Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Minisa Crumbo Halsey, is a member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi of the Shawnee, OK agency and Muscogee Creek of the Okmulgee, OK agency. Minisa is an artist, teacher, photo-journalist, video producer and author of “Spirit Talk – a Book of Days” that shares traditional teaching on the Medicine Wheel page.

“In the way I was taught, or, ‘helped out’ by my teacher, Marcellus “Bear Heart” Williams, Muskogee Creek, in Indian talk…everything of life, is ceremony. Therefore, it is always about remembering…for the old ones say, “It is not whether you will do ‘it’ but whether you will remember it”, and, at the core of our remembering lives our sacred nature and the sacredness of all creation.” ~Minisa  Visit Dawn Woman Blog for more wisdom shared from the sacred Medicine Wheel tradition.

Autumn 2016: Part 3

Minisa Crumbo Halsey, 1 Wind/IK

by Minisa Crumbo Halsey
Dawn Woman’s Blog, Thursday, October 20, 2016

Here we depart from the known and embark on forging medicine relationships with the essential healing qualities of the plant beings directly. So much information of loving substance and value has been lost to us, forgotten, hidden from us, punished, co-opted or discredited and yet many alternative restorative and healing continue to reveal themselves as ‘new’ or surface in the grass roots research labs of suffering and need, our own and that of others. Courage must be summoned to think deeply about want and need. Talking, reading, observing the good old ways of establishing honest relationships with every aspect of a condition and then stepping out with new eyes, trusting, testing and flexing the new muscle of intuition first on small conditions and then the larger and then the largest.

There is no one else to look to but ourselves, collectively, to initiate the Spirit Talks, rebuilding and restoring strong and vital connection and communication with all of the other living things with which we share the planet. We are seriously out of touch with the natural world and continuously moving more seriously out of balance with the whole. We can and must take these steps for our survival. Our survival means stepping put of ignorance, desensitization and feelings of entitlement..anything and everything we can identify that contributes to real or imagined feelings of separation with anything. We are want and need driven, always. These wants and needs will serve us well when order and connection is desired with the natural world, the animals, our ancestral helpers and Spirit guides and the plant beings in particular. The restoration of honorable communication with the plant beings is of paramount importance and of the guidance presented here, found elsewhere and intuited is especially successful, perhaps the plant beings or being will come forward, reveal themselves and talk to you. Then you’re on your way. That’s the way is always was. The plant beings will then state exactly how they can be helpful and to whom and why…they will say when and how they should be picked, stored, prepared and spoken to..they will teach the forgotten words and songs that should accompany picking, preparation and application. That’s the way it goes when it goes well.. This is a true restoration of balance and harmony through a mind, heart, body and Spirit driven initiative in concert with native beauty, the Medicine Wheel Teaching or a structure your choice, design or vision, for our heartbeat and the heartbeat of the Mother Earth are one.

WE MUST WALK WITH HUMILITY. WE MUST DO THIS IN ORDER TO SEE AND HEAR ALL THINGS CLEARLY, AND PUT AN END TO THAT WHICH IS NOT REAL.

THE ORIGINAL INSTRUCTIONS
Now comes the work of setting these things we shall call the Original Instructions in place and tending them with attention and highest consciousness.

All  beings are born with a set of original instructions. The clear physical instructions which which we all arrive are DNA and heredity patterning. We, like all beings contain, produce and reproduce adaptive potential to successfully meet a wide variety of growth conditions from birth stresses, the vulnerabilities of youth, reproductive opportunities, sickness, old age and transition activities.  Within our specific lineages are past histories charting the major evolutionary shifts. Science and medicine are able to measure and evaluate current and future cellular data shifts and now, even extends it reach to enter original seed packaging and manipulate base genetic structure in order to legally extend ownership of the developed seed stock for profit in the field and marketplace. The former seed stock contains and reproduces itself according to its original instructions while Genetically Modified seed stock does not. We intend to follow the original instructions and put an end to that which is not real.

We are choosing to continue measuring our steps to meet and journey within the mystical outlines of the original instructions.

Personal choices and affinities of religion and culture shall remain such.

Within this text the major theme is The Original Instructions as revealed and made manifest in the Creator’s first gift to us, the two-leggeds …, most beautiful and enduring gift of the unknowable cosmos within which lives and is breathed alive: Our Mother Earth; Our Father Sky Sun; Our Grandmother the Moon; the Star Beings; the cognizent and powerful elementals .. Water, Fire, Wind, the Green Beings, the Directions .. Spirit Helpers …all beings who live upon, above and within this Mighty Gift-The Medicine Wheel of Life…. Ho, Mitakweasin..my Relations, I ask you to overlook any omissions or mistakes in this, the naming…there are so many..and I am still learning how to become and live as a complete human being.

And now, I will pause to think on these things.

Visit Dawn Woman Blog for more wisdom shared from the sacred Medicine Wheel tradition.

Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Minisa Crumbo Halsey, is a member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi of the Shawnee, OK agency and Muscogee Creek of the Okmulgee, OK agency. Minisa is an artist, teacher, photo-journalist, video producer and author of “Spirit Talk – a Book of Days” that shares traditional teaching on the Medicine Wheel page.

“In the way I was taught, or, ‘helped out’ by my teacher, Marcellus “Bear Heart” Williams, Muskogee Creek, in Indian talk…everything of life, is ceremony. Therefore, it is always about remembering…for the old ones say, “It is not whether you will do ‘it’ but whether you will remember it”, and, at the core of our remembering lives our sacred nature and the sacredness of all creation.” ~Minisa

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The Ceremony of Picking and Gathering ‘IN A GOOD WAY’

Picking and gathering have long been among humankind’s primary tools for providing food. The basic nature of the sacred give-away and receive principle is the model for our approach to the plant people, the skebyak, and the natural world.

The plant people go a long way toward offering and providing us, the two-leggeds and others, with the physical materials we need to live life ‘in a good way’. Plant fiber provides assorted fiber for the weaving of clothing, nets, mats, basketry, footwear, hammocks, housing, cordage, snares and traps. The plant people share their bodies that our own might live and medicines by which to maintain, heal, and restore health and balance.

The green beings hold all wisdom and knowledge. The Mother Earth and all beings that live upon and within her body have their own unique medicine ways and it is of these ways that we seek to learn the languages, uses and songs. Our Mother is a sentient being with an evolutionary path of her own and when sufficiently sensitized it is possible for us to feel her heartbeat through the soles of our feet and entire being.

In order for us to make orderly and honorable approaches to each living thing we must first understand ourselves for this is what we bring forward in dialogue and intent by way of introduction. The text of Spirit Talk is designed to offer and provide sensitization models, histories, identifying, arriving at and holding appropriate thought focus, charting some designs of personal ritual and time management, suggest structures of meaningful ceremony in the context of individual biology and life style, observing and creatively participating in the cyclical dynamics of the seasons, to encourage song, dance, music..these are some of the ways by which we may begin to accurately and healthily track our minds, authentically and honorably present ourselves to ourselves, actually, and then to all other beings. Seriously consider these suggestions and the practices set forward in the earlier Seasonal writings. Experiment with them for personal veracity, test them out, through your own Spirit Talk. Make requests and prayers for inspired and illuminated pathways.  Continued on Dawn Woman’s Blog

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For September 13, 2016

The Seed Beings Relent, Release and Scatter in the Wind – Breath of 1 IK

A Message for the Wind/IK Trecena by Minisa Crumbo Halsey, 1 Wind/IK

The autumn, medicine direction, so mysterious in it’s unfolding is driven by so many things both coming and going. All things and beings are finding themselves within an active stage of transition. This transition brings us to ride the free floating, first breaths of wind, ourselves no more nor less than the bobbing milk weed seed parachuting out of a bursting pod, the ovoid snow precursing clouds visiting from the north lands, wild rice stems feeling the beaters stick knock loose seeds falling to canoe bottoms…how many are the allusions and metaphors of the season…all of them written by previous seasons and now loosening all but the most ephemeral and essential controls of discovering core identities as we pause within the great autumn cyclical count of days.

The winds breath spirits to the spirit world. Within the ongoing Evolution of all beings, including our beautiful Mother Earth, we find ourselves once again in an active act of separation from the previous known. We remember the instructions to be breathed alive and count the harvest that the Mother provides equally, irregardless of whether we sowed and planted, gather or simply observe, surrender and be.

The Power Platforms of Seasonal Certainty and Uncertainty

Balance-imbalance..the walk and dance of duality produces movement and time

The predictable power of planned, focused and goal activity can produce, seat and hold stable concepts and provide platforms for measured growths of every kind. The given and structured bedrock measuring tables of favored plan, are positioned to broaden and shift beyond their original parameters, becoming a format to measure unplanned and evolutionary changes, platforms stationed, if not prepared, to receive and absorb the unexpected shocks of any medicine journey. However, the transitional medicine journeys over seasonal thresholds hold particular piquancies of swirling, therefore uncertain merge and movement of medicines as now, one gives-away and now, one takes on past and future history, navigating the NOW center, well-greased axle hole window of the Medicine Wheel.

