Our April Ceremonial Overnight

When my friend Chuck received a text of the image above, he wrote back: “Nice! How are you firing those beauties up? On the Grill?” It seems my photo of porous, Sonoran Desert, Arizona lava rocks was mistaken for thick slabs of Ribeye, ready to be stoked up proper in an early spring barbecue. Interestingly, the cooking actually still occurred, as these rocks safely hold heat after being Ceremonially arranged and then roasted for hours in a sacred fire. That’s why we bring them back cross-country in the bed of our pickup truck annually, and then bring them back to life, reigniting the original energy of their orange-red, glorious, lava flow glow. We then draw upon their primal, earthly essence in a revitalizing experience of spiritual purification, as done by indigenous people for tens of thousands of years before us.

As to the actually happenings, words often limit the experience. This we can convey, with confidence: every participant in this weekend’s Ceremony had their own direct experience with the truth of the spiritual source of life, making for some very significant transformations from Saturday afternoon intentions to Sunday morning realizations. As to discerning what is true for oneself and the freedom that flows from that understanding, it’s already been said: know the truth, and the truth will set you free. “Even if these (the people there present) were silent,” Jesus went on to declare in Luke 19:40,” the very stones will cry out.” While maybe not speaking of sweat lodge stones from the Judaean Desert , this is a statement communicating that whether you acknowledge the truth or not, the truth still stands on its own accord.

If all this has you very curious, very confused, or somewhere in-between, we’ll be doing it again in May, and once a month throughout the remainder of 2023. So for those of you looking to turn things around in your lives in a healing, Heyoka way, Hokahey, let’s go, come out and join us, as we gather in praise and gratitude for the difficult, precious gifts that are our lives on earth. We’ll look forward to seeing you soon, and until then, will close for now with Lillian and Carrie’s take on their recent weekend stay Wopila Pilamaye.

“Simply ~ Thank You! This retreat gave me hope and peace. I have made some wonderful connections with my ancestors as well as total strangers. Please keep doing this! You’re helping to heal the world one person at a time and giving us the tools to take out into the world and help others. Thank you ~ Love & Blessings, CK “04/23/2023 Aho Matakuye O’yasin! I released fear, doubt, and the separate self that had laid a veil over my eyes. I see and feel with clarity now, and am committed to make fear a memory and this ceremony the ongoing Now. Deep healing and transformation for me was helped by the other wonderful souls called to take part in this weekend ~ May our paths meet again. ‘New thoughts ~ New Life’. To you reading this, all things are possible, and I am with you.” ~ LW

On Our 2023 Winter Noble Silence Meditation Retreat Weekend

We’ve taken a short pause in our Vietnamese programming to plug back in and review our first successful retreat of the 2023 season. When I read the Bùi Giáng post below to my Teacher John Ashbrook, who’ll return soon in May for our next Comprehensive Spiritual Development Retreat Weekend, his comment was, “Cool. A little bit of esoteric is always good!” Then I woke up Thursday morning to the steady gaze of a local Barred Owl, our nocturnal, feathered friend also known as The Higher Haven’s mascot, often heard but never before seen. Known informally as the classic Hoot Owl or Eight-Hooter Owl, its also called the Striped Owl, its banded streaks clearly seen here. As John is fond of reminding me, everything in this life is a reflection of some greater spiritual significance. And drawing on my experiences with my Lakota Heyoka Teacher, I’m a healer who is still learning how to see in the darkness, always watching for and heeding those subtle signs, as they turn one’s attention inward. The Barred Owl points to our intuitive knowing, realizing the Spirits are calling, and although subtle and quiet, like the soft feathered beat of its wings in the forested night, we listen for and learn to trust that gentle voice of our inner intuition.

We had a great, hard working little group here at the start of March, and considering our Noble Silence Meditation Retreat (NMSR) Weekends are offered quarterly, we’ll be gathering together again for our Spring NMSR the weekend of June 9th — June 11th. Here’s new student but also experienced meditator Sue, who I affectionately dubbed Sioux, on the benefits of her wonderful Winter weekend visit:

“The Winter Noble Silence Meditation Retreat Weekend that I attended in March 2023 was everything I thought it could be and so much more.  I had never attended a silent retreat with a group and wasn't sure what to expect.  Paul and his team took great care to ensure that each of us had all we needed to get the most out of the weekend.  I felt comfortable and safe the entire time, which is of utmost importance.  The lodging was warm, comfortable and the food was clean and filling - perfect for a weekend of self-reflection and extended meditations.  The land, which we spent many hours strolling about during our meditation walks, was pristine and quiet.  The perfect setting for relaxation and peace.   I was especially affected by my ability to meditate comfortably for long periods of time thanks to the care Paul took to structure our agenda. We had plenty of breaks and also plenty of ‘work’ which we were gently eased into without any pressure. 

