Home is Where The Heart Is

The other title I had for this month's summary of the New Moon Ceremony was you can't make this shit up.  Each month I have a slightly different theme and basically because of a recent experience of rebuilding homes in New Orleans.  While building a fence we were using a level.  And I was struck by the simplicity of seeing how something was in balance and by looking at the bubble you can see if you need to shift a little to the left, right, up or down.  Quite handy tool so as a fan of metaphors, I was started thinking what is my mental/emotional level in life.  What helps me figure out that I need a little tweaking before I go fully our of whack.  And the answer was clearly the Pachakuti Mesa and Meditation, which is what I share every month in the New Moon ceremonies, workshops and individual work with others.

I was inspired to dedicate this month to Home.   The concept of home has always struck me because I clearly remember my first weekend with my teach Oscar Miro-Quesada.  I went in called to go but truly not really knowing what I signed up for.  I often says, I went in with no expectations or attachments and he exceed every one.  And most clearly I left feeling that I had found home.  Being with this community and working with the mesa gave me a profound sense of home on day one and continues to do so.  I have also dabbled in many different traditions and have used that same sense of home as my barometer for anything I integrate into my life.  In fact, when I decided to meet Harshada, my Living Meditation teacher, I wasn't looking for a teacher, but found another sense of home.

I have heard many stories from people on the resonance this theme has had for them and I may be able to right a novel but there are two that I want to share.  On the morning of the ceremony I had received an email from my dear friend/sister Jesse.  She was planning on being a Dream Work participant.  She was picking up the ashes of her dog and wanted to know if we can incorporate the ashes.  I said absolutely.  And after further pondering, I realized the perfection in having the ashes of Franny who had returned home.  The other incredible coincidence is that Jesse put Franny to rest on the same weekend I was in New Orleans.  This wouldn't have been time better if I tried.  Jesse and I sat at my mesa a little and I told her to place the ashes where ever she was call.  As you can see in picture of Franny's ashes, in the southeast.  I know it's because Jesse was called to a piece I call the Nurturing Warrior and you'll also notice the rose quartz skull right next to it.  In shamanism, Death is fully embraced as the metaphorical catalyst for transformation and new beginnings.

Next "coincidence" is related to me.  And I have to go back a year to explain.  Last August my friend was in town from California and introduced me to her work with the Native American Church and Tipi Ceremonies.  After participating I had purchased a heart locket to remind me of the experience.  The day she left and I was in the office I realized that I had lost the locket.  This locket actually screws into the piece that attaches to the chain, so the chain was intact but my heart had loosened and fallen off.  I tried not to get upset and just went on with my morning.  I later realized that while I was on the subway, she had left me a voicemail on my cell phone.  When she had arrived at the airport she stopped in the restroom and out popped my heart.  Apparently when I hugged her good bye the heart fell into her shirt and then pants instead of the street.  I laughed and laughed at the perfection.  I knew my heart was in good hands and would eventually get it back.

So now we go to the ceremony.  The actual new moon was on Wed. evening.  I often use a grace period of 24 hours plus or minus around life.  I was supposed to participate in a conference call and be available on call Wed. evening so I decided to have it Thursday.  My friend flew into NYC on Thursday and was able to come to the ceremony.  Not only was it great to have my soul sister there as that certainly feels like home but at the ceremony she lovingly returned the cedar in a beautiful box/treasure chest filled with cedar and rose petals. As I trusted she took great care of my heart.  And my heart returned home at the perfect time.  And it's experiences like these two that really give me a sense of trust in the perfection of life.   If I tried to coordinate any of it, never would have happened.  As they say, once you make a plan God Laughs.  But when the perfection happens without planning, I know I get a big giggle out of it.




