The meaning of ice breaking up

My recent stay in Edmonton teaching shamanic workshops on speaking with stones has given me a more  beautiful understanding of the meaning of ice breaking up.  I was staying on the shores of Pigeon Lake as the first leads of water began opening along the edges of the frozen expanse.  What does it mean in my spiritual practice when something starts to thaw?  

This means to me that new ways of being with these teachings from the spirit world are opening.  I discovered that sharing my ability to speak with stones also taught me about new possibilities in my ways of helping others.  Even though there is much still to learn and experience--just as there is a great distance of ice still to thaw--I discovered that hiding my relationship with stones was also hiding a gift I feel I am meant to share.

Sometimes the structures and protections I build around what I do become a way of stranding what I know and how I can be of service.  I believe shamanic art and work in all forms is a bridge between this world and the world of the sacred--which of course are the same world from another view.  But to be effective the bridge must connect this shore of daily life with that great flowing lake of mystery.

All the life surrounding Pigeon lake is also breaking out.  Catkins drift the surfaces with yellow wonder while pussywillows shimmer in the first soft breath of a northern Canadian spring.  I am reminded and emboldened by the novel I have been recently reading, The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens.  Apparently for dreams, for shamanic work, and for ice in the spring, the law is, "keep moving."

How not to write a blog

When is a post not a post?  No time, no images, good work happening in all directions but not yet here on the web. I am excited to share insights about dream work,  and more about talking with stones, and eventually a new interactive Journey Oracle Cards website where you can do free readings about puzzling situations...but not ready yet.  Sometimes patience is more than a virtue, it's just an ordinary necessity.

What is a stone teacher?

I have been writing about an upcoming Speaking with Stones workshop in Edmonton, Alberta where I will be teaching my way of talking to stone teachers.  But what is a stone teacher?  And how do we know we have one?  This shamanic painting titled Blue Rain is a portrait of my stone teacher and my story with it will give insight to these questions.

Stone teachers find us more than we find them. For me this often means that something about the stone captures my attention when I am not looking to be captured.  I also find that quite spontaneously I try to give away the stone in a significant way only to find that it comes back to me in a way completely unexpected.  In the stories that accompany my Journey Oracle cards, I wrote about this stone teacher in a story titled Giving Away what is Dearest to the Heart. If you have my Oracle card deck it is story
#27.

A stone teacher wants a house.  This might be a pouch or a basket, a small jar or an egg cup filled with powdered incense.  Any sort of container might be appropriate; and again it seems that the stone itself shows me in some intuitive or dream like way--what to make or arrange.

My stone teacher treats my attention as a kind of food.  and the time we spend together in ceremony nourishes it as well as me. Once a week I give the O'Kocho'la a special song while holding it in smoke, and a story while wetting it with spirits, and I sprinkle vibhuti into each mouth of its 6 faces.  The discipline of caring for a stone teacher is the tuition I pay for being able to receive its teaching.

Spring sailing in Cortes Island waters

Sometimes the day is just too fine to stay on land, and so instead of posting a blog about the Journey Oracle cards we went sailing in Desolation Sound, spending the night at the Copeland Islands Marine Park.  I had planned to write about another shamanic painting that is a portrait of my stone teacher, since last week I wrote about my history of talking to stones.

I'm hoping the stones, and you dear readers, won't mind waiting a bit longer to meet the O'kocho'la. It was just one of those days when we had to see you out there. 

Shamanic painting and print: Ode to stones that speak

I am preparing to give a workshop in Edmonton on Speaking with Stones and find myself reflecting on this chalk pastel drawing I created titled: Ode to Stones that Speak.  This is one of those mysterious shamanic paintings that keeps its full meaning hidden even from me.

For many years I have been able to receive messages from stones--not in images but as vibrations that translate into Yes and No, and also into phrases that have the potency of poetry.  I first had this experience after attending a workshop with a student of Michael Harner who had attended sessions at the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.  We were supposed to receive images from the stone surface to translate into answers to questions we posed, yet I kept feeling a vibrating presence in the stone, and also hearing syllables that joined together to become phrases of archaic formality and beauty.  I have courted this stone speech for many decades, and sometimes honor the presence I feel by creating art inspired by my experience.

This shamanic art of chalk pastel is a visual song to the mystery of stones that speak to me. While I cannot explain why things appear as they do--I am delighted and emboldened knowing that a stone knows that fish and whales can soar in water filled with the flight of birds, and that moss grows with a human face.