Encounters with Power: Adventures and Misadventures on the Shamanic Path of Healing - José Luis Stevens 2017

An Encounter with Power: Completing a Huichol Apprenticeship with Sacred Peyote
Action—Chief-Warrior

The chief is the leader within, the one who takes responsibility for being clear about what direction to take. Having clarity and being calm in the face of a crisis are hallmarks of the chief. In ancient times, all emperors of China were trained shamans. This was true in many other traditions as well. They were powerful leaders who knew how to use their intuition and had a deep connection with the natural world.

The warrior aspect of the shaman is disciplined, focused, organized, and action-oriented. In the chaos of battle the warrior keeps what is important in focus and, despite setbacks, makes relentless progress until the mission is accomplished. For the shaman, the battle is within, not with external enemies.

Jesus spent forty days and forty nights in the desert battling his own demons in order to get clear about what lay ahead for him. Siddhartha Gautama sat under the Bodhi tree fighting off his egoic demons until he emerged weeks later as the enlightened Buddha. Shamans battle not only their own demons but the demons that possess the personalities of their patients. Great healers are able to cast out demons.

While some of the stories in part III have ceremonies taking place within them, I chose to put them under the chief-warrior axis because of the challenges that had to be faced. These stories all have to do with taking charge, taking responsibility, or dealing with demons of various sorts, for better or worse. Fighting a battle is not always pretty but the important thing is to win it.

An Encounter with Power: Completing a Huichol Apprenticeship with Sacred Peyote

When our Huichol teacher and maracame (shaman) Guadalupe passed away, Lena and I had not yet finished the final ceremony that would complete our ten years of study with him that we began in the late 1980s. As he lay dying, we made the two-day drive from Santa Fe to high in the Sierras of central Mexico to visit him one last time. He lay in his bed in a small, crowded cinder-block hut where his family lived with their few belongings. Guadalupe was experiencing a great deal of pain from bone cancer, relieved from time to time by morphine injections administered by his son.

Incredibly, he managed to laugh and show his great sense of humor despite his illness. After visiting with him for a time, we gently asked him what we should do to complete our apprenticeship after he was gone. He said that we should make one last journey to the Huichol peyote fields in the harsh desert of Wirikuta, on the anniversary of the day we had observed ceremonies each year. There we should go to the usual place in the desert, the place with the tall Joshua trees standing like sentinels, and follow all the protocols for the all-night ceremony just as he had shown us.

With a great effort he addressed us. “I will join you there. Don’t worry. You will finish. You are ready. You must teach. You must show people the way.”

“But what if you don’t get better and you can’t come after all?” I asked, my voice faltering.

“Don’t worry,” he repeated. “I will be there,” adding, “even if I die.”

We both nodded, somewhat mollified. “Okay,” we said.

He seems to know what he is talking about. Who are we to question? I thought. I certainly knew that by now.

Our stay with him was poignant. He was in great pain but we wanted to be near him, knowing we would never be with him again in his physical form. His family doted over him lovingly and took pains to see that we were taken care of too. Guadalupe supervised them in making a bed for us on the floor. That night a terrific rainstorm swept the mountains, and we were grateful for the shelter inside.

During our stay, we were invited to a fertility corn festival about an hour’s walk through the forest to another Huichol village. We hiked with his son Rafael to the village through rugged but beautiful terrain of pine forests. Long, open vistas of the Sierras stretched out ahead of us. As we neared the village, Rafael told us to stop and wait while he entered to get final permission for us to join the ceremony. We could hear drums and singing coming from the village below. While we were waiting, a dark Huichol man with an old torn shirt came down the trail from another direction leading a heavily laden donkey piled with wood. He hailed us, and upon reaching us stopped, looked at us earnestly, and said in Spanish, “And what has God told you today?” A bit shocked, having never before been addressed this way, I mumbled something about it being a good day.

He listened and then said God told him that this is a time of great change for human beings, that there would be flooding in many parts of the world, and that many people would die because people are not living right anymore. Not everyone would die, however. Those living in the mountains would be safe. He said we must return to living in proper harmony with the earth. He continued in this fashion until Rafael returned from the village announcing that we had received approval to enter. Rafael and the man greeted each other warmly and exchanged pleasantries. We bade the man farewell, and as we trudged toward the village I asked Rafael who the man was. He told us that the man with the donkey was his uncle and was known as a powerful seer and prophet among his people. He said it was most fortunate that we had a chance to meet him. I thought about the chances of bumping into him in this vast, rugged country with no roads, only foot trails, and realized that it was not an accident. Our paths were destined to cross.

