The Journey (Metsien Ystävät kurssi, syyskuu 2019)

It is Monday, 16th of September, and we are about to return from the September full moon period. Oh boy, what a full moon it was!

This journey took me to unfold the human experience in a way, which finally released many years of suffering in my life. Indeed, I had intense experiences of suffering the last years, mostly of emotional kind. It probably started around 10 years ago, when my mother became sick, and all sorts of intense life experiences added to year by year. The emotional and attached mind intensified its suffering, until it was finally ready to let go and return back to its own nature of peace and happiness.

This full moon time, I was given the possibility to organize a shamanic course at Koli National Park, which had the theme of a vision quest. We were invited to a so-called shamanic sitting, where we remained awake overnight alone in the nature, and observed that which is. We prepared by meditations, rituals, and a rattle (shamanic instrument, in Finnish: helistin) journey for this vision quest. We prepared by Pachamama Renewal Process, and flowering the apachetas. We activated our Varas, and took them along to the journey.

We were 10 women of different ages and 1 older man in the group. Two of the persons remained in their sacred spots on the mainland by the mountain, while 9 women of us journeyed to the islands in the middle of the sacred Lake Pielinen. A local fisherman took us there by the sunset and picked us up after the sunrise. We had nothing with us: No mobile phones, no water, nothing more than the clothes we were wearing and a waterproof sitting mattress. There was no way out: The only possibility was to survive and to observe.

It is September, so we have already pretty cold weather here in Finland. The night before our sitting, the weather was with stormy rain with full power. On the day of our vision quest, it was still thunder storm at 2 pm. However, as we hiked to the shore of the lake, we arrived at the calm lake panorama. The water was completely still, the sky was open and clear with calm pink fractions of clouds. The fisherman was at odds that which kind of witches have been singing charms here. We watched quietly, as the first autumn group of geese were flying across the sky to south.

We went each to our own spot at the islands, and remained alone. Everyone had their own story, their own observations, and connections with the spirits of nature and to the journey of the full moon across the starry sky. And we survived! It was one of the most memorable view of my life, as I saw the women raising back from the island forest, as our fisherman picked us up the next morning. It touched something deep in my heart, to see their standing alive by the island shore: So honorable, so strong, so much infinite wisdom in their silent being! We hiked back up the mountain and had sauna in silence. We remained in silence until the Sunday morning (we had 38 hrs of complete silence).

After the transformational night at the island, I was reading the whole Saturday a book by Eckhart Tolle. Eckhart Tolle was writing stories about wise persons, who remained completely in acceptance to what ever is happening, without labeling the experiences good or bad. He was suggesting, how to be completely present to the suffering in our lives, being completely available to the inner experience of our body and without any resistance: just COMPLETELY accepting whatever is happening in the present moment. It is impossible to point a specific thing in the book that was changing my game, but it was the whole experience: the experiences at the island, and my readiness to perceive the teachings by Tolle in that moment.  I was completely returning to the beauty of the present moment, and could connect to the I Am Presence in completion.  

The key here is the complete acceptance. I had felt into the acceptance before, but something in my suffering mind was still attached, and I was not able to let go completely. For the suffering body, it was so difficult to let go of the ultimate attachment of the earthly mother.

However, as I was able to accept everything, I found myself as free mother. I feel now completely liberated from any attachments to how mother should be, how mothers have been in my previous generations, or what are the external mothering demands. I feel now, that I can completely be myself as a mother. Not only as a mother, but I completely just be myself. I feel now completely free in my mothering function, which is a responsibility, that I take very devotedly and seriously. My devotion includes being true to my life purpose in its many branches of a life tree and committing to care of my children in a way I feel called to. How the external situations affect this, I remain in complete acceptance to how it plays for me. Afterall, I do have also other missions in life than just mothering. But mothering is wonderful and in top importance, and I find a lot of joy to do it well. I feel myself being completely wonderful as a mother. I feel happy, that I can now offer myself as a mother to my children without any fixations or specific views on how this should be. From now on, I will be ever more happy and joyful in that wonderful life task as well.  

We are all linked together. On the below surface of everything that is happening in our lives, we share the one and only quest for life: Freedom through the human experience. Some have given this name such as liberation, awakening, or enlightenment. No matter where we are in life, something in our soul life will sooner or later look for this. We are suffering as long as we have not awakened; we suffer by sudden loss of loved ones, criticism or harmful worlds by someone, loss of money, loss of reputation, loss of something important to us, health issues, and ultimately death. Most of all, we suffer from the negative thoughts and limited views. All these causes of suffering as long as we are suffering. The one and only key is the acceptance. Sometimes we might need a vision quest or another extreme experience like that to evoke the perfect conditions for acceptance to happen.

Finally, the poem by Mary Oliver called the Wild Geese:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.