Rosy is a Root - Chapter 6

         The medicine wheel is a navigation system. It shows us not only what is happening in the physical but what is also happening in the spiritual world. There are six colors-white, black, red, yellow, green and blue for the six directions, north, south, east, west, Earth and the sky. The seventh direction is the heart. Wherever we go, whatever we do sets the direction. Karma is what becomes of our destiny. There is fate and destiny. Fate is the repetition of what was before. Destiny is a spirit calling to evolutionize, potentiating ourselves further into creative brilliance that of wisdom, freedom and love.

    Walking to the north is meeting with the great elders where you purify your heart and mind and learn consciousness at apex of the mountains. Walking to the south is meeting with the children where you discover your passions, talents and spirit gift in the dances, songs and find your true values on wild adventure of character development. Walking to the east is meeting with the grandfathers where you receive mind training, discipline/dignity and sense of positive ego, unique identity and craftmanship. Walking to the west is meeting with the grandmothers where you receive meditation, ceremony and communion with soul family, true friends and find your sense of self worth, self respect, self love and relationship harmony. Walking to the womb Earth is meeting with Pacha Mama where you learn your soul light. Walking to the sky is meeting with the spiritual world where you join with infinity and create infinite potentials for your reality and decide what you need, what you must evolve into for balance and what you want to learn to be wiser in the mastery over mystery. Walking within is meeting with yourself to bring fragments of yourself and sow them whole.

My childhood dog was sick. We knew he had weak kidneys. The doctor said it was because of his old age but he declined so fast. We think the steroids we were giving him for his skin disorder increased his kidney malfunction.

I remember the week of his passing. I woke up every day at 4am to do a morning Sadhana that I don’t typically do regularly. I felt I needed to but didn’t know why. The Sadhana was two hours, one hour of physical Kriya and the last hour was pure Gurmukhi mantra recitation. After four days I noticed Pepe was unable to walk properly. He didn’t want to eat much and was very weak. He looked blind, seemed deaf and could not smell all at the same time. He lost all his senses. The only thing that helped him was our touch. It was the only thing he had left, was the knowing of our unconditional love.

We tried to find an animal doctor but every place was booked. No one would take us. Finally, after several hours of calling different animal doctors and receiving news that no one was available, an animal doctor nearly two hours away decided to help us. He was also booked but wanted to help us out of kindness because the animal doctor knew we were terribly fearful for Pepe. We brought him to the animal doctor, Petsmart and was told to come back hours later. The animal doctor said he would do various tests on Pepe to understand what is causing him pain. Pepe was placed on medicine that numbed him to the pain. We went home.

I took a nap. I was so tired from my heart racing because of my concern for Pepe and 4am morning Sadhana’s that I was doing every day for a week. I passed out on the sofa in midafternoon. I saw Pepe. I was living in the same small apartment in California except he was young, healthy and vibrant. He climbed onto the sofa where I was resting and began licking my face like a puppy. I slowly woke up and heard my mother on the phone outside the front door for better reception. I knew she was talking to the animal doctor. I knew Pepe was ready to die. I felt so much peace. I saw his spirit in my dream and his spirit was letting go of his body. Pepe was radiant, majestic and free. My mother came in and began to tell me the bad news but I said, “Mom, I know. Pepe is ready.”

An hour later we drove to the Petsmart to end Pepe’s life. We had with us white roses and played “He Lives Inside You” by Lebo M. the whole two hours. I felt strong, fearless and ready to help Pepe die. I realized I did my 4am morning Sadhana for him. Spiritually, I knew he was going to die and I gifted me mantras to help him transition. Everything I did was to help his spirit be free of suffering.

When we saw Pepe, he looked frail, weak and he was barely holding on. I told myself it’s not about me. In these final moments it’s about Pepe and what he needs. I did not cry. I did not mourn. I covered his body in white roses as I began to sing to him Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru, Wahe Gio, over and over and over again. I prayed for his soul. I breathed into his body and spoke words of wisdom. I opened the gateway between life and death with my intention, shamanistic breathing, sacred chanting and deep soul prayer. I looked into Pepe’s soul and I saw a sea turtle. I touched his body for one last night. I knew he could feel me even though he was blind, deaf and could not smell. The animal doctor came back into the room after leaving us for a while to process his coming death. The animal doctor placed a needle into Pepe’s IV attached to his little paw and I called out in Native American vocalizing to the Great Spirit and saw Pepe move towards the ocean sunset. Pepe took his last breath, slowly. There was no pain, only joy. I knew he went to the highest vibrational place beyond the physical realm. I knew he would not be Earth bound, attached to this world. He was free to go wherever he wanted to go and I feel he went to a very sacred place.

A week later I saw Pepe as a fly when I was teaching Kundalini Yoga outside in the park.  This fly wouldn’t leave me for hours. It was watching me. I felt something unique about that fly. I felt Pepe’s spirit like an infinite formless ocean of pure creative energy that can take any shape because the consciousness of the being of all beings is totally empowered, free in the wisdom of the Great Spirit.

