The following comes from our forthcoming memoirs: Tequila and Chocolate, Far Travels of the Morning Star, Memoirs of this World and the Otherworld.
In our apprenticeship with the late Mom and Vince Stogan, Coast Salish Musqueam Shamans, Vince once told me to be aware that I might have a vision revealing how to paint my face during ceremonies and healings. Vince was correct…
As a runner my daily runs were to Fort Williams, a park situated on the Atlantic Ocean in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Fort Williams is a former United States Army fort which operated from 1872 to 1964. It was part of the Coastal Defenses of Portland with various concrete gun emplacements on the edge of the ocean.
My runs would average four miles, and half way through the run, I would jump up on one of the gun emplacements and do a hundred quick push-ups jump back down on the ground and continue running. After running a few more minutes, I would return to the same spot and do an additional 100 push-ups, jump down and continue my run back to our home.
I was known in the community as the “runner” and fitness guy. Even the park ranger knew me, but not by name, as I would wave and smile at him on my runs. Once he stopped me to relate what had happened over the weekend. It seems that an agitated woman had confronted him with her concern that there was a “crazy man” acting strangely out on the point. He smiled and said to me, “I assured her that’s only “Rocky;”[i] he’s not crazy and won’t hurt you.” (This theme of a different “name—identity” has been a thread running throughout my life such as when the other adventurers’ on the Peruvian Inka trail in 1988 only knew me by the name: “the Inka.” And once in a bar in Seattle, I befriended two possible “gangbangers” who referred to me as “Capt’n Moses.”)
Running was an expression of my soul—freedom, the freedom of movement. Running was also part of my spirit training. During storms, especially “nor’easter,” wrapped within the wind-whipped darkness, I would take that first step outside the comfort of my home and run out to Fort Williams, the location of the Portland Headlight. The headlight is a historic lighthouse located on the cliffs overlooking the open ocean. The name “nor’easter” comes from the directional origins of the storms’ strong winds.[ii] Once at the headlight, I would voice prayers to the living essence of the storm and sing my spirit song. To embody and breathe-in the power of the winds and the force of the storm, I would stand on the cliffs facing north and then east experiencing and witnessing the full power of the storm. As the winds howled and screamed, and waves crashed on the rocks below, an anointment of my body and soul with its salty spray, I would become one with its power.
Battered by the wind, as it moved my body to-and-fro, purified by the watery spray of the ocean below and the heavenly rain from above, my clothing plastered to my body like a second skin and with eyes closed, I would absorb the energy making it a part of my essence. Not a human feeling but an elemental one. I was at the center of the storm… I was the storm… at that moment I would feel totally alive, no past, no future, just my body, spirit, and soul one with the storm, and the merging of heaven and earth within me.
And then, as with all things, it would be time to leave. A final blessing as I headed home. The gifting for my sacrifice of self awaited me—a warm abode and a loving wife, son, and daughter. And then, there was something else, one more gifting awaited my arrival—hot-mulled wine by a roaring fire: life at times is awesome and fulfilling. And the memories—priceless.
Sea Creature
Years passed and then… I had my paint color vision. During one of my runs, I asked for a vision of my paint colors. It happened on my second round of push-ups. As I jumped up while running in place for a few seconds I happened to look down into the ocean water. And there it was: an image of a sea creature— and then my paint colors black and red.[iii]
Black and red I thought as I jumped off and continued my run. Outside the fort on shore road I came across a dead snake; stopping I picked it up and realized that it was a spirit snake as Vince had taught us how to tell if a dead snake is a spirit snake—a gifting from spirit.
When I got back from my run, excited by the prospect of knowing how to paint my face, I told Sher about my experience. We were both undecided if it was a true vision as we had never seen anyone wearing two different colors of paint on their face. Later that evening I called Vince in Vancouver to tell him about my experience. I was concerned that the image and the paint colors were just wishful imaginative seeing.
As I related the story to Vince saying that I didn’t think it was a true vision as we had never seen those paint colors on any of the dancers in the longhouse during the winter dance season… He started laughing as he said (paraphrased), “of course you wouldn’t; those are my face paint colors; they are the colors of a medicine person (shaman). You only saw all black face paint (warrior) or all red (healer), but the Indian Doctor’s face paint is black and red. And to the serpent…” What Vince told me next is private knowledge and can’t be revealed in print.
And outside of identifying me as a shaman/medicine person, what is the significance of my paint colors? In various indigenous traditions these are the colors of Venus, known as the sacred twin, in its two phases as the morning star (red) and evening star (black). Additionally concerning my connection with Quetzalcóatl, “the red and black coloration provides an intriguing link with the cult of Quetzalcóatl, for the Aztecs said that Quetzalcóatl died in the ‘land of writing’ (tlilan tlapallan), meaning literally ‘the land of red and black,’ the colors used in Maya writing.”[iv] Furthermore, “black and red in conjunction signify wisdom.”[v] Finally, according to Miguel León-Portilla in, Aztec Thought and Culture – A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind, “the wise man is black and red ink. But since these colors symbolize throughout Nahuatl mythology the presentation of and knowledge about things difficult to understand and about the hereafter, the obvious metaphorical implication is that the wise man possesses “writing and wisdom.”[vi]
[i] Referring to the character Rocky in a series of boxing films based on the eponymous, fictional character Rocky Balboa.
[ii] The Hebrew word for “spirit” also means “wind.”
My “nor’easter” experience is a great allegory for the spiritual journey of awakening: Taking that first step, overcoming fear in facing the unknown; sacrifice; elemental purification; perseverance on the path even though the winds of conformity blow you to-and-fro; endurance in facing and confronting the obstacles of self revealing the truth of self, the past and the present; eventually the joy of feeling totally alive, and at long-last the merging of heaven and earth within—with the realization that the journey continues on-and-on as we head home….
[iii] I was not in a fasting state; I was not meditating; I was not under the influence of a drug induced trance; it was during the day, late afternoon that I had my vision. Since Vince verified it was a true vision, it further proves the knowledge and ability of having a consciousness and awareness of radical nonduality. This was not a product or a subjective view of my mind but a visual reality of the Otherworld while awake and conscious in this world.
[iv] Susan Milbrath, Star Gods of the Maya, 177.
[v] Irene Nicholson, Mexican and Central American Mythology, 24.
[vi] Miguel León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, 12.