In Which My Trancework Becomes a Latino Soap Opera

So recently a friend, whom I will refer to as Biff, asked me for some assistance with a project.  He wanted to create a functioning juju running ley line and he wanted to situate an anchor for it in my back yard.  Naturally, I thought this was pretty cool.  He lent me a book called Shamanism and the Mystery Lines by Paul Devereux which I’ve been reading.  I’ve gathered that that for some reason or another, ancient people liked to make very straight paths.  These very straight paths tended to connect sacred sites and cities along with natural outcroppings and significant features.    There is also an idea that these ancient lines were sources of mystical energy, or at least focused said energy, sort of like water in a watershed flowing to a river.   Scientists really don’t like that idea.  

There seems to be a bit of a thing with British people hunting ley lines rather like some people go around geocaching.  So the debates rage on and people argue about whether a church and an outcropping are close enough to actually be part of a line, or not, or whether it was full of sacred juju or not, or whether they really wanted to do anything other than get a cup of tea. (I like tea. I think I will go get some.)

Now that I have some tea:

Biff decided to put the arguments aside and just go make one.  He’s been setting it up for some weeks now, and as part of the preparation he asked me to be the Earth anchor in his work.  He works according to a Norse flavored four element system and I was honored to be included, as well as comfortable within his symbolic matrix. I was surprised when one night he came over with a large sphere of petrified wood.  Holding it in my hand I enjoyed the weight of it, the density of the thing. I began to work with it, using meditation and trance work techniques.  It seemed to function as a scrying stone, something I had never really used before, but what the heck, why not?

Last week I went for a walk to the river with the scrying stone.  Earlier in the week I had a vision when using it. I had seen a vortex in the river, north of my home, near a bridge. This was a spot where the spirit of the river was unhappy. I saw a swirling downward sucking motion that was draining the river.  When I asked her what had happened, she said her boyfriend the Oak Tree was the cause of this swirly sucking doom.  She radiated anger and indignation at him.  She wanted him to clean up his act, and do it quick! I thought this was weirdly soap opera-ish, and not my usual sort of experience when in trance work.  I had to check it out.

So I headed north with the sphere and a few other things in a bag, and like most people on a quest I had a few adventures along the way.  I met a Hare Krishna, who stopped after he passed me and called out to me. We talked and I got his card.  How strange it was. He said there was something that caught him about me that made him think he should talk to me.  The funny thing?  As he walked past I thought the same thing about him.  I have noticed that some people just catch the eye. It’s not about physical attractiveness. There’s just a glint in their eye, a way they move.  Sometimes I wonder if it’s a spirit taking human form. Sometimes I think it’s a god looking out someone’s eyes.  He was a real person though, not a spirit.  When it happens that someone strikes me like that, there is a moment of recognition, as if for just a moment the person is someone I know.  With some people the experience is more intense than others.  It’s happened with a couple of animals as well. That moment when eyes meet and there is a recognition that happens. It’s a full body experience, like a bell that has been struck.  Sometimes it’s just a little jingle, like with the Hare Krisha man. Sometimes it’s like being inside a belltower with the ringing thrumming through me like a fist. 

I kept heading north along the river and I saw a downy woodpecker on a tree. I heard a killdeer.  I started to think I was crazy about this vortex thing, but that was weirdly reassuring. I didn’t mind the idea that I was making all this stuff up.  I came up to the train bridge and it looked normal to me. I didn’t see any vortexes.  Then I walked past the bridge and saw a huge snag caught up against the pylons. There was garbage and twigs caught into it, and it stretched for nearly half the width of the river.  Eddies and swirls of water surrounded the snag.  I had found my vortex.   There was also an oak tree, a little way up the embankment on the other side.  I wondered about my vision and if that pretty river spirit was chewing out her poor beleaguered oaky boyfriend right now.  It wasn’t his fault though; the snag wasn’t him at all.

I climbed up and sat on the train bridge. The track was stretching out straight and man made on either side of me, the river winding like a brown snake below me. I pulled out my sphere and meditated on the spot.  The humans never look up to see me, but the bees noticed me and decided I wasn’t worth stinging. 

I heard a hawk call, once, twice, but I couldn’t see it. I looked up over the train track and I saw the white underwing of a redtail hawk!   It was swooping from one side of the train track to the other. And being, well… really noisy.  Scree after scree the hawk called.  So I did the logical thing and went to see what was up.

It was much hotter on the train tracks.  I found myself taking mincing steps on the rails themselves, or walking on the jagged stone.  Neither was a very comfortable option.  The hawk led me a merry chase, slowly pulling me along the track with its voice.  I began to think that the point was to get me to walk up the track, and once I had that thought, the hawk flew away, its noisy voice growing distant through the swampy wood.  This particular patch of ground is designated as Crego Park on maps and I’m thinking that I need to explore this place.  I felt a telltale tingle in my hands, a slight pulling, longing feeling in my heart.  (Yes, I have called this my spidey sense before.)  But this was not the time. My phone died, which is also my watch, and I needed to be back in time to pick up my kids. It was time to head for home.  Crego Park will have to wait.  Woods are generally patient things.  I hope the river spirit will be patient while I figure out how to clean her up too.

Read more about my spirit work here.