The natural world continues to be a universal lens through which to observe the micro and macrocosm movements as they station upon the Medicine Wheel. Visiting the autumn medicine harvest irresistibly reveals the conscious interactive bounty created out of the mindful ceremonies and preparations of the previous winter but also those of the spring planting and summer tending songs and labors. Certainty and uncertainty run riot. Let’s look at a few seed and weather scenarios, taking time to draw personal parallels and meditating on similarities and differentiated qualities.

As the autumn harvest and medicine time deepens, so too, do thoughts turn to the  proven and worthy seeds which are now beginning to be looked over, counted, selected and considered. Prayers are beginning to take shape in the mind. The firing ceremonies of growth intention and sacred seed introduction to Mother Earth lies yet in the future, shrouded within winter’s coldest and darkest precincts, preparing to cluster around the deepest  inner earth and spirit fires of thinking, being and inspiration. But for now, the twilight journey into introspective-medicine depths continues with feasting, thanks giving and strength building.

The Seed Beings Relent, Release, Scatter

The late harvests continue. Some corn seeds are roasted, others dried, others yet are ground and formed into thick blue and yellow corn cakes and tortillas, mottled with black spots, soft and  fluffy from slow, wood cookstove tops. Wild rice grains rain at the touch of a gathering stick, perhaps threshed by the weight of a small child and wood parched, cooked tender but not curled. Sunflower heads no longer turn to follow the sun, they dry and drop seed. Green chiles are roasted, steamed and peeled but most of the crop is left to ripen red in the field to be dried and ground into warming, red, winter chile..swimming with beans and fat squares of chicharron, bearing the dip of those tortillas or deep fried  sopapillas. Olives shaken to the ground tarps release fragrant oil, sweet enough to sip with a spoon. Bogs give over to giant cranberry combs and when another comb is scratched open it drips honey. Hard squash and pumpkin are stored; herbs are hung, dried and stored in paper bags and packages with pencil legends; tomatoes are canned, pickled cucumbers and vegetables are fermented or piccalilli set in vinegar and salt baths studded with colorful mustard seed, garlic, chilies and dill weed; late berries get sugared and boiled..beans and corn dried on the vine and stalk; heavy wheat heads combined for winter bread,; hummingbirds no longer draw red flower nectar to power the long flight south, so too, the Monarch and many other beings of the sky and air.

All of these things and more are being breathed alive, NOW,  beneath and within the late introspective-medicine days and nights, passing into winter purity and spirit… The seeds have sprouted, flowered, manifested and given-away, mated by whatever agent of wind or proboscis, born new life, dried out or harvested soft, passed through many weathers and hands now to be seen as roadside asters, echinacea, bowls of beans with red, pumpkin pie, wreath and arrangement of dry thistle head and corn shuck doll, bull head stickers in bare feet, persimmon seeds with the coming winter weather pattern etched in each slippery seed dropped by feasting raccoons, choke cherry jelly set in Mason jars, plum pits and apple cores blown out and tossed aside, bugle of elk; spawning fish netted, smoked and dried but leaving new seed generations returning to the sea, initiating new cycles….so do we..do..all of these things, beneath the gaze of our Grandfather Sky-Sun and upon the body of our Mother the Earth and all of our relations.

Dawn Woman

August 19, 2016

A Message from Minisa Crumbo Halsey for the Trecena of Wisdom/CIB

Autumn: The Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Division Takes Final Shape and Form

An endless sky for the Cib trecena…
Let the wisdom spirit soar.

First there was Spirit.

Then Spirit organized into conceptual, linear and physical duality.

Duality found a home and expression upon and within another system.

Opening consciousness from one season into another.

The Medicine Wheel is an independent but evolutionarily related, secondary, four quarter, cellular division of linear duality, possessing a center and concentric circle-ringed divisions … an eighth fold division exists. It is present in Spirit, silent, unseen and unspoken. Cellular division continues  until it must fold back into the linear, initiating the differentiation of species and subsequent specific development.

These interwoven lines, circles and dots are the stuff and substance of creative material, crackling and moving in the fires, waters, airs and ethers with variable lights, sounds and electricity. They are the present and available primal building blocks of intention, generating wormholes of vibrant and positive awareness and consciousness track, demonstrating seen and now, unseen evolutionary patterns and possibilities, without cease.

EARLY AUTUMN

The first 21 days of autumn can bear the mark of instability as have the initial (initiation) 21 days of each previous season. Harvests of medicine and introspection bring happiness, a sense of accomplishment and deep reflection upon that which been wrought in the previous three seasons, recognitions of that which is certainly coming forward and revealing the fullness’ of itself. The past no longer is and the new is not yet.

Early Autumn, a time to pause, reflect, to BE in rest … before the foot turns onto acquaintance with the West-East hard road of life.

Dawn Woman

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For August 5, 2016

The Autumn Harvest and the Fall Equinox

A Message from Minisa Crumbo Halsey for the Trecena of Night/AKBAL

The autumn harvest has a similar signature to all other completion and fulfillment moments but is also uniquely different owing to its deep roots in the fundament of Creation. For this reason it will always be counted as one of the original templates by which to gauge and measure natural progress of any kind. It mounts and takes it’s place as a real and conceptual template alongside the other seasons of winter, spring and summer as a massive barometer and register that exceeds full comprehension. Autumn is a ‘crack between the worlds’ of summer and winter and as such, is similar to the ‘crack between the worlds’ of spring, between winter and summer…the dusks and dawns of the year. The sun stands still at the time of the autumn sol-stice, it’s light balanced by time and becomes the physically visible balance beam, fourth quarter, of the Medicine Wheel.

The Path of Light

The western balance beam of the ‘hard road of life’ that completes, closes and connects the Western direction of medicine, introspection and the physical with the Eastern direction of Inspiration, illumination and the mental. The Balanced Path of Light we walk between body and mind, the Path of the Sun as it traverses the sky and circulates in ceaseless mutual partnership and rhythm with the Earth. The path of light, the sunrises and sunsets, may be viewed as one half of our lateral earth walk, balance.

The other half of our earth walk, the noons and midnights, may then be viewed as the cross beam of harmony that connects the Southern direction of emotion, love and the heart with the Northern direction of purity, wisdom and Spirit breath.

The connection center, where the Sacred Tree Flowers is a well known and well traveled crossroad upon the paths of balance and harmony connects with the outer points on the Circle, a lunar, stellar and solar system, replication of our cosmos!

This diagram and seat of mind, heart, body and Spirit energetics is encoded in everything. To understand this is to incorporate a comprehensive tool that can unlock the unknown by shining the intelligent light beams of balance and harmony, center and unified circle in an identifying and imprinting way upon all things. This is a metaphor for the intelligent mind, loving heart, creative and all-seeing eye and adaptive body, stepping up to and inheriting a position as co-creator in active evolution…most fully ‘alive in a loving world’.

The words balance and harmony have oft been heard, repeated, spoken, written, sensed, hoped and longed for. They have been thought unattainable, at a distance and then, as suddenly, the words can live and merge seamlessly with every fiber and quality of our being, blessing, encompassing and affirming the the inner framework of the Medicine Wheel and all that resides upon, within or around it. The natural world personifies and exemplifies the merge of a center unified balance and harmony, taking these qualities beyond emotional and mental  concepts, making these them visible, known, comprehensible and available.

The natural world; the first, most beautiful and enduring of the Creator’s gifts to us will ever and always be our schoolhouse, lover, art gallery, Mother, Father and Grandmother, friend, font of scientific discovery, teat, bloodier of knee and elbow, emergence point and final resting place … home.
This year’s paths have been walked. We sit in a center of our universe and call it good. The harvest is being picked, gathered, cleaned, sorted, evaluated and counted, for would we remember, ‘every harvest is a new beginning’ … ‘every seed counted is a new tomorrow’.

Now is a good time to invite and call a Circle Gathering, go deep within the year, mark and celebrate the first harvests and first ceremonies and begin to speak of tilling new soils and casting new seed. Call a new circle together or sit within a trusted and established one and count the coups, publish the failures and shortcoming, lament the losses and own the gains of the year. This can be a time to name the names of those who were born to us and those who made the long canoe journey to the western medicine mystery. A time to stand up, step out, come out and shine as farmers of our lives in the Divine Garden of the Natural World. Our endeavors have served us well or not so well, but we accept, forgive, refocus, renew, raise a voice in prayer and gratitude and keep ‘being breathed’.

The feasting and fasting occasions and the year that made them give us the new stories to tell, new songs to sing and the new dances to dance in the long winter nights to come. This is the time to gather close around a fire and tell the stories until the children lay in slumber on floor or lap and the fire burns low casting long shadows on wall, forest, beach, wigwam or teepee.

The seeds of our endeavors and harvests stand in balance and harmony, prepared to enter Quiet Time, that we might all mindfully enter upon and within the personal and collective High Winter ceremonies of THE QUIET TIME and THE TIME OF FIRING THE SEEDS OF INSPIRATION for a new year!

This cycle and walk around the beautiful Mother Earth and Father Sky-Sun is complete. Thus concludes this sweat lodge ceremony of life. Thank you for your words, prayers, attention, your blood, sweat and tears….You are released. You are released to Make New Steps, balanced and harmonious steps into this New Year and all coming New Year’s.