So the ceremony was fabulous if I do say so myself.   As usual we went through the theme of surrender or deconstruction, making sure we clear away the rubble so that we will have a stable base on which to build.  Then we planted seeds and began construction on our new home.  Since rocks represent the element of earth, physicality and structure in my tradition, we worked with stones.  Each attendee chose a stone from a bag that I had from a collection from my different pilgrimages.  In my tradition we refer to the stones as khuyes, which means containers of affection.  And truly they are that and so willing to help us.  For the dream workers, I chose a stone through a dharma pole methodology.  Prior to the ceremony, I wrapped each of the stones with the dream workers surrenderings and put them in the south of the mesa, the direction related to earth/structure/form.  On top of it were the pieces of paper with the seeds.

After the attendees released what no longer served them into the stones they had chosen.  I unwrapped the surrenderings, We dowsed khuyes with florida water and used fire to burn off and transform any remaining density so that we would have a clear base on which to build our homes.  Prior to going through the planting of seeds guided meditation (and each of the dream workers khuyes was on top of your respective seeds),  I reminded the attendees of Luke 6:48 "He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on the rock.  When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built."  So the seeds

It may seem like double dipping, but it wouldn't be a Lulu Loving Life Ceremony if we didn't build a garland of dreams.  So those same seeds that were planted upon the stones/khuyes were transferred into the daisy blossoms and woven.

Now that the oxygen mask was put on ourselves we offered our prayers for others into the green spider mum you'll see.  For the dream workers I printed four participants per origami crane and they were transferred in as well.  (For those that are curious, all of the papers that were printed were burned and the ashes will be offered to a tree outside my apartment that I call the Heart tree, as it has one naturally etched into the bark.)

We closed the ceremony and then went off to the East River where we offered both Franny's ashes as well as the garland of dreams.  I typically take a picture of it in the water; however, because there were many people out on that glorious night I went to a spot that wasn't lit very well.  Although I found a spot that had large rocks exposed.  Because of the poor light, every picture I took came out black.  So your going to have to trust me and I'm hoping if you got this far that means your read my "coincidences" and trust comes a little easier.


Welcome Home and We're Definitely Not In Kansas Any More?

Embracing Transformation - August New Moon

It's not even 12 hours and the affirmations are coming.  This morning at dawn, I walked to the East River (the NYC Ganges) to offer the garland of dreams.  On my return waiting for me by the entrance of my apartment door was this.

It almost looks fake doesn't it, but if a member of this honker of a moth/butterfly doesn't show how instantly transformation and manifestation can occur I don't know what does.

I almost want to end here but for those that weren't in the room or chose the lite version, I like to give a little playback.  So as you know we focused on the powers of water which is governed by Mamakilla (english translation mother moon) and clearly embodies non-attachment and fluid transformation.  I shared information about Masuro Emoto's work of how the fire of the mind impacts the health of our water.  I also included that in the dream work, so as not to be too repetitive, I'll past the links and information down as an appendix to this blog for future reference.

It was a lovely group with mostly new friends which was a joy.  As always we opened the mesa and introduced our selves to the mesa.  For the lite and dream workers, I called in their spirits into the circle so their higher selves were present.   We then began the surrender work of releasing what no longer serves us.  Although in this visualization we took a walk to the gats of Varanasi and took a boat at sunrise on the Ganges River and offered what didn't serve us any longer.  We followed with the ceremonial rinsing of any remnants with the hand washing.  And I happened to have some water left from a 2007 pilgrimage to the Mother Ganges which was poured into the pitcher to aid the surrender.  The Ganges really does represent the mother to me as it was my experience that considering all that people dump into her, she is calm, sweet and loving.  And to add some pizazz and leave the attendees squeaky clean there was some additional feather and scented water cleansing in the traditional Peruvian style.

Now that all were squeaky clean, we moved onto the seed planting.  Listening to our hearts, unhindered by past programming and social implications, we were guided with clarity on what our next steps should be.  That dream was then transferred into a cup of water held by all and then embodied by a literal drinking of their dreams.  We kind of double dipped as we then blew the prayers into a daisy that was woven into the garland of dreams.  Of course for the dream weaver I took the print out of your seeds and blew them into a blossom for you.  In fact, here is a picture of pre-ceremony bouquet and you may be able to see the pieces of white paper popping out of the bouquet up top.

