Posts Tagged With: Re-Membering Process

Your Identity in Metaphor

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Carla Woody

The instructor introduced an icebreaker. State your bio in six words. She asked for volunteers. Mine popped out.

Intrepid traveler living in two worlds.

Her eyes widened. Not the kind of thing you’d typically hear in a county courthouse jury room during child welfare training. But my fellow mediators didn’t miss a beat. They know me—at least to an extent.*

Metaphor seeks lodging in our interior differently than cursory words. Language when used at that level connects with the unconscious mind in such a way that it can inform wider awareness, indeed even act as a guide and attract the experiences that fulfill its significance. It is especially meaningful when it emerges through your own process rather than given to you. It’s an invitation I offer to folks I’m mentoring and who participate in spiritual travel programs: Note what metaphor takes up residence.

Apparitions

Apparitions
Mixed media on panel
©2014 Carla Woody

The afternoon icebreaker generated quite a degree of self-reflection that night. We weren’t asked to use metaphor but my mind naturally gravitated toward what it’s used to these days. I thought back to a time when I was asked to use metaphor, to reach inside and discover what emerged relative to spiritual path. We had already been in retreat several days, experiencing teachings and ceremonies. So I was not in the everyday world. I went off to be alone and sit with the tasking. I’m sure I wrote it down in a journal that has since been lost to time. But I’ve never forgotten what came.

 I am the crane whose wisdom runs swiftly under water…and rises with the waning of the silver moon.

It’s been close to 20 years since I attended Nine Gates Mystery School. It was a powerful experience during a time when I was radically re-aligning a life out of alignment with my deeper values. My core wisdom, that which we all have, did not show itself much back then. It lived in that watery place but did compel me to engage in opportunities that would bring me clarity, even if it seemed off base at the time. It’s a refinement process that wouldn’t have taken nearly that long had I my own spiritual mentor. In those days such a thing wasn’t prevalent.

I can’t tell you exactly when the revolutionary path—the chaotic one—smoothed out to the evolutionary one and found order of a sort. But I look up all these years later astounded to find myself an elder grounded in a life that conveys my values. For this I have gratitude.

That night of reflection I realized just how fully the metaphor from Nine Gates predicted an unfolding. I’ve felt something else hovering on the horizon for some time. It appears that an updated metaphor popped out at the slightest invitation, in an unlikely environment, emphasizing one meaning of “two worlds.” I can only wonder what else is in store—seen and unseen—and welcome it.

*****

An invitation to you:

Sit inside your deeper identity. Listen. Allow a metaphor to emerge.

 *****

*I’ve been doing conflict mediation as a sideline for close to 30 years, the last 16 of them in that courthouse with a few cases a month, when I’m in town, to keep me on my toes.

Categories: Creativity Strategies, Gratitude, Meditation, Sacred Reciprocity, Spiritual Evolution | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Following Energy: The Key to Your Navigational System

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Carla Woody
Rio Paucartambo

Rio Paucartambo
Cusco Region, Peru
©1996 Carla Woody

Several years ago, my friend Hilary Bee, a professional intuitive and spiritual teacher in the UK, told me that I have a strong inner navigational system guiding me. Over time, I’ve learned to trust it implicitly—even when the next step is obscured from my vision.

I call this navigational system intent, and it produces a high frequency of energy. I recognize completely when it’s communicating a path I am to take, choices to make. I’ve learned to recognize the energetic language. Equally, I’ve come to know over time when I’m straying from the path, or it’s time for an evolutionary change. A totally different level of energy accompanies that alert—and a nagging feeling something isn’t right. Of course, taking that fork in the road may initially produce chaos until order—and realignment—produces a deeper order.

I offer you this poem by C. P. Cavafy and then a caveat.

Ordinary people know what’s happening now,

the gods know future things

because they alone are totally enlightened.

Of what’s to come the wise perceive

things about to happen.

