Life is a Highway

For many years I’ve considered myself to be an agnostic Humanist. I didn’t really believe in a God, but I kept the agnostic “crutch” because I felt many atheists were as close-minded as their Christian fundamentalist counterparts. It seemed arrogant and narrow-minded to me to say that one side is 100% wrong and the other is 100% right. All of us are only human after all and the universe is a big, big place. Maybe there is more going on here than we realize. But, as a rule, I accepted science as the way to understand how the universe works. I felt that the Humanist principles of ethics were sufficient to guide me in how to respect and treat my fellow human beings. My sense of “reverence” came from simple pleasures. Walking down a quiet hiking trail through a grove of tall pines, sleeping under the stars, spending time with my family – these were the things that I cherished and held dear.

My world view started expanding a little in 2006. For some reason I don’t really understand, I felt like I wanted to perform a ritual of some sort to commemorate my 42nd birthday. I did some research on the internet and decided to hike in Indiana’s only designated wilderness area to a spot that is special to me and “meditate on my ancestors” to “seek their guidance” as to what my life’s path should be. I didn’t really expect anything to happen, but thought it would be a “cool” thing to do on my birthday. On my way to the forest I stopped in a store and bought some sage for cleansing and some blue corn to give the Earth as a gift. I hiked out to this spot and performed my ceremony. When I was done I left my gift and I felt very content and connected to the world around me. The hike back to my car went very quickly. On my way out though, I came across a large feather on the trail that hadn’t been there on my way in. I was very happy to find it, even though this is a wilderness area, I’ve very rarely seen wildlife out there. Anyway, when I came home I looked up the feather and decided I would accept it as a gift from the Earth. This experience deepened my connection to the natural world, but after a few days I kind of put it behind me and got on with my life.

Now in my 44th year things are getting…interesting. There has been very little rain for our area this summer. While out hiking with my family a few weeks ago I was really struck by how the trees were suffering from the lack of rain. The leaves were curling up and falling off. The pine needles were turning brown and brittle. That, combined with all the news I was reading about global warming and our impact on the natural world, really had me down and worried about the future. A day or so after all of this I was reading Wind Dancer’s blog over on Smirking Chimp and she had just written a post about building a medicine wheel and all the unusual things that had started happening after she did that. She also said that she was preparing to build a sweat lodge to seek a vision. I left a comment wishing her well and telling her my worries for the future. Then she said something very unusual. She told me to build a medicine wheel. Yeah right, me build a medicine wheel, but I thought about it some and decided, “What the Hell?” Once I decided to do this I looked up pictures of medicine wheels in books and on the internet and gave a lot of thought about how I wanted to do this. That first night I had visions of wheels in my head all night and wouldn’t you know it – it rained the next day.

I picked the rocks I wanted to use very carefully. This might be mixing traditions a little, but I had these old Viking Rune things from my college years that I thought I would use, plus a couple of other things that were special to me. I ground some of my blue corn into meal and on Saturday the 15th I built my wheel. I did it at night in our garden. First I cleansed myself with the sage. Then gave a little gift of corn to the four directions. I lit some candles and built my wheel. You can see from the picture below that it doesn’t really look like a wheel or much of a circle at all, but it was very dark. After the wheel was complete, I sat with my shoes off, meditated, said a little prayer and gave another gift of corn. It felt good and I felt at peace for several hours afterwards.

I should say at this point that things have been very tight for us financially this year and we are at that point in the pay period where we’re wondering how we can make things stretch until the next payday. So, the next day I was going through a stack of papers on our kitchen table and came across a letter from Kroger. I opened it and there was a $50 gift card inside. It was sent anonymously with only a small note that said, “We’ve been there too”. Wow…

Other “gifts” followed. I went out again Sunday night and then Monday my son found a working MP3 player underneath a pile of dirt and leaves in the park.

On the third night I sought an “image” from the wheel. I was very agitated all evening. It was warm outside, I felt exposed in my garden, I couldn’t get my sage to light easily. All these things had me worked up and it was not easy to get started. For the longest time no image was coming, but then I had a very clear image of a black snake coming through my neighbors yard and straight at me in my garden. This startled me and I cleared it out of my mind, but it kept coming back. I was looking all around the ground near me to make sure there wasn’t anything there. The next day I mentioned it to a friend of mine who has studied Native American ways and he said that the snake represents change and that it might be a sign of the change that I’m experiencing. This was followed by another gift. Another co-worker called me and said he had some meat he didn’t need and asked if my family might want it. So, when I say things are getting interesting, I’m not kidding!

I went out last night, the 4th night, and said a prayer of thanks for all the gifts we’ve received. Tonight I will put the wheel away and build a new one on the 23rd, the Autumnal Equinox. I asked my friend Wind Dancer for some book ideas and my friend Mark has loaned me several of his books. I still believe in science, but I feel like I am now on a very exciting journey into a much larger world. Stay tuned!