Lakes, rivers, streams, tributaries, creeks, waterfalls, leaks, bogs, rivulets, estuary, arroyo, rapids, seepage, whirlpool, eddy, drip, tide, channel, fjord, canal, inlet, brook. Water is motion. Water is life itself. Water is shape-shifter – snow, ice, steam, humidity. Three-quarters of our planet is water; the vast majority of our corpus is water, indeed we may be more tadpole than frog.

For the scientist in us: Masaru Emoto the scientist and author of Hidden Messages in Water and The True Power of Water has shown how destructive thoughts have a negative impact on water. He developed a process using high-speed photography that shows how the crystal structure of water is deformed when exposed to hostile messages, and how those same droplets are “healed” when exposed to loving and compassionate thoughts.

For the soul in us: Grandma Agnes Baker -Pilgrim speaks the Siletz tribal wisdom that has always known water is a vital, sacred force that sources all. Even sitting by water heals. She says we as a people have forgotten to talk and thank the Waters, we have forgotten to be grateful. She reminds us we are all “water-babies.”

Both of these elders tell us it is the Story of Water that we have forgotten. We forget that we are water, we forget that all waters connect to all waters, we forget that we forget. Perhaps that one stings the most. In ceremony we tell the deeper stories. In the ceremony of water we say we have forgotten, we ask forgiveness, we show our gratitude. We tell the story of water.

This is not an act of consecration, but more a remembering: to speak the truer story in motion, song, and word. Over many days, over time. A story needs to be told over and over again. On the shrine:

1. Pour water into beautiful vases, say “Namaste” which means: the sacred in me sees the sacred in you. The water in me, the life force in me sees the life force that is you. I thou.

2. Speak to a small bowl of water, let it live on your shrine for a while; then go pour it at the base of a tree, or in the rain gutter outside you home. Let it carry the remembering.

3. Pray to a waterway you have concern for – a local river, the Gulf, the thawing glaciers. Send an apology, speak its story of Source, send it compassion.

Poet and place activist Kaia Sands poses this question as she leads our group on an interactive walk along the grounds of  The Expo Center at the northern tip of  Portland, Oregon. Before me I see 60 acres of asphalt and buildings stretching to the urban horizon; above me is the double arm of the Timber Gateway strung with steel Japanese internment tags.

This land holds two traumatic stories of two minority communities not often spoken of in “liberal” Oregon. Sands walked this land quietly and intensely, even in a string of days for a month, to listen to the land to unearth the invisible “ruins” of these events. First came the 1942 WWII Japanese Internment Camp. For 4 months Japanese Americans were confined in the Portland International Livestock Exposition Grounds, renamed the Portland Assembly Center, awaiting deportation to permanent camps in ajoining states. Second, came the 1948 Vanport Flood that erased the largest public housing project in the US at that time. Vanport, a shanty town built on a flood plain,  housed returning Internment victims and the majority of African-Americans living in Oregon.

In her book Remember to Wave (TinFish Press, 2010), poet Sands “maps” this territory of human stockades by splicing together original and found poems to show us the ruins that shimmer like heat waves off the Expo’s pavement. In the asphalt landscape we walk the poem of this Place. Sands carries an old small suitcase that holds all she will need. We carry nothing.  She stops at places that seem quite unremarkable then rings her handmade toori rattle and begins to speak aloud the deep story that has been in silence too long. This was where the barbed wire fence stood; this was where the Japanese ate; in this place Shimizu was born; there stood Michi Yasunaga and James Wakagawa for their wedding; Akira Shimura died, there. We are in a ceremony.

The Australian Aborigines have walked the stories in their land for 60,000 years. In their world view, everything that is meaningful leaves a kind of footprint that can be seen through songlines, poetic story. Indeed, these song maps are the only way through their vast homeland. They sing of human story and mythic epics in a landscape rather than label places with human names or regional generalities. Singing story is how they find their way.

It was not lost on me that I rode the “Yellow Line” commuter train to the literal end of the line to this place of despair. Land always is telling its story.  It was not lost on Kaia Sands that some fifteen feet from the memorial gate stands a large, white metal cell with air holes to lock in bicycles. For land is always telling its story. An excerpt from “User to Supply Lock” (a poem inspired by a phrase posted on the bike locker):

“Prisoner to supply shackles. Barbed wire. Dog to supply leash. Convicted to supply stenographer. Citizen to supply amnesia. Child to supply carbon emissions. Fish to supply lure. Chicken to supply fox. Raccoon. Eggs to supply opposum. Citizen to supply amnesia…”

Somehow this landscape culls the experience of stockades: livestock for butchering, Japanese Americans for silencing, then African-Americans for warehousing. In the ceremony to heal a place, what is it we release and what do we welcome back in? It is not necessarily “healing” to tear up the acres of parking lot and expose the earth. Nor need this land be made suitable for a “cheerful” housing development.

