Today is the end of the first week of my friend Sharon's son being born. I call him the gnome baby, he has the perfect little sideways smile and was born after 58 hours of labor. He is the love of a network of women, who when I tuned in during the days of labor prayed for his mother and joined together in celebrating the coming of new life.

We are all in love with him.

​He is making me think a lot about what it is to have your whole life ahead of you, a fresh slate, a new life. It’s making me think a lot about prayers for life and the future.

One of my co-workers has a little girl. She talks to me psychically, its true. She has big blue eyes super sparkly. Krista is such a good mom she is totally in love with her. I have known her two years. I've watched her get pregnant, be one of the most beautiful graceful working mommas ever. Have a baby, come to appreciate her partner and man, he has come to appreciate her and they are getting married. It's actually quite lovely.

The first step in healing our hearts is realizing it is a really sweet and beautiful thing to want to get married and have babies. Not driven by that need but at least inspired by it. Call it a puppy. Call it tribal multi generational living. Call it feminine and soft. Call it the end of hedonism where lust greed and appetite destroy numb. Call it the rise of sensuality which is the savoring of all that is beautiful giving rise to it again as an act of culinary artistic musical sensory creation.

Wherever those things live, it makes for a really sweet heart interacting with life at a heart level. It is a very soft place, topics for conversations are usually pretty light and playful and begin from today. They are not really intense because you are hopeful. You feel good about life. You feel like you are on the right track. You are making good decisions and you don't really have doubts.

in this state of mind others aren't triggering you in any way which means that you emotionally are in a healthy state of mind. So the two of you are making an agreement, "Let's see if in our healthiest state of mind we can have a really good time living life together. As one couple put it starting a conversation you never end. In shorter terms for those inclined, date with a. View to presence in today’s perfect moment.

My 19 year old nephew just started dating a really cute young woman after having been in a 4 year relationship with a young woman who he knew since 8th grade. Naturally they outgrew each other, she became very intellectual, she always knew what she wanted, to be a marine biologist and go to college. My nephew got to college and wanted to cry. He did not want to go to school. I have never seen my nephew depressed. He was depressed. He is a lot more humanities centered than his businness degree, but there was something else in his free spirit that just did not jive with college, at all, and he was so scared to disappoint my father and I, especially my father who used to joke that he was the "last hope."

What that means is that my dad in one cycle, one generation, went from one pair of shoes, one suit. They were not rich people but they had pride in themselves. They were very clean and my grandmother would clean and starch his clothes everyday so that he even won "best dressed" at school.

My grandmother had a really hard life but she always made sure that her children were fed and happy, played baseball with them. There were 9 of them, three of them died. Life moved on. She was really prayerful.

I remember her always with her rosary beads and prayer book. Every morning, every night she would say nothing to anyone, silently she would move from her lounge chair in the living room to the bathroom where she would close herself away. She would not announce it to anyone. She would not tell people what she was praying about, but if you walked past her altar there you would see a picture of every single one of us. And some of us would have candles.

One of my cousins was arrested for transporting marijuana across the country. At the time, he had a seven year old daughter, when he got out she was 14. He was never the same after he came out, my aunt and uncle adopted and raised her. She has gotten older and is just as fun as I remember him being when I was a little girl. She is beautiful, was cutie pregnant, two kids now, second marriage and everybody turned out alright. But one thing you could be sure of was that there was candle burning in front of that cousin's picture for years. So my grandmother may not have really talked about it, but she was serious about prayer and holding her family in the light for God to help.

Another thing that would happen was that if you got married once, and you gave her a picture, you could be sure that the first husband and wife photo would be on the altar, it didn't matter if you were divorced ten times, remarried six, that one, first one would always be the one that was on the altar. She was very devoted to that concept. My grandfather abandoned my grandmother with all her children and my grandma ironed and made 12 dozen tortillas, or 6 dozen, whatever that exorbitant amount that was, everyday, to take care of them.

My dad was the first one to go to college. He got college education because the two older brothers went off to war and sent pension to help my grandmother feed the rest of them. As a result, my dad got to go to college, my aunt went to college, and my younger uncle. Because of that they all help each other and we came to recognize the value of education as well as working hard to take care of each other, sharing what you have and giving each other a leg up. Because having your family all feel like they have what they need, and some of what they want, is a really good feeling for every body.

No one in my family is gonna go hungry, be homeless, or without a car, unless you choose to be, which I did choose at one point to do while I was on a 10 year backpacking mission because God told me to follow fire to fire, even though I had no money. I followed directions and then astonishingly ran into the same people over and over again for 10 years until we were considered "family" or adopted tribal members.

Even though I don't officially sit group settings praying for them, I do pray for their lives. I think sometimes I get to the point, I got this way when I was teaching high school, that I was praying for enough of kids already. There were a couple I fell really deep into. One I let move in with me after she was emancipated and the other, Tyfanny, in particular, really caputured my heart. I am really just so proud of her. In high school she had such a hard time, a lot of her sexual abuse surfaced and, because I had overcome my childhood molestation, we had a special connection that made her find confidence in my heart. She came out to be a nurse and an amazing wife and mother of two kids. I still talk to her. It took a lot of sheer love for them. My heart felt so full with what I could handle at that moment in time.

