MUSINGS FROM THE SHAMANIC PATH

I’m sitting at home listening to the rain tonight, and I wonder how much it will help the grotto in La Tuna Canyon, part of the Santa Monica Conservatory up by Sunland.  I went for the first time a couple months ago and I was shocked at the level of graffiti.  Living in Southern California, there’s always a rock or two that gets tagged by a freeway,  but La Tuna Canyon was as bad as some neighborhoods in central LA or Compton.  Practically every other visible tree and stone had been tagged over with a variety of colors, and I could feel the energy of the land laboring under a layer of casual maliciousness. (In the picture below, all the white on the grotto wall is paint, not bird shit or the rocks themselves.)

My first instinct (like many others, I suspect) was to turn around and go somewhere else that was less discordant and painful.  However, in that moment of decision, my guides pointed out that the land needed people to give love back to it.  The very act of staying, witnessing, and sharing my energy was a healing act of power in and of itself.  The land hadn’t given up trying to heal itself, but the more people gave up on it, the harder it had to labor.  So I walked around, took pictures, channeled in energy, and hiked up the trail.  I kept thinking to myself, “This is a pretty steep climb.  Surely, no one would really want to bother to lug their spray cans up this hill, would they?  It’s half a mile up.”  And then I’d see a tagged tree or rock here and there.  

In my time working with at-risk youth, I remember we had discussions about tagging, and the kids couldn’t see how it was a form of disrespect. Tagging was a way of delineating territory, leaving a mark, communicating a message — basically the human version of your dog or cat peeing all over the place — a primal way of communicating because other avenues of expression are cut off. It wasn’t until the question was posed, “And would you do this in your mother’s kitchen?” that the kids finally saw the disrespectful element.  

But most urban youth who grew up in the city are not usually comfortable out in nature.  They may hang out at the local park, but a nature park is usually beyond their everyday experience and inspires some sort of appreciation, respect, or fear. For kids to be comfortable tagging every other rock and tree speaks to a disturbing new level of disconnection that we are creating in our youth.

What to do?  I’m not sure, but the question won’t let me go.  Crow landed on the sign just after I parked by the trailhead, so I figure it was a heads-up that this is my next project.  

The question about our disconnected youth is percolating in the back of my mind and will be for a while since nothing is coming together yet. At the forefront of my mind is the question, “How do you do ‘community clean-up’ in a grotto?”  Standard methods don’t make sense — yes, let’s sandblast paint off a tree and paint over the paint on a rock.  :P  I finally came to the conclusion that the actual clean-up of graffiti is up to nature and on Her timeline. Not that I haven’t been asking for rain — that’s why I’ve been so pleased that it’s rained a few times in the past month. The flux between heat and cold and wet and dry should help break the paint down faster.

My job is to support the land in healing itself.  Go back and visit, share energy, and bring offerings to the land and bury into the earth, if there’s need.  A few friends have offered to go back with me so they, too, can learn and share.  The grotto gives the sense that it was once a sacred space, and I would like to feel the land reclaim what it was once.

At the beginning of the year, I was called to work with a woman whose property is on the edge of what used to be a plantation in Southern California.  Her house is grand central station for a variety of spirits and shades from a variety of eras, many of whom are lost, unhappy, and/or trapped.  She is also the current guardian of a tree that was used to hang and lynch slaves; it is in pain from the trauma of its use and very tired because it has given succor and support to the murdered spirits and their loved ones for over 150 years.  I was initially called to heal the tree, but quickly realized that the tree and land can’t begin to heal unless the spirits they are sheltering find peace.

Given that I’ve NEVER wanted to work spirits of the dead, the preparation to do the work has been a challenging learning curve as I stepped into this year.  A few events made it clear to me that while I can open ways and work with spirits better than I had feared, I had a lot of work to do on myself to get clear and armor my spirit, part of which entailed creating talismans of power to protect my energy.  

Since I’ve always worn jewelry not for its looks but for its energy, it made sense to focus on making protective jewelry.  For once, my guides were unambiguous and very clear: “Bone. Not horn, hoof, claw, or teeth. Bone.”  Since I’ve always shied away from working with bone, I supposed they didn’t want any possibilities of misunderstanding.  As I’ve made my bone jewelry over the past two weeks, I’ve come to understand its protective role.  Unlike horn, hoof, claw, or teeth, which are implements to be used (and can double as weapons), bone simply IS.  It is the core of our physical beings.  When working with spirits and other energetic beings, the strongest protection we can have is to stand in our core.  If we’re not sure of ourselves, if we’re in conflict with ourselves, if we harbor shame, guilt, or doubt from this or past lives, that leaves an opening for other energies to hook in.  As I’ve made my jewelry, it’s forced me to confront myself and do my clearing work.  As a person who does not instinctively embrace change, I’m not loving the work, but I love who I’m becoming.

When making my jewelry, I felt it important to honor guides who share wisdom with me and are lending me their strength. The necklace above honors all the goddesses who have worked with me and has very feminine energy (no bone, but shell).  The bracelet honors Coyote, Raccoon, and Bobcat,  while the choker honors Water Buffalo, Deer, and Mother Earth.  Unlike most chokers, it is designed to be worn with the flower on the back of my neck, since that area (as well as the top of the head, hands/wrists and the waist area, I learned from a practitioner of Santeria) is a vulnerable point for spirits to hook into.  Since I had not one but two of my guides pressed up against the back of my neck when I first visited the haunted property, I figured I’d better guard the back of my neck WELL.  I’m still working on a few more pieces, and will post them when I’m finished.