“You will be like a well watered garden, like an ever flowing spring.” Isaiah 58:11
I dream I have found the location of a sacred spring, there is a man and a buffalo there who are guardians of the spring. They have a story to tell about the water, and the sacredness of this place and it’s importance. It is not being used currently, for what it’s purpose was designed. It is located on private farm land and the water is being pumped and used to water the fields. This sacred place and the healing waters there, are meant to be used as a place of initiation and healing, not for commercial profit.
The man has reddish dark hair, mustache and beard and perhaps English or Scottish ancestry. He was a hunter or trapper in the area, and now his spirit remains as guardian of this sacred spring. He is a big, burly looking mountain man, and it could also be a bear with him, Yes a Grizzly. I see the Grizzly who stands behind the man at a safe distance away. She stands on her hind legs with her shabby, sun drenched, blonde fur. She growls fiercely toward me, protecting her man. I recall looking at a trail map which had grizzly bear indicators for the trails they may frequent. I was looking at the trail map to see which trails I may want to follow. I am aware of the danger, but not afraid of the Bear, in fact in looking at the map, I see several trails grizzlies may frequent that I may be willing to go down. I know the area on the map where I am looking is near the Sierra Nevada Mountains of N. California and Nevada and perhaps further up into Montana. In researching this grizzly guardian, I discover he is in fact, the mountain man & trapper John Grizzly Adams, who lived in this area during the 1849 gold rush.
He lived in the wild and trapped and trained a number of Grizzly Bears over the years. One of his first was a she bear he trapped and trained who would follow him around just as I saw in my dream. Adams was attacked by a Grizzly in 1855,’ but saved by one of his Grizzly Bears who fought in his defense. He died 5 years later after the attack, never fully recovering. It would make sense that he would return to the places in the wild he loved as a guardian. It appears he would like to tell more of his story, or perhaps he is unhappy with how he has been portrayed.
I understand the spring and it’s purpose is connected with the deep well of soul, and it’s connection to ever flowing emotion and creativity. There are stories in this spring that want to be told, but before having access to them, I must listen to and tell the story of the guardian of this sacred place. I am impatient with him and want to bypass this process. I want to go around him and go deeper, I feel I have already heard the story of the gatekeeper and understand him, but I am here for a different purpose, the purpose for which this spring was created. Each time I try to go deeper into the sacred spring, I encounter the guardian, and he begins to tell me the story of this spring. In this telling, I am also paying attention to the buffalo and the story it has to tell me. The tragedy of the loss of the abundance of the buffalo, because of the greed of man. The story of how this affected the native people and how much they relied on the buffalo for not only food, but clothing and shelter. The Buffalo was at one time as numerous on the plains as the waves on the ocean, and as deeply honored in sacred ceremony and myth, as an ever flowing spring. The Indigenous People took care to honor the Buffalo and when hunted, they used every part of this sacred animal. They never imagined that it could become extinct and their way of life with it, because of the greed, guns and colonization by the white man.
I try once again to connect on a deeper level with the ever flowing spring, and again I meet the guardian of the spring who has his story to tell. He is focused on the physical water and location of the sacred place and the story surrounding it. The need to protect the environment and sacred places upon the earth, which are being used up for temporary financial gain. I want to go deeper into the healing power of the spring and encounter the soul energy that resides there. It is the soul energy of the earth, and holds great healing power. I want to delve in deeper with this ever flowing energy of soul and connect my life with it, and realign with my own inner vast resources of the ever flowing spring. It is restorative, and creative and from it stories spring forth, bubbling up from the depths of soul, swirling through time and into the present.
Finally, after the third hearing of the stories of the gatekeeper, I am able to delve deeper into the ever flowing spring. I enter the movement and see the spiraling flow of the water, it takes me ever deeper to the source of the spring. I am aware that this inner reality is the much sought after discovery of the elixir of life, or the fountain of youth, the alchemists spoke of in myth and legend. I have only just stepped into this flow of these sacred waters, and I know they will carry me ever deeper. I am blessed by these waters in dreaming on the cusp of a new year.
My prayer is to honor the earth dream and protect the sacred, within and without. May the ever flowing spring reveal my sacred purpose and bigger story.
For more information on sacred sites at risk, all around the earth please visit – www.sacredland.org
Awaken the Sacred Dream 