So, I got that way with the Native American Church adopted tribal system because healing takes place over time and requires a great deal of physical presence and support. I saw in there that there was a need for people to relearn basic relationship concepts.

I have a super good relationship with my dad. He is very kind. If anything he was domineering. He steered the ship of my life. He made me go to college. I didn't want to go to college. But my grandmother struggled really hard with all those kids and it was his determination that I would be a strong and independant woman and that no matter what I would be able to take care of myself, which I can and do.

I was a high school teacher for ten years as a result of him pushing me pushing me pushing me. I am really glad I had that experience because it was a very formative and informative to me as far as my healing work is concerned because it allowed me to really see in a small year long container what exactly human beings need to feel loved to heal patterns of woundedness. It was my sole desire to help those kids be happy, healthy, determined, inspired, "successful." As in having all of your basic necessities.

I still harness that information for understanding people no matter what age we are. Human beings are all pretty much the same. The little mining town where I live have been traveling in circuits, which to me, from and outsiders perspective, and this is one of the most beautiful things I took away from festival circuits, is that they all had a home, a touchstone and a jumping date with which to connect and get someplace where someone would be happy that you made it. They could celebrate the power of prayer and coming together. It was very energizing after a long period of time during which you were just trying to figure out how to live free.

Alot of us grew up with parents, like my dad, who in order to free the next generation from poverty, sold the first half of his life to Chevron Corporation. I remember that if we wanted to see my dad we would go with my mother downtown Denver, Colorado. We would be the only ones on the floor. Everyone home and gone. This is during the years when my dad had to be bookkeeper for Chevron.

Now mind you, this is long before computer systems and excel. There was no computer program wherein you put in mathematical formulas that would add columns 1-345 and recalculate if you changed one box. No, this was in the year of pencil, ruler, and little boxed geometric ledger paper.

There would be times my dad would go into a meeting and in the meeting they would tell him they needed him to figure out what the effect on the budget would be if they changed this one box. So he would have to redo the whole spreadsheet, for Chevron Corporation, we are talking about huge mathematical sums in teeny boxes just to see what might, possibly, could, probably be the outcome should they decide to do this thing but then they might very well decide not to, but Art that is your job. My dad did it. He devoted very much of his time and energy into and we had to go into his skyscraper late at night, only one fluorescent light on for the entire floor and it was over my dad in his cubicle focused like shit on every little box because God forbid he have to do it again because he made and error. Intense mental focus and discipline in training so that his family could have a better life than the one he had

So anyways, my generation wanted to free themselves of that mentality and to live free rather than slaving away for these massive companies to profit and festivals gave them a group of kindred spirits with which to bond and not feel totally crazy and alone.

That is to say my dad's dream of college educated, financially secure, able to evolve, enjoy entertainment, recreate and have love and peace was not necessarily our dream.

So anyways, my nephew had all this pressure from his yogini aunt, drummer dad and my corporate dad. What was he going to do with his one amazing life?

Well he had stories to go by. I was 17 when I graduated because I was "smart" for my age and "mature" which basically meant I had gone through puberty early and looked like I do now in 5th grade, so they skipped me a grade.

I had quit being a teacher by then. It was too much work for me and to be honest, I wasn't that dedicated to being the foundation of the community at that time because I was going through a lot of changes spiritually that made it really difficult for me to deal with anything outside of myself. Had I had a wider range community that wasn't based on my religion or work I probably could have stayed through it. But I was a new transplant to South Tahoe and a fairly new teacher who had recently been excommunicated from her religion of birth. Basically I needed friends and family, but I was working really hard, I had a brain tumor, was in a car accident, was teaching at risk students. I was in alot of physical pain and I was also in spiritual pain because I had lost 20 years of my friends, and for a moment was estranged from my mother, my family, because she didn't approve of my decisions.

I did approve of them and I wanted to go find out what another way to live was. So what I did was put my whole life into a backpack, they called this the great giveaway. I gave away everything that was in a two bedroom apartment, I had a Jeep Wrangler, I was a high school teacher, I had a porch facing the sunset over Lake Tahoe and I had a pretty good living. I liked mountain biking, I was a spinning instructor and I was truly starting to make friends with teachers who are really amazing people who care and have big hearts, but I had a dilemna. Heal myself or others.

I was really sick and I quit. My dad would have liked for me to have gone home but I quickly saw that wasn't going to be the measurement of a healthy successful life to me, so, in my early twenties, I took ownership of my life and devoted myself to healing. I realized that above all else, I needed to confront all the things that were at the core of the disease that was creating an imbalance in my endocrine system and causing a benign growth to threaten my periphery vision and the ability of my glandular system to function.

Around that time, I began to devote myself to the practice of yoga. My co-worker was a yoga emthusiast and I quickly went from novice interested in kinda doing yoga to doing yoga 6-8 hours a day. He was a wealth of information. He just has one of those brains that can store all those facts and figures. Yoga is originally an imperical science and he had all these formulas for breaths and how deeply to breathe at such a rate to be able to keep up and do it for myself but I would just follow. I was raised to be a sheep. I allowed myself to be a student of yoga which was a final separation for me from the Jehovah's Witness faith because they tried to take that away from me as false worship, but I feel yoga has been for me a primary means with which i have connected with an active force capable of directing and changning our perception of things for our lives, experience, to be healthy.