We entered the village to an amazing sight. A number of older maracames were performing healings on small children in the afternoon sun. Accompanying their activities were drummers beating out a cadence on several large wooden drums whose skins were drawn taut by a small fire built beneath each one. The maracames, elder women and men, were using their powerful movieris (feather wands) to extract illness and other maladies from the children. Meanwhile, food was being prepared in large clay urns placed over other fires. Smoke, hot sun, drumming, and singing filled the air as dozens of Huichol dressed in brightly colored clothing sat or stood watching the healings or preparing food. Looking around, I saw no white people and only a couple of people who looked Mexican but not Indian.

The village stood perched on the side of a rugged escarpment, and a deep chasm dropped away below. The stupendous view formed a backdrop for the proceedings. We watched for hours as the maracames tirelessly performed their services, taking great care with the children and infants who at times wailed as they were being blessed. Rafael told us that this healing and blessing of children always took place at the fertility festival this time of year. They saw the children as intimately associated with the well-being of the village and the overall harvest. I had a profound sense of how fortunate we were to witness such a powerful event while our teacher and friend lay dying in the neighboring village.

As night fell, the air chilled and the healings ended. The area was cleared for dances but not before the feast was served. We were ushered into a large thatch-roofed hut and sat on benches along the walls. Bowls were handed out and the Huichol came around bearing large pots from which a thick, delicious venison soup was served into each waiting bowl. We were provided as many small corn tortillas as we could consume. Many of the Huichol looked at us curiously but in a friendly sort of way. They treated us with great hospitality.

After we ate, a drunk young Huichol man staggered into the hut and stood swaying before us, a look of hatred in his reddened eyes. In a loud, slurred voice he aggressively demanded to know what we were doing there. At first we tried to ignore him, but it became apparent that he was not leaving until we answered his question. I told him in Spanish that we were guests of Rafael and that we had obtained permission to participate. This deterred him not at all, and he proceeded to loudly deride and insult us as gringos and foreigners who he said had no right to be there. He was making such a racket that all conversations stopped and all eyes turned toward this unpleasant drama.

The lovely gathering had now become a tense confrontation. While I experienced some fear, I also tried to remember what I had learned from Guadalupe about dealing with such situations. I relaxed as much as I could and visualized sending the man a bouquet of flowers as a gesture of peace. Of course, on an external level this produced no results at all, as he continued to rail against us and gesture threateningly toward Lena and me. At one point I got up to leave the room because I could see no other recourse, but at this point an elder Huichol intervened on our behalf and gestured that I should sit back down. He told the man that this was no way to treat guests and that he should leave us be. A great discussion ensued as other Huichol joined in and exhorted him to stand down. I began to understand how these indigenous people dealt with conflict in their community. There were no attempts to forcibly remove the drunken man or treat him with disrespect, only to persuade him to behave properly. After what seemed like a long time, he staggered away and we were left in peace. The party resumed as if nothing had happened. We eventually went outside to watch the dancing, but I kept my eyes open for any more trouble from the drunken man.

Eventually we found Rafael and told him what had happened. He explained that alcohol was making its way into remote villages and was a problem for the people. He also told us that the young Indian was a troublemaker and a known murderer. Aghast, I asked him how the people handled criminals in their midst. He replied that the Mexican laws and police had no impact in these out-of-the-way areas and that the people simply had to resolve these things for themselves.

The Huichol have a security force but there is no official Mexican government court system, so they try to settle problems with dialogue. They have their own informal court system manned by elders and elected representatives who agree to do it without compensation. Sometimes it means that the atypical murderer continues to live among them.

After hearing him speak, I realized what danger we had been in. I also understood tearfully that even though Guadalupe was dying, he was watching over us and shamanically protecting us in that village. I told Lena how incredibly grateful I felt and she agreed. Late that night after a full and heartfelt day, we returned by moonlight over the rugged terrain to our village where we slept briefly until a cacophony of roosters, goats, sheep, and braying donkeys woke us up well before dawn.