There are death doulas like birth doulas that have the knowledge of what death offers just like those who know how to guide new birth. Pepe’s death was not full of fear, regret or pain. It was full of wonder, freedom and a chance to be more creatively brilliant. What’s important is living totally aware of the extraordinary opportunity to be an empowerment of creative life force energy and use that life force energy to embody fearless resilience that births renaissance of meditative accomplishments exalted into authentic, visionary and soulful, so true to the spirit calling of the heart.

The dangers of life are that sometimes adversity can seem so insurmountable. The prayer for protection has been my ongoing need. I attended a medicine shield workshop. It was six hours. There wasn’t many people, just me and another woman. The great elder first had us cut damp elk skin into a round shape. Then, we attached the round elk skin to branches and vines bent in a round shape. We punched out holes around elk skin then placed leather rope through the holes and vines, branches to attach elk skin to branches, vines.

Once the medicine shield structure was complete, we went into a kind of meditation to discover our animal guides. The great elder asked us what we need to feel good, healthy and fulfilled. The medicine shield is there to help us fulfill our needs by remaining focused and clear. In Vedic study I learned about Sankalpa, which is having a determination to achieve something through practice, dedication and commitment. I suppose the medicine shield is similar. In my journey of theology, I’ve found different spiritual perspectives are not so different. It’s only the ones that are driven by power, control and false sense of leadership that makes the spiritual understanding distorted and full of confusion that breeds mayhem.

In the kind of meditation, where the great elder leads us into the spirit world, I found the bear and spider. I didn’t know at the time that I was becoming very ill because I was pushing myself too hard. I am ruthless in my resilience and I never rest because there is so much to excel but the body is fragile even if the mind is strong. I learned that from Guru Jagat’s passing.

Guru Jagat seemed to be the strongest of us all. She was deeply soulful, talented, creative, fun-loving, noble, passionate and a true leader. She beat the odds. Most people never bare to dream the way she did. She made her dreams come true but there was a price and it was her health. She broke her ankle, the same one she broke two years ago in Mosco, Russia. She recovered but then unexpectedly went to the hospital. She had blocked artery in her lung. When she went into surgery, she died. I was at the bluff in Native American ceremony for Guru Jagat. The sun set over the California gold land and minutes later as darkness came and the ocean got quiet like it was sleeping, she left peacefully and without pain.

The bear to me means knowing how to care for yourself. The spider to me means weaving your destiny into reality and having the Great Spirit help you overcome sabotage by tricking you into doing something you wouldn’t typically do but is for your highest good. I painted the bear and the spider onto my elk skin. I hang in my room off from the wall. It’s beside my rattle and drums.

I received my rattle necklace years ago. The medicine woman went into ceremony to receive the knowledge of my spirit, placing soul nourishment into the rattle necklace she was making for me and my mother. She shared with me that my spirit is passionate and unafraid of the dark. I was eager to give my spirit medicine to the creation of the rattle necklace. My mother was more reserved, hesitant and shy. It took her spirit takes to arrive to the ceremony and share with the medicine woman her spirit knowledge. Some people have difficulty being in this world because it isn’t for the faint of heart. It can be brutally unfair and beastly cruel. I suppose that’s why people lived disempowered with their soul gone away from the body. Sometimes the pain of this world is too much to bare. We numb ourselves to protect ourselves. Our soul is the most precious and valuable thing and yet we know what’s its like for our connection to our soul to be ruined, damaged by a world that is reckless, careless and unaware.

The medicine woman used deer skin and little shells and stones from the river to create the rattle necklace. While on a spiritual journey through the forest to uncover the deeper heart message, the medicine woman encountered the Great Spirit through sounds, animals, insects, quiet. Nature is a gateway to life beyond this physical existence. This physical existence is temporary. It fades before it truly begins but the life force stays the same. Seasons, cycles, rhythms and change moves like clouds of thunder and lightning, fast, too fast. It slows down when we spend sincere time with it, letting go of the past, letting go of the future and just surrendering to having nothing, being nothing and yet knowing exactly what you are in the reality of the infinite.

It's painful to return. I want to stay in the spirit world in ceremony. They say it’s more challenging to be born than to die and yet life is worth everything. Some adversities we cannot surmount alone. Some difficulties we cannot overcome alone. Some realities we cannot create alone. We need each other. Finding our tribe is discovering our strength. We are stronger together and the only reason the Babylon kings and queens for thousands of years ruled is because we were against each other, separate and weak. The true kings and queens went into hiding for their safety during times of major collapse to the Golden Age. Darkness came, darkness is here but incredible light shines brighter in the slit from our soul out of fear.

Babylon Patriarchal Dark Age turned wisdom of harmony with the universe into something destructive to the balance. The Magi’s turned their intention from harmony with the universe to power of the universe. That single moment of change repatterned the entire world into something different than what was before. Instead of harmony, it was power that ruled and decided what humankind will become. This polarized the world greatly, repelling people from people, inviting ideas of separation created out of desires for power to conquer the heart.

I am a death doula not because I want to be. I look into the gateway and study its movements. Everything about our reality is first shaped by the movements of our mind in collaboration with our spirit calling. I search for Pacha Mama in a world that haven’t known for a long time. That’s why I search beyond the man-made world.