Weather: The new Normal

As we get ready to start on our journey across parts of Texas in response to a call for ceremony, to hopefully get assistance for the extended heat wave and drought that is currently scorching much of the central United States, I wanted to share some of the information with you all that will help you in your participation in this event.

First, why are we doing it? It is not just because there is a desperate need for relief here, that would apply to much of the US right now for many reasons. Drought, flooding, extended heat waves, (today we are at day 38 of continuous plus 100 deg. F in this area of Texas) destruction from winds, storm, tornadoes…and soon hurricanes. So, once again, why here and why now?

The answer is simple, but also the key to understanding the nature of all effective ceremony. This intervention was not instigated by me or any other human, but by Spirit through the messenger of the Sacred Pipe. As with all ceremonies that I conduct with this ancient Sacred Pipe, I wait until I receive directions and information before I attempt to set out on such a course. I began to feel the tug of the messenger about a month ago, a tug that I have become familiar with. Trust me, the last thing I wanted to do during August was to take a trip to Huston Texas…I live in the mountains of N.W. Montana where today the temperatures are in the high 70’s…not the 108 plus we are experiencing here today. But, when the boss says go I go.

So I began to pray and ask for guidance as to the timing of the trip and through circumstance, coupled with inspiration, bought the ticket to fly down. There have been several confirmations to encourage me that we are at the right place at the right time to do this ceremony. (I want to invite you if you have not already heard it, to listen to my teaching about how to release the full power of ceremony. You can find a free recording to download or listen to at this web site, http://www.jimtree.com/booksandrecordings.html just scroll down to recording # 4 and enjoy)

So now that you know what is required to have a powerful and effective ceremony, let me give you some more understanding of the history and workings of a “Traveling Pipe Ceremony.” Remember, Nicholas Black Elk of the Lakota said decades ago, “The power of a ceremony is in the understanding of it.”

There are many different kinds of Sacred Pipe ceremonies; most where you smoke the Pipe right after you fill it. But there are some where you fill it and then put a plug in the bowl to protect the prayers that have been put into it because you will not be finishing the ceremony by smoking it until sometime later. Examples of this kind of ceremony would be during a Sundance, some sweat lodges and what we call a traveling ceremony. (In the old days it was called a walking ceremony because after filling the Pipe it would be carried to the final destination by someone who took special care to not let the Pipe come apart or that any of the mix in the bowl might spill out. The Pipe was not carried on horseback because of the increased chance of a mishap.)

In this particular traveling ceremony, we will fill the Black Thunder Pipe, a Pipe that is directly connected the the Thunder Beings who control the weather for the Great Mystery, at the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, TX., where the bowl will be plugged with sage after it has been touched to the ocean. This is to connect the ocean water with the Pipe which will, as we travel on, connect to the sky water and then to the earth water. (The ceremony ends after we smoke the Pipe near Austin on Sunday morning and touch the tip of the bowl to water that comes up from the aquifer there in a special sink hole that has been a sacred site for centuries.)

It is important that we know who we are teamed up with in the spirit realm when we are doing ceremonies like this. In this case the spirit that has been assigned by the Great Mystery to assist us is one known as the 5^th wind, or the whirlwind. The Thunder Beings are in several different forms, all being what are often called contrary spirits. There is a name for them in every tribe, The Lakota call them Heyoka, the southwest tribes call them Hohocum, the Tsalagi (Cherokee) call them the "Ayvdaqualosgv". No matter what the name, they all work with the weather in various capacities. The whirlwind is the younger brother to the 4 winds of the 4 cardinal directions. Those winds are stable and only come with specific jobs from their assigned direction. i.e North wind brings the winter wind, etc.

The 5^th wind however has no assigned direction or defined action. He comes in the form of the dust devil, the tornado, the cyclone and the hurricane. He comes from where ever he wants and travels in whatever direction he wants. I believe this is why he has been assigned to help us. We need unusual intervention with the weather. We need gentle continuous rains and winds to cleans and refresh the scorched land. We do not need, from our human perspective, a hurricane but it is not up to us what to even pray for. This is directed by Spirit as well. So, we do not come to the ceremony with preconceived ideas of the outcome, but to take our part along side of the spirits that will attend, the 5^th wind in particular, and add our part of being in harmony with the great circle of life.

As a form of confirmation and encouragement from the Great mystery, there is a group of people up in Montana that held a drumming group last Sunday. At my request they drummed the prayers for the ground water in Texas and asked for assistance from the 5^th wind. They were in a teepee up in the mountains and there was no wind outside. As they drummed the prayers into our mother earth there was a dust devil suddenly just outside the door of the Teepee, a very good sign.

So as you prepare to join in on the privilege of being part of the traveling ceremony I want to remind you to have a humble attitude and be sensitive to nature for direction in your individual part of this ceremony. Follow your intuition and the confirmations shown through nature all around you. It takes all of us doing and saying the right thing at the right time to have a good effect on this situation. Please be encouraged to write in your comments and massages received to this blog site so we all can share in your contribution.

In closing I will share a bit of the recent history of the Thunder Pipe and some traveling ceremonies that we have done.

7 year drought in Colorado, Montana and Arizona. In the spring of 2003 I was directed to do a traveling ceremony for Montana because of the drought there. I loaded the Pipe up on the Flathead reservation at the canyon where the Thunder Bird has her nest, plugged the bowl and traveled 200 miles south to a spot on the Bitterroot River just south of the Great Medicine Tree of the Salish. I finished the ceremony there by smoking the Pipe while standing in the river then touching the bowl into the river and pointing the stem to the sky to re-connect the earth water to the sky water. I was told that it would start to rain in 48 hours and would continue until fall. It did.

In the summer of 2005 the Midwest was in a drought. I was told to go to the annual Gathering of the Pipe keepers in Pipestone Minnesota in late July and teach anyone I met who were called by the Thunders the ceremony I was given to seek for rain. Usually at a gathering like this there might be 1 or 2 people who have been called by the Thunders, through dreams or being struck by lightning or who have died and come back. There were 11 there! We gathered by the 3 maidens at the sacred quarries and I passed on the template of the ceremony as it was given to me.

We all filled our thunder pipes and then plugged them to travel back to our home in every direction, one all the way to Hawaii. The clouds formed as we left and it rained for some days in Minnesota, but the clouds also followed every one home except for a woman who lived where they were having flooding. In her area the rains stopped and the floods went away, in every other case the rains came to the drought areas and refreshed the land.

Of course there was the big drought in Australia several years ago, the worst in over 100 years. I suggest you watch the u tube video about that one to save my poor fingers from typing anymore. http://www.jimtree.com/australia_video.html

The point is that this ceremony today is another that the great Mystery has called for and we are being asked to take part. Let’s do our part and contribute the unique gifts that we have been given to bring balance out of ciaos, if it is not too late.

In closing I feel I must say that even though we are asking for rain and cooler temps, also for moderation in the upcoming hurricane season, it must be realized that the weather over the last 2 years in now the new NORMAL! We will have to adapt but this is also a way for us to learn how we as a race can help shape the new normal.