Thanks to board member Nancy C. Sharp, the Cuyamungue Institute is launching a new project to introduce people to the institute, the land and our work and offer opportunities to become involved.  On April 18, Nancy and I will be in Albuquerque to share the history of the Felicitas Goodman's research and the story of the development of our international center in northern New Mexico.  If you are in the area and would like to attend this private event, contact Nancy at nsharp@valornet.com.  We are available for providing programs at these "house parties" throughout the U.S. so please let us know if you would like to host one.

And...we need your help!  Since the board made the decision to provide the quarterly newsletter to everyone who has an interest in our work, the newsletter is no longer one of the key benefits of membership.  Currently we rely on membership dues to support the maintenance of our 280 acres north of Santa Fe, for maintaining the road (our responsibility since it is on private land), upkeep on the six buildings that require adobe repair, keeping our well in good working order, and various similar ongoing needs.  We would like to make membership more attractive to you and we need to know how to do that.  Currently life membership, with a one-time payment of $350, entitles you to a free 3-day stay at the Institute between workshops.  Other suggestions?  Let us know: admin@cuyamungueinstitute.com.

In this issue you will find a summary of the minutes of our board of directors' meeting in later January, as well as articles by Jennifer Beaver, Julie Nicol, and Nicholas Brink chronicling their personal experiences with the spirits for personal healing and healing of the land.

I hope to see you at the International Gathering at the Institute on June 18-21.  If you have not yet registered, do so right away.  Contact Frances at admin@cuyamungueinstitute.com.

With my best wishes to all of you,

Belinda

Dream of The Bear Spirit Posture
by Jennifer L. Beaver

The day after you and John left Cuyamungue I started out for a walk on the land, I was walking up the road when, just before the spot where Felicitas had first encountered Spirit, a Spirit hit me in the back, like a rugby ball thrown really hard, it hit and then went straight down into the ground.

A minute later I bumped into Tannis and Marianne who suggested I walk behind the House and onto the Mesa, which I did, but I could not stop thinking 'why, if the Spirits want to be in the ground, don't they just go there?'

I sat on a stone overlooking the valley and journeyed to ask this question. I was introduced to the Chief of the land who took me flying over to Los Alomos, where the air could not be flown through, it was so damaged. I asked my question of this Chief and he told me that he could not go back into the ground until all his tribe had entered the ground first. I knew instantly what he wanted me to do and he flew me back to the stone on the Mesa.

I stood up (in reality) and started a healing of the land, by walking and moving my hand over the land until it hurt (my hand), I use this same method with people healings, I need not touch the body. Where ever my hand hurt, I stood and raised my arms and offered myself as a gateway into the land. I repeated this process many times across the Mesa. Each time, a different energy went through; there was a tribe of Warriors; the women of the tribe; pregnant women; children; a herd of buffalo, I could feel their hooves; the outcasts of the tribe; horses; etc etc. the next to last was the Medicine man and as he went through he turned and did a blessing on my heart; (even now I fill with tears at the thought of it); and after this, the Chief, who simply thanked me.

I returned to the stone and completed the journey.
 
A short while later Marianne, Tannis and I were driving out to the flea market when we saw the Rio Grande flash flood, and when we returned from the market there had been two great rains on the land, and Francis and Holly said that they felt like a great healing had taken place as it did not feel like normal rain. I told them about my healing the day after and they were very emotional, and told me some of the history of the land.
 
When I left Cuyamungue on the Tuesday I knew that it had claimed a part of me and I promised to return soon. When I left American soil I felt that my heart would break. I returned home in record time!! But as soon as I stepped onto the pavement in Arundel I knew I did not belong in Arundel any more. All these things came as a bit of a shock to me.
 
Since then, and for the past 4 months I have struggled. It has been like walking through treacle. I have been seriously anxious. My work has almost completely dried up for the first time in 25 years, and I have thought many times that I may die, that I wanted to die. It made no sense to me as I am not a 'depressed' sort of person by nature. I have had healings and done many postures but I could not shift the darkness that I felt.
 
