They offered
a wane chance to go
beyond Time
back before
when the seedlings were no more
and clocks conjured space
They compel
from dark clouds revel
The rain fell
in Bahrain
drawing circles of my pain
tattooed in my wrists
Mind desists
from chance to relive
I forgive
past choices
The soul in me rejoices
in heavens’ voices
Reading of the poem:
Hush she said and the woods were silent. The pitter-patter of raindrops a deafening sound covering her waning heartbeat. Hush she said and the rain softly subsided, an occasional drop on a leaf resounding like a thud in her head. Hush she said and the leaves ceased caressing the wind, their whispers fading into the rising dusk. Hush she said and the blood in her veins slowed tenfold until she could hear the drip like a background music to the occasional flap of wings of a cawing crow shaking off the rain. Hush she said and the darkness engulfed her with its palpable silence like a long forgotten and well-worn cloak. Hush she said her eyes finally closing, her soul softly embracing the dark night.
She looked at the Mother squarely and could see that there was something the Mother wanted to say but was refraining from saying it. Softly she told the Mother that she had decided to bring the rains upon the land once again. The Mother told her that she was aware of it as this had already embodied into rain in the future that the Mother could see. She turned and looked at herself in the mirror and then turned back to the Mother again. She told her that she had hesitated a lot but then decided to do so because there were so many people who could be adversely affected by the growing heat if she let things go as they had started off with the fires of the phoenix. The Mother merely smiled at her.
She turned back again from the Mother and like in a self confession she whispered almost to herself that she had decided to use the techniques of the shamans of old. She knew from the Mother that first came the word that was used to invoke the right frame of Magic for the intent to manifest. She had therefore decided that she would use a couple of poems for the transition from the drought-like state to a state of rainy weather. She knew that the world of the physical had its own rules so it would not be possible to go straight from one to the other and therefore decided that she would first gather some white clouds and then darken them in order to bring the rain upon the land.
As instructed in earlier stages by the Mother she first released the worded embodiment of the manifestation she wished to create into the collective consciousness and then sought to manifest it by entering into a meditative state using the music that the Mother indicated to her as appropriate. The first step of gathering the clouds was successful and she looked happily at the fluffy white clouds in the sky that had only minutes earlier been blue and free of any type of clouds. As the clouds gathered in the sky, she smiled to herself thinking that this was indeed a step in the good direction.
She waited a couple of days for the situation to stabilise and then released the worded embodiment of a storm into the collective consciousness. This last wording however was released into a smaller number of individual components of the collective consciousness and she could therefore feel that it would be less successful. She decided nevertheless to pursue the intention of causing rain to fall upon the land and armed with her headphones and her mobile, she sat in the park where she could connect directly to Gaia. Once the headphones secured on her head, she started breathing slowly and regularly and drifted into the meditation.
The drums of thunder that accompanied the music of the flute lulled her to sleep and she felt herself sink slowly into an altered state of consciousness. As with each time she entered such a state she could see ravens all around her and hear them cawing to her. The ravens pointed to the middle of the sky where an eye revealed itself before tears started flowing from it. She realised that the tears were flowing in the form of rain and she could hear the sound of the thunderstorm in the music accompany aptly the sound of the falling rain. She opened her eyes and could see the rain falling from a dark brooding sky all around her onto the landscaped gardens of the park. She looked around her pleased with this achievement and smiled.
She watched as the visions of her invoking the rain unfolded but she was not determined yet to bring them into this reality. She surmised that when she had first stopped the rains with the combined effect of her worded intent and the shamanic trances with their resulting phoenix fires she had been fully possessed with the wrath of the phoenix so it had resulted in a heightened output of drought. The result was not just a cessation of rains but also a heightened temperature that was very unlikely for the season. She realised that for now she was only fully willing to bring in some winds to cool the otherwise unbearable temperature.
