Shift intro rubyquail

Having grown up in a rural reservation area of New Mexico, I spent hours upon hours alone in a natural setting where the Anasazi once lived. One day, I was guided by an unseen force (I was age 11 or 12) to a tiny cave. The "cave" entrance had been sealed with adobe and rock, I expect in 14th century, and I was given "permission" to open it and go inside. It was barely large enough to lay down on very soft, clean sand. Nothing was in the cave. I did lay inside, perhaps hours, dreaming. After that, I called it my dream spot and visited it periodically.  Initially, on the climb to this remote spot, I came across a den of rattlesnakes (for real). I was very afraid of them and didn't want to be anywhere near the den.  However, in order to follow this guidance, I had to find a way around the rocky den.  It's hard to explain the topography of where I grew up, but it was a challenge to work around and over rocky ledges and rough shelf to get to wherever I was going.  I may call this an initial "shift" in the way I related to everything, literally everything with energy, vibration.  All through my life, so far, I have "happened" upon others who see "it" the way I do, but the shift idea seems abstract to me, maybe because "it" is ordinary on so many levels of my life.  If I'm getting this right, then I would say my continuing "shifts" were happenstance. For instance, in my early twenties (I'm now in my mid-fifties), I "accidentally" met The Dalai Lama in New Mexico, while I was helping some friends establish a Tibetan relocation center.  I was just out shopping for a gift at the Peace Craft store downtown! But, I was so astonished to be face to face with such a big energy and smile, that I took it upon myself to learn more about the Tibetan culture and practices.  At that same time, I became friends with a Muskogee Creek elder named Bear Heart and began to re-learn (re-member) ceremonials ways and prayers, and began to take part in ceremonies that he shared with me.  I spent the next hours and days and years with him and those amazing others that were drawn to him - teachers, elders, light workers, children - many others who had knowledge or were seeking something.  Many others from all over the world, from many different cultures, for many different reasons were drawn to him and I, too, was there because I lived only minutes away and my home was an extension of his (in fact, his beloved 4-legged is buried in my back yard). So, maybe now I feel I shifted once again - this time very internally. When Bear Heart passed, I felt withdrawn and alone and without a family of spiritual wanderers.  A shift from ceremony with others to walking alone, inspecting little flowers, picking up tiny rocks, listening to coyotes and bonding with a large bird who accompanies me (red tail? just not sure!) on my daily walk in what is known as "the petroglyph state park" - a place rarely visited!  The ancient people who once lived there left their art-like communications on the volcanic boulders that make up this park. I like all the stink bugs that greet me by "bowing down" as I walk past (that's a joke for those who know about stink bugs), and I shift into a prayer mode about 1/4 mile into the little canyon.... that's my "shift" as I know it today.   There appears to be an opportunity here at Shift of the Ages to once again connect within a peopled community (vs. my rocky, sandy, stinky one now). I miss ceremony of any kind and often take out my drum at home and with a single voice, my drum sings.  It used to sing with many others, in harmony.   Paying close attention to this "new" way of life, children grown and gone, divorced for many years, elders passed through the veil, adopted community scattered and disconnected, I hope to gain another sense of who "WE" are, what is the dream called "we", answer questions I took for granted as "ordinary"; it's a happening shift from me to we to me and back to we, I guess we could say!  I have an intention crystal from Guatemala and perhaps this new shift somehow relates to holding this crystal in prayer for our terra madre, for you, for remembrance, for knowing.  Bear Heart once gave me a medicine name translated to "helps with life" after a vision quest.  If I dream intention, it will be purposeful connection to an elder and her/his extended family and intentional community  in a supportive role, using my gifts somehow to be, once again, the helper for the helpers (or the helpless?).  This shifting of me to you to we needs clarification and vision.  I'm not a visionary alone, and I think that is the way "it" is, which is why I humbly appreciate those like Wandering Wolf and his supporters offering us a virtual place to call home, if only for today, reaching out an e-hand and taking a hand - together a change in human consciousness is possible. Shifting from the e-heart to the we-heart, be well, be loved. rubyquail (I'll have to tell you the story about the quails sometime)
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