How we reverberate to a landscape’s own song makes a terrain heal, its story finding Place in our hearts. Healing  is a motion of Belonging. We must listen to the land. We must sing its songlines. We must do ceremony. For this is the nomadic footpath to find the sublime in its indigenous, archetypal structure. Therein will be the way to re-member even the stories of exile and displacement.

Kaia Sands holds ceremony and sings the songlines for the displaced peoples held in this land. As she reads her poetry and the Haiku of the imprisoned, she has to pause frequently because the semi-trucks and Portland International Raceway car motors overwhelm her human voice. But that is all part of living the poem of this Place. Her voice rises again in the moments in-between, which is where these ruins live.

It is 8 pm in Ypres, Belgium. All traffic is stopped near the Menin Gate as six members of the voluntary fire brigade raise their bugles. The fourth man from the left whets his upper lip. Without a mortal’s cue, they begin to play “The Last Post.” It is that familiar haunting warble that signals the end of a soldier’s day after loyal duty. Other days, a piper joins and plays “Lament,” there is a wreath laying, and a moment of silence. As of April 9, 2010 this is the 28,082nd time the community performs this ceremony. And they are not done yet.

When I learned about this ceremony I assumed it was for WWII. I am a child of a Navy Second-Class Seaman whose brother was killed fighting Nazis in the Swiss Alps as a soldier in the US ski troops. I grew up with the breath, stories and grief of The War.

No, this is a healing for WWI. The ceremony began in 1927 to remember the dead at the Flemish Western Front. An 82 year ceremony. And the ceremony is not yet complete. Does that mean it “hasn’t worked?” On the contrary, that is testimony that it IS working to heal the vicious tear in a place where a most town structures were decapitated, 40,000 unnamed soldiers lay buried, and 50,000 boys “disappeared in the Salient mud.”

How does a community heal from violence? How does a landscape, a place, heal from violence? The land we tread holds stories, both our stories and its own. The deep stories, the ones that call out to our humanity, need to be told over and over so they plant in our depths. Even now in France and Belgium some 20 skeletal remains of fallen WWI soldiers are unearthed each year. They call this “The Harvest of Bones.”  The Great Mother heaves forth one more of us, remember this one? Remember that one? I do.

We can build a mortal archway, the last threshold of the-world-as-I-knew-it-before where the soldier passes through to the otherside, which is not really an other side, but a place between.  Here Life and Death press hard against each other in a well disputed territory of who is real, what is real–a place-of-many-names; battle field, hell on earth, purgatory, the bardo. This is also the place where Peace and Violence vie to stake their claim in the geographies and hearts of humankind. This is also the place where what we see and what we deny tangle our beliefs and actions, making our steps hover over uneven ground.

We can build a ceremonial archway to stitch together the tears of our worldy places, weave the new story to the frays of the on-going story of a place and ourselves. We need it all. Ceremony requires two elements most precious in the 21st century where we measure foot races to the hundredth of a second and communicate via instant messaging: Time and Reflection. In ceremony, we too step away from what we knew and enter the place of between: where soldiers fall slow and heavy as wet snow.

Peace Through Place is the working name of a new dimension of AltarPlaces. The ink is still wet but here are some of the pieces: re-story places of violence (be it environmental, communal, planetary, mytho-spiritual etc.) within a community and create Peace Elders (poet/storyteller, peace activist, environmentalist, historian, faith leader, Reiki practitioner, shaman…) to bring back  a sense of Belonging at all levels (environmental, communal, planetary, mytho-spiritual etc.) through Ceremony, embodied story.

In the time it has taken me to write this blog,  the Ypres community has held 3 more ceremonies.

Here are some links you may want to visit:

The Last Post Association

Ypres and The Great War

When I sit with my shrine I am tired: I give myself compassion

When I sit with my shrine I long to be outside in the sun: I honor how difficult it is to be in my pain

When I sit with my shrine I am filled with gratitude: I marvel how my life is just as it should be and I am glad I am not running the show–I’d sell myself short

When I sit with my shrine I swear I am taking the damn thing down: I am reassured God is too big to be harmed by my anger and will never leave me

When I sit with my shrine I laugh: I remember Spirit has a real sense of humor!

Then I eat ceremonial chocolate.

“You take the insights from these epiphanies and you find something in your daily life that you can hook them onto and you pull the rest of your life along” –Stanley Krippner

When I  build a shrine I am passionate: I learn to follow my gut

When I build a shrine I start in a hurry: I see I have been rushing through my life, and it is time to slow down

When I build a shrine I begin confused: With each object I gather I gather trust in Spirit again

When I build a shrine I yell at the gods: I remember I am not alone

When I build a shrine I am creative: I receive courage to take my next step

Then I light the candle.

