World Wide Labyrinth Day

You are invited to participate in an Upcoming Global Event with the intention of spreading the healing benefits of the Labyrinth. We hope you'll join us for this second annual celebration of World Labyrinth Day(TM) on May 1st, 2010.
Last year, a variety of events were held at over 100 locations worldwide, including the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., churches, and even a women's maximum security prison. Countries joining the celebration included: the United States, Canada, England, New Zealand, China, South Africa, and Australia.
World Labyrinth Day(TM) is a wonderful opportunity for global community building and celebration, as we join with others around the world, walking the path of the labyrinth.

Think Globally, Act Locally - 'Walk as One at 1:00.

Once again there is an invitation to ‘Walk As One at 1’ in an attempt to create a wave of peaceful energy moving around the planet. To participate, people are invited to walk a labyrinth at 1:00 P.M. in their local time zone.

Dear KC Community,

I am opening the Prairie Labyrinth on Saturday, May 1, 2010 from noon until 5:00 PM for anyone who would like to participate in this larger global event.
The Labyrinth is a walking meditation inviting you to relax, de-stress and reconnect with your own internal rhythm. It will be an opportunity to be in Nature in a self-reflective process as you join with the energy of those around the world focused on inner peace and oneness with the Earth and each other.

This is a good way to honor and align with the changes that are occurring in and around us, making ourselves available to ground the incoming light of Spring and the growth that it brings. Set your own personal intentions or walk as an empty vessel to receive what you most need.

Because this day falls on "May Day", feel free to bring a colored ribbon to tie onto the center pole in the labyrinth which will serve as our symbolic "May Pole". It will be a colorful representation of our individuated strands being woven together as we add to the matrix of the new energy web that is forming on the planet.

If you have never walked a labyrinth before, this is a good time to experience its balancing and calming properties. The seven-circuit pathway is 166 ft. in diameter and can be walked in 20 minutes or enjoyed for as long as you desire between noon and 5:00. The "Chakra Labyrinth Cards" will be available to use if desired.

For your comfort if sunny, you may want to bring water, sunglasses or hat. Wear comfortable shoes or go barefoot on the mowed grass path. The studio space will be open providing access to a bathroom.

This is a free event with donations appreciated.

Feel free to pass on to friends.

Hope to see you then.

Circle blessings,

Toby Evans


Directions to the Prairie Labyrinth


Coming from the Metro area:

Take I 70 East to Grain Valley/Buckner Exit (Exit 24)Turn left or North onto BB Highway.

Stay on BB for 6.5 miles

Turn Right on Neil Chiles Rd. (There is an intersection sign just before this road)
Come down Neil Chiles until Holly Rd. Turn Left (It only goes left).

First house on the left. 2-story old white farm house.
Red Building is the studio space.
1316 N Holly Rd


Coming from the North:

Take 291 S to 24 Highway East.

Stay on 24 East going into small town of Buckner.

From the stop light in Buckner continue on 24 East about 2 miles.

Take the 2nd Road on the Right - Holly Road.

Come to the top of the hill - 1 mile

First house on the Right - 1316 N. Holly Rd.

Red building is studio space.

Receptor Codes

After attending the Labyrinth Gathering in Portand, four friends decided to extend the adventure by renting an RV and going down the coast of Oregon. One of the highlights for me was in Cape Meares, Oregon where we were introduced to Oregon’s largest Sitka Spruce tree. It is 144 ft. tall with a circumference of 48 ft. and an average crown spread of 93 ft. It is 750- 800 years old.

Coming down the short trail into this Grandfather tree’s presence was awe inspiring. Carol House read to us (Connie Fenty, Diane Terry-Kehner, and me) the night before from a book called “The Ringing Cedars of Russia” by Vladimir Megre’ who is the author of the "Anastasia" series. Anastasia has a deep connection to Nature, Spirit, and to the underpinnings of the Universal forces. The portion Carol read had to do with the spirit of the Cherry Tree. I am sure just hearing her words was preparation to be in the presence of this “ancient one”.



Coming to the base of the tree, we were awe struck with the visual impression of two large burls or growths that resembled testicles with a protrusion hanging beneath and between them.
There was no doubt that this was a male presence.

We each found a niche around the tree to settle into and I leaned back to open myself to whatever the tree wanted to share. This is what came.

I first inquired, “Is it true that you receive information from the stars and pull it down through your branches into your roots to distribute it to the earth?”

The answer was immediate. “That is my function.”

I pressed further, “ Do you have a message for me?”

