​We are in liminal days, my friends…we are prospective immigrants walking towards the possibility of revelation but still, now, betwixt and between . . . and all too often lost in a daze.

Having guided rites of passage and vision quests for 20 plus years, ushering the trembling and ‘hungry for something more’ initiates through the rip of severance towards their solo threshold time in wild nature, I can tell you, liminal space can be challenging.  It is a magical homeland of the ‘Other ‘ (things that look at you doubly) that can be terrifying, overflowing with wonder, or a deep drenching in a remembering that only your intricate lacy labyrinthine soul marrow now is aware of.

We are floundering in the gap….as if we’ve let go of the swinging bar of the trapeze and haven’t yet seen the next thing that we can grab onto…that can hold us, give us ground, ignite a vision…
Some call these times… times of so much emotion and confusion . . . the abyss.  We, collectively, have slid down that slippery slope and are caught now in the fearful mire of the shadowy bottoms of our time. Many are resisting, some are wishing for a return of something like yesteryear, some are lit up with purpose and revolution, and some are held in the tight grip of self absorption or unfelt emotion.  And luckily, some of us are gliding on an outer orbit, able to glimpse a bigger picture…but not many of us can sustain that even though it steadies our lens and offers a focus that calms us in the moment.

Let us consider this time as a global rite of passage.
The timeless, rhythmic, mysterious way of the cosmos that we recognize as birth, death and rebirth asks us to surrender now…to give over to this familiar way that our soul remembers and longs for.  Can we give over…let go,  let die, re-align with our original instructions, re-calibrate with our soul design?  Can we trust even this? In this apocalyptic time of climate degradation, unthinkable injustice, mass extinction, the pandemic, intensifying oppression, loss and hostility towards our black lives and indigenous people, rampant disease and hunger and war, we are indeed in a time of dying and we can no longer ignore it.  It flashes on every headline and newscast and we can no longer turn a blind eye.  Nor should we.  What if it all is asking us in our narcissistic ways to die to all that has been? To wake up inside of our mortality and see the searing truth…’let the raw edge of our grief for our ignorance awaken our innate genius.’
The thing about this chaos is that it is a delicious archetypal energy to our souls and if we open our hands and our hearts new brilliance will erupt…eventually.  The Phoenix will rise out of the ashes and these charnel grounds of our privilege and the endless suffering will bear fruit if we open our eyes to the unending cycles of renewal in the world.

For me, having spent this year traversing a life threatening diagnosis, I am aflame with a body/heart that understands cellularly what changes when we allow our death song to be sung. An arc of sustenance comes forward when we look Death in the eyes without sheltering our somatic response, and it invites us into a place of great courage and invites a lean towards risk taking.

As Adrienne Rich reminds us in the poem, “either you will go through this door or you will not go through.”  We all stand before this threshold now, some at the doorway of physical death and others of us tremble in the chasm of the knowledge that the time is nigh to die before we die.  These times hold the possibility for a transformational rite of  passage…the structures are collapsing, the wounded repressed are returning, and the leaders are demonstrating a pathological sickness that has too many held stiff in the trance of a binary fixation that raises our hackles and brings the sword into the warring hand.
“But the door itself holds no promises”…it is the amount of courage that we dare muster in these liminal times…how wide our perspective is and the ability to trust the drumming of the ancient taut skins that invite a rebirth.  “You must look back and let them happen”…those things that dredge up all your old wounds, fears, fixations, and patterns of homogeny.  Will you allow your own dismemberment?

Only in the depths of that kind of letting go, can we feel the change that comes with  re-membering and by singing a new naming song for the young ones whose genius is particularly suited for this time of loss and collapse.

A liminal daze can harken our addictive and escapist tendencies.  We must turn towards Nature…our own true nature and the wildest nature you can find. It is there, only in the wildest landscape that you can discover a mirror clearer than your analytical mind can imagine.
Snap out  of the fog of rationalism, step through the door, and drink the mystery of the numinous.
Here the soul soars and feathered wings risk rebirth.

It was in the White Mnts of southern CA on a program I was taking with Meredith Little of School of Lost Borders. It had been a while since I'd participated in a program rather than guided one and it was clearly time for me to sit again with my dearly loved and respected Meredith, who was one of my original trainers in my nature-based work. She is a true elder and huge hearted lover of the world

We were walking each afternoon with one of the four directions or "shields" and for this program all in the west, the place of initiation, mystery and soul. I had walked with the south of the west, then the west of the west, which was a powerful ceremony that landed me at the end of the day beneath an ancient Bristlecone Pine where in front of my toes lay a very old skull of a marmot who were abundantly alive in the area.  This day was to be my walk with the north of the west.  If these directional signposts for my walks make little sense to you, no worries, it is less important to the story than what unfolded on that particular day.