Then, on Saturday a group of 'healing' friends gathered for our first meeting with a view to sharing our knowledge. We were talking about psychopomp work when one man talked about the dangers of not wanting to return from these journeys, and often, the feeling of wanting to die. We talked a while about this and I realized that I had left something on the land, or that it had been stolen from me, or that I had not truly completed the ritual. I had never seen the healing that took place as psychopomp work before...I don't know why. But then I knew I had to journey back and retrieve whatever it was. I was very anxious about this..........as I didn't want to feel even worse!! So, I asked a friend, Carolyn, to be with me while I journeyed.
 
I did this on Saturday evening. Before I went into the journey I asked for help from a quartz crystal bed that I work with. I sat it before me with the base of the bed uppermost, and instantly I saw many pin points of light coming out of it and knew that at each point I had stood I had left something. Then I saw Coyote.....so clearly, and I knew that it was not the Spirits I had worked with, nor the lack of ritual, but that Coyote had taken this energy from me.
 
I then journeyed back to the stone on the Mesa and stood looking over the valley. What a wonder to be back. Then I turned and looked onto the land where the healing had taken place and there were many shafts of bright light rising from the ground. I walked into the center of these and was amazed at the amount and intensity of this energy. Then, I stood over the first shaft and a huge rush of energy came back into my body. I did this over each point until it was all back, I could feel myself filling up. I knew as the energy came in that this was my entire collection of 'I can' energy, and it was so massive.
 
Throughout my life I have told myself that 'I cannot'; I cannot have; I cannot do; I cannot be; Always believing that whenever I did something, it was just a fluke and could not be repeated....and when it did happen again, I would make yet another 'excuse' for it. Coyote took away all my 'I can' energy and I trudged through mud for 4 months thinking I was dying. I was amazed at how much 'I can' energy I had and now that I am full of it, and have sealed it in, I truly believe I can do anything I want, and I will. All else is just shadow and habit. I have never felt like this before. What an awesome gift from Coyote.
 
Well, I hope that this is just the beginning of the story and that there will be many more to come.

-1/14  I saw Dr Pursell for a physical exam and he ordered a PSA
 A couple of weeks later he recommended I see an urologist because my PSA went up.
-2/20/08  Dr. Sekula digitally felt a problem in my prostate and ordered a biopsy.

3/11 Hallstatt Warrior:

     I was cold- hugging myself for warmth.  Walking through dark-damp forest - tall trees above me.  I come to a shallow cave - moss covered.  I sit down with my back against the rock wall hugging myself.  The wall opens and I am pulled down into a cave.  I see a big fire in the middle with shadowy natives dancing around it.  The natives put me on a stone block in the middle of and above the fire and they continue to dance.  The block slowly rises up lifting me higher and higher through the top of the cave to where I am again outside but above the trees and cave - standing, looking out across the world in the warm sunlight.

     Feathered Serpent:

     I'm in a long train tunnel.  I can see light way ahead.  Lots of steam - I'm the steam engine or on the cattle catcher of the engine.

     Finally I come to the end of the tunnel and out onto a very high railroad trestle that ends abruptly.  I become a large bird, an eagle, caught in a rising thermal and for a long time I drift around and around in the thermal.  I cannot see the ground. 

     Eventually I see a black spot way down - like in a cloudy haze - I dive down to the black spot.  It is a mouse.  I land and just stands there.  I am now the mouse looking up and around, darting here and there, looking and looking to see where the racket is coming from - much, much bigger than me - but I see nothing.

3/18  I had the biopsy.

3/24 Feathered Serpent:
 I'm standing on a mountaintop and a section of the earth under me starts going down like an elevator, lowering me into a cave.  I am again within the circle of fire with shadowy spirits dancing around outside the fire.  In their dance they start throwing something at me that felt sort of like sand.  I am naked and it feels cleansing.

     Then they stop throwing the sand but continue to dance.  I start dancing in place, turning in a circle - sort of the Native American dance step of toe, heel.  Then I stop.  I'm sweating profusely.  Sweat flows off me.  I begin to rise up again to the top of the cave and out to the mountaintop.  I stand naked in the cold air for a while and it feels good.  Then someone, a woman, a spirit maiden, comes up behind me and wraps me in a bearskin.

     Tennessee Man:

     With each breath the inhale stops in my abdomen, but as I exhale - energy shoots deeper within me to my prostate.  (I then went into a state of no thinking).

3/26  I received the diagnosis of prostate cancer, a grade of 8 out of 10 in severity.

