Christmas Days

Black Panther page 4

Here is the fourth installment of my Black Panther comic, still in progress. 

Appropriate Questions

This was a difficult one for me. My world has felt a bit inside-out recently as I became aware of a number of conversations concerning cultural appropriation, especially of Native Americans, and they were striking a little uncomfortably close to home, proving rather troubling to me. My spiritual path, no matter what you may call it, is based first and foremost on seeking the Truth - THE Truth that lies beneath all things - and to live that Truth, shedding any fallacies and illusions that obscure that Truth or separates me from that Truth. 

So this called for some soul searching, contemplation, and seeking guidance from both physical and spiritual realms, and I spent many hours connecting with White Buffalo Calf Woman, who has become one of my most prominent and active Spirit Guides. This was not an exercise in rationalization or in finding excuses to keep doing something that wasn't for the highest good, but a real seeking of the Truth, to avoid complacency and to assure that my actions where in alignment with that Truth. 

Ultimately what it comes down to is that my path, the shamanic path, is rooted in Direct Revelation - Direct guidance from the unseen spiritual realms, Non-Ordinary Reality in shamanic terms, which give rise to the seen, physical realms, Ordinary Reality in shamanic terms. It is about following the bread crumbs that your Helping Spirits leave for you, surrendering your fears in an ever expanding field of trust in your Spirits' wisdom and guidance. I have spent my entire life honing these skills, knowledge, and trust through life lessons, formal training, and spiritual initiations, constantly learning, expanding, and deepening my connection and alignment with the Source of Life. 

In other words I have learned how to trust and follow my guidance in my co-creative relationship with the Universe, and this is where that guidance has led me. It is not by accident or through attempting to pretend or to claim to be something I’m not just because it would look or sound cool. I am here through deep and deliberate work, surrendering and allowing my path to unfold. To quote Jeshua, "You are where you are, and that is perfect."

Black Panther page 3

Here is the third page of my Black Panther comic, still in progress. What’s interesting to me is how, even though the events that led to this comic happened years ago, in writing and drawing them down, I am experiencing those lessons again, and on a deeper level.

Piece of Music

Black Panther Page 2

Here is the 2nd page of my Black Panther comic...

Black Panther Page 1

With my recent re-dedication to my comics, I stated my intention to complete at least 3 new comics per week. I’ve had to update that intention because the ones I had in mind were the simpler, single-shot pages, such as appear in my last couple posts, which only take a day to do. Besides those I also have a number of more complex comics that I’ve started and thumbnailed, some of them from many years ago, but have never completed. I want to finish these ones as well, if for no other reason than to see my original vision in ink, and possibly complete whatever story line I began with them. These ones are more detailed and more labor intensive so that I can work on one page for many days. So if I do not post anything for a few days it means I'm working on a bigger project, but I am still working.

Anyway, below is a page I thumbnailed a few years ago, and I have been working on it for several days now. It is only the first page and I intend to finish the other pages as well...

Embracing Bear

RE-DEDICATION AGAIN

For my recent birthday I decided to give myself the gift of re-dedication to my first vocation -- Cartooning. I have mentioned before how the only thing I have ever wanted to be, for as long as I can remember, is a cartoonist, and yet that is the very thing that I continually put aside in favor of all the other aspects of my life --The ONE effortless and wonder-filled thing that replenishes and overflows my heart with the radiant joy and whimsy of my True, Authentic self. 

I realized recently that I no longer think like a cartoonist. It used to be that I would watch my life unfold like a graphic novel, with visions of how I’d draw certain scenes or situations, as well as how I’d organize them on a page. It is time to devote more time and energy to exercising that particular muscle of creativity. And so I am committing myself to drawing 3-4 comics per week, starting with the following two...

Sacred Geometry 101

The River

Faery God Mother

Ancestral Voices

For anyone that is curious, the Sami people are the native reindeer herders of the Laplands. They are a Shamanic culture who, rather than using the repetitive beat of a drum or rattle, since those things were outlawed by the government of the invading culture, they learned to use a repetitive style of singing ("joiking" or "yoiking") as a vehicle for shamanic journeys to the spirit realms. Here's a sample of Sami Joiking.

Also for the curious, here is a sample of Native American Peyote Healing Songs.

All My Relations

For a few months now I've taken part in a program with Rose De Dan, a local Shaman who specializes in working with animals. We have been visiting different zoos in the Seattle area in ceremony and collecting, via prayer sticks, the prayers of the animals there whose role really is that of ambassadors between the animal and human kingdoms. It is amazing how interactive the animals are when you arrive fully present, with intention, and offer a vehicle of communion and energetic recognition of the Divine in each being. These have been the most profound zoo visits I have ever experienced, and I have spent a lot of time in zoos. We really are all related.

Aho All my Relations!
Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

 

I’m Not a Real Doctor...

So there's this thing I do sometimes along with performing a Soul Retrieval ceremony for a client, and it's called "Faery Doctoring." Sometimes when a person is missing a part of themselves due to trauma, I have to venture to the edges of the Faery Realm with Eo, my Irish Elk 'Faery Co-walker' and inquire of my liaison of that Kingdom, Alandria, whether that missing soul part has been taken by the Fae in their endless effort to balance the energies between our world and their own. For that soul part to return to my client in this world, we have to make an exchange to ensure the maintenance of balance, and this exchange usually takes the form of something creative -- dancing, singing, art work, etc -- for a certain period of time performed by both my client and myself.

 

This is what happened during a recent Soul Retrieval/Faery Doctoring session...