I'm going nuts.  Certifiable.  Seriously.

It all started last night.  (I'm sure it all started sooner than last night, but let's be kind.)
I was over there reading Lisa Morningstar's grapevine about Facebook.  Now, let me tell you, I've resisted signing up for Facebook.  I have far too compulsive of a personality to join on to another site.  It would not be good.  It would be....possibly crazy-addictive.  I told myself to stay far away from that site even though my daughter suggested, "Please sign up and we can play Scrabble."

Feeling rather smug and under control, I stayed away.  Until....last night....when suddenly the typing fingers were over there at Facebook signing up for an account!  How could they?  What was happening?  Have I no control what the typing fingers will do?

Once over there (secretly delighted at this new & exciting world) it began to get wild & crazy within minutes.  First, I couldn't find one single damn photo to post as the icon.  That took fifteen minutes of searching.  Suddenly:  my daughter is tagging with 20-some photos!  Then people are wanting to be friends.  And I'm searching for Gaia people to be friends with.  And, and, and....

OK.  Breathe.  This has to get easier.  I can't figure out how to do basic things over there.  Like how to attach a message when you invite someone to be friends.  Do you respond on the Wall when someone says something to  you?  How do you do this?  and that?

So last night, within a half hour of signing up, one of my oldest high school friends is there.  And we're chatting!  She just synchronistically signed on at the same moment as I did and synchronistically found me during a random search.  We're like two blind folks trying to figure out how to chat on there.  Then dear Victoria starts chatting.  How in the world do you chat with two people simultaneously without going insane?  (well, I have used gchat before so do know some basics....)

Then my daughter starts a scrabble game!  Yikes!  Two chats, wall messages, scrabble game....and let's not forget I have 19 messages in my Gaia email/blogging
email to respond to.  Then there's my other email where I deal with wordpress (don't ask how I got two emails to begin with.)  There's a wordpress outdoors blog which needs writing, and messages to respond to on that site....plus another anonymous blog I started on wordpress...

This morning I wake up and check email and there's at least 20 new messages about Facebook and....and....and......HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU GUYS DO THIS??  Without going insane, that is.

And so what do I do?  When totally overwhelmed?  Write a blog on Gaia of course.  Ha ha ha....laughing insanely....

Is there just ONE thing called a "mind"? 

A "mind" is like a rainbow, like everything in the Universe, like an entire dinner complete with hummus and flatbread, quinoa with saffron diced carrots and peas, venison patties, smoked lake trout and apple crisp...  How does everything in the Universe relate to a body?

Answer: In every possible way! 

(this is an experiment.  i am trying to type a short answer without babbling on for twenty minutes.  this part of the mind/body is not allowed expression too much.  therefore, this is a new relationship this morning! )

Anyone heard of the "heyoka" path?  Crazy wisdom?  Trickster?  Contrary thinking?  Upside down backwards and tied-in-a-knot drinking tea with Freedom spiritual path?

I can't share much with you about the actual traditional paths of Crazy Wisdom.  But I can share over twenty years of personal experience traversing (or not traversing) up and down strange angles of this pathless path. 

What is a Heyoka?  Wikipedia testifies:

The word Heyoka refers to the Lakota concept of a contrarian, jester, satirist or sacred clown.

Heyoka are thought of as being backwards-forwards, upside-down, or contrary in nature. This spirit is often manifest by doing things backwards or unconventionally -- riding a horse backwards, wearing clothes inside-out, or speaking in a backwards language. For example, if food were scarce, a Heyoka would sit around and complain about how full he was; during a baking hot heat wave a Heyoka would shiver with cold and put on gloves and cover himself with a thick blanket. Similarly, when it is 40 degrees below freezing he will wander around naked for hours complaining that it is too hot. A unique example is the famous Heyoka sacred clown called "the Straighten-Outer":

John Fire Lame Deer said of this Heyoka fellow: 

He was always running around with a hammer trying to flatten round and curvy things (soup bowls, eggs, wagon wheels, etc.), thus making them straight.