3/31  Hallstatt Warrior:

     A bear appears between my legs - and I grasp onto the fur of her back.  She carries me to her cave and she sits back on its rear, holding me - she feels vary warm and comfortable in the darkness.

     The bear motions with her head to look down a side tunnel to her left to where I can again see the spirits dancing around a fire in a circle.  I go there briefly with the spirits dancing around me.  I think they have a message for me but I don't know what it is. 

     I am then back with the bear, cuddling into her fur and start nursing off her tit.  Then the spirits are dancing around us and sparks are flying into the air around us - not burning - I still don't know the message.  I feel very nurtured by the bear.

4/7 Bear Spirit, with Toni, my wife holding me in the posture.  Not in group:

     I feel the pings of the drumming attacking my cancer cells and killing them.  I feel Toni low on my back as a little bear.  I feel very planted and stable with her warmth and weight against my back.

     Bear Spirit with Sarah holding me:
 
     I feel her warmth.  Then three different bears experiences occur:
First, I feel myself in Lejra, Denmark at the remains of King Hrothgar's great hall laying naked on the grass - focusing my attention as a berserker. 

     The second bear - I was dancing wearing a bear skin with the bear head over my head - moving in the Native American dance type - but more frenzied.

     The third bear - The sinew of a bear - feeling myself standing with muscles bulging - showing their sinew.  I feel my knees slightly bent and planted - but standing as a bear - being held by a she bear.  All three bears experiences were feeling strong - whereas before the bear was soft and nurturing - as the bear holding me.

[The first and last experiences need some elaboration.  First, my first book Grendel and His Mother: Healing the Traumas of Childhood Through Dreams, Imagery and Hypnosis (Baywood, 2002) recognizes that each line of the Old English poem of Beowulf is meaningful in describing the process of overcoming our tormentor, Grendel.  In continuing my research and fascination for this story I had the opportunity to visit Lejra, Denmark in 2004, and find what some considered the remains of King Hrothgar's great hall.  From the story of Beowulf, the hero of this story, Beowulf lays down naked in the great hall waiting for the king's tormentor Grendel to enter.  When Grendel enters, Beowulf jumps up and grabs Grendel's arm, tearing it off in the great struggle.  Facing our tormentor requires us to let down all our defenses, thus to be naked.  I returned again to this archeological site in 2006 with my wife who took pictures of me re-enacting Beowulf by laying down naked in the remains of the hall.   It was the above ecstatic experience that led me to understand the Beowulf was a berserker, a word that comes from the old Norse word meaning bearskin.  The berserkers were those special warriors who would work themselves up into a frenzy to fight naked.  A king often had twelve berserkers among his retainers.  The third experience, that of the sinew of the bear, is from the story of Loki's Children, my second book (unpublished).  Again the ancient myth, the Prose Edda,  outlines the course of therapy in facing our guilt.  One of the six magical substances that is used to restrain Fenrir the wolf, our obsessive worry, is the sinew of a bear.]

4/12 [I went to an Indian Pow Wow at the Middle School to find for myself a bear fetish - and bought a silver Zuni bear fetish bracelet.]

4/14  Tlazolteotl:
I am holding something in my hands against my chest - I think it is an offering.  It is warm.  I think it could be a rabbit or cat, then it starts purring - I can feel the purr against my chest - the cat was asleep, then it wakes and jumps out of my hands.  As I go after it - I notice I am in a simple cool, dark room - orangish walls with several lit candles and an altar in front of me.  Behind the altar a priestess is sitting - with a Mayan headdress.  As I go after the cat, it runs and jumps into her lap.

     I then see the shadowy spirits dancing around me -  they usher me around to the right of the priestess and through a low door into a back room.  We sit on the floor and again they start throwing sparks at me - first one spirit then another.  I can feel the sparks hit me and go inside me in sort of a fizzing way - the sparks are healing.

     Carchi Woman:  I'm in a water park, at the top of a long curving slide/tube and I slide down.  My feet hit the water and I flatten out and glide feet first through the water into a man-made cave - well lit.  I come to some steps and climb up and find myself on a high diving platform.  I walk out and sit on the end of the diving board.  I get up and jump feet first into the pool, swim to the edge and climb out.

