During my past few morning meditations, one of my spirit guides, Old Grandfather, seemed to be trying to get my attention. I first met him several years ago, in my Shaman’s cave. He’s never spoken to me using words before. He’s said plenty with gestures though, like the first time we met.
A few years ago he gave me two pieces of a medicine pipe, then watched as I put it together. He filled it with tobacco for me, and again merely watched as I said the prayers to the directions. I knew he was testing me. I didn’t know how to do a pipe ceremony, be he wouldn’t show me, just watch. I wasn’t sure what he expected of me, and I was nervous of the consequences if I screwed it up, but I said prayers that came from my heart, and he seemed satisfied. He let me keep the pipe. I’ve only been aware of him a few times since then.
Today, I focused my meditation on him, to listen to what he wanted to tell me. We went to the cave, and he began to walk around my private sanctuary offering comments. He first circled my firepit, and suggested that I work on the fire. “Build it up some, get it going steadier.” He said, in a gruff, clipped way. The fire in my cave represents my spirit, so I was able to see his deeper message.
He also criticized how few paintings I had on the walls of the cave. He affirmed that each time I’m given a message or a task from the Spirit Worlds, I’m supposed to record it on the walls in symbol or picture form, to remind me. Although I’ve done that a few times, I haven’t done it consistently. In fact, the only pictures I have there are Tortoise, the World Tree, and a few magickal symbols.
He asked me very pointedly what I did when I visited the cave. His sweeping gesture took in the entire atmosphere of disuse and emptiness. There was no vibrancy, no sense of the space being used well. It was clear that it didn’t look to him like I’d done very much at all with my sacred space.
He stood in front of me, and made me examine myself carefully, beginning at the feet. My feet and legs were bare. I had a short leather apron in front and back, held around my hips with a thin, woven belt of soft leather. Hanging in front from another belt was my main bag, made from leather, and decorated with beads, shells, and painted feather designs. On my chest, I wore a heavy breast plate of linked long beads of some unidentified material. Bone? Antler? They were smooth, heavy, and cool to the touch. I knew that it was made to help protect a warrior in battle. Old Grandfather told me that it protected me, too, even though I am not a physical warrior. I am a warrior for peace, and the very weight of it would keep me grounded in the Spirit Worlds. It would help prevent my Spirit from drifting too far away from my body.
Then he pointed to the mouth of the cave, where the blue sky stretched unbroken, looking like a movie screen. He told me to look more often... that I’m meant to see. It is my duty as a Shaman. I felt scolded, and yet empowered at the same time.
Then, as an unexpected gift, he showed me his name. I saw clouds spinning, then a buffalo. The two images merged to show the buffalo seeming running in space, on top of the clouds. And his name came to me with a innate sense of knowing. Old Grandfather has a name: Buffalo Cloud Dancer.
I had nothing in the cave to offer him in return for such a precious gift. Instead, I gave him a gourd ladle full of water from a large jar in the corner, which was fed by a small trickle from the back of the cave. He thanked me for the gift of water. I put my hands together, bowed in respect, and said “Namaste”. He laughed, as though to say we were very unalike, and not akin at all. Then, his feet lifted from the floor and he floated out of the mouth of the cave. He then condensed and zipped away, like a balloon who suddenly loses air.
I sat down in the mouth of the cave, and stared into the endless depths of blue sky. The journey ended.
~Flame RavenHawk
February 22, 2003