Tales of the Bighorn Mountains II

Saturday, July 29, 2006 ~ Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming

Nine years ago, the call of the Bighorn Mountains was so strong that I felt obliged to travel each of the three highways that crisscross it. Today, now that I'm complete with the Medicine Wheel, I will travel only one more -- in order to get back to the east side of the mountains and the interstate.

For reasons I don't understand, I'm pulled south, to US-16, to make my crossing. Yet as I climb the mountain, parts of my mind question this decision. So far, at least, the route isn't nearly as scenic as the one I traveled this morning.

And then I reach the summit at Powder River Pass.



I pull into the turnout, look up and am immediately catapulted back to July 1997. I remember having been pulled out of the car at this very spot nine years ago and the unequivocal urge to hike up the rocky slope now before me. I remember, too, seeing images of dragons and hearing the sound of the rocks as they spoke to me of my origins and the origins of time.

Although that experience never left me, its location had. Until moments ago, I didn't know that this was the spot.

Then, I was in a time of powerful transformation and regenesis, on an unknowing journey from my old life in Canada to a new one in Sedona, where, within the year I would be married...within two I would be a father.

Today, less than a week before the finalization of my divorce, I am again in a similar time of change....not knowing where I'm going or why, simply trusting that the journey will carry me there as fearlessly as possible...and grateful for the spirit and energy of these rocks that, once again, support me on that journey.

Photos/Art by Mark David Gerson
#1-My drawing of the Rock Formation
#2-The rock formation at Powder River Pass

Tales of the Bighorn Mountains I

Saturday, July 29, 2006 ~ Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming

As I've traveled the highways and byways of America over the past 20 months, it's rare that I've felt called back to any of the places I visited on a similar (if much shorter) journey nine years ago.

That doesn't mean I haven't wanted to return to some of those places. When I have, it's generally been from a desire to anchor myself in the familiar. And when I have acted on that desire, the repeat experience has rarely been as potent as the original.

Today, as I leave Sheridan, Wyoming and climb US-14/14A, I know I am returning to the Medicine Wheel that sits atop Medicine Mountain in the northwestern Bighorn Mountains. What I don't know is which category this visit will fall into.

An hour or so later, as I reach the parking lot for Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark, I'm still not certain.



The hike to the actual wheel is a largely uphill mile and a half, plenty of time to reminisce about the last time I was here, when Roxy, my cocker spaniel traveling companion, dove joyfully into the welcome coolness of the snow that still covered the mountain's upper flanks.

Then, as an offering, I carried an aboriginal feather fan that had been gifted to me a few weeks earlier.

Roxy and the snows are gone and, today, I travel alone, with my voice as my only offering. Its song, a magical blend of me and the mountain, carries me up the path and into a realization that this is no nostalgia visit.

Somehow and for some reason I have been brought back.

When I reach the summit, at 9,642 feet, I am breathless. Not from the hike. Not from the altitude.

What has taken my breath away is the power of this sacred land...the presence of the 1,000-year-old stone circle...the 7,000 years of Native American worship at this site.



With great reverence, I make a slow clockwise circuit around the 28 spokes of the wheel. After my first circuit, I feel called to go around again. After the second circuit, I begin a third one.

And then I sense a presence...walking with me...holding my hand...guiding me.

Although I don't see him, I know him to be a Grandfather, an Ancient One. I know him to be part of the energy that has called me back to this place.

"At this Medicine Wheel," he tells me, "heaven and earth touch all the time and the veils between dimensions are barely present. This is a transformational portal, a gateway to personal change, a key holder of the Eternal Flame, a pilgrimage site for all Wisdom Keepers."

Wisdom Keepers, he reminds me, don't keep the wisdom they gain for themselves, but plant its seeds wherever they go, whatever they do -- by virtue of their beingness. "Whether you're conscious of it or not, you are spreading and planting those seeds," he insists.

After the third circuit, I want to go around a fourth time and a fifth...perhaps even a sixth.

"No," he says. "Three times is all. More than three times demonstrates a desire to stay stuck, to not move forward and beyond the experience of the wheel."

He then gives me the vision for a drawing of the Medicine Wheel, along with instructions on how to use that drawing as a surrogate for an experience of this physical wheel, and sends me on my way.

