Boo! That’s our hip little ‘Skeleton Crew’ from the weekend’s Blue Moon Groove Dance Party. If all is well in Electronic Land, you should also be able to eyeball the E-flyer below, another one of our beloved Graphic Designer Bex ‘Obi Wan Kenobi’ Ankeny’s Force Filled marketing efforts. It was a bit weird promoting this gathering, and too bad, as it seems a wicked blast was had by all who attended our grisly ghoulish dance down under a clear moon-lit sky. Sunday we relished a wintry Dios De Los Muertos or Day of The Dead, which extended all the way to this Monday November 2nd morning. As to gorgeous, sun-dappled autumn days morphing into cold, star speckled full moon nights, along the way we also enjoyed an amazing, uplifting sound healing Ceremony created by the Natural Light and High-Altitude Vibe of visiting Aurora. Then the Winged-one about to take flight above, to the upper right, Heather ‘Elvira’ Winia, orchestrated us in outdoor dance numbers, all safely spun around a raging Bonfire. As I write this, I can see it still burns.
We’re especially Happy at this Funkademic Time to offer up this Positive Halloween Weekend Report, as the Holiday also holds a special, skull-shaped cookie cutter place in our dark lil Heyoka heart and history. First off: Masks. Or On rather. We’ve been turned on to the healing power of communing with Ceremonial Masks for over twenty years. For more about it, check out our monthly Way of The Contrary Workshop. Second: All Hallow’s Eve. October 31st, 2014 was the very first eerie night we spent here alone on this land six years ago. It was a Friday night. It was Spooky. We knew The Black River touched the property, but didn’t know where it was. We didn’t even know how to get to town, town being South Haven. It’d be a year before we’d hear of The Douglas Parade. So we scratched around the new digs as well as the dingy, beat-down (at the time) second house on the property. Accidentally leaving an upstairs light on, we could have sworn the silhouette of Norman Bate’s Mother later appeared in the window. An owl hooted. But amongst the shadows was a stillness, a sense of groundedness, that, after some serious wandering, had us Know: This Place was Home.
And so third is the spirit of the season itself — big in my own life and equally in the rural community in which I finally put down roots — that of harvest time, a stripping down, a death, a return to the earth, coupled with a thinning of the veil between all beings, known and unknown. Mix child-like play with costume disguise, and it takes me personally back to the Halloweens of childhood and High Court Way, the street I grew up on. Our neighbors owned the old Boblo amusement park, and every October faithfully transformed the subdivision into a free-for-all that attracted the local news and kids from all over. I was King Tut. I was a bug-eyed purple alien with a death ray gun. I was a bum. I was John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Then next year, I was his character in Grease. And years later his character in Pulp Fiction. I was everything a human being could be, which is what a human being can be, and should be, a Power we are all granted, but perhaps remain unaware of, and thus disconnected from.
As to a return to and taking possession of one’s own childhood, shadows, spirits, healing, Masks, as well as revealing what is behind our masks, becoming someone extra ordinary or no one and nothing at all, it’s all a part of the Teaching here. That’s what The Writing on The Wall (literally) is all about, as the hope is that everyone who makes it out to these fun, public recognition events also considers checking out our more practice-based classes, like this Saturday’s Mindfulness + Meditation 101. Considering an awful lot of fires leapt to life and burned over the seven Halloweens and six years we’ve been steadily building on the foundation that is The Higher Haven, we haven’t been scared off yet. Not by that featureless image in the window years back, nor any other fearful imagining, as we continue working to face all the scary things that hinder our own as well as the world’s sense of Spirited, Unconditional Happiness. With hope that you, too, will join us soon. Matakuye O’yasin!