Being a regular practitioner of meditation, I not only learned more about myself through the process of being silent at this retreat, but I learned so much more about this beautiful process along with new techniques and philosophies. I found Paul to be a noble, warm and genuine person with a deep and abiding commitment to the work and all of mankind.  It was a true honor spending time with him and each guest.  Although we did not verbally communicate much, I connected with each person on the soul level and will be forever grateful for our time together. I recommend this program for anyone - be it a new meditator or a seasoned one.  Everyone can become transformed through this experience.  I know that I was." ~ Sioux 3/23

On Flowers and Grass and the great Vietnamese Poet Bùi Giáng

We’re back now, after our 2,023 mile drive from our home away from home in Cave Creek, Arizona, as well as our 23-hour flight time from our home away from home away from home, the otherworldly land of Việt Nam. Hoping to bring a bit of VN’s pháp thuật (magic) back with us, I picked up this quirky woody piece on the streets of Hoi An, drawn to its happy countenance, but not thinking much more of it, other than it’d look cool on one of The Higher Haven’s wooded walkways. Not surprising, there’s more depth to the câu chuyện (story).

“Is this picture taken at your place Brother?” asked the great Nguyen Ba Phuc. “You should use a stick of wood instead of the nail to hang the spirit. Use the nail to make a bigger hole and put a stick of wood into it” (note: always respect, respect, respect when it comes to the sensitive world of the spirit). Then, a short time later: “Do you know who is the bamboo root statue that you have there? That is the famous Vietnamese poet Bùi Giáng’.” Tuyet Voi ~ Wonderfu! I was delighted this figurehead was actually an artistic nod to a prolific Viet poet.

Soon after his long distance, mini text interrogation, Phuc sent over a link to Flowers and Grass: poet Bùi Giáng. Me: “Cam on (thank you) Brother. What does Mia Nguôn mean in translation?” Phuc: “Mua = Rain. Nguõn = Source, origin, or root, Nguõn here understood as the source of a river. All rivers originate from streams in the mountains or highlands and run to a delta before being absorbed by the sea. Mua Nguõn then is rain at the source of the river, making a strong flow of water to the delta. So Mua Nguõn is understood as a powerful stream of Bùi Giáng poems that flow into and uplift Vietnamese culture.”

With thanks to blogs like Hanoi Ink’s old books and dirty fingers, a bit about this poet, scholar, philosopher, literary critic, translator, and essayist, a goat herder who would neither sell nor kill his goats, and a beatnik wanderer. Bùi Giáng was born in Quảng Nam in 1926 and spent his youth in the Central provinces, attending university in Huế to study literature and later serving in the military. In the early 1950s he began to publish criticism on The Tale of Kiều, and relocated to Sài Gòn in 1959. In 1962, he published the volume Rain in the Mountains (Mưa Nguồn), and brought out three more volumes of poetry in the following year. In 1965 his writings were lost when a fire consumed his house, yet he continued to publish essays and translations, focusing particularly on the work of Martin Heidegger and French existentialist authors, including Albert Camus and André Gide.

Beginning in the late 1960s, Bùi Giáng experienced what he characterized to a friend (Thích Nguyên Tạng, who recorded their conversation of 1993) as “brilliant madness” (điên rực rỡ) For several years he wandered in the southern provinces, returning to Sài Gòn in 1971, two years later completing a translation of Antoine de St.-Exupery’s Le Petit Prince, the well-loved story, despite its style as a children’s book, of a young prince who addresses themes of loneliness, friendship, love, loss. and human nature. Poet Linh Dinh notes “After 1975 he slept in a squalid shack next to a turgid pond.” As the author Hai-Dang Phan suggests, Bùi Giáng’s “vagrant life, unconventional poems, and copious translations” might qualify him as “the closest thing Vietnam has ever produced to a beatnik poet.” Bùi Giáng died in HCM in 1998.

Scratching about, I even found the great Vietnamese monk and teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh reference Bùi Giáng, this excerpt from his book Enjoying The Ultimate: “This means there is nothing higher than the path that leads to the silence of nirvāna. Silence does not mean there is no sound, but that there are no ideas of being and non-being, brith and death. The poet Bùi Giáng wrote in a poem: ‘We step across words that have fallen twice’. ‘We step across’ here means we step across the threshold of dualism. Thanks to looking deeply, ideas like being, nonbeing, birth and death fall away and reality appears.” When we do a walking meditation in the steps and spirit of Thích Nhất Hạnh at our Noble Silence Meditation Retreats, we touch that very reality.

Despite Bùi G.’s long sojourn in the city, his poems are primarily, even insistently, works about nature, Mưa Nguồn “evoking nature’s pristine beauty in an idiom that is not just romantic, but mythic.” We’ll leave you with this version of Cỏ Hoa Hồn Du Mục (Nomadic Soul of Flowers and Grass) and with the 2023 retreats and Ceremonies posted, hope you’ll visit soon. Perhaps you’ll catch a lil’ vision for your own happiness as well as catch sight of Bùi Giáng.

Nghe trời đổ lộn nguyên khê
Tiếng vàng rụng rớt gieo về động xanh
Gót chân khơi rộng bóng cành
Nhịp vang đầu núi vọng thành lũy siêu
Thời gian chắc bước bên chiều
Khóc sông bến lạ mưa chiều sớm xuân
Cỏ hoa từ bỏ ruộng đồng
Hồn du mục cũ xa gần hử em

Hear the sky and gushing fenster blend
Golden sounds fall into a verdant void
Heel-dug hollow in the shadow of branches
Reverberating to the peaks, echoing to the ramparts
Time treads firmly in the gloom of ending day
Tears flow at an unfamiliar pier; late rain in early spring
Flowers and grass forsake their meadows
The ancient nomadic spirit is everywhere my love.