I have started praying as of late to reincorporate the value system I was raised with that being the sanctity of marriage and relationship, the value of communication, the importance of working hard and education, devoting yourself to a passion and becoming a master of it so that it takes you.

One of the most important things that can happen in society, and one of the reasons I left education, is that I believe we should have free reign to show to ourselves and follow our hearts to the consciousness choosing us and then receive training to prosper in what we can not, because of our soul path, ignore. Kahuna village style.

So, as I am thinking about the solution to healing our hearts, I can't help but think that we need to take our focus and attention off of ourselves and put it on the next generation. When I look at late 20's, who were deeply influenced by there elders, namely us, I see that they copied some of our behaviors and ended up pretty much where we are, which is to say they are afraid of being in love getting hurt and dreaming. I sense a little bit of fear of the opposite sex, which is really sad because I remember a really playful flirtation, an interplay, that used to happen between us. It was a little bit of a push and a pull, but it wasn't harmful. I start to think back to being sweet hearts. I remember the romantic aspects of what it feel like to be male female in love, or at least seeking it. I remember the soft edges rounded about our hearts.

I start to look at the younger generation as my teachers. My 24 year old nephew is the product of my brother who was married 3 times before finding his current love. And they are older so its mature love, peaceful, kind, drama-free, very nerdy and geeky and they don't care what anyone thinks. They don't have much but its enough and, most importantly they have love. They don't fight. They are happy.

"I love myself so much, that I can love you so much that you can love you so much that you can start loving me thats how much I love you." (Agape song)

Also, his mom after divorcing my brother married her childhood sweetheart. So everyone's life went on and he has watched the processes with which they have grown and the process of holding things together.

His first love was at 16. I remember not realizing the depth of emotion he was enduring, which is silly because I remember my first love, who is still in my life, was very difficult. I should have remembered that and that it happens at any age and I regret my calloused remark to what seemed a teenage crush and telling him to just go get laid. Thankfully his heart is bigger than that and he was always seeking love, which he has found and safe gaurds.

Now when the younger one, 19, started dating in 8th grade and was determined 4 years in to make it work I gave him advice to hold it together. I actually met a couple who met in 8th grade, they have been together 12 years. They protect it and hold it really close to themselves and I told them they should its really pure. They said they knew. That was very nice to see. Rainbow unicorns. So innocent. I love it.

So all of this just makes me realize that what we perceived in our parents as being great difficulty, whether it lasted or not, was their testament to something they really believed in and how much they were willing to struggle through to hold love in place. I think that if we think about the amount of struggle and communication that is involved then we can apply that to any circumstance.

I was talking to a friend of mine recently about generational healing. I was talking about having sat in the fire for over a decade, I as I sat in there I saw the stories of my family, they would come to me with their sadness and their pain and they would want to reenact it in me and I would say to them:

"Thank you. I am so grateful to you that I am alive. For whatever, you went through, for whatever you had to experience for me to be here. I come from a place of love.”

My parents have known each other since high school, though its isn't a story without its own wound. My brother is my half-brother. My mom still has great love for her first husband but she is super happy I am here and I am too.

I remember talking to my mom as she was going through menopause, she was having alot of vaginal pain, and the surfacing memories from childhood molestations, and even guilt and shame from her affair with my dad. We were sitting there. It was me and my brother, who is my full brother, he has a set of half-siblings who won't acknowledge or speak to him because we both chose to not be in our religion of birth. He has me. And if he wanted to his dad would love to be close to him. And my youngest nephew looks like his grandpa, which I think is interesting because my mom sees her first husband in her grandson, literally sees his face. So, that's facing up to what your choices have been and hopefully falling in love with all of it. Me and my nephew, which required two separate paths and choices.

The point being that love never really goes away. We should choose who and what we want to invest our ernergy towards and if it is love, we should find a way to make sure that we are making decisions that will make us feel soft hearted into our older years. Sometimes when we do things we feel justified in doing there will be a rush of energy that comes around behind it, its almost like a flush of anger and its makes you feel exhilarated. I have found that in those times I have felt that, I have made the most drastic decisions or taken a course that has led to alot of hurt.

It reminds me of the flaming arrows that sometimes get thrown in tipi ceremonies. By that I mean that literally, by psychic energy you can injure the heart cord of another human being especially in ceremony when they are wide open. I remember in one ceremony my partner and I were sitting in front of the fire for a woman with AIDS who had a homeless alchoholic husband. They were trying to hold it together. It was a very painful ceremony and there was a lot of animosity towards outsiders being there in that Twisp, Washington tipi but we brought our hearts there. We were wide open. There was one man sitting across the fire from us and I can remember the energy coming from him in his prayer and his stare and at one point two black salamander popped up out of the sand of Eastern Washington and started running towards us. I can still see the medicine man scurrying around in front of us to scoop them up and throw them outside. But I did sustain an injury that was behind my left shoulder blade right through my heart.

