Walking across the dry, parched concrete of the gas station. I stop, dumbstruck. In front of me, on the ground, in the forty feet between myself and our vehicle, the desert wind had made a dust devil, and it is dancing. Small particles, dry grass, and even some palm-sized duff are swirling in the whirlpool. Looking across it, I can see Feather's watching it too. Four minutes, five minutes, time seems to stop as this happenstance dance calls us in. Eventually, it moves across a small median; obviously, a semi-truck runs over it as it follows its way to the designated truck fueling area, just enough energy to disrupt and end that spontaneous, chaotic yet stable system. I walk back.

This was so mundane, yet felt so important, as if the ceremony we had only 18 hours before closed was echoing onward in unexpected and numinous ways (as they are known to do)…

It is now almost two weeks later, and the threads of these ceremonies are moving in me. Writing sometimes takes me across days, yet the pulse to share remains bright and also elusive.

Nina juaje sasa? (What do I know now?)

The evening light is dimming the sky, while the storm surges up, enveloping Mt. Sopris. I am sitting at the edge of our driveway gazing north, a cup of chai in my hand. The wind is dancing and the sky is pulsing pink deep in the clouds. The thunder is everywhere. Some rain falls, big gusts pushing in, though I can feel/see/experience the storm center is north of me a mile or so; I still have time. I am simply being, watching this magnificent storm make music of this valley and her high-rising mountains. The elusive lightning shows itself, triple tapping just west of the summit of Sopris. I feel the blessing, the unconquerable pulse of this lifeworld, the fire of the sky.

Just in front of me is waist-high yarrow in our wild north yard. Next to it, the earth greenery is still low from those sweet moments now almost three months ago when Feathers, myself, and the initiated teens circled up, pulled apart our backpacks, and cleaned our bear bins in preparation for that final hike to the threshold of community by the river in downtown Redstone. I remember those moments so clearly, knowing what they didn't: that so close by their families and friends waited to meet their clear-eyed, wild, and initiated Selves. I remember how grateful I was to be given this front-row seat at the altar of human transformation.

Today I find myself worried about embodied trauma, the edge space between ahimsa and potent love, and the moral middling confusion of overlapping spheres. I have been a peace activist for all of my adult life; yet how can I not understand and relate to those who stand up in defense of their homes, against invasions, against tyranny? I find this epoch of our world deeply confusing, painfully so, and call out in my prayers to those deep mystics who walked that line…

what we will fight for

where we will surrender for

and all that lies between

Sitting now in-sheltered from the wild rains, tea cold and mostly within, surrounded by bookshelves of theory, and the photographs and symbols of a life devoted to meaning, I can see now that nothing in any book had prepared me for the great rupture that happened in my work life last summer. And yet, in such a profound way, it was the misattunement that called me home and into the great turning within.

The sky is turning pink, and Dao Moon huddles nearby as the symphony of thunder still vibrates our home. I take a little walk around our home: out some of our windows, the storm rages on; out others, blue sky and sunset light. Soon the quiet will come, the great yellowing will dance across the forests, and the snows that follow will forever bind these sacred footsteps into the soil of these vibrant hills.

What I carry with me now, into this changing of the light and emergence of the seasons, is this: I am a student of the ceremony and all who walk themselves into and through such potent endeavors. What I found in the basement, in the fertile unraveling, was just that: being a wilderness rite of passage guide is not about teaching; it is about apprenticing oneself to the ceremony and all who enter.

Deep bow

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tbird