Hello and Happy Spring Equinox everyone!
As I write this very first sentence very early in the morning on the Spring Equinox, I am hearing the very first train sounds in the distance here in Santa Barbara and it's making me smile. Trains remind me of my dear grandmother's house and my childhood in Belgium, where they are a really integrated part of daily life for people. In my world, trains are comfortably intimate and allow a type of connection to people and a being with the landscape that cars just don't offer. I've always loved them. They also reminds me of my travels in India after college as well as my most recent ride to magical Machu Pichu during my sojourn to the snow-capped healing Apus a few winters ago in Peru's Sacred Valley.
Trains have always been a symbol of things moving forward in our world ... a certain steam and locomotion we all need to keep going. So I'm happy to hear this sound as I write the first words for this very first blog story on the very first morning of Spring 2020. Thank you for joining me here and may the train be a symbol for us all moving forward towards a healthy and enlightened new world and society at God-speed.
Today I wanted to share a bit about an earth-honoring Prayer Bundle Offering (Despacho Ceremony) I just offered here in my home about a week ago, just a bit before our collective quarantine started here in California. As some of you know, I am trained in the mystical Healing Art of Andean Despacho Ceremony and was initiated in early 2011, just before the great turning of the worlds at the end of 2012. I didn't plan this, nor did I know I would even learn about this Medicine, it all just came my way.
Since my initiation all those years ago, I practed a lot beacuse I loved it a lot and slowly, over time, it took root in my life. Since those early days, I have created and guided hundreds of personal and group prayer ceremonies for myself and others. I love this practice with all my heart and have seen it help create really large spiritrual, emotional and physical openings and leaps for people in their lives as well as my own. I will make more posts about this healing artform in the future and for now, if anyone is interested, there are many images to see and some short stories to read of my ceremonial work on my instagram page @materia.lumina under the tag #materialuminaceremony.
This last ceremony I offered was one for consciously meeting the new world that we can all feel is coming, for creating a new positive doorway portal into that world and in particular for offering healing, love and joy into that space ahead of time so that the actual stepping into our everyday reality of it can be filled with as much courage, trust, support, beauty and enjoyment as possible.
The ceremony was beautiful, it went smoothly and well ... and even as I was putting the final touches on it before wrapping it up and later offering it to the fire, I could already feel the energetic effects. I could feel how the prayers and the work had allowed me to energetically open a new doorway in space and time inside as well as outside myself and that I had just crossed a threshold that felt big and life-changing. I had just fully stepped through the doorway into the next realm and the new reality with relative ease, yet it felt like it was also a big Commitment with a capital C. These things are of course happening on the subtle energetic level ... but that is where everything always starts and happens in life anyway ... so this is then also where we, as spiritual people and earth keepers can, with positive intention and for the good of all, influence and guide the trajectory for ourselves, our loved ones and our world. This work is both humble and simple and sweepingly grand in its scale and potential reach ... because energy has no bounds and intention and right action can deliver those energies right where they are needed. Despachos are Offerings and Feasts to the Gods and Goddesses, as they say, and this medicine is at times, truly miraculous.
I wanted to share some views into the Ceremony and the Prayers here ~ Opening sacred space, making prayers, setting intentions and offering Love to the Spirit Realm so it can hear us, be nourished by our prayers and then can dialogue with us in return...
A while later, I made a Fire that became extremely hot for the release into the Cosmos ~
Sometimes these despachos burn well and super fast and sometimes it's more of a simmer. This fire, as you can see in the photo was raging and the despacho was gone in a matter of minutes ... signaling it was well received and timely.
Finally and in the end, came the sacred Spirit Gifts that often reveal and present themselves around the making of the Prayer Bundle, the burning of it and sometimes also in the Shell after the fire cools off. If and when they show up, these Spirit Gifts are the real treasures, so to speak, that Spirit reveals and leaves behind for us in the middle world (our world of everyday reality) to help us along on our Soul Journeys. These Spirit Gifts don't always come but when they do, they are powerfully infused medicine items that then can become allies in the work that lies ahead. In this case, both a real live animal spirit showed itself in a very interesting way during the burning and a spirit image also revealed itself in the shell afterwards... and lo and behold, they were very close to looking like the same thing!!
