I was thinking about how the Medicine Path has helped my life ongoing. It sort of grounded me into the earth so I wasn't just flying off into the sky so much as before.
I like many young people was very idealistic. though I had learned how to not die being an electrician after learning this trade from my father from childhood the life I grew up with made me very idealistic and though this can be useful (especially in college) Idealism that is. It can take you away from where the rubber meets the road so to speak.
So, I had a hard time reconciling what I wanted in life with how life actually is on a daily basis and many young people faced with this kill themselves around the world every day of every year and it's always been this way whether they do it themselves or they crash their car racing or the OD on something or the accidentally fall while rock climbing or like a guy I saw on a motorcycle this weekend they go between cars from behind in two lanes at 90 miles an hour. When you see someone doing this at this speed you sort of know they have a death wish.
I found the medicine path helped me ground more into the earth in a useful way for me. Often Christianity is very cerebral and confusing. So, trying to get this down to where the rubber meets the road is often maddening in the extreme. (trying to be practical about being a Christian).
So, I found the basic practicality of the native American Medicine path very useful to me.
It started I guess when I went to my first Tibetan Buddhist Initiation with Gyaltrul Rinpoche in 1980 in Ashland Oregon.
When I walked into the room I was two places at once with no effort on my part. I was amazed I could walk being two places at once like this. One place was in the 1800s likely in Tibet and I was with Gyaltrul Rinpoche and I was wearing like a loincloth or something and it was springtime and I was a Cave Yogi and another Cave Yogi and I were walking up to Gyaltrul Rinpoche in some kind of blessing like when you visit a minister at church or something.
Then, when I actually sat down I realized that Tibetan Buddhism was as powerful a teaching and practice as people had told me it was. So, at this point I realized it would make me fly away into the sky if I wasn't careful so to speak. So, I thought deeply about this fact sitting there. Then I realized I needed a religion that has sprung up organically directly out of the earth here in the U.S. The religion I realized that would be the most helpful would be the Native American religions. So, I asked God to send me a Medicine man to help ground me into the earth because I saw that I was going to be practicing Tibetan Buddhism and I really needed to be where the rubber met the road to make this work for me and all life on earth.
So, I asked God to send me a Native American Medicine man and he showed up at my Friend's house in Mt. Shasta so I knew that God had answered my prayer. This Medicine man was a disciplinarian like my father which was difficult for me but later I met another medicine man that was Crazy Wisdom like me that I was more comfortable with. However, I studied with the one God sent me first for at least 2 years along with my friend and his girlfriend and my wife at that time. and all 4 of us did Vision Quests I believe in the summer of 1983. A Vision quest is no water or food for 96 hours or 4 days time.
This experience changed my life and in some ways grounded me in a way western civilization never could in what a human being actually is here on earth and I have been very different ever since.
The first thing it did was I wasn't afraid of starving to death after this experience because I had already gone without water or food for 96 hours or 4 days time. So, starving or dying of thirst didn't bother me really at all after this real experience. However, it changed me in many other ways too.
One of the strangest experiences I can tell you just how different a state of mind you get into was I was having trouble with hornets trying to fly up my nose because they wanted to get at the dust and stuff there from being in the wilds near Trinity River miles from the nearest human being for these 4 days.
So, at a certain point I realized (not drinking water or eating anything for the previous 2 days) that I could telepath with the hornets: so I did: I said, "Hey! if you want to clean out my nostrils that's okay with me but if you sting me I'm going to kill you both." So, i let them crawl up my nostrils and clean my nostrils and then they left like they said they would and left me alone."
There is no way I would have ever let this happen if I wasn't really altered from no water and no food for 2 days already. So, you can imagine how different your perceptions are while on a 4 day 96 hour vision quest of no water and no food. The other thing I learned is that people think they are strong in ways they are not. It's an illusion mostly. However, we ARE strong but likely in ways most people don't realize but often we are weak as human beings in ways people don't usually realize either.
I think this is why so many human beings from the city get lost and die in the wilderness every year because they overestimate their capabilities on all levels.
For example, never go down a trail through through any woods if you cannot see out far enough if the trail isn't well marked. Any real outdoorsman knows this is an easy way to starve to death and die if you get lost doing this.
You need reference points that you recognize and can memorize so if anything goes wrong you can get out of there. However, if you overdo and get injured unless there is cell reception you might not live through this experience.
So, what I'm saying is many people overestimate their abilities and this is a good way to die in a fast or slow way in the wilderness.
There is a saying from a Clint Eastwood Movie that goes like this: "A Man's got to know his limitations!"
Well. A woman in the wilderness " Has to know her limitations too!" It isn't just men who get lost and sometimes die in the wilderness.
So, be careful out there hiking around in the wilderness this summer especially with all the heat and dryness all over this year.
