Asklepia Foundation
"Journey to the Healing Heart of Your Dreams"
RIVER OF DREAMS
WHITEWATER ADVENTURES
Come. It is time. Let our Journey begin.
Experience the trip of a lifetime, both inner and outer as you raft through the beauty of the world-class Rogue River and let her and the wilderness be your Teacher. This sojourn into the heart of Kalmiopsis Wilderness is also a journey into your own heart. An experienced guide of many years, Graywolf brings his deep love of the river and the unblocked flow to help you find and free your own connection to nature and your spiritual nature, the Unbound Self. Trips include many stories and your own struggles which reveal the wisdom of the river's way. The river and wilderness often create ordeals which mirror or reflect our psychophysical distress in metaphors of life. Dreamhealing sessions are an informal but intrinsic part of the River of Dreams experience. Both the natural beauty and inner beauty you will find on your way assure an awesome and sensational sojourn, with lasting results. As the river traces its serpentine path, so you find your own exploring your own stream of consciousness, finding both chaos and calm healing along the way.
River Spirit Speaks
by Graywolf
The full moon provides enough light to contrast the rectangle of all absorbing blackness beyond the door opening. A face appears, emerging from the depths of this black hole and the words, "Come. It is time," are almost more sensed than heard. You have to stoop to enter the sweat-lodge and you notice that deep in your abdomen, the tiny knot, created by fear-dancing with anticipation begins to grow.
You are leaving early in the morning to brave churning white waters and encounter the river spirit. Tonight you will enter into communion with her. In the sanctity of the sweat lodge tonight you will offer to her and father fire a sacrifice, a symbol of the dis-ease you have come all these miles into the wilderness to shed.
The drum throbs in a deep resounding resonance. It is the only thing escaping from this blackness that is pulling you into its mysteries. You give in to its pull and your journey of evolution advances, as the fear-anticipation now whirls in a frenzied vortex that throbs in time with the beating drum.
It is now early morning, the sun still a mere hint of light far to the east. The raft is loaded and mounted on the trailer and you stand with the others sipping hot liquid, still groggy from the intense heat of last night's ritual of the fire; fire and water combining to purify your body and mind, burn away the disease and wash out its ashes in the sweat pouring from your body; all done to prepare you for this hero's journey of evolution; one that begins as this early morning becomes grayness. Or did it really begin back home when you first read the invitation, "Come it's time," and something inside of you roused from a long, deep sleep.
"Come, it is time." re-echoes the guide's voice and you climb into the car. You have helped prepare the raft and its contents, and they are all you will have for the next five days. The fear-anticipation dance is still there deep in your abdomen. And the serpents demons you sensed in the vaguely remembered dreams from your fitful sleep last night still nag at you and add their energy to the dance.
The raft slips through the water. You can feel its rippling waves through the sole of your feet as it tugs at the rubber floor of the raft. It is strangely silent except for the squeaking of the oarlock and the monotonous splash as the blades rhythmically dip into the water and pull the raft forward. Up ahead there is a growing roar of white noise. Eventually you see the splashing of turbulent water. It battles the gravity and rocks as earth and air are now added to the alchemical mix to create the turbulence and chaos of change.
These you know you must brave in these turbulent waters order to evolve past the confines of your present limits and dis-ease. In the outer world they take the form of the rapids, but inside, in the flows of your deep consciousness they are sensed as the churning whirlpool that fills your abdomen.
The beauty is awesome. The river winds ahead to penetrate the mountains, a sliving snake of blue and gray inserting itself deeply into the virginal green slopes of the mountains ahead. The river is likened to a White Snake, undulating toward the ocean. Up ahead is Tyee, and you've heard the stories of this rapids, and how it sucked Graywolf into its churning chaos and spit him out at the last possible instant, or perhaps past that time. You realize it has called to you too, here, across the many miles. It was a call from the truly wild; an opportunity to shake your life out of its stagnant stupor; a call to wake into a greater deam.
The tug of the river is more persistent as it now pulls you into the tongue of its white waters, the smooth arrow head that pierces the tossing turbulence beyond. The roar fills your ears and water splashes over the bow to drench your face and body as the raft now tosses and plows into the standing waves. Your body is tossed about too but that is barely noticed as the chaos of the water engulf you and the dance in your abdomen dissipates into exhilaration. Rocks and boulders slide by as you pick your way past the obstructions, ever staying in the flow.
Through them now!
The water slows and calms and you realize that the fear and anticipation have become excitement and calm. Within seconds the calm flow beckons you on into the next turbulence ahead. The exhilaration has somehow inspired a deeply sensed change. You can feel it! The river spirit is communing with you, and she speaks with many voices. This one is the roar of "Wildcat," the next rapids.
The fire flickers and creates dancing shadows playing on the familiar face from the darkness. Your mentor once again utters the words, "Come, it is time."
You enter into the dream on the wings of your breath. The old man from your dream presents himself. The voice invites you to experience what you would experience if you were this dream self. Your imagination opens and you realize that you are flying. You are an eagle and for the first time in a long while, maybe forever, feel free.
"Accept the sensations and this sense of freedom," the voice whispers to you. You soon notice that there is a deep wisdom here in this place, not something can put into words, rather it is sensed as deep trust and faith in yourself and the Universe, God, or Grandfather Creator, or this eagle-man. They all seem the same.
"Is this eagle my totem?" you ask your mentor.
"That is between your self, your spirit and nature," the wolf replies. "If it is, you will receive a sign in the morning."
Sleep eludes you as you keep sensing the freedom of flight and the wisdom of evolution and creation. You finally drift off and enter darkness on the wings of the eagle.
It is still early. You all made record time breakfasting, breaking down camp and securing the gear in the raft. You once again are gliding over the water when you hear a high shriek overhead. As you glance up silhouetted against the burning morning sky is an eagle. A song by Kris Kristofferson resounds in your mind:
"I have seen the morning burning golden in the mountains and the sky,
Aching with the feeling of the freedom of an eagle as she flies.
Turning on the world the way she smiles upon my soul as I lie dying.
Healing as the colors of the sunshine and the shadows of her smile.
Loving her is easier than anything I'll ever do again."
It takes on new significance and a deeper meaning begins to emerge. Now another eagle joins its mate as they soar and circle crying to each other; and for one timeless instant they hover over your head close enough to hear the air slipping past their wings as you look into her eyes.
The plane taxies to the end of the runway and soon you are pulled back into the seat with the acceleration of takeoff. You have spent three days after your river adventure readying to reenter into your old world, or will it be a new world? Exactly how will Eagle-self fit in? You have more questions than answers. You have prepared the best you can but you know that the adventure/dream is just beginning. The face of you mentor smiles and whispers, "Come, it is time," just as the wheels lift of the ground and you are flying.
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