The Mystery of Ecstatic Union

I am going to break a Western taboo now. I am going to admit that I do not fully understand, or have “control” over something I am involved in. This is a radical idea, because many of us were taught to pretend we have it all together, we are the master of our own ships. Living through your intuition has been so misunderstood and maligned in this culture. If you can’t show it, explain it, recreate it, it’s not real. How did we get here??? The scientific empiricism only goes so far, and then we have the very real world of dreams & synchronicities & miracles.

Ecstatic union is an interesting thing. I believe it is what many people are actually yearning for when they reach for distorting substances or intense experiences in an attempt to access this place. We are hardwired for spiritual connection and altered states that we historically accessed through rites of passage and cultural ceremonies & rituals.

In the influential book, Crossroads-The Quest for Contemporary Rites ofPassage, author Christina Groff: “Joseph Campbell believed that the psyche of each human being contains a rich array of mythological symbols, archetypal impulses, and initiatory images which must be expressed and affirmed within a ritualistic context.”

We live in a culture that has elevated the profane over the divine, that has glorified a very shallow and immature form of union and expansion. Most of us do not have groups or organizations that offer truly transcendent experiences. Most do not even realize what they are missing because the externalized distractions and addictions have become so prevalent. To step out of this world of illusion is a revolutionary act.

And…most of the time when some of us actually reach this place-of-the-other-place it is not something that can be quantified, articulated or even understood. The work I do is truly a surrender, an allowing; channeling with no expectations to the outcome. It is not cognitively accessible; it is a visceral, kinesthetic experience; a union with energies and locations. It is setting out, making the time and space, and allowing what wants to come through you; a faithful act of coming back, again and again to that place of opening, and the unknown.

And so much comes through the unknown; The Mystery.

“Each woman/person has potential access to Rio Abajo Rio, this river beneath the river. She arrives there through deep meditation, dance, writing, painting, prayermaking, singing, drumming, active imagination, or any activity which requires an intense altered consciousness.  A woman arrives in this world-between-worlds through yearning and by seeking something she can see just out of the corner of her eye. She arrives there  by deep creative acts, through intentional solitude, and by practice of any of the arts. And even with these well-crafted practices, much of what occurs in this ineffable world remains forever mysterious to us, for it breaks physical laws and rational laws as we know them.” page 31, Women Who Run With The Wolves; Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

“much of what occurs in this ineffable world remains forever mysterious to us”…

this is so true.

So, this leaves an interesting predicament for we messengers-how do we share the transformation available through dancing with your inner depths when we ourselves are not always cognizant of what really happened-and who we just danced with?

So….How do you access this level of Mystery in your own life? What are the projects and ideas that keep knocking at your door waiting to blossom into something truly unique and magical? How does one reach the archetypal, the limitless within time and space?

Deep listening, allowing, returning again and again to experiences that open you up to your expanded capacity for the imaginative and visionary. I’m not going to say that I know what your gateway is. I can co-create a container for people to explore their inner lives, but if you actually go there or not is really up to you. It takes a tremendous amount of refocusing away from the judgments, voices and miss-interpretations that many of us bought into. It takes a profound trust in the non-linear impulses & yearnings that over time initiate you into reclaiming those more subtle and esoteric skills. It takes courage in yourself to be different. I will not say this happens over night, and it can. I have spent the last 17 years apprenticing to a different rhythm, a different form, expanded truths.

It is a practice.

It really depends on what you want your life to be. What are you willing to risk to reside in the magic and Mystery again?

I am going to share a quote form an earlier post again, I believe we can hear great wisdom again, and again, as it sinks to other levels, so here is Ms. Audre Lorde’s thoughts on reclaiming the erotic {see link to this blog post here..}

https://melissaweisssteele.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/recliaming-the-erotic/

“We have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge….We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued in western society. But The Erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the person who does not fear its revelation….The Erotic is a measure between the beginning of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.…It is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing…We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings.”

We will return to this subject again, this is HUGE, and as I have acknowledged, I am in the process of  exploring it all myself, so lets sit in the innocence and wonder together…and see what emerges!

