The Hanbleceya.
The cry for a vision.
The Vision Quest.
The space between worlds.
In the presence of the Great Mystery.
I went down to the fire,
and she, the self I aim to be,
was not there.
I became her.
And maybe just for that moment on my blanket because I needed to be her.
She is on the eternal quest.
Forever in search,
forever seeking.
That magic I was hoping for did not emerge in the way I believed it would...
I let instead the Earth, and only her,
hear my screams.
Hear some deep agony within me,
maybe not even completely of my own.
Maybe the ancestral pains of the women who carried lives before me.
Red is the road to my heart,
is the color that bled out of me on the way up.
Dripping prayers down my legs,
each step became even more sacred.
Together, we sang our warrior song.
They are my amor, my comfort, my shelter, my warmth.
But on your blanket in your circle of prayers,
there is only you and the Creator.
You and the Great Mystery.
You and your fears, your pains, your demons.
You and your truths, your reasons, your prayers.
It is your choice whether to feed to thirst and hunger in your head,
or the hunger in your soul.
There is no greater pain than a soul not enacting its purpose,
its duty, its agreement with the Divine.
No greater pain.
And those screams that emerged from me,
from depths vast and deep,
was everything I ever let block me.
When we are broken open,
when we cry that deep soul cry,
we are breaking to let love and truth in,
we are watering our gardens.
So what magic am I believing was not present?
A vision may have not been shown to me,
but the courage of a single moment was.
To decide to not shut my eyes,
but to pray.
To offer compassions back to the Earth and take less for myself.
To not **** a single mosquito,
but rather walk off that blanket four days later marked with their persistence.
I watched their points enter my flesh
and saw their bodies fill with my blood.
Maybe they were extracting from me all that I no longer need.
And what itch is worse?
That of a red bump,
or that of the soul's need to incessantly scratch through its flesh suit to get to the core of its truth?
There were hours upon hours I let myself fall silent.
Listened to the sound of the woodpecker,
watched the spider crawl,
saw the turkey run.
They know how to be at home here.
And it is nothing grand that they do,
but they understand their purpose and place and they do not strive to feed and ego.
They do not "Ease God Out."
They are of God,
they are a God of their own.
So how do I remove myself from all the ******* of this world
if I do not place my being into the womb of Creation and sit?
The layers strip down,
the sun rises and sets and does so again.
I began to know before the sky would lighten that the morning was coming soon just by the sounds of the forrest.
The great trees barely swayed and the Earth was uprooting.
What am I doing here?
The days were long and hard and filled with a frustrating buzzing in my ears.
Buzzing like all the nonsensical thoughts we have on a daily basis.
If only our ears would buzz and ring every time we had a thought that backtracked us from our truths
and the inherent love that is within our beings.
If only we had the persistence of the mosquito that does not,
will not stop until it is filled with the one nectar it was meant to live on.
There were moments of bliss and moments I felt anxiety bubble up within.
Such a rare form of myself,
a piece of me I do not know too well.
I wanted to crawl out of my skin and be gone.
Be wind, be ether, be smoke.
Be gone.
And then they came,
bearing compassion.
Just a single sip of water.
Just a little.
They handed me that cup and I just cried.
Cried from the depths of my being.
"Do I even deserve this?"
And I let some moments pass,
held that cup in my hands and prayed in the form of tears.
That water,
that precious gift bearing life,
it touched my lips and made its way into my being.
And all become calm.
I am here for a purpose,
on this blanket, I mean.
I am here and meant to be no where but here.
And gently they spoke of the 6 pointed white star flowers surrounding me.
Not to me,
but a message for me.
A reminder of the beauty all around,
if I would only just look.
There I was,
sitting upon the hands of Creation.
If I had just stopped to listen,
stopped to breathe,
maybe I would have understood that on my own.
But that is why we tie that red prayer hung to our Ancestors.
He said,
"that prayer is your reminder to come back."
So for the next 360 days until I sit upon my blanket again,
the only prayer is to remember what I learned on that Mountain.
To remember what a blessing it is to drink a sip of water,
to be alone,
to look not into the eyes of another,
but only see the beauty of Creation.
I went out there wanting to be silent.
To just listen to what the world had to speak to me,
to shut out the voice in my head,
but there were moments that I could not hold back the words and prayers from my throat,
moments I needed to send my voice up or else I swore I would get up off that blanket and just walk away.
Moments I swore I would have filled the Earth with my screams again.
And when I spoke,
it was with such softness.
Maybe to not disrupt the frequency that Mountain has known long before Creator ever chose that spot for me to pray.
Maybe because when I spoke I barely recognized my own voice.
Because when you speak to Creation,
it is the truest version of yourself whose voice rises up from the very depths of your soul.
This is the voice that Creator knows.
And I just need to say I'm sorry that if for any moment I used my voice not pray
or to talk myself back into my heart and out of my head.
I'm sorry if I wasted a single moment on that Mountain.
The minutes seem so long when you're out there,
but now as I'm back home,
I'm wishing I could have just a few moments back on my blanket.
That I could have just one more opportunity to pray.
I would say to the Creator my name,
I would say please help me because I am struggling.
Please help me because  just want to make the best out of my life.
Please help me because I want to make sure I am on the right path to my purpose.
Please help me because I never want to know a life without you,
without prayer, without this Red Road.
Just one more time I want to speak those truths and let my tears become offerings of myself to the Earth.
But that is why we tie that prayer in Red.
Because I can go back.
I will go back and again be given the holy space to send my voice up and pray,
to cry,
to fall into silence,
to watch the sun set and rise again.
And I can stop now and breath.
I can stop and close my eyes and be on my blanket.
I can smell the freshness of Earth and the copal cloud of smoke.
I can pray and cry with myself on that blanket,
because there is a piece of me that will always be there.