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The events of the past couple of months are some of the most profound that ever happened to me. After Level 1 at Stewart Mineral Springs, five carloads of teachers, assistants, and participants left on the one-hour drive to the highest point that vehicles can go on Mt. Shasta. Shakti accompanied me.

Somehow, on the drive up, two cars got lost (blame it on being ungrounded after such a magical event) and ended up on a separate journey. The few of us that actually made it all the way did an Ipsalu Formula under the full moon’s light in an area of strange rock labyrinths in the eerie landscape before the mountain. We bonded, we loved, we parted…

Finally, only Shakti and I remained. Lingering for another hour, we did a ritual of shamanic magic and intention for the healing of the planet and everyone on it. Shakti charged a crystal in the moonlight. Later, as I drove down the empty, switch-backing roads through the alpine forest back to our teepee at the Springs, Shakti stood on her seat with her upper body out the moon-roof, arms spread like angel wings in the chill night air for most of the entire way down…

Later, in Portland… it is a warm August night and the bedroom is filled with the warm glow from the golden beeswax candles. Shakti straddles me as I lay on my back, my head in soft pillows. A light breeze touches my skin through the open window. I am on the edge, my climax nearing, but I like the edge and choose to stay there. I take a Breath, transmuting the energy through my entire body. Kundalini is awakened, and the kriyas begin, ecstatic waves of orgasm following. And then something else… something wonderful… no, this is not ejaculation, this is Divine revelation!

Shakti moves above me, wondering at my awe. Am I levitating? Is this really real? I am incredulous…The part within me that intuits––that knows––sees and knows. Not visible, yet tangible––a presence beyond comprehension that I still struggle to explain. The crack between the worlds has opened. The realm of Spirit is unveiled and the bed is surrounded by angels! Angels! Our bed is surrounded by angels!
I see them in my minds eye. I sense them, and know that they are there. And with my inner ear, I hear them. I hear them. “Love her,” they say as I move into the throes of ecstasy.

Much later… “Why didn’t I see them?” she asks. “ I don’t know.” I say. “But they were there for you…” The next day, returning from work to an empty apartment, I walk into the living room and am astounded to see drawings and paintings lined up along the floor against the walls and furniture. They are all stylized depictions of angelic beings, created by Shakti over the past few months, during her travels here in the west. That night, holding her close, I whisper “Thank you for filling my home with angels.”

Night came early in the canyon of the ten waterfalls. Shakti and I sit on the rock retaining wall, gazing through the raging waters of Lower South Falls as the last of the late summer twilight fades away. The raging waters have waned a bit since the tumultuous flows of spring… they are not quite as breathtaking…but they are still quite astounding.

I lead the tantric ceremony, an Ipsalu formula designed quite nicely for those perched on the edge of precarious drops. She leads the shamanic ceremony. In her priestess voice, she calls in the elements… and the angels. Although they don’t appear, their guidance leads us back through the pitch dark canyon…

Near the Klickitat strato-volcano, the angels make their presence known again, this time while we are sitting in Yab-Yum, fully clothed, hanging in a hammock between the trees… Again, Shakti doesn’t sense them… but I do… This time there is no message.

During our early September travels in Yellowstone, Shakti and I had a short bucket list of things we wanted to see. The geysers, the waterfall, the hot springs, the animals. I wanted to see a grizzly, and finally got a peek one day of a large one climbing a ridge on the eastern rim.

Shakti wanted to see an owl, and was growing frustrated after several days and nights of not seeing one. One evening, strolling back through a darkening forest in the caldera on the trail of the paint pots, I said, “Why don’t we just call one?” And then I called, “Who!!” My call was answered by the “Who!” of an owl. “Hear that?” I asked. She hadn’t. I called again. And the call was answered again. Suddenly, out of the darkening clouds, an owl landed on a high tree a short distance from us, silhouetted against the last lingering rays of the twilight sky. “There he is,” I point. “It’s magical!” Shakti said, and then the owl flew on.

From the heart of God’s country, Shakti beats the shaman drum. She sings a song to Great Spirit. I hold sacred space, joining in with my heart and soul. My Cherokee blood ignites, coursing through my veins…
Magical Yellowstone… Cloud-swept skies reopening to the blue of lingering summertime moments… birds singing to the heavens for the sweet reprieve…. The cold wave has passed…New snow on the distant mountains, mountains we will traverse on the way to the magical lake… Shakti calls in the angels, and spirits of nature… This is God’s country… we are only travelers here… only travelers here…

In the late morning of our final day in the Yellowstone caldera, Skakti fell in love again with the magical lake. After watching the breath and the bubbling waves of “the dragon” emanating from the vortex cave near the sulphur basin, we had arrived on a white sand beach empty of all inhabitants save us. We ate lunch, talked, and laughed.
Later, embracing each other erotically in the shadows of the trees, Shakti let out an orgasmic yell that almost echoed from the distant mountains across the lake. The air seemed charged with energy, as if an eruption were immanent.

Even later, as we packed up, she threw the Mt. Shasta-energized crystal into the calm, mirror-like, translucent waters just offshore. I watched in amazement as a dark, winged shadow, shaped like a manta ray, streaked away from the splash, underwater, to distant points perhaps a mile or so offshore… Within seconds, the lake turned choppy, small waves crashing on the shore… perhaps a mega-geyser would erupt here… After a few minutes, it was over…

I am incredulous. Did that really happen? But Shakti saw it, too. “It’s magical!” she says.

“You have a mission,” Shakti had informed me. “You need to help me connect to God.” We sit on a picnic blanket beneath tall trees on a break from our return drive to Oregon. “I soon leave for home,” she says. “St. Petersburg.” “I know.” “I may not be able to return. NATO has armies on the edge of Ukraine. America is not happy with my country right now.” “Don’t worry,” I say. “The angels were here for a reason. Maybe that is why they told me to love you. To show that east and west can love each other. Maybe that is why we are in each other’s lives.”

She smiles sadly. “Maybe,” she says. And that was when she notices the feather. The feather of an owl, caught in the high grass. She collects it… then collects a few more. I collect a magnificent owl feather, and place it in the band of my fedora. And that was when she noticed…in the branches of a high tree, stuck like leaves in a web, a multitude of feathers from what remained of the owl. It had been attacked from above, and taken away… Into the heavens…

Shasta Area, Oregon and Yellowstone August & September 2014