     I walk out of the park and onto a sandy beach.  I lie down on the sand and feel the warmth of the sand and the warmth of the sun.  I feel somewhat antsy, get up and continue walking along the beach with the ocean to my right.  I come to and climb over a jetty of rocks that crosses the beach and runs out into the water.  On the other side is a sandy cove with a high cliff to the left.  There I lie down in the sand and feel the warmth of the sun and warmth of the sand.  I relax deeply.

5/6 Tlazolteotl:

     I was with Teresa in Mexico City [Teresa is a psychologist from Mexico who first introduced me to Tlazolteotl, the goddess of filth, in the early 1990s].  She took me to a chapel of Tlazolteotl.   A priestess of the goddess greeted us and I went to her with not a sense of confession but with something of filth within me - my cancer.  She held me in the bear spirit posture and I felt her cleansing warmth.

     Mayan Empowerment:

     I am sitting on a hilltop - the fields are open around me - it is night and I am facing the full moon.  I see silhouette spirit figures passing in front of the moon and feel them circling around me.  Then I feel their presences sitting in a circle around me facing the moon as I am.  They begin to sway from side to side and Ohm.  We are all Ohming.

     I then think of IxChel - the moon goddess and the goddess of illness, who, as a goddess, brings the community together.

5/12 The evening of the day of my surgery - Sarah stands for me alone at home using the bear spirit posture.  Sarah's experience:

    I felt like I was holding a baby in my arms and then I placed it in the grass.  It slowly aged and turned into that picture of you - naked in the grass in Denmark.  The white bear appeared and picked you up and wrapped you in a fur skin he brought for you.  He held you to him with your feet dangling.  The bear squeezed you and a blob of organic matter eventually fell out of you.  He laid you down and covered you with the fur and placed an amulet around your neck - it looked like amber.  He built a fire and it was dark.  He picked up the blob of organic matter and threw it into the fire.  Volumes of blue smoke billowed forth - several small dark men came drawn by the fire and greeted the white bear.  Then linked hands and danced in a circle around the fire, the bear and you.  They would pause, drop hands, and lean towards the center of the circle, wiggling their fingers on out-stretched arms.  Then they would join hands and resume dancing.  Slowly it grew light out and the dancers went to sleep on the ground.  The white bear picked you up and put you on your feet, and you walked home.

5/22  [Ten days after surgery - I recognized the healing power of the spark throwing spirits and my spirit guide, the bear, but I was still feeling a life or personal issue eating at me, something I have struggled with for several years.  I realized that my bear guide is of the West and I needed the balance of the East so used the Olmec Prince posture and held feathers between my fingers - feathers I brought back from Copenhagen of the Allike or Jackdaw.  I felt that this would allow me to face and hopefully reframe my negative thinking that has interfered with letting go of my cancer.]

     I was up high on ledge of building or rock on a cliff.  The ledge of a building became more the focus and I was looking down on a circular fountain in front of the building and a small park beyond that.  I flew down and landed on the head of a statue in the middle of the fountain.  I saw children playing at the edge of the fountain.  I flew down to the edge and was dancing back and forth as pigeons do towards the kids playing at the edge in the water.  The kids were Ryland, Lindsey, Quinn and Keegan, four of my grandchildren.  We were in Rome.  I flew back to the top of the statue and from there I could see Laurel, Devin, Rachel and Jim  (my daughter, step-daughter and their husbands) sitting on a bench watching their kids and throwing crumbs to the birds.  I flew down for some crumbs.  After pecking for a while I flew back to the high ledge of the building where I sat.

     [This experience reaffirmed how highly I value these two families, my daughter's and stepdaughter's families being close to each other.  They recently vacationed together in Rome in actuality.]

5/23 Olmec Prince with feathers:

     I was a hummingbird outside our kitchen window on the Rose of Sharon and looking in the window - I saw me with my head on the table looking depressed and alone.  Toni then came in and started rubbing my shoulders.  She then sat in the other chair and reached out to hold my arm.  She then stood and pulled me up to hug me.

5/27 Olmec Prince with feathers:

     I was an eagle soaring above Coburn (where we live), watching Toni and I in the garden.  Toni was in her vegetable garden and I was out with the blueberries.  Toni called to me to turn on the pump to fill the water barrel and I came over.  I then saw the eagle and laid on the grass watching it watch me.  I laid still and felt very content - such that the eagle came down closer and closer.  Finally it landed beside me, watching me and I watching it - we felt secure together.  I wondered what it was trying to say to me.

