THE GIVING AND RECEIVING OF THE CEREMONIAL SEASON
March 2006 Rev. Charla Hermann

There is something ever so magical about the High Ceremonial Season that takes place from Spring Equinox to Fall Equinox. Emerging out of the winter “blues and blahs” to bloom into the garden of new life that weaves fresh energy from circle to circle. It is the time that we have each booked ourselves into our favorite healing camps and ritual retreats. We are ready to lead and to follow as everyone joins in to drum, dance, sing, plant and meet new friends. We are ready to process our “stuff” and find awesome new ways to raise the bar on our Spiritual experience. Some of us will head off on Shamanic tours to far away places, and others head for our own local magical power places of reservations, parks, and healing centers. Each of us has old places to reunion with family and friends, and each has new places waiting to give us that next great ah-ha moment and photographs to remember. The Medicine Men and women, are equally preparing to see which of us will arrive on their door step to receive that next big awareness that comes from the simplest efforts of a new knowing or feeling inside. Those who will host the gatherings have already started spring cleaning, clearing and ordering of new materials needed, that range from gravel to art supplies.

There is a working formula as to how all of this comes into being and to provide us with the juicy rituals and camps that keep us strong enough and focused enough to meet the day to day challenges that aren’t as much fun or as noteworthy as our metaphysical life. For myself, these well planned months have always brought me the greatest delight of surrender to allow the most amazing new experiences to happen. I begin gathering new journals and give away gifts all winter long.( GRATITUDE IS THE ATTITUDE THAT THE OLD ONE’S RESPECT THE MOST.) Knowing how much I treasure these precious rituals and healings, I have embraced a few set rules that I know will ensure the greatest value of the process for all concerned. Here are a few of the time honored traditions that have been passed forward to me, that I share with you. Being alert and mindful of how to create the most to receive the most is a great gift in and of itself. This allows even the hardest of journeys for me to have a really fabulous healing story attached!

* I always allow myself enough time to treasure the program being offered. I show up early to help set up and plan to leave late when the clean up is complete. Many is the time that the very best part happened after almost everyone else was gone. Those who just drop in, do not allow themselves the opportunity to receive the fullness of what is being offered. Those who show up late, just miss the whole point and change the balance of the entire process. Unless there is an emergency, it is simply selfish to be the one who causes everyone else to wait or have to hear the process repeated.

* I always show up ready to bring gifts to the host, the leaders, the Elders and the children. I always bring a few extra gifts for that special someone that really touched my heart. (I have watched many an Elder remove all of their jewelry to give to the folks that helped them put on the ceremony.) I know that my seminar fee paid the regular bills to put on the program, but next Dec. when it is cold, I want to be able to help with their heating bills. I always bring toilet paper, coffee, sugar, or something to share with the entire group. I don’t ask others to go into debt to make sure that I am having a good time.

I KNOW THAT I WILL GET BACK AS MUCH AS I AM WILLING TO RECEIVE, AND I AM WILLING TO RECEIVE THAT MUCH!!!

* I bring everything I need for my own comfort and ritual participation. ( ie; fabric, herbs, drums, rattles, snacks...) If every person needed just one thing, the whole event costs even more to provide. That means I have my own first aid, layers of cloths and sleeping gear. If that is already there for me, then I can help someone else out who just didn’t have those things.

* I go prepared to volunteer a few hours to the circle, either gathering woods, hauling trash, helping with the children, or working in the kitchen. I do not go to have someone do everything for me, including wipe my tears and honor my Spiritual growth as some merit badge. I go to feel every part of what is happening, not just that two hours in the Stone People’s Lodge or that day in the woods. I am there to see, feel hear and get to know the other participants. If I wanted a solo experience, I would stay home and hug my own tree..... I do that all winter! I WANT TO LOOK EACH PERSON IN THE EYES AT LEAST ONCE AND SEE WHOM I AM SHARING THE JUICE OF MY SOUL WITH EACH DAY.

* When I am tithing the 10% of everything that I make, I send it to direct causes, not to well financed organizations who use my hard earned green for their administrative costs. I want food to go into mouths of the little ones and heat to warm elders. I want to know that children are getting an education and emotional support when they are harmed. I usually find those causes in the circles where these magical events take place. I find my network of this year’s vision in each new ritual circle.

* I check to see the customs of the area or family I am visiting and make sure that I bring only gifts that show honor and no offense. I do not take illegal feathers, artifacts or things that will become someone else’s problem. If this is a vegan family, I am not taking them a slab of buffalo meat... If I do not know their customs, I go carrying a grocery card in a cards that says thanks for all you bring to my life. I am asking to be nurtured, and I am willing to nurture in return. I might take a gift with some cash attached to the outside. Maybe it is tobacco or maybe and herbal bundle from my garden. I offer that to the teacher, Elder or healer BEFORE I ask them even the simplest question that requires them to give me their time. That is to balance out the energy which I am asking to receive.