Before I leave the circle, I reach into my pocket for a stone from the Yellowstone River that I had planned to send to my daughter. It's shaped like the profile of a bear's head, complete with a black circle where the eye would be. I leave it on one of the wooden fence posts that surrounds the wheel as an offering.

The offering to my daughter becomes this visit, and the drawing.

Photos/Art by Mark David Gerson
#1-My drawing of the Medicine Wheel
#2-The hike up the the Medicine Wheel
#3-The Medicine Wheel atop Medicine Mountain

Signs of the Times II

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 ~ Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

I wish I had photographed today's "sign of the times." It was posted at Inspiration Point, at the north rim of what's called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

The heading read Shifting Ground and the text spoke of all the changes that had occurred to the canyon here as a result of a 1975 earthquake in the park. It concluded with this piece of universal wisdom:

Take a good look at the view
It won't be the same next time you're here

Not only does the view change, so does the viewer.

Photo by Mark David Gerson: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park

Signs of the Times I

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 ~ Wisdom, Montana

I'm driving south from Missoula, fully expecting to head south into Idaho, where I plan to follow the magical Salmon River Valley. I stop at Lost Trail Pass at 7,014 feet in the Bitterroot Mountains. A few yards south is Idaho and the road to Salmon. A few yards east is Montana's State Route 43, the road to Wisdom.

Figuring I can always use some extra wisdom, I let the car bear east instead of south.

Twenty-six miles later, I enter Wisdom, disappointed that no bolts of lightning have struck me with increased knowingness.

And then the knowingness does strike, with the subtlety that is often wisdom's hallmark.

Wisdom is a reminder of where I already am...when I allow myself to be in it...when I allow myself to surrender into it.

Photo by Mark David Gerson: Wisdom, Montana

Volcano Country

Saturday, July 22, 2006 ~ Post Falls, Idaho

After nearly two weeks in the pressure cooker of volcano country, it's a relief to find myself in the gentler energy of northern Idaho.

Post Falls is just a few miles west of Coeur d'Alene. And any place with heart ("coeur") as part of its name is bound to be embracing.

I've lived among volcanoes before - on two Hawaiian islands and in Northern Arizona - and am familiar with their transformative energy.

Yet my two weeks in the Cascades was different. Perhaps because I wasn't steeped over time in the energy of a single volcano, but was moving from one to the next in rapid succession.

It began with a night spent sleeping under the stars at the 7,000-foot level of Mount Shasta and concluded yesterday afternoon, as I drove eastward, away from Mount Rainier.

In between I experienced dozens of volcanoes and volcanic remnants in California, Oregon and Washington State.

Like the earthquake energy of the California coast, the volcanoes of the Cascades are filled with the energy of upheaval. Explosive upheaval. Disruption. Displacement.

It was instructive to drive up to Mount St. Helens, for example, and see where the mountainside was blown away by the 1980 eruption and how the Toutle River was forced by volcanic debris to change its course.

It reminded me that an explosive upheaval of volcanic proportions in my own life 21 months ago blew up my status quo and forced the river of my life into new, unimaginable directions.

As well, it was somewhat disturbing yesterday to drive up to Mount Rainer, near Seattle, and sense the fiery force behind its cool, glacial exterior. In fact, each time I looked at the mountain, I clearly saw its flank collapse in an explosion of fire, rock and ash.

Whatever Mount Rainier does in the physical, its message - at least for me - is that disruption and displacement are the norm, and unexpected shifts in direction are to be expected. It confirmed a dream I had a few nights earlier, which promised "a pile of change" and suggested yet more radical evolution.

And, once more, it's a call to live as fully in the moment as I can. For there's no telling what the next moment will bring.

Photo by Mark David Gerson: Mount St. Helens, Washington

Mount Rainier as the Camera Saw It

Photo by Mark David Gerson: Mount Rainier, Washington

Mount Rainier as I Saw It

To learn more about this drawing, titled Fire of the Gods, or to order a copy, click here and select #93. To view all new drawings, click here.

Image (c) 2006 Mark David Gerson

Eureka!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006 ~ Fortuna, California

As I was driving through the majestic redwoods earlier today, then thinking I would spend the night just north of here in Eureka (which, to my mind, should rightfully be spelled Eureka!), I was reminded of a piece in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, my book of writing inspiration and practice.