Sometimes during moments of intense study

their hearing’s troubled: the hidden sound

of things approaching reaches them,

and they listen reverently, while in the street outside

the people hear nothing whatsoever.*

 While I agree with Cavafy in that the majority of people may be completely unaware, or at least ignore signals, you have an opportunity always to live according to the wisdom of the gods. It’s a fine-tuning process but completely available to you. It requires that you pay attention and then the courage to deviate from any beaten path, sometimes to follow what you can’t readily see.

Here’s a rather dramatic example from my own life. Several years ago, I sponsored two back-to-back programs in Peru. During just one spiritual travel journey the energy is always strong from ceremonies, resident energy in sacred sites and more. With an additional one under my belt and little break between, the veil between the worlds had grown quite thin for me.

After the last group left for home, I was sitting in an Internet café in Cusco. It was the time of Inti Raymi, the festival of the sun, which transforms this usually placid former Incan Empire capital into masses of revelers, huge numbers coming from other locations. I knew that many pickpockets came from Lima to take advantage of the tourists during this time. Consequently, I took precautions. I carefully sat on my coat with my passport and money secured in an inside zipped pocket while I focused on email neglected for several days.

I had been at it for some time with people at computers on either side of me coming and going without any real attention on my part. But then I sensed something, noticing only the color green in my peripheral vision, and went back to my emails. Then again, slight movement out of the corner of my eye. A loud internal voice—not mine—said, Look down! I followed suit. My coat was hanging open, the inner pocket unzipped with passport and money gone!

Literally with no thought in my mind and seeing nothing to go after, I was out of my seat in a split second and onto the street thronged with thousands. Instead of raising a cry with no information to relay, something caused me to turn immediately into the small travel agency next to the Internet café. My hands had a life of their own, clamping onto the arms of two men standing just inside the agency, waiting in line. In a loud authoritative voice I stated, “My money and my passport! My money and my passport!”

They faced me then with shock on their faces as I continued to make the same demand. Both struggled in my grasp; my hands had become pincers of steel. Travel agents and other customers began to turn and get up from seats. The two men managed to turn me toward the entrance in their efforts to be free. One finally managed to duck out the door saying something to the other one, who slipped out of his jacket, leaving it in my hands.

Dropping it, I started to go after the pair but heard a woman’s voice saying, “Are these yours?” She held my passport, money pouch and the green jacket. I thanked her, as well as the others who had risen to aid me. Then I returned calmly to the café and resumed my correspondence.

That night I had a dream: Someone gifted me with a puma.**

As we entrain with a higher vibrational frequency, light energy doesn’t allow us to doubt or contract in fear. It is supreme and grounded. It has peripheral vision. Salk’a—as they call undomesticated energy in the Andes—induces clarity without thought, compassionate detachment and the warrior’s action. This is a state of being we can maintain.

I have a personal tradition. Either during winter or in the first days of spring I seek to remind myself of this Salk’a journey and store further inspiration for the long haul. I want to offer my tradition to you: Watch another of Cavafy’s poems, Ithaca, beautifully set to the music of Vangelis and the resonance of Sean Connery’s voice. This one I fully ascribe to.

********

“Poem by C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992.

**Known as puma in Peru, we also know this sleek animal as jaguar, cougar or mountain lion. In the Indigenous Andes, it represents how to effectively navigate the Kaypacha, or Middle World, the one we walk in our everyday life.

Categories: Energy Healing, Healthy Living, Indigenous Wisdom, Spiritual Evolution, Spiritual Travel | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

Far Vision and the Long Run

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Carla Woody

Several years ago I heard a program on NPR’s Morning Edition interviewing a former Israeli Army officer about his interactive computer game called PeaceMaker. The game’s setting is the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This is what caught my attention: He said it was about “winning peace.”

There are two roles: the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President. You can even take both sides and play “against” yourself, entering into different worldviews and available resources. Crisis situations inspired by real events are presented for a decision. There are political advisors who try to persuade to their side—hawk or dove. So it’s about decision-making and strategies. But the most interesting thing is that it shows the effect of the decision—and how the impact of that one critical act may play out in the future! Not unlike a process I often take clients through when they’re at some important juncture in their lives.

