Month: May 2021

Two days ago I was scheduled to speak at “The Greater Reset” event, a week long series of speakers providing alternatives to the globalist plans under “The Great Reset”. I was excited and honoured for the invitation to speak. About ten days prior to my talk, we were invited to connect and test our equipment for video and audio quality, which I did and everything checked out just fine. However, on the day of my talk, my equipment went all buggy. The app kept resetting and I could barely hear the host, let along interact with him or present my topic for discussion. Despite my extensive background and experience in the IT industry, I could not get my connection to work. I ended up unable to speak at the event and it was upsetting and troublesome for me. I felt tremendous sadness as a result as I felt I had an important contribution to make to the discussions.

This spawned deep reflection within myself and other members of my tribe. It was important to me to figure out why I was prevented from speaking. I figured that it was one of three reasons: My energy was off and I sabotaged my participation, Spirit changed it’s mind and no longer wanted me participating, or somebody else did not want me there.

Through several hours of reflection and discussion, we had to conclude that Spirit was protecting me as something changed over the last few days that would put me in jeopardy. What people don’t know is that prior to the event, I put down tobacco and smudged myself while praying for Spirit to guide me and provide me with the words to best serve the message. I am protected but I cannot “see” everything that is going on. In fact, I can only “see” a very small percentage of what is actually going on. So I depend on Spirit to guide and protect me, which is exactly what happened this week. The problem is that it was hard for me to “let go” and surrender to what Spirit needed to do. I felt sad and deep pain as I felt I was letting people down. In some ways it was also my false ego wanting to be heard too.

Through the night, I come to terms with what happened and I’ve now accepted that Spirit is going to intervene to keep me safe, even if it is highly inconvenient. I’m being confronted by Spirit to surrender more deeply than I’ve done before, to trust in the guidance of Spirit to help me navigate this path. I’ve done many surrenders in the past, but this one is a bit unnerving as it also puts at risk my work to provide for myself and trust that Spirit will provide for me.

The message that I’ve received, confirmed by my tribe members, is that my time for planting seeds is now over. People have made their choices and now it is time for us all to explore why we made those choices and work out the consequences of them all. As such, my work to bring awareness and information to help people make good choices is done. I’m now responsible for tending the garden!

What does that mean? Well, I’m still trying to figure that out, however, I do know that it involves people traveling here to interact with me, spirit and Mother Earth directly for further development and training. This is a spiritual boot camp of sorts so that people can then take what they learn here and start their own tribes, build their home fires and hold space for others in their area. I see people traveling here to immerse themselves in a way of life that will facilitate further surrenders to Spirit and develop Spiritual Braves in the process.

I have the support here of Divine Feminine and a tribe to do this work. This is a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual journey, all four being addressed here through ceremony, connection, work, play, rest and circles. My time on social media will be significantly restricted as I focus on this school and building programs for people when they arrive. I will continue to surrender to Spirit and trust that those who need to be here, will come. I also trust that Spirit will orchestrate my life so that all my needs are met, at a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level. I can testify that my latest surrenders over the past month have proven to be extremely healing for me. I continue to report that I’m growing stronger and healthier. Lou, the lump on my neck, continues to soften and shrink. I can work a full day now, sleep through the night without having to wake up to go to the bathroom and I don’t feel aches or pains in my joints. Having a low stress, supportive, encouraging environment is indeed healthy and good for me. For that I am grateful!

May 24, 2021

One of our tribe members has been breeding Mastiffs for 30 years and one of the dogs was returned because he was biting and being aggressive. I’ve never had to ‘train’ a dog before. In fact, animals are naturally attracted to me. Drove me crazy for most of my life, but now I’m starting to appreciate it as I now acknowledge what it means to me and them. But dealing with aggression is something I’ve not had to do, so I wanted to learn as much as I could to help this dog.

Within a pack, there are the alphas and they demand obedience from the others in the pack. What I found out though, is that the signs and ways of showing the dominance of the alphas and the submission of the others is often subtle but always present. Ensuring that the humans are the alphas requires work and awareness. If we have dogs in our families, it is dangerous to have them be the alpha. People and dogs get hurt when that happens. So I’m now on a huge learning curve to learn about these subtle signs and the techniques to ensure the humans are alpha within the pack.