Blessings, now and forever more…..
SHEWENDOGZEWIN ODO PI……    A BLESSING HAS BEEN VISITED UPON US HERE…..
Dawn Woman

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For July 10, 2016

by Minisa Crumbo Halsey, for the Trecena of Earth/CABAN

1 CABAN

Arising out of KAN, the final trecena of this year, we are the new seed…WE ARE THE NEW CORN PEOPLE.

Dawnwoman

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POST: June 26, 2016 for the Trecena of Seed/KAN

Summer Ceremonies: The Doctorings

From “Spirit Talk – a Book of Days” by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

And since many, or most, of us do not live in close proximity to adepts and holy people that can and do facilitate community ceremonies, that appropriate action is, in the end, essentially personal. So what matters is bringing the fullness of our minds, hearts, bodies, and spirits forward to say yes once more to life. Herein and from this point on, we are offered the opportunity for which we were born, that of recognizing ourselves as our own holy people. Aho!

Take up the staff of authority and don the mantle of leadership, and if you will, emerge and embark upon finding, forging, and designing a Way that is unique to your personal attributes and needs. These are the new Ways coming forward for the new days . . . and we are the ones. Since each of us initially think principally upon ourselves, as it should be, let us now think even more and deeply upon ourselves and the personal links to what we can identify as the proven and worthy gifts of life, the Sacred and all of its auspices. This is a deeply personal and sacred moment to be held close, in silence and privately, for some time to mature and seat in the deepest, innermost recesses of your sacredness. Take time for the building of this precious personal medicine, our personal medicine treasure—that of which we know and that of which we are—together and in a spirit of oneness with the mind of the Creator, in concert with these first, most beautiful and enduring gifts to and for us from the Creator: our Mother the Earth, our Father the Sky-Sun, our Grandmother the Moon, our relations: the Star People, the Directions, the Elementals, the Spirit Helpers, the colors, the Wind Beings, the Fire Beings, the Green Beings, the Water Beings, the Stone People, and all of the other named and unnamed sacred related beings that live upon and within this beautiful Creation.

The old people say, “That which you recognize, you own.”

They also say, “It’s not so much, will you do it, but whether you will remember to do it.”

Dawnwoman

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POST: June 17, 2016, for the Trecena of Monkey/CHUEN

Medicine Teaching on Personal Ceremony

by Minisa Crumb Halsey

LINK TO POST: Suggested Four Day Personal Fasting and Ceremony – Moving into alignment with the sacred seasons…

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POST: June 13, 2016, for the Trecena of Monkey/CHUEN

The Birds and Bees of Summer

Scarlett Tanager Song

by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Let us place some time and attention apart in order to move into and more deeply with the divine and eternal concepts of balance and harmony. Love and the red gifts of the heart are flowering, even fruiting and seeding with those of us who reside in the northern hemi-shell of our beautiful Mother Earth which is in turn, shone down upon and energized by our beloved Father Sky Sun.

Would we re-member that the Spirit Wisdom direction of the North resides upon the Unity Path of this Good Red Road. This sacred path, spirit trail or staff is where we are now…somewhere along it. A time and place most sought after, prayed for and fondly remembered while all so recently drawn close to the warm fires of winter.. dreaming of…

Weaving The Memory Garments Of Summer Beauty
We have ‘made it’ once again…Recognition and Gratitude of the season is the colorful warp and woof of our looms as the fabrics of life are spun and woven. Today, I select the colorful red bird and it’s song, stringing in the falling rains, weaving in the humming resonances of heat, expanding apparently limitlessly into the longest days, noting the reappearance of the Venus Evening Star, marking the boundaries of sunrise, sunset, mid-day and mid-night……making personal the fabric….a personal history made visible..all the while..selecting and sitting at the loom with the industry of the honey bee…winter’s sweets being made of today.

Be flowering, fruiting and seeding…
From the heart of the Red, Summer South Place of Love,

Dawnwoman

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POST: June 1, 2016, for the Trecena of Flint/ETZNAB

Walking the Good Red Road

From “Spirit Talk – a Book of Days” by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

The path is now well laid, open and ready to be traversed. Grounded and drenched as we are in the full grip of the summer sap rain, we feel the invitation to walk, look, listen to the beckoning Good Red Road that connects the north-south energies of purity and wisdom with those of innocence and love. It is timely now to broaden these anchoring qualities and directions, releasing the intensely subjective work of late. Soften and release the highly focused, organized and disciplined study of the mental Medicine Wheel, direction of the east, and open the floodgates of the emotional heart center. Carry forward the dazzling solar lover of the mind and  the pristine pure spirit lover of wisdom, and issue to them an irresistible invitation to step forward into a foot stomping, dipping and swooping, shouting, calling, and whistle-blowing, circle dance. There now, we are happening. The marriage talks are gaining momentum, consummation is in the wings, radiance, fulfillment, and love “are dancing outside our window.” (Thanks, Buffy Sainte-Marie.)  Sweet fruits are forming out of joy and abandon.

The cool and distilled winter breath issues a full exhalation remembrance of original purity and wisdom to hasten the seeds so recently fired with inspiration . . . the inspiration is now stepping its own inspired dance around the Medicine Wheel. Purity joined with love, aahhh, the beauty. Wisdom hand in hand with innocence rocks the mind and rolls the body.

And, this then, is an aspect of the Good Red Road: love and innocence, connecting with the purity and wisdom, braided into the Earth walk. A treasure both ethereal and incorporate—a divine light, core home center, turning eternally within the full known and unknown brilliance and possibility of the finite and infinite great Medicine Wheel of life.

Endeavor to create a space in time to visit and seat the Good Red Road and make a dance! Live in the light.

Dawnwoman

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1 Flint and the Good Red Road in Full Summer
NIGHT LETTER

My heart and mind is gone.. into the memory sac of recent origin. An ancient rhythm pulses and counts out it’s lyrical imperative. I can hear distant calling song without words ,pulsing heartbeats; sense sinuous movement and warm breath.packed into all available space. Night and day. Wet and dry. Sharp and dull.

The primordial pond. A fog, misting rain, thunder.
Summer days and nights
Talking wind.

Dawnwoman

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POST: May 18, 2016, for the Trecena of Serpent/CHICCHAN

Adjusting to the Direction of South

The Fine Points and Broad Encompassing Curves of the Medicine Wheel

A Message for the Trecena of Serpent/CHICCHAN
by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

SUMMER

By the calendar of the natural world we completed the first quarter of summer sometime within the elastic middle of May, three weeks from the energetic ingress of summer.

Often, the last three weeks of a season and the first three weeks (21 days), will display classic transitional patterns so look for the unusual in everything. The unusual may be connected with completing , seating or initiating both the 21 days marking the ending and beginning of seasonal transitions. There may be a push-pull dynamic which can result in a kind of stasis or stop action so listen to the mind, heart, body and spirit message that may be distracted or feelings of overwhelm… set intention to honor and take mindful care of the whole system. These fine points do require the attention of time, rest and thought. Take refuge in silence and solitude when possible. There may also be concurrent rapid change and growth which can stretch and near exhaust resources and reserves and when the two follow closely upon one another, overlap or stack, it is time to call TIME OUT!  No one can really do this to or for us as well as we can ourselves and often, carefully planned timeouts will not even be noticed. Repair, nourishment of all kind, and restoration are a wise (and enjoyable) course to integrate into the busiest and most demanding season of the year.

CHANGES

Chicchan, this new trecena ruler, is viewed as serpent or snake energy. Snake Medicine, neutrally represents current or immediate CHANGE in much traditional thought. When a snake is seen don’t we all stop short! This is a pause moment from the natural world to review recent changes and to also scan and prepare for possible unexpected changes to occur SOON, very soon!

The snake head may be viewed as the fine point and the body as the encompassing curves and paths of change, so also may the Medicine Wheel center be the head-focus-sacred flowering tree which fans out in a linear way to describe the directions and seasons, contained by a curvaceous boundary. Perhaps there are other ways or understandings you would bring to expand this mighty metaphor for our relationship with the change and chaos which defines much of our experience with the natural world.
Now, to speak of the order of the natural world. Would we remember that summer is seasonally opposite winter? The NORTH-SOUTH diagonal axis  of the Good Red Road, connects us with that precious medicine time when we ‘fired the seeds of inspiration’ for the current summer growth. The winter-inner fire is now the summer-outer fire. The Chicchan that hibernated is now out of the vision quest place bringing changing conditions by which to promote, support and exemplify the all important growth of this season, the issue of which feeds all things through the rest of the year.. mostly from this time! Very important.

HONORING GRIEF

Many of the growths and seeds we prayed and dreamed of, wrote of, asked for and worked toward  are coming to pass and many ‘fired seeds of inspiration’ will fall on rocky or dry ground and will not know new life, expansion and growth. This is the origin of SOME of the push-pull we may now be feeling and these feelings may suggest that recent disappointment, difficulties or transitions need to be praised and honored for what they were and perhaps might have become… And raise a voice in praise for these beings that life can go on ‘in a good way’.

FINE POINTS AND CURVES

A look out the window will reflect comparative seasonal push-pull weather activities and will affirm a personal resonance, not dissonance, with the larger world. Astrological influences, world events, health concerns, financial and work issues combined with relationships of outer and inner natures all arise out of our fine point center, radiating out with the season to occupy the broad sweeping curve  of our personal Medicine Wheel wedges.