It's called "The Right Idea," and it makes the point that there's a profound difference between a good idea and the right idea, "between an idea that is anyone’s for the taking and one that is uniquely yours, one that’s right for you, right now."

There are many good ideas out in the ethers...infinitely many. But there's only one in this moment that sparks a cry of Eureka!, that either ignites your passion or is sparked by it.

The idea I had last month of staying in the Denver area was a good idea, one I could justify on many grounds. But it wasn't a Eureka! idea.

A Eureka! moment requires no explanation, no justification. It just is, often defying all logic, common sense and conventional wisdom.

The fact is, we're moving out of the energy of explanation, justification and conventional logic and into the energy of Eureka!

We're moving away from figuring things out and into the energy of allowance.

We're moving out of the energy of settling and into the energy of passion. Increasingly, we're uncovering passions previously hidden or repressed, passions our still-limited minds would prefer to shut down or flee from.

Yet these are the passions fueled by our divine nature, the same passions that allow more of that divine nature to reside more fully within us and live more fully as us.

These are the passions that cry Eureka! from the deepest place of our knowingness and beingness.

These are the passions that, for reasons I may never fully understand, have kept me on the road and brought me to Fortuna and the gates of Eureka.

I'd like to think that being so close to Eureka, California, will spark some new Eureka! moments for me. Whether it does or not, it has already pressed me to remember the magic of Eureka! and to not settle for anything less.

Photo by Mark David Gerson: Muir Woods National Monument, near San Francisco

Bella Fortuna

Wednesday, July 12, 2006 ~ Fortuna, California

The real reason I'm writing this right now is that I can't resist the opportunity to use the place line Fortuna.

Spending the night in a place called Fortuna, as I'm doing, reminds me of all the good fortune that travels with me -- despite the fears and emotional stresses of this physical and spiritual journey.

While I'm not always taken care of in ways I would humanly choose -- in ways that are comfortable -- I am always provided for. And while there are moments when my burden feels extraordinarily taxing, I know it is no heavier than yours...and much lighter than that borne by many.

In this moment, as dusk bathes nearby hills in golden light, I am grateful -- for this day, for this journey and for you.

Dancing with the Infinite

Wednesday, July 5, 2006 ~ Sedona, Arizona

As I lie in bed this morning thinking about my life in these times, the image that comes to me is of a deck of cards tossed in the air. It's a slow-motion vision of cards lazily somersaulting over each other, not yet ready to fall to earth.

I've had that image before. And the sense that has always accompanied it is that everything is in limbo, that I'm waiting for the cards to fall into whatever the new pattern of my life will be.

This morning, though, my interpretation is different. Disconcertingly different.

What if, I ask myself, this somersaulting limbo is the new pattern? What if the cards don't fall to earth because they're dancing in a different vibration...and I'm being asked to dance with them?

In the past, I would wait patiently for the new pattern, even as I tried to figure out what it would look like, where the dominant focus would be.

Would it be these writings? My fiction? My screen writing?

Would it be my groups, sessions and teleconference? And would that focus be trained on singing/sound healing or spoken inspiration?

This morning, in an Aha! that I'm still integrating, I realize that my old response is no longer appropriate.

First, it denies the present moment in favor of some indeterminate future one.

Second, it assumes that anything will ever be fixed again, even for a moment.

Third, it denies the increasing multidimensionality of my nature.

The truth is that any attempt to figure things out repudiates the present moment and the call to surrender fully to it. The truth is that nothing will ever be fixed again, at least not in the old ways I remember. The truth is that all forward motion points to fluidity and surrender.

The truth is that destination -- any destination -- is not the point.

Where I'll drop anchor, what my work will look like, whether my books are ever published or screenplays are ever filmed is immaterial...even as the less-evolved parts of me protest.

As all great spiritual teachers repeatedly remind us, only the journey matters...be it my interstate highway journey, my writing journey or the journey of Radical Evolution I wrote about in this week's newsletter (and will be working with in next week's teleconference).

I'm feeling that focus on the journey more and more fully in recent times, and it's not always comfortable. Parts of me gaze longingly and naively back to a sense of stability, control and destiny that is more illusory than ever.

More and more of me realizes that those cards aren't coming down...perhaps ever. Even if they do, some day, all that can matter is this moment, when they continue to dance in ever-shifting patterns and beckon me to join in.

Truly, I have no choice but to answer the call and dance with them.