Rattling the Bones

In the last few days our 10th month old puppy has been recognizing dogs on television. Every time she sees a dog on the screen she becomes alert and makes these whimpering sounds. When the dog disappears from the scene she becomes agitated and starts looking for the dog around the house. Soon she’s looking under the television, through the glass door of the bureau, thinking that perhaps the dog is hiding there. Nobody believed me at first when I told them that our dog actually watched TV until they finally saw Bella attempt to engage a TV pooch to play with her. One thing that I’ve noticed in the last 40 years of my life is that people don’t blindly believe in the stories of others. Proof is often needed. If you tell people that in order to reach wholeness people have to work through countless fragments, the statement makes sense to them; but if you tell them that past lives exist, it’s harder to believe. One suggests proof or confirmation whereas the other relies on faith. O

CC who’s Metis recently started to learn Cree. He’s been sharing his journey with us on our community aimoo site. His process has brought up some questions for me: • Shamanism: Language where does it fit? • Why is language so important? • If language can touch the soul how is our soul touched by our mother tongue? • Can bilingualism be considered a language in itself for some people? • What is language? Fifteen-some-years ago when I was searching to know more about my Onondaga roots I met a few people who were generous enough to offer me friendship and share with me traditional stories. Every time they would tell me a story, they would also teach me a word in the original Iroquois language. An elder, VLB who was also an incredible storyteller, said to me one evening after a circle: “ Every story holds medicine, which in turn is harboured within the words.” Like Hebrew, lots of First Nation people believe that their original languages holds spiritual wisdom and a connection to “God

The topic of initiation was a big topic at one of “our” chats last week. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people present to the chat and completely animated by the topic. There were lots of questions and lots of sharing. There were also synchronicities all night and it was great to have so many people leave totally inspired. If we look up the word “initiation” in the dictionary it basically says “it’s a ceremony, ritual test or period of instruction with which a new member is admitted to an organization or office or to knowledge.” The dictionary also adds: “it’s a condition of being knowledgeable.” At the end of any kind of study, exploration or hunt for knowledge there is always a challenge or test to see if we’ve understood whatever we were exploring. Right? The concept of initiation is basically to evaluate whether or not we’ve grasped whatever we were studying; and to prepare us for the next step in the journey. I personally like the word “rites of passage” better than “

I’ve always been a strong dreamer. I’m sure I’ve mentioned in earlier blog entries when talking about dreaming, that I can easily recall dreams dating back to infancy and early childhood. More often than not my dreams are similar to daily living experiences. I’m a lucid dreamer. Many mornings I need a few minutes before I can adjust to waking reality. I’ve had times where I’m a bit disoriented. I’ve often wondered which one of me is the real ME: The dreaming me or the waking me. It seems that my dreamer self has a life of her own. I’ve often felt like she had her own path and purpose; her own destiny. She knows people I have never met before; visited countries that I’ve never traveled to; and has a personality that can often make me blush. Amazingly HER LIFE can be verified and shows no discrepancies with waking reality. For example when I was 18 years old I dreamt I went to Paris, France. I remember driving through the city and stopping at the cleaners to pick up my boyfrien