Our journey with Guadalupe first began in 1989 when, through his brother Mariano, an expert yarn painter, we met him in Berkeley. He was working in the back of a small rock shop doing healings. He spoke no English but could get by in Spanish, his second language, and we were able to communicate with him marginally. We both got limpias (cleansings) from him and enjoyed our visit with him immensely. It was obvious from the start that he had other ways of communicating and words in any language were secondary.

A few days later, Mariano let us know that Guadalupe was open to working with a few students. He would work with couples, and were we interested? We both jumped at the chance and gave our unqualified yes, having no idea what we would be in for. Soon we learned how arduous the path of apprenticeship was. Three couples committed to a path of five years. One was Ecuadorian and the other was gringo like us. Sometimes Guadalupe would come up from his home in Mexico by bus, and sometimes we would make the long drive down to his home territory to do ceremony with him deep in Mexico. Guadalupe asserted that we all had to be present to carry out any ceremony, and because we all had young children, sometimes we could not make the journey at the time suggested. In the end, the five-year apprenticeship took ten years, and when not all the couples could continue, he relented and agreed to work with just Lena and me because of our strong interest and commitment to the path. We were also the only ones who persistently paid his expenses.

Because Guadalupe was a high maracame, it was not politically correct for him to have North Americans as apprentices, but he was very open-minded and did not consider nationality important. He did, however, need to swear us to secrecy: we were not to mention our apprenticeship with him to anyone — no exceptions. He would mention to no one his work with us. In order to avoid the other Huichol groups, we had to go to the desert to do ceremony at the least clement time of year when no one else was there. Needless to say, we froze our asses off in the November winds that swept across the peyote fields of Mexico. By dawn our bodies would be covered with hoarfrost as we shivered with cold, faces and hands blackened by the guttering fire, praying for the sunrise that took forever to come. On the other hand, the first rays of the sun onto the desert could only be described as glorious and earth-shattering after we had prayed and sung all night with Grandfather Hikuri (peyote). Sometimes the dawn was cloudy and we continued to freeze, shaking off chunks of ice from our ponchos and hats. Nevertheless, I would not trade those frozen desert dawns for the world, so powerful and transforming were they.

Guadalupe inspired us and became a role model for us, as he never wore socks with his sandals during these freezing ceremonies. At times we took pity on him and lent him a down jacket since he had nothing but his cotton shirt and pants to ward off the cold.

Upon completing the dawn ritual of blessing with seawater, we would head up to the mountains to make offerings and complete other prayers. As I found out, the shamanic path requires you to be in good physical condition, and if you are not in shape, it tests you intensely. Because one of the couples was very out of shape, they could not make such journeys and eventually dropped out. Once, they took the bus all the way down into Mexico within miles of our meeting place but lost their passports, forcing them to cancel at the last minute. Such events tend to weed out who finishes and who does not.

A couple of weeks after our visit with Guadalupe on his deathbed, he passed away. It was late May 1999. We received the news quietly and accepted it, but inwardly I was devastated. Guadalupe had become so important to me as a teacher that I felt completely at a loss about what to do. I was taken aback by how hard I was taking the loss. I had doubts about my abilities, about my readiness, about how I would learn with him gone. I felt like I didn’t know anything at all. I found myself spontaneously crying at various times and yet, because we had kept our apprenticeship a secret for so long, it was difficult to share this loss with many people. For the most part, Lena and I shouldered it alone. Even today as I write this, my eyes are filled with tears and I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude, loss, and amazement all at once.

As the year went by, I felt more and more ambivalent about our final ceremony in Wirikuta. I couldn’t wait to go back to the place where we had experienced such power with Guadalupe, but at the same time I dreaded going there, knowing we would be in the desert alone this time, without any members of our group and without his wonderful presence. Finally the day came for Lena and me to pack the car and once again make the thirteen-hundred-mile trip to the Sonoran Desert deep in Mexico. The drive was actually healing in that we had become familiar with so many landmarks, truck stops, motels, and cafés along the way. Each leg of the trip held familiar places and memories.

We arrived in Catorce in the evening, a dusty railroad station town with nothing but a small Pemex gas station, barren streets, and the occasional mongrel dog lurking about. From there, Wadley was a hop, skip, and a jump, another dismal railroad town but nevertheless the entryway to Wirikuta, sacred ceremonial lands to all Huichol. (The town bears the unlikely name of Wadley after an American miner who established it as an outpost.) We drove to the café across from the primitive cinder block motel and ordered up some tortillas and rice. The family recognized us from many prior visits, and soon we left our car in their fenced compound. The old patron Carlos joked and laughed with us just like old times, and we arranged for him to take us out the next day in his pickup truck to the usual place where he would drop us off.