Dogs will fight to establish who the alpha is and if the dog lays down and exposes their belly or neck, that is a sign of submission to the alpha. I’ve now learned how to train a dog to be submissive to humans without resorting to fighting, violence or bloodshed. It is interesting and astounding to witness a peaceful and gentle, yet firm approach to training.

Spirit moves in mysterious ways as this whole experience has brought something to my attention. The modern social structures that people have between one another follows this same model as a pack. However, we are not pack animals, our nature is tribal. The feudal system has a number of alphas that rule the pack and demands that everyone else be obedient, just as dogs do within their packs. That obedience is often re-enforced through threats, intimidation or even violence, much as dogs do. Submission to the alpha is mandatory if one belongs to the pack.

If we tried this within a tribe, it would cause all kinds of problems. If we don’t approach our tribes differently, we will end up with big problems, resentment, conflict and chaos. Feelings get hurt and we fail to establish the profoundly intimate relationships we required for tribal life. I get the sense that this is a key point to be aware of if trying to build tribes. I’ve seen people use pack behaviours of intimidation and other passive / aggressive behaviours to manipulate the tribe. That does not work. I left tribes as a result of this pack behaviour.

But I am also experiencing being in a tribe where those behaviours don’t cut it and to be frank, I resonate with this approach much better. Tribal life is about honour, peace, consensus, freedom, gifting, receiving, gratitude, caring and building profoundly intimate relationships on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level. We cannot do that using pack methodologies. We must learn the tribal methods in order for this to work. I’ve witnessed this unfolding here in natural ways, but also through meaningful and conscious efforts as well. As I experience and explore these ideas, I will share more.

As I spend time in my healing journey, I also find that I am willing to give of my time and efforts to others without expectation of payment or return. My needs are met and I have plenty of time to help others. I want to do this work. It feels important to me. Then I noticed a shift within myself. I’m able to work the whole day again. I’ve not been able to work a full day since at least 2017, when I got very ill. Healing for me is not just the emotional aspects, but has to involve all four parts of me. Bringing them all into balance is what I need for good health and now that I am in an environment that supports that type of Christ Level Consciousness, I’m able to find my way back to that level of health. My environment is just as important to my health as my own body, mind, feelings and spirit.

I’ve not contemplated how important my environment is to my own health before. Sure, I was aware of how important food, water and shelter is, but not the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual environment. Being around people who ‘get it’ AND are on similar journeys towards being good stewards and working on building healthy tribe is a huge part of the environment upon which I am now seeing. In the past, I really struggled finding people who ‘sees’ what I see and work towards this holistic way of life. It is not about ownership or control, it is about relationships and stewardship. I’ve spoken about these principles for years and now have an opportunity to work with others who sees tribal life in similar ways as I do. Bringing the ‘city’ or the colonial ways into this environment does NOT work.

My healing is progressing so quickly that I’m shocked at how well I’m doing. My lump on the back of my neck is shrinking too, which is a profound sign for me. My strength and memory is returning and I now have the energy to do more. My independence is returning and for that I am grateful as I now have the strength and stamina to work on my inter-independent relationships.

Since this is the second time around in my efforts to establish a home fire, I thought I would share my thoughts, experiences and feelings along the way. The last time I did this was in 2007 and it was so long ago that I have little memory, just vague reflections. This time around it is different as I’m doing this with the support of a tribe, which I did not have before. I also showed up needing a lot of healing. I am happy to say that over the past month, I dedicated my time to my own healing. I don’t need institutions to do this healing any more. I have the knowledge, skills and experience to heal myself now, I just need the sacred space to get it done. Space that feels safe and allows me to do my work.

It may seem like I’m not productive, but I love myself too much to succumb to colonial pressures to be productive all the time. Within a tribe, the support is there which allowed me to rest, wander, reflect and connect with myself and Mother Earth. I read a book for fun, which is something I’ve not done in years. I do lots of reading, but it is usually research for the work that I do. I gave myself permission this time to have fun and that was amazing.