As I started the fire outside for the burning of the prayer bundle, a real live hummingbird flew in over the fire ceremony space and I heard it buzzing about a few times. Eventually it settled in the closest tree nearby, just a few feet away. As the offering burned, I noticed this tiny bird perched itself on a branch facing the smoke and it just sat there, watching the smoke wafting up into the air above. Curiously, hummingbird kept moving its little head from left to right and sat there for almost the entire duration of the fire without moving anything except its tiny head in the same way over and over again. And then suddenly it dawned on me... Even though I had never seen a hummingbird do this before, this little hummingbird was "reading the prayers" as the fire and the smoke released them into the heavens. It was one of those deeply touching moments that just took my breath away...
The next morning, when everything had burned and the embers had gone out and cooled off, I sifted through the ashes as I often do, looking for the shell and what stories it might have to share. I found it quickly and at first, all I saw was an ashy shell in various colors of black and grey. But upon further inspection, I noticed there was a flat piece in the very middle of the shell that was laying in the center, like a loose large flake of sorts just laying on top. When I realized it wasn't attached, I decided to blow that piece off with my breath. And as it flew off, I couldn't believe what I was looking at. There, in the very center of the shell and as a silver lining in the midst of black and grey ash soot, was the image of another bird, this time with a tiny kernel of something in its mouth.
As some of you might know, in many sacred healing traditions around the world, and especially in this Ancient Andean Shamanic Despacho Medicine, Hummingbird is a very sacred animal sprit with very particular teachings connected to living in the Realm of the Soul and Living within the energy stream of Joy. In the Ancient Peruvian language of Quechua, this spirit is called Sacred Siwar Kinte ~ the Royal Hummingbird ~ and according to ancient lore, she/he is always the messenger and deliverer of prayers to and from the Heavenly Realm, the realm of the Angels. When I looked at the shell, I didn't quite see the typical long hummingbird beak, but when I looked closely at the rest of it, the royal hummingbird's crown most definitely seems to be appearing to come into view as do several rainbow-like colors that many hummingbirds are known for. I'm sharing this with you because to me, this signals something for our new world being born and for us as citizens of that new world ... Perhaps this little Royal Hummingbird is our new Way Shower and the Guide to a new and higher level of being. They are said to be the "flying jewels" of the bird kingdom who bridge the Heaven realms with the Earthly realms and who bring all the important messages where they are needed.
Personally, I've had several fascinating encounters with hummingbirds over the years, some of them flying so close, they were almost on my face! But this is definitely the first one I've seen that was reading energy and prayers in smoke and also the first one appearing as a silver lining in a soot-covered shell. Wow, just wow... Although there was that time when a pure white dove appeared in a shell once too ... but that will have to be a story for another time!
In the mean time, may Royal Hummingbird perhaps come your way too during these very different days and deliver something special and magical in your life as well. And may this tiny but mighty Way-Show-er help show us all the Right Path as we collectively prepare to rebirth our world and our planet anew in the months and years to come. I know these times can seem scary and wild and very uncertain for many ... but perhaps, just perhaps, there is a silver lining waiting for us all at the end of it. I, for one, find it much easier to move forward dancing with the idea that there is a Divine order inside it all and that perhaps if all our thoughts and energies can point in that direction, the true healing direction for all of us and for the planet, then all that accumulated good energy and all those healing vibrations will actually and eventually manifest the next positive world we are all hoping for. As far as I see it, what have we got to loose? All the outdated things that don't work anymore anyway. And just imagine what kind of world we have to gain! A completely new world of our Dreams... an enlightened, sustainable and natural Paradise which our Planet truly already is if we support her in her Being and co-create with her instead of depleting her.
May the silver lining in this shell remind us all that even in strange times, miracles always abound and that anything is possible if we can just suspend our disbelief and our fears long enough for Spirit to show us the way. It always will and it is also always ready to assist us with anything and everything if we are willing to just meet it half-way. All we have to do is be willing to open the door and step in for our own as well as the collective well-being so we can all move forward. Now is our time... and we can do this! We can create a much better, more human and healthier world than the one that is crumbling ... and now is the time to start dreaming Her into Being. Your dreams will be counting and it all just starts with today, one step at a time, one choice at at time, one action at a time. What will you choose? What small positive steps will you take? What is your dream for a healthy and vibrant planet?
How lucky we are to have Hummingbird by our side ...
Wishing you all a gentle and sweet Dreamtime ... so we can arrive in the Paradise we all imagine and want. Bumpy roads and train rides and all ...
Much much love to you all oxo ... let's do this.
Eefje ~ Materia Lumina
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