6/2 Olmec Prince with feathers:

     I was back laying on the ground with the eagle sitting next to me - I could see green energy coming out of its eyes - flowing to me.  The energy made me sit up - it awakened me.

     I could hear a wood thrush saying something like "wake up" almost frantically - over and over.  It lasted for several minutes.  Then I could hear the tree frogs chirping - sounds I rarely hear because of my deafness - especially with background noise such as the drumming.

     [I knew I was supposed to be listening - listening to the sound.  I have sometimes thought of my deafness as saying I didn't want to listen to Toni.  Maybe she is who I am supposed to be listening to - I couldn't hear the sounds of the birds and tree frogs clearly after the drumming has stopped.]

     [Also, my calling (using Martin Prechtel's word) of the eagle to come sit by me (5/27) is important - showing me the importance of me being part of nature (again Prechtel's words), understanding nature, letting go of control, being in harmony and showing patience, -- i.e. accepting things as they are.]

     Hallstatt Warrior:   I'm standing on top of a hill, holding a bear cape around me.  The spirits are dancing at a distance and not throwing their sparks at me.  I get down on all fours and I am the bear - or at least watching the bear as it walks away slowly, going up the road to the ridge and along the ridge, around the rocks at the end of the ridge and into the cave in the rocks.  (A shallow cave on the ridge behind our house that I have known of for years).  I have the feeling of completion.

     [8/3  I still feel disquieted at times and think that the birds still have something to teach me.  I walked to the post office and back this morning, and a catbird walked with me part of the way both ways across our neighbors yard.  That gave me a feeling of confidence.]

8/22/08   I learned my PSA was .1, slightly higher than it should be and radiation is recommended.

8/23/08  (I was invited to do a demonstration of the Ecstatic Postures for a new group of four people.)

     Hallstatt Warrior:  The spirits were dancing around me hitting a piece of flint with each beat of the drum.  At first the sparks were hitting all over me but then the spirits's aim improved and the sparks hit in the area of my prostate.  I just stood there with my arms up out of the way of the sparks.

     Olmec Prince:  I was an eagle sitting on a branch above the creek, my head darting back and forth watching for a fish.  I saw one and easily took off, skimming the water and catching the fish.  Also at the same time I felt myself as a human panic, throwing my arms everywhere in taking off, and missing fish.

     I then flew up over the garden and dropped the fish in front of Toni.  She looked up, smiled, and buried the fish under the seeds she was planting.  She then went to find me to tell me what happened.

[Today I built two 16' Osprey nesting platforms on our property near the creek.]

8/25/08 Man from Cuautla:  I was pulling on something with the weight of my body - it became/was a rope.  The rope led into darkness.  I kept pulling on the rope as I moved hand over hand along it, going into the darkness.  The darkness became the mouth of a cave.  I was quite leery or apprehensive.

     As I followed the rope I found at the other end a bear.  It stood up and roared.  I reacted as if scared but I did not feel especially scared.  Then the bear started to laugh at me.  I was still leery and confused.  I know I was supposed to identify with the bear.

     There was a fire burning in the cave but no one around it.  I wondered if the bear ate them or scared them away.  Part of me wanted to go sit in the bears lap but I was still leery.  We sat side by side by the fire.  Then I started wondering about the rope, it was tied around the bear's waist and I realized that he knew he would get me to follow the rope to him, knowing that I am the curious type and would follow the rope.  I then punched him in the shoulder, like guys do for bonding and I laughed too.

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     Though the remaining ecstatic experiences feel important to me as having to do with my cancer and finding harmony, they also have to do with trying to find a new meaning to life in listening to nature.  Maybe only 12/8 and 1/20/09 are the next relevant experiences to my cancer and a way to bring this transcript to an end.

9/8/08  Olmec Diviner:  I was thinking of the Feathered Serpent.  I was in an ancient Mexican city with a pyramid in the square - very high with steps and I climbed the steps where at the top was the priestess of the Feathered Serpent - dressed as the serpent.  Next to us was an altar with a large bronze bowl resting on it with a fire burning in the bowl.  She asked me for what I had to sacrifice and I found I was carrying a piglet under my arm, right arm.  She cut open the piglet and let its blood run into the bowl before she put the piglet in the bowl - then we went down the steps arm in arm and went separate ways at the bottom.