Draw a Medicine Wheel and make it a new/old calendar of the Circle of Life with plans, aspirations, hopes, dreams, prayers and petitions placed upon and within it. Name a tree being of choice, ask permission to live within this Being and place it at the center of your drawing, knowing that these drawings curving boundaries extend far beyond the limits of the page. Relax and savor BEING the Sacred Flowering Tree, rooted in the exact center of your life. Be with this tree being through all of the coming hours and days..the mid-days and mid-nights, the dawns and dusks, the rains and winds..the flowers, fruits and nuts it may bear, the tiny claw feet climb and run, beaks peck, young are being born and nesting, inch worms are climbing; lichen and moss are growing on north exposures; heat, cold and dry..it’s your tree (perhaps it’s a shrub), what is happening? Think about it. Ask. Listen. Watch. Feel. Know. Confide. Offer. They are our relatives. We are their relatives.

SANCTUARY

Consider borrowing from winter medicine-memory and revisiting (or creating) a hibernation-estivation (heat hibernation) vision quest sanctuary of the moment. Snake medicine brings big change and with it can come the rigors of rapid expansion and fatigue. Water your green and woody plant body and rest when possible, as the plants do..from sundown to sunup. Remember to ‘be breathed’. Move activities outdoors, sleep with a window open, feel the wind beings as another ‘inner lightening in the blood’, build a purification fire and feed it some tobacco and prayers of gratitude and acceptance for all known and unknown mysteries. Think summer frog and dawn bird song. Think fresh water and all young and innocent things. Think medicine thoughts. Take sanctuary in the good medicine thoughts. Think beauty, love, courage and bravery; patience and appreciation…balance and harmony. These are changes born truly of the heart …that know no fear.

REMEMBERING

No-where or no-thing would be present or visible if it were not for our Father Sky -Sun and partnership with our Mother the Earth, first, most beautiful and enduring of gifts from the Master of All Breath.

STRENGTH IN TIMES OF RAPID OR SLOW CHANGE

May we know strength from silence and solitude. May we know strength from joyous sound, community and right livelihood. May we know no separation with our highest selves, those of others or the Creator. These are worthy changes to have and to hold as we continue to ‘write our tomorrow’s’ from the heart of the mighty Sacred Flowering Tree which resides at the center of our personal Medicine Wheel of Life, us.
We are partners with these things, FIRST. When this remembering comes FIRST, all things fall into alignment and everything goes better…now and forever more.

AHO!
Dawnwoman

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POST: May 6, 2016, Trecena of Road/EB

The Three Winters of Spring: Finding New Resources Encoded in History

by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Time is many things and measured by many calendars but the one held in most  common regard can be said to be the ‘clock face’ of the seasons. The minute, hour and second hands are the biological and energetic timekeepers by which we all mark our days and many are their signs. This column originates in a moderate band of the northern hemisphere of America,  “America, Sweet Medicine Land,” as Buffy St. Marie, Cree Nation, so aptly named and sang. The four seasons are clearly and often equally divided into four discrete groups of three month duration. The temperate southern hemisphere would be reversed, taking into account latitude and longitude and prominent defining continental features. Ah, the sweet defining features that make, define and divide the face of our Mother’s ancient Medicine Wheel. The defining features of season, flora, fauna, weather, fire and flood. Who can resist reading the signs and portents of this fascinating face as surely our life blood and breath as that of any and all other sentient and non-sentient beings search for new and old keys that will be today’s new resources.

Many of the new resources actually originate and are documented from countless histories, arriving and bursting with apparent wild abandon, countless as the stars in number and as aristocratic in origin.. all jockeying in rampant and luxuriant survival mode for resources and successful expression. Let us take a short look (or a long one, time permitting) back, tracing the recent past to one of natures mysterious and seemingly erratic seasonal stagings called the three ‘little winters’ of spring, and glean the little winters for stories, bent twigs and frost shriveled sign of whence we came so nearly past, for survival hints such as the incipient preparation for courtship talks (one flower to another), managing core strength to meet day and night changes, bearing new life in the form of seed, meeting the effects of declining sun upon the body and bearing up to meet the more serious changes of fall and winter before coming this way again, next year.

A look back at our history should encompass a full year back and then a full year forward to initiate a complete and interesting perspective.

Let us take a journey backward in time and move into the mind of the ‘little winter’s’ as precursor to the season of spring. For would we remember that in summer we are diagonally opposite and therefore closer to the season of winter than any other season.

REDBUD WINTER
The week of redbud winter is the first of the last three little winters of spring.
The little winters that girdle the mid continent of the North American. It is a narrow swath of land sandwiched between the lower ice age sheet to the north and the temperate zones to the south. Between these irregular boundaries lie 10 or 12 climate zones in miniature. Within each distinct layer, which measures about 20 miles deep, north to south, are very different weather patterns, rain and snow fall, temperatures, first and last frost dates, and vegetation.

Spring tends to arrive early and autumn extends late into the growing season here. As nothing happens suddenly, permanently or all at once in the the natural world spring holds a few surprises with the final three little winters which are named for the bloom of the moment.

The redbud tree is the first of three hardy indigenous hard wood trees to bloom while the surrounding hillsides, thickets and bottom land slough offer the ideal shade and moisture conditions. The redbud blooms magenta  against the prevailing gray wood. These welcome blossoms appear as a kind of deep value, scattered pink smoke that is almost completely camouflaged by it’s randomness. Wild, the seeds are wind naturalized in dry pea like pods. Slow to mature and short lived, they are the first predictable harbingers of the three slow walking spring winters.

DOGWOOD WINTER
Following soon after is the week of dogwood winter. The Mother is still primarily quiet and gray, slowly warming deep and preparing for the pitched growth which is still mostly tightly furled buds and leaves. This has been our very recent history as well, shared with the white, forested, dogwood flowering tree,  which is busy measuring, waiting, counting and advancing it’s agenda on every secret and obvious front available. And yet, there remains one final winter to traverse as the Father Sky Sun continues to build and strengthen his sky ladder, staging platform growths from high to low and low to high..an unbroken band of constantly downloading and uploading source information that defines and underpins our interactive creative connection with the Divine.

BLACKBERRY WINTER
Blackberry winter is the last little winter before the full on spring transition loosens  the pent up growth potential that carries the freight and weight of the entire previous years stored effort in root and seed memory… the entire weight of last year, and the eons of fractalizing DNA activity that went before. Is it any wonder that the season of spring advances like a heavily loaded train pulling out of a station.

Blackberry winter will see some of the last light frosts and cold nights but the white blackberry flower is hardy and often marks the arrival of Easter. Drifts of snow in the high country may bury blooming daffodils and drive Easter egg hunts indoors in the mountains where snow melt is just beginning to form rivulets running down rocky slopes. We hold back. Extreme weather of all descriptions might be found at this time. Tornados spring out of warm southern winds meeting with cold northern winds, Pacific fronts bring wind and rain, snow over the higher elevations, unseasonal heat can promote drought and fire conditions, floods and thunder storms can arise from seemingly any direction and the hard ‘male rains’ walk the land, carrying their awakening drumbeat upon face of the Mother Earth alternating with the softer ‘female rains’ who come softly out of the fogs and mists reminding us of ‘when the earth was young’. May we renew and prepare as well for the creation time is hard upon us.

SUMMER
And then the summer comes, by the natural calendar presented in this writing, in the third week of April. And now, we are well within the season but still reeling from recent history. Spring is an unruly season, full of chaos, creation and uncertainty, often containing a scarcity of resources for all, creating  an urgency to live. This is where we find ourselves and now, as the seemingly sudden emergences can begin to relax, perhaps so can we. It is good to pause and look back at the little winters for here we can perceive our shared plant histories of competition and desired proliferation while yet held within the hand of the Mother Earth and the Father Sky Sun. These looks back reveal measured progress in the larger contexts of the Medicine Wheel Teachings as the high drumbeat of the summer season offers assurances of primal growth in Spirit from the Earth to the Heavens in this, the season of the most high and exuberant growth potentials.

EB is the trecena where high potential growth arises energetically from the fertile gene pool of the Mother Earth. We rise to meet a renewed seasonal ladder of light extended earthward from the Father Sky Sun by which we may all traverse toward within the Evolution of Consciousness and Unity with Prime Creative Source.

Let each of know the seasonal histories of whence we came, draw sustenance and calm; draw strength, knowledge and comfort from that continuity. Let us also draw health, courage and bravery to meet every opportunity and challenge that this season offers by which to manifest and seed our highest visions through the coming seasons to meet again the fruit of THIS harvest for yet another season, next year on the Beautiful Mother Earth and the Resplendent Father Sky Sun.

AHO ..MAY IT BE SO, NOW AND FOREVER MORE IN BALANCE AND HARMONY SAID.
Bama Mine,
Dawnwoman

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POST: April 22, 2016, Trecena of Storm/CAUAC

Negotiating the Direction of the Forever Young Springtime of our Lives

A CAUAC TRECENA MESSAGE by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Now is the time to recognize, honor and release the rigid and fossilized shells of past and present history and allow the Divine Light of the Creator to PENETRATE the seeds of life with sun, water and soil, to seat within and emanate into our lives. This is the season of Spring, the forever young morning of the year, to remember when the earth was young. Would we remember that we too, are born of this time of emergence and new growth? That it is our companion birthright? Especially at this time, all of our potential is within vision and reach in this, the very best, built in by season, season of our lives within which to look and be drawn forward not only toward the  storms of old negativities for release, but while concurrently doing our fanciest dances toward our most fondly held dreams of unconditional love, joy and the highest heart possible.