And you may not be able to tell but yes, those are little bubbles bottles with butterflies on top and if you remember how I started, we manifested a mammoth one this morning. 

Before completing the garland of dreams we put our prayers into a sun flower and added that as our global prayers.  In addition the global prayers of the attendees and dream workers were put on pieces of paper that was then taped to a pitcher of water.  

Although immediately after the ceremony I offered the cleansing water as compost to my favorite heart tree outside my building, I've decided to keep the pitcher of global prayers in the south east/manifestation corner of my mesa/altar until the Full Moon to allow the prayers to come into their fullness.  At that time, I will offer the water to nature.   I wish I had the technology of Masuro Emoto to do a crystal test of our water although I trust that it would be stunning.

I waited to offer the garland of dreams until dawn, and here it is floating along the East River, well received by the unseen forces.

Messages from Water Appendix:

Below are two youtube video's. The first provides a little information of Masuro's work as well as some of his pictures.  If your already familiar with his work but want to be reminded of the images as they show a crystal formation of a thought,  just check out video number 2.

1.  Masuro Intro and Images http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_WGwn5U9c&feature=related  

        2.  Montage of crystals as they relate to thoughts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnbZN54IZNE&feature=related 

And there is one more video you may want to see.  Below is an experiment with rice.  They use rice because it absorbs lots of water when cooked.  And the metaphor here, is that as humans that we are 60% water and if thoughts impact our water/emotional body which is contained by our physical bodies, we probably want to have more consciousness around our words and thoughts.  Check this last video out:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeTTCeqBwjc&NR=1   

Saying Yes

So this month we really focused on whether we felt free and what keeps us from being free.  Just a few days before I had found this card in a Papyrus card store and it completely represented my visual of free and my desire to say YES - to ALL of life.

I shared that I had read something where they say most people who have a fatal accident don't know ahead of time and can't be prepared.  And if it's an accident that happens as a result of a fall or car crash, very often a persons last words will be Oh, Shit.  I don't want those to be my last words.  I'd rather be like Ghandi who's last three words were Ram, Ram, Ram (his name for God).  So to be like that I need to train and be more receptive and say yet to the every day things that come up.  Saying yes as it comes doesn't mean I'm accepting it as permanent fixture in my life, saying yes means that I'm willing to learn and negotiate.

So from recent experiences where I was not saying yes at all and not feeling so free and letting the grain of sand called my ego block the mountain of spirit within me, I re-membered that connecting with the "I Am", Soul, God within is the best reminder.  And as reminded Krishna reminds Arjuna in the Baghavad Gita "Nothing higher than Me exists, O Arjuna.  On Me all this universe is strung like pearls on a thread".  Yes I was focusing on the pearls and not the string.  So in ceremony we consciously used a string.  Before going into ceremony we literally stepped back over the string and then went into the process of surrendering what was an impediment to our freedom whether that be attachment to the yummy or icky in our life.  We went into the surrender remembering (thanks to Osho) that to err is human and to forgive is MORE human and that the moment we achieve our own humanity is the moment we achieve divinity.

The participants dumped into a stone which was later burned  to transform.  For the dream workers, I took a print out of your surrender and transformed it to ash that is to be used as compost for our dreams later.

We then did a process of connecting with I Am, Soul, God, Spirit,...whatever you want to call your experience of what really is ineffable.  The live participants then blew their seeds into a blossom and then stepped forward over the string carrying this new seed.  The string was then tied to their right wrist to remind them until the string falls off.  Each of the seeds from the dream workers was then transferred into a white blossom for the garland of dreams.

So the purple blossom is where we put the prayers of all for our families, communites, planet, galaxy....  Prior to the ceremony I took the dream worker prayers and folded them into origami hearts.  You can see it flanking the left and right of the altar in the picture below.