It took many years for me to dislodge that arrow and heal that pain. I had a deeper understanding afterwards of how wide open we are when we are in there. When the medicine takes us and starts showing us all these thoughts, not all of them are meant for us to keep. Some of the we are litereally supposed to put in the fire which requires us sorting through with the wisdom of ancestry, that is to say the stories of where we come from or what our people know.

You know a thought passes through and it reminds us of a story "Well wait right there. I had an uncle once who..." and so while I am not sure what to do this is what could or could not happen as a result of that thought process. This is called talking story. It is a way of presenting the antidote, or healing story line in the form of parable. The antidote is nearly always love and forgiveness, sometimes it requires addressing the issue. That happened to me.

My older nephew addressed my behaviors honestly and deeply. When I first started my travels to heal my brain tumor and follow my shamanic course vision quest for which I had been training, I think my journey was validated. I was being prayed to different ceremonies and making connections with people but there was definetely a moment in time when I just got lost in the currents and was curious about what I could do or pray. I made alot of outlandish decisions that cost me thousands of dollars but, point being, my travels led to me missing the graduation of my oldest nephew. Which I will have you know, to this day, he is still pissed off at me and he will bring it up. He's right. I sucked for a couple of years. I just really didn't care about anyone or anything other than me and that included my partnership. It was really all about my own self-exploration and I'm not sure I was wrong but it wasn't graceful. I could have done alot of things differently so that less people were hurt, including myself and my family members.

So in rectifying alot of that, we all made it to the youngest one's graduation and I stopped my 12 years of traveling and put my money where my mouth was, which is to say that I put my attention on my blood relations to be available to them. So, all that meant was not being off grid but reachable and to show them that I do actually know how to live a linear life. I know how to have a home, I know how to make car payments, feed myself healthy food, apply my trainings to have a job I love, and to create a life that isn't as eratic, global and magical but attainable for anyone. A peaceful, happy and calm life so they could get a sense of what is possible for them not just for me in a radical sense so that I could harness that energy and allow spirit to teach me how to live differently with the people who will be connected to me for all eternity. That being my own family which I believe arises again genetically.

So, I have birthed no children at this time but I have plenty from when I was teaching and also from co-village raising really good men, with good hearts who are teaching me. As we look to the children, let us try to look and see what brings about the greatest amount of harmony and happy, the least amount of dramatic stories filled with great life experience.

I pray that the cycles are long and allow us to breathe deeply into the sound of community and reconnect with people with people who may have injured or harmed us in some way so we aren't walking around in town two feet from each other acting like we don't know each other's name or actual family pretending we have no relations.

I would encourage that to happen one person at a time. Behind the cash register, learn their names. This is simple. Learn the people making you a sandwich, make them have a great day. Some of those people are staples for your community. You don't even know why you are going to the Briarpatch but maybe you need to see Jonas the musician, Sparkles, hey Melanie has a new hat, Jared is getting married and Martin dances Blues Fusion. Get to know each other.

Really cool people are in a lot of stores. When we see members of our community as contributing to our lives then that instills in the next generation a perfected sense of what it is to be ALIVE TOGETHER. I know its really hard and alot of people are suffering from technological addictions. One of the creators of Facebook just released an article talking about how when they were creating it they talked about how to get people literally addicted, not just to use their product but to need it and not be able to live without it, as is the nature of addiction, destroy other facets of their lives, especially relationships, in order to go more fully into the virtual world of friends for solace.

So as we all face our addictions, and we all have them, make sure your addictions bring you closer and closer to happiness and to real life. That you interact with your world in a healthy way, get you thinking and creating and at the end of the day you have something to show for the energy you put into breath.

Get to know people. Use their name. Hi. How are you? See them everydy. Hello. Terry it is very nice to know you. Oh, this is your daughter, I met her on the Edwards Crossing bridge. She plays cello how cool that we all come here so often and get to meet and be friends.

I mean shit, when one of my friends daughters needed a training bra she came over to me, "Aunty? I have to tell you something"
"Yes?" 11 year old Rosie on the brink of maturation and blossoming.
"My breasts are rubbing on my shirt."
"Do you need a bra?"
"Yes."
"Well, why don't you tell your mother? She's super cool. She would love to hear something like that from you."

Could not. Could not! You guys don't forget that shit. We perceive ourselves to be really cool but the parental dynamics are still there. They can't talk to us sometimes. They need outsiders. We all need outsiders. That's really important because as we bring people into our inner sanctum, into our very private worlds we need to remember that we are there to support their family's prayer, not to come up with our own.

For example, I remember a married couple in Tahoe. Very beautiful people who will hand out the love manual to anyone who comes to work for them, their job application is blank so you can show them who you are. But they took people in. They are the best. I remember them saying that, "If you are going to be hanging around us..." and they have known each other since they were 16 and they have made no exception always chosen each other no matter how difficult and it was difficult for them, "we are married and no matter what we are going through, no matter how it looks from the outside, the stories, we have committed to stay. " That's what they said. "We expect you to give us advice to have thoughts and energy that reinforces taht and if not, we can not be friends."