“Yes. The blank book that you just bought at the light house- which you thought would be a gift for someone else- is for you to record the messages in. This will be housing information on the “Receptor Codes” They will unfold over time. All you have to do now is make space inside to receive them. Press your body into my base. In two places sit with your back against me. In two places press the front of your body including your forehead against my trunk. Circle the entire base and pick four places.

The information will be transferred to your cells and unfold over time as a “thought ball” that unwinds."

I did as instructed finding myself drawn back to the burls as the tree continued to explain.

"Just as man’s seed is stored in their testicles, information has been coded and is stored in these growth protrusions intended to impregnate receptive souls with this knowledge. Take a drop of my resin as my elixir of truth. A blessed union is required for the transfer to occur. This happens when you embody the counterbalance to my holding station.

You hold the "eggs" of your womb within your receptive nature– Inside these are the Receptor Codes. I am not talking about ovulation. In your DNA you have the capacity to receive, to hold, to nourish and are willing to grow the seeds within your being and deliver them into the world. The Earth as you know it is not the same as it was when I came to be anchored here and my watch tower was set into place. It took the passage of time to elongate the spiraling frequencies which allows the higher vibrations to enter your atmosphere and settle into your consciousness. You have the Receptor Codes, as many men and women do, but it is now time to activate them. One person activates another. It is how it is always done. It is registered internally as a quickening – an inner knowing. Recognizing your own confirmation through your own subtle-body signals assures you and guides you – connecting you to where you have been and where you are going.”

I received the drop of tree resin that was offered from the “downspout” hanging between the gargantuan testicles. I took it back to our home on wheels (our rented RV) and unpackaged the book smearing the resin into the recessed center circle of the book cover- which just so happened to resembles rings of a tree. Grandfather Sitka’s essence imbues this book. I am open to the thought-ball that will continue to unfold.

October 17, 2009 (written on the flight home)

“So now you know the “Receptor Codes” are documented as olfactory information. It is not an accident that the scent of pine was the gift extended to you. You were prepared for this transfer when you touched the other pine sap days before and continued to smell it. Every time you bring your nose to this cover you reactivate the connection. Release the idea of needing to write a book about this information. You are being asked to live it and share it.

It will come unsummoned as well as invited. It is the Receptor Codes that you possess that have been turned on, turned up, tuned in to my frequency that will be used as the receiving station for information transfer. This comes through your human filter and because of that you are placing human attributes onto my tree system, but I am only one single strand of hair- growing on the God-head. My program comes from the stars and it is a sliver of that program that you are opening to. It will deepen and refine your own program because scent, as one of the oldest systems, carries information that will up-level you. It is not information that your mind needs to process. It is cellular reconstruction and refinement that is being targeted.”


Since coming home I started to read information from a book called The Gene Keys by Richard Rudd. Somehow it seems related to the Receptor Code information. http://www.genekeys.net/

He says: “Your DNA is simply waiting for you to input the right code. Once it has received your instructions, it will run the new program and build you a new body, a new life and a new reality…
A transmission can only be received through silence and deep meditative absorption. Every shadow contains a gift. When you accept and embrace your shadow, they suddenly reveal their true nature and a new inventive impulse is released through you. Inside your DNA , a subtle but potent mutation takes place. As your shadow reveals your hidden Gifts, the whole tempo of your life changes. Once you know the Shadows inside yourself, evolution will begin to use you to raise the frequency of others which will draw you into some form of service.”

And added to this was a quote from Patricia Cory from the Sirius Council:

"Wherever humankind faced persecution for free thought, it was most often necessary to bury the profound revelations in codes. The storehouses or libraries that held the information are often right in front of us, contained in universal properties of God/Life/Creation/Awareness."

Namaste

The Transforming Power of Fire

Fire is humanity's oldest ceremony.
The Inca believe we are given seeds of knowledge to plant and these seeds are not germinated in water but awaken in our soul through fire.

Since establishing the prairie grasses in 1988, we have followed the Missouri Conservation Department's guide-lines to burn every 2-3 years. Fire clears out the accumulated old growth while jump-starting the new seeds.

The anticipation for this year’s burn began last November when several women at the Labyrinth Society’s annual Gathering asked to come to the Prairie Labyrinth for a weekend to focus and share our perspectives on death and rebirth. This may sound like a strange request, but not to Labyrinth members.

Walking a labyrinth is sometimes referred to as a "3- fold path" because it aligns with the Death/Birth/Rebirth cycles. Those who were interested in coming had been touched by personal loss or the “death” of some aspect of their lives. Creating a workshop that would culminate in burning the prairie seemed like a perfect fit. After all, a burn is the ultimate expression of death and re-birth.


