Observing the 4 Days Preceding the Mayan New Year

Observing the 4 Days Preceding the Mayan New Year

THE FIRST OF FOUR DAYS PROCEEDING THE MAYAN NEW YEAR OBSERVANCES
A Message from Minisa Crumbo Halsey on preparations and Sacred Ceremony in observance of the New Year on 8 Monkey/CHUEN (July 4, 2016)

5 Lamat

I visited the Longhouse this morning after last night’s FIVE PERSON grief release and celebration of life ceremony that life might go on ‘in a good way’.

The tea lights were STILL glimmering. I removed the directional lava and rose quartz stone beings from the fire ring to the side. Any charred wood ends were removed. Small, long-handled, old broom swept ash from the center, up and over the sides of previous ash ring rakings.

A WHITE center and bottom of the fire pit revealed itself..the other side revealed it’s face and UNIFIED WITH THE OUR CONSCIOUS WORLD… THE FIRE RING CENTER.

The directional stone beings and rose quartz beings were returned to the fire ring perimeter. The small, old broom then swept out, completely, ALL, of our previous track … in the entire Longhouse ... to the door … creating a RE-NEWED field whereby the new tracks and paths will be laid down on a clear, purified and unified ground…in a sacred manner we walk.

We will walk there four days in ceremony ... this 5 Lamat, being the first of the four days of the Mayan New Year observances.

Fires are being built and prayers offered wherever DayKeepers and sweetgrass swingers live, sing, breath and dance.

Dream and make personal and collective ceremonies of Unified Intent according to dream and vision drawn from your life and offer it to Life.

In the Spirit of Art, Beauty and Love … forever.
Dawn Woman

Day 3 of personal Mayan New Year observances 
by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Honoring and releasing grief ... Honoring and fusing with love and life

Continuing to be inspired by: THE SMELL OF RAIN ON DUST, by Martin Prechtel

Stories, histories, myths and tales from the great hearts of all the world villages 

Day 3 of 4 days of personal ceremony:

A day in which to honor the still and silent momentary voids that balance can bring, as we make a mid-summer pause, poised in the center balance of Being, just prior making the new footprints in the sand.

May I remind all readers and sweet grass swingers to prepare for these prayer vigils, and that is what they are, by ‘fanning off’ oneself with dry sage and sweetgrass both prior to and following time spent in consciously setting positive intentions to recognize, heal and  enjoy the renewed and strengthened connection to you Creator, Master of All Breath. We ‘have the right’ to make these prayers and to journey into the Center of Our Sacred Flowering Tree of Life. AHO!

One might begin by endeavoring to trust the Creative void: begin by quieting the mind, slowing the ceaseless tides of blood surge and soothing the solar powered nervous system by ‘being breathed’. Talk to these ‘systems’ as you go, introducing and explaining as to any friend or passerby meanwhile, working on gathering courage for making a mysterious and sacred journey into this body-sacred tree temple void we call home, as a visitor. One might prepare by stating ones name, assembling a gratitude bundle and only then, requesting permission to tour the grounds, as it were, with the intent of looking, seeing and knowing everything the body has to say or offer, acknowledging, asking forgiveness where necessary and apologizing where it seems appropriate for abuses, excesses, total lack of awarenesses, howling medicine cries that will doctor and release the ancient and new outrageous grief occasions and any general lacks and unnamed lapses of conscious nourishment and attention.

Now is a good time to rest a bit, drink some water, ‘fan off’ again, remember the ‘be breathed’ medicine teaching. Relax and do something else for a while if you do not feel ready or ‘up to’ continuing at this time. Consider yourself to be in sacred ceremony of the coming new year, never forget: this is personal sacred ceremony that you are designing for yourself and that ‘you are the sacred”. At this time we may begin to feel ready to request of ourselves that a measure of our potentially endless reserves of strength, bravery and endurance levels formulate, rise and come forward once again, enabling us to continue the inner temple Medicine Journey of celebrating life, anchored and encouraged with the confidence found in conscious and whole connection that all things originate with the Master of All Breath.

As we are visiting our inner temple of wisdom let us next prepare to meet the altar of body-sacred tree knowledge by divining a spirit bundle of gratitude gifts to distribute as we go.

Here we may name and acknowledge all of the positive and loving attentions that have actually been lavished with a disciplined heart and mind, upon the body temple. Pause or sit in different places upon and within this core body, exchanging smiles, accord and recognition of unified and vibrant good heath, a vision of balance and harmony in all things and a deep love of life..with ourselves and all beings, now and forever more.

These visits to our inner altars can be done anytime or revisited. Conversations may be resumed…counsel may be offered and received at any time. Do not be frightened when strange and new ‘medicine’ comes forward but ‘hear it out’ and examine these truths which are in actuality ‘medicine’ teachings about the world and how it has worked, is working and will work. These teachings will serve to put an end to all that is not real.

One of the greatest anguishes arising out of the mystery of perceived separation is living in diverse positions of diminished abilities of awareness. Within this, and any season, there are specific ‘medicines’ whereby seasonal avenues are opened to those willing to journey into the center voids and look truth in the face, thereby setting oneself free from the isolating islands of stoney grief and moisture parched earth.

So, Float now, in weightless balance, preparing, celebrating, knowing and being..renewed in Unity..