They did a short demo during the interview. The host chose to play the Israeli Prime Minister. A skirmish popped up. The advisors hovered. What to do? After a bit of indecision, the host decided he’d send in the army in the name of security—the hawk’s advice. It worked…for a moment. Almost immediately red lights lit up in a number of places on the map. His decision had sparked other crises! Then he was presented with the dire conditions Palestinian civilians were suffering as a result of his decision.

What to do? He took the dove’s advice this time and sent aid. But wait. The Palestinians rejected it. They didn’t trust the move. Look what he did just a short time ago. And so it goes…you don’t win in this game, or any other for that matter, unless the outcome is balanced for both sides. The inventor said losing and frustration are part of the lesson.

We have to learn to do it differently—for all concerned—until competition becomes moot. A one-sided gain never works in the long run. It’s really about acquiring far vision, following a decision out to the horizon line as much as we can.

San Francisco Peaks

San Francisco Peaks sacred to the Native people of Arizona. This view from my own sanctuary inspires me to maintain the far vision every day.

In 2009 I was in Santa Fe at a conference put on by the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples Foundation. I heard many stories about outside impacts endangering Native lifeways. A Zuni farmer from Northern Arizona talked about the challenge he was having keeping genetically engineered corn from blowing into his fields and pollinating his Native corn. The result would be stalks that grow higher but are broken by the wind—and the loss of their pure Native strain that had adapted well to the conditions of their land over centuries. For his people it’s not just about loss of crops and food but also loss of heritage, a spiritual connection.

Shortly after returning I saw the documentary The Future of Food, largely about genetically engineered food and its effect, not only on health but heritage, and the absurd greed of large corporations. You see, these corporations have been allowed to patent their seed, a strange practice. There was a story about a farmer in the Midwest who, much like the Zuni farmer, was having trouble with Monsanto Corporation trucks passing on the highway blowing their corn into his fields. His family had developed their heritage corn over a couple of hundred years. He lost the battle. Not only did Monsanto’s corn cross-pollinate, he lost his family heritage in more ways than one. In a bizarre move, Monsanto sued him for patent infringement and won. Had such an outcome crossed the minds of scientists in the Monsanto labs who were developing the product? I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt but who knows. Since that film came out there have been a number of others with a similar story line.

The examples given here—warring countries, loss of traditions and ways of life—are very big issues. But we can have an impact at the micro level, every day in our own lives, that play into the macro level. Typically we’re untrained. Not many think of wider impact, through time. But if we take the opportunity to project our thoughts and potential actions on down the road and assess the likely outcome, we’d actually find we all have an innate sense of far vision.  We just need to stop, take a breath and then use it.

If you need it, perhaps you can find further inspiration from Neil Young.

***

I’m issuing you an invitation to make a statement for far vision. Participate in our January 31-February 1 Seed Wisdom events in Phoenix. Proceeds benefit the seed saving project founded by Grandmother Flordemayo of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers. Make an impact. If you’re unable to attend, please donate to the project. Every bit makes a difference.

Categories: Compassionate Communication, Healthy Living, Indigenous Rights, Sacred Reciprocity, Spiritual Evolution | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

How to Lose Your Mind and Regain Your Life

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Carla Woody
Americo Yabar and Carla

Don Américo Yábar and Carla in 1996 at the Yábar ancestral home outside Cusco.

Nearly 20 years ago, Andean mystic Don Américo Yábar looked me straight in the eyes and advised, “When you lose your mind, you’ll go far.”

I must have given him a blank look at the time, being so in my head as I was. It took me a while, but I finally caught on. It’s been my focus ever since to follow a path of integration. Not losing my mind completely though, I find that it does serve me in certain ways to navigate this culture.

It’s more about losing the smallness the habitual conscious mind often demands. It provides rationalizations that can keep us in our “place” through habit; or the part of us that wants to control—which we all have to some degree—that loves the hard edges of logic and facts. We miss so much if we think things must be seen and known in order to believe they exist.

