This Way to the Kiva

The earth reels in diversity and beauty. It teems with, as indigenous cultures would say, four-leggeds (mammals), winged ones (birds), and creepy crawlies (insects). Through many challenges, all of these animals have honed their own instinctive skills to adapt and survive. Yet for the human species to now survive, we must renew our own intuition and remember how we belong, both to each other and to the world at large. To do so cultivates the wisdom inherent in our bodies, minds, spirits, and in our capacity to realize living relationships with all other species. With mindfulness, our spirits guide us in the way of kindness and compassion. Our psyches then shift from depression and anxiety to ease and sentient focus. And the natural world provides renewal from its soothing rhythms. But we have lost so much of this awareness. How do we recover this sense belonging? How can a peaceful spirituality inform an ego-centered psychology? Can divine knowledge shape and direct our mental and psychological choices towards greater health and sanity? And how might we rediscover ancient teachings from the natural world?

These are questions I’ve explored for over 30 years, winding through outer landscapes in the backcountry of Montana and Arizona while traversing the psychology of my own inner landscape. From my own both blessed and troubled childhood to my adult interrupted family and resulting challenging solitude, I have quested to find meaning, solace, and support from the Divine, the human community, and the natural world. This Way to the Kiva chronicles that journey and its attendant discoveries. It is my hope that you will find your own stories related to mine, and your way of healing enhanced by my own.

Included here are two of the over fifty poems you will find in This Way to the Kiva.

Coming Home is the Journey

Sometimes the gift of sudden contrast
between meaning and sheer emptiness
catapults you into your journey.

Attempting to live
in that which dies even as you peer over your shoulder
to the old threshold
allows one last glance,
one more breath,
to assure that nothing here is to be lived any longer.

The calm hands of death wrap themselves around your old life
as you nimbly slip out, just so.

Your heart, newly awakened, unfurls,
opening wide to universal alignment
with all that matters now.

Your freed energy gathers,
watching, waiting
for others who will join you
in this unmapped dance,
trembling and sure.

It's Just How We Live

Could we ever rest,

slow down,

slacken these chains
anchored to our chests?

Who would we be if not straining against something?

Hear how fear wails, frantic that nothing else
hides underneath all that work, incessant and demanding.

Let us go to the quiet gaping mouth together, you and I.
Here, take my hand—
we will slide easily down this shadowed cave
where musty smells sweet
and allow our eyes to grow accustomed to the great dark
Where, illuminated, the old teachers of love
Sit, waiting.

CONTENTS
Introduction
I. The Territory of the Sacred
Origins
Into the Night
From Unseen Realms
Could You Be Lost Like This?
Prayer of Peace-Making
The Related Shaman
They Always Surprise Me
Beadwork
Coming Home is the Journey
Return
Arrival
Re-Entry
In The Round
Old Indian Flute Music
Ceremony
This Way to the Kiva

II. The Call of the Psyche
When Psyche Comes Calling
You Know Her
Never Enough
Only If
Animal Dreams
The Wheel Turns
Going Below
Winged Body
Its Just How We Live
So Long Unsaved
Your Suffering
The Stars Still Travel

III. The Benevolence of Nature
Eagle Wind
Elk Herds
Moose Morning
Winter Solstice
Horse Medicine
The Standing People
Sustenance
Just a Dead Bird
Cloud Dancing
Serengeti
Wind Brother
Ireland
Tucson, Singing
Bridgers, O-Wa-Nee
Leaving the Crazies
Arriving, Elkhorn Ranch