being of other pollinators—BEES—and help mitigate our crimes against the planet?
Postscript: Since writing this blog, a biologist informed me that honey bees are an alien, invasive species while Mason bees are indigenous. Also, a writer friend, Carolyn, has happily adopted a bee hive, placing that under her apple tree and, our local county extension office has offered a workshop in bee keeping. Every state has a bee keepers organization. Google: Beekeepers Association
Comments? email: rainmakers2007 [at] yahoo dot com
or shinan.barclay [at] gmail dot com
Shinan N. Barclay, is the co-author of two books: The Sedona Vortex Experience and Flowering Woman, Moontime for Kory. Her memoir stories appear in the following anthologies: Chicken Soup for Woman’s Soul II, Heavenly Helpings, Scent of Cedar, and Open My Eyes, Open My Soul. Her short stories have been translated into Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese and Czechoslovakian.
Her poems and essays have been published in more than one hundred magazines, including Washington Women’s Digest, Holistic Life, Tucson Lifeline, California Quarterly, Manzanita Quarterly, Ranger Rick and Canadian National Wildlife as well as the book Sacred Texts of the World’s Great Religions.
In 1982, Shinan received a Masters degree in Holistic Psychology from the University of Humanistic Studies/California School of Professional Psychology. A tile-maker, gardener and jitterbug fan, Shinan lives in a tiny cottage in a huge rainforest which boarders the South Slough Estuary of the southern coast.
Shinan is the niece of world renoWn author/ psychoanalyst Rollo May "Love and Will," "The Cry for Myth," and the niece of Gerald G. May M.D., PhD, The Shalom Center, author of "Simply Sane," etc.
SPIDER RESCUE
A personal narrative
Early dawn, I stumbled to the bathroom and found a flat, brown spider scrambling around the bottom of the sink. It wasn’t the usual oval gray, daddy-long-legs whose wispy webs wave across the ceiling, curtain rods and windowsills of my cottage. It was a hobo spider.
“Well, Miss Arachnid,” I said, watching the rhythmic tap of her limbs, “Did you fall into the sink or crawl up the drain?” Yes, I’m an eccentric who talks to spiders.
My visitor’s mouth appendages, “pedipalps,” resembled both pronged forks and pincher claws—useful tools for nibbling my flesh. But with its claw-like mouth paws, the spider is busy munching gooey green toothpaste; much like my friends eating basil-pesto pizza—heads bent, lips abutting cheese, finger tentacles shoveling in mushrooms, pepperoni and sausage.
“Do you want to go back down the drain?” I question the creature. I’m rarely this chatty at 6 a.m., but I want to help. My spider is an amputee—four legs on one side, three on the other, one limb lost perhaps in her efforts to escape the slippery basin.
“Shall I play God and send a deluge?” No answer. To avoid the croak and reincarnate option, I decide not to brush my teeth and let the spider be. I suspect life choices for arachnids differ from those for Homo sapiens. I’ve read that by the time a human being makes conscious choices about life and death, he or she has reached a transcendent or enlightened state.
I know nothing about the spiritual evolution of arachnids. A biologist friend once told me “all organisms gather information and make choices.” He hopes everything will evolve to the place of doing no harm.
Where do spiders come from, I wonder? A mythology book told me that long ago, a Greek woman named Arachne challenged the Goddess Athena to a weaving contest. The goddess dealt with the dare by turning the woman into a spider, and since then there’s been a
worldwide escalation of the eight-legged weavers. Although spiders live everywhere, my slice of the Oregon rainforest is prime habitat.
By eight o’clock I really needed to brush my teeth. However, the spider still crawled about in the sink. “OK, Miss, this is your relocation phase.” I scoffed at myself for the time I spend rescuing spiders, worms, snails and slugs. Do I have some neurotic save-the-critters compulsion? Where, I wonder on the Karpmann triangle of victim-rescuer-perpetrator does human-insect intervention play out?
From past experience, I knew that this spider could return from its lair and bite me in my sleep. I’ve also learned that by asking nature for guidance, a co-creative safety is offered to me and to the creature in question.
In the kitchen I grabbed a glass and an index card—my bug trapping equipment. Back at the bathroom sink, I cupped the glass around the spider and slid the card underneath, allowing time for the critter to scramble onto the flat surface. One shaky move from me and the arachnid could bite. Its mouth-claws appeared eager. Finally, I raced the captured creature to the door. Outside, on the porch, I tipped the glass and Miss Arachnid slid into the hydrangeas.
“Where will you go?” I asked. “To a new home? A new mate? Or will you return, called back by instinctual longing to lollygag in the bottom of my sink?” Spiders rarely give up their habitat.
Driving to work I wondered if I had left the spider in the sink, would it have acquired new climbing skills? Would its survival need, over evolutionary time, have helped the species of arachnids develop suction cups on their feet, like spider man, thus enabling future spiders to leap out of slippery sinks?
Had this spider been caught in the web of my life, I wondered, or were we both part of a universal network, what Gregg Braden calls the “Divine Matrix.” Friends think I spend too
much time thinking about such things and that I should worry instead about global warming or the war in Iraq. But I believe the microcosm affects the macrocosm. When we offer compassion on a small scale, ripples of kindness flow out to the larger world.
COMMENTS? email Shinan at rainmakers2007 [at] yahoo dot com or
shinan.barclay [at] gmail dot come
Look forward to these topics in our forthcomming anthology.
CONTENTS:
Prayer: “Communion with the divine is a deeply personal and mysterious experience…Some chant their prayers and some dance their prayers and some paint or perform or swim their prayers.” S. Anderson & P Hopkins, The Feminine Face of God.
Ceremony: “Ceremony—the harmonious blend of symbols—invites a confluence of spiritual rhythms, universal principles and archetypal forces.” Mircea Eliade, Dictionary of Symbols.
Sacred Space: “The sacred is not the space itself, but what happens there.” David Morgan, Encyclopedia of Religion II.
Grounding: “Forces greater than the intellect guide evolution. When we consciously align with them we harmonize with the process.” J. Lotterhand.
Connection: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” John Muir.
Indigenous Wisdom: “If you love something enough, it will talk with you.” George Washington Carver.
Co-creation “‘Co-creative science’ involves our consciously establishing a co-creative partnership with nature.” Albert Schatz, Ph.D. Preface, MAP II.
Tools: “This earth is a shared adventure. Healing begins with ceremony. Each human has contracted agreements with many others, seen and unseen.” Ariana Houle, Conversations with Nature.
Ripples: “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver.
Celebration: “In short, you make your life meaningful. You decide to make your life count for something.” Eric Maisel, Coaching the Artist Within.
Resources: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead.
Ten Zen Seconds introduces a new, powerful approach to mindfulness. It is a book, a practice, and an invitation to live a more centered, grounded, and meaningful life.
Marrying Eastern and Western techniques, it builds on the simple idea that deep breathing coupled with right thinking is the perfect tool for growth, healing, and transformation.
The first in a series of books exploring this next step in the practice of mindfulness, Ten Zen Seconds offers you the tools to make changes, solve problems, and simply feel better.
Learn more about the book and the practice here. You'll find a slide show that introduces the Ten Zen Second incantations, a daily mindfulness quote, practice tips, and more. There is much to explore, use, and enjoy.
