March 2012

Wind, Waves and Weasel

Dear Friends,

I've more or less kept my nose pretty close to the grindstone, this past month, spending several hours a day, anyway, writing away at my manuscript in progress, that is an account of all my significant shamanic journeying experiences and how they have impacted my life. It is an interesting contemplation, to see these experiences, that ultimately span my lifetime, condensed into eighty or so pages.

It is interesting too, to contemplate the spaces in between these non-ordinary experiences, that comprise the ikdiena. Ikdiena is a Latvian word meaning “the ordinary daily scene”. Ikdiena is about the unavoidable activities necessary for the care of our bodies and supporting environments such as eating, sleeping, cleaning, cooking, brushing hair and teeth, using the toilet, cleaning up messes, caretaking our houses and properties, relating to intimate and daily contact persons, routines we use for digesting our lives and keeping ourselves functioning. I'm sure you get the idea.

Usually I write my communications to others, not in my ikdiena, from the perspective of my moments of heightened consciousness. I'm sure you are not interested, in a monthly communication, about how I slept last night or what the contents of my bowel movement looked like this morning.

None the less, they are notable occurrences in the ikdiena, and certainly things I would be concerned about in people sharing my ikdiena.

This month, I would like to share some little bits of my ikdiena with you, but not to worry, I am not going to describe the contents of my bowel movement to you. :)

The other night,

Laurie and I were cuddling on the couch, enjoying the warmth of the fire, and maybe there was a glass of blueberry wine in this scene, when a movement in the corner of the room caught my attention. Nothing there when I looked more carefully.

However, shortly, there after, a beautiful, little, white white furry, elongated body with a black tip on its tail, scurried into full view out from under the couch, across the floor, moseyed around and disappeared behind the laundry basket in the hallway. A young weasel had come for a visit!

The weasel stayed for several tours around the room, winking in and out of our sight, before it departed from which ever of the numerous holes in the floor it did so.

What an amazing sight! What beautiful snow white fur! What a sweet little creature!

I had never seen a weasel in the wild before, having seen them only in zoos.

But Laurie had a weasel in his dwelling before, when he lived in a cabin with his pet crow, that he cared for, that had been injured so that it was unable to live in the wild. He had a relationship with this weasel that he describes in his book, Black Spirit. However, he had not seen a weasel since that encounter and was as surprised as I was about the one, the other night.

Weasel must have been passing through, since it did not show up for another appearance.

This morning, at dawn,

wind blowing, howling, moaning, whistling, gusting,

making an amazing array of sounds.

Myself,

with restless energy,

unable to settle into any productive sort of activity.

Deciding instead, to drive to the ocean shore to watch the waves.

Turbulent water, white caps and white foam frothing onto the rocks, sand and seaweed.

My mind chatter ceases

as my observing awareness

occupies itself with the sights and the sounds of the scene here.