So for people who don't know what the tenents of the Native American Church are, it is charity, family and the other two...I don't know. I'll have to ask Ken. He's really into it. I'm actually a yogini with a medicine family heart. I can talk to you about yoga, and union and God, spiritual studies, laying hands, imperical systems for the rest of my life, its what I love.

So, in accord with my own belief systems I would like to let go of anything holding me back from what I love. Its the right thing to do. I just try to do the best that I can. When I don't understand I breathe. I go for long walks in Nature. I jump in freezing cold water. I do sun salutations. I do one posture for 30 minutes in varying degrees. I set weird goals I can't seem to reach. I can do hanumasana but I can not yet touch my foot over my head. Handstand? Fucking difficult but I keep struggling with it. I struggle.

Life is pretty good. I believe in sacred geometry and indigos healing addictions and embodying their true mastery and remembering that they came here to be teachers and healers for a new paradigm. We agree to unite in rainbow tribes from varying thoughts patterns and ethnicities.

I believe in the children and the next generation setting things straight for me. I am really grateful to them for being here, for coming. I believe in us. I believe in our ability to transcend any pain and suffering that we perceive or experience in human condition because that's what we came here to do.

We came here to call God's attention to human beings. Hey, God, this is why humans can't get it together. This is what they are going through and this is what the experience of it is. You gotta come into these hearts of ours, please. We are a little bit insane and we are the ones who love you and want the best for this earth and humanity. So you gotta help us out because we are the ones that are supposed to help eternity, as in assure the future of a humane race of beings who look out for God's little precious loved ones.

So, anyways, just enjoying a really beautiful 84 degree October day at the river, right before I go to Mexico to lay hands, reconnect, dance, give my love to the whales on their way to Momma Maui who has really done her work on my navel qualities refined, victim mentality and one on one relationships. Summoned to my last tipi in honor of Uncle Johnny and in behalf of Lloyd Raymond Buehl, who dared to, for half and hour during an ayahuasca ceremony do the muslim blessing.

All praise all glory goes to god. All praise all glory goes to god. All praise all glory goes to god.

And for anyone who says half an hour is too long, I would offer that it isn't enough. And to Lloyd and Lisa on the side of the hill in Ulapalakua watching the sun set and tending their garden I would like to say, "Thank you for doing it every second of your life. I appreciate you. Thank you for choosing love. Thank you for embracing us crazy rainbow hippies wandering the island for 10 years."

Thank you Shiner and Kara may your children be blessed. I wanna thank my greater community there. Paula with Lou Gerriggs desease who reminds me that sometimes really shitty things happen to beautiful devout people.

“May all these prayers go out into the sea
May the moon comfort thee
and the sun shine on your face wherever you be.”

Remembering Jai and Jericho and their prayer for their children. To their prayers I add a hope that the next generation be:

Finanacially responsible, businness minded with entreprenural capabilities, that they are educated with skills, confident, clear heart centered communicators dedicated to a path of love and forgiveness, that they be able to remember the best things they can put in their mind, that their bodies be free of all infirmities and their hearts of all sadness.

Song from when I was a Jehovah's Witness came through:
"Can you see, with your mind's eye, peoples living together?
Sorrow has passed, peace at last,
No need to weep or fear.

Sing out with joy of heart.
You too can have a part.
Live for the day
When you'll say
Life without end at last."

Ok. So that last line is infused with dogma but the song itself gave way to a prayer:

Thank you for purifying my heart and aligning my moral code
due
North

That's right my elders
because they have seen some shits.
Mostly patterns of behaviors
different costumes
same same but different

Also, I've seen them do some shit.
Same same but different
than doing it myself

Jumping spirit horses in my mind
galloping towards setting sunds and prairie fields
golden light rising in rays
as remembrance held in a dandelion seed

Making wishes come true
sailing seas
magic wands
princess skirts
bumble bees
and chicken coops

My friends children telling me about fairies
they are being born
crystallized joy
impeturbability

Expanding minds body and spirits
Opportunity to grow in experience
And skill
healthy sexual relatinships with loving partners

You may not have children but you may want to think ahead. Meet mother to mother. Hey, how about lets pray that the next generation have clear insight a sense of morality willingness to make mistakes and learn from them power of observation forgiveness to overlook minor slights allowance with healthy boundaries the ability to stand up for yourself and the understanding whats best for the long run, desire to see others happy, inner stability to be happy no matter what, deep feelings with focus on the best case scenario.

Grown up deciisons. They are really humbling but they start to add up.

One happy ending at a time. That's all it takes. One happy ending heals the past. Reconcilation. Heart to heart. Face to face. Eye to eye. Between me and you, only one thing matters. The future.

Women in Native American communities have been producing art intertwined with spirituality, life, and beauty for centuries. In fact, the health and beauty of a community is based on the words and spirit of the strongest women in the circle.

In circles where gossip is proliferated by the women, it is said that they are weaving a black web. This is especially true in communities where medicine wheels, fires and sacred medicine is being shared. There is an opening of hearts that makes the cords between individuals stronger and more powerful. As in, you are family indegenous style. What that means in my family experience is that your heart will hurt literally if your brother father sister mother are hurting. In family my family relation we have to fix things because it is like a vice grip between us when we aren’t ok. It’s like a kink in hose. We know when something has happened to one of us, it’s called only family the lucero grapevine. It happens psychically energetically and emotionally.

