Lakota Sundance and Wounded Knee – Period.

Independence Day has not been the same for me since I left the sandy beaches of the East Coast and began walking the shamanic path. Somehow, celebrating my independence from Great Britain and honoring a Declaration of Independence that is in desperate need of review and reflection from all who live in this country; BBQ’ing dead animals and setting off fireworks in the tinderbox State of Utah just isn't calling to me this year.

Instead, I have accepted an invitation to join my sister Psalm Isadora on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota; to remember and honor the indigenous ways through the Sun Dance. Being in ceremony where the warriors make sacrifice to the Great Mystery and the Tree of Life by piercing and tearing off their skin as an offering for the good of the tribe - this is where I am being called to celebrate my “in deepened/deep end dance”.

The dance officially begins today with Tree Day, but since I started my moon a week early this full moon day – I have given myself permission to move slowly and tie up loose ends before I depart. I hear my mother’s voice in the back of my head knowing she would worry about me driving in the dark. But I have my own ceremony to prepare; a strong sense of urgency to bring to completion and honor to what has been in the recent months and leave the space open for a new chapter to emerge when I return.

 The relaxed pace gives me the time to put in calls to my Medicine Women sisters – I check in for protocol, what to wear, offerings to bring any other important pieces that I should know before I head out. I finally take to the road after “rush hour” and drive till midnight, stopping at a KOA and texting a picture of the campground address on the plaque to my friend. Since my Mom doesn’t get texts, she would want someone to know where I am in case I turned up missing. As she writes on my facebook wall time and time again – “Drive safely, ‘cause I love you” I hear her voice always, I ask her not to worry, but she can’t help herself… the love of a mother, one can never know until she is one I suppose. I set my iPhone alarm for 5:30 am and climb in the back of my car to catch a few hours of sleep before I meet up with Psalm and Company on the reservation.

As the day breaks, I take care of my morning business and once again head out on the road. Along the way I stop and encounter a decomposing Snake, flattened and outlined by the last of its oozing Spirit and innards. Soon after, I get stopped by the Nebraska Highway Patrol with a warning for driving 71 in a 65. I give silent thanks to the snake for slowing me down by at least 10 mph and giving it’s life to communicate it’s message.

 As I turn the corner onto BIA Highway 2 and head down the Big Foot Trail, I am overcome with sorrow and loss. The land and the ancestors are screaming their story in the deafening silence. Those who have come before us, the forgotten wisdom calling, “See me, remember me. Hear me.” I pass the sign memorializing the Massacre at Wounded Knee. Ah, no wonder...

I continue to drive through what appeared to be a Ghost Town, the native people sitting on the door steps, drinking from bottles, waiting for something that has long since gone away – it appears to me that there is little hope of its return – whatever it is. My tears are flowing steadily now and I stop to gather myself at the Gas Station/Subway Restaurant before the last stretch to the Lakota Prairie Lodge. A young girl standing next to me at the sink in the restroom asks if I know anyone that would be interested in purchasing a size one white dress with a flower - she has one for sale. I immediately see the image of a baptism dress – the shadow of the Catholic church and it’s footprint on the reservation. As I leave, another native women calls for me to come see her wares – a single strand of plastic beads make up a bracelet. I am overcome once again with grief for the forgotten wisdom.

I pull into the Lodge at 10:08 and once again silently giving thanks for the slightest glimmer of grace. 108 energy meridians connect to the heart - walk in beauty. Thank you, for the reminder. Through the open window Psalm calls out, “that you ma?” and I walk in as if I saw her yesterday - my sister, my grappling hook to courage and strength. I recount my journey, the sadness, the tears, the sense of loss on the land. Psalm shares the message given by Medicine Man Mike in the pre-ceremonial sweat. “We are here to give sweat and give blood to keep our way of life alive. Pray hard." I think to myself, “hard is an understatement”...

