Trust and Breath (Not Necessarily in that Order)

October New Moon Altar

Funny I now think of life, One New Moon at a time.  And at the times when life is feeling super crazy, it helps me in not feeling overwhelmed.  Overwhelm aside from the messages I've gotten from my spirit guides was the theme for this months New Moon. And I always find it entertaining how I hear of the synchronicity that is going on in other lives.  This month there were a higher percentage of Lite attendees.  And there were several that told me that they were too busy to even breath.  Funny throwing part of the title in front of me.  And it was something I clearly resonated with and even pondered do I skip a month.  Then I remembered for me, that is why it's even more important to do it.  And I'm glad I did as I am every month.  This has become like my sabbath.

Aside from the responses, I had another affirmation.  As I mentioned I've been a bit overwhelmed and busy, so for quite a while I have been missing a weekly group meditation that I like to participate in.  Last week I planned on making sure I included it, but a last minute conference call got in the way.  That was when I realized even attachment to meditation can lead to suffering as I was cursing the person who called the meeting all night long.  Well this week, the night before the ceremony, I was able to make it. I was really worn out from a long day but I had an inner persistence telling me that meditation was the right place to be.  In order to be efficient, on my way there I picked up the flowers to be used in our ceremonial altar and for the garland of dreams.  And not only was more efficient, but the flowers were blessed by the meditation ceremony.  My teach Harshada is always creative and you never know how he will start.  The first thing he says, is focus on your breath and be aware of your inhalations and exhalations.  In my mind, I said, "Hmmm, I don't remember sending Harshada a copy of my dreamwork."  As that was one of the metaphors.  I'm not going to repeat what I put in the dreamwork or spoke at the ceremony but will footnote the relevant parts for the lite participants.  Needless to say affirmations like this are one of the things that helps me to trust that I'm on the right path and in the right place, even when I was so tired I felt like I could fall over.

And here are the ceremonial flowers with the a few condor feathers as well as the seeds from the dream workers being cooked pre and during the ceremony.  If you look close there is a hint to the toy surprise that will be sent out along with the yummy prasad.

Before I share the ceremony, the other beautiful synchronicity was when one all in participant, after reading through this months dream work, sent me a beautiful quote that she remember seeing at her late husbands oncologist office.

"The deepest hunger of the human body is air.

 The deepest hunger of the human heart 

is to feel understood, valued and respected " - Unknown

I was grateful for this reminder and not have it posted on my computer monitor in the office and this is how we kicked off the ceremony.

We started by focusing on the breath and the barometer and metaphor it can play in our lives.  Helping us decipher if we have to slow, down, speed up, need more balance, give or receive more...  And then of course we emptied our cups, releasing whatever did not serve us as well as any attachments to identities.  As our breath shows us, no fear in letting go, because another breath will arrive effortlessly behind to fill us.

The attendees jotted this down and it joined the fire bowl along with those of the dream workers.  And this month I took an extra step for the lite attendees.  I put the names of each participant so that anything you were willing to surrender would be transformed by the fire.  Remember, even fire cannot be sustained without air to fuel it.  This made some wonderful compost.

We then planted seeds with the wisdom of the person or place that inspires us.  After blowing the seeds of each of the dream workers into an individual blossom, we put the papers that were used to transfer the seeds into the fire bowl and added that to the compost mixture and burned that as well.   Like I did with the surrender, I did put a piece of paper with the names of all the lite participants as well.  Although their physical bodies didn't do their dream work, their sombres were there to act on their behalf.  We had a lovely potpourri.  The transformation of fire brings all items, dense surrender and light inspirations, to an equal density that will be easily received by the natural world when I offer the ashes to the heart tree.

The prayers for others were combined and put in the origami flapping birds (the animal ally of the North which represents the element of Air and Great Creator in the Pachakuti Mesa)

Those were also burned in the fire bowl.  The energy of those prayers were put in the orange blossom that is used as the guru bead in our garland of dreams aka dream mala.  Typically I take a picture of the garland on the mesa as we make sure that we do a little more chanting to elevate the reception of the seeds.  However, I forgot and didn't realize that until I was at the East River.  The, humorously, as I tried to take a picture of the garland in the water, they were coming out really, really dark.  I panicked as I like to show the dream workers the beauty that arose from the blending of the dreams.  Then I laughed and sayed that trust was in there too, so they will have to trust my integrity.  Then I realized, silly you forgot the flash (hah we needed a little more fire) and now you can see the offering as it floats in the darkness of the new moon on the NYC version of the Ganges.

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Poignant air notes from the dreamwork:

We possess each of the elements within us; however, this is the one that we can consciously control most easily and let's face it without this element we would cease to exist at least in 3D.  I know during the most stressful times, the most common word of advice is BREATH.  And have you noticed that during challenging times, we hold our breath.  In many traditions breath is considered the life force, chi, prana....that sustains us.  

In the Pachakuti mesa tradition the element of air is associated with Spirit/God and, hence, our own spiritual bodies.  Our spiritual beliefs often requires a sense of faith and trust.  We may have experiences that reinforce our beliefs about God/Spirit;however, most of us cannot tell you what the pure form of God looks like nor have physically touched the hand of god.  Yet we know it's there. just like air.  You know it exists.  You can feel it.  You can experience it, yet you can't see it (unless it really cold out and your warm breath looks like smoke).  And that takes a bit of trust.  Trust that if you exhale and let go of the precious breath you just inhaled, another will return and the process continues quite naturally.  The process of breathing is best example of how life should slow.  We take and return.  No attachments...no reason to hold onto our breath or anything else for fear that we won't have it anymore as the next one comes seamlessly. 

Although we don't think about it often breathing is a way in which we are deeply connected with our relationship to the natural world.  The natural world provides us with oxygen through the process of photosyntheses.  Us two-leggeds require that oxygen to breath.  We take it in and transform the oxygen to carbon dioxide and exhale.  This carbon dioxide is needed by the plants to continue with photosynthesis.  We live in perfect reciprocity with natural world.  It's a beautiful and organic process of surrendering and receiving and receiving and surrender.  In the Pachakuti mesa tradition there is a quechua term we use for that and it's called ayni.  Which we translate as today for you, tomorrow for me or as we call it sacred reciprocity.  When we give without attachments, we trust that the universe will provide for us in return, typically with interest.  It has for me.

And lastly I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the etymological derivations of the word inspiration which is what we connect with in our dream work and planting of seeds.  The route of the word is "spirare" which means to breath.  This same route is in the word for spirit, seeing the connection here.  Spirit in my online etymology dictionary is related to espirit or spiritus which is defined as "soul, courage, vigor, breath"  So when we are inspired we are taking in soul, courage, vigor and breath.  Although I like to be a person who sees the glass half full instead of half empty, I would not feel complete nor really own my shamanic roots, if I did not acknowledge that this same root is in expire which is a word that can be used for death.  In shamanism, a shamanic death is something to be embraced.  In this death we are transformed and born again.  So when we expire we surrender trusting that a new and better life is in store for us.