Africa Speaks

I took this photo at the First Baptist Church in Seattle when I heard Jean Houston speak. I signed up on the spot for her next day session. I noticed the two serpents and black face on this image; pure observation without thoughts. If I had been trained/educated in this world would my mind have been this silent? Or would I have immediately gone into the splice and dice mode of dissecting the parts and making conclusions/opinions?

Yesterday a friend who attends Antioch College introduced me to fellow student Eze who has a village in Africa. He is designing a college for his village with “change agents” bringing information in and learning from elders there. I learned he had been at the Heritage Garden cleaning up the lettering on the boulders. I told him about the Earth Day ceremony I was thinking to organize at the Garden as we did last year with Rob and Liz from the Puyallup Tribe. He wanted to go back to the garden that afternoon so I joined them. He spent hours focused on cleaning the mossy soiled lettering. We had an opportunity to talk and consider how a ceremony might play out. He found an old gas can and pipe on an edge of the land – drum! He saw this as an honor to metal and Zeus. We talked about circles and he drew one at my feet in the dirt next to boulders with words “charity” and “fidelity” (Grange text). He showed me his circle that included initiation, union, death, ancestors. He told me that the women in his village know when a ceremony is to take place (it’s not on a calendar) by connecting with the stars, planets. The women create a circle space for the men and then step back. He actually walked backward to play this out. My brain-body took this in reminding me of the stories I’d heard from Michael Meade. I invited women from the Red Tent women’s circle that I am part of. One of them questioned why I was inviting men to be at the center. Wasn’t that the same old paradigm? I mentioned that men represent my inner male.

This morning I remembered! A black man who is on my “cross road.” He shows up on occasion and did so a couple weeks ago. He is more gray than black—a big man with a pleasant face and presence. I think he is an Australian aborigine. At Jean Houston’s event a woman was wearing a vibrant scarf and I commented that it looked aboriginal with its colors and dots. Yes, she had bought it there. Years ago my heart opened up to Tracker because of his stories about aborigines. It is a “blood line” – comes through here/now. Again, could I receive this free flow of words if I had been trained in this world? Reminding me that not all education is linear. Antioch for example!

I value the richness of cultural threads weaving a tapestry here in my life—a life simple on the outside but multi-layered and multi-dimensional on the inside. Dragon Speak. I noticed when I was with Jean Houston that Dragon Speak flowed. I noticed that when I wrote her a letter Dragon Speak was present. Here on this blog I am free to let Dragon speak. I guess I am feeling more free to speak it on Facebook and in daily life. What is Dragon Speak? It’s an opening for flow of image, word and language. It is whole brain/body intelligence. I hope to speak it increasingly with others in the “village” Eze spoke of. He is clear on his role in the ceremony: holding the village around the fire. And new fire it is…as we moved the previous pit. Digging our new fire circle will be the first ceremony. And I didn’t know this until I wrote on this blog. Evolution happens!