There’s an aspect within any of us that generates resistance when we consider a larger life than the one we’ve been living, to align fully with the Core Self. That’s because we’d step outside boundaries, ways that are known. That’s a normal response. But it’s only through opening to what is out of habit that we move beyond what has held us back, grow and discover what’s possible.

No invention or transformative process has ever come from thinking inside the box.

Rio Paucartambo Cusco Region, Peru ©1996 Carla Woody

Rio Paucartambo
Cusco Region, Peru
©1996 Carla Woody

My work is with folks who want to live through their deeply held values. A while back I was mentoring someone right upon the threshold, ready to move into transition. She knew the direction she needed to go. Yet, a part of her was petrified; she literally felt frozen in her body, unable to make a decision. We used a process that moved her into the reality she envisioned in order to try it out, well beyond all her worries. As she “looked back in time” she said, “Why was I so scared? Make it all such a big deal? It seems like nothing now.” With the portal established, she took the option her heart told her to take.

If we make decisions through the Core Self, where spiritual values and intent reside, choices are always pure. No subterfuge. No rationalization. Only what speaks of compassion, integrity and unconditional being. Only what’s most beneficial for all concerned and contains clarity.

For me, it’s about following energy. It’s a felt sense. This is the part about losing my mind. I recognize when I’m once again at a crossroads, which can happen in any moment, and the true direction beckons. It’s compelling. I know it holds truth, even if I can’t put it into words. This is so whether it has to do with my work or personal life. The part about using my mind comes in very handy with grounding things into everyday reality, strategies to put something in place. I believe in integration—not either/or.

Interchangeably, I may refer to this portal to Cosmic Consciousness as the Infinite, Core Self, intent or place of the heart. You’ll have your own reference. It’s a felt sense of interconnection with All That Is. You develop the alliance by becoming your own Witness—gently catching yourself, fine-tuning your beliefs and resulting actions—then losing your mind to integration with the heart’s wisdom.  And repeat the process until there’s no need…because we’re human.

***

Note from Carla: If you find yourself consistently bumping up against blocks or clarity has taken a vacation, take a look at Navigating Your Lifepath. For over a decade, folks have made significant positive shifts in their lives using my program—and kept the changes.

Categories: Healthy Living, Personal Growth, Spiritual Evolution | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Common Threads Beyond Culture

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Carla Woody

With news of devastations in Syria and the US Government poised to take warring actions, I’m compelled to share these thoughts and send prayers toward peace.

Offering Photo credit: Carla Woody

Offering
Photo credit: Carla Woody

I traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia in 2005 where I had the privilege of presenting workshops and sitting on a roundtable discussion at the 13th Annual Conference on Conflict Resolution whose theme was “Engaging the Other.” Cosponsors were the Harmony Institute of St. Petersburg and Common Bond Institute located in Michigan, along with a whole list of multinational endorsers. Aside from Russia and the US, there were participants and presenters from Israel, Serbia, South Africa, Palestinian Authority and a number of other countries.

The roundtable where I was a panel member was entitled “The Other as Both Humankind’s Oldest, Most Resilient Foe and Our Shared Identity.” My workshop session introduced the “Re-Membering Process,” the model of spiritual evolution I developed, along with experiences of working with intent. In the parallel youth conference, I focused on cleaning the energy body with the teens.

My participation in this conference was a case of intuitive guidance. While I didn’t give it much thought beforehand, there was something inside me that said it was important to go. Once I got over the initial eleven-hour jet lag and began to immerse myself in the conference, I realized it was impacting me in a way I couldn’t articulate and certainly hadn’t expected. I had to sit with it for a time and allow the meaning to come in bits and pieces.

First, I recognized that twenty-five years ago this conference couldn’t have happened. I was in Moscow in the mid-1980s as a tourist when things were still shaky between the US and Russia. The atmosphere at that time was uncomfortable, to say the least. At the 2005 conference, people whose nations were current enemies, or foes in the recent past, were sitting side by side for learning, dialogue and some fun along the way. This was a progressive group of people who looked well beyond the politics of their respective countries.

