Having fun razzing Shinzen on his teaching the Tipi poles behind us symbolize “the place of abiding”.
Feliz Navidad Prospero Ano y Felicidad. Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart as well as the hardpan of the Sonoran Desert by way of Tucson, Arizona, USA. With so much to say, Hokahey, let’s start by taking in the shine of the dude to my left here, my teacher Shinzen Young, who I was so fortunate to spend Christmas Eve with after busting cross-country 1,900 miles for a very special purification Ceremony. As a friend and student of The Higher Haven put it, “it was good to put a great face to name often heard” around our classes and retreats.
As to names, If you’ve watched the video on our site, the same Tohono O’Odham Medicine Man named Rupert was our leader, guiding the Ceremony as well as the people in the way of native prayer. What a miraculous healing to re-receive and re-reradiate 23 years later. The surreally special part for me was sitting and singing after all these years with Shinzen and Rupert, who pointed out that “tonight the world over, people are honoring life’s true spiritual nature, giving thanks for Christ’s birth.” We even heard the origin story of Rupert’s name, one I’d always wondered about as its rare for a Papago native, inspired by the Priest who baptized him into the Catholic Church. All was calm, all was incredibly bright.
Having driven by way of Chicago, St. Louis, Amarillo, and Ruidoso, a cool, southern New Mexico Sierra Bianca mountain village in the days before, I reflected on how far I’d truly come, since that initial transformational skin shedding over twenty years back. And the layers and layers of skin shed since then, in one of Shinzen’s classic dharma talks describing the process as being “the very meaning of Spirit. Spirit in English from the Latin Spiritus from the Greek Pneuma from the Hebrew Ruach And it means Wind! The wind is powerful, but it’s unfixated and attenuated. It is There. But it is not there” Behold the bright, shining mug of the guy who I like to quote when he said, “At first, every retreat (or in this case Ceremony) changes you. And then every sit changes you. Until every single moment changes you” — informed and transformed by your true nature.
Struggling to put it all into words now, I realize how intensely personal my takeaways and so many of these experiences are. But I’m glad for this public post for a few reasons. Mostly that the vision I’ve held — for others to have the same chance I had, to heal, to become well — is a reality. This story also answers a frequently asked question on our web site, that being: ‘Who are the teachers at The Higher Haven?” A: mainly the guy on the left above, who lifted it all from the guy on the right, added the teachings of a Sicangu Lakota Heyoka, and then topped it all off with the singular Soul Psychology of Master Teacher John Ashbrook, who you’ll read about in the next post and who’ll visit again in May.
As to change, after a terrifically successful year of growth that at times felt a bit overwhelming, oh, I think a change (a change would do us good), so we’re taking our own healing medicine and time to renew, as we do every year at Shinzen’s year-end/beginning retreat, soon zoomed from his University of Arizona home. And we’re back on this blog with regularity, of course continuing with the testimonials we love and deeply appreciate, along with so many new stories to both take in and tell, and finally a bit of time to tell them. Toksha