We visit for a bit and prepare to head out for the day. I transfer my tampons into my day pack and everyone gasps at once. Oh no, you are on your cycle??!! You can’t go to the dance… In that first moment, I exclaim – you’ve got to be kidding me? You never told me?!! Everyone agrees that it is the first thing Psalm told them and can not believe I hadn’t heard! And yet, a deeper knowing inside my heart was present. I was called to be there for a reason, this much is clear. We say our goodbyes, Psalm assuring everyone that I would find a sacred spot to bust out my magic rocks and connect in ceremony, “a good witch she is, she’ll be guided”.

I lay down and fall into a deep, deep slumber and awaken hours later. The room, stifling – the windows still open, is like a sauna. I am soaked in sweat and feel so heavy I can barely move. I know I must go out and connect with the land so I close the windows, turn on the air conditioner and take a cold shower before heading out to explore the Badlands.

As I drive East on BIA 2, I pass a hand painted billboard that read, “Our 1st graders are drug free” Wow, what an accomplishment – so this is life on the reservation?! I consider what it must be like for these people and decide that I would probably drink and take drugs too. Who wouldn’t medicate when their Soul has been lost – or rather, stolen. Independence, hmmm.

I enter the park and find an obscure road off the beaten path where I park, open the hatch and climb in the back to fall into yet another deep slumber. I bake in the sun of the Badlands, my Medicine Bundle in my arms, I’m protected and held as lifetimes are released – dead to the world.

Later that evening, after Psalm and the others arrive back to the Lodge she tells me that this is where she comes to do her deep shadow work. Hearing this from the woman who hangs out with Kali on a regular basis, I now understand why I can barely lift my head off the pillow. I drift back to sleep and am awoken in the middle of the night by shooting pain in my left Knee. Wounded Knee…

Psalm is already gone when I rise the next morning. She has brought the matriarch of the medicine man’s family into Sioux Fall’s to pickup more supplies for all of her guests. I hear my own lineage calling me home. I know it is time for me turn around and go back. The week ahead will be full and I can not justify staying. I will continue my ceremony back in Salt Lake. I drive 24 hours to be on the reservation for the same – I cry in the wonder of it all, still knowing this adventure is part of my initiation and connection to this great land with much history to share. I know that I will return another time.

I head west and stop for Ceremony at the overlook above Wounded Knee and then at the Memorial gravesite where the bodies were piled en masse. I leave a prayer tie on the fence, an offering – a promise, a tobacco tie to send a smoke signal to the ancestors of the land. I hear you and I will share your message… 

Are you listening?

The Elders are speaking.

In Remembrance of the lives they gave for us to be here
Can you hear it?

The Elders are Praying
Remembrance of the sacred ways

Their Voices Living Through UsHear this messageSit in the stillness of eternity

Clear the lenses of your perceptionClear the filters of your pastUnwind the ancient story

Live in the light of your truth

Find peace within and radiate it out.

There is no time for questioning

Be only a vessel for this wisdom

Deeply guided and supported

Honoring your Connection
Choosing to live so we can live through you

Life is But a Dream

"Andy Pandy puddin' head pie - kissed the boys and made them cry" - Though sung to me as a child by my grandfather with the sweetest of intentions, I often joke that this song has affected my most intimate relationships. I somewhat jest here, but all kidding aside, I have recently seen (even after all the work I have done), how one particular story (unrelated to relationships) I was told throughout my childhood is still playing out in my adult life. Our stories become a part of our makeup, whether they are true or not, and for whatever reason we choose to continue to allow them to inform us.

Recent research into neuroplasticity of the brain has shown that the gray matter does not know the difference between something real or imagined. Our consciousness does, but when it comes to the brain itself, the same grooves are created whether we imagine something or it actually happens.

The Shaman works with this concept in a different way. In the west, we look at time and consider it to be linear. That is, the past determines our present - which determines our future. The Shaman sees times as circular. This means that we can work beyond time and space to heal the wounds of our past today. This is not to say that we can change what has happened to us, but we can change the way the memory lives within us; we can go back to the experience in our minds eye and give ourself what we really needed in the moment to complete the experience in the present, instead of repeating the karma over and over. We can find the gift through what we've learned and turn it into a source of strength instead of wounding.