Butterfly

Photo: Carla Woody

My next realization was the contrast between my focus, alignment of the individual in order to make a difference, and the majority of other workshops, which were dealing with the traumas and ravages of war, extreme social strife and disease. I quickly noted how removed my own life is from such things. I’ve had my challenges but nothing like what these presenters were discussing. I began to wonder if what I had to share would have value in those cultures experiencing such high degrees of discord.

I told the workshop group that I knew the “Re-membering Process”* to be true in my own culture. But I didn’t know if it would be valid for them and invited them to give me feedback. As I led them through the phases of spiritual evolution that I had identified, the issues that tended to arise and the path of progression, I saw a lot of heads nodding in agreement.

A number of people shared their stories. But one woman’s story in particular was quite moving. She came from an area of Russia that had a long history of hostilities. She said her grandparents had been killed and her father was jailed for many years. She gave examples of her own suffering through those times. Through tears, she then stated that the “Re-Membering Process” was true for nations as well as individuals. It gave her hope as she could identify her own progression and that of her country. Later when I led a guided imagery, meant to take the group into the Core Self and experience intent, she experienced an energetic opening, as did others, never having done so before.

The outcome of that workshop deepened a certain meaning for me. There is indeed a common thread that runs through us all. We want the same things. Some of us find ourselves in horrific situations in which we feel helpless and hopeless. Yet there is a resident resilience in the human spirit that whispers to us: Something else exists.

Yes. We need to get through the traumas of war. But then what? Dialoguing alone won’t do it—and further aggression won’t either. To leave the times of war behind, whether the conflict is internal or external, micro or macro, we must experience the possibility of spiritual evolution—and connect to it. As we step into Core Essence and remain even remotely aligned to it, we positively affect ourselves but also others. The results can then blow like a strong wind across all lands. I believe it.

***

 *Note: The “Re-Membering Process” is thoroughly described in my book Standing Stark. To learn more about this annual conference, see Common Bond Institute.

Categories: Compassionate Communication, Healing, Spiritual Evolution | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Dream Is the Reality

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Carla Woody

Dreams are usually pushed aside—meaningless, inconsequential snippets of brain junk that visit us in the night when our defenses are down. Don’t be so fast to dismiss them. Under certain conditions, they are only too relevant. If you don’t pay attention, then you miss the message and actual guidance.

As Above, So Below ©2012 Carla Woody

As Above, So Below
©2012 Carla Woody

When I’m mentoring people I suggest they be aware of their dreams in the course of our work together. Most say they don’t remember them at all, or they slip away so quickly it’s like grasping at clouds. The same is true for me. However, when I’m in the midst of deep transformation, dreams become more than memorable. They’re emblazoned on my consciousness and part of my evolutionary process. This is also true for those who enlist me to help guide their process.

I take time in the beginning of our session for a check-in, an opportunity for folks to relay insights or things that have come up since the last time. What emerges is often a direct communication from the unconscious on where to focus—and we hit pay dirt. Here’s a case in point. I’m changing the name to protect my client’s privacy. Grace said she’s happy to have her story shared in case it helps someone.

At the tail end of our check-in, Grace mentioned she’d had a dream that morning. She spoke about “not getting up right.” I immediately noticed her agitation. She told the small pieces she remembered and added that the dream had awakened her, leaving her disoriented and angry. Strong emotions were evident as she spoke. She said she felt betrayed. I was clear this was a message from a part of her we had been working with that was now ready to release a pattern. With permission, I stabilized the bodily felt sensations attached to the emotions in order to use them as guidance, going back to the originating occurrence. Almost immediately, she returned to the age of two awakening in a similar manner as the dream but with emotions that were intense. I’m going to preserve the details of the situation but will offer this. The incident wasn’t a severe trauma in the way we might think of it. However, it was traumatic in the sense of a two-year-old perceiving no options, feeling trapped.  That perception had affected her all her life in ways that held her back and kept her stuck. The dream was the message that allowed us to reframe the past incident and open a future toward freedom of movement and options that she’s not experienced before. She later told me that she knew about that incident, hadn’t thought of it in a long time, and hadn’t seen it important. Obviously, a part of her did.

