Stewart Mineral Springs - Part Two

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To the left is a photo of a Hathor from an Egyptian temple.

One of the interesting things that happened at Stewart Springs had to do with the Hathors, one thing was a follow-up to something Tyb had said to me in the Grand Canyon.

One afternoon, after we had set up our sleeping places at the Grand Canyon and were waiting around for the crew to prepare the evening meal, Tyb and I were talking. It was rare to get a moment alone with him, since there seemed to be about four or five older women doing some embarrassingly intense courtship riutals aimed in his direction. But this time we talked for a few minutes and he made reference to another of the participants as having been a member of "our" family back in Native American times. He gave me a meaningful, probing, yet puzzled look, as if to ask if I remembered. I knew what he meant was that he and I had had a family. I had not recalled that one yet, and would not recall it until I got to Stewart Springs.

Lying in my tent one afternoon at Stewart Springs, relaxing by listening to the birds singing, and to the wind flowing through the trees, rustling the leaves, I thought about how in need of organizing things were at this seminar. Other participants had said this was the rule, not the exception. Fond of Tyb, and being the ever-helpful type, I briefly considered offering to be his coordinator in exchange for free attendance at his seminars, or something like that. In that instant, the memories of the lifetime as a Native American suddenly and rapidly flooded back in to my consciousness. Tyb had been a shaman, and I was his wife and assistant. I gathered and prepared the herbs, significant work, and work which then automatically defined me as a medicine woman and healer. However, no matter how the healing occurred, he got credit. In that lifetime he was a powerful man, bigger than life, and had an enormous ego. I knew the wise thing to do was to stay in the background, and wisely give him credit for all my work. Things ran more smoothly like that. Suddenly I understood why he brushed me off in this lifetime whenever I made reference to being a healer, or practicing shamanism. In this lifetime he apparently knows nothing about how to practice shamanism, and is not a healer. He has a different role this time, a vastly significant one. Yet feelings absolutely can and do bleed over from one lifetime into another.

(I have been practicing shamanism for 18 years at this point, trained by Sandra Ingermann, Educational Director of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, which was founded by the world famous anthropologist, Michael Harner. Sandra and Michael are both celebrated authors in the field of shamanism, so studying personally with Sandra was a real honor.)

Needless to say when I had this memory of the Native American lifetime with Tyb, I dropped all thoughts of offering to be his little helper in this lifetime. I have been there and done that. Nevertheless, I am still quite fond of him. I will probably go to more of his seminars, but with a focus on seeing who all is there, and to visit a sacred site with other Lightworkers. My expectations have changed.

The other interesting occurrence was when I stayed the extra day after the seminar happened. After I finished the bathing rounds and was sitting on the deck drinking a smoothie, wrapped in a white sheet. Tyb came and sat down at the table, as did two other women. One was from Australia, and had been at the seminar. The other was her friend, and had just arrived from Glastonbury, which was near her home, or so I recall. We were talking for a while and then came a pause in the conversation. I said, "Well, I have just discovered the Hathors." The two women laughed loudly, and I asked what was so funny. One of them replied that they had certainly not just discovered me. Upon further probing she replied, "Well, you ARE a Hathor." Tyb agreed. I said lightly that if I could be more than one thing, then okay, I would be a Hathor. Later I recalled that my teacher at the Esoteric Philosophy Center in Houston, back in the mid-eighties, William David, had briefly mentioned that I had had a "past life" on Venus. Now that particular pronouncement made far more sense to me.

The Hathors, masters of sound, are an ascended race of beings who live on Venus at this time. Coming to Venus tens of thousands of years ago at the invitation of Sanat Kumara, through a portal at the star system of Sirius, they were teachers to the Ancient Egyptians, There are images of them still in existence on temple walls in modern-day Egypt. The members of the inner circle of the Temples of the Hathors knew how to invoke them, and bring them into the temple in ancient times. A man by the name of Tom Kenyon has been channeling the Hathors for over twenty years. If you want to learn more about that: www.tomkenyon.com

(The Hathors also are coming into the healing room now in the advanced stages of EDINA energy medicine to assist us with sound healing. EDINA is a form of energy medicine I am bringing to the planet at the request of a group of Starbeings from Sirius-B called The Ankenash. To learn more see the link to the EDINA BLOG at the left of this page.)