If you are coming into a tipi, my first uncle brother in San Antonio said sitting in this fire pit makes you adopted family. We will be forever connected by the fire. If there are any problems between us it will make us ill. Please commit to the fire and each other. If you can’t commit to healthy relationships, please leave.

It is possible to create a great deal of destruction and to proliferate victim mentality as well as diseased conditions where there are heart cords that are not being healed. In communities where ceremonies are being run without elders or without those who come from a strong family lineage, as in a grandma with a chancla who, sick of hearing about abuses, divisions, and accusations, would quite literally with a shoe in one hand and the other on an ear force the two opposing parties into a witnessed circle wherein the community could hear and unravel the web of lies, confusion, anger and sadness that was breaking down love and family relations.

In communities with elders, wherein love is the dominating force, disharmony and diseased reactions were seen to be a priority and would not be allowed to continue. Stories and heresay, would require that both parties stand before the fire, cedar bag in hand, and voice the very words it is easy to say through the grapevine but not face to face. I have sat in two day ceremonies because wrongs were not being addressed and the meeting wasn’t over until the cause of disease were brought from the web of darkness, the cancers of community, into the light where they could be thrown in the fire and healed. That’s called throwing cedar.

i have sat in healthy tipis with brother who stood across from the fire and each other and cried expressing how the had hurt each other and watched it end in embraces and reconciliation. This is called healing relations. It’s the whole pint of the circle not popularity, not money, not praise. Healing and community as in all together all one all equal.

Sometimes wrongs are perceived and easily corrected within us in which case no words are needed. However, where others have been involved and black energy is magnified by tarish entities feeding on pain and suffering and sticky web like substance which can sometimes connect inside tissues and create disease spiritual emotional and physical manifestations through the community will become apparent in time. Hidden agendas prayers of condemnation and black magic are the reasons many tribes stopped sitting together and inviting outsiders because in an open state it can be extremely dangerous. Playing with medicine is not a child’s game.

From an outsider perspective, and as a healer in a community of 30 something's that have taken the lead as teachers, I would recommend that all come together, not only for the inner circle to heal, address, and correct wrongs, as is a major platform for the Hawaiians in ho'opono'opono and also Native cultures.

The giving of power to the darkness is the hiding away of words, stories and intentions. The words whispered in secret have an extremely harmful effect on those of whom the words are spoken and in time on the ones speaking especially if the facts are twisted and one sided.

This is not a small matter. In one small Mexican community where I have poured sweat lodge, I have had feelings expressed to me in private that were addressed in the sanctity of lodge. As in I outed all the women to each other and gave them an opportunity to express their feelings and to remind them that their energy is better spent coming together than breaking apart. The result is a more unified healthy happy community with less addiction and depression.

Also, as a high school teacher, whenever there were "warring" factions, it was our responsibility as teachers to gather together the very people at the core of the disharmony and all their latchkeys, in order to break down barriors and address wounds that existed inside of each person so we could then heal the individuals and the communities.

This is no small task. It requires great courage to speak face to face, to relinquish our victim mentality and actually allow healing to take place in perception or in actual.

For this, I would say, it requires actual leaders, elders, and teachers who are more interested in the long run than the immediate. It requires people to take their place as healers not as instigators, and it requires that all parties have witnesses that is witnesses to testify to the character and story being presented with the desired outcome being health, happiness and true peace.

In ceremony, I have observed what the Bible refers to as "tickling of the ears" of leaders. In imbalanced communities, the elders, teachers, and leaders will be so taken by their egos that words of praise, flattery and expensive gifts will not allow them to address concerns, issues or problems. In fact those things will be repressed for the sole purpose of niceties and the appearance of joy to proliferate and the "good feeling" becomes just as big an addiction as the drugs, alchohol, sex issues that are not being discussed.

In fact, in communities wherein money and popularity are themselves addictions many of the underlying knowings, pains, and wounds of the community members will be pushed aside, ignored, and those people be made to feel that they are lacking in spirituality, not evolved enough, or just not giving themselves over to love.

In reality, all the most important, intimate relationships of my life have been the most difficult, required the most amount of heart to heart, and have infected/healed the circles around me.

For this, I am willing to say that in relation to current events, that is the widespread victim mentality of women and the villanization of men, I would like to offer a few stories of my own. That is to say, I too have allowed myself to be objectified, utilized and been a willing participant of the sexualization of both the yogic and medicine communities.

When I was in my early 30's, I remember having women friends in their 40's who were vehemiantly opposed to pornography, stripping, and objectification of women. I, having just come out of a repressed religion and being friends with mostly males, never really understood the impact of these things on male female relationships until now.

What I have observed about festival culture has been from the periphery, as I was always too busy caring for aging and dying relatives to attend. What I saw happening, though, quickly infiltrated my spiritual communities as the younger women who had come into the knowing of sexual power began to flaunt their sexual prowess at sweat lodges, flirting and making advances on my sweat lodge firekeeper. That proliferation continued.