 During the Sun Dance, a Heyoka sacred clown may appear to tempt the dancers with water and food and to dance backwards around the circle in a show of respect. If a dancer looks into the mirrored eyes of the Heyoka, his or her dance is finished.

When I began to walk the Native American path back in 1987 (specifically through the Annishnabe way) most of the elders wouldn't discuss the Heyoka path.  They said it was a hard, hard walk.  It's so challenging for those called to turn things upside down, so often.  Unless the community supports this as a spiritual gift and teaching, the person is often shunned and ostracized.  It's not always pretty. 

Yet if you continue to read the Wikipedia article you will see that the Heyoka mirrors back extreme behavior to others, forcing them to examine their own doubts, fears, hatreds and weaknesses. 

I am not specifically a Heyoka, but I have a spiritual dream-owl that sits on my left shoulder and taught about Heyoka for many years.  Strangely enough, Meenakshi spotted that owl on my shoulder in a picture here on Gaia...how's that for a good eye? 

This spiritual dream-owl taught of upside down thinking, of contrary thinking, of penetrating to the core of beliefs and thoughts and turning everything around.  Interestingly, Byron Katie does the same thing in some of her work.  When you do the turn-arounds to your thoughts, you find yourself in the land of Heyoka.  You're suddenly opposite. 

What heyoka does is simply this:  by turning things around, you reach a place of stunned silence inside your head.  The worlds of the opposites collide.  You then stand speechless and silent, not sure what to do next.  In that moment you're Free.  You're in silence, you're not defined, you're a bit confused sometimes, you're stunned.  God is laughing uproariously at your quandary. 

All good spiritual paths lead to this place, so they say.  Heyoka does it with the oddest flavor.  It systematically works to confound, and (believe me) after many years of confounding it's quite funny.  Your Ego will despise Heyoka.  Your thoughts want to slingshot the owl off your shoulder.  Your beliefs shudder at its appearance.

Some concrete examples about how to apply Heyoka in your own world?  (But only if you're fearless!!)  Let's say your mind decides you hate brocoli.  A Heyoka might eat brocoli every day for a week.  Let's say someone says you shouldn't go swimming in May.  Dive in!  Let's say everyone is praising the spiritual concepts of the Moment, of Enlightenment, of Lightworkers, of Presence....spin it around to the opposite until all those concepts dissolve.  Then you're left LIVING these concepts instead of simply conceptually thinking about them.

I never spoke to the local natives about these owl teachings, because whenever I started to share most of them were horrified that I was dreaming with an Owl.  An owl is traditionally a harbinger of death.  So I shut up.  But lived what the teachings dictated.

For example.  A sweat lodge was being held in the evening after the Pow Wow.  Many of were invited and we made plans to attend.  I went home to take care of the children and make dinner, then hurried over to the lodge.  Guess what!  When I arrived, the living room was filled with sixteen men.  No women.  My Ego began to panic!  I was nearly in tears.  But an inner voice said clearly, "No, you are meant to be here.  Stay."  That was such a hard Heyoka instruction.  It took every bit of courage.  It was painful to stay before and after the lodge...but during the lodge, such sweetness.  Such beauty.  Such incredible sacred space.

The leader looked at me afterward and said, "You are one of the most courageous woman I have ever met."  I laughed inside.  Because I can be the biggest wimp in the entire universe. 

But that's what Heyoka is.  That's what Heyoka does. 

I do NOT recommend turning around the beliefs or thoughts of others in a straightforward manner.  You will possibly get punched out.  This is a personal practice, a personal path.  Work on your own thoughts, nudge your own ego, turn yourself upside down and backwards. 

And that has been my experience of the Heyoka Path.  Every attachment or fear is moved around to its opposite.  (well, maybe not every attachment or fear....I'm still working on a handful!)