If you want to comment on this from Facebook, would you link back to the Blog itself and do it there…thanks!

https://melissaweisssteele.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/the-mystery-of-ecstatic-union/

Our Temples Illuminated Workshop-Women’s Journeys into Their Sacred Inner-Landscapes

Our Temples Illuminated

Women’s Journeys into Their Sacred Inner-Landscapes

You are invited to deeply engage with

the contours & pathways,

the peaks & valleys

of your own glowing inner-potential

in this inspiring new workshop

by Melissa Weiss Steele

What do you yearn to fill your Temple with?

Is your life missing the juiciness, the passion,

the authentic knowing & clarity

that you sense is deep within you somewhere?

Come reclaim the potent Myth & Mystery of

your true wholeness within a supportive &

like-minded community of women.

Following the 8 archetypal stages of Melissa Weiss Steele’s

original Oracle of Initiation divination deck,

we will explore creativity, divination, ritual, dreaming, visioning

& storytelling as we witness each others transformations.

All Melissa’s Painted Body images from the Oracle of Initiation divination deck shown here are taken alone, on the land-in the arroyos, caves, canyons, and tunnels surrounding Santa Fe.

None of the photographs have been altered or retouched in any way.

Melissa Weiss Steele is an artist and adventurer, having spent the last decade and a half immersed in Norse, African & Native American sacred traditions, cross-cultural divination, indigenous dream-work, and Western and Archetypal psychology.

8 weeks-Beginning Wednesday January 13^th to March 3^rd, 2010. 6:30 to 9pm in Santa Fe.

$295 all supplies included- if registered by December 15^th $240 with a $50 deposit paid

Contact Melissa at Melissa@Weiss-Steele.com or 206-898-3822 to register.

To see more about Melissa’s art & adventures go to:

www.Weiss-Steele.com

The Altar-ing of Self

Off to my BELOVED Abiquiu with Peter Dawkin’s Pilgrimage Skills Workshop

I am off  to a very promising workshop from the sacred architecture and geomancer Peter Dawkins. We will be doing this sacred work on my own beloved soil in Abiquiu, NM.

The write-up  says  “Pilgrimage is and act of love or devotion which can help heal, nourish, uplift and enlighten not just individuals and places but the whole world. To do it well is an art requiring knowledge and skill.” nice.

I look forward to seeing how my own apprenticeship to this work will inform what he has learned. OH JOY. I will let you know how it all goes, and Ghost Ranch here I come…

Yraceburu EarthWisdom-Family of my heart now in New Mexico

It is snowing here in Santa Fe and my heart is  full from yesterdays Yraceburu EarthWisdom Apache New Year Coyote Fire Ceremony. We burned the sacred objects we had created releasing our intentions, wishes & blessings into the coming year. The event was filled with old friends and family members and new wonderful connections. The next event will be the  Bear Way Dreaming retreat where we will all stay up on the night of the solstice and shamanically dream a new reality together. It sounds extraordinary, and I hope you will join us. Registration ends for that event on November 20th-5 days from now. I look forward to sharing other Community circles, Rites of Passage and Festivals of joy with you.

Kwahu Abeja- Eagle Prayer Honey Bee

Bear Way-Winter Solstice Dreaming Reality Retreat

December 19th to 21st, Near Santa Fe, NM

http://www.yraceburu.org/Bear.html

near Santa Fe $379-all supplies, food and lodging included

Meeting Your Muse as you train for your Olympic moment

These are some of the images from the first photo shoot within the Painted Body series for my Oracle of Initiation divination deck. I woke up before dawn a year and a half ago and headed down into a graffiti strewn tunnel. It was initially the color palette and vibration of the artwork that attracted me, as well as the classic rough-hewn bricks they had been painted on; it was a lovely mix of classical and modern design. I headed out so early because this location is right off a popular hiking trail and I didn’t want to be disturbed.

I was nervous about taking the work to the next level. I had already become very comfortable being alone and nude on the land through my Earthen Body series, but somehow painting myself added another layer of vulnerability. In reality if someone came upon me down in these dark tunnels they would probably be more afraid of me than any safety or decorum issues I am might be faced with.

I carried paints and props with me, not sure how it was all going to go. I had learned a few nights before about a new setting on my camera that allowed me to take moody & evocative dream-like images in darker locations. I had no idea that over time the play of colors, lights and movement could cause the effects that have emerged in the work. But we are at the first time out here, and I truly had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into.

