Vision Quest.

 Four days and four nights one sits alone on the summit of a chosen mountain waiting for a vision to come.  An animal to approach who is not an animal, but a harbinger of a message for only the one who waits.  A message that can change forever the course of the one who waits life, and death.

The waiting itself is not painless not peril-less, but a potential journey of danger and agony.  A spiritual trek that is designed to introduce the questor to their own potential and inevitable deaths.  The path teaches the seeker the truth about his/her end, which is the beginning.  This is the death and rebirth of the Shaman. 

It seems that walking to the top of a chosen mountain with nothing but a question and hope with the knowledge that survival may not be the highest reward, sounds a little insane.  But without this lack of sanity for this quest there can be no gift of power, only dark death.

At times one carries the quest, the vision, and the gift with themselves from one lifetime to the next and the next and so forth throughout the passage of time.  These people are the Bodhisattvas, the teachers of teachers.  Those who build the foundations of truth.

One who chooses the quest must prepare.  Become emotionally and spiritually ready for the journey.  Beyond this door awaits madness.  If ready then the answers will be given and the lessons learned, if not death and a lifetime of mental illness is equally willing to gain control.  The vision matters not for the stability of the seeker, only that it has been given.  

Four days and four nights one sits alone on the summit of a chosen mountain waiting for a vision to come.  Who will approach, the Bear, the Eagle, the Buffalo, or the Wolf, which direction will be followed?  Will any approach, the vision waits for all who seek.  Pass on the truth, teach your children well, and look ahead to glad tidings, Fear nothing.

Peace and Balance,

John

Red Shadow Singers - Eagle Song

Correctness, Political or Not?

 

Political correctness is getting old.   The last posting is an example.  I was watching the "Adventures of Underdog" during my planning block at school.  The Science dept. shares an office so all sorts and manners of goings on are happening in the inner office from actual planning, to eating lunch.  While I was doing my not so planning time, Underdog was saving the day from the evil Over Cat.  Sort of a play on words there and I enjoy that sort of thing.  As episodes of Underdog go there are always in-between periods  of alternative programing  involved.   One of these moments was a funny if not to comfortable, Gopher Tribe cartoon that was not politically correct at all.  

Funny for one, may not be funny for another.  Some of the folks I work with are like myself and have a over proportion of Native American Blood flowing through their veins.   I was watching the Gophers do what Native Gophers do, a real funny as hell parody of Custer's demise, However the blatant incorrectness of the cartoon threw me back to my own childhood.

When I was a young Gopher we accepted things that would not fly today.  We accepted that White man was an ignorant creature and spoke with a forked tongue.  We accepted that his ignorance led to the creation of some pretty lame video both animated and non-animated.  We accepted that fine fact that the Pale Face sitting beside you in the theatre was rooting for the bad guy.  These things did not phase us in the least.  Why, because our culture is above such irrational states of mind that would lead to scalping the asshole for opening the ignorance hole.  We have evolved beyond that state of development, right?  

As my friend and colleague Ray pointed out them Gophers are pesky critters.  I cannot disagree, as both he and I each have a tribe of pesky Gophers of our very own.  

So, the next time I'm sitting in a theatre and one of them ignorant types opens that particular orifice, be afraid, be very afraid

Peace and Balance,

John