By mid-afternoon the next day we were bumping down the dirt road toward the ceremonial site in Carlos’s ancient multicolored pickup truck, clouds of dust and burning oil enveloping the miraculous wreckage. The destination in the creosote bush and Joshua tree desert landscape was a good seven miles from the village. The deep ruts were filled with a powdered dust that billowed up from the tires in choking clouds that penetrated the cab of the truck, covering backpacks, clothes, and water bottles in beige grit. The rolled-up windows had long since lost their handles, making it stifling in the bright ninety-degree heat of a winter day. We sat four across the bench seat — Carlos, his nephew, Lena, and me. Still, we were happy to be here at last, going to the ceremony site for the last time to complete our apprenticeship. As we wound through a couple of outlying ranches, the truck suddenly ground to a halt.

“We have to stop here,” the portly Carlos stated suddenly. “The road ahead is blocked. They are doing construction with a bulldozer and we can’t go further. You can walk from here. It’s not far.” Looking out ahead, I could see nothing blocking the road, and it seemed strange that he was dropping us off a good mile before the usual drop-off place. But I figured he had a reason. After arranging to be picked up in the morning, we bid our farewells and hefted our packs for the walk in.

Laden with supplies we had not expected to have to carry in our decrepit old packs, we headed down the road and eventually turned off into the scrubby desert to reach the ceremonial site, navigating through spiny cactus whose seedpods seemed to leap out and grab boots and pierce shirts and pants. We followed burro and goat trails that wound through the cactus and crisscrossed everywhere. Eventually we came to the Joshua tree forest and found the exact tree overlooking the little area we had cleared in years past. From this vantage point we could see the full desert for a good thirty miles along with the rugged range of mountains to our east. There in plain sight rose Cerro Quemado with its double peaks in the shape of deer antlers, most sacred of mountains and the destination of thousands of Huichol every year. In two days’ time we would climb to its top as we did each year to complete our pilgrimage. The view was nothing short of spectacular.

The reddish late-afternoon light slanted across the landscape, making everything appear ablaze, a phenomenon we liked to call "golden time." We set up our altar and arranged our ceremonial things and our sleeping bags and ponchos for the long night ahead. In November the night air turns very cold, and with nothing to stop it the wind can howl for hours on end. We braced ourselves for what we had experienced in years past: a harsh, unforgiving night in the desert. With very little burnable wood, we had to scrounge for cactus skeletons and enough small twigs to keep a little fire going all night long. This was very hard work, and before we were finished I had to pull quite a few thorns and cactus spines out of my hands and legs.

Then we set out to look for the ceremonial peyote cactus buttons that were an important ingredient for the ceremony. We had to find seven plants apiece. Looking for Grandfather Peyote is like a treasure hunt. According to the Huichol, the Great Spirit came to this land long ago in the form of Kauyumari, the great blue deer and original shaman who taught the Huichol everything they knew. It descended from the sky and jumped across the landscape. Everywhere its feet touched, there grew the sacred peyote, the plant form of the sun given to the Huichol so they could become wise and discover the universe. According to Guadalupe, not every peyote plant would do for ceremonial purposes. We had to look for particular peyote growing in a certain configuration.

The peyote can hide from you if it does not want to be seen. Guadalupe had told us that you have to hunt for it with an open heart and only then would it reveal itself. This was like hunting for deer but in plant form. We carried our sacred movieris like the arrows with which to hunt. I looked and looked but for a long time could find nothing. I began to worry because the sun had gone down and soon it would be dark. I realized that my heart was not open because of my irritation with the unplanned hike to get there and my worry over doing everything right without Guadalupe. I had to stop and clear these things out of my mind before I could go on with the hunt. I asked my allies for help and they reminded me to sing. I whistled and softly sang to the peyote, asking it to come and thanking it. Immediately I found them. Lena was having no trouble at all. Our hunt was successful.

