Sunday after coming home from the weekly Sacred Pipe ceremony I lead, I was exhausted to the point of not being able to keep my eyes open, so I took a nap. I woke up from my nap with the distinctive memory of seeing a medicine man, complete with a buffalo headdress consisting of the crown of the buffalo's head and the horns, with a couple of feathers protruding out of the wool. I didn't remember anything about what was said or done, just the man himself, so I turned to my fiancé rousing beside me and asked, "You wanna go to the river?" I wanted to connect with him in ceremony to find out who he was and why he'd come into my awareness.
At the river, after setting sacred space and lighting my pipe, I called this man into the circle. Right away he gave me his name - Medicine Bull. Later when I googled him I discovered he was a chief of the Southern Brule Sioux, but that was about all I could find out about him other than that he was part of a delegation to Washington DC in 1867. One of the amazing things to me is that I have had Native American spirit guides pretty much from the beginning of my shamanic path, but as things proceed I am finding they are not just a random sampling from all tribes. They each have ties to the Great Sioux Nation in the same general area of the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Nebraska.
What Medicine Bull told me, or more correctly showed me, was an image of the Third Eye, which because it was vertical rather than horizontal, such as they are shown in Hindu paintings on such deities as Kali, it was the shape of a yoni. As he showed me this vision he kept repeating the message, "Hold the vision!" He explained that the Third Eye is the birth canal of the Future. It is basic Law of Attraction that we dream our future, that our thoughts become things, so no matter what seems to be happening around us, we need to continue to envision the world we desire - A world based on Love, Equality, Respect - if we want to birth that reality. We have to dream the appropriate dream, knowing that we are the ones manifesting that better world.
And please know that in no way am I saying that I, and I alone, have some true vision, like some prophet or messiah. Nothing of the sort. I share this using myself as an example, but we are all in this together. It takes a village to raise a new earth, and your vision of a healed and whole planet are just as important as mine. By working together and weaving our individual visions of a better future together, it can not help but be brought into reality. We can do this.
As I sat basking in this energy, opening up my crown and third eye even further, I felt and saw something else. I felt and saw little threads of myself extending outwards and touching all living things. I literally felt like a painting by one of my favorite Native artists, Clemence Wescoupe, with the threads of energy connecting all things, such as his painting below.
Again, as with most revelations, this experience had that beautiful dance between simplicity and profundity. On one hand it seemed so natural and obvious (Duh!) while at the same time taking me deeper to somewhere I hadn't been, rooting all of my previous wisdom and experience to hitherto unknown depths of understanding.
Holy Cow! ...I mean Sacred Bull!