     Then I went back to before I climbed the steps to when I went to the pig pen next to our grass hut, to select the piglet for the sacrifice - one male and one female.  I hesitated knowing I should take the female because it was more valuable.  I sensed that my wife was in the hut looking out the window - wondering yet knowing what I was doing and she was appreciating what I was doing.  I took the female piglet and then went to the pyramid where the experience started.

11/10/08  Man from Cuautla:  I was rowing a canoe down Bald Eagle Creek when three eagles started flying along with me.  One dove to catch a fish and returned to a tree along be creek while another with a spotted head flew ahead leading me.  Then the third, also spotted, leapfrogged ahead to lead me then landed in a tree while the bald one took the lead.  This leapfrogging continued to lead me down the creek until we came to a high stand of rocks like the ones near the tunnel on Penns Creek.  The eagles each had a fish and flew to their nests in tall trees not far from each other to feed their baby eaglettes in the nests.  I sat back against a rock and watched them, feeling very content and in harmony with them, knowing this is where I needed to be.

11/17/08   Olmec Diviner:  I was feeling cool air flowing into my mouth.  I tried closing my mouth and realized breathing was easier with it open.  I was seeing my breath as a cloud billowing out with the exhale and contracting with the inhale.  Then I found myself in a large glass jug with a narrow neck and the breath/cloud was going out the neck and above the jar - expanding and contracting with each breath.  I was a Genie in the jar.  Soon someone took the neck and tipped it back as if the top of the jug was hinged.  I floated out of the jug and got bigger.  I looked around, floating around looking for what I should be doing, but couldn't figure it out.  I realized I had no Master - no one was there.  I sat down to think.  I thought briefly of Obama, realized his task was next to hopeless.  I couldn't count on him to be my Master.  I had to take care of myself and finding what I needed wasn't in the house.  I went out into the woods, but I needed to go away up the mountain to find a spot that was untouched by humans - the steep part below the road.  I sat on a rock looking around, saw a fallen log with an animal or animals under it.  I knew I needed to be listening to the woods.  Then the drumming ended.

12/8/08   Adena Pipe Posture:  I feel like I am ready to spring - like I'm going to fly, ready for anything.  Then something, maybe a big cat comes running at me from behind and I spring, grabbing a branch in a tree and swing up on the branch.  I sit there looking around and see ants crawling up the tree.  I follow them up, climbing up branch by branch in the pine tree.  The ants go into a hole and I sit on the branch waiting.  I then again feel like springing into the air and I fly out of the tree.  After a while I come to the top of a butte and land, sitting on the edge of the Butte, facing South.  I can see both to the East and the West and the sunrise and the sunset at the same time when I turn my head.  I see storm clouds coming from the SW and lightening striking in the valley below.  I see a herd of wild horses running towards the West.  Again I spring or fly down to the horses and land on the back of one with my arms wrapped around its neck - it is running as fast as it can to the West, then the drumming stops.  I feel very alert and ready to spring throughout.
  
12/29/08  Olmec Prince:  I quickly felt myself swaying back and forth, again a bear - walking slowly I come to a tree and follow a line of ants up the tree licking/eating them as I climb - I get to the hole and sit there relaxed for a while before I climb down and come to a pool of water to take a drink.  I then wander on slowly towards the East but going nowhere in particular.  I felt relaxed and a bear in no hurry.

1/12/09   Priestess of Malta:  I tried to pay attention to my hand over my center of harmony, feeling its energy.  I felt myself growing very tall and after a while I felt small again - the roof had opened up and I could see the starry sky.  I floated up into the sky, drifted around for a while, then feeling the chill of the night I went to the full moon where I felt the warmth of the sun light.  After a while I drifted back to the earth to the sunny side and found myself in the jungles of Eastern Peru.  A village of natives welcomed me as if they were expecting me.  I became annoyed with myself because I wanted to be with them but I kept bouncing around, drifting off the ground.  I kept drifting up into the air.  I finally gave into the feeling and ended up sitting on a tree branch, watching the dancing and drumming around the fire.  It had become night again.