After preparing the cactus in the special way that Guadalupe had shown us and placing it upon the altar, we prepared other ceremonial items that required tying small items to prayer sticks, a very difficult task with wind blowing dust in our eyes while our fingers froze in the desert chill. We started the fire and were fortunate that the wind calmed down and the night was not as frightfully cold as it had been. The moon rose gloriously over the desert, and in the far distance we could see the lights of the trains traveling very slowly across the plain below, occasionally sounding their mournful horns in the blue-black night. Coyotes yelped and cried in the distance and a light breeze ruffled the desert plants. The desert was coming alive.

The ceremony called for us to consume peyote five times throughout the night. Each time is always more difficult than the last. Guadalupe had exhorted us to eat as many buttons as possible to successfully meet with the grandfather. He could seemingly eat a limitless amount, but for us it was more difficult. The fresh peyote is very alkaline, and it is difficult to keep it down and not purge violently and often. Keeping a little bit in the cheek at all times and praying as each piece is consumed helps greatly.

Guadalupe called the peyote hikuri and said that each one of the light-blue cactuses was a representative of the sun. They sat in the desert absorbing the sunlight for years, and when we consumed them we were literally eating sunlight. In addition to the sun, each peyote represented Kauyumari. The hikuri is also linked with fertility and corn that feeds the people; it represents the corn maiden, whose hair is the same as the silk on a husk of corn. He told us eating the hikuri was participating in all these things that are linked in the minds of the Huichol. He always commented on how beautiful these ideas were.

Sometime around midnight my attention was drawn to a spot on the other side of the small fire in front of us. Suddenly I heard my name spoken as clear as can be. I looked to see if Lena had spoken to me but she clearly had not; she had covered her head with a blanket to keep warm and was deep in visions. Then I heard it again and I looked back to the spot across the fire. Guadalupe sat there grinning broadly. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was one of the strangest things I have ever experienced because he was there but I could see the desert and landscape right through him. It was as if I was seeing him in my mind but he was also there at that spot. He beckoned me, and I got up and went over to him. He said very clearly, “I told you I would come.” I was so overwhelmed that I burst into tears. I told him how happy I was to see him. He just smiled and told me he had a great many important things to tell me.

For the next four hours or so, we had a powerful and amazing conversation about many topics. At first he was very tough on me like he could be at times and told me exactly what work I needed to do on myself to become more powerful. He targeted ways I had been lazy and fearful and told me this would never do. He told me I fantasized and worried too much and this demonstrated my lack of faith, something I could ill afford if I wanted to grow. I had work to do on this and he expected me to do it.

I felt sobered but not defensive at all. I was so happy he was there that I listened attentively and in total agreement. After what seemed like a long time, he told me that I was a great human being and that I was much loved by Spirit. He told me I had a great deal to contribute and that I would receive much help from both him and others to get this work done. I was in tears during most of this conversation. Just before dawn he said I should take a little rest and that he would not go away. In fact, he said that for as long as I wanted, he would always be with me as a helper.

I was so energized and amazed that when I went back to the fire and lay down, I could not rest much at all. Finally, Lena uncovered herself and I excitedly told her what had transpired. To my amazement she said she had been talking to Guadalupe too but he appeared to her in a different way, not so externally. I realized that he had been working with both of us at the same time, and of course this would be no problem for him since he was no longer confined to his physical body.

Dawn burst with a rare beauty, and we completed the final obligations of our ceremony. Lena pulled an orange and a couple of bananas out of her pack and we broke our fast. We also took some salt to end our ten-day salt fast. We packed up and, with a confusion of feelings, threaded our way back to the pickup spot. I felt so happy to see Guadalupe, to have our amazing conversation, and to finally complete our ten-year apprenticeship. I was also sad because I didn’t know if we would ever come back to this place again and because this challenge that had been so difficult and rewarding was now over.

We plopped ourselves down by the side of the road, finished our water, and waited for the pickup truck. Hours went by. The truck was never this late. It had always been on time in years past, so something was not right. We decided that perhaps the truck was waiting for us where it had dropped us off. So we hefted our packs and grunted down the road in the blazing sun after a night of no sleep, with our water gone, and with nothing left to eat.

We arrived at the drop-off spot and found no sign of the truck. We waited another hour as it got hotter. Finally, with a sinking feeling, we realized that the truck was not coming and we would have to walk the remaining six miles back to town. I was very concerned because of the weight of our packs, the heat, and our physical condition; both of us were still reeling with the effects of the powerful peyote. We plodded down the road, the dust crisscrossed with sidewinder tracks. Vultures spun around over our heads.

