Shadow

Medicinart

Final days and coming home

Patricia left on Monday to dance in the Sun Dance in South Dakota. Joan, Jeff and I spent our last days waking at 3 am for Sadhana at the kundalini yoga ashram of Yogi Bhajan. Afterwards we happy yoga makers would walk home through the desert with the sun rising on the horizon.

Espanola - reflections and celebrations

We arrived at Esponola on July 10 and reflected on the journey with old Pittsburgh friends Jeff and Joan who live and teach in New Mexico now. A ceremony was held in honor of the final stage of the Peace and Dignity Journey and to celebrate Joan's pregnancy.

Patty and me in our Hollywood car. After ceremony we drove for hours through the powerful landscape around Los Alamos. Breathtaking the hills were singing to us.

A final farewell to the journey - on July 13 we walked into Taos and presented the staff to another couple who would be carrying it further towards Panama.

Deepening Journey - New Mexico

The journey gained profound depth as we crossed the great plains. The wind blew strong and hot at first but a storm was swelling up on the horizon in deep blue. At a roadside table we contemplated the dry barren land for the better part of an hour, silently sitting and observing beetles crawl throughout the dry sand and dying grasses. This land had been experiencing drought but we watched lighting striking down in the distance. A pickup truck pulled up next to us at this lonely rest stop and within 5 min. there was action. 5 or 6 Mexicans were jumping into the back of the truck and situating themselves low in the bed and we were rushing to our own car to get out of there. We waved and passed a jug of water to those thankful people in the pickup and both vehicles took off. It was fascinating how they remained hidden from our sight as we gazed out over that barren field. And the timing of this event was vivid, as the storm was coming and our mission purpose and intention: to unite the people of the Americas as one people - borderless across the whole land - came echoing back.From this time forward the medicines began to speak more clearly. We stayed at Clayton Lake State Park and experienced a feeling of sanctuary. The natural rock garden was aromatic with cedars and pines and sage woody herbs. The land had been drenched by the storm running rivers in the streets of Clayton. We prayed with chanupa (tobacco pipe) in the park and Patricia sang with her drum. We saw Hawk medicine on the road and Coyotes pawed and sniffed around our tent through the night I practice yoga in the early dawn and we left Clayton. A new coffee shop that was being established in an old feed store was one of the friendlier faces we found in Clayton - "Crossroads Coffee". Patty on the road and those indispensable windmills that allowed these bad lands to be farmed.
We struggled some to find this out of the way park called Mills Canyon and Antelope medicine was speaking, running along side our car as it bumped along long dirt roads which cut through vast oceanic fields. Antelope spoke of gentle perseverance, its delicate step participating in the great mystery, and the hawk medicine appeared again. I missed the opportunity for a photo of Antelope. Mills Canyon in the Kiowa National Grassland had more aromatic rock gardens to offer with remarkable rock formations. The flat desert land of New Mexico led into mountains and we climbed to the Eagle's Nest State Park, a high altitude calm and pristine grassy lake, ringed by blue mountains of volcanic deposition.