Soul Lessons -Singing Over the Bones

But the deep river never dries up. The little insistent voice at the back of our mind, the subtle gnawing feeling in the pit of our stomach will not be smothered. It must be the basic ingredient of our DNA. The ones who donât know of or do not believe in this, resign themselves to live a semi-life, shadows of what could have been. But the one who knows... also knows that no matter how difficult or painful or tedious, the task of calling out, assembling, and then singing over the bones, is worth the effort. Only after the pain of that birth, our second one, can we know the full joy and freedom of being.

As it is said in the book, the job of reassembling the bones of our soul self is lonely; itâs done when nobody is looking and for nobody elseâs sake. To fuse with the One is essentially to become alone, because the One is not two. When you dare to assemble your skeleton and sing it or howl it into life, you know that nobody else will think exactly like you or act exactly like you or feel exactly like you... ever again; although there is some consolation in the fact that you are bound to meet, and attract and be attracted to, those who are only exactly like themselves. And it takes a lot of courage and a lot of hard-working soul search to assume the place that is reserved for you; to dare to be simply who you are, with no artifices and no complications. The fastest way i know of connecting with the deep river is through meditation. But the fastest path is often also the steepest... and there are as many paths as there are stars in the universe, if not more, and they all lead to the center. We can call it a "path" or a "personal religion", or abstain from naming it; it is something everybody can realise; we are born with that seed, that potential; it is our basic human right. Whether through prayer or dance or poetry or any of the arts, or crafts, or through sitting in a cathedral or mosque or mountain or beach, through any creative techniques or ideas and skills such as raising a child or a puppy, a flower or a bridge between two shores or an agreement between people. To Estes, one arrives there "through any activity which requires an intense altered consciousness". In my experience, it can be that altered (though often very ordinary) consciousness, which in turn alters our perception of every activity, every movement, thought or feeling, allowing us to see it in its perfect uniqueness. It is the process of deprogramming other peopleâs views or dreams of who we are, and of reassembling the bones or elements of who we really are. It is manifest in our houses, in our web pages, in the friends we choose and, unconsciously, in the families we donât choose. For those who pay attention, it can be glimpsed in the slightest tossing of wild head, in the way we say "thank you" or "get out of my way". It can be heard in the mightiest, most earth-shattering howl ever let out by a free spirit, in the full moon night of our awakening. It is our essence; our birth right. Deep grunt of lioness, belly howl of wolf or powerful river song of human, expressing - hey. Iâm here. Iâm whole. I am Goddessâs daughter, Princess, and it is her wish that i should be crowned with all the pride and humility and light and love of my full potential now achieved.

And so it shall come to pass, or else nature would never have opted for it - and she obviously did! AAAAAAROOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU.............

My meditation is just getting quiet.....sitting or laying in a secret quiet spot and just clearing my mind of trash... not really concentrating on anything... I have done this since I was a child....Laying on my back in the grove of trees around the spring, my most secret spot....laying there and looking up through the sycamore trees at the clouds as they passed.....I think truly that even then as a jean clad... pig tailed innocent little woman/child ... I was gathering my bones...but only the lower ones...for the hill is steep and muddy and slippery and it takes everything we have to climb it...but once we...once we reach the top and our skeleton is assembled...we ourselves are never ever the same again....

I have always done this but was often chastised for being lazy. I would find places to hide, to just be, and play with the ants or the spiders or look at the clouds, without a care in the world... but in the background would be my mother and step-father with a list a mile long of things to do. So what do I do as an adult...go with the list...and find that my husband Merle is the one who reminds me to play and be easy with myself...to just be...these are the moments of meditation for me...mindfulness.

All of our stories come from Nod .. from that land in between the worlds, where our unconscious is the major force. And this would be why our meditations, or our quiet thoughtful moments are so important to our connection to the wild woman. And itâs not the major revelations that are the most meaningful; itâs the quiet, little ones that will make the biggest difference in our lives. Thatâs why itâs so important to listen .. to be instinctively aware of what our body and our mind are trying to tell us. Most of my meditations are the quiet, alone times, usually in the very early hours of the morning ... sitting in bed with a cup of coffee ... I tell my hubby to shhh, this is my meditation time [smiles]. I always feel so much better if I spend 15 minutes alone in utter silence ... Iâm focused, grounded, calmer through the day. This is one way that I connect to my instinctive nature, to be very quiet and just listen. Babies are born with their instinctive nature intact. They know what is right, what to do, what feels wrong. Thatâs what we have to try to hold onto. The entire process of reconnecting with the soul, with our full instinctual wildish senses, is shown here, although it is so much harder than it seems it should be. The wolf bones represent our indestructable wild nature. The gathering of the bones, placing them all together, head bone to neck bone ... is the process of sorting out our life, the incidents in which we were scarred, in which we did not allow our instincts to rule our actions ... each of these scars are placed end to end until they are fully there, every scar, every bone. And then we sing, which is speaking with soul-voice, the pouring of the soul over the bones. We sing it to everyone that will listen, we sing it in the quiet of the night to ourselves. That is how we breathe life back into the bones. That was hard for me to understand at first .. to find my scars, my bones ... I donât think it was until I found this den that I started telling the stories I had never told, and hearing other stories helped me to find the bones that I hadnât yet discovered. You need a den to tell stories to, someone that will listen and understand why this was a scar, why this was wrong, instinctively. Thatâs been one of the major blessings of this den ... the sharing of our stories, feeling the fur fleshed out on my bones as wild woman returns time and time again.

And then the howl ... that wasnât hard to learn at all, not after the bones were laid in place ... I can definitely let out a good howl! Aaaaooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!