She came out of her trance and looked around her. She had to admit that even if it weren’t for the fact that she was in between two minds it would be difficult for her to bring back the rains on the land. They had indeed stripped her garden of its tall trees that had given her a connection to Gaia and she knew it was not possible for her to do the raindance in one of the parks where there were trees as people around her might call the police thinking her crazy. She wondered whether the smaller shrubs in her garden could give her a connection that was strong enough to allow the intent to penetrate Gaia’s core.
She knew that without Gaia’s collaboration even the strongest of Shamans would need at least a month in order to invoke rain after activation of the wrath of the phoenix which had released its flames into the atmosphere. She realised that having the rains come after the rainy season, especially if that season had been incredibly warm would seem too odd and perhaps someone would notice the discrepancies and that would create more problems for her. She wondered whether she should invoke the rain at all as her projects had still not come to fruition and she was not sure they would not interfere again in her life making it unbearable.
That night she went to bed early as the Mother had told her she wanted her to be available for a journey. As she fell asleep, she saw the beautiful face of the Mother who guided her and told her that she needed to journey to the land of ravens to make up her mind and see what sources of connection to Gaia she could use to manifest her intent into the world. Several months ago, the Mother had already told her that the beginning of the manifestation was by the written word that was like a magic scripture and that further intent with shamanic intensity as well as connection to Gaia had to be put in to manifest any reality that was linked to Gaia.
As she walked in the dream she saw ravens collect around her and some sat on her head and shoulders. They cawed loudly as she swayed to the hypnotic music that played somewhere in the distance. It was a mixture of drum beats and flute that echoed strangely across the empty lands. The ravens cawed in unison to the music and then rose above her head to form a swirling circle that looked like a whirlpool. While she gazed at the whirlpool she saw within it red poppies, bougainvillae and roses. The Mother told her that these would be her connection to Gaia and that she would need to hold the bougainvillae or the roses while she was doing the shamanic dance so that it would be more effective.
She wondered why the Mother had not simply told her which connection to use for Gaia but the Mother told her that Gaia like all other living beings had her own free will and chose freely how to connect with humans. That choice could only be voiced to humans in an altered state of consciousness through the portal that ravens created which is why she had had to journey to the land of ravens otherwise also known as the land in between mundane reality and the Netherworld. It was a land that one visited when in shamanic trance or within dreams. The Mother also told her that she would need to make up her mind on what she really wanted to do as manifesting something only worked when one was totally convinced that one wanted it to happen.
She shook her head and looked around her as she woke up from the dream. She was not sure she wanted to invoke the rain but at the same time she knew that if she kept the wrath of the phoenix alive then the land would be scorched in a few months as the temperature would keep rising higher. She realised that it would be easier if her projects had been fully successful as she could then be relaxed and dedicate her time to a successful outcome instead of being in between minds about the weather and not manifesting the rain.
She looked out of the window and pitch black met her gaze as there were no street lamps near her house and the moon was hidden. She squared her shoulders and looked back inside the room at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was tired and drawn. She needed to make up her mind on whether to carry out the shamanic dance using the points of connection shown in her dream. She could feel the Mother hovering in the air behind her. She hid her face in her hands for a few seconds and then turned to face the Mother…
The Call For Total Surrender – Byron Metcalf & Steve Roach
The Mother talked to her of nightly visits, of flights in the sky and children with hawk-like beaks and human bodies that traveled in between worlds. The Mother watched over her and reassured her that soon things would be back to normal and she should then bring back rains to the land. According to the Mother it had all been a combination of a mistake on behalf of one faction and a test on behalf of another who had not synchronised their actions with the first faction. The result had been a messy situation where she had got hurt and her livelihood had been stripped from her. The Mother reassured her that nobody had had the intention of really harming her.
