I woke up this morning to see a young buck walking quietly across the snow-covered land. The deer's gentle nature reminded me how we should walk on this Mother Earth and how we should pray.
The morning here on the North/East side of Mt. Shasta was cold with a biting wind. I wrapped up and pulled my red cap way below my ears as I made my way across my parent's property to a neighborhood stream in Angel Valley. It was New Moon time, time for me to feed the Nagas.
I looked for the signs of nature as I walked. I approached a pine tree forest and I was just thinking how sometimes the spirits of the nagas manifest in certain trees and I wondered why...
Then it dawned on me. The Nagas live in the water and as the water is pulled up though the tree roots, their spirit sometimes is drawn up and begins to reside in a tree. The tree's branches will twist and turn, forming into the shape of a dragon or naga.
Just then I found a very large tree at the side of the road. It was weeping sap that shined golden as the sun broke though the clouds. I took a pinch of lavender from my pocket and offered it to the tree and carefully removed a waterfall of golden pitch from the bark of the tree. I smelled it. Ahhh! it was the very essence of every tree in the forest. It was Mother Nature's natural perfume. Just breathing in the pine sap instantly connected me to every pine tree in the forest. What a wonderful gift that nature gave me.
I walked further, gathering rose hips along the way. The hips are filled with vitamin C and it was the perfect time to pick them after the winter snows which ripens the fruit and make them soft and easy to eat from the brush. The first hips I found were a bit dried-out orange rather then juicy red. But as I moved closer to the stream, the rose hips became red. The underground water was feeding the bushes, bringing more fertility to the growing process of the roses. This is the way they say that the Naga Beings are connected to the fertility of the Earth. Water feeds the fertility of the land and the Nagas are connected to the water.
I came to the stream in Angel Valley. I said my prayers and offered the milk and honey to the babbling brook that made its way though the pine tree forest and traveled into the farm land across the way.
As I walked back I found deer prints and stood in them, pressing my foot into the prints of the deer. I made a prayer to find my gentleness in this life, to become more gentle even if life seems to sometimes be harsh. The deer spirit is gentle but very strong, swift and powerful. I was reminded of the teachings of the deer: to be powerful but to use that power with gentleness, and sometime quietness as you move though this world. It was something I needed to strive for in my journey.
I came home and unpacked my treasure from my pocket. I spread out the rose hips in the kitchen for a cup of tea to warm myself. Then I placed the golden pine sap on my altar in my bedroom. I looked down and the sap had formed into the shape of a golden dragon. A great gift for the last Naga Offering of 2008.
More Precious then silver
More Precious then gold
Are the Seeds of the Earth
And the Wisdom they hold
More Precious then silver
More Precious then gold
Are the gifts of the Earth
That are about to Unfold.
Poem by Raylene Abbott
