Where and when would The Traveler, me, finally find home?

 A day in mid March of 2013 found me up at dawn surrounded by lightly falling snow and walking round my Kleinburg, Ontario, medicine wheel. It was not cold, just below freezing, there was no wind. The medicine wheel had been created behind an extensive garden where a fence could be seen and in the distance a few old elm trees still stood. Looking out to the east was an expanse of fields where grain had been harvested and here and there tufts of wheat stalk stood peeking out of the snow that had blanketed the land for three months now. I loved the bleakness and the gently rolling hills lay of the land. The land felt older than time, settled centuries ago, open, free, and in these moments I could see that my higher self was connected to a vast vista of pregnant reality in which there was a purpose to all that I selected to experience. I recognized that I was on assignment throughout my days. Feeling ready to transcend boundaries, my commitment to evolve stared me in the face.

In the far distance one could hear the sounds of the highway that led to the town of Kleinburg. Kleinburg, an unincorporated village in the region of Vaughn, Ontario, lies a tad north of Toronto, Canada. It is one of those small, quiet, artsy towns that people love to visit and home of the splendid McMichael Canadian Art Collection, an art gallery with a focus on the fabulously talented and remarkable ‘Group of Seven’ painters. On my first visit to the mound behind the gallery, I felt a First Nations presence, and at that moment my right ear began buzzing. When my ears buzz I know to stop and listen, because it is the way that my spiritual guides contact me. I looked around, and felt that this was a holy place, a sacred site, and thus began to follow the mound that rose and then snaked behind a stand of tall oak trees. I remembered visiting the Serpent Mounds of Rice Lake, Ontario, many years ago, and was excited to find another such ancient pre-historic site in my new back yard.

Nearby is a conservation center called Kortright, where miles of rolling trails have been alighted upon for my cross country skiing adventures this winter. The village and its’ surrounding area have a population of 1000 folks, one of those folks had been Canadian writer, Pierre Burton. The village itself comprises a narrow section of hilly landscape situated between two branches of the Humber River. It is a historic village and is bounded by Highway 27 that leads to the Big Smoke, known as Toronto.

The gentle snow kept falling as I walked and attuned myself to prayer time and to the Spirits who preside over the four directions in the medicine wheel. I had been diligently working on a paranormal novella all winter and had been sending a heart-rending message out to the universe to ‘find home’, having moved in and out and across the country far too often. In a meditative state and saying unspoken prayers first to the east, then north, west and south, I walked around the wheel again, being pulled to stay facing the west direction. Suddenly, I clairaudiently heard, “A GREAT EVENT will occur in two weeks.”

I reached the center of the large wheel, where I stopped again. Here I had set up a large boulder with a lit candle and several clear quartz crystals. I gave thanks for the message, prayed for inspiration and courage and as I left the wheel began again focusing on my writing. I received no other clues at that moment about what kind of event, nor did I go looking for any, I was busy re-editing and putting the finishing touches on that futuristic paranormal novella. It was completed on the 20th of March, and I brought the main fictional characters in the story to finding their place in the west Kootenays.

I had been hearing about Nelson in the west Kootenays from my friend, whose house I shared, and about his good friend there who owned land on Bonnington Mountain, 150 acres of land, as a matter of fact, about 20 minutes west of Nelson. This fellow had three cabins up on the mountain that he rented. When I contemplated living in the Kootenays I was always rife with excitement and in meditation I had received a vision of a huge lake and determined it was Kootenay Lake. The vision seemed a portent of things to come. Perhaps I would finally settle down, having been a world traveler and wanderer far too long.

Novel completed on March 21st, I ‘Sunwinged’ to southern Cuba for a week’s holiday. What a delightful, fun filled week I had. Exploring, getting to know the local farmers and enjoying the friendly laid back Cubans in an area of little commercialism in the south at Marea del Portio. Cycling, horseback riding excursions into the Maestro Mountains, where a waterfall fell into a deep clear and warm pool and treated to a home cooked meal up in the mountains consisting of fajitas, baked beans, fresh cabbage salad, and on-site fried chicken; complete with coffee and banana cake for dessert.

Catamaran sailing was a thrill in the deep blue sea of the warm Caribbean, not to fail to mention the nightly lobster feasts on the hot sandy beach at sunset, and colorful entertainment of the musica and the dancing kind every evening under the bright Cuban stars. Warm breezes swept us off our feet nightly as we danced.