I recently attended a workshop with one of my favorite teachers from L.A., Lorin Roche, one of the foremost experts in meditation. Lorin is one of the pioneers of meditation research, he worked in the labratory at UC Irvine doing studies on the effects of the practice in the late 60's, has a PhD in the subject and has traveled the world teaching meditation for decades.

Lorin lectured for some time about how whatever stress we are carrying will release during meditation and that it is completely natural to go in and out of a relaxed state to an epic daydream during the practice and how important it was to accept these rhthyms.

When Lorin led us in meditation, he guided us to recall our most favorite, enlightening experiences and to experience how they felt in our body. He had us recall the sounds, movements and visceral memory of the experience to bring us to a heightened state; it is here, in this place that we create the radical rest and relaxation in the body mind and change our cellular structure, brain waves and blood chemisty.

As I drove home enlightened by the evening it occurred to me how life is truly but a dream and how all the tools are available to stop on a dime and shift if we choose to. At the same time, I recognize those places my mind gets caught in churning over and over, it feels like there is no way out even with all my tools. So often we resist being in depressed or saddened states as if we are not supposed to be there. If we are truly dreaming our world then whatever is present in a particular moment is part of the dream we are creating. If there is no I, then everything around me is a reflection of my inner being and is as it should be, to assist me and show me where I am on my journey.

Every answer we seek lives inside of us, and now more than ever, it is so important to be quiet and still to access our deepest truths and recognize why and what it is that we are creating in our lives...Remember the nursery rhyme says to row the boat gently down the stream so be gentle with yourself as you flow and evolve through life's ever changing landscape.

Deep Within the Unknown

Someone recently said to me that deep within the unknown lies the known. It has left me wondering just how deep one must go into the darkness to finally see the light. For the past 2 months I have felt like a stranger in my own body – seemingly disconnected from the Source of my own being. Needless to say, this is somewhat alarming to someone whose life quest is to live her deepest truth and to assist others to live theirs.

Like a Chrysalis, uncertain of what’s to come, unaware of the magnificence that lies ahead, I am transforming in a way I have never experienced. Today I read that a caterpillar actually liquefies in the cocoon before it transforms into a butterfly. This pretty much sums up my recent journey.

During my Bikram yoga teacher training, the lead instructor would often say that the greatest distance one will ever travel is the distance between the mind and the heart. I now understand that this excursion is the reason for the extreme discomfort I have been experiencing. It is now clear I’ve been relearning everything I thought to instead know it in my heart.

For as long as I can remember, my mother has told me that when I was born she knew I would teach her how to love. Though it was a delightful thing to say, I was always found myself confused whenever she said this. Now more than ever, I look back at my life and think, what do I know about love? My love relationships over the past decade have been less than revelatory, bordering on non-existent (except in my own mind). What I have realized is that living from my heart does not require me to be in a great relationship but it instead means to live my life with great passion, to follow my hopes and dreams, no matter how impossible they may seem; to have love, compassion and acceptance for others and their own path and choices.

I have always been a passionate person. My family would tell anyone they met that I have always lived from my heart - done whatever I wanted. “Mary Poppins” they called me, “she blows with the wind” they would say, referring to my actions in following my heart’s desire.

To be such a passionate person is not always easy in this world. Often times it is mistaken for being overly zealous or too intense. What I’ve come to realize as I’ve gone through this recalibration is that I can be passionate without having to prove anything to anyone, or take anyone with me in my excitement.

I am passionate about living my light, to live from my heart, to express my deepest truth – to love myself, my life, my family, my friends, my clients. Whether I offend others or if someone disapproves, can not be my concern. Though I hope to live in peace and balance with all beings, I also recognize that not everyone will agree with my choices and ways of expression. In these cases, I must yield to my own heart and remain in my truth without dimming my light, isolating or changing what I believe to be accepted.

