Tonight I Cried

I stopped at the woods tonight. I like to go there every now and then on the way home. Especially when I am feeling out of sorts. It helps to ground me. Of course, I get all worked up because of all the motorcycle paths. I try to find a secluded place where I can go to be by myself, but every time I go off the trail and find a place that might be just right, I take a look around and find yet another motorcycle path. With development going on all around, it is getting harder and harder to find a quite place to go.
Fortunately it was getting late, overcast, and threatening rain, so no riders. I went to one of the spots I usually go to. It is a great spot on a granite outcropping that you can look out for miles. It faces west, so it is even better when you go into the woods in the late afternoon. It also helps spiritually. It heals.
I was able to say a prayer for the people and feel it flow through me. I prayed for the fruition of Black Elk's vision, the coming together of the sacred circle. After I was done, I left an offering and headed down the other path. It was getting late and I had a good half hour trek back out.
As I started down the path, I got the impression I should go to council rock. This is an outcropping of granite with a big boulder down one of the side paths. It is shaped in a semi-circle with the one boulder as a Chief's seat. I was directed to sit there. I sat and found I was facing west. The birds were chirping. The breeze gently blew through the pines. The oak were showing new life. As I sat there, I was thinking about Black Elk and how he cried as he neared the end of his life. He wept because he never got to see his vision come true.
As I sat there and thought about the visions I have had, the messages I have been asked to deliver, and the realization that there are so many millions of people who are so tied up in their lives, that trying to reach them is an impossible task. I began to have doubts about what I was doing. Not the doubts about being a whacko nutcase for listening to spirits directing me to do things like, say fly out to New Mexico to paint a turtle of sand. Or better yet, to fly all the way home only to paint another on a granite ledge deep in the woods. The doubts were about what affect, if any, all of this, the sand drawings, the painting of the turtle on my drum, the messages, the blogs, everything, would have on the course of man. I started to cry, overwhelmed by the immensity of the task at hand. Each day watching the display of man's disrespect not only to the land, but to each other. And so I cried, and through my tears I called out to Grandfather Black Elk. I cried asking how I, a white man, could bring about changes in the ways of man. How, could I bring together the people, when even Red brothers and sisters are set after each other, rez vs. non-rez, enrolled vs. unenrolled, tribe against tribe. I was told that I was led to do this because of my heart. I was told that people see my heart as true and that I had to trust the ancients in having chosen me to do these things. Then I was told to bring these thoughts to the people. I was told to open my heart and share my fear, my insecurity, my sense of hopelessness. I was told that I would receive that message, the message of reassurance that will keep me to my path, keep me walking the good red road and spreading the word of Unity. I was told there was reason I was chosen and it will be revealed in the times to come.
I gave thanks for the council and left an offering. As I left council rock, I sang an old song that was given to me to call Bear. I was not calling on his power, but honoring him for walking with me. I spent the rest of the journey with my wolf spirit. Going over my life, my journey.
I remembered something that was given to me when I had called to the Creator for the truth.
If I gave you the truth, you would not have the journey.
So I will continue on. Stumbling, mumbling, bumping into things, but going forward. I will return to writing the messages of Unity given to me. I will put aside my own insecurity, my own fears. I will strive to be the one spark that gets the fire going. There is an old song we used to sing in Youth Ministry that went like that.
It only takes a spark to get a fire going. And soon all those around will warm up to its glowing.
That's how it is with God's love, once you experienced it. You want to sing, its fresh like spring, you want to carry on.
My heart to your heart, one heart, one spirit
White Wolf