Fires and Floods

And an ode to the totem

I am gazing upon a snow capped volcano hovering over the Salish sea. This morning I stood barefoot on the cool Earth and inhaled dew covered sunshine. My breakfast was made of deep nourishment from the land and Her creatures. I hydrated with crisp, cool, cleanish water.

I hear a whisper, “keep breathing deep Granddaughter”. Lives uncountable speak through the air, teach me about continuance, ally me in the long sought after stillness. Memories of many turnings fill my eyes with the waters that are forever flowing in a time and space only accessed by listening deep inside the Well of the heart. A great herbalist I once knew called them the celestial waters. I felt less alone.

Gratitude wraps herself around each pain in me, now reframed as an ally in belonging, feeling, enlivening my wisdom around the on purpose experiences of this human life.

This corner of the planet is pristine compared to the disastrous happenings across the globe. So much, too much, is either burning or drowning. I am planted here for a reason. I can stand and amplify, with the help of that sacred volcano, the abundant waters and the old, old trees, the prayers for the children-my love traveling the lay lines of Gaia’s body to touch all who cry out for their mothers. I often wonder why me? Who am I to deserve such grace?

So, today I want to extend some praise to one of my favorite totems- the Salmon. Salmon of the waters, that without, all of life withers. Salmon, the symbol of the Mysterious Circle that flows us forward and through. Salmon swam up to me one day and taught me the laws of reciprocity and what it means to re-feed all of life from my willingness to die and throw myself into deep turbulent waters with glee; except for when I am pushed in by that shepherding hand, which is more often the case.

Salmon taught me how to feed myself in a way that feeds all and my role amongst this choppy sea of humanity. It has taken some time to assimilate the wisdom I received so many moons ago. But it’s never left. Salmon has been patiently waiting for the old grip of scarcity in my belly to soften.

I was blessed to witness the Salmon on their journey home upstream the Sol Doc river. Salmon is a main totem of the Great Wheel of Life cross culturally. Salmon teaches the interdependence of all living things because when Salmon is no longer seen teaming upstream the whole ecosystem suffers. Salmon feeds its entire ecology simply by being Salmon, knowing its role in the web.

(BTW!-WA Tribes to Receive $39.4 Million to Remove Fish Barriers, Restore Salmon Habitat)

Proper feeding is what we as a culture have forgotten. How to properly feed teaches also how to open and receive The Gift, which begets how to give the gift freely in balanced reciprocity. Society at large is gravely unsatiated, and therefore ungrateful. And not because there is not enough food.

Salmon is a Buddha. (Salmon laughed when I said that). After sitting and listening to the water and watching this most sacred act of returning home to show us that in every death there is a birth, tears poured from my eyes as that original memory of belonging filled my heart. As I write this the emotion at the back of my throat wants to sing odd sounds trying to name the sensation of being alive at this burning, drowning, dying, healing time. I don’t know how the rest will all come tumbling out.

~The soul of humanity has withered and it is showing up in the wars, the floods and fires ravaging the planet. The waters across the globe will continue to rise in response to the hearts filled with an inferno of noise from wounds of separation, coercion and mass confusion.

Ok Shira- what wants to be said? It’s so simple really, but today it wants to sound like somewhat of a lullaby, a battle cry from the field inside my soul with no sides.

How can we give up the arms pointed at our own hearts and let the tears fall over the banished, burned and unbeaten Grandfather drum we long to hear? How will the children know how to dance and praise when the heartbeat of the Earth has been silenced under the rage of war?

Burn baby burn up all the wisdom, until there is nothing left to breathe but some toxic idea pandered as freedom floating from the halitosis of unsatiated greed.

The undigested grief of soldiers with dry eyes as they kneel before a false idol will drown the song in the land. When the eyes don’t well up with a fully felt pain of losing a brother’s, mother’s, lover’s loving gaze, and fists don’t pound the Earth in denial, demand of answers and a grief born of righteous rage- the waters will rise to ease the burning insanity of obedience to a ghost that haunts the mind. It’s the story drawn on the walls of oldest cave; the one that has stood the test of time.

The tear of the grieving eye sprouts the seed of continuance that feeds the children the oldest wisdom that nothing ever dies. And that the coming and going of flesh and bone is for the Dance alone. Oh the Mystery.

The prophecies have been cast from the Elder’s hands and the center of the oldest stone. Still no one believes even when the ground is shaking under their feet. Yet, the twisted history of a one sided glory that serves the fat bellies of the money hungry still get a bleeping song (and a vote) -there is something seriously wrong.

But there is no such thing as mistakes because all of it points to the One name.

Don’t you dare say that you are a God loving man when your wife sees the back of your hand more than any praise for birthing your misguided ___. You are loved in all ways but sold a scripture that God only serves good little boys who don’t cry, who don’t dare laugh out loud when they dance around for fear of being called a fairy and cast out- of what?!

That ol’ boys club whose only access requires a commitment to the shedding of some constructed enemy blood- is the weapon of mass destruction.

No blame. Their Grandmother’s dancing feet were bound. No wonder the people are spun upside down and kill what freely feeds their humanity. How can I say this without going round and round?-

What is corrupted in the soul of man will show up on the land. There, that was easy.

There is enough for everyone and when someone consumes more than they are made for, they starve the Soul and feed the giant plastic flow in our Oceans. Life is coming fervently alive trying to show us that until we feel deep into the underbelly fattened by our addictions to distractions and stand round a properly kindled flame hand in hand, the Dance that feeds us will die.

When the heart doesn’t dance to the rhythm of the Salmon feeding the Eagle spirit that soars to help us remember how to pray, the Waters that give freely simply for our being here and the Mama Bear that roars for the protection of Her children, the hearts will set ablaze to what they were told they are separate from- in fear, in fear, in a mighty unGodly fear of drowning…

In Love.

Blessed be, Shira

It’s like this ~
There lives a spring for your thirst
where your desolation becomes fertile ground 
Your parched lips around Her waters
turns Her body on to make more honey
Others will catch the scented droplets in the air
They will come to the mouth of abundance to drink
When your body tightens around old fears 
of losing your treasure to your fellow brother,
remember your mother’s breast- an unsung maiden well until your cries for Love
set in motion a spiral of miracles turning the Wheel of Life 
upon which the Sacred Codex of Reciprocity is inscribed 
And in one blazing line of this ancient scripture 
You will find your name 

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