It’s a fancy dance indeed and one which calls for our battle harden warriors within to come to our aid, to transform and allow us to wield the newly re-forged swords of bright truth, cutting away the binding and blinding cords of fear based histories of trauma, heartbreak and violence. The time is now. Let us forever forget the finely honed strategies of survival, break the confining bonds of negativity, reclaiming our birthrights as sons and daughters of ‘becoming, growing, being and celebrating light’.

At this time, many of us may find ourselves negotiating the deep and swiftly moving waters of dynamic evolution of Spirit and Soul if not also, of actual mental and physical evolutionary challenges. As the waters represent Life, and with the life giving and waters, rain filled arroyos, rivulets, springs, oceans, rivers and storms of this new trecena of Cauac, the forever young, we have the next powerful agent of Evolution and Direction of the Medicine Wheel upon which to call for energetic assistance. The flushing and flooding waters, storm and wind filled powers of Cauac will without doubt, bring the accompanying opportunities of distraction as well as the attractions and potentials of chaos and creation. These creative manifestations and issues of chaos and creation cannot be denied, managed or avoided for ever, as much as we would like to put them aside but must be viewed as imperative Spiritual housekeeping opportunities which clear the way for renewed vision and organization. Hardened and inured to personal pains of fear, disappointment, survival and struggle as we are, so now must we meet these imperatives and become the tempered and sensitive Angels of Light that we deeply and originally know ourselves to be, no matter what!

The old histories must and can be transformed and transmuted into the design of deep and positive loving and joyful intention, lest those things things undesirable and undeserving burrow, camouflage and hide for yet another occasion with which to be dealt. However, many of us find ourselves poised at an evolutionary precipice contemplating a deep dive into the swirling waters and storms of Cauac to retrieve, surface and flow smoothly with the highest dream of fruitful life as you know it to be…and you DO know what that represents for you…grabbing on to that bright dream and fusing with it. However, Be forewarned: discomfort WILL and SHOULD be an expected part of this activity. This is not the bad news, it is simply the news… Therefore, gird yourself now, for encountering unknown and unattractive discomforts.. for the bright being you are will vomit up and discard all with which it does not agree and positively resonate. Never fear to face the sickness and vomit, sweat, excrete or cry away that with which your highest self is not now in agreement. This is a natural way of purification. Trust that you will not be creating or revisiting for long, the heartbreaking imbalances of old. Never more that at this time…will the support of proven and worthy tools of personal ceremony found be of such great, informative and soothing value. If you CAN and WILL.. study and incorporate the Principle of Gratitude. An active application of the Gratitude Principle can and will function as energetic pumps of release! NO SMALL STATEMENT!  SPIRIT TALK, a book of days contains extensive direction should you seek additional Spirit driven suggestions for designing and sustaining this powerful personal ceremony.

The Gratitude Principle will work in tandem to identify, introduce, securely place and seat new and renewed vision, as the fresh, clear and purified internal space is created within which to seat and firmly invigorate our original and unblemished visions of balance and harmony.

Dynamic participation within the Evolution of Humankind calls for unprecedented personal courage, trust and endurance. These words carry true power! and have long been incorporated within the prayers of all two-leggeds. By introducing ourselves, by name, to the CREATOR, MASTER OF ALL BREATH and bringing forward our heartfelt conversations, concerns and supplications, we can, with these and other words bridge, or begin to bridge, the perceived separation with the Creator, for we remember that the Creator hears even the ‘groans of our heart’. By thinking, speaking and doing so, the emergencies occasioned by separation can now best begin to be closed and even healed, making live worth living as never before and sustaining all things of value, including those things which are identified and selected to be carried forward and joined with radiance. Within these prayers it has been found desirable to ask ‘Creator, what would you have me know this day’ or ‘Spirit, what is going on here’? or to ‘make prayers’ for guidance and wisdom; the strengths with which to sustain the rigors of raising vision; the strengths for carrying the transformational activities and for holding firm with the attendant maintainences, good health, peace and most of all ENDURANCE! Never forget to ask for endurance. Then, concluding and releasing the Creator’s attention from our voices by naming and expressing recognition and gratitude for life itself and all of the gifts….for us and all.

And so, we be carried and buoyed with the sometimes turbulent, sometimes calmly flowing streams, oceans and rivers of Spring Times currents, indeed the winds and waters of each season and direction upon the Sacred Medicine Wheel of Life…while joining courageously and marvelously with the myriad currents of creation, doing what we do best, realizing and being ourselves.. as undeniable and unique aspects of the Divine.

We can do these things..let’s go!
May each of us move in accord with the Divine Intent of Balance and Harmony, now and forever more.
AHO! SO BE IT.
MIGWECH, WEWENE, KICHE MIGWECH.
Dawnwoman

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POST: April 14, 2016, Trecena of Transformer/CIMI

Setting Sacred Intention

A CIMI TRECENA MESSAGE by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Late and heavy snowfalls, rain and floods accompany Cimi the Transformer, bearing the moisture necessary to soften seed skins toughened by the sunlight and heat of three seasons past. No season stands alone and no breath is unlinked to any previous history which give us cause to ‘remember’ this trecena, that the Mayan elders would call upon us to meditate upon ancestral seed, memory and wisdom.

Would we also remember that certain elders have told us that “the calendar did not end in 2012 and that it is ‘up to us’ to begin writing the new Books of Days and calendars”? This then, is the Sacred Charge of OUR time and we need look no further than the first, most beautiful and enduring gift to us from the Creator, Master of All Breath, of our Mother Earth and our Father Sky-Sun for the initial paradigms and original instructions.

Indeed, the natural world has been and continues to carry forward the ‘original vision of life’ and to deliciously keep the faith of this dream of life as we know it within the sometimes tender, sometimes tough love of the duality principle.

Seasonal shifts, weather and the evolving life cycles of plant and animal display relationship to initial seed instruction as it may be found at any and every stage of development and at no stage is it more memorable than at the time of the Spring Equinox.

Cimi may indeed be among the most powerfully linked trecena with the transformative
power of regeneration. At no time are the potentials and intentions of life and death so pitched and imminent, speaking so soundly of the past and yet, only really knowing life in this, the eternal present moment. The seed beings do not resonate to produce negative potentials and results..how then, did the two-leggeds come to mis-identify the sacred right of choice as an opportunity to decide against the creative and life affirmative concepts of love, wisdom and respect?

Cimi may indeed herald the Arab Spring of humanity, albeit not one of dualistic political agenda but one of drawing or beginning to draw, the butterfly wing forces of duality closer to the Spirit Center of each seed originating being. The chrysalis season of the Galactic Butterfly is now. The great mystery and emergence on all planes is near.

We are within the energetic of Transformation and the sacred hand of choice is upon us to build grateful minds, hearts, bodies and minds while crafting and raising a voice to the Master of All Breath that from this moment we might be carried by the powerful spring winds and waters of the dynamic evolution prophesied of old. Things of old sit right next to the now..and now, we can and must exercise the sacred right of choice that life might go on ‘In a good way”. It is up to us. What would we write? What will emerge? What intentions will draw their first breaths from our Divine Creative Minds, to find shape, form, celebrate and set the seed for this and all following springs?

The time of the spring equinox partnered with transformative energies is reaching its peak and the time of manifesting is building strength and carrying forward old and new seeds of intention. Time is short.

Each of us are swimming among sacred waters which bring life and are being breathed by the winds, breath of the Creator, which carries spirits to and from the spirit world. We are carried by torrent and gentle stream alike, frozen green yet again, to begin anew, or not…we may find ourselves quickly drawn up by tornadic winds of chaotic emotion and upheaval and find ourselves presented with the necessity to purify, release, renew and reorganize.. The Mother and Father powers and their allies are not always easy. Moving in agreement and concert with them requires a profound degree of complete willingness and surrender painted with the personal ‘medicine paints’ of our unique rootedness as an aspect of the evolving World Tree and the Medicine Wheel within which it grows.

AHO! It is good, it is very, very, good.
Bama Mine,

Dawnwoman

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POST: April 10, 2016, Trecena of Transformer/CIMI

Knowing Beauty

by Minisa Crumbo Halsey
[An excerpt from Minisa’s book, “Spirit Talk – a Book of Days”]

Life is mostly about maintenance. Much of the hard work is in the past. Once the conscious return to the spiritual home-center within is sought and accomplished, the sacred charge is the basically delightful work of holding as much attention as possible in this experience of balance, harmony, and beauty. It will require a new discipline. Many times in the past we have allowed thoughts and feelings to roam free rein, often making returns to negative associations, histories, attractions, habitual attitudes, or passive negative associations that are hoped to further feelings of solidarity with an individual or group mind-set. Hosting negativity will hinder—guaranteed—the building and maintenance of the fullest life experience of a new mystic.