I started clearing the spot for my home a few weeks ago and I’m excited to start the build. It will be about 200 square feet with stacked log roof and I’ll dig down for the living space. This gives me access to the thermal mass of the earth. It will help keep me cool in the summer and warm in the winter. I’m up high, so I don’t have much worry about the water table. The roof is plenty strong to hold the huge snow loads and I will use cob to finish it and the walls. I’m looking to use plastic water barrels to store water in the floor, but also turn one into a fridge as well. Lean-to will hold my fire wood outside and also help keep the wind off the house.

I also spent time helping the others too. I built a solar food dehydrator for the tribe to use and started working in the garden, helping to prepare for this years crop. I started building my own garden at my home fire. I gathered up the peat moss and leaves from the house and medicine wheel, where I then start piling it up along my path. The strawberries are in and the potatoes will soon go in as well.

I also decided to repair a bunch of things that were broken. I’m not looking for payment but rather felt moved to tinker with simple things that helps me feel that I’m contributing. I’m good at doing that sort of thing, so it is a skill that I can contribute to the tribe. Sitting down to a meal once a day with people is also healing for me as I miss doing that a lot. It provides an opportunity to share with others what I plan on doing for the day and others to do the same. It is times like this where people feel open to share that they need help with tasks and have those needs met right away. Powerful process being around people who like to function in similar ways.

When I got here, I was completely dependent and was invited to not worry about that as I was going through my healing process. I’ve found that the more I heal, the strong I feel. This resulted in efforts to re-establish my independence. Working on my home is one aspect, but I also started preparing my own meals, living in my own space and looking after my own needs. Having the space to do this on my own was amazing and powerful. Few places I’ve been that knows how to hold space for others in this way. For that I am grateful.

My work towards self forgiveness is coming along. I had a recent experience where I was clearing some trees and two of them fell on my medicine wheel. At first I was very upset over this, but I realized this morning that the reason it happened is because I’m in a healing journey of self forgiveness. So I forgive myself and I’ll clean up the mess. I’m not immune to the consequences of what happened, so I’ll do my due diligence and clean the mess. The big part now is the self-forgiveness. That I will work on today as I clean up what happened. No harm was actually done to the medicine wheel, I was being overly critical of myself. So I’ll continue the work to forgive myself.

My connection to Mother Earth continues to grow stronger, especially now as spring has arrived. The spirit of the garter snake and bear have said hello. The black bear was a yearling male and he startled me as I walked around the corner of the yard and he jumped out from behind a buffalo hide strung out on a frame. I spoke to his spirit and asked him to leave, which he did. The dogs got his scent and convinced him even more.

May 12, 2021

I’ve done this before and I find myself doing it again; starting over. This time though, I’m doing it all at the same time and I’m doing it with experience, knowledge and wisdom. So what better way to be of service to others and myself than to share my journey while it is fresh in my mind & heart. What I speak about is multi-faceted as I am not only talking about recovery from another round of mental illness, but I’m also returning to the land once again to rebuild after profound disruption in my life over the past few years.

I found myself homeless, hopping from couch to couch 10 times over the past 15 months. This drifting about did not help my efforts to heal from the trauma of profound loss as I mourned my marriage of 25 years, friends, family and a relationship with the land that I spent 13 years working hard to connect and steward peacefully. My struggles with my own mental health deteriorated as this uncertainty and disconnect challenged my resolve and ability to hold space for myself.

I am grateful that I started the school as my work built some core relationships with key people that helped me in ways I never expected. While they are spread across this land, the relationships were exactly what I needed. Specific individuals knew how to support me even when I was down or even a danger to myself. The work that we did in the school built a true tribe and that was something I did not plan to do, or expect to manifest. But it happened and it saved my life. Without these people I would most likely be living on the streets right now.

