Here is an example of the type of story that could be shared regarding initiation cycles.
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Sacred Union With The Land In The Andes
Awakening In The Dream by Cayelin K Castell
The Flying Window
This writing describes an experience that began with a Shamanic Timeline convergence of three powerful cycles including the age 47 exact Mars return, in concert with the beginning of my 7th Venus return during my 4th Jupiter Return, while on a Shamanic Astrology sacred site journey to Peru.
I wrote what follows a few days after returning from this journey in hopes of capturing at least a small sense of the profound initiation I experienced.
How do I describe the experience of a journey that occurred inside the dream of a reality so profound and so far reaching it is beyond the limits of any language I know? What I can say is the land dreamed me. This Andean land of the ancient civilizations that existed long before any recorded history we have is alive and waiting for us to remember our place within the dream.
There are so many levels and layers of ongoing symbols and points of power built into these ancient sacred sites that we can only begin to guess at how these people actually lived and what they experienced in their conscious relationship to the land and to all life.
Machu Picchu Hitching Post of the Sun
They were attuned to the essence of the mountains and valleys, to the plants and animals, and all the natural forces including astronomical and cosmological alignments. They designed and built these structures in harmony with the land and the sky to enhance their relationship with the power, potency and magic of the natural world. Many of the details are still actively present in these sites, many are yet to be remembered. My experience here was beyond mental concepts and words, beyond anything I had ever experienced before as I felt the land remembering me and I felt myself remembering the land.
I felt the intention, I felt the connection, I felt the mystery of these places still breathing in the land waiting to be remembered. I felt the land claim me and activate within my body, within my cells, within my blood, within my bones, and within my very breath. I began to realize I was not just a respectful and fascinated visitor but rather I was a part of the land and the land was a part of me.
My process accelerated when I engaged the plant spirit San Pedro through ceremony first at Winya Wyna near Machu Picchu and then again on the Isle of the Moon on lake Titicaca. My only intent for this journey was simply to show up and experience what was mine to experience. I felt the intensity of the life force of the land activating me and recognizing me; and because I was open, receptive and willing it then infused itself more fully and completely into the depths of my being.
I can still feel it inside my body and if I shift my attention just a little I can feel the blurring of the lines of our space/time reality. It is a softening, a blending, an infusion of spirit into matter, a place of acceptance, where the spirit of the land claims me as witness to its magic and mystery. I felt loved by the land and by the people in ways that I have never experienced before.
Temple of the Moon on the Isle of the Moon
I was welcomed and embraced, taken care of and kept safe even in the wildness of the thunder, lightning, wind and rain that surrounded us as we climbed to the other side of the Isle of the Moon. I knew I was safe, and I knew I was being initiated into something I couldn’t explain or understand with my rational mind.
Even now, back at home in the Northern Hemisphere, I feel I know this land, I know these mysteries and yet I have no words to describe them. I can feel them, witness them, value them, and love them as a part of myself and I know that is all that is necessary. I know I am a living breathing conscious embodiment of this land and her mysteries.
This experience continues to deepen for me years later. Back in December 2002 on my first morning home I remember awakening with visions of the megalithic stone structures of Machu Picchu, Ollantaytambo, Sacsayhuaman, Amaru Muru, Tiwanaku, Cutimbo, Sillustani, and others. I felt them breathing inside of me and I heard a voice that said “the land is inside me, the land is me, the land has claimed me”.
A Seasonal Calendar in Stone
The land, the stones, the mysteries want to live inside of me, breathe me and express through me. I feel the movement of light, of life, of knowing beyond ordinary knowing, of being beyond ordinary being, of shifting beyond what is accepted as reality all so alive and so present and growing stronger. I have awakened inside the dream of the land while the land is dreaming me.
It is an amazing feeling – “the land is me, dreaming me and claiming me”. Is this how the ancient people felt? Did they feel the passion of the land move in their blood, in their bones, in their very life expression in ways that inspired them to build these sites, these places as manifestations of that passion, of that intensity of love and knowing that it is all so interconnected?
The stones, the animals, the plants, the cycles, and seasons, the astronomical calendars, are a living demonstration of their full knowledge of their interrelatedness to all life, above and below, within and without. Where they lived, how they lived, what they lived was a conscious relationship, a passionate, alive conscious relationship in a co-creative dream with the All of life, with the fullness and joy of life. It is vibrating in every cell of my being, breathing itself alive through me.
I wonder, how do I continue to stay present and attentive to these mysteries in ways that are most beneficial and supportive? How can I live a healthier, more conscious and fully present relationship with the Earth, with the land, with the animals and plants, with the spirits and with life? How can I be a conscious dreamer in equal partnership with the dream? How can I deepen my connection with the Earth, meet her as an equal partner, building new mystery schools in concert with the land and the fulfillment of the dream?
How can I do this while also expressing new ways, creating new forms and new shapes that exist in harmony and balance with one another? How can I draw upon the wisdom of our ancestors, of their lives, and what they have left behind as witness to the mysteries they lived? How can I experience the wisdom of their life journeys in ways that support the current unfolding expressions of the Great Mystery? How can I be a conscious expression of the dream as it is manifesting now?
These are the questions that I am living and that are living through me. I don’t know the answers yet. What I do know right now is the miracle of how I truly love the land and the land loves me. And for now that is all that is necessary.
Written in January of 2003