Dreamtime and the Vision Serpent ©2013 Carla Woody

Dreamtime and the Vision Serpent
©2013 Carla Woody

In many Native traditions, dreams are interchangeable with daily reality. One bleeds over to the other. Children learn how to behave in their dreams without their parents teaching them. Medicine people receive their calling. Ritual musicians learn to play their instruments. Weavers receive requests from saints for new vestments. Warnings come. All of these things are received through dreams and given relevance.

In my new novel Portals to the Vision Serpent, a Maya woman receives her calling this way.

“For me, it started like this. When I was thirteen years old I had a dream. I was walking through my village like I was going somewhere, and I needed to be there fast. But every place I passed, it wasn’t the place I was supposed to be. Then suddenly the road wasn’t dirt anymore. It turned into a creek, and I was floating along, being taken with the waters. But it was gentle. I wasn’t afraid. I could see there were many fish in the creek swimming all around me. And still the water took me past many houses. My mother was there when I went by, and she smiled at me. I saw my grandmother, too, and other women. More and more came and stood by the banks of the creek as I floated by, until I was no longer in my village.” Her eyes grew moist.

“Something woke me up then. I opened my eyes. And the room was glowing—a beautiful blue! I wanted to tell my sisters, but I saw they were asleep. And then in the corner of the room, I saw a woman in a long dress. But it was hazy, like I was seeing her underwater. Her hair was wrapped in a cloth. There was white light all around her and when she moved, this light moved. She came over to my bed right there and reached out her hand like she would touch me. And the light came from her hand, and I felt it with my whole body, like such a love came to me that I have never felt. I feel it now when I tell you this. And we stayed like that, she and I, for what seemed to be a long time. Still my sisters slept. And I knew something was happening just for me. Slowly she disappeared, and then the blue glow left. It was just the bedroom again.”

Doña Flora’s eyes shone, her face serene. Her body radiated, the very act of recounting her calling activated a luminescence that only became stronger with the silence she now held. Tears leapt from Sybilla’s eyes but, transfixed, she didn’t reach to wipe them away. After a time, Doña Flora shifted in her chair and spoke softly, “Yes, this is how it first happened.”

Now, an interesting thing happened related to this excerpt. Shortly after I’d written this chapter a well-known Wisdom Keeper came to stay in my home for a few days. Over breakfast, she recounted how her calling came, very similar to the waking dream that I had written, down to the blue glow. The synchronicity is astounding to me. I also believe that, sometimes, the dream is relayed through writing, just another channel.

Over the years, the night dreams I remember have served me well. They’ve foretold a path I’d take, attempted to warn me off another and repeatedly kept me on track. They’ve lent metaphoric meaning to the past and future in ways my conscious mind doesn’t always grasp but a deeper aspect does. When they’ve chosen to show themselves in a way that I can recall, they serve as allies on a path that is sometimes invisible.

We need to be intuitive enough to heed the guidance and the way it points. The dream is the reality.

***

What are some ways you’ve received important messages in your dreams? I invite you to share them in the comments space below.

Categories: Healing, Indigenous Wisdom, Spiritual Evolution | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Film Review: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Carla Woody

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Documentary by Judy Irving

 Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Before I watched this documentary I thought it might be an interesting piece on wild parrots in an urban setting. It’s that but much more. Mark Bittner is a homeless man who began feeding the wild parrot flock around Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. Over time he was able to develop a relationship with the birds and cared for those who were injured or sick. He brought them into the small apartment where he was squatting until they were well, giving them names. Through the filmmaker’s lens, we’re able to experience their separate personalities. There’s Mingus, a cherry head, who loves to dance to the blues. And Connor with his quiet regal manner, a blue-crowned parrot in a flock of cherry heads, too many others to name here. I don’t want to give away too much.