I am not overtly intellectual or calculating about the process. The work begins when I am attracted to certain earthly locations. It’s like meeting a potential lover-do we resonate, shall we play? When the actual painting and photography process begins there is no consistent ritual to it.  Loving and honoring that piece of land was the gateway into the work. I let the playful physicality and joyful freedom take me out of my “mind” and into what I am to meet through the dance. And it is a dance, I am moving and shifting through time, and space, and levels of awareness.

It is really a return to a pure and innocent way of just tossing yourself into what you are attracted to. I worked with children for years, and they do not premeditate their next week and a half. They meet what is before them, fling all of their little energy and might into it, and then move on. It really is being in the moment, which is so hard for many of we big ones.

Returning home from the shoot there is really no way for me to impart how amazed I was by what had transpired. The colors, shape shifting qualities, and the power that was resonating off of these images was beyond anything I had ever imagined I could do. I could do this in watercolors and collages, but to take it to the next level and embody the energies myself was incredible.

I believe this work was actually the culmination of years of study and focus and creative passion that was ready to bloom. We never actually know when, or where, or how our investments in our spiritual growth and creative juices will emerge, but if we keep following our muses and pushing beyond our fears and perceived constrictions we may be awe-struck. I read somewhere an analogy about training for the Olympics. You train, and train, and train for years and years to become the movements and the skills. You do not actually know when and where those skills may be called forth, but you still keep investing in your craft, your excellence. And then one day, you may be called out. And all of that preparation comes into practice, and you soar. So what are you thrilled about in your life that may still be in the training process? Do you put your head down and practice, continuing to hone your skills because you know you just have to do it?

I wish you great wonder and awe in some form today-be it a smile or an insect or a creative inspiration that opens you to your divine potential. It’s all there, but can we slow down and refocus enough to embrace it??

PS- all of these Notes on Facebook are actually from my blog. It would be lovely if you would post comments directly at the blog too, I believe its good for search engine positioning…many thanks and blessings

www.MelissaWeissSteele.Wordpress.com

The Series aspect of the work: Sami Graffiti in The Valley of the Moon

The series aspect of the work is some of the most interesting parts of the process.  The photos above are from my Earthen Body series taken in 2007 and 2008. These particular images were taken during a break from a fantastic Sami/ Norwegian/ Norse  Shamanism workshop by Ailo Gaup through Michael Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies. We were in the achingly beautiful Valley of The Moon in Sonoma, CA.  I am such an Earth Baby, and I had reached my limit of  being separated from those honey-colored rolling hills in the  September sunlight. I skipped an afternoon session and went to frolic on the land. I had a blast and got some great shots-a lovely mix of process and product. The photo below is from an algae covered stream  called “Sami Vacant.”.

I do not actually consider myself a photographer. I cannot tell you the ASA of a shot or make Gelatin Silver Prints in the darkroom. I see the camera as simply a tool to document a ritualistic process. The main goal of the work is to create communion with the Land and Spirits and get the hell out of the way. All of The Earthen Body work was done with a very small digital camera, and The Painted Body series used only a slightly bigger one; God Bless the Canon G9.

Because it really is documentation of ceremony, I take hundreds to thousands of images during each photo shoot. It actually ranges from about 300 to 4000 pictures, with extended groups of different angles and locations. It’s really interesting to look at the progressions during the process-it becomes a range of moods and reactions, a montage of human expression and engagement.

The four Sami Graffiti photos above represent the first graffiti images within the work. While exploring the Sonoma landscape I found a handful of large feather. I initially thought they were from a Turkey Vulture, but was later corrected by Maria Yraceburu;  They were Eagle feathers. I found the tunnel with the aerosol art  just after collecting the feathers. I took off my glasses and top, descending into the darkened tunnel, dancing with the sacred eagle gift. The final photo of the 4 is a miracle of composition and proportion. I do not see well without my glasses, and all of the images are taken VERY quickly and spontaneously.  So to have the background, feathers and my eye line up like that was only possible through Divine Intervention. That was when it really really hit me that I had somehow slipped into a co-creation with The Universe. It was so exciting and humbling at the same time. I had been kissed by the Angels.

So the series aspect of the work is really the true representation of creativity in its wild and undulating complexity. It’s not all beautiful or perfect, but if we show up we can meet the entire range of expressions that want to spill forth. And we may occasional reach excellence, with a little help from our friends…