earth dancing...

Earth dancing…

Six years ago I invited a South American ceremonialist to act as dance chief for the san pedro long dance. The san pedro long dance is a combination of the long dance brought to us by Beautiful Painted Arrow, a North American native visionary, and the South American curenderismo/vegetitalismo practice that came to Miguel Kavlin a student of Beautiful Painted Arrow and the dance chief for the ceremony. It was Miguel’s vision, to bring this ceremony to people combined with the teaching and practices of South American shamans. (A brief write up of this ceremony and photos of our long dances can be viewed here *san pedro long dance* See also this write up on Joseph Raels other ceremonies from this interview with his brother Benito Rael )
We are the land dancing.
We live a life of prayer, of reverence for the land,
a life of ceremony,
so that we may stay alive
and connected to god.
God is present in the land:
the soil, the sky, the clouds,
the seasons, the climate.
And we are part of that design.
Joseph Rael

People make a four-year commitment to the ceremony. It is hard but rewarding work and it put me into some very amazing places in my life, lesson after lesson, healing and empowerment. Never once during this four-year commitment to the dance did I ever once pick up a book of Beautiful Painted Arrows also known as Joseph Rael. I knew very little about him, just that he was Miguels teacher and Miguel was mine. I was therefor very surprised after my four year commitment to dance to find that many of the insights that came to me in my life during this four year period, both during the actual long dance and during the year long integration of my experiences that went on in-between dances.
What I discovered from his book Ceremonies of the Living spirit was in away a very real confirmation of not only the work I had done but also the work that needed to be done. Much of what I discovered through this work was very close if not exactly what I read in his book after words. I feel in away that bioregional animism is taking Beautiful Painted Arrows work and visions into the future.
Beautiful Painted Arrows work if entirely focused on inspiration. He is a visionary who has brought through his vision’s ways for people to find the source of spiritual inspiration by going directly to the source. He does not teach the ways and traditional ceremonies of his own people but the ceremonies themselves are inspired by his people as well as spiritually focused people all over the world. This is one of the attitudes that these ceremonies hardwired into my soul. I refuse to be something I am not. I refuse to culturally appropriate another cultures traditions. It is contrary to the actual spirit of animism itself.
Animism is focused on the establishment and maintenance of intimate living relationships between humans and the other than human persons they are one with on a physical and spiritual level…I say “we are one with” because as I have learned from the long dance and syncronisticly what I have learned from Beautiful Painted Arrows books, we are merely an expression of the earth and sky we, as the bioregionalists say, live within. Each piece of land, each bioregion teaches a way to live as one with it and all of its expressions, we only being a small aspect of it. Another amazing thing I learned from the long dance and later learned from Beautiful Painted Arrows books is that even the language of a native people, they’re ways, even they’re bodies are an expression of the earth and sky they live within. I must admit that having had these insights myself during the long dance and during my integration periods and then reading these words in his own words was to say the least extremely humbling.
In this way of perceiving oneself, as an expression of ones bioregion or the land and sky one lives within, then one begins to sense the futility of emulating a tradition from another land, its counter intuitive to say the least and reflects the feelings of many indigenous people around the world. ‘Go find your own way’ they tell us, hopefully it will honor the earth and all life! But what are we to do if we are modernized western humans, plucked from the earth honoring traditions of our forefathers severed by the history of imperialism and war. The simple teaching of Beautiful Painted Arrow is I think a very good answer to that question. Become inspired! We can learn from the remaining earth honoring traditions by not imitating them or appropriation but by using their beautiful living examples to inspire new ways of living as one with all that is.

Before ever picking up a book on bioregionalism I started using that term to describe what I was learning and, I began expressing a new way to live my life as an expression of the land I lived as one with. Bioregionalism I would later find through reading Kirkpatrick Sales excellent book Dwellers Within the Land was exactly as I had been thinking of it. Many of the insights that had come to me were nearly identical to what I learn were the main points and focus of bioregionalism. I began telling people when asked what my religion was that my religion was an expression of the land, of the Cascades and more specifically the small area within the Cascades that I live within. I began finding new ways of living my life ideas for sustainable living. I began to understand that shamanism and animism we ways of working with the earth not using it. I began to realize that what was really needed was a way to discover this for themselves.
During a visit with a very good friend of mine and shaman in New Mexico, who had started setting up the ceremonies with me, my friend pulled me aside and handed me a hawk feather. He instructed me to go home and teach people about the importance of communion. I went home and contemplated this holding the hawk feather from time to time. Working with in healing ceremonies I was leading from time to time with the plant teachers. I began to realize that if people could begin to communicate with their bioregion and the other than human persons they share their bioregion with then we could begin to rebirth the earth honoring ways that have been lost. They could begin to develop the necessary tools they needed to being to make the appropriate changes this world so desperately need.
Once we begin to commune with our bioregion and our other than human neighbors we can begin to develop co-creative strategies with nature. Giving up our delusions of a dead world, and our systems of control and domination, our labeling of living intelligent beings as resources, stepping stones for our own anthropocentric self interest, we can start to really live again, take our place among our family members not above them.