The last day I spent in the Stewart Springs/Mt. Shasta area was both lovely and relaxing. I had a leisurely drive back to Sacramento and caught my flight back to Houston without incident. Flying home to Houston, I thought about how many men I had met in this lifetime to whom I had been married in past lives. I think there have been about eight now. I laughed silently at how there was only one (so far, anyway) with whom I would do that again. And he is busy with other things just now. (It is not Tyb.) So just because we were married to someone in a past life does not mean we are supposed to be together in that way in this lifetime. Occasionally it is rather like bumping into someone we divorced in this lifetime; not necessarily pleasant. There may be karma to finish, but it may not have to do with love/romance at all.

My experiences at Mt. Shasta and Stewart Springs were heightened in the realm of the psychic/intuitive/multi-dimensional. This was due to the energies naturally occurring there, and as usual with sacred sites, the experiences were varied and unexpected. Flying home, I looked forward to seeing how they would unfold in my life.

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Stewart Mineral Springs/Mt. Shasta

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Guided very strongly to go to Tyb's event at Mt. Shasta and Stewart Mineral springs, just six weeks after the Grand Canyon trip, I went out and bought the first camping gear I have purchased in over twenty years, so I could camp out and save money. Camping gear is much fancier these days, and more affordable. The pads that go under the sleeping bag have really evolved. Camping out on the earth can actually be comfortable. So I got a tent, pad, bag, pocket rocket, primitive camping stove, and all the other trappings of roughing it in the out-of-doors. The trip was in late August, early September of 2008. Before leaving, I asked the Universe for a gorgeous hunk of a man to have a fling with, made my reservations, and let it go.

The day of my departure I flew in to Sacramento, rather than Reno, because flights to Reno were all booked up, due to "Burning Man" occurring at that time. I did not really know yet what "Burning Man" was, or I might have opted to do that instead. At the airport I picked up Irma, an EDINA initiate who had flown in from Maine for this event, and drove the four hours north to Stewart Mineral Springs in my rented car. Stewart Mineral Springs is about 6 miles past Mt. Shasta on Highway 5, the trip is mostly through rather uninteresting, flat farmlands until near the end, when it gets hilly, then mountainous.

Stewart Mineral Springs is of course, located in a very rural area. It is one of only two locations on Earth where a red spring comes out of the ground next to a white spring, at least these are the only locations that anyone seems to know about. Silica makes the white spring look white, and iron makes the red one look red. Here in the Shasta area it is believed that the red is the female energy (menstrual blood), the white male (seminal fluid). However in the other location, at Glastonbury, England, it is believed that the white is the female, the red male. In both places, the one which is assumed to be male is valued, and the one believed to be female is not. At Stewart Mineral Springs, the two springs flow together and merge into the river, despite an attempt to stop this with boulders and concrete retaining walls. In Glastonbury they are not allowed to merge together, successfully prevented from so doing by cement walls erected by the locals. In Glastonbury, the red is valued and the white ignored. The reverse is true at Stewart Springs. The baths in the bathhouse are drawn from the white, silicated waters, piped from the springs, then mixed with the river water. Silica is the base mineral of crystals, which is of note. So at Stewart, one is bathing in liquid crystals, in a manner of speaking. Ideally, according to Metatron via Tyb, one would finish after three days of baths in the white wters with one bath in the water to which the red springs waters have been added. The waters of neither spring would be used "straight" as they are much too intense chemically, and would damage the bather. They are diluted in the river water.

The process is that one soaks about 5 - 10 minutes in the silicated water, first pinning up your hair if it has color on it, and removing all silver jewelry (I found out the hard way - no one warned me...). Wearing my oxidized jewelry, I continued the process. Actually the jewelry was still pretty, exhibiting many odd colors, swirling turquoise, blues, greens and violet hues which I fascinatedly examined in great detail. After the silicated water tub soak, which stimulates the release of toxins, the wood-fired sauna was next. Usually I would stay in the sauna for about 15 minutes, and then down to the river to plunge into the icy waters, starting all over again until an hour and a half had passed. At that time of year, the river water was in the mid-fifties farenheit. I especially loved the cold plunge. Clothing was optional, except in the waiting area between the baths and river, where a towel or sheet wrapped around one sufficed. Most of us were nude in the river and many in the sauna, which was large enough for thirty people or so. I did the bathing rounds every day for four days straight. My skin was absolutely amazing after that! I probably released a lot of toxins, but was unaware of that. I had no noticeable symptoms, the toxins probably came out during the sweating in the sauna.

