Journey to Letting Go

It’s an overcast day. The edge of my skin tightens where the cool fall air touches it. I’m walking on a path I’ve walked before, not far from where I live. It is called Gregory Canyon by white people. This is where I first came to know the poison hemlock plant. There is a creek here, barely trickling in this season. The dry crackling of branches and grasses rattles with my footsteps as I follow the path deeper into the woods. A brown bear is eating berries. She looks at me, knows that I am one of her own, and goes back to the berries, letting me pass unmolested.

As I approach the village it is unusually quiet. I come to a woman and ask her where I can find the Great Midwife. She looks at me and says, ”YOU are the Great Midwife now. It is YOU who are to help women give birth, care for the sick and help the dying on their journey to the other side.”

I am shocked. What can she mean? I follow her to a hut and stoop to enter the short doorway. A woman elder is lying on her sleeping mat, covered with a mound of blankets and furs. Her face is luminous, though her physical skin is darkened.
“Great Midwife, I am here to ask you about love.”

She slowly shakes her head, silently saying, “No”.
Then she gathers her strength to reply. “You must speak of death now. It is time. The seed of death is born when we begin to live in our mother’s womb. Mine has grown slowly and is now bearing fruit, like the bushes full of choke cherries.”
She pauses to breathe for awhile, tired by the efforts of her words.
“You must eat of my berries now so that you will be strong with what I have grown to become. You must care for my people. You are the one that can hear what to do.”

She nods at the woman attending to her and the woman reaches over to her, removes the bear claw necklace from around her neck and places it over my head, to hang now on my chest. Its heaviness would bear down on me, if not for the uplifting of my heart by the honor of receiving this sacred gift.

I kneel down beside her. “Grandmother, I am not ready. I cannot take your place.”

“You must. It is time.” She closes her eyes, her irregular breathing now the only sound.

When I reach into my bag for my gift to her, a thorn from the sprig of rose pricks my finger. I place the sprig on her chest, the one last blood red bloom from my garden. “May the spirit of the rose assist with this blessing.”

I quietly slip out of the hut to pray for her Spirit to have a swift and peaceful journey to the Eternal Summer; to ponder letting go and what this all means to me. As I walk away, I hear the keening begin.

Terra Rafael

(Although I intended to find out about love on this journey, the stars had a different purpose for me. This was the astrology of 15 September 2009 when it was written-
"Today is the final pass of the Saturn/Uranus opposition. It began last Sept. 08, then again in Feb. 09, and today it is completed.
At 6:50 AM (MDT), and all day, we are working with letting go of the old and receiving the new. Look at old patterns of thinking and behaving. Be really willing to let those ways dissolve and flow out of you, keeping your base of what works.
Then be open to the new and innovative ways of being that are ready to serve you and bring you into a more authentic way of being. "
From astrologer and writer Jyoti Wind, http://www.starshine-galaxy.com/)

Journey to Welcoming

Today I fly on my journey to the Great Midwife, walking through the air, landing on a beach. The smell of the ocean and the moistness, remind me of the tears and amniotic fluid of birthing. The sound of the waves, gently lapping on the shore, is a soothing rhythm behind the squawking of seabirds. I cross a place where a stream enters the water of the ocean, sinking in and mingling-sweet water and salty becoming one water. I know I am close to her village now. I see the men out with their boats, bringing in their morning catch.

I begin to hear children laughing. They run up to me, their tan bodies a study in movement – some dancing, some jumping, some standing as still as statues. A couple of them run up to me, saying, ”Aloha, Aloha. We didn’t know you were coming today! Will you play with us?”

“Yes, after I visit with Grandmother, I mean, Tutu.”

“OK!” They accompany me to Tutu’s place.

She is outside preparing food and hears us coming. She’s peeling mangos. Tutu gets up from her seat on the mat and stands. Her rounded, solid body opens up to hug me. She wears a sarong around her waist, exposing her grandmotherly breasts, which have nursed so many babies. “Aloha!”

After her warm hug, she motions me to sit in the refreshing shade of her mat. She pours me some coconut water to drink and hands me a leaf with some mango pieces on it- so ripe and sweet. “What may I do for you today, my child?”

“I am writing a book for midwives in my country. I want to share about welcoming and I know that this is your specialty for so many years. May I sit with you and hear your wisdom about welcoming?”

Tutu smiles at me. She has been midwife and healer to her village for many years and through this and her many meditations has learned about the welcoming way. “This is good. Welcoming is allowing and accepting your guest as who they are and what they must do. It is honoring the highest in them.
Welcoming is the heart of midwifery and having babies-- Welcoming the new one into your body; Welcoming the changes of growing with the baby; Welcoming the contractions of labor coming in their own time; Welcoming the new one’s way of entering this world; Welcoming the baby and the mother into the sisterhood of breastfeeding.“

She gets up, motioning me to wait in my place. She approaches the fragrant frangepani tree and th hibiscus growing nearby, singing to them as she plucks some of the blooms and places them lovingly in to her basket. She comes back to the mat, bringing thread and a needle made from a fish bone. She sits, singing a new song, as she nimbly threads the flowers into a lei.