….And then there’s that saying, "If you want to make God laugh, just tell Him your plan."

The weekend we intended to burn fell smack in the middle of continuous rains. I began to rethink the Inca belief wondering if "the seeds of knowledge we were given to plant" would have to settle for activation in water.
The theme of Birth/Death/Re-birth aligns nicely with the Mother/Crone/Maiden archetypes- giving us the template of the Triple Goddess for the work we did together. The rain paused long enough for us to enlist the Mother’s assistance to prepare the labyrinth for the fire, raking the heavy grasses away from the wooden posts and benches. That afternoon we outlined ourselves on butcher paper and painted the themes of "our stories" inside of us. We cut out our paper-selves and carried them into the labyrinth to reenact the Sumerian myth of Innana's descent into the "underworld”.

The Prairie Labyrinth has been set up to align with the chakras going from the Root chakra (Red) up to the Crown Chakra (Violet). For our workshop, the order was reversed to reinforce the idea that we were journeying downward to meet the Crone at our center. The Crone is the wisdom aspect of ourselves that can assist us in cutting away the “meat” of our stories that keeps us stuck or in denial. In the darkness we tore our paper-selves up in an act of dismembering what no longer vibrates with us, placing the pieces in a small brown bag and tucking the bags into the tall prairie grasses awaiting the burn to be transmuted.

But Fire was not the element that greeted us the next day. Morning brought a deluge of rain that cancelled the prospect of burning for the entire weekend. As disappointed as we were, it didn’t take long to appreciate the rightness of remaining in the energy of the "underworld" and maintaining a contained environment that allowed us to go deeper and then focus on the work that the Maiden aspect of Re-birth" required.

The women returned home, knowing that the shells of their “old selves” were still incubating in the wet grasses (which mostly involved becoming water-logged clumps of pressed together paper) while they went through their own internal process of alchemy.

Sometimes death and transformation takes longer than we think. It is a process that we can’t speed up because we have our own agenda or it's frustrating, maddeing or uncomfortable. Death comes in many forms besides dealing with the loss of a loved one. You may be experiencing the death of a relationship, a job or career, a physical challenge, a financial crisis, or find yourself in an unexpected situation that you were not prepared for. When the old is gone and the new has not quite emerged, you may be numb, angry, depressed and feel like a victim living in a limbo state. Death has its own timing that we don't control. Each step provides us with choices to make adjustments, to resist, to grieve, to rage, to give up, to integrate, to accept, to reexamine our desires, to hang on - or to let go.

Core changes registers first in our hearts and in our guts. The last to get it is our heads. Acceptance of new awareness’s or realizations percolates upwards, forging new pathways in our minds.

In order for us to move from the passage of Death to Re-birth, we must first come to acknowledge the gifts that are revealed through the loss or the challenge.

When the meat of our stories are burned away in the Crone's cauldron, only the bones of our foundation remain. Beneath the bones, lie the gems.

It wasn't until 2 weeks later, on the weekend of Beltane (and our son, Adam's birthday) that Mother Nature pushed a pause button on the water-works and all the conditions lined up for the burn to happen.

The transforming power of fire that swept the land was one of the gentlest burns we have experienced. There is no doubt that it was one of the most intentional and well prepared for burns, but the sweetness came from accepting the possibility that it might not happen at all. Surrendering to those things we can not change is always a challenge until we really get it- that everything is in Divine order – that there is a bigger plan – and as a friend of mine likes to say, “It all works". It gets easier when we have an unshakable faith that this is true.

Many thanks to the courageous women, my dear friends, who came to do the preparation work on the land. By diving into your inner landscapes and making the inner and outer changes that were needed, you helped lay a foundation of safety and grace for the actual burn to occur.

And much gratitude to the Heartland community who were called to be a part of this year's diverse burn crew, setting your own death and rebirth intentions. I appreciate every one of you and the multifaceted layers that were revealed in your process of igniting, tending and being in awe of the fire.

May we nurture the seeds of our newly emerging selves as the greening process takes hold, steadily accelerating what has begun to grow.

Namaste,
Toby

2009 Prairie Labyrinth Burn Photos

Below are select photos taken before, during and after the burn on May 3, 2009.
To view more on a slide-show go to: http://cmd.shutterfly.com/commands/pictures/slideshow?site=prairielabyrinth&page=prairielabyrinth&album=23