Winter Solstice 2007
Earth Changes

As we mark the Winter Solstice and the beginning of the return of the Sun into the Northern Hemisphere, it is important that we rejoice and celebrate the peace and beauty in our lives. I remember 25 years ago talking to the old medicine men and women and hearing how important it was to get the message out that Mother Earth is in danger. Back then it was important to spread the bad news. Today everyone knows that the glaciers are receding and that the planet is in peril. Today it is important that we spread the good news, that our prayers and our actions are making a difference, and that the Earth is healing.

When I read the papers I sometimes find it hard to hard to discover the good news. I remind myself that we have to be the bearers of good tidings. I remember that every prophecy is self-fulfilling, and that even the prophecies of the Inka, the Maya, and the Hopi speak about the dawn of a millennium of gold. I remind myself that we are dreaming our world  into being with every thought that we hold about the future and I purposely start each day with a moment of beauty and a thought of hope in my heart.

This Winter Solstice occurs at midnight on December 21. I would like to invite you to join me and many shamans around the world in prayer around a fire on that evening. It doesn’t have to be exactly at midnight. It can be at any time. Even if you can only light a candle, spend a few minutes and unite your vision for a healed, holy and peaceful world with your family and the entire human family. There will be healers in Africa, Aboriginal shamans
in Australia, medicine women in the Himalayas, and people throughout the Americas praying for peace.

The medicine men and women believe that the new shamans, the new Earthkeepers, will come from the West.  They are us, you and I. And our prayers and ceremonies can make a tremendous difference in the quality of life and love that we will experience in 2008.

Many blessings for the coming New Year!

Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D.

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A Season of Thanks

I remember my first trip to Peru and climbing the mountain Pachatuscan. As in all of the Four Winds trips we traveled with the Laika, or the medicine men and women.  As we walked, mainly up, there was a woman who was out of shape and struggling with the altitude.  At that time there was no road, and 12,000 feet elevation feels incredibly high when you can’t breathe.

The Laika walked with us and we would all stop to give our prayers to the mountain with an offering.  Soon I realized we were not praying the normal Western way: “Great spirit, please help us and help this woman up the mountain,” but the prayer was of the medicine way, “Great spirit, thank you.”  “Thank you for getting us this far up the mountain.”

This way of praying, of honoring, of “Thank you, Thank you, Thank you” is the ritual and ceremony that allows us to come into balance with our families, our friends and ourselves.  When we engage in ceremony we are able to shift out of the drama, or personal story, into right relationship with the world at the level of the gods and archetypes.  The process is simple; bring your prayers, your gratitude, your honoring, and your vision and intent into ceremony, any ceremony. The key to the process is just to do it! What a gift to have the opportunity again and again this season to be in ceremony. Sit with Sprit and offer your gratitude, honoring, and prayers.  In this place of the sacred we rebirth our lives and dream the world into being.

With warm wishes for the New Year!

Linda Fitch