Watch the thoughts like an eagle. Upon identifying undesirable, unloving, depressive, angry, fearful, controlling, or manipulative, jealous, vengeful, or sorrowful thoughts, acknowledge and honor them. Pull the weeds of the Divine Garden. Maintenance. Aspire also to learn the content and meaning of their message and immediately, or as soon as possible, direct and return them to the great reservoir of spirit energy, where they will be purified and renewed. Release them to make their own blessing journey and return to Source, sending them on their return path with gratitude and love, on the breath as well as thought. The eyes can also direct releases, with permission, to the clouds. The breath, being the constant link with life and the Divine is ever present, able, and willing to transmute and transform into Spirit, that which is truly dead, dying or diseased . . . no longer wanted or needed. Be sure that only ones personal business is addressed. At all times be observant of others’ sacred and psychic privacy and freedom of choice. Maintaining a respectful mien, which is increasingly built by mindful, positive choices and growing awarenesses of what and how we think, act, and intend at all times, is essential. This practice of thorough attention is a cumulative, life process and will grow more robust with practice and the seasons, so move forward and regularly provide the sweet water of loving kindness to the young Sacred Flowering Tree, and to the young skebyak, the green beings, born of the same elemental parents as ourselves. What kind of tree or shrub are you?

Now, how does it go again? Would you remember. . . . To return and re-center within the center of the Sweet Medicine home of balance, harmony, and beauty whenever necessary and to resume functioning from this place? As time goes by, and many of these suggestions are being considered and possibly entertained, some of you may envision alternate places and ways, other words or systems, customs, and traditions. At the same time, these highest aspirations may also open heretofore only previously dreamed of and hoped for thresholds to planes and levels of expanded growth, radiant and unified experience, inspired and illuminated truths . . . to the new mystic.

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POST: March 28, 2016

1 BEN Evolution of the Spirit Incarnate

by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Tracking, identifying and managing the various aspects of the mutable desire bodies as they arise and develop out of our core relationship – the Creator, Master of All Breath, endeavors to express not only divine intention but aspires to extend the creative principles, as branches of a mighty tree, in service to both core spirit, the principle of duality AND the manifested union of both as they move within the Evolution of The Spirit Incarnate.

It is out of the manifested and manifesting unions of these principles, when viably connected with collective and also personal creation stories, that energetic etheric streams begin to arise, coalesce and collect primary cognizance.

The further development of identity and the will and willingness to gain expression is still closely linked with creative origins but with expansion comes contact with external influences. The cellular and spiritual memory of Divine intention is challenged. Original source memory is challenged AND awarded the complex of creative energy by which to retain, remember, organize and seat these powerful impulses.

The organizing, fusing and  empowering of this original impulse at an early age has long been the assignment of initiation activities and delicate ceremonies. These ceremonies would ideally be conducted within the vast network of traditional understanding and spirit connection embedded within the explicit community or specific medicine society. The membership of the initiation candidate would be invited or determined by family, clan and birth, however one must remember that initiation happens firstly to, for and with the individual. With this in mind, the initiation, initiating, process is a familiar and ongoing life process of which we often find ourselves in singular possession. At that time, consciousness can be rallied and any person may elect to initiate themselves to anything, at any time. It is to this delicate and sometimes dire circumstance that one may find oneself at a serious energetic threshold, flush with Spiritual potential. Let one now take stock and review who and what one is, as presently understood.

We MUST first remember that the original DNA instructions and spiritual birth origins travel with us as discrete packages of unique personal inheritance, perhaps time coded, perhaps subject to desire, necessity or other influence, certainly something of precious origin and functionality. The individual IS from pre-birth. The quality and content of early reception IS of prime importance however, the principle and life long influence MUST  be reiterated as breath, for it is by “being breathed alive’ that we are acquainted, MAINTAIN and come to occupy the alien land of the physical body and the domain of duality, home to the many spotted coat of our companion entities.

The intended and perhaps more random and chosen facts of birth families aside, the newly ‘breathed alive’ entity has entered into a vast stream of life defined by individual circumstance and the gift of choice as a sacred right. It is at this point that individuation begins to move full steam ahead with survival mechanisms and choice occasioning the birth and expression of the dynamic desire body.

And so, with this completion of the Sun-AHAU trecena, we are blessed, sleekly self recognized and initiated and newly equipped to move forward into, with and AS the new
Divine Light.
AHO!
Dawnwoman

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Post: March 17, 2016

AHAU: The Serious Sun of Planting the Evolutionary Crops of Happiness, Health and Love; Returning Home to the Heart

by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Beloveds,

The sowing of the selected and random seeds of Spring is intimately tied to the happiness cycle of sowing and reaping. Now, more than ever it is of paramount  importance that we allow ourselves to travel the paths of true appreciation, love and happiness.

Numbering among the myriad planting rows and paths we would continue seeking Ways by which to remember ‘being breathed’, for the unseen Ways of the Creator travel upon these energetic and physical, smoke like, pathways, linking all things to each other and most importantly, providing interactive connection to the vast Creative mind, heart, body and Spirit.

These are the paths we must now discover and traverse for the wisdom and knowledge necessary to continue living ‘in a good way. Distraction from the core intentions of this time can not longer be permitted to steal attention and energy from the more important endeavors of returning home to healthy interactive connection with the Creator. There is no more time for entertaining the erroneous, heartbreaking and damaging perceptions of separation with the Creator. This will not hold.

Meditation opportunities are more important than ever as a remembering/active tool to hold and experience the rapid changes that compel our attention. SERIOUSLY seek SOME solitary thought time during which to quiet the mind and open to larger opportunities of  Creative perception and inspiration.

Be inventive. Be VERY INVENTIVE. Our very life now depends upon how well we  are able accept and exercise this prime, imperative, invitation to revisit our most fondly held ideals of Divine connection and participate actively take part in re-dreaming our collective future upon the beautiful Mother Earth, Turtle Island, in within the most positive evolutional channels of which we are individually able to conceive.

As we shoulder this vast creative effort of re-dreaming the world it is important to take care of our bodies by resting as much as possible. Meditation is highly recommended. Dreams may occur as waking visions or sleep dreams. Carefully monitor all dreams, ideas, inspirations, and visions. Record or process them as soon as possible.

Give the dream and vision visitations some time to settle in, double check them for veracity and if possible discuss them with a trusted friend who may be able to help with interpretation. Watch for synchronicities, dreams coming in groups of three should receive special attention.

Redouble all time and efforts directed toward making prayers which are part of the solution, (love, respect, honor) instead of part of the problem. Mindfully state your name and issue while asking permission to speak. Perhaps ‘put down some tobacco, if that is your tradition) Speak and when the prayer if felt to be complete, then offer Gratitude and release the Creator’s attention from the prayer and close. At this time remain attentive to feelings of  successful and loving completion.

Limit overindulgence as much as possible as escape or soothing mechanisms. Nothing will really serve as worthy or permanent escape as personal attention is mandatory. Wholesome and regular food and reasonable exercise and movement is very helpful. Again, be inventive, if something that worked in the past no longer serves, seek shifts and try out new regimens.

Perhaps, short fasts would give our challenged systems a ‘breather’.

Stress levels spike in response to the increasingly imperative invitation of Evolving in Spirit. Choices long put aside or viewed as unattainable are now front row and center.

The Evolutionary pathways and planting rows are presenting themselves abundantly and in balance and harmony. The rows and furrows must be cleared of last years debris, turned over and made ready for the planting and this will occasion willingness of an unprecedented level. There is much to learn here and the happiness of discovery and expansion is at a vastly renewed level of  Evolutionary activity.

The Mayan Calendar, The Medicine Wheel Teachings, the I Ching, organized and codified Religions, the work place, astrology, writing and composing, planting food crops no matter how small, cooking,  tribal teachings; song, dance, and drumming; teachers, friends and family: the ancestors and elders, and wisdom of the seasons.. All are in a position to make unique and valuable contributions to the designing or performance of personal ceremony, observance, prayer which can provide constant grounding during this and all times of profound evolutionary movement.

Germain to that, Consider taking up the staff of personal happiness and breathing in concert with the Creative Breath of life. It is what each of us has always sought. It is what and who we are. Now is the time to put nonessentials aside, and while continuing to meet core responsibilities, return to who we know our selves to be in our deepest hearts of heart. The invitation is to return home.

May we each enjoy and sustain the beauties and mysteries of this powerful Evolutionary time..  Know happiness, love, balance, harmony and Holy Restoration of Connection with the

Creator..all ways, all days, now and forever more…

Bama mine,

Dawnwoman

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Post: March 15, 2016

For the Trecena of Sun/AHAU…

by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

The rain has stopped.. it’s still and the night sky is beautiful.

There was a fire ceremony today and four new white candles were lit to symbolically light and welcome the WAY for the illumination and inspiration of moving spring.
But, Illumination and inspiration appeared to be illusive.. I’ve had my ear to the ground and the winds, however truly inspired flow still seems remain heavily on the outflow. While much of this outflow can be and is, identified as illumination it seems to point back to very much of an older and more personal nature. These thoughts would open onto a few words for us to move upon mindfully together as we enter into this new trecena.

AHAU TRECENA, THE ILLUMINATION SUN

BOZHO BELOVED,
The AHAU TRECENA
Sun possess the power to bring illumination to both the inner and outer process…  Lots of s’s sounds there, the serpent sound that alerts all humans and animals to take heed, heed that an agent of active change is near, latent, hidden, or in movement. The wise person who is attuned to natural sounds will stop immediately and assess (more s’s) the immediate environment and ask, “what goes here”?