1/19/09  Priestess of Malta:  I went right back to the branch in the village in Eastern Peru.  The women were dancing in a circle and the men drumming.  I flew down over the heads of the drummers and dancers with a wand in my hand and tapped each person on the head and sparks flew into the air.  I then sat down next to a log and took up beating on the log in the rhythm of the drummers.  Eventually the dancers serpentined around one of the women and she fell to the ground in a convulsion.  The rest of the women continued dancing around her.  I felt concern for her and went into the circle and sat on the ground holding her head in my lap and stroked her forehead.  Eventually the drumming and dancing stopped and the women carried the woman into a hut, laid her on a mat and sat around her.  I sat outside the hut, still feeling concern for her.  At dawn she came out and smiled at me.  A meal was being prepared, roasting some meat over a fire, and I took on the chore of carrying wood to the fire.

1/20/09  [ This morning while laying in bed we could see two bald eagles landing in a tree across the creek from our bedroom window.  We got some good pictures of them while they sat there for over two hours.] 

1/20/09  (The OLLI group)

     Olmec Prince:  I felt myself soaring in a thermal, round and round.  Below me was a railroad trestle - from the North end of the trestle a train is coming out of a tunnel.  As I went round and round I could see the sun rising in the East and the sun setting in the West on each circle.   This reminded me of seeing both the sunrise and the sunset at the same time several weeks ago.   I went into my head to try to better understand this image.  First I though of the sunrise and sunset as being times of transition.  Then of bringing the East and West of the medicine wheel together.  My West was of the bear and the spirits throwing sparks at me to heal my cancer (of doing something - more rational, more East), and the East is of the Eagle who taught me harmony (of feelings - more West).  It occurred to me that I have brought the two together but this time understanding them more deeply.

1/20/09  Hallstatt Warrior:  I was standing on a bluff, shivering.  It's cold.  The edge gives way and I slide down the side.  It was sandy and an easy slide.  I slide through a flock of blackbirds and they flew in all directions.  I then hit a pool of water and continued through the water, feet first and see a lot of colorful fish.  Then I slide back up onto a sandy beach and when I open my eyes a large cat is licking my face.

2/21/09  Olmec Prince

     I felt close to the ground and swaying or moving back and forth, side to side, moving forward slowly, a badger or skunk.

     I crawled into a burrow and down the tunnel to a mother badger with several nursing babies.  I felt it was too crowded and no room for me so I started digging an area/tunnel to the right to make room for myself, digging with my claws and pushing the dirt between my legs with my nose and claws.  Then I turned around to push it out of the burrow.  I then start thinking what does this mean and think that I am feeling pressured of going into debt again for some remodeling of our home.

3/6/09  Hallstatt Warrior

     I went to the spot on the hill behind the house where I went before and stood, seeing activity under the log in front of me.  This time I felt a bear behind me to my left and a deer behind me to my right.  I stood there feeling cold and the breeze/wind blowing from the SW.  I became a tree or was inside a tree, then I became the tree bare of leaves and listening to the other trees around me.  A low-deep sound - not distinct but joyful, a sound of trees swaying and as they swayed the movement caused the sap, the sweet sap that nurtured the trees, to flow and the flowing of the sap felt warming and brought me slowly back to life from my winter dormancy.

3/9/09  Feathered Serpent

     I saw Sarah turning to shimmering colors and then she began to shrink and the expand in length, up and down several times, then the shimmering colors flew over head around the room and out the glass door, beckoning me to follow.  She went up onto the hill behind the house where I have been a couple of times before, where I became a tree and wanted to hear what the trees had to say.  Sarah and I became trees next to each other.  Though I was a tree, above my head was a squirrel hole and my hair was the floor of the squirrel hole.  The squirrel was nesting in my hair, running up and down me, carrying nuts.  I at first was annoyed and Sarah was laughing at me however a tree laughs.  She then said something like "let it be."  She was my teacher.  As I let it be, I felt strong and rooted, and the hole was no big thing (recalling the meaning of a squirrel hole in the tree drawing of the House, Tree, Person Test.)  I stood there feeling very tall and enjoying the company of a squirrel - though my attention was towards Sarah, I could see to my left out over the valley.  A eagle was flying towards us and came to rest high up in my leafless branches.
 
Update: One thing that can be added to my journey is that, though  radiation was  suggested  when  my  PSA  test  was  at  .1,  it  has since dropped to below .1 and on 2/6/09 it was down to .08, thus the cancer is considered undetectable and radiation is no longer suggested.