Awakened in Attunement with Nature--A Story of Juniper + Bare-Boned Fire
Tucked in groves of golden aspen and ponderosa, nearing the edge of autumn, Juniper arrived and joined the circle. Her presence was quiet, perhaps even a bit timid. We introduced ourselves sharing a bit about our orientation to this place and ceremony. Juniper elaborated on her familiarity with this place:
“I feel my life force already igniting again in the presence of this land. Until just a few days ago, I was unsure whether or not I would participate. Even driving here this morning, I asked my beloved, “do you think it’s a good idea?—I mean, do you think it is wise to go out of the land for 12 days, considering. . .”
He interrupted me and said, “Yes, considering everything—yes . . . Have you heard a strong yes yet, my love?”
I shook my head, “not yet. . . ”
"Stay with that not yet-ness for as long as you need. . .”
I haven’t felt many yes moments in the past few months, or maybe I haven’t really trusted them, but as soon as we pulled onto the forest service road, I remembered this place, beyond intellect, and my body . . . my body woke up with wonder—like entheos awakened from this place. My beloved and I began tracking back through meaningful moments we shared here with the natural world—remembering this place holding us during our first adult wilderness rite of passage, and playing in the creek the following summer, painting watercolors with the bright red flowers, praying with the trees, and the awe of encountering baby rattlesnake who showed no sign of defense in our presence. . . . and the sunrise . . . gah, there is just so much here—so much aliveness. . . and my body, since arriving, has been validating the felt sense of yes again”
Eight days later, the circle was buzzing with the faster’s vibrancy—having now returned with their awakened inner gifts.
“Tell what wants to be told now. You don’t have to capture the whole four days. Some parts are ripe, and some parts need more gestating. Whatever it is, your story is a gift to the people, to the land. Once you’re finished telling your story, we will offer a mirror.”
Each faster shared their story. Juniper’s story reflected ceremonies with Earth that enacted severance from imposed stories of 'not-good-enough' as well as cultivations of attuned, revitalized connections with Earth and herself.
Juniper’s story:
I felt exhausted the first morning. I remember witnessing a butterfly dancing through the circle. I felt myself contributing to land around me, and I layed down and listened to the bare earth. It was so quiet—a fruitful silence. I quickly fell sound asleep in the bright daylight. I awoke alone, empty bellied, and exposed in the aspen grove. Alone is actually imprecise; I was encircled by the kin of Aspen and Ponderosa. Throughout the rest of the passage of the morning though, I cried fevers of apprehension and loneliness. . . I really missed her.
I blew up my sleeping pad and made my bed, and I fell asleep again with tears pouring down my face and the cool wind caressing my cheek bones. Come the time I awoke, my burning tears had calmed. Something felt like it was really shifting inside of me, mirroring the edges of autumn all around me.
The arousal of the wind stirred through the valley, and I began to hear towering Aspens crack and thunder toward the ground. I felt anxiety begin to rush through my muscles. I allowed it to be there, and I watched the slow, steady, and delicately golden leaves quake, release, fall, and land on the ground for hours that morning. as whispering reminders to feel the dysregulated-response and the regulated repair. Later that afternoon, though, I began to wail again.
That night I watched the sunset from the eastern ridge. The sunlight in the west revealed thousands of insects, and flickers and sparrows knew just the right spot to land and spot them—their food. They were perched on the longstanding wooden forest service boundary posts and they conveyed their connections with subtle chirps. I expressed to Flicker and Sparrow that I was feeling lonely, and I asked if they were too. And then, because of the way the sunlight arced across the sky to the west, it illuminated the precise spot in the east where we had all landed, and the light polished their bodies in such a way that I could see and experience their own hearts beating inside of their bodies. It was so subtle, and yet so profound. I recognized that I love listening to and watching my own little family’s hearts beat. I love the sound of my beloved’s footsteps. And then a majestic shimmering form began to emerge and take shape in the formless space between the ground and the sky. I blinked my eyes several times in wonderment as I was witnessing this iridescently twinkling strand between my body and the sun take form.
Then I saw her. Her delicate and strong presence weaving in the middle of the sunset. Spiderwoman—weaving a web, a net, a guideline transcending long distances across the open grassy field.
Throughout that first night elk and my beloved visited my campsite—both as mysteries in flesh. I dreamt that as soon as I said yes, I was pregnant, and I found a spoon with the word dream on it. Then, I was intending to get into a spring, but accidentally went into the bathhouse because I didn’t know how to read. When I woke on day 2, I felt safe and secure. I spent the morning at my campsite witnessing the leaves fall and the birds sing. I watched the sun arc over the eastern ridge, I wept with delight. I felt something opening inside of me far enough that I could at least feel the warmth of sunlight into my bones.
I created a threshold and asked Earth to accompany me in going out on the land to embody the flow of joy, love, wonder, and sacred fire. I set out on a path toward the south. The arced sole of my foot spread open as I shifted contact from one bare foot to the other across the cold and bare river rocks along the dry creek bed. Along the way I skipped over rocks and allowed spontaneous sounds to emerge in the midst of finding balance between the hops. I stopped at some small pebbles in the creek and created a home altar with 6 pebbles on a rock, and I encircled it with aspen leaves. I continued following the guidance of the soles of my feet playing along the rocks of the dry creek bed and then I arrived at that seasonal spring-fed pond over there.