On the two hour flite home to Ontario from Cuba I seriously contemplated moving to the Kootenays and to move to my ‘acquaintance’ friend’s land near Nelson if a cabin became available. “Yes, I said to myself! I am very sure. If a cabin becomes available I’m going for it. I am ready to live off the land, grow my own food, and drink mountain fresh spring water again, be in nature and settle down. I will hear bird song and listen to aspens rustling all day long. Write some B.C. books, maybe, and fall in love with bears again!” As I contemplated moving, I recalled that the message I received in the medicine wheel was heard in the west direction. The west is significant as the physical direction.

“Are there bears up on Bonnington Mountain?” I asked my friend upon return to Ontario. My friend chuckled, he thought there would be.

March 30^th I had returned from high-spirited beautiful southern Cuba. I was making tea in the kitchen next to the dining room where my house mate was chatting to his friend in the Kootenays, with one ear turned into the conversation. What?! I heard that a cabin had become available! Low and behold a cabin; the largest one on the 150 acres on the mountain top had become available exactly two weeks since my ‘great event’ message and I shouted, “I’ll take it! Tell your friend, I will take it!” It was the last day of March.^. Exactly two weeks since my medicine wheel message about a GREAT EVENT.

Elated, I called the B.C. mountain man and got the scoop on the cabin that I immediately, upon seeing photos, began calling Bonnington Linn Chalet, named for the Bonnington water fall that lay close to this land. It was named by an early explorer for a waterfall in Scotland. When I hung up the phone and thought about preparations for the next month of my life, I danced about with much mirth, and called my B.C. children to tell them what I had scored. They sounded excited for me, their Momma Boots, as my daughter calls me, would soon be back to what they say is the best province in Canada and close to their homes at the west coast.

So here it was May seventh and I was in the Kootenays, where a huge vortex resides amidst gigantic Kootenay Lake, forest and a mountain named Crystal Mountain and living on top of a nearby mountain called, Bonnington. My 43^rd move since I turned nineteen had been accomplished. I was falling in love with place this time, not person. Living up at the 2900 foot altitude in paradise is where I hoped to be for a long while. I loved my chalet! And the view, stunning and uplifting, one could see four pyramid- shaped mountains in the distance from my large living room windows.

Adventurer me built a medicine wheel near the chalet, with instructions I had received from Silver Eagle, a Tennessee Dream Walker, many years ago. I had stones from many of the sacred sites I had visited and they found their place in the four directions and the wheels center. What a thrill to be able to place them here. In some Native American cultures the medicine wheel is a metaphor, a symbol for a variety of spiritual concepts. It may be a stone monument that illustrates this metaphor.

Historically the medicine wheel was constructed by laying stones in a particular pattern on the ground orientated to the four directions. Most medicine wheels follow the basic pattern of having a center stone and surrounding that, an outer ring of stones with spokes—lines of rocks—radiating from the center to the cardinal points. It could have a fire bowl in its center. Many Native Americans and other indigenous peoples created medicine wheels and they have always been associated with religious, spiritual ceremonies. They may be used for healing work and spiritual, mental, physical and emotional intuition. The medicine wheel has been adopted by many pan-Indian groups and other Native groups whose ancestors always traditionally used it in the sense that it is a wheel for finding one’s direction in life, or spiritual visions, mental suggestions and emotional knowledge. My innate Native American leanings and yearnings have always felt right at home in the medicine wheel and I loved my prayer time in it.

Having been taught the wheel while I still lived in Jerusalem, one had been built wherever I lived. For me it represents all encompassing life as my prayers are said to the seven directions. Along with prayers to the four directions, I also pray to Mother Earth, Father Sky, the Sun, and Creator. Then I direct energy from the galactic center to the crystal core of the Earth, also being open to receive the blessings of the star people and my ancestors. Lastly I am grateful to the Goddess for allowing all things.

Before I was given directions to build the medicine wheel,  Silver Eagle visited me and checked me out. You see he is a dream walker and dream walkers can do that, out of body teleport themselves. He mentioned to me in a letter that when I smelled cigar smoke I would know he was present in my wheel. While living at the British Columbia UFO Trench in the North Thompson Valley, I often smelled cigar smoke when in my medicine wheel and enjoyed knowing that Silver Eagle was present. At last the spiritual path I felt most close to and comfortable with had impregnated my beingness. It felt so right to pray outside each morning at daybreak while birds sang melodious sonnets.

* The first blog post of the last series of sacred sites exploration.