The found object for a shrine is like the found poem; it is a vertical moment when Spirit presses the every-day open to reveal the sacred in our midst. Spirit is speaking to us all the time. Sometimes it sounds as Mud on Hands.

The Blessing of a Bowl

–a found poem in Everyday Sacred by Sue Bender

Bowls that are bells, bowls made of human skulls,

bowls that are made into drums, she began.

There are bowls that native people make–

handsome baskets so tightly woven

that they could hold soup

or porridge;

Old American Indian funeral pots

made with holes at the bottom to let the spirit come through.

There are summer bowls, Zen tea bowls from Japan,

used in tea ceremony, that have a wide brim

to help the heat of the tea escape,

and winter bowls with brims

that are made narrow

to hold in the heat

when the weather is cold.

And big brass water pots the women of Rajasthan carry on their heads…

Physicists even see the universe as a bowl, I added.

“Hiwa-Kai. Please save for the lovely lady who most certainly will return.” This handwritten note was taped on a brown bag behind the counter at Peet’s.  I had made a quick–possibly desperate–run for coffee Sunday morning when I discovered we had none for breakfast. Hiwa Kai? I knew that was no coffee name,  as I am a bit of a connoisseur, and I knew it was no tea either. I kept re-reading the note, very curious. Interesting choice of descriptor “lovely;” unusual label “lady.” In the Warrior Hero era this note would have read: “Save–customer left. Hold to end of the day.” But we are in the Artisan era and this is an Artisan’s note.

Fast forward to early afternoon. I am following a strange lead from a friend and on a search for Pink Himalayan Salt. I am no cook. I felt exotic when I bought organic unbleached sea salt with brown speckles and now I find out there is pink salt from one of the most remote places of the world. This is a marvel in the old sense for it means I can place a piece of the Himalayas in my mouth and savor it. I can even  offer this aphroditic herb as indigenous shrine food to the Bodhisattva’s–wild.

I arrive at The Wall of Herbs at Limbo’s in SE Portland: giant glass jars rise nearly to the ceiling displaying hundreds of spices I never knew existed. I skim the  alphabetic aisle labels searching for “S” and a visual of pink stones. I find it quite easily. What I also find in a twin jar directly next to it is “Hiwa-Kai”–black salt. I had to buy it as well. I learned after all these years to not hesitate and grasp whatever synchronicity psyche presents. I purchased two-and-a-half ounces of each salt.

I spend the rest of the afternoon with my soul-sister Cheryl with whom I co-lead a soulful-creativity workshop on the Artisan’s Journey  (http://fanning-the-flames.com/). We lead a powerful workshop the day before and our reward is to work and do ceremony for each other the next day. In my ceremonial work, I am stepping deeper into my power as an artisan-leader.  I release personal and lineal wounds that silenced creative power me. In my vision my Finnish ancestors hand me the Sampo–the sacred blacksmith’s gift to the Finnish people in our cultural epic The Kalevala. I hug the Sampo to my heart and feel its ancient powers seep into me like warm, blue honey. When we end I literally feel 2 inches taller in my body.

While being a a mythologist as well as pure-bred Finn (”Dad came over on the boat,” as we say) I was foggy on the qualities of the Sampo. I recalled it had transformational powers and produced gold, corn, and some other third thing, but what?

I am grateful to be a seeker of the sacred in the time of Google. The next morning I google Hiwa-Kai salt and Finnish Sampo. I expected to research two different stories–instead I receive one. I learn the mythic significance of the Sampo is the equivalent to the Grail in Arthurian legend. I found out the third element the Sampo creates is SALT. Indeed, at the end of the epic the Sampo is thrown into the sea and shatters into unrecognizable pieces and that explains why the sea is salty. I am in further wonder of my gifts.

I learn Hiwa-Kai a SEA salt and black due to activated charcoal.  Activated charcoal adsorbs (not absorbs, different process)  poisons  such as lead, mercury, strychnine, and DDT. It is so powerful and efficient that 1 teaspoon can clear the surface area of 10,000 square feet. This quality of activated charcoal is not possible with household BBQ charcoal (do not try this at home!). Interestingly the charcoal must be prepared by an extreme steaming process–I can see the bellows in my mind’s eye. Now I connect this with another piece of research that seemed anecdotal at the time: The Kalevala’s blacksmith Ilmarinen, maker of the Sampo, was born on a hill of charcoal!

When Psyche gathers pieces and strews them on my path then I am in a Living Ceremony. The Blacksmith god, birthed from a miracle matter that transmutes toxicity thousands of times it own size, initiated me. I am to carry his medicine in this time and place. I am gifted with the creative power of my voice, and the collective voice of my once conquered people.