Preparing to nourish the butterfly wings of duality as it emerges for flight into the new year…alive in a living world….while honoring the world villages of our body temples.

Sent with summer smiles from the Spirit Horse Ranch.

Dawn Woman

The Eve of the Mayan New Year

Greetings Kin, Many thanks to my dear Medicine Circle Sisters in Oklahoma who are observing 4 days of sacred ceremony. I am honored to walk this way in your company. Minisa shares her waking message on the 4th Day, as we look to that High Holy place that we enter upon sundown.

In lak’ech, Debra/Jaguar Woman  

MAYAN NEW YEAR: 8 Chuen

 COMING INTO THE WORLD COMMUNITY, ONCE AGAIN 

The 260 day corn cycle is completed once again and the rains are falling, up on the beautiful Lago Atitlan in the Guatemalan Highlands. Medicine story tells that the 260 day Mayan Year and Calendar arose from the Lago Atitlan- regarded as the Navel of the World and was demonstrated by the 260 days life cycle of the corn plant, from planting to harvest, by the Highland seasonal planting imperatives…in the autumn when the cold and heavy rains have gifted moisture, then lifted their cloud skirts from the volcanos and departed …

We have been tending the inner temples of wisdom and knowledge, strengthening and renewing our selves as the Sacred Flowering Tree. We have revisited the good old medicine partnership of grief and love, set intentions of Unity and with arms loaded with gifts journeyed into the innermost and sacred precincts of our minds, hearts, bodies and Spirits, feeding, making and renewing talks with the inner, life bringing, fires, ethers, minerals, winds and waters. We are reborn into yet another cycle.

As the wisdom and knowledge altars of the body have been tended let us now turn our vision outward-and celebrate the wisdom and knowledge altars of the natural world, Our Beautiful Mother Earth and the Resplendent Father Sky Sun. Let us come forward calling not only our names but also all names of the beloved. Let us come forward bearing our flowering and fruiting gifts of the inner temple.. To breath, laugh, cry, dance and feast as one with this beautiful world we call home. Let us prepare, bring forward and offer those flowering and fruiting gifts and breathe our prayers to the seen and unseen, known and unknown powers and spirits of origin and place that live alongside of and within us, every moment.

Let us prepare, bringing forward and offering talking prayers, singing, dancing, libation, lighting candles, cooking feast food (remembering to make a Spirit plate … Spirit eats first) ... let us build, tend, think, feel, speak and feed delicious things to the fires, waters, winds, the stone beings, the thunder beings, the star people, all those who have gone before us and those yet to come….and all beings that fly, swim, crawl or stand rooted as the skebyak, the green beings.  Do something special, especially if in solitude and  silence ... thought..intention is everything. Celebration and Ceremony is good.  Let us now make celebration, walking out into the world and joining our inner altars of wisdom, knowledge and love with those of the our outer world…Remembering to life again, the myriad unities and possibilities a duality world… In spirit dance with harmony and balance…now and forever more.

AHO.
A heavy summer rain has begun.
WE THANK YOU CREATOR, WE THANK YOU.
Dawnwoman 1 IK

Summer Ceremonies: The Doctorings

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.”

Dawn Woman

(Continue Reading)

A Medicine Teaching on Personal Ceremony

A Medicine Teaching on Personal Ceremony
by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

SUGGESTED FOUR DAY PERSONAL FASTING AND CEREMONY…

Optional: partial fast suggestion for four days of A Good Red Road Ceremony of offering our minds, hearts, and bodies upon the Staff of the Good Red Road of the summer-winter axis. Consider placing the spine upon the Mother Earth, floor or bed and surrendering our spinal beingness to the Creator for initiating Unity movements WHILE INTENTIONALLY RECALLING THE ABOVE OBSERVATIONS. This activity, when activated in a sacred manner opens the potential of reunification and the re-membering of ancient, lost and disparate aspects of the self, the causes of which are not our fault.


As we move deeper into the being of summer, we anchor with the North, Spirit, white direction and open to the sacred directives of life within and upon the Medicine Wheel. The chrysalis self is moving profoundly into love, wholeness, balance and harmony in accord with the Good Medicine of the Season. The wings of the butterfly will develop in time and flight will come but for now, the intentional, most sacred making work is taking place within the innermost the center core of our being. The center nourishes and powers the directives of duality activities and flight.

THINGS TO DO
Eat lightly during these four days and take a lot of water. A suggested drink would be a fresh mint tea sweetened with raw honey, cold or hot. This will feed the sweetness of life while supporting other dedicated and mindful actions. Juice raw vegetables and fruits..organic or farmer’s market, if possible. Eat live food: seeds and nuts. Go lightly on salt.

Recipe: Large handfuls of fresh, mindfully gathered, (or the best you can do) mint into simmering water for 5 minutes. Lower the mint into the hot water as you would yourself into a hot bath and with gratitude for the life of the water and mint beings, asking for wholeness and love. Turn off the heat then, add the mint cover and remove from heat…remove the mint and return these green beings with gratitude to the Mother. Sweeten your drink with raw honey. (Continue Reading)

The Birds and Bees of Summer

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

The Birds and Bees of Summer 
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,
Dawn Woman

(Continue Reading)

Walking the Good Red Road

POST: May 31, 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. (Continue Reading)

Adjusting to the Direction of South

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. (Continue Reading)

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

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. (Continue Reading)