We closed the circle with the taking in of the mmmmmmm....sweetness to show spirit out willingness for our lives to be filled with sweetness.  Typically I will do the offering of the garland of dreams immediately after the ceremony; however, I got the hit to wait.  And I did until Wednesday morning where I happened to wake up just before sunrise (and the only reason I knew that was that I googled it when I got back).  I did some final b urning for further transformation.  Into the existing compost I put the papers with the dreamworker seeds into the compost and burned them along with some petals from each of roses that were used to represent the blossoming of those that were in the room.  After that burned I put in the origami hearts (which were also transferred into the garland) and burned those as well.  Interestingly when that burned although I only use a small bowl in my ceremonial room, it really roared (that is relative) which to me spoke of the power of all the prayers and hearts of the participants.  And also interestingly after the burning was done the shapes although ash stayed solid.  I found that to be a bit magical.  I then took the ask and garland outside.

I offered the ash as well as three roses that were part of the ceremony to a tree outside my apartment.  I call this tree the heart tree as it has a natural etching in the bark.  Sorry the picture below is a little darker than showed up on camera which showed in interesting shading that didn't exist between the left and right sides of the tree.

And then of course I took the garland off the the NYC version of the Ganges River for me, the East River (East the direction of fire and transformation).  I offered the garland and as I tossed it, it seemed that the garland just fell into the shape of the heart.  Well that was how it looked to me.  I then glanced at the time and it was 5:36 AM, guess what time sunrise was today.  Yup, I can't make this stuff up.  So I realized that spirit wanted me to take your work from the darkness of the new moon out into the light to shine.  Well that's my interpretation and I'm sticking to it.  And now as I type this it is raining, which is also an auspicious sign.

I really enjoy new moons...so thanks for sharing.

Best Antidote M&M's - Meditation and Mesa

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I just learned in looking for an M&M image that I can personalize M&M's and it's call My M&M's how convenient - as my M&M's are Mediation and Mesa (in alphabetical order not order of importance - it's all ONE)  And it does feel all rainbow colored like the offerings from Mars (I'm seeing even more humor in this as I knew I was an alien and resonated with the star people - tee hee!!!)


It's nice to know that sometimes I don't have to be hit by the spiritual 2 X 4 to get it and despite the fact that I know that I know that I have all the tools I need to help me through the challenging times, sometimes I relinquish the control stick to "my mind" and boy does it like the roller coasters.  The mind comes up with all these stories and react in the least helpful of ways trying to prove to me that I'm the victim.  


So needless to stay, I was feeling like I was in kind of a rut and during it the mental self flagellation was unrelenting.  I decided to take 5 days of Living Meditation with Harshada at Omega.  On my way to the retreat, I realized that not only did I have 5 days of meditation with my most recent teacher Harshada,  but I was going to follow it immediately by a Pachakuti Mesa weekend with my beloved and long time teacher Oscar and upon my return to have an evening of meditation with my first teaching Kevin Jennings.  So I realized that spirit doesn't use 2X4's, it's my mind that does that.  And what spirit did is give me many life preservers and gentle reminders and opportunities to immerse myself in the traditions that comfort me like my first security blanket


Surround by nature and bunnies and woodchucks and chipmunks and beautiful winged ones and ... well needless to say it was a nice place to shift gears.  I went through pleasure and pain and both lead to personal insights on my patterns so that I know that I am a warrior from having survived my wounds with awareness and consciousness and NOT a non-particpating victim.  I was able to re-discover my soul from the rubble caused from the earthquake of my mind.  And despite what my mind was telling me, my soul was perfect, unharmed and stronger than ever...


Of course, sitting in circle with the Northeast community strengthened everything and reminded me of how I was and who I Am as Oscar says, it's a process of re-membering (and sometimes it feels like I have alzheimer's and have to be reminded many times) and that shamanism is a spiral dance that leads to my center.


