Quiet

"All things that have flowered return to their root. This returning to the root has a name: Quiet." Lao-tzu.

Have you ever noticed the relaxed, quiet afterglow that follows making love? All the senses have been stimulated, the endorphins are now rushing through the brain, and the deep sense of satisfaction hums through the aura. This is a "returning to the root". The same is experienced after spirit dance. Everything has built up to a climax and afterward there is a calm within and a connection with Spirit that glows all around us. We also get this effect from drumming circles and meditation. These things nourish our bodies and our souls. On the Wheel of Life, returning to the root would be the point of crossing over to the other side of the Veil of Existence until we reincarnate. This is also the experience that is promoted during the "shaman's death", which is the death of an old way of being and the birth of a new way of being that is actually primordially older than the way that we have just sluffed off. It is a return to the shamanic roots that exist in every culture and every race around the world. It is a connection with Nature and with the Divine, internally and externally.

Some have roots that grow deeper than others. This is not about "my people have been here longer than your people" and it is not about "Our ways are older and better than your ways." This is about working on returning to the root daily. Our personal backgrounds have little to do with our personal potentials. No matter what has forced us to bloom, we each have the capacity to deepen our connections.

Blessed Be

Trent
www.deerhornshamanic.com

The Bravest Among Us

Have you ever noticed how the bravest people among us are often those who appear to be the most fragile? I remember in school there was this kid who was always so pale and thin. He was picked on by many of the bullies. Having endured that sort of treatment myself, I knew that it wasn't an easy road for him. So I befriended him. In so doing I was risking getting the bejeebers beaten out of me again, but I figured that could possibly happen sooner or later anyway, so why not make a friend. He was not an easy cookie to crack. He was very shy, closed, private and sometimes, when he would actually talk, he would say things that would normally make a person say to themselves, "Screw it, I was only trying to be your friend and now you've blown it, so to heck with you!" But what he didn't know was that what he held inside himself in the form of pain, I held in the form of persistence. It took a good month and a half, but he finally opened up to me. We became good friends, but kept the friendship very private because he didn't want to connect with anyone else.

Why did he not want to connect with anyone else? Because he was dying. He had cancer. We all have our cross to bear and his was this disease that was eating away at his immune system and slowly killing him. He didn't live that long. In fact, I think it was less than a year and then I was at his funeral. This was very sad to me. Not because he died. It was sad because others in the world around him were mean to him. It was sad because he didn't feel safe enough to share things with others, sometimes myself included. It was sad because others didn't get a chance, in their ignorance, to see the tremendous strength and bravery that this young kid had. And then he was gone. The bullies went on with their lives and became more abusive as they went. The world kept turning and time kept moving right along. In some ways, if one were to not see more deeply into things, it was almost as though he had never existed. But for myself and certainly for his family, he still exists in our hearts. We got to see the brave soul that he was. We got to see the vibrant life that he had. We got to see the Light within every aspect of his being. And then, like a burned out star, he was no longer here on this earth for us to see.

He still visits me now and then. I am happy when I see him. He is ecstatic that I have grown to become who I am and to do what I do. He recently visited me and told me that his time to reincarnate was close at hand. Now, in spirit terms this could mean immediately or it could mean sometime in the next decade or so. But he is ready to take on the world again. I hope that I have the opportunity to meet him in his new form, whenever and wherever he decides to come back.

Blessed Be
Trent
www.deerhornshamanic.com