To live from my heart means to listen to my body, to see the beauty and magic in the everyday things; to laugh, to dance, to express my deepest truth without fear of rejection; to create the space and be a support for others as they too open to the truth in their own hearts. To live from my heart means to live, the only way I know how – as me…

Namaste, Andrea

Flying through the Valley of Life, Death and Rebirth

As I begin writing this note, I am flying 30,000 feet over the desert of Death Valley. I am traveling home from leading a beyond words Shamanic Yoga Weekend, part of a Yoga Teacher Training with my beloved Sister, Leeza Villagomez and the Yoga Den Community of Corona, CA. Together we journeyed through death and renewal to experience the truth and full expression of our Soul's purpose and passion.

From the eagle's perspective high above the ground from where I see, there seems to be little life on the barren landscape below and yet I have a strong sense that the black and brown rugged earth is very much alive. It appears as if there are mountains, just below and at the surface ready to erupt, strong and powerful from the depths of the hot molten lava bubbling in gaia's core - the womb of the great mother giving birth to something amazing.

My heart smiles in awe and recognition of how this landscape paints the metaphor for the splendid palette that is life. Like a brush fire brings renewal to drought ridden lands; our collective outdated stories and wounds from the past must shake loose like a massive earthquake, with all the deadness, offered as tinder to be engulfed in the flames of transformation. What's left is a deep rich blackened empty palette, fertile, ready to emerge with new life, all possibility - all potential.

I see my own journey of truth, the life I was born to live erupting as the tall, Sacred mountains I see below me; I am fully rooted in my foundation with my hopes and dreams, extending upward as an infinte peak touching the heavens - I am deeply humbled and filled with gratitude.

The landscape changes dramatically as the "silver bird" that carries me home passes above the snow covered, red rock canyons - the land of Zion, Southern Utah. The vibrancy of the pure white snow against the towering red bookcase cliffs takes my breath away and my heart melts with deep appreciation and love for the artist that creates this masterpiece.

The splendid landscape changes again and again - each scene is like an opus through the window that is my looking glass, unique and magnificent. As I get closer to Salt Lake, the mountains grow taller and darker. The familiar striated snow covered Granite peak of Mt. Timpanogos greets me and soon I see the Sacred mountains that create the boundaries of the valley I call hOMe... I am renewed and awakened with profound and inspired insight into my own and our collective journey. I feel excitement and hope like never before. I greet my land and tune myself to the magnificent landscape that is creation as me - a breathtaking One of a kind masterpiece!

It takes each one of us releasing the old ways of being, living fully awakened in our truth; honoring, sharing and celebrating our uniqueness to usher in a new era, a new world where the beings of the earth live as heaven on solid ground - What Dreams May Come... Om Namah Shiv-aya ~ Jai Kali MA! L'Chiam...to LIFE!!

Please join me, in the creation of our Sacred Song shining like the sun.

Peace within, peace without - All my Love, Mucho Munay!
Andrea Bernstein
March 1st 2010

The Death and Rebirth of Love - A Christmas Sacrifice

Today on the eve of the coming of the light…
I release, unwind, untether how the memory of love lives within me.
For these are the old ways of loving - carried far too long…
Too heavy, too outdated, too much of a burden to hold another day.
This love I have known is not mine any longer,
It is from ancient lives – my own and my ancestors…
From days of sleep to the truth, of the light that I am.

For I know with every inch of my being, that this light
Holds love beyond any love I have ever known.
It is expansive and infinite,
It is kind and accepting
It holds and supports all beings

This love is the creator and the creation
The water I drink, the air I breathe
It is the truth of each Soul here on earth

On this day, I die to the place
Where all worlds meet
In the center – at the cross
Where my heart holds my truth…
Reborn - to the brightest light and the greatest love
I have ever known

Andrea Bernstein
Christmas Eve 2009

Re-Awakening of the Divine

Beloved, the flame that is my Soul
Dances in ecstacy with you.

Oh Eternal One
You are the wind that brings harmony
to the instrument of Love that I am

As the breath
gives song to a flute
You awaken the music of creation
that is me

Oh Beloved
I have dreamed of you
Always knowing you existed
yet searching and longing
for your touch
Outside

Andrea Bernstein
October 10, 2009