As the years passed I began to see the way yogic mastery shifted not from egolessness but to full on external focus from yoga pants, to photography, and the mastery of being young and beautiful. Any discussion of the loss of spirituality in the community made by those who craved to be desired, famous, or powerful flock to their teachers who took the attention and prosperity with open arms and wolvish smiles, that I now see as a sign of one about to devour its prey.

I aging, by that time, long into my practices tried for a moment to keep up until I realized that I would rather find a new line of work than lose my spiritual practice for a photo shoot or adoration. I became unbalanced in the opposite direction, taking almost nothing for myself, losing a sense of myself, and relinquishing relationships, communities and connection.

This even happened inside the sweat lodge where I had once held cedar and prayed for healthy relationships for everyone in attendance, I saw that my humility and the hurt in my heart over addictions and money grabbing was not only not heard or accepted but almost made me an object of hatred. I watched as the teachers who had taught me either fell into deep depressions, became very ill, or worse were consumed by anger at trying to preserve native teachings and ways that had more to do with the heart than with creating connections for black market gains.

I watched as the "medicine men" flocked to the 20 somethings who came baring their bellies and chests, who then began the climate of older women baring their chests and bellies who then claimed to have found their power and who allowed sexuality to then become a door to attraction and in the process objectification and willing participation in the liasons that I now believe in retrospect to be causing alot of pain.

Both sexes are to blame.

I remember after leaving one medicine community where I was holding space and running lodge and where topless trimmer girls led to my partner at the time expecting and almost demanding it of me, and the internal struggle I had to want to hold him close and the fear of losing him that made me run around in undies topless in order to be free and the way I realized I would lose him to hoola hooping girls no matter what I did because that had become the sign of the times.

I did give myself over then to hoola, usually as my friend and ally who I would roll for children, but I lost my softness after that experience. I closed my heart to marriage, children, love for a couple of years delving into my sexuality, tantra, open relationships, multiple partners, and then finally giving way to abstinence and observation.

Had these things made me more evolved?

I remember my first open relationship was with a man who had circled my ex-partner and I always with a gleam in his eye and the sexual tension between us creating a rise in my energy that in my aging years and, feeling rejected by my new partner's desire for an open relationship, led to me reaching out to him not just for sex but for friendship which I thought years had cultivated.

My first experience with open relationship was that the opening of my legs and the acceptance of his advances led to the closing of his heart. In an effort to make sure I KNEW he didn't love me, he showed me pictures of his girlfriend's ass and ignored me for the rest of the evening. He being someone I had sat in ceremony, it took years to address the dilemna and tell him that he loved me more before than after and I challenged him to look me in my face and feel my heart.

Is this man still my friend? What is friendship? What is relationship?

To my credit I have amazing relationships with heartcentered committed monogomous men, that is to say my father, uncles, nephews and brothers have taught me attraction without sex and I know love and healthy relationship.

Is that man now my brother. He is. I speak truth to him. Sometimes he hears me.

Coming out of a two year relationship and entering into a community who claims to sit with the fire, my dating process has been eye opening. I have had sisters tell me before that they felt their sexual partners, usually hook ups, were just "looking for a hole to put it in." I never understood what that meant until recently.

It has caused me to pause again. What has been the effect of self-objectification, sexualization, dominatrix, untamed desire and lust?

One of my first experiences was with a man who ties drum for tipi claiming to carry the heart of the ceremony and also saying he is a tantric yoga teacher. To say the least my communication to him afterwards was that if he wanted to learn the basics of tantra that is to say, eye contact, breath synchronization and perhaps a kiss I would be happy to assist him back to union with divine love and an understanding of what living with heart really is..that is to say a medicine man or woman heals hearts.

Who we portray ourselves to be is all important. Not wanting intimacy is a choice, claiming, however, to carry the medicine and spirit of practices that are meant to connect us and not being connected or connecting is spinning a black web around practices meant to heal hearts.

None of us are angels. Anyone who knows me knows I have had demons and spun black webs that created heart pain but the medicine and strength of my heart my ancestors my guides have forced me to sit with literally sit with until it’s fixed and return to those places of pain until the actual occurrences and story of my relationships were addressed and corrected.

It has taken me decades in some cases and if I can lend my wisdom to others, man or woman, it is to deal with your pain as soon as it arises otherwise the cancerous tumor solidifies and becomes a sort of truth with its own life and then you aren’t in control anymore. The web spreads itself. Containment is in dislodging the original seed of untruth and retelling it courageously. Its taking the very connections that make us all one and emptying lies and deception so that truth and clarity can rise again.

I learned from this. Had a deep self inquiry with this. And after my experience with this man I had choices.

​Did I black ball him? Did I spread gossip?

At the very least I laughed for two days about a moment I called He-man, at the most for two days after that I cried deeply into my contracted heart and connected with my own self-worth. It was the first experience I ever had that did not have love or friendship. In that experience I felt that what is magnetic with love and a tango of push and pull, without love is a form of violence. But I looked into myself as a participant and I was willing. At certain points I was unsure and in a final moment I have the freedom at any moment to stand up and stop.