* When I come home and am choosing to share the celebration of a new rites of passage or initiation, I hold another give away to thank the Spirits for taking my on such a wonderful journey. Sometimes it is an elaborate feast with gifts, other times it is a quiet giving where someone comes home to find the refrigerator full of special treats, with an anonymous note saying: thanks for all you do to feed my soul.

* I send a thank you note back to those wh enhanced my experience and work to stay in touch with them and the joys of the process as long as our experience will allow.

The bottom line is that I can’t tell you how to go to ceremony. I can tell you what works for me. I can tell you how I set the intent and know that I have put my best into it, thus I am willing to allow that to return to me. It has, over and over. I can tell you that I know that if I wish Spirit to feed me, first I should feed Spirit. I can offer that I always dress appropriate to honor Spirit and celebrate with them, even in the drabbest of places. And, I am always mindful of not trying to look or feel boastful about my ability to give. And yes, I am a ceremonial snob. I have spent years watching, listening and facilitating and see no reason to give or receive anything but the finest Spirit has to offer. Why do less when more begets more for those who are in real need of the energy exchange.

Let me tell you about some of the grand folks who taught me these ways and why I feel so strongly about passing on these suggestions of the law of reciprocity. For each of us, I hear the call of so many needs of healing. We walk into healing circles wishing to change our lives, transform our fears, grieve losses and find the new beginnings. Those are all investments in ourselves. What we invest is a statement of self worth. We are each surrounded with more things and stuff than any other country and species. If every critter had to have a Wal-Mart to fill their nests the way we do, there simply wouldn’t be room for all of us. We cling to so many things, yet as we step into ceremony we seek the intangible. We must give to that process in both the tangible and intangible ways. We must give as an act of transformation to our Spiritual source, everyday.

Many years ago I was working on a cellular phone commercial in El Paso, Tx. I had found a man who used his phone more than anyone else in town. A long story short, he used his phone to rescue children left behind as parents were crossing the border. Most of those children were starving, burned, or crippled. He had set up several clinic on both sides of the border and become quite well known for his humanitarian efforts. He and his children had started the clinics as an act of celebrating Christmas. Instead of giving each other gifts, they started gathering gifts for these children. By the time I met them, they managed to fill and entire warehouse every year, and kept food and clothing supplies going to support almost a million children. Really, one family managed to do this all by themselves. I was invited to work with them for a winter, and have always been touched about how a big heart can feed the masses with nothing more than faith and commitment, and some good PR.

My next great teacher is a lady named India, who walked into our gal-pal party in Peru and ordered enough food for the entire tour, then asked us all to join her as she gathered children from the village for a picnic, and told us to consider our meal a gift to our inner child. She was right up there with the Sun Dance Chief who had use deliver food to the old one’s while were in our fourth day of fasting. He told us if we got hungry enough, we might have room for Spirit to feed our soul.

Another time I was in a remote country and had the honor of helping out a young man who had lost his legs in a fire. He was so charming and wanted to come to America to become a disc jockey on the radio. I spent hours with him making audition tapes as he spun records in the back of a gas station that serviced the tourists. At thirteen, Miguel had this rich and sultry voice that worked with every Latin love song. We had a grand time getting to know each other. As I was preparing to leave his country his mother came to visit me and invited me to share a meal with her family for being so kind to her son. When I hiked through the village, following her directions, I found myself in a small tar-paper shack housing eleven children. This woman received one pound of groceries per child each week. She had made a feast for me that was over the top. She probably had used almost all of the food they would see for weeks. At first I was quite embarrassed and wanted to refuse such generosity, but to do so would have been an insult. I knew that I can always easily give of 10% of my earnings, but today this woman had given almost everything to honor me. For all of the thousands I might have given away, she had certainly shown a greater faith than mine in the act of giving, as she had given so much more. I have had that happen to me more times than I can count, and it is a rich and humbling blessing every single time.

The bottom line is that we all have so very much to offer...AND....we are the ones who always ask the most of Spirit and of life. So we should be willing to give more. We are the ones who join hands and make pledges to serve and to do something to make this a better place for everyone to live. When we are without is when we know we need to give the most. The Give Away ceremony is one of the oldest and time honored traditions of all ancient cultures. To give IS to receive. So as you head out this year to gather your memories of a lifetime, be sure to take something with you to feed the process and make the memory that much more meaningful to you and to those who are offering to share with you.

And may we all meet in the smiles of Spirit that guides us through the ethers, we enter and leave with arms and hearts full of so much to keep on sharing.

Our give away process at Hawkwind is ongoing. It is suggested that you bring useful gifts with you that allow us to continue our outreach programs: phone cards, shopping cards at Wal-Mart, Target, Payless and stores that are nationwide for Elders while they are traveling from ceremony to ceremony. We can always use cards for Office Depot, Dollar store and the likes . We accept Spiritual books for the prisons, diabetic foods for the Elders, and accept tax deductible contributions to the ABOVE & BEYOND program any time the Spirit moves you to share with a young one in need. We ship boxes every month and have young one’s show up with deep needs. We are already saying thank you as we know that each of you sends prayers and support in every way, every time we reach into this Sacred Season of Giving and Receiving Spiritual foods to strengthen our soul.