I consider myself trained by Nature.
Sometimes I mistake my experience for lofty wisdom. Then I truly meet a mountain and I recognize the modest scale of the foothills I inhabit.
I once stood on the edge of a great cliff that fell away into endless space, and flinging my arms wide, I called, “Let me be your student. Come and teach me!”
I felt told to sit still, pay attention, and listen. This is still my relationship with my Nature teachers.
My training shifted to another level when I became a frame drummaker. From the drums I learned to trust the wisdom of direct experience; the subtlety of tension, the discipline of perseverance, and the knowing in the hands more than in the mind.
One evening I sat with a newly dried drum, its naturally patterned surface illuminated with candlelight. I gazed into the surface as one might do with clouds on a summer’s afternoon. Gradually shapes took on form and startlingly began to move. A story unfolded—one image transforming into or leading to the next: bears emerging from caves, skinny men falling down holes, bodies disassembling to reconfigure as something other.
This has ever since been my relationship with visions from spirit. I watch a surface, and images emerge like the contour of a landscape does when the sun melts through fog. Creatures move, lights appear, stones speak.
These lessons of attention, valuing, discipline and the training of vision without judgment became the shamanic mentoring that led me to the creation of the Journey Oracle cards.