Just to reinforce this newness - I started this morning with some exercise on the east river and as many of you heard I consider my ipod to be quite psychic and as I finished, the song Ding Dong! the Witch is Dead (by Harry Connick Jr.) played.  And the metaphor for the witch is most definitely my mind.  I didn't even know it was on there...so only goes to prove that you can't make this stuff up and the humor I find in life is certainly the fuel that keeps me going...


Wishing you Light, Love and Laughter Always!

When Your Grateful Life is Great

This months process was interesting for me because life has been quite chaotic.  And the thought of not doing it felt wrong, but I never was going to be able to be prepped to host people.   I've been so grateful of being able to share this that I just couldn't miss this month.  And in the tradition of the Pachakuti Mesa, the best way to express gratitude is to make a despacho, as an offering to the unseen forces. So the inspiration of doing the dream worker despacho came upon me as I am always impressed by the power of the inclusion and weaving of those who can't be there in person.  I like defying time and space.  As I was tweaking this months dream work assignment and thinking of the despacho, I heard a voice telling me to make origami hearts.  I figured how hard could that be.  Well it took me a few sets of internet instructions and practice. Origami is definitely not intuitive, at least not to me.   And then when the inner voice told me that the prayers for others should be origami birds, I thought uh oh.  Fortunately I figured it out but I truly want to know who thought up origami....  As they say practice makes perfect, so I printed the seeds on floral-like despacho paper and the prayers on colorful plain paper and folded my heart out.  The latter ones were definitely better, but I'm only practically perfect and spirit doesn't mind.

Although I felt your presence and know you get what happened, I figured I'd send you a few pictures of the despacho process and share my intentions behind it.

As you'll see I had your seeds in the South East aka Manfestation Corner of my mesa and the prayers were in the north the section embodied by spirit, who's animal ally is the condor and the eagle.  They stayed there as I opened the mesa and until they were added to the despacho.

Another FYI, is that I had decided to create my own despacho play list.  Choosing songs that remind me of my path and what I'm grateful for.  As many of you know, I tend to be a little untraditional so it's a combination of rock n' roll, country, gospel, show tunes....  And I trust spirit and put it on shuffle.  As I started, the spiritual Use Me by the Brooklyn Tabernacle (I don't make this stuff up)  kicked us off as I started by consecrating the paper with the traditional circle cornmeal, tobacco cross and coca kintu. 

Next came your surrender which was printed on re-cycled paper and then burned in my burning bowl.  Which burned hot and quick.

I then layered the consecration materials with the ash, so it would be compost for our prayers and reams.  I also doused it with a liquid Siete Poderes aka Seven Powers.  In my tradition 7 is considered the number of life embracing all so out despacho was blessed with great power and life force.  And the circule of ash with red and white carnations, showing what can blossom out of the ask.  Here's a picture (although I started added some salt on it before I remembered that I wanted to send you all the steps along the way)

I then made an attempt to fill the circle with a yin/yang symbol with some pink himilayan salt and organic raw sugar for healing and sweetness as they always go hand in hand.  Also in the center of the symbol is the traditional shell filled with llama fat and a cross.  I didn't have an actual cross in my despacho supplies, so I got creative and used some dried cactus buttons to form the cross. 

I squared the circle with a lot of other goodies that are traditional to despachos like, quinoa, spices, minerals (in the form of pebbles from a recent visit to Stone Henge), candy in the form of Hershey Kisses... 

Next was the circle of your hearts/seeds/dreams.  Each of your hearts was accompanied with a pairing of pink & white Good & Plenty (you get the metaphor there) and a pair of male & female huayuros.  In my tradition, hauyuros are seeds used to provide protection.  You may want to know how we know which are which.  The seeds are mostly red and some are plain and others have black dots.  That's how you can tell gender but to be honest I never remember which is which, but the intention is balance.

