I just returned home from a 10 day "Spirit Dance" at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona. www.treeoflife.nu. Actually, the dance was on state owned land just outside of the Tree of Life. The first four days were "preparation" which consisted of camping, preparing the dance site, as well as ourselves. We really had been preparing for the dance with a 40 day vegan diet, no chemicals, daily meditation, etc The four days of the dance were spent water fasting, in total silence with no eye contact. We danced in 3 hour shifts twice a day. My "shift" was 6-9 PM and 6-9 AM, which was really the easiest. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed since it was a Native American ceremony. The whole idea of the Spirit Dance is to call forth the Spirits for peace. After fasting and having no outside communication for four days, no conversation and no eye contact, you kind of go into an altered state of consciousness and are able to be in tune with the Spirits. I had some interesting conversations with my neighbor the spider, as well as bears, coyotes, my "dead" and live animals and "dead people". I hear dead people... ha:)
Here is a picture of the front and back of my dress which was made by Roger Merritt www.MerrittAirBrushArt.com
While camping, the cows (actually bulls) were really interested in my tent. One of the bovines had on a large cow bell that kept me up all night as they rummaged around chomping loudly in my ear. I was just thankful they didn't trample my tent... with me in it. All in all it was an amazing experience, and I always come away from my Tree of Life experiences with amazing reverence for life in general.
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Here is our Inipi tent. Two Inipi's (sweat lodges) a day with 2-4 rounds each was pushing me to the brink, I will say.
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The images on the dress are how the Spirits see you when you are dancing. I had my horse Handy to remind me of him as well as all horse energy, a Native American clown for fun, my doodles which when I looked them up had to do with the maiden, mother and crone, as well as infinity, Earth on the front with all of the peace symbols I could think of around it, my cat Miss Kitty to represent all cat energy, my medicine bag filled with love, health, and abundance, a serpent on the back which is my Native American totem having to deal with spirituality and healing, bear paws so that I could be embraced by Bear Energy while dancing, several alchemical symbols such as agrimony which has animal tendencies, copper which is feminine, magnesium which is almost impossible to extinguish when ignited which represents the unextinguishable light in all, phosphorous... light and airy, and to balance out the feminine energy was a Ken Rune which is the Celtic symbol for passion and war. There were others such as a cactus flower which is the Native American symbol for romance and lastly the Lakota Souix symbol for tortoise.... connected to the Earth... newborn babies, with a Jasmine flower in the middle, below it a Vietnamese flag. On the back is a Ganesh Yantra to remind me about "ease"..... I could go on.... but those are the main ones. Dylan is the little neighbor boy in the photo next to me. He wanted to be in the picture, too, as well as my dog, Spirit.