Instead, I received an invitation to return to the land with the support and encouragement of the tribe. I now find myself on the land in what many commonly call Northern Ontario, where I am starting a new adventure to return to the land as a steward of Mother Earth. I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it again. Except this time I’m doing it with a much different intent. From 2006 to 2020, my intent was to live off grid and be free. Little did I know that I was still trapped by colonial constructs, specifically ideas of ownership and false precepts of tribe.

My experience over the past 15 months gave me permission to let go of all those constructs and to decolonize myself even further. For this lesson and opportunity, I am grateful to Creator for giving me the push that I needed to take this path that I never saw before. I now willingly choose this path and is why I decided to name this blog series ‘Choosing a Path’.

I took a leap of faith and accepted an invitation to travel to Ontario. The past few weeks have been challenging as I mourn and say good bye to the land that I’ve lived upon for over 50 years. Since I landed here on April 29^th, I’ve spent a lot of time healing and looking after myself. I’ve been immersing myself in the bush as much as possible and talking to people so that I can work through the profound feelings of sadness, pain, sorrow and fear. I spent this time fully dedicated to looking after myself.

One of the most profound lessons through this was the realization that people don’t typically forgive me when I make mistakes, or at least I don’t recall people using words to express forgiveness. When I am ill, I struggle with relationships due to an overwhelming desire to flee, hide and isolate myself. I work hard not to do that, but at times when I experience great, overwhelming pain, I find myself miles away from where I sleep. Sadly, people take this personally and that causes great rifts in relationships, hard feelings and even complete breakdown in relationships.

There are times where I wished that my illness resulted in the spilling of blood. It seems that seeing red fluid oozing out of a body spawns great concern and people jump into action to preserve life, but tears are not viewed with such urgency or concern. In my view, tears are spiritual blood and needs to be address with equally as much care and urgency as the red blood from our vessels. Until that happens, mental illness will continue to anguish as a dark and misunderstood condition of life that many avoid at all costs.

In the past few days I came to the realization that if people cannot or will not forgive me, then I must do that myself. This is what I’ve been reflecting on since I got here and I am working hard to do this work. I get flashbacks from events in my life where I made mistakes that cost me relationships because we all failed to navigate the situation in a healthy way. I accept my part in all of that and is why I’m doing this work now. I’ll say the words, but still struggle to implement the feelings and protocol into my spirit.

I forgive myself.

I will continue to repeat those words until I believe them profoundly. I work hard to learn the lessons from the mistakes that I’ve made, now it is time to end the haunting of my mind and heart. I am worthy of being forgiven, even if others don’t see it that way. This is my path to walk and I choose it willingly.

When I visited the land here, I took my time to connect with her, listen to her spirit and introduce myself. I was welcomed and found this land to be very similar to the land I was stewarding in Alberta. I asked for help and was told that I needed to setup a medicine wheel first before I do anything else. So I spent hours building my medicine wheel. I needed this wheel to help me heal and it is this effort that helped me realize that it is time to forgive myself. Ceremony was performed with divine masculine and feminine working together to establish this sacred healing space. I see many people coming to sit around this fire to heal and connect so that they can find their path as well.

I feel home, safe and peaceful in my heart. I still have lots of healing to do, but I am confident in saying that I am no longer in danger. My healing has progressed quickly as I confront myself. Over the coming weeks and months, I will provide further insight into my journey, share pictures of the work that I’m doing and consolidate 20 years of experience into a few short months as I have learned many lessons over the years, made many mistakes and will do my best to share the path that I’ve chosen with those interested in doing something similar.

We live in challenging times and I have no doubt that connecting with Mother Earth and Creator in such an intimate way will provide for our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health, growth and evolution. I have a tribe around me that supports me, understands how to talk with me when I have episodes and that I trust. That is what I got out of starting and running this school for the Pacem Arts. I pray that others can get something similar out of it as well. It is not an easy path and we are all confronted with the shadow work. But for those willing to do that work, the rewards are amazing and astounding. I testify to that first hand as I’ve been blessed with such gifts of spirit through angels that are among me.

I will sign off with this: I forgive all those who have made mistakes in their lives. I will do what I can to hold space for healing as I can relate first hand to what it feels like, the challenges and pitfalls.

I forgive you.

I forgive me!