My perception recognized it was nearly frozen, but the ceremony, though, transcended the reality of ice— I needed to find the hidden fire again. I stripped bare, my nipples erect as if frozen air disrobed my skin to only feel the bare bones, and with one step and then another, I stood—knees bent, chest deep—In the center of the pond. My shoulder blades were like a cradle for my spine, my nervous system, repairing my relationship with water, flow, innocence. I splashed around and cleansed my face with the trickles of water—cleansing from stories of ‘not-good-enough’—and gasping each time the iced water touched my bare chest and throat. Then, I abruptly slipped beneath the surface and released. As I arose, a primal shrill emerged as a spontaneous response to the temperature: a piercing cry signaling that a new and separate life has begun. I layed on the warm pine covered shoreline and experienced life on land; yet, I knew I needed to submerge again through the near-iced surface to repair my inner fire. I moved gradually, titrating my limbs and spine to dip below the surface, and when my throat touched the water, I submerged all the way underneath, and exhaled it all out beneath the surface. As I emerged a deep thundering, yet delicately euphoric sounding blissfulness gushed through my skin from the inside out: restorying and carrying creative fire.
I felt invigorated on the walk back to my camp. I think I found her again in the water—the wonderous, playful, innocent spirit. When I got back to camp, I made a threshold altar, a circle of golden Aspen leaves—reflecting the relief of life-force I experienced underneath my skin. I layed on my belly and watched the Aspens sway the rest of that afternoon.
Juniper continued to share her story. On other days of her vision fast, she went toward the west and enacted a releasing ceremony to be liberated from the tugs of oppression and trauma—asking that the healing of this ceremony ripple out. She also enacted a ceremony with an intent to help free the lineages of all beings from oppression and stolen innocence by throwing rocks from a cliff and watching them break open, shouting for freedom. Finally, she asked Earth to accompany her in cutting the cords that keep any being tied to oppression and suffering, and in cutting the cord around her waist, she prayed they be untethered and heal.
At the bottom of the hill, she laid in the space where the broken boulders were and shook her entire body until it was all out. She knew she was ready to rise again when she said yes to regenerative life force. At her campsite she crossed back through a threshold and poured water over her naked body. That evening she went for a walk in the north and her body effortlessly responded to the wind, swaying and singing like the grasses and flowers. Along the way, she gathered sticks to make prayers for the people in our group, which she stayed awake and wove prayers in the dark. All at once, held in the wide-open valley, with the sunlight in the west making silhouette shadows of ponderosa every half mile, her body began to dance again from the inside.
There were many more pieces to Juniper’s journey that she shared in story council. What struck me was how clear her eyes were when she returned to basecamp on the 8th morning. She approached the threshold that morning running with her pack, wearing minimal clothing, and a smile as big as the mountains. A drastic difference from the timidness of her initial arrival. Her presence reminded me of a goddess who had gone into the cold dark underworld and healed and reclaimed the warmth, her inner fire and flow.
Mirroring the Essence of Juniper
As a guide, I listen, with receptivity, into the space that emerges from the gift of the story. I pick up a talking piece and mirror back some essential gems of Juniper’s story:
Communion with Earth has always been like this: a dancing bridge—an interconnected relationship of contact informing bareness toward the synchronous currents of water and fire. I hear the story of a woman who was encircled by pine needles and aspen leaves and a pond that was fed by spring, just before it’s winter freeze—who went back through the winter dreams to find the fire. This is a journey of a woman who naturally approaches life with wonder, reverence, and love, and in so doing, the aperture of her senses and her perceptions widens—the world is become inherently ripe with wonder and awe. She had to go back through the surface of nearly frozen to retrieve the larynx—the bridge that links the preverbal and verbal bodies back to one— encouraging the roots to exercise a revelation of voice, song, current—spoken and unspoken—as synchronous flow. A woman who loves the rhythms of her kin’s hearts. I know you really missed her—the wonderous playful inner child, the creative fire within—and she summoned you out here to go on the land, so you could bring her back. And she’s here now.
I see a woman who is unafraid to go into the dark and break the cycle of oppression and become a prayerful dance that revitalizes new, generative stories for Earth and the people. She is dreamed by the land in a way that helps restore a vitality of connection that is pregnant with meaning--a meaning that is food for life. The ascending and descending currents are interwoven as ceremony—transcending the perceived borders of ice, time, space, and the seen. The veils were thin out there, so much so that you could see into mysteries of liminality with that first descent of golden sunlight—spider woman, spinning silk from her abdomen—from her creative fire—to create the necessary and special threads to weave fibrous webs that connect across space and time. Becoming food. A ripe beginning—a crucible for melting the ore into gold, and indeed, an opening for the fibrous net to be spun and acquire water and reciprocate healing, loving, regenerative fire to swim in the current of aliveness.
Stories Carrying the Heart of Humanity
What can be understood through story? The craft of articulating and conveying lived experiences into life-as-represented requires a sincere and careful attention to unearth the precise phenomena that connect, reveal, illuminate, and touch the meaningful truths of the myriad of living realities…Stories carry the embodied heart of humanity as food for the living Earth body.
Comments