Flicker Feather Fan

Something told me to take my cedar box into The Work at Oshunmare.  It was the last time the Santo Daime community would be celebrating at the retreat center in the mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  That was where I sat up in the Native American Church peyote ceremony with Chief Marvin Swallow for my nephew’s Gratitude Ceremony in 2011.  It was the first time I had set foot on the land in Topanga Canyon and much to my surprise the Tipi was filled with new people, members of the Santo Daime Church, who had stayed over one more day to experience the medicine of Turtle Island.  The Eagle and the Condor were flying high together and after the prayer service I met my new relatives.  They found my comments during the night meaningful and resonant.  One of the Stewards of the Santo Daime Church told me his spirit guide was the White Eagle.  I pulled my card out of my pocket and gave it to him.  We have the same guide.

Last year I was gifted a flicker feather fan for my 69th birthday in the Cheyenne Fireplace of the Native American Church.  I have been using it ever since.  In the first moments of 2013 and during a break in the Santo Daime New Year ceremony, we had a small circle of men outside.  I wore the green wool blanket my brother gave me over my white suit and was soon the only one in the cold night air.  I sat down, meditated, and connected with the Tipi in Ojai, where my family and relatives were celebrating with their Navajo Road Chief.  What came to me was that I am an ambassador from the Peyote Way to the South American ayahuasca traditions, the Santo Daime Religion and the Condor People of Colombia and Peru.  The White Eagle was very present in all of this.  After returning to the salao (ceremonial space) and during the final part of the Festival (dance) Work, it was my turn to be Guardian.  One of the participants, who arrived late, had been sitting with his dad in the hospital for the previous 10 days.  The dad had a head injury and was heavily sedated.  Needless to say the son was fried.  During my shift as Guardian the man went into the healing area to lay down.  When I went to check on him, he told me about how exhausted he was trying to be there for his mom and dad.  Then he returned to the lower level, danced, and then sat down.

Although the Work was not a Cura (Healing Work), I noticed a perfect opportunity to do some compassionate clearing on the man who had given so much to his family.  I reached over his shoulder where my cedar box as placed earlier, opened it and took out my flicker feather fan.  I cleaned off his psychic debris.  As I was removing stuff from his head, the jolt was amazing.  He jumped a little and his hair stood on end.  With his aura cleaned I then put all the love, especially self-love, into him in the way I have been taught by my elders, and shook his hand.  He acknowledged the change by smiling.  A Fardada from Brazil saw me working on him as she was passing by.  She said nothing, just smiled.  I put the fan back in the cedar box.  No problems.  The men dancing in rows between me and the table had their backs to us during the whole time.

After they closed the Work the community sang Happy Birthday to the passing Fardada and me.  Our birthdays are a day apart.  Someone had brought a carrot cake, although no one knew who did it.  After blowing out the candles, I sang 4 Blessing Songs (as the ambassador eagle) for them, connecting the two ceremonies and noting that several of the daimestes were in the tipi over in Ojai.  They loved it.  In the early morning I drove to Ojai.

I arrived at the Tipi site during the last hour of the ceremony and got to sit with my relatives. It was great to see them and talk after the ceremony.  One woman told me that she was looking in the fire expecting to “see a bear or something and there you were Michael, your face was in the fire”.  I told her about my hooking up spiritually with them around Main Smoke time.  The guy I was sitting beside, a Persian, said he saw my face in the fire as well and was stunned when I sat down beside him in the morning.  Interesting how that works!  Everyone was delighted I had shown up.

The Eagle and the Condor are flying together again, ushering in a new year of spiritual growth.