I have always been heavily drawn to the work with entheogenic or psychoactive plants, which some indigenous people have embraced through out the world. It has become my way, and in a way has become an amazing symbol to me of the nature of shamanism and of my own work. The mere idea of ingesting a type of plant that can provide a deeply spiritual form of awareness and interconnectedness with all life. The concept of power plants or plant teachers has shown me just how possible it is to work with nature as nature, just how possible it is to commune with an other than human person, whether it be the plant ingested or the spirits of other plants, animals, places and forces of nature. The transpersonal and intuitive states of awareness these plants provide are truly amazing.
But due to the legal ramifications of this work in the world today and the social and cultural intolerance towards working with these plants, I have had to learn from these plants and from the other than human persons I share this world with other ways to facilitate the sensitivity needed to communicate with our other than human relations. I would argue that each bioregion or georegion gives what is needed to provide this sensitivity and methods of communication so that. This shows for the diversity of indigenous shamanism as well as the perceptual and polyphasic diversity in indigenous people. Each piece of land giving its people a way to live as one spirit, each bioregion providing ways of altering ones state of consciousness to assist in engaging in positive life affirming communication and relationships. Whether it be dreaming practices, self deprivation, pain induction, breathing techniques, trance possession, saunas, dance, or the ingestion of mind altering plants…just to mention a few! Each bioregion and or georegion provides multiple ways of assisting people in living within its amazingly beautiful and ever changing living intelligent systems.
We can start by introducing ourselves to our natural surroundings and the beings that form and inhabit those surroundings. Breathe deeply, relax, especially your breathing and the muscles in your chest. Hold your chin slightly up so the flow of air can move clearly from your lungs to your vocal cords, let your words reverberate in your chest where your lungs and heart lay, speak from your heart. Show respect to those that live around you like you would respect an elder. Indeed we are a young species on this plant, a new arrival; all of our other than human neighbors and the very sky and earth itself is our elder. Open up a conversation with your other than human relations. Let the words flow from your heart, allow your rational mind to simply guide the words, not control them, holding the intention in your mind to just open up a line of communication with your other than human relations, even the wind, rivers, stones, even the cardinal directions.
The next and most important thing is to be open and responsive to what happens next, to listen with the heart as well. In other words to feel as well as hear what might be communicated to you. The world is always speaking to us. Not always in words we recognize or in a language we understand. This is why when we find our selves in this situation we learn the language. You can start by asking to be taught the language of the land or you can be more specific and direct your questions to someone in particular. Say a cedar tree or the wind. Ask it how to speak its language, ask it to teach you. Become friends with this other than human person, maintaining the same respect you would have in a new interaction with any human person. This other than human person will perhaps not speak to you verbally ( though it is quite possible) but it may speak to you using your own thoughts or the wind may blow into your face, pay attention to any thing that happens to you, anything! As I mentioned the world is always communicating to us within any form of sensory stimuli you can possibly imagine! If you allow your self to open a relaxed inner dialogue, for instance, you may here words in your minds ear. They may form sound by sound until something start to make cognitive sense. Or as in the poem called Inspiralment my friend expressed, they may form in the sounds of a new language. New to your ears but it may be the language of the bioregion in which you live within, you may feel the syntax or meaning of these words or you may ask for a translation of the words you here in your minds ear.
One day on the Oregon coast in the fall i was hunting for psilocybe mushrooms during a short break from the long drive down the winding coast. I wasn't feeling very lucky that day, so I asked a couple of Crows lurking on some drift wood, just in the way I described above. "Crow show me where the mushrooms are!" I asked.
The crows instantly flew to a patch of grass on the periphery of the beach near some drift wood. One Crow sat there on the patch of grass as I walked up to it. The Crow sat on a small mushroom patch, not moving an inch as I approached her. I picked a mushroom and inspected it. It was not the mushroom I was looking for. To the Crow I complained "Crow this isn't the kind I am looking for!"
The Crow looked up at me cawed a few times and flew away. In my heart and head I just knew by the sound and body language of this black tricky bird that it told me in those caws and actions..."Hey it's not my fault you weren't more specific! Better luck next time! Latter!"
This was the first time I spoke from the heart to another other than human person ( it might have been the first time to any person!) I was so surprised by what had happened, but it made so much sense it felt right. We all know this feeling. When something just feels right, meant to be, familiar. The big "of coarse that just happened" feeling.

My intention here is not to persuade you into believing something, not at all actually. I really just wish to inspire you to consider what I have said. To try it out! Prove it to your self! Anything is possible and what do you have to loose, besides the feeling that you may have allies in living a better life and changing this world into a place where life, all life can thrive, heal and be well...well I suppose that is something you can loose, but really it is something that has already been lost. So i suppose you just might have something to gain, in just exploring this as a possibility.


Inspired by Beautiful Painted Arrow, his student Miguel Kalvin, the san pedro long dance, indigenous people every where, my ancestors, good friends such as Light Heart, Sphere, Tom Chases Tail, Sazascka, Callie, Heron, Two Hawk, Mariri, Lazy Snake, plant teachers, free form chemicals or Crystal Mind Expressions, my family and loved ones, the Great Mystery, those who have healed with me and through our collective efforts and allies within my bioregion I have received some ceremonies of my own... which would like to share with you very soon. As well as other ceremonies and methods that propel ones roots deeper into the bioregion we live within. This will emerge soon enough...