At the heart of the story is how Mark found inner peace and his place in the world through service to the parrots. There may be a message for many of us in this poignant and inspiring film.

View short clips on You Tube. Available via Netflix, Amazon and elsewhere.

Categories: Film Review, Personal Growth, Sacred Reciprocity, Spiritual Evolution | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

New Book Release: Portals to the Vision Serpent

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Carla Woody

Portals to the Vision SerpentI am pleased to announce that my latest book has been released and is now available in trade paperback and/or Kindle versions in North America,  Europe and the UK. The Kindle version is also available in Japan, Brazil and India.

As with all my books, I’m donating 10% of profits from book sales to Kenosis Spirit Keepers, the nonprofit I founded to help preserve Indigenous wisdom traditions—like those featured in the novel. Know that if you’re drawn to read the book, you’re also supporting these important projects.

Description

Preston Johns Cadell is tormented. He attempts to outrun discontent and the void in his heart. His mother is hardly around. His father’s origins and disappearance are shrouded by family secrets. His sole remembrance of his father is flying through the stars nestled in his arms.

Any comfort Preston derives is from an unseen advisor who teaches him of the invisible world. Now he is coming of age. Memories arrive from long ago when a brown-skinned woman cared for him. But she, too, vanished. Finding the buried remains of his father’s altar, Preston must answer the draw to his destiny, to discover his lineage—even though he has no idea how or where it will lead him.

Portals to the Vision Serpent is a Hero’s Journey into the realms of shamanism and the Maya world. Interwoven are the struggles of indigenous peoples to preserve their way of life and tragedies that often come from misunderstandings. Through a family saga of dark wounds and mystery, spiritual healing unfolds.

Editorial Reviews

The search to find one’s True Self is a journey that often challenges cultural preconceptions and assumptions. Portals to the Vision Serpent takes this journey deep into the heart of the True People, delivering a story of longing and mystery woven like a story cloth between two worlds.

—Sharon Brown, Publisher, Sacred Fire Magazine

Bloodlines are story lines. In Portals to the Vision Serpent, Carla Woody invites the reader to explore the mysterious, ever-unfolding tale that each one must tell with our lives…one chapter at a time. Step into these pages. Invoke your true name. Re-member who you have always been.

—Jamie K. Reaser, author of Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life and Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out

Portals to the Vision Serpent is a transcendent spiritual adventure of a soul’s inner and outer journey into the rainforests of Guatemala and Mexico and brings awareness to the struggles of native people amidst the onslaught of cultural genocide.

—Matthew Pallamary, author of Land Without Evil

Other Books

Standing Stark Cover Trade paperback currently available in North America. (Watch for wider distribution soon.) Kindle ebook available in North America, Europe, Japan, India and Brazil.

Calling Our Spirits HomeCurrently available in trade paperback in North America. Wider distribution coming soon.

Categories: cultural interests, Healing, Lacandón Maya, Maya, Spiritual Evolution | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Tribute to Glenn Woody

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Carla Woody
Glenn Woody at 14 years old.

Glenn Woody
at 14 years old.

My father Glenn Woody was born into the Dust Bowl of Dalhart, Texas, up in what’s called “The Panhandle.” His mother succumbed to complications of childbirth shortly after, and his father was already an elder. Dad was the last of twelve, a good gap in years from the next youngest. His was not an easy childhood and nurturing was absent.

The family was literally dirt poor. I’d seen a few yellowed photos of a broken down, unpainted house set on bare ground with my grandfather, father, and what kids were still left at home, posing out front. But I really had no idea how dire the conditions until I was visiting my folks at their home in Ohio over Thanksgiving last year, and we watched The Dust Bowl, a documentary of those times by Ken Burns. That night my dad began telling about his growing up years, in a way he hasn’t done before. He’s a quiet man who keeps most of his thoughts to himself, the exception was his professional life. I’m glad he decided to open this line of communication.