The AHAU TRECENA would cast the sun-light of illumination upon and within the near and far environs of our (and perhaps others) personal medicine wheel. The big medicines of all previous time is preparing to come forward once again. We are poised at a near final choice point of spring decision. We are toned, poised and in a finely tuned final balance point of seeing, knowing and choosing exactly which seeds will be cast. Shockingly to us, some of those winter processes (more s’s) remain sleepily overlooked, shrouded by illness and health concerns of ourselves or others, lazily unexamined by dulled, unmet or poorly formed discipline and attention. As that bad boy Sean Penn would so succinctly phrase it ” We all have to make a ‘comeback’ every day”. We like to think of the public and obvious failures mis-takes as having to make the ‘comeback’ whereas it is often and usually ourselves that must be willing make that effort.

So, the AHAU SUN of illumination must be invited and allowed to perform this service and make this gift, and yes, ask the sacrifices of attention and choice that illuminations-partner of the east direction… inspiration can come forward. When the final excruciating pauses and searches have been accepted and scanned to the best of our abilities we are then readied.., readied to be unharnessed by these last bounds of winter wisdom and released to the unfettered stronger sun, pushing mother, the winds, the rains… released to the chaos of whatever would come forward upon the changes of full on spring, the direction of the east… and all that will follow.

The entrance of the full-on, serious AHAU energy of illumination is a pointed arrow of growth intention that may be very accurately effectively allowed to ‘illuminate’ that which still requires attention as well as that which is solidly being viewed ‘worthy and desirable’ to move forward as a proven and worthy tool/gift of the moment and future.

AHAU brings the illumination and inspiration of a new season and with it the opportunity of a personal or community/family fire ceremony. Basically the fire ceremony humbles us before the Father Sky Sun as we make offerings of at least raw liver and tobacco, that the fire beings will ‘have everything they need to live life in a good way’. There are many ways to ‘make’ these prayers and this ceremony but essentially, a clear intention of gratitude and thanks (at least recognition) should be crafted and offered to the Master of All Breath and the fire beings, the Mother Earth who gave growth to the wood beings, the tobacco beings which we ask to carry our breath laden prayer, the red heart of the liver offering, and the Father Sky Sun for All of the gifts, the known and the unknown….In the absence of feeling ‘able’ enough to co-ordinate a fire ceremony one may just humbly light a candle, pray, put some feed out for the birds, listen to some good music, take a swim, burn some incense, make a cup of ramen, run or nap, smile or touch someone nicely, trim your nails, think of something that made/makes you happy, make a call or write a note to someone who you know is struggling… just move SOME-THING forward with love and know that for now, it is enough. And tomorrow morning, greet the Father Sky Sun with recognition for the gifts and consider asking ‘Grandfather, what would you have me know this day’? Accept what comes to mind, no matter how insignificant it would appear, and allow the wisdom to unfold as it will, perhaps as an inspiration and true illumination of the season. It is in this way that we live and grow in beauty and love..and true personal ‘medicine  and ceremony’ reveals itself, takes root and grows.

A good ceremony takes care of a lot of things, especially unwieldy ‘s’ things. A good fire ceremony will allow certain things to be ‘returned to purity’. No small thing. These ‘certain things’ often do not even need to be named for would we remember that the Creator hears ‘Even the groans of our hearts’.

Bama mine,
Dawnwoman

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POST: February 26, 2016 – 9 Wind/IK

The Spring Circle of Life

Bozho, Breathers of Integrity,
It is a 9 IK day…Crafting a Spiritual Press Release
…and Here, today and indeed during all days of this season, we find ourselves within a Spring Circle of Life..a time when certain spirit beings of growth return to answer our song and call of partnership which is voiced and carried by our sacred breath.

Call and response ceremonies, together with intention, tradition and structures of disciplined observation and repetition remain core avenues of mind, heart, body and spirit communication.

Deep beneath the late winter covers of the Mother Earth can be heard the faint visceral stirrings of breath, heartbeat and blood…life stirring within the dens of the young bear moon…green onion shoots emerging straight and strong bringing blood medicine…and maple tree blood rising to help us remember the sweetnesses of life.

Now, Each of us is being given, at this time, the opportunity to craft, voice and breath a few original thoughts, dreams and prayers of known value, toward publishing to ourselves and all of  beingness, what may be viewed as our most current and vital biographical information. Let us craft a call and response press release to be radiated our from our very core centers, where we reside as our own Sacred Flowering Tree of Life, drawing up sweet saps of life giving nectar.  Even before the snow melts, our sap, as does the maple sap, flows through and out the boy pegs and is set to boil in old copper vats suspended over wood fires that will burn for days as our life blood is thickened and concentrated.

This is the time, while still beneath metaphorical or actual covers to initiate the spring call and response activities/ceremonies. Our breath, heartbeat and blood will feed and inspire the calls and responses where none were perhaps thought to be present. Listen. Allow these beings to initiate the call and observe the responses..your unknown, mysterious and emerging responses and the spirit form responses of other emerging life forms. Some of these songs, pants, groans, prayers, squeaks and giggles will be of anticipation; some dream, waking memories of ancient plant and animal growth codes while other calls and responses are straining and assessing their new stresses and conditions which will necessitate original and inventive calls and responses.

Seasonal calls and responses are the current form of the original instructions within which we are born, live and die. While some might say we came with no instruction manual and some of us came with limited support, all of us now living upon and within the Mother Earth-Father Sky Sun construct, find ourselves indelibly, within a creative equilibrium restructuring system which arises every moment anew, from the Master of All Breath.

The tree beings are said to represent the energetic of integrity in the natural world so, when we view and place our most precious core centers within the Medicine Wheel to take root, leaf, fruit, branch and grow as Sacred Flowering Trees…we are divinely seated to be a fully functioning call and response song of integrity.

I invite each of us to think, then step or look outside, inviting and initiating a conversation with a tree being, telling it/them (it may be a shrub or grass field) your name, what your interest in them consists of (perhaps you will just have to say that you are following direction), and telling them a little secret: tell it/them what you want…craft  little call and response spiritual press release just for yourself….. And listen…..the call and response ceremony can and must belong to each of us in order to keep the world alive.
For, all ceremony must be fresh, flexible and regularly renewed or else it runs the risk of becoming stale and out of balance.

Remember to ‘Be Breathed’ Alive into this new season, spring.

Bama mine,
Dawnwoman

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POST: February 18, 2016 – 1 Jaguar/IX

A young boy sun and a young girl earth arrive at the party for the annual Springtime play date…

I had to revisit the dream this morning. Upon returning from the Spirit World renewed I now know it was entirely the right thing to do for in the early dawn hours I had received a visitation from a young boy, a young boy with lots of black curly hair who stood near the bed looking curiously and brightly at me, and I at him.

Upon reentering the dream-sleep this morning and delving for meaning, nothing had come forward. Immediately upon awakening and remembering to ask the two principal questions, who are you and what do you want? I am revisited by the young boy who tells me: ‘I am the young boy sun, would you show me around and tell me what is going on? And so, with that sacred charge… we agree to host… he will be told the stories… and, also told the stories about our best friend, the young girl earth.

This year, as two leggeds we are visited once again by the season of Spring. This Spring we are receiving the sacred charge to put all uncertainty behind us, to partner as children ourselves… and together with our divinity, host the two most beautiful gifts in the Universe… that these two holy children might run and play together once again, revisiting us with the joyous RENEWALL of the growing year for those of us here in the northern hemisphere, that can go on ‘in a good way’ once again.

SPIRIT TALK
Creator, kiche migwech for all of the gifts. May I run and play in the wind, unencumbered, with the holy children, of which I and all others are one..
Wabaksekwe

WILL AS PRAYER
The new Jaguar trecena IX, ties personal and collective intentional journeys of transformation, which reform and renew the energy and memory of recent and ancient blockages into a rich humus of appropriate seasonal will. Some seasonal wills are composed in part by failed, twisted and disappointed shouldas, wouldas, and couldasas  and most wills are the radiant and successful wills-prayers, brought forward in all of their joy and beauty through the divine play of our brothers and sisters.

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POST: February 5, 2016 – 1 Crocodile/IMIX

The Service of Initiation and of Remembering that we are Sacred Beings

As we are upon the cusp of, initiating and moving within a new TZOLKIN of 260 days, inaugurated by the powerful 1 Imix, let us take this time, pausing to once again, Be Breathed Alive into the Sacred Stream of the collective and personal Evolution. Let us pause to renew and strengthen the service of breath with the intention of storing and remembering, remembering breath, until each movement of the bellows of our lungs become a conscious partnering of this precious gift of life with that of the giver,
THE MASTER OF ALL BREATH, THE CREATOR. This first, continuous and ultimately final activity of life as we know it as the two-leggeds then has the opportunity to become a river of life and a sacred umbilicus by which we can know both supported movement and the sacred security of identified focus. For it is recognized that movement (the flowing breath River) and space (the sacred focus of birth origin) create TIME. WithIn that TIME, Conscious, grateful and willing participation in the service of breath presents the initial and magnificent, ever present, Service of Initiation.

