Friday,
June 04, 2004 8:31 PM
Hi
Elohim_Yahweh,
I feel that I should now address you as Wakan Tanka as well.
As you know, I am going on a Pipe Fast on Sunday. I have been preparing
for some months now, and I am quite eager about this. What am I
expecting? At first I expressed it in rather cerebral terms; I
wanted to figure out what I should be doing with your gifts now
that I am clearly in the final stage of my life on this side. I
saw the story of your Son Jesus doing his Quest in the desert and
the temptations at the end as a model of any vision quest, and
I guess that it is so. What the Gospel story left out though was
what preceded the temptations to abuse the gifts. What kind of
communication did he have with you? Did he see you face to face
? What kind of prayers did he send to you and how did you speak
to him?
You know how I have declared to others that I saw my life journey as
a journey in search of your face. That really is an incredibly
presumptuous way of talking about it. Who am I do ever think that
I even remotely had the capacity to see your face? The gulf between
us is so vast , and yet there is no gulf at all for you are with
me and in me, and I do have your very life that animates me. So
what do I want to see that I have not already seen? What more could
I have the capacity to see?
I recall the Jewish belief that no man could see the face of God and
live. That Moses did see your face and forever had to keep his
covered because his countenance was too bright for any other person
to look upon. I am not in that league at all. I am not sure that
it would be a desirable outcome in any case. But I do want to better
see your face and better understand the life that you have placed
within me and better learn how to pray to you and how to better
recognize you in all of my brothers and sisters in creation and
on Maka.
My friend is right. I should not focus on outcome and just be present
in the moment that you give me there. What greater thing could
I ask for? What greater experience could I ever have?
I ask you to be with my prayer partners; all of them, but especially
with Ken and Don. Let this time of prayer be a soul-healing and enriching
time for them as well. For my good and dear friend Joe who is so generously
hosting us, I give you thanks and ask for your many gifts to be on
him in abundance. For my worried and loving mother, let my father come
to her and comfort her with the insight that he has now and from his
knowledge of my journey with you.
I do not know where this red road is leading, but I thank you for placing
my feet onto it.
If you wish, you can send an email to just talk to me, and in any case
I hope you will be close to me and let me hear your voice and see your
face in as far as I am able. Protect me and all of us. Let this prayer
be for me and for all of the people whom you love.
With humility and yet great pride, I am
Candesna Cun Wakan Oksina / Gerald at Friendly Forest
Note: The
above letter was written a few days before I went to pray in
the Pipe Fast overlooking Tobin Lake. My
letter / prayer was answered in a manner that was impossible
for me to even imagine at the time I wrote the letter to Elohim
/Yahweh/ Wakan Tanka.
Those
four days of fasting and prayer, sleep and dreams, day visions
and night
visions was as nothing else in my physical
or spiritual life before or after. I was shown "the face
of God" and also introduced to the many Spirit Guides who accompany
me and support me all the days after that special time. I
do not write about the details of what happened but have been
wiling to talk about some of it with those who I believe truly
seek the Spirit in their own lives. The related sections
in "Hoop Boy", especially the materials about a Traditional Shirt can
provide a few clues to those who have the capacity to see and
understand the clues.
If
you too are a seeker of the "face of God" and think
that communicating with me
about this might help you in your sacred
/ holy journey, contact me using the email address given on my
"Contact" page. May Creator always be present
to you and may the eyes of your heart always be open to see the
one whose life is in you. Gerald
/ Tree Guy / Hoop Boy