Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Following a spiritual path

Several months ago when I was having a winter rest on the big island of Hawaii, I literally found myself following a spiritual path one evening. But to tell this story I must back up to the island of Kauai and a Divine Planet store where I discovered a string of lava beads. I considered the beads for several days--resisting their purchase because I understand it is unwise to take volcanic lava pieces of the Hawaiian Goddess Pele away from her home. And then an inspiration occurred to me. Perhaps I was being shown not to take these beads away, but rather to take them back. But to where, and how?When I'm on vacation I enjoy making prayer malas incorporating shells I find on the beaches. I leave gifts of my own handmade beads to thank the ocean and her creatures. When we first arrived on the big island of Hawaii, I restrung the lava beads with kahelelani shells, which I have been told were special to Hawaiian royalty. I began wearing the new necklace every day, waiting to be shown how to return it to Pele. Lots of lava flows were part of my daily walks and shoreline adventures, but nothing indicated a place special enough for this most ancient of Hawaiian royalty.

Just before our holiday ended, I found myself walking a path through a petroglyph site. I meandered along the winding trail and felt myself to be literally following a spiritual path into ancient wisdom. As the setting tropical sun created long spears of golden light and deepening shadow, I placed my gift to Pele briefly within a stone circle, and then dropped it into a crevice out of human sight.

This is my way of following a spiritual path. I notice what jumps into my awareness to notice; I look for insight that gives me a direction for action. I find some way of manifesting that action and then watch for a way that the resulting object (or words, gesture or song) can be given back to the Spirit world as food. This is the way the Journey Oracle cards were created. I had a dream of their creation which caught my full attention, I created the cards, stories and instructions from spirit direction, and now I give them back to the Holy as food, which is metabolized whenever someone calls on the Oracle for wisdom.