I was beginning to feel very sorry for myself when suddenly in my mind’s eye I saw Guadalupe on the road walking just ahead of us. I was quite startled to see him again and asked, “¿Qué passa?” (What’s happening?) He said simply, “Huicholes walk.” In that moment I knew exactly what was going on. This was our completion. It was not meant to be easy. Naturally there would be an initiation. I realized then that it was Guadalupe who had interfered with the truck coming. The whole crazy story about the bulldozer blocking the road earlier was his doing too. We would have to walk and that was all there was to it.

Suddenly I stopped feeling sorry for myself, remembering his teachings from the night before. Now the walk was serious business and I had to step up to the plate. I told Lena what I saw and she just laughed. Of course, she could see it too. That walk was one of the most difficult I can remember. We had not one drop of water to drink, the sun was blazing, and we’d had no sleep. But somehow we did it, and Guadalupe walked with us every step of the way. When we finally got into town we headed directly for the café. Carlos’s wife, Candelaria, stared at us and asked us if we had walked and we told her we had. She said her husband had an emergency in the next town, so he told his nephew to pick us up instead. The nephew had flaked out.

Candelaria prepared us a nice meal and we drank to our hearts’ content. Then we packed up the car and headed back to the United States. We drove straight through, thirteen hundred miles to Santa Fe, all day and all night. I never felt tired at all. I knew something profound had happened and life would never quite be the same again. In a way, it was as if my life had begun anew. I was fifty-two years old, the Mayan number of completion.

Now, many years later, Guadalupe has kept his promise and has continued to work with us and support us whenever we need him. I often see him standing nearby when we are conducting ceremonies and doing healing work. Sometimes he will come close and give us a pointer or word of advice, but he is never intrusive. He told us he would visit us in the form of a hummingbird, and he has done this on numerous occasions. Some of our students report that he has appeared to them this way and is a principal teacher for them. He has even sent us another Huichol teacher who now conducts our ceremonies with us and has taken over what Guadalupe could not finish teaching us.

Several months ago on a very difficult diet in the jungle, he visited me and gave me a wonderful energetic gift that has proven to be very helpful to me. I am most grateful to him and his amazing tradition.

As it has turned out, I have returned to Wirikuta yearly ever since, and the learning goes on and on. I am most fortunate to be on this grand adventure, as I am sure you are on yours.

POSTSCRIPT

Too many of us are afraid to embrace power. We look around and see the abuse of power all around us and decide that power is a bad thing to be avoided. However, if we avoid acquiring power, we learn nothing about it until we face it, experience it, flounder, and then learn to master it. All the greatest of the world’s teachers — including Krishna, Jesus, the Buddha, Yogananda, Lao-Tzu, Quan Yin, Isis, and many others — learned to master power, and the world is a better place as a result of their teachings. On their way to mastery, they all failed many times, just as each of us does. Even Jesus struggled to overcome a hot temper when he was a child.

The abuses of power conducted in all these teachers’ names came from followers who failed to master the teachings properly. Instead, they made the teachings into codified religions. Before you can become a master teacher yourself, you must learn to master power. But you will not arrive at mastery by following someone else’s rules; rather, it will come from your own experience with power.

What are the lessons of this long shamanic journey? They are too numerous for me to list, and some apply only to Lena and me. Yet there are lessons that are typical of the shamanic path. Here is what I learned about power that I can share here:

•Expect the unexpected.

•Discipline and perseverance on the path pay big dividends.

•The price for power is your own comfort.

•Don’t whine and complain. It doesn’t help.

•The greatest teachings have no words.

•Listen to your teacher’s criticisms and learn.

•Open your heart and shed your tears.

•Sing often and never hesitate to pray. Pray with sincere tears in your eyes.

•Take your medicine and learn.

•Watch your routines and habitual responses and see how they limit you.

•Ask your allies for help.

•Let go of attachment to form and you will gain immeasurably.

•Learn by doing and experiencing.

•Don’t expect all your learning to come from your teacher.

Guadalupe used to say, “I can teach you nothing. Go out there into the mountains and the desert. There you will learn.”

There are many teachers. The greatest of them is Mother Nature.

EXERCISE

Remember a time when you were confronted by danger and you felt you needed help. Who were your allies? Did you have access to them at the time? Were you able to call upon any inner allies? Who would you call upon now if something were to happen? Do you trust these allies?