OK.  that's it.  This is a little experiment to see if something decides it wants to express itself.  Anything inside wanna come out?  Anything inside wanna come out and play on Gaia....?

Silence.

Listening.

Nope.  Nothing to say.  And I have to go write my outdoors blog soon, so why oh why oh why am I waiting to see if there's something else percolating below the surface, something else which needs or wants to speak?

Hello!  Underneath-the-surface-self:  what do you want to say?  C'mon and be quick about it before we highlight this entire blog and push the "delete" button and move on. 

Because tonight the tent is set up in the garden & I need to go write a blog about the outdoor camping fun.  Dinner's finished.  Yum pea pods and bright red pepper and cabbage and green onions portabello mushrooms and crumbled tempeh sauteed in dark sesame oil and drizzled with shoyu (soy sauce) and mirin wine.  Served over millet.  With romaine lettuce whirled with olives and crispy celery.  Double yum.

I'm feeling sooooooo   soooooooo  ambivalent these days.  Ambivalent about this on-line experience.  Gaia, Facebook, everything.  Except maybe my blog on wordpress which somehow feels like it's become an everyday chronicle that's somehow heartbeating with my soul. 

You know how you fall in love and everything's incredible?  I think I've been in love with Gaia like that for a year now.  And now...comes the building of a relationship.  How do we build relationship with the early buzz and lust and craziness abates?  I remember when I fell in love with my husband an eternity ago (ok, that's 30 years).  Oh hormones.  oh love.  oh lust.  oh wonder.  oh....well, I'm sure many of you have experienced the falling-in-love stage. 

But suddenly the buzz abates.  And you're left with....what?  Staring at your partner and making a life.  Forging a new relationship.  Finding out what commitment means.  Discovering a deeper love beneath that initial bliss.  Finding out what lies beneath the surface.  Finding out what grows deeper roots than thoughts and feelings and emotions.  Finding out how love grows when the surface is just grass and weeds and dirt.  Finding out how roots stretch down deep. 

We can choose to leave when the blush of first love departs.  Or we can commit because we recognize truths beyond our everyday egos, beyond our everyday desires.  Yep.  We can utilize the falling-out-of-excitement to surrender us to the earth. 

Hell, I don't even know what I'm writing about.  Except...there's a part of me that wants to chase the eternal joy of new love...and there's a part that wants to settle deep deep and watch roots the size of your hand form in the soil.  There's a part that wants to become soil, to taste the metallic tang of dirt.  I want to grow seeds. 

That's it.  The part that wants to become so elemental and grow seeds is pushing its way towards the moon and sun.  That's it.  I'm going to grow into the garden soil tonight when I camp under that spruce tree.  You might not find me in the morning.  I'll be up in the sky, waning near Venus, reaching down to shine on the earth.  that's all.

Someone stole one of my wordpress blog entries today!  That's the first time this has happened...or the first time it came to my awareness.

The blogger who wrote me a message about it was enraged.  Her blog had been thieved the week before by the same fella and she's on a mission to take the blogger to task and get him (her?) ousted from the blogosphere.  I will probably report him/her to the authorities as well, but my first reactions were sorrow and compassion.

Can you imagine what a person might be feeling to trek around the blogosphere claiming the words of others as his/her own?  How terrible not to have a sense of inner joy about oneself.  How sad that he might feel so incomplete, so inadequate, so lonely, so empty. 

A life is a precious thing!  The life essence we've been blessed with is a sparkling diamond.  And no two diamonds are the same.  Our life essence is a gorgeous rainbow and the sun never reflects identically on the same rainbow.  How sad for those who never polish their jewel, who never awe at the reflected beauty of themselves.  That's the real sadness.

