A Breeze comes into the Sweat Lodge
Once, when I first started participating in the monthly Sweat Lodge events in 1994, the door of the lodge was sometimes opened to let some cool air in during the sweat. During my first Sweat there, after the door was opened, as Barrett Eagle Bear picked up an eagle feather a cool breeze blew through the lodge.
A Squall blows through our Wedding
At our wedding ceremony in 1999, out of a clear blue sky, as Barrett performed the ceremony, a fierce storm appeared and blew through the tent, then passed and the sky was blue again. We were married outside the Sheraton hotel on the water by the entrance of the Miami river into Biscayne Bay. The hotel, which isn’t there any more, was next to the Indian Circle site which is still preserved there.
The Trees at Chekika
At Chekika State Park, which used to be called Grossman Hammock, and was the site of an old Indian village and some shell mounds, the trees would seem to wind up in a counter-clockwise movement when the winds blew, and unwind each time the winds paused.
Chekika Stories
Esoteric Trees
It has been said that an esoteric tree has it’s roots in the air. At Chekika, the soil was shallow, with coral rock a few feet underneath the surface. There were banyon trees growing there, and I remember a huge one that had blown over in a storm. The trunk was laying horizontally on the ground and the roots were standing as a vertical disk, a seeming monument near a path. The intricate interwoven roots looked like Celtic Runes in the tropical forest.
In 1942 a well was drilled looking for oil, and hit water far below the surface. This spring fed an upper and lower pond in the park. There was a run from the spring head a few feet to the first pond, and the second pond had a cleared part with a small beach, which was a local attraction of the park. A few years ago, as civilization expanded out to area, the spring was capped and replaced with city water, as the sulfur smelling waters, which had created a magical oasis full of diverse life and spirit, had to go. The area is now less open to the public, and not maintained as well as a park. (This seems to be in keeping with the goal of protecting the Everglades). For me, in another time, this was what the Indians might have called a place of power, where spiritual insight might be found.
A Miracle at Chekika
Once in the 1970’s, or perhaps the sixties, I was camping with friends at the park, which was then known as Grossman Hammock. The Grossmans owned the place and were wonderful caretakers who willed it to the state to continue to be a park. The state re-named it Chekika, after the Indians who had once lived there.
On the drive out there, we passed near the Kendall Gliderport, where people sometimes jumped from planes with parachutes. The abandoned runways there were sometimes used for para-sailing, which we sometimes did a few years later.
That afternoon, while engaging in what might loosely be described as a vision quest, I attempted to walk across the rocks in the spring run, just below the spring head. It looked shallow and easy, but the rocks were covered with slippery dark green moss in the current. In retrospect, it was amazing that I walked half way across the run without incident, before slipping and falling (without injury) in what I can only describe as a mind altering experience.
Just before this fall, we had been discussing the concept of the Warrior’s death, and the idea that it is our fears which keep us separate from becoming one with the universe and encapsulate us in these bodies on our path through life. (Jimi Hendrix: “I know how to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”). The Idea being that at the time of death (Hopefully not soon!), when there is no fear to separate us from the universe, we become one with it. This might be described as going straight to Valhalla. But back to the story:
As I fell, I seemed to have a cosmic experience. When, dripping wet, I exited the spring run, I was in a totally different space than before I fell. I felt enlightened. I was at peace.
Later that day, as we drove home, we saw police cars and vehicles in the distance in the field by the glider port. At the time I fell in the spring run, one of the jumpers’ chutes had failed to open, and he had died instantly that day.
