Water Offering Series -7

I have been visiting Mt Shasta, and visited the Headwaters of the Sacramento River in Mt. Shasta city park. This is a place I have been going to and gathering the spring water for over 40 years. I lived in this area in the 70s and then came back in 1997-2006. I did ceremony with the community in the early seventies gathering the spring water for Solstice and Equinox celebrations.

My second son when he was born, his placenta was buried under a tree near the springs in 1977. When I returned to the area I found two more springs in the city park that also ran directly into the Sacramento River.

There has been very little snow on Mt. Shasta this year. My late Native American elder, Charles Thom always felt this was a bad sign, since Mt. Shasta is the main water vein for water for much of California. But this morning when I pulled out I saw there was a dusting of snow on the mountain, a Winter Solstice Blessing. We can see that the flow of water symbolically represents the flow of love and forgiveness written in the Book of Nature. Our thoughts as One People actually have effect on our environment.

I look into the sky to see cloud people forming. First I saw a large cloud that took on the shape of a fairy woman with hands holding an offering bowl to the blue sky. I drove further and a cloud form into a mermaid riding a dolphin that sat on the head of a dragon cloud.

When I got to the city park I went to the main Spring of the Sacramento Headwaters, this is the masculine aspect of the spring. This is where many people over the years have gathered water. I decided to make a pilgrimage walk and whisper the mantra Namo Sa Shui Guanyin, Hail Pure Water Guayin. I followed the trail and came to the second Spring not as well known but also feeds the same river This is the female source. It had been a few years since I visited this spring. Many times in past years I offered every new moon to this secret feminine source, hidden in the back of the park. A huge cedar tree had fallen down, near the spring. It must of gotten uprooted over time. I, myself have felt uprooted over the last few years. Some might call it passing through Saturn Return others may call it entering the elder years of ones life. But more likely then not, it is learning the lessons of Awareness and releasing what does not hold water in my life any longer.

I knelt down to gathered water from the spring. Wild ginger was growing along it's banks abundantly as green shaped heart leaves. I took a deep breath in to fill my lungs with the smells of Douglas fur and pine. Heal my heart and let me breathe in and out the gifts from Mother Earth open my eyes to the healing that now needs to take place in my own emotional body.

I have been reading the signs in the Book of Nature written as sacred scripture.. The symbol of Mt. Shasta joined with Shastina is the Union of both the male and the female it is a sacred union wedded in the land. These two snow pack mountains feeds the springs which create the mighty Sacramento River that flows down Central California. One part of the Sacramento river flows into the Black Point Cut Off outside of Vallejo. The mighty Sacramento River emptys into the San Fransico Bay which then flows into the Pacific Ocean . The gate keepers of this water channel into the Bay-area is Mt Diablo on one side and Mt Tampalias on the other side of the bay. The local Indian legends of the area have a myth of these two mountains were once lovers that had been separated and it is said that they call out to each other until this day in longing to have union once again.

Back in Shasta City Park I am looking for a hidden spring, most people miss. There in the shelter of moist mossy ground which is held together by the roots of willow, cedar, and wild rose bushes I find the spring. This Spring represents the Inner Child . An old metal rim retains the water before it quietly tickles into the river. It look like a reflecting mirror as I lean over to look at my own image, the Mirror of the Inner Child

This mini sacred pilgrimage reflects my inner calling to heal my own childhood wounding, to look deeper into the separation of the masculine and feminine parts of my life. Can I get past my actions and reactions? Can I look past my genetic conditioning? that hold my inner child hostage to emotional baggage of ancestral patterns no longer needed? Can I hold my own inner child with compassion?, I hold myself in the mirror image, a still point reflected in a simple spring in Nature.

My Native Elder use to say when one puts a prayer with the right intention into water in the High Country that prayer has the power to travel all the way to the ocean…..This is where I began my water offerings many many years ago…May we all be healed from our deepest emotional wounding and not feel separated from the Inner Source.

Raylene Abbott

Written Dec. 2013 California still needs more rain.