As she woke up, she remembered the Mother’s words and realised that it was probably going to be true as her situation was slowly but surely improving. All that had been done to her was fading and the impact would soon be gone if the projects she was working upon were successful. She realised that even though she did not have a positive outcome yet she would have to start her dance with the spirits of the rain as she could not wait until the rainy season was over. It would indeed appear odd if she were to invoke the rains totally outside of the rainy season. Besides she knew that she had put in so much strength when invoking the fires of the phoenix that it would take her at least a week of raindance to get the rain started again. She wondered whether they had realised that she had invoked the spirits of the drought or whether they had simply stopped interfering with her situation regardless of that.
Slowly but surely, she aligned her intent with the positioning of the spirits and began to sway internally and outwards. In sync with the beats and therefore the frequency of the thunder clouds, she danced consciously joining hands with the spirits and twirling with them above the desert sands. This time they gathered clouds and made sure they impregnated them with the intent of water so that they could slowly be charged and subsequently wet the lands with their content. She wondered whether she would need them to seed the clouds that they formed or whether the dance alone would be enough to invoke the rains.
Onwards she twirled with the spirits, her astral body gleaming in the sunlight and she did not stop until the night fell around her body equally twirling on the ground far below. She continued dancing to the moon conjuring its rays so that the waters in the sea would swell and impregnate further the clouds. Her body rocked with the intensity of the thunderbolts that shot through it and her hair stood at ends under the effect of the mini lightning rays that her dance provoked. Her astral body left a trail of steam that was strewn across the sky as she pulled intended blankets of clouds over the sun. Day after day she continued this exercise until the Mother told her that it was now enough and the rains would arrive shortly. She raised high her hands above her head, aligned her pineal gland with her vagus nerve, twirled her body one way and its opposite and let out a guttural cry like the shamans of old before yelling « Rain down on me ». The sky darkened, lightning appeared in the horizon as the clouds broke into corridors of darkened fluffy balls and the rain showered the lands.
Dark Brew – Byron Metcalf
Raven Medicine – Byron Metcalf
Dance of the Heart Voyagers – Byron Metcalf-Mark Seelig
She paused and looked at the clouds forming. They had been seeding them in hope of getting rain but she planned otherwise. Using the old conjuring of spirits of dry, she danced wildly invoking desert drought and parched lands. The land was cool from the winter winds but the skies grew clear of clouds and the dust flew in the air filling people’s chests. After all they had done to her, she vowed to not let the rains bless their lands until she received what they had taken away from her. They had thought her to be a mere vessel that they could lull back to sleep, not realising that within her the powers of the Shamans of old were reignited. She had rediscovered within her the spirits of the lineage of Shamans that went back to time immemorial when she had danced in Machu Pichu her senses blazing from the Ayahuasca brew.
Every time the clouds gathered she willed the weather back to that of dried lands. She had been in public once though and could not stop the rains from falling as she could not break into the dance of flames. As soon as she could, that one time it had rained, she had hurried back home and willed the rain to stop. Her eyes blazed with the fire of the phoenix rising within her and scorching the pelting rain to vapour before it had stilled it and reduced the clouds to small cotton balls in the sky. Hers was not a mere revenge but a mission she embarked upon with all the vigor and will of those who had been coarsely and negligently wronged.
During the nights, she spoke to the spirits of the rain and pacified them, letting them know that they could visit sites nearby where they could flow all their ardour into the lands. In her altered state she took them by the hand and guided them to locations that would either benefit from rain or where she wanted to wreck havoc in vengeance, taking them far away from where her physical body was lying. They danced through the desert skies, high above the clouds and making sure not to come into contact with these latter so that they would not be charged and wet the lands with their content. Every time she danced with those spirits, her astral body sizzled with the intermingling of the flames of the phoenix and the waters of the spirits of the rain. The result was a trail of mist and steam that onlookers identified in the sky as a streak similar to that of a wishing star. Together they danced right over Paris and other European cities before returning to the place where her body dwelt. Once the dances over, she resettled back into her body and slept a sleep riddled with dreams of the Mother.