Our mythic life happens simultaneous to this life, in the world out-of-time. It seems that in this particular soul-story I just happened to read the “last” line at the “beginning”: Hiwa-Kai. Please save for the lovely lady who most certainly will return. I most certainly did reappear.

Wild Shrine

Let me share with you a pet peeve of mine. I truly dislike the term “domestic shrine.” This is a common descriptor for shrines that are in the personal places of our lives, the ones outside the temple.  The term “domestic” carries a story within that does not apply to spiritual seeking and contact with the Divine. Think about it, what is the life experience of domesticated any thing? Penned, prodded, tamed, castrated, saddled, leashed –do you see where this story leads?

Soul Yoga is quite contrary to that experience. Soul Yoga through Shrine-tending is a path to the Wild where you commune with the godhead in a carnal and intimate way.  I will also say that I intentionally do not use the term “nature” here either. The word “nature” is scientific and carries the story of Western mind trying to control whatever is not human. It is about measuring, staring at, and dissecting the things around us. Science wants information so it can control.

The Wild follows its own rhythms separate from to human conveneince. The Wild froths, swirls, gallops, licks, sucks, prances, flames, pours, crushes, births, spawns, devours, sings, and echoes.  Generative shrines, those sourced from Old Mind (a.k.a. the Collective Unconscious, the Akashic Records, the Ancestors  etc), with transformative energy  (a.k.a. prana, chi, life force) follow the ways of the Wild not the domesticated.  That which does not change dies. The gods are on the move, always. Psyche, the bringer of the gods’ news for us, is always a spiraling.

I am on the hunt for new language. I need words that carry the story of the Wild to name the experience of shrines birthed from Old Mind. Any Ideas?

If I were to build an Ancestor Shrine to you, I would start with only one photograph. You would have to be very young. Long before you had the blue Ford pick-up truck that belched sand pellets from its tires as you drove hard on the dirt roads around our house. I asked Aunt Tildy what your favorite food was: carrot cake.

If I were to build an Ancestor Shrine to forgive you, I would buy you a piece of carrot cake from Helen Bernhard’s Bakery on 16th Street. They are still so busy that customers stand in line with tapered tickets in hand. I’d have to wait in line. I’d have to wait for you again.

I would leave the cake offering, still held in its white wax paper, on the shrine. I would leave the cake offering in front of your young portrait that I keep covered with an opalescent scarf so I can choose when to see you. Then I guess I would have to open you up.

If I were to build an Ancestor Shrine, I would open you up. I would close my eyes, breathe deep, feel the red dirt beneath me, spread my arms wide open, and pray for us both: “May you be happy, joyous, and free”. “May I be happy joyous, and free.”

If I did this long enough, I could learn to bake carrot cake.

A cluttered shrine can be a signal that it is time to say “Thank you” and let go. Shrines do have lifetimes. Totems ripen into spiritual guides, and then they will begin to fade. It may be years (Kwan Yin and I go back over 10 years) or it may be moments and days. I once had a pair of Ruby Slippers (”She-Who-Launches”) on a shrine for only two weeks and then it was time to take them off.  I realized I was firmly on my new path and quite organically the icon slippers “evaporated”. I replaced them with a stone stamped with Buddha’s Footprints. For me, being barefoot, like the Buddha, meant I was an indigenous pilgrim deeply implaced on my soul journey.

Set aside “Weed Time” with your crowded shrine. Shrine Tending can be like gardening: every now and then you need to sit in it and touch each object-icon. Is it over grown and leggy? Is its season over? Did something over shadow it and did it get lost down there? If so, who needs to go the sapling or the vine?

Hold each object-icon. Sit quietly and let your hands intimately explore. What do you sense? You may hear a voice, see colors emanating, feel temperature, or have a “gut”reaction. There are 3 possible responses: leave this piece on your shrine; create a new shrine focused on the intent of this icon; or say thank you and let go.

Saying Thank You. Object-icons that have lived in a shrine have given sacred service. They have been dependable spirit bridges transporting prayers and ushering in prana. Here are 5 ritual thank yous. Let your intuition guide you.

1.  Sage icon and give thanks – place it in a special box or shelf ready for another time

2. Leave icon outside overnight (even for a few nights) – let it breathe darkness, let the cool moonlight touch it, immerse it in the dreamtime

3. Give the icon away – gift it to someone in need; be sure to write or tell them your story of healing

4. Write a reflection in your journal – remember the lessons of Spirit received, even make it a love letter of sorts

5. Release the icon into the Wild – leave the icon in a public place and trust that the one meant to find it next will happen upon it – be an Angel of Synchronicity

By weeding,  we re-vitalize our shrine, clarify our intention, and re-commit to our soul’s journey.