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Gaian Rants | ||||||||||
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Sacred Covenants - Making Pledges to the Places of Power | ||||||||||
The ancients understood -- and we are beginning to recall -- the essential reciprocal nature of our relationship to the natural world . . . and to sacred sites in particular. With every gift received from a place of power comes an assignment that we can either fail -- or fulfill. | ||||||||||
The Sweet Medicine Sanctuary is a place of timeless magic in southwest New Mexico, the “Land of Enchantment.” Known as the Gila National Forest, these were the first public wildlands ever set aside for protection — a full forty years before the passage of the Wilderness Act. The county is over 80% national forest, with miniscule inholdings of private land owned by those seeking one of the last undeveloped mountain ranges in temperate climes. Peaks rise up from ancient sea beds to nearly twelve thousand feet in height, laced with streams and spotted with hot springs. Sculpted by the most recent and violent volcanic activity on this continent, the fire colored cliffs climb above pines and oaks, in a river canyon where Geronimo and Victorio once hunted for vision and power. Painted pottery sherds on the ground remind us of a lineage of prayer and caretakership dating back thousands of years. Scattered throughout the sanctuary are the remains of a pit-house village, where the Sweet Medicine (or “Mogollon”) people once gathered for instruction and medicine. The rock ledges where my visiting questers sit, were polished smooth by the quiet motion of countless yucca sandals, and juniper trees grown out of the center of a ceremonial kiva long filled in with rock and earth. Generation after generation of russet skinned men and women once made their way down from the headwaters of the two little rivers the Spanish later named the St. Francis and the Tularosa, and ventured up from as far south as the confluence of the Gila in what is now eastern Arizona. Children as well as adults carried baskets of food and offerings on their backs, and other packs were strapped on the camp dogs that followed behind. They came to this special place to honor Solstice and Equinox, to bless plantings and harvests, births and deaths — and to unify and fortify their hearts in the face of what were recurring hard times. They came to ask for insight and clarity, omens and talismans, guidance and visions, blessings and strength. And most importantly, they came to give something back to the land and spirits in return: their attention, focus, devotion and service. To add their own sweat and stones to its altars, and pledge to its protection. To venerate, consecrate, and celebrate. We can sense the Sweet Medicine way before we get there. Our normal cognitive processes are gradually derailed as we get nearer to the source of the sanctuary’s energies, and intuition and instinct regain their rightful prominence in our whole and holy being. From the area where folks park their vehicles it’s a two mile hike across seven shallow river crossings, like the mythic “seven bridges” on the path to paradise. The canyon narrows at the third of these, making it impossible to proceed any further without getting our feet wet. It’s only appropriate that we go shoeless, as we cross the holy threshold. It can feel as if we’re passing through a porous membrane, alerting us to the presence of power, while simultaneously announcing our arrival to the many spirits of place. The winds usually pick up at this point, tickling the hairs on our skin, inspiring us to reconsider our worthiness, willingness and preparedness .... the purity of our intentions, as well as the degree of our commitment and the depth of our love. Passing this spot on my way to town, it always feels like I’m going the wrong way. As if I were neglecting my duties. As if I were no longer being looked out for. And every time I return it’s not only a coming home — but reunion with an ageless family, a return to my essential work, and the honoring of an irrevocable promise. For over two decades now this land has been my teacher and my ally, refuge and inspiration. It has been the source of both my sensitivity and solace, defining both my purpose and place. And this third juncture has been my portal, my door, my gate. Becoming the caretaker of such an important site has taught me about the sanctity of all the Earth, even the ground beneath our blanket of concrete and asphalt impositions. But there are a limited number of special places where truths seem far less escapable, illusions less sustainable, and the serendipitous miracles of Gaia more visible and exaggerated. It is to them that our ancestors hiked and climbed, with burros and llamas, across ice fields, and under African skies. All of the natural world is magical and precious, needing our guardianship and love, but some areas are host to a greater diversity of plant and animal species. They have more to give in some ways, but are also more sensitive to environmental threats. It’s the same with the spiritual landscape: all land is both sacred, and inspirited — and yet certain places have higher concentrations of palpable spirit, where the instructions and energies of the living Earth seem somehow easier to hear, and to feel. These are the “places of power,” arterials we contact whenever we want to get back in touch with the vital pulse of the planet — portals where the effusing energies of a living Earth are clearly more accessible, palatable, and influential. They’re revelatory, offering universally applicable wisdom, as well as specific information not available through any other channel, at any other location. They are the energetic locus, the “genius loci,” the focal points for the emergence of spirit in place. It’s true that anyplace can be transformed into a potent sacred site through generations of continuous consecration, focused reverence, maintenance, ceremony and prayer. Over the years the litany of our oft repeated intentions meld with the echoes of our songs and rites, developing signature energies that can be sensed and tapped by others in times to come. But what I know to be places of power already existed, fully expressed, for eons before any human recognition or use. When