Well you can't see the black dot in this pair but trust me it's on the bottom.  Then in between your seeds, I added your prayers with the origami birds.  Each bird had a coca kintu in it's tail feathers.  (Coca Kintu basically means a set of three coca leaves.  We use the leaves to carry our prayers)

I wasn't that conscious of each song along the way; however, I do remember that at this point the song Everybody Rejoice from the Wiz was playing.  Before wrapping I added some confetti in the shape of balloons and streamers and wrapped it up.  In the package below rather than the typical garland of dreams, each of the flowers wrapping the despacho had each of the dreamworkers sombres/essences.

Despacho's are often offered to fire or water.  Off I went to the east river (no worries, all of the products in this were easily bio-degradble and non-toxic).  As soon as I dropped the in the water the garland came off and the entire despacho started to open.  And I thought I had tied it up as snug as a bug in a rug; however, I took as it was a very well received despacho and the unseen forces wanted to eat up all of the gratitude embraced in this gift.

As Always, Thank You, Thank You,  Thank You always and forever and I wish you all many blessings.

Spring Cleaning, Spring Dreaming....April New Moon

Well this months New Moon proved to be fabulous.  I am always touched by the heart of the dreamworkers participation and kudos to all of you this time for simulating limpia y suspendida on your own.  It always delights me to have participation from all over.  We had a group of 13 gathering at the same time which included an 8 year old and then a mother/daughter team. So bravo...as I couldn't have imagined this.

This months was a little different in that we flowed right from the surrender meditation dumping it into a stone which in my tradition we call khuyes (aka containers of affection), that I received from the various mountains that I visit.  After the surrender was done they placed the stone down and connected with our true inner precious selves for wisdom on what we should be planting.  At one point I thought we weren't going to do the formal limpia y suspendida but my San Cipriano staff reminded me by crashing down with a thud that yes indeed, it was supposed to be used. So we cleansed the hucha/density and then immediately raised the dreams and all was flowered.

Normally we do some prayers for those in need and this time I was called for us to do a little more and bring in the animal allies to do some work.  I had some bottles of the essences of animal spirits and how we chose the one to work with, we used a dharma pole method to choose the animals to aid us - there were some interesting ones like a jelly fish and arctic fern along with the more familiar gorilla, mountain lion, jaquars, buffalo.  We did a journey choosing our own person or place where we wanted to send our ally and off they went to be of service.  It felt really good to be of service.

And as always we had the weaving of the garland of dreams which was promptly offered to the east river.  The yellow represent each of your dreams and the white is global dreams for our communities and planet

Now I'm off to send the dreamworkers their treats...may all your dreams come true

March New Moon Into Equinox

Wow, it's only been 5 1/2 days since the ceremony and it feels like a lifetime ago.  It was a great night, we did a lot of cleansing and in the spirit of balance we decided to make sure that all the elements were embraced.  We had earth with the clay and the 100th Monkey Global Consciousness Ball, Water with the Cleansing and the room was still smelling lovely from the flowered waters that assisted the additional cleansings that went on.  Air, with the condor and the blowing of our intentions.  Well fire for the surrender of our thank you note and good bye to what no longer serves us.  And quintessence was the holding of space but I used bubbles too.

As with the dreamweavers we looked into the image of the tree, the natural unseen forces and the web of life with the following image.  This image was given to me by a very talented friend and artist that also helped me with my logo, Dafna Mordecai.

We kept the garland of dreams cooking in the center of my mesa until the equinox.  Then this afternoon/late morning, I transformed the napkins from handwiping and the papers with the planted seeds into compost for our dreams.  When I burned the napkins it was interesting because as it burned the ashes went up into the air and it looked a bit like snow.  And it's interesting that something that was used to wipe our density can be so light and ethereal...actual proof that our density is just energy that needs to be digested to its simplest form.

I offered the water to the heart tree outside my building and the ashes and garland to the East River.  It was also interesting for me as I usually do that as night after the ceremony and there I was outside with many others on the beautiful sunny day with people bustling to take in the sun shine...but then again, this is NYC and no one noticed.  They were both received well and traveled quickly North up the East River.  Typically I take pictures but for some reason, I forgot.  So here is a picture of the garland the day after the ceremony.