Before my father’s time my grandfather was well-off, owning a six-hundred acre farm that he intended to divide equally and leave to his children. But the relentless winds and flying dirt endured through several years withering everything in sight, including the old man’s dreams. My grandfather finally picked up the family left at home and moved to Elkhart, in East Texas, where life was marginally better but not much. It sounds like, in the end, he was defeated.

I’m writing of these things because origins are important. The direction of my father’s future and outlook could have been repetitive of the household where he grew up. That’s what usually happens. But it wasn’t that way. I’ve just returned from another visit with my folks. We’ve been discussing family line in much detail. My mother told me that, in those early years of their marriage, my dad would tell her nothing was going to stand in the way of his success. To this day—at the age of eighty-one—tenacity is a major part of his make-up, integrity a partner. Those two qualities served him well and, as far as I can tell, he did indeed achieve those things in life that he deemed important.

Glenn and Sue

Glenn and Sue Woody during
an Air Force promotion ceremony.

He entered the Air Force as an enlisted man, got out, went to college and then law school. One of my earliest memories was of him studying, consistently. Dad returned to the Air Force and retired as a lieutenant colonel, choosing to end that leg of his career rather than accepting orders to Washington DC that would put him on the track to general officer. He went on to serve as a senior trial attorney in civilian service for almost an equal number of years. The accolades given him over the years were many in the places he served in-country and overseas. That’s about career.

Several months ago, Dad was interviewed for the Veterans History Project sponsored by the Library of Congress. Once the video has been edited it will be placed on his page with photos and more. A story he told in that interview really speaks to the kind of person he is. He talked about his time in Vietnam, something he has only started to do recently. He was stationed at Phan Rang, one of the most bombed air bases, and ran the legal office. His predecessor handed down a high rate of court martials related to drug charges, without consideration to severity of usage or situation. Not so with my father. He told the GIs he had no tolerance for hard drugs like heroin. With marijuana he’d give them one chance. He used reason and benefit of the doubt. Court martials were drastically reduced as a result. But I think the next disclosure touched me most. On Sundays, his only day off, he left the base and visited the troops in the outer reaches, physically got down in the trenches with them and asked after their welfare. That’s something that wasn’t in his charter—and put his own life in jeopardy in the course of doing so.

Dad and Carla

Dad and me during our
Summer 2012 vacation in Ireland.

My mother and I have always been of utmost importance to him. He calls us “his ladies.” And he has an affectionate but silly nickname for me that only a few of my closest friends know. We didn’t always get along. Particularly when I was a teenager, we butted heads. I’ve been told that, in some ways, my dad and I are alike. Tenacity is known to turn into stubbornness at times. We could hold our separate positions well if we had different ideas on something I should do. All that has mellowed with age.

Most importantly, my dad taught me about not giving up, to keep on keeping on when it’s something I value deeply, even in the face of great obstacles, and upholding integrity. I couldn’t have asked for a better role model.

On this Father’s Day I want to say…Dad…I’m proud to be your daughter.

Categories: Gratitude, Personal Growth, Sacred Reciprocity, Spiritual Evolution | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Carla Woody

The Kin of Ata

The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You

by Dorothy Bryant

This book is one, like Illusions by Richard Bach, which I’ve read several times over the years. Because I am different every time I read them, they never fail to point out yet another lesson and keep my attention riveted.

The main character in The Kin of Ata had led a seamy, notorious life. A set of circumstances occurred: He had a car accident, veered off a cliff and crashed. He should have been dead. Instead, he was found and taken to a place where dreams of the night held value, and ideals common to true spiritual traditions were actually lived.

The contrast between who he was and where he now found himself was bewildering and painful to him. He attempted to make himself right and others wrong. But something happened along the way. He experienced an awakening.

That’s all I will say. The beauty is in the unfolding of the story. The surprise that awaits will keep you glued until the utter end. This is a classic. Available on Amazon and elsewhere.

Categories: Book Review, Healing, Spiritual Evolution | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

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