Return to Feathered Pipe

(moments of reflection as I prepare to return on June 30, 2012 for a Feathered Pipe event, The Music of Yoga, The Yoga of Music, with Baxter Bell, MD)

 

I had been to Montana once before, ten days in Missoula, performing a concert for a previous Unity minister from my home church in San Luis Obispo, California. I loved the vibration there. I felt expansive in the Big Sky country…yes, the sky does seem larger up there, bluer too. I got to experience my first sweat lodge out in the mountains by a creek with two other neophytes…powerful and opening. I learned quickly that the fresh cool air was close to the ground. I spent increasing amounts of time hugging the Earth. I can still smell it on that Fall day, with leaves of a host of deciduous trees bursting in flames of lower chakra colors, puffy white cumulous clouds moving like a herd of buffalo across the wide open plains of the sky. It was a stunning experience. I even wrote a song, No Matter What (I’ll Be OK), on my journey there. I’m in Montana every time I sing it.

Now move way down the road of time and experience and here I am arriving, in the early 2000’s, at a place previously unknown to me, the Feathered Pipe Ranch, to participate in a 5 day workshop with my longtime associate, Hay House Author, Sonia Choquette. Also there was our friend and shaman, Deborah Grace. As I wound up the road in the car I could feel the place from a good distance away. This was sacred land, high vibration, steeped in mountainous beauty, awash with that same big, blue expanse of sky, and clothed in a sea of green leafed trees of all shapes and sizes. Yes, it was familiar, but there was a deeper sense of knowing that poured forth from that plot of magnificence in the north. There was a growing sense of coming home.

Feathered Pipe is an invitation to grow inwardly and express outwardly. The grounds call for more from anyone there. They pull the old out of you, almost forcing you to remember that you are far beyond what you thought you were. And this happens regardless of the event you are attending, like a bonus for showing up. I like that…a celebration for simply being alive and choosing to follow an impulse to say “yes” to an invitation.

The lodge overlooks the lake like a mother hen, keeping watch on all the trees and wildlife, tending the garden of plenty. A sweeping descending grassy expanse moves from the lodge down to the lake. It is the perfect siesta spot, the ideal observation point for endless Polaroid moments, the amphitheater for the stunning show of the heavenly night sky. There are teepees peppering the vista. A rope swing, filled with playful memories is to the far left at the edge of the sizable pond/lake. The waters just below the swing are the keeper of a pair of glasses of mine, deposited when in a playful frolic with the group, I threw myself onto the rope swing to go the highest…only to quickly lose my grip and slide ungracefully into the cold waiting waters…much to the shock of the class. “We killed the teacher!”, I heard through the mighty splash. Good times build memories that nurture and elevate.

The accommodations are that just right blend of rustic and comfortable and cozy. The room was warm and the bed was Goldilock’s right. Well earned sleep after the movement and growth of the day’s activities. The group’s personal needs were well cared for. Everyone always arrived at the morning’s events with sparkle and anticipation, a tribute to Feathered Pipe’s ability to nurture. Which brings me to the inner lodge where the bulk of classes and activities took place. I love it when the room ambiance and functionality changes based on the need. There was something about having a deep experience and then rearranging the furniture to create a place to break bread and deepen the connection. Helping and supporting built a tight community quickly.

The wood and western flavor of the room back then really supported the inner work. A Native American flavor also invited us to reclaim our inner heritage and immerse in the collective tribe we had created. The music I created felt especially powerful in that room. It resonated through the wood and easily found hearts open to expanding. When, at night, we stoked the fireplace, we effortlessly slid into another dimension of time and space and tapped our roots and crossed self imposed boundaries of old to reclaim a wild part of ourselves. Then when it all wound down, we often just hung out and sang together, unwilling to let the peak experiences slip away too soon.
And there was a sauna and a sweat lodge and a whole bunch of yurts on the hillside, amidst a panorama of dancing Tibetan prayer flags. The land was diverse and spoke many languages to the inner places of the participants. With ample room to wander it was easy and rewarding to slip off during the breaks to massage and heal the old energies that were releasing. And, I just found out there is a cave that we never visited, a step into the ancient heritage of the Pipe…and we get to go there for a deepening experience this time!

Though I have only been there once I still recall it with vivid visceral memory. It is impactful and nourishing. Feathered Pipe supports the unique and personal frequency of the participant. It demands that we show up to ourselves, willing or not. It is, honestly, the perfect place to return home.

The event I am helping to facilitate is called, The Music of Yoga, The Yoga of Music. It is a pairing of two disciplines coming from the same source, but with very different expressions. I will bring and apply my experience with sound and voice and song and chant and mantra and movement to support the openings and releases and alignments brought forth by the daily Yoga. Baxter Bell, MD, and I will facilitate separate sessions and then combine, often spontaneously, to create the perfect experience for the expanding vibration of all those involved. I am so excited to see what Spirit will bring, what gifts will spring forth from the oscillating frequencies of the collective moment.

If you are hearing the call of these rapidly changing times to return to the magnificence of your True Self, this experience has your name on it. Combining a clear and deep connection with the physical with the very fabric of existence, sound, is guaranteed to build new worlds and open channels to take us where we belong. Answer the call and explore the depths of your inner world in a cutting edge way, leading you quickly to a wide open experience of life that will simply not diminish. It is time.  

Visit www.featheredpipe.com or call 406.442.8196 for more information and to register.

 

Wani Wachialo Wani Wachialo Wakan katanka Wakan Katanka  (unite Heaven and Earth in the I that is me)

Endless Blessings,

Mark Stanton Welch