Our group's basecamp was at a lower elevation and it was hot on these August afternoons, so a number of us chose to drive up the mountain to where the amazing Bristlecone Pines grow...astonishingly these wise old beings are some of the oldest trees on the planet and believe it or not, there are trees there that are around 4000 years old.  True ancestors in the plant kingdom.
Can you imagine having been rooted there since 2000 B.C?
Of course we were drawn there again and again.

On this particular day, I rode up with a couple of other participants and as we approached the area we planned to park in, there in the road was a marmot who'd been hit by a car. I immediately asked the drive to stop and let me get out to move it.  My heart rate rose and I felt distraught.  I jumped out and rushed to its side. Part of its head had been crushed and I reached to pick it up. It was so soft and warm to the touch so I assumed it was hit very recently.  I walked up the embankment towards a tree above where it seemed to be headed.  Immediately as I approached the tree, another marmot came out of its burrow near the tree and stood to watch me.  I kneeled and gently laid the body of this beautiful creature down as the other one (was this its partner or mother? or child?) watched me...steadfast in its stance. Out of my heart poured lamentations to this other, very alive, but seemingly bewildered marmot friend. I apologized again and again for my species and the way that our speed and fear and disrespect caused this.  I lay the body of the marmot down about 10 feet away from this other and kneeled. I was petting the body as I apologized out loud, and sprinkled its body with sage as I did.
Tears filled my eyes as I felt the presence of the other. She had a perfect white moon shaped mark on her forehead and rather than running and hiding in fear, she stood watching me. Our eyes locked as I shared my words and she watch and then would lower her head for a moment, as if confused or sad, and then watch me again, seeming to listen.  Together we share these moments of honor, grief, and care and it stunned me and my heart exploded. This other, who was likely stunned and clearly cared about this now dead marmot, received me. This was one more heart-breaking event where I was so evidently witnessing grief in another animal. Everything in my body told me this was not an act of anthropomorphism on my part, but an experience of two warm blooded mammals, sharing a sadness over the death of another.  I will never forget this, as it pierced me.

My friends sat in the car in the road watching this unfold.  At first they didn't understand who I was talking to, but then they saw the marmot standing by the tree. 
As soon as we parked I left on my walk...so full of emotion was I that I needed to get out so I could fully express all that was exploding out my heart.  I stepped over the threshold to my wander and my grief cry rang out...the gaze of the live marmot had marked me. I walked straight north towards a rocky embankment in the middle of a huge meadow. My grief turned to anger and I raged out loud at the way in which our human need for speed has done so much damage...and how uncaring we have become as we disregard the damage we've dealt to the natural world.

I climbed to the top of this rise to a knoll that was covered with marmot droppings. My memory carried me to something I had read that Terry Tempest Williams had written as she took part in a study of Prairie Dogs. Studies showed that Prairie dogs came out of their burrows for each sunrise and sunset and pressed these tiny paws together in front of their hearts, as if in prayer, and watched as the sun rose or set.  I wondered if this rocky knoll was perhaps a place that marmots might do the same thing. It had a perfect view to the east and west.

My walk unfolded further in reverence and praise for the creatures and their families living in this high elevation ecosystem with a view of the Sierra Nevada Range.  The skull I had found became the center point for a mandala laid out of juniper berried, leaves, seed heads and more, as a tribute to all those hearts that matter, but often are disregarded by us.

For 20 years now, almost to the date, I have been in an apprenticeship to death and this walk in the north of the west, I was reminded keenly that my work is not done in the realm of the dying, after death care, and the grief so tied to these events in each of our lives.

I am a part of a group here in Prescott now who are working to be a resource to the community for these times: "Arizona Community Death Care Resouce".  We hope to have a website up by the end of September.

This quote came direct from the heart of an extraordinary young woman I once guided. She always said that "every heart matters," and lived her life accordingly.  Thank you Shae!

 Hi Loves, 
Where has my writing gone I ask myself?
It is sunk deeply in my chest...waiting for rain....to imbibe...to germinate. 
I do have a story to tell from my recent forays into Dark Nature, but first, I wanted to share some remarkable wisdom...and challenges, from the popular Brene' Brown.  I recently saw a link to her podcast with Oprah on Super Soul Sunday and listened in...I felt it was important enough to pass it on.  Sending all of you love and the challenge to trust and be trustable.