There was no coercing, there was no actual violence, no struggle...just the unvoiced one inside of myself. Did I have need when I arrived? I did. Was it satiated by that empty experience? It was extremely unfulfilling and led to my second sexual encounter without love which was less body contact than I had ever experienced which led to me finally understanding, yup...that is what it means to just need a hole. And for women who have endured that more than twice, lo siento, I feel for you. I really do. It was absolutely heart breaking but I will survive and you will too. And for those of you who have only known this, may you know more than an empty possession.

No body contact. No eye contact. No breath. No hands. No kissing. No thank you.

I bought a paddleboard. Found bliss on the lakes examining the shores and falling in love and refilling myself white tantra style with god moments and tunes into my soft animal the purr of my inner kitty in nature. The practice has been soft. Softer has been my prayer. Feminine. Love. Patience. And days during ovulation when I could bite myself from the desire building inside of me I run I do yoga until I pass out masterbate but now know without love there’s no fulfillment. I don’t compromise that inside myself which isn’t easy but the alternative has proven worse than longing and lonely.

Which is to address now women in their mid thirties midlife hormonal crisis. I am so glad to be in my 40’s I remember that time. It was like a mini death and I even remember giving my lovers ultimatums and deadlines on lifetime decisions before the dating process was even underway. I address this because I see unhealthy women’s circles with extreme power in crisis and feeling victimized by men who care for them but don’t want to get married or have children especially two months in. I’ve seen them get black balled, villanized and left groups gossiping about them declaring how could he and getting angry at me for suggesting everyone including men have the right to decide a person is not for them. Which is easy to decide when a woman desperate for relationship choosing a man who she then decides she will micromanage demasculinate and control and then be baffled that love isn’t flourishing. A black web of emotionally abusive women can result and in the retelling of the story from a victimized stand point that might seem justified but truly, no one belongs to us.

So addressing what I discuss in tantric groups which is say sexual liberation. I want you each to realize, sexual liberation has nothing to do with how many partners you have had overall or at one time, your willingness to try anything, your performance, your porno body but rather it comes from being liberated from others concepts repressed or unbound and no longer allowing them to make the very personal connection only you can make with your heart your body your soul with another who is in agreement with whatever it is you are asking for at that moment and walking away if they don’t want what you want or their actions and energy don’t match words.

Sexual liberation is found in safe containers and to partners ive had who claimed to be sexual healers, I have explained only your very own sacred space is healing. That is to say what happens between a man and a woman is between them and it takes a lot of emotional maturity wisdom and courage to speak nakedly between you and if you can’t then that person is not the right partner for you to be in relation with in life let alone bed. This is what it means to own your body own your experiences own your agreements be kind to each other. It is possible to recognize our own attachments and be aware that the other person is not reaponsible for things not going according to your expectations but they are responsible for their contracts and agreements at soul level.

It is possible to evaluate a situation and realize it is damaging you without ascribing the worst possible vocabulary to express and gain support for your pain. Rather it may be in time you will have an experience similar to my own, that is to say that after my first sexual experiences without love I was brought into my deepest heart wherein I was able to finally receive how much I have been loved In Partnership that didn’t result in babies and marriage. Now that I am beyond that age of being controlled by my hormones I am able to steadily and quietly understand many things in private in reflection that I was too emotional to comprehend. In fact from a more removed stand point I am better able to receive their feedback and improve relations. A dear friend of mines who’s husband passed away after more than 30 years of marriage told me once, “Zonia, it wasn’t all roses romance and love. We went through all the faces of male female relationships I felt used by him disrespected emotionally isolated and so did he but we knew love we held love we committed to love so we worked back to it and sometimes it took longer than others.”

Love and intimacy is no fairytale. I have had the best relationships and seen the worse sides of male and female had them duel had power shifts blame and reconciled with them all.

In many instances they were right to call me on my obstinacy controlling and victim mentality and my willingness to address this continues to heal me in ways beyond my belief and comprehension. I learned not to just tell but to hear and I am still learning. That is true love and I truly love and appreciate them as my most intimate teachers. Thank you beloveds for shaping me into the woman I am today.

To be sure love is the driving force that makes connection magic. The web that exists between us are the heart cords that make up the flower of life planet. If we want the spirit of God of meaning to proliferate our communitites, the energy we send out along those cords is all important. If we are going to try to be people of heart, if we are going to try to let love rise again, we are going to have to talk to each other, listen to our hearts, and be clear, not only with ourselves but with others. At a soul level for the planet itself we need to remember union yoga medicine Heart is really about true joy not one that masks and ignores the most difficult experiences in life but actually brings them to he surface not just to cry about them but to try to make amends.

How do we heal hearts? How do we bring women back to love? How do men humble themselves to women again not as servants and villans but as the romantic who comes baring flowers and how do the women of the communities learn how to let their healing waters flow and forgive?

One heart at at time. One silk thread at a time. One story at a time. One moment at a time. One conversation at a time and with courage may we begin to collect the black web that is creating sickness of heart mind and spirit so we can throw it into the fire as an act of love for the collective so that all our beauty may shine and so that our communities can live in health and thrive once again.