altars, temples and prehistoric villages are found on places of power, it’s not the works or attentions of our kind that gives these sites their significance and character. Rather, there have long been seers and geomancers who deliberately sought out potent places for locating their circles and shrines, identifying them through those ambient energies early Greeks called the “plenum.” Such places are often associated with caves, springs, groves, singular mountain peaks, unusual vagaries of geology and topography. But the traditional sites of the Hopi altars are below canyon rims and on the edges of mesas that are seemingly indifferentiable from the landforms surrounding them, and the power of some sites is so strong you can find them in the dark. One way to be sure about a place of power is by how deeply it affects us. It starts with a perceived invitation in the form of a sign or a feeling, followed by the most intimate exposure and communion. We’re usually tested upon arrival, eliciting feelings of dread, and concern that we’ll act inappropriately. We may feel as if we’re being observed and evaluated. Yet if our minds are quiet and our hearts clear, we are not only accepted but initiated, instructed and invigorated. Emboldened and equipped. A place of power, after all, is where we feel more powerful as well. We’re all familiar with Petra and Machu Pichu, Mesa Verde and Stonehenge. But every region, every watershed has its own special spots where the energy is most intense, dreams are most vivid, and visions most alive. As a young pilgrim I walked through a forest of whispering pines in the Dakota’s Black Hills, basked in the emanations of Mt. Shasta, and snuck past the locked Park Service gates in order to spend a night in the bowels of Chaco. And now season after season I am an attendant to this other canyon, the secretive place of Sweet Medicine. I’ve learned her language well, and translate her insights for all those who are willing to listen. A volume of water can flood an entire valley with a couple inches of life sustaining fluid, or concentrate into a solitary channel with enough force to cut through solid rock. We can choose shallow relationships with a multitude of paramours, without taking the time to fully understand or bond with any of them — or we can give all our affection to one or a few individuals, and thereby plumb the very depths of what it means to know and love. In the same way there is value in traveling to the world’s famous sacred sites, garnering what we can, and paying our respects to each. Or we can repeatedly go back to the same site, to the place that calls to us the loudest. It is this way we develop the intimacy of familiars, learn all that the land has to teach, and that we become known to the land. We’re inspired to make the most fervent oaths, certain that we’ll be returning to keep them. Loyalty leads to trust, as with any relationship. Because it is a relationship we’re committed to keep alive, we feel secure investing of ourselves and our time. It is this trust and continuity that makes possible the creation and maintenance of shrines, the establishment of ministries and schools, the raising of trees, and the restoration and rewilding of the land. As residents — or as devoted visitor-guardians — we initiate legislative protection, agreements or easements to prevent inappropriate development, despoilment and destruction. And as a site’s impassioned familiars, we’re able to channel ceremonies specific to the place we’re enjoined with — those rites that best reflect its character, serving its requirements and desires. It is such agreement and reciprocity that have made it possible for the The Sweet Medicine to be designated as a USFWS supported wildlife refuge. One hundred and nine years of unrestricted livestock grazing had left the canyon almost barren of vegetation, but thanks to fences and plantings there’s a forest of red willows nearly too dense to walk through today. The endangered willow flycatcher and hundreds of other species of rare birds and mammals make their home in their shade. Cottonwood saplings that were once gobbled up as fast they could take root, are now thirty and forty feet tall, hosting the nests of osprey and herons. We’ve had skunks climb up on our laps, and foxes eating juniper berries in the branches above the kitchen. The mountain lions have returned to scream their lust and hunger, and bear their spotted kits. Sacred objects have been secured away, and the trails of guests and questers pass below spiral petroglyphs marking the infinite cycles of giving and receiving. Entities and memories commingle in the places where trepidation fuels and destiny rules— gathering busily like children rapt in play. Spirits do not lounge in these environs but strive and aspire, parade and perform. They make an effort to get our attention, waving wildly with leaf laden arms, trying to flag us out of the stratosphere of our minds and back down to Earth with the flash of white on an elk’s rump or the smell of a bear. The muted sounds of ancient laughter and primal drums are not to draw us into the past, but to awaken us to deeper presence .... in an always unfolding present. They implore us to be sentient, connected, compassionate, responsive beings once again. To nourish and manifest our authentic selves, contribute to the well being and fulfillment of other people and beings, and pledge ourselves to the spirits and places of our enlightenment. It is one thing to make our way to a place of power. But to be worthy of it’s lessons, we must learn to employ them in our everyday lives. We deserve the visions it provides us, when we take every risk — and pay any price — to make them real for the world. Our relationship to spirit requires we take responsibility for those locations where it’s housed, concentrated, and made most palpable to the seeker. We honor its blessings not only through acknowledgment and prayer, but by pledging to protect the wholeness, integrity and intentions of the land. By tending to its spiritual, practical and ecological needs. By committing to communion and covenant, expression and celebration. By promising a relationship that’s attentive, and a love that lasts. . . . And by keeping our promises. | ||||||||||
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