I wrote this comment on his/her blog:  Dear Blogger,  I'm sure people would be much more interested in reading blogs that you've written, rather than taking from other people.  To express oneself is to express the spark of light & love & preciousness within oneself.  There's only one you.  I pray that your light comes & shines forth in the world.  Life is short.  Share of the uniqueness that it you.  Blessings,  centria

We only have this day, this moment.  This present pulsating beautiful moment.  Oh may we shine!  May we truly see the beauty that we are.  May we not compare ourselves with other, unless it proves a gift to share in the joy of our incredible differences and similarities. 

My prayer for all of us today:  peer into the joy and beauty of ourselves.  Celebrate!  Rejoice!  Don't focus on our imaginary or real sufferings to the exclusion of the voice of praise which wants to sing throughout our morning, afternoon and evening.  YOU are ALIVE!  You are blessed...and your identity can't be stolen.  Ever.  No one else can be you, no matter how hard they might try.

**Coming to you live from Fort Myers Beach Florida and having an incredible week with Mom and Dad!  Daily reports at centria.wordpress.com for the outdoors blog.

In many Native American tribes a rite of passage involved "crying for vision" or taking a vision quest.  The adolescent, supervised by a tribal elder, purified in a sweat lodge and fasted for a long period (often four days and four nights) within the confines of a small circle away from the tribe.  He or she intended for a vision to help guide his life, to gesture toward purpose, to guide his dreams and waking life.

Upon returning to the tribe, the elders assisted in integrating the vision with everyday physical reality.  Often, later in life, when clarity was needed with a problem, another quest might be undertaken.  The quester would sit, often motionless, praying for advice and guidance and a dream which would point in the direction of healing, strength, compassion and integration. 

In the early 1990's I did ceremonies with the local Annishnabe (Ojibway) here in the western Upper Peninsula.  After countless sweat lodges, a naming ceremony and talks with elders, I felt ready to "fast".  The Annishnabe don't usually call it a "vision quest" around here.  But it's the same thing.

I was in a strange place in my life where two realities seemed to be colliding.  Heck, maybe all my realities were crashing.  First, there was the culture of my birth with all its ingrained teachings and structures.  Second, there were the Annishnabe teachings which opened my heart and sight and beliefs to something sacred and palpable.  And third, the meeting with the natives had pried open the previously-closed doors of my dreaming and vision.  I literally was being instructed by Spirit, daily, during walks in the woods.  A download of information kept pouring in, fascinating stuff, that usually left me speechless and silent, recognizing Truth but seemingly unable to integrate it (sometimes for years later, and sometimes not even yet.)

All three worlds kept colliding.  I didn't know who to believe.  The old culture?  The natives?  Or the voice of Spirit in the woods? 

What to do?  Time for a fast, a vision quest.  But, since the Native American part of the dilemma was just as challenging as the rest of my questions, I decided to quest without the supervision of the elders. Not in the Annishnabe way.  I wanted to do it the way the inner spiritual voice directed.  So the quest happened this way:

It was May.  I spent four days purifying in advance, eating lightly, praying, setting intentions.  I left the house in the evening, lugging a tent, sleeping bag, and pillow.  (can't you see the elders scoffing?)  Instead of the no-water rule, a gallon jug of water balanced among the supplies, with the intention to only drink if absolutely necessary.

After setting the sacred circle with cedar and "calling in the four directions" I sat down to pray, and then quickly fell asleep.  The morning dawned bright...but with freezing cold and SNOW.  In May! 

Barry, the kids and I had set up a system.  Here was another variation from traditional vision questing.  I left the circle everyday and put a note in a mason jar at the top of the ravine.  It would say "I am OK" or something equally simple.  On that first morning I arrived to find my snowmobile suit, hat, mittens and boots in a garbage bag. The family had lovingly and thoughtfully lugged it out, worried that mama was freezing in the cold and snow.

That was actually the first incredible lesson of the quest.  We are surrounded by love.  We are supported.  The Universe provides exactly what we need.  We are blessed.

This is getting far too long, so I'll post Part II later!