She smiles at me when she is done and places the lei around my neck. “Aloha—welcome. May the waters of our lives always freely mingle. May the ways of welcome grow strong in all midwives, so that they may welcome the mothers and babies. In this way they will teach welcoming to their communities, smoothing the seasons of birth, life and death for them all.”

The flowers envelope me with their aroma, their beauty, and the love infused into them by the prayer-songs from the heart of Tutu. From the Aloha to the hug, the coconut water and mango, the wisdom passed on to me, the ritual of making the lei, and Tutu’s wise words, I feel blessed and part of the flow of Tutu and her world. “Thank you Tutu for your blessing, your beautiful flowers and your open heart. May you prosper and continue to pass on your wisdom to the generations.”

I reach into my bag to gift her with a sprig of roses from my own garden. She smells them and holds them to her heart.

As we say goodbye, starting towards the beach, the sounds of the children enter my ears again. They rush up to me, tugging me by the hands towards the water, laughing.

-Terra Rafael

Going to Meet the Great Midwife--an inner journey

It was windy, high up in a rocky, mountainous region. I hiked the final push over a high pass and came to the village of the Great Midwife. The children were wrapped in colorful shawls with hats on their heads to protect them from the wind. They gladly brought me to her home.

It was made of wood yet stacked into a circular shape, so that the wind could easily pass around it. No corners. As I entered the doorway, my eyes adjusted to the light of the fire. When she closed the door I felt contained and safe, protected from the harsh wind. Herbs were hung from the ceiling, around the edges of the room, like sentinels of peace.

The Great Midwife pinched off some dried leaves and flowers and poured hot water fomr a pot on the fire over them, making us some tea. We sat next to each other on the floor near the fire.

When I asked her about this book she smiled. Her bronze face, etched by the years and the elements, glowed with the light of her soul. She motioned me closer and leaned her forehead against mine, transmitting wisdom in an unspoken way. I felt it course through me to my heart and then out my writing hands. She showed me how to tap into her transmitted wisdom – a rose flower, a datura flower, or touching my thumb and forefinger into a circle.

I pulled some basil and a sprig of rose from my garden out of my bag and handed it to her as a thank you . Happy gratitude filled my heart as I said goodbye with a hug and left her round house. The wind had settled down and the children had unwrapped themselves to play more freely.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Great Midwife speaks the language of metaphor, as dreams do. So while images and events can carry a literal meaning, they also carry a deeper meaning which may be translated slightly differently, according to the time and the translator.
As an example, I’ll share my interpretation of this journey. I did the journey very early in the morning. I’d awoken at 3:30 and couldn’t sleep, so crept down to my Womb Room to do the journey.
Wind and Rocky and thin air of a mountain pass = the Vata state of that time of day and my own imbalance.
The children under wrap = results of creativity were covered due to the unbalanced state.
Round house= the special nature of this person and the non-resistence yet unbending nature
Going into the dark = the unknown
With only the light of fire= elemental forces
Herbs hanging from the ceiling = plant allies participate
Smile=blessings on my book
Wrinkled face= wisdom of the years
Motioned me closer= I need to move towards her position
Leaned her forehead against mine= passing her wisdom non-verbally
Tapping into her wisdom with:
Rose= beauty, yet setting limits; my power plant
Datura=altering my state
Fingers in a circle= chin mudra, which I have used in meditation to maintain the energy
I give her:
Basil= fiery passion
Roses = sweetness and love, my power plant
Wind settle down=grounded again
Children unwrapped=creativity unleashed

After writing down this journey I easily went back to sleep.
-by Terra Rafael

We Are the Cloth of Love

Before her fingers stiffened too much with age, Grandma Johnson cross stitched the gingham cloth of her aprons and table cloths. She also made rugs from rags, tied together into long strands of recycled cloth and twisted into spiral ovals to protect our feet from cold linoleum. And to breathe more beauty into life.

I still touch that cloth that she decorated, pushing needle and thread through it with her flesh and bone hands. Even imagining that cloth fills me with the spirit of her love—her love of life, her love of beauty, and her love of us.

In this way, Grandma embroidered my life, breathing more beauty into me. May my words embroider you too with love. May my words, even though they, like the cloth, will eventually decay and be forgotten, pass on the love so that you too will manifest love through your own arts and crafts and daily acts, passing on love from hand to hand and heart to heart.
--by Terra Rafael