{"id":706,"date":"2011-01-06T22:14:06","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T03:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/?p=706"},"modified":"2011-01-07T11:50:36","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T16:50:36","slug":"you-have-a-message-to-deliver-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/?p=706","title":{"rendered":"You have a Message to Deliver–Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Wellness and Spirituality’s homeplace. <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

Today’s topic is the <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

Medicine Name.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u201cWhat God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.\u201d…Oprah Winfrey<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>To have a “sign,” from “outside” ourselves from the One that is In All Things– to have Nature speak to us of who we are–to have Spirit send a Message about who we each are–this is the basis of the indigenous manner of Naming. It is a gift, but not an inexplicable event.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s erroneous to think that there is anything really “outside” ourselves, outside our true being, which is the Divine One. The ordinary, everyday consciousness of the average human being seems to make us feel that way–that we–our mind, our identity, our self- consciousness, our Spirit or Soul are “inside” a body. We tend to think there is an “outside” universe that we really are separate from. But that’s a trick of consciousness. There is NO “outside ourselves.” As Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha would say, “We are not in the universe, the universe is in us!” Because our Essential Being is God.<\/span><\/p>\n

When a sign, a portent, a message comes to us from what we would call “outside,” we are experiencing a response to our respectful seeking for answers from our “whole” universal Self that is speaking!<\/span><\/p>\n

*****************<\/span><\/p>\n

One spring in the latter part of the 1990’s, I undertook a Vision Quest at Friendship Village, a beautiful retreat and conference center in Ohio. Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha has guided the People of her Circle through many years of quests. The one in which my name came to me was my second quest, as I recall.<\/span><\/p>\n

I set up my quest circle with four stones to mark the four directions\/gatekeepers of the Medicine wheel.\u00a0I put cornmeal on the perimeter of the circle to mark out this sacred space. My site was on an old grassy roadway in a thicket of new growth of trees on a sloping hillside. I would be there four nights, so I gathered firewood for four small campfires. This was an unusual quest inasmuch as we were permitted to have fires. I had a sleeping bag and some bales of hay. I had no water or food.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a rainy week in May but I had sufficient tarps to keep myself and my firewood dry. In fact, I was downright cozy. As a mother who home-schooled two sons, this was a peaceful vacation of sorts, one in which I could really devote to introspection and take time to just BE with the All that Is. When dusk fell, I enjoyed starting my little fire and watching the flames so bright against the dark night. When I lay down, my head was close to the fire’s edge.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the third night, as the embers died and I drifted into sleep, after a day of prayers, meditative states and Being in the Now, I heard a rustling in the beaten down grass near my head. I opened my eyes to see a medium sized frog, just sitting there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Frogs are some of my favorite animals…..have been since I was a child when I spent divine hours catching those critters with my “Huck Finn” friends in a swamp near my home. So, of course I spoke to the frog, welcomed it to my circle. Asked if it had anything to say to me. Then she hopped away.<\/span><\/p>\n

I dozed off. All the embers grew cold. I awoke and again heard a noise….used my flashlight. The frog was there again. Welcome to the sweet reflection of Myself! Master of metamorphosis. Adept of water and air. Singer of night songs. Swimmer supreme. (Did I mention I’d been an avid competitive swimmer in my youth and used to sit in class pulling at the skin between my fingers, \u00a0wishing I could create webbed hands? Talk about weird!) Again he hopped off into the darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a third time, it came….I heard a slight movement on top of the hay bale that lay to my left. I shone my flashlight. I was very surprised. The bale was about 18 inches high so that frog must have jumped at least that high to get there! I was VERY surprised. But again my heart smiled. Like I said. I like frogs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Quest drew to a close. I heard the Cryers shouting over the land to all the questers: “The Quest is over! The Quest is over!” We each tidied up our sites but left most things behind to be retrieved later. We headed to Ceremonial Hill where Grandmother waited with a smudge and a smile, the children with flowers and the People with drumming all around the fire.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is always much sharing after a quest. We have had dreams, visions, made plans, set goals. I told Grandmother that the frog had come to me three times. But funny…it never occured to me that this would be my name: Du’Tsu…pronounced Too N’ Twah…meaning Spring Frog–until Grandmother handed me a card upon which she had written this name, along with the sentences: “She has come to the People to Rebirth the Purity and Light in Mankind. Her song comforts the Spirit within.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Thusly, the “outside” spoke to me!<\/span><\/p>\n

So It Was. Aho!<\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Richie\/ Du’Tsu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Wellness and Spirituality’s homeplace. Today’s topic is the Medicine Name. \u201cWhat God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.\u201d…Oprah Winfrey To have a “sign,” from “outside” ourselves from the One that is In All Things– to have Nature speak to us of who we are–to have Spirit send a Message […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[18,57,49,8,13,33,60,42,140,50],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-wellness-and-spirituality","tag-circle","tag-dutsu","tag-friendship-village","tag-grandmother-parisha","tag-medicine","tag-medicine-wheel","tag-oprah-winfrey","tag-parisha","tag-wellness-and-spirituality","tag-wellness-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}