The Service of Initiation through breath is the principal WAY by which we can initiate ourselves, moment by moment, into the Great Spirit Body (ourselves). Many Indigenous cultures practiced initiation ritual at various transitional stages of life, however many of us now find ourselves in the brilliant evolutionary stage of duality upon our Mother Earth whereby it is both necessary and possible to breathe ourselves and the Mother into a new Medicine Book of Days through dreaming, forging and enacting personal initiation ceremonies. The Medicine Book of Days that our partnering, willingness and consciousness breath ceremonies can shape and write..can actively shape, write and contribute and experience a balanced and harmonious eternal present, for space and movement have a center, a Medicine Wheel that breathes us and is in turn breathed by us.

It is all about love. The Creator, the Medicine Wheel, the Tzolkin want to make love to us. Can we? Will we? Yes, of course and then the Circle of Life is complete for all the Creator REALLY wants is for us to be happy. It all turns upon willingness and the breath. Sometimes this seems too simple and is easily overlooked or diminished in relative importance and then, Science has reduced breath to an autonomic function, overlooking the core dynamic. While this may be so it does not take conscious attention to breath into account, certainly not the sacred aspect of the function. We can never allow this to happen for through it we are stripped of our essential sacred humanity. Just say no!

Remember, the old people have said ‘ it is not whether you will DO it (whatever the chosen IT is) but, whether you will REMEMBER to do it.’

SPIRIT TALK
Offered here are a few sacred, mundane and encouraging notes to assist THE SACRED TWO-LEGGED in the ceremony of remembering. Upon these notes and others you will devise and add to yourselves, may be written the all important glyphs: BE BREATHED…..to this end we must be clever, dedicated and vigilant, if a marriage is to be made with the Creator’s Ceremonies of Remembering and Being Breathed.
It is through these Ceremonies we agree to participate in the Service of Initiation to Life through Remembering that we are Sacred Beings and that of We Are Being Breathed Alive, forever.

BE BREATHED….or, I ALLOW MYSELF TO BE BREATHED ALIVE

Place PostIt notes on the dashboard, computer, cel phone, machinery, bathroom mirror, inside and outside doors…etc. give your self permission to call upon yourself first, to remember, and to make that first call to the Creator, Master of All Breath and say hello, it’s me…(your name), thank you for everything…

Meditate upon the words I Am Breathed Alive and then, direct your attention to actually being breathed…in dedicated sessions or in meditations of the moment. (The book SPIRIT TALK, a book of days, dedicates a full teaching to breath within the context of the Medicine Wheel Teachings and is recommended reading). Then, endeavor to stay with the breath as long as available attention makes it possible.

This Sacred Charge of the Personal Service of Initiation will display a scattered and random character at first. Do not be hard on yourself. Pick up the practice and hold it whenever you do remember or are reminded. Trust that these times will increase in number and will lengthen in time, linking up to form a vital cord, rope or flowing stream of life…something personal from this Ceremony will show itself to you and be uniquely yours, revealing itself to be and essential aspect of yourself and of the Universe, fused and flowing peacefully along together.
A Medicine Gift.

BE BREATHED ALIVE,
All ways, all days
Big smiles,
Minisa 1 IK

NOTE: Minisa’s book, “Spirit Talk – a Book of Days” shares the ancient wisdom of the traditional Medicine Wheel path with insight on ceremony throughout the seasons.

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POST: JANUARY 23, 2016 – 1 STAR/LAMAT

The Spirit of Happiness has been dancing outside my window in the night birds songs and the daybreak flights of long billed cloud-water birds north. This is the season of the East. It is now, that the returning Son And Daughter in the forms of Corn Girl and Corn Boy nourish us through the big bear and little bear (cubs born) winter months.

As the door cracks open on spring, the feet of all things slowly and methodically begin to prepare and reorient for yet another return to the east-west axis of the Medicine Wheel and the special ‘medicines’ associated with east.

The Fire Medicines. The internal Fire Ceremonies are occurring simultaneously in the form of breath, digestion and electrical/nervous activity, mimicking and matching inspiration and pace with the external Fire Ceremonies of the stronger Son and Daughter Dances of the Season.

Son and Daughter Spirits which are present in the corn beings..balance. Corn Boy and Corn Girl which bring special gifts forward designed to assist in maintaining the eternally shifting balances of the duality principle. The principle which demands and requires an honoring of ingenuity that Corn Boy and Corn Girl can facilitate, for they understand the unique and precious demands that human beings, the two-legends, must meet in order to be in successful connection with the Creator, hence ourselves and all living things. We Two-legged Spirit Beings are unusually challenged and blessed to inhabit a gender/Spirit based world. The variety created by the energetics of duality is endless and in constant flux and the Successful negotiation of these dualities require a vigilant position. A position of awareness, alertness, bravery and endurance. Love, acceptance, gratitude, surrender, focus and effort move us forward, toward identification and right relationship with the appropriate Spirit Entities that can salve, bless and bridge our connection with the Creator and seasonal prerequisites.

Corn Boy and Corn Girl understand our predicament and in many ways represent our highest selves, Spirit Incarnate. They can be spoken to and appeals can be made on behalf of balance and harmony. A hand full of the corn beings can carry thanks for ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. It depends on the content of intention of the offering mind and heart. The corn beings understand and will bridge in beauty at the sunrise and sunset. The corn beings will lay down circles of blessing around and within a home when asked. The corn beings both speak on our behalf and can also carry message voices back to us from the larger world.

This teaching begins to sketch an outline of personal ceremony. Form a personal ceremony based on how you are and what you have..then be observant and see what transpires. If you are able, design one that can be practiced daily or at many times during the day and night but in the end, initiating a mindful practice once a day is a good place to begin…duality: end–begin..the Season of Spring advances…make the prayer talks..make ready.

SPIRIT TALK

When we eat corn, we pray.

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POSTED 5 STORM/CAUAC

This day, the lightening bolt of 5 Cauac/Storm heralds a bumpy portion of the spring ingress which begins to occur around the third week of January, by the calendar of the natural world. This moment in seasonal time is when we can expect to feel the known comfort of the winter rest receding before the exuberant emergence of spring..and yet spring is still only beginning to make its approach. We stand, sit and lie at a seasonal threshold. All beings that reside upon and within our Mother Earth can expect some exhilaration and some discomfort at this particular time of change. It’s the news, not bad news, just the news and this news will inform our personal Medicine Wheel landscapes…those of the mind, heart, body and Spirit.

SPIRIT TALK
May we find our individual places among the willing, active and grateful witnesses as the Mother Earth turns her body to seek the longer Rays of the Father Sky Sun and so, counting ourselves among the refreshing and initiating new lives that comes forward with the liberating promise of spring rains and late winter snows.

Dawnwoman (Minisa Crumbo Halsey)

NOTE: For more information and additional guidance, see the Chapter on Spring in Minisa’s book, “Spirit Talk – a Book of Days.”

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1 Men/Eagle Wisdom: Spiritual Discernment

by Minisa Crumbo, 1 Wind/IK

Attendant with the practice of loving kindness and compassion comes wisdom. With wisdom comes knowledge, that great balm of connection with the w/holy beings, ourselves included.

As the eagle intermediary flies high, carrying our prayers, intentions, hopes and dreams to the Creator, it is also positioned to function as a return energetic and spiritual conduit. Therefore the eagle is a metaphor for our own dialogues with Spirit and all sentient and insentient beings.

Our precious Holy Spirit Talks, be they of mind, heart, body or spirit are sacred emanations arising out of the wholeness of our being. Thus, the Eagle morphs from our relatively intangible communication devices into a more visible and easily understood conduit of sacred threads of breath. Since we are constantly being ‘breathed alive’ we may view breath as our constant connective cord to the Creator. That cord is a vital communication link and condition report.

Many other WAYS are spontaneously or traditionally in place by which to exercise spirit communications, however breath (IK) may be viewed as a prime, unfettered and commonly experienced conduit of both incoming and outgoing core life celebrations, petitions, information and support. Structured and unstructured life force may move through these avenues in an unimpeded and trustworthy manner. When flexed and tested, in time, these avenues and ourselves as receivers can be trusted to impart and receive truths for our consideration.

The accurate reception and interpretation of messages that arise from our own minds, spirit guides, ancestors, the directions and powers and sacred direction and support from Prime Creator moves onto a high level of importance. Any and all insights, dreams, visions, hunches, visitations and thoughts must therefore survive a stringent and rigorous proving and examining process for establishing intrinsic validity, balance, harmony and truth. There are many WAYS to vet reliability and trustworthiness of information but the underlying motives of ALL Spirit Talks must always include the establishment of intention and origin.

The following questions and conditions may safely and honorably be directed to all incoming and outgoing traffic. They are to be asked, in this order:

1. May only the highest good be permitted here, all else is released, with gratitude to the light.
   2. Who are you and what do you want?
   3. Spirit, what is going on here?

These questions serve to observe, protect, honor and bless all information and entities, as ultimately all things desire to be accurately seen and known for what they are. This position allows us to accurately receive information while building a personally trustworthy and reliable mental, emotional, physical and spiritual apparatus by which to interact, build, restore and live in vital communication with the Creator and life as we know it in duality, until our own return to Spirit occurs.

SPIRIT TALK
Any separation with The Creator Spirit is only a perception and can be repaired and made w/holy again. AHO!

Dawnwoman (Minisa Crumbo Halsey)

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