Idaho

7-Devils mountains and the Sawtooth Range, Idaho

I spent my first week at a tiny campground on a pristine lake at 7000 feet in the 7-Devils mountains in Idaho, surrounded by glacier-carved stone-people with immense presence! The first day started sunny, then some rain, then some hail, then snow-flurries!!!! I started laughing out loud when the snow started coming down!!! Then incredibly gusty winds and cold. Indeed I am being reminded that the dark winter season approaches and its icey fingers can snatch at high mountain places like this at any time suddenly. Ahh…the NORTH, the place on the Medicine Wheel that I am entering in these weeks of quiet solitary camping and hiking. Grandmother North wants to remind me that I am Her student these days, starting day 1. I will be dancing with the oncoming winter spirits sporadically; I must be prepared for the unexpected! This morning there was ice on my picnic table and I laughed out loud again! But now the sun shines brightly.

I am at the beginning of my crone years, in training to be an “elder, “ beginning a 13 month healing quest journey to make peace with my soltitude, release my identification with my mind-chatter and thereby more fully enter the love space of at-one-ness with all, fully present in the eternal here/now. I am in the immensity of the mystery of a major mid-life shift… no job, income or title, no lover, my future full of unknowns. I choose to EMBRACE this mystery and enter each day open and willing to let the moment unfold. May I be guided and strengthened by Spirit on this journey during my 52nd year of life, the year, according to certain Native American women’s traditions, when a woman fully comes into maturity. I am becoming the woman I have always wanted to be!!

From 7-Devils Mountains, I went to the SawTooth Mountains, an area called "Grandjean" where there are hot springs coming out of cavities alongside the river, draining into natural pools along the river bank. I got to the area after dark, but managed to find the pools by the river with the aid of my flash-light. I was there alone, soaking while looking up at the most incredibly clear sky with the most outrageous star-blanket I think I've ever seen!!! The next day I back-packed up to a lake at 8000' where I spent the night and had an amazing encounter with a fox who was quite curious and engaged with me, trying to steal off with my underwear! I managed to get them back, scolding the little fellow for bad manners.

I've been seriously studying (not in a left-brained way, but more with my whole body) a book Chalice gave me (the Original 13 Clan Mothers by Jamie Sams) The first clan mother, “Talks with Relations" who I am being with for a full month, provides guidance for how to fully open to and learn the language of nature--the trees, stones, creatures, etc. This has been a wonderful guide for deepening my connection with nature. Eckhardt Tolle's teachings (in his book The Power of Now) are also reminding me that in order to access the higher intelligence within myself and the greater consciousness of the planet, it is ESSENTIAL to get beyond the nearly non-stop chatter of the ego-mind. This is all so consistent with the zen practices I've been developing for 30 years now, but it seems the "addiction to thought" of modern culture is hugely difficult to get beyond and even after 30 years of meditation, I'm still a beginner. Nonetheless, I've been diligently working at being HERE/NOW--hiking, eating, sleeping or waking, sitting in silence and stillness and watching the cloud-people in the sky, feeling the wind, listening to the leaves rustle and letting the birds and other creatures come forth with their language and way of being. I have to admit, even after weeks of soltitude, I've barely got a start on the "emptying out" process, but it IS underway and I can feel myself settling into a different pace and way of being. SLOWLY, ever so SLOWLY.

I realize that our entire educational process is about being disconnected body and mind, requiring we be in our minds, not our bodies, not in the here and now, so what a job it is to un-learn this and find a more authentic way of being! This journey is giving me an invaluable opportunity to learn another way of being and I am so grateful--for the time, for my zen practices, for Jamie Sams’ book that carries the wisdom of Native American women elders, for Tolle's words that are helping to pull all of these practices together into focus. This soltitude is taking me into deep places within myself --some of which I would rather not go, but NOT being one to shirk--I'm putting one step in front of the other and staying with it!. I feel tender and cracked open as I am in a near-constant state of meditation and prayer with the incredible beauty of the Stone-People, cloud-people, trees, lakes, rivers, streams and the creatures and winged ones I am keeping company with.

September 10th: “Bedtime now and nearly dark with star people beginning to appear. It is totally still and silent and I am completely alone at my 8000’ hermitage spot by this pristine lake. I have a little candle burning to the miniature Kwan Yin that I was gifted with before leaving. The candle flame is the deep compassion and forgiveness of Kwan Yin and the candle wax is remaining anger, blame, judgements and urges for retribution that I might feel toward my former boss, my former lover, and one of my sisters (who is just now re-opening communication with me after 10 years of severance). Yesterday I did a release ritual at the lake, asking the water to cleanse and heal me, release me from unresolved feelings around all of these people. and others such as my ex-husband, my mother, my grandmothers. This is a process, not a single event, so I will continue as long as I need to….invoking the waters of these lakes, the fire, the stone people the winds.

Mostly though I am aware that I am NOT in obsessive thought-spins about relationship dramas, especially compared to the past when I remember being overwhelmed mentally and emotionally with them. My mind still has excessive and multi-faceted thought streams, but they are not focused around relationship issues and old pains so much. This is GOOD! Mostly I feel at peace with it all.

Morning now, after a hike. Lessons coming to me about how dense I can be. I couldn’t find the trail to the upper lake and it turns out to have been very near where I am camped. Other lessons too. My “thinking mind” the voice so often speaking in this journal and in my head chatter, has limited intelligence and gets in the way of my greater intelligence all too often. The ongoing attempts to do Shikantaza will hopefully help get it out of the way so I can access the other more often. FEAR blocks it. JUDGEMENTS block it. I see all this. It’s like a zen riddle because I can’t make it go away. I need to tone and sing more, get my flute and drum out more. I am so overly identified with this chatty mind yet another intelligence comes through me often.