Afterwards one could sit on the deck and soak up sun, or get a smoothie or wheat grass, a cappucino or veggie wrap or salad to eat...that kind of thing. The menu was limited, but delicious. And there was also an organic restaurant down the trail, across the bridge that spanned the river. At night the bridge was lit with fairy lights, and both day and night it was most charming.

Irma spent that first night in my tent with me, as we had planned. It turned out that the small tent was entirely too tight for two people who were not intimates. After that she stayed in the neighboring, roomier tee-pee with kind Helen, who was also attending the seminar. Getting up in the middle of the night to visit the toilet was interesting, the stars were stunning; they were even more were visible here than down in the bottom of the Grand Canyon! We had to walk over to the bright blue plastic porta-potty, without falling on our faces until we could get to the road, which required a little flashlight. The earth was sloping, very uneven and strewn with large rocks, or small boulders. Afterwards, I would stop in the middle of the road and look up, groggy but soaking up the starlight. It was such a treat for me, given that only three or four stars are visible from my home near downtown Houston. The chance to see a sky deeply studded with stars is rare for me, and so I am in deep gratitude for seeing them when I have the opportunity.

Many mornings Irma and I would drive in to town. Town was Weed, California, (getting that T-shirt was tempting!) There we would get breakfast, or else eat protein bars, dried fruit or beef jerky at the tent. We had lots of great filtered river water from the bathhouse water dispenser to drink, and made it a point to fill our canteens each night before the bathhouse closed for the evening.

Later, after breakfast, we would hike up the dusty trail, white road dirt blowing everywhere, especially if a car went by, to the top of the hill. There, at the top of the hill near the enormous blue plastic covered sweat lodge, were the outdoor shower stalls, where we would get cleaned up. The hot water on my skin felt delicious after a night in the tent. The first day we made that hike, as we rounded the corner, standing outside the showers in nothing but a pair of jeans and long, black wet hair was the most gorgeous hunk of a man I have seen in a very, very long time. Jaws dropped, Irma and I both rather tripped over ourselves and moved along, not saying very much to him, except, did he know where we could get some towels. He later sat beside me in the seminar, arm around me, until I verbally pushed him away, not trusting my good fortune. That was really dumb of me. After all, he was just what I had asked for before leaving.

The seminar was interesting, especially when Dr. Mikel was talking, but Tyb really does not have the skill set to teach a seminar in the way that most participants expect. He channels beautifully, however, that does not happen but once per seminar. The instructional time allotted was much longer than that over the four day period. I suppose a lifetime spent as a geologist has not prepared him to know how to get information across very well. I mean, how could it? This seminar was a totally different experience from the Grand Canyon which was organized and smoothly run by Western River. The Stewart Springs seminar was not well organized. There were no handouts, his talks were mostly just that, talking, not instructing. Teaching is not as easy as it looks. If one has not had the benefit of a background that included some form of teacher-training, it can be quite the challenge if one does decide to hold a seminar. A coordinator for his seminars would be a welcome addition, too, so that all facets run more smoothly. Many people complained that he spent too much time trying to sell his jewelry, his Vogel crystals and crystal skulls. Signing up initially was difficult, as not enough information about the venue was available, etc. When we got there, we found that the meeting room had no air conditioning. The first three days we were there, it was over 100 degrees outside. I assume this did not happen often, or the facility would have had air conditioning installed at least in one window for such days. There was absolutely no water in the room to drink except what the participants brought themselves, and we were all sweating profusely. The floor kept being given over to people who had not been advertised to be part of the program, but whom Tyb had met after he got there. One person took up entirely too much time over the four days; we nicknamed him "Dolphin Boy". His dominating so much time got other people's hackles up far more than mine. Mostly he made me giggle. Needless to say, attendance at the seminar began to thin out quickly. I stayed through the entire thing, but most attendees did not. I suppose they got baths or went shopping in the town of Mt. Shasta, or hiked up the mountain to meditate. Tyb himself was gone most of the time. Yet again, to be fair, the channeling was superb, and occurred the last day. Tyb inspires a lot of fondness from the participants, and it was lovely to be around all those people.

I was pretty amused listening to Tyb talk to a small group of invited locals at the tearoom in a metaphysical bookstore weeks later, after we got back to Houston, about how upset he was with the Asian woman who was running things at Stewart Springs,. She was overcharging him, arguing viciously with him, and not letting him have the sleeping room he wanted and had reserved in advance. I will admit she was a major, serious pain to us all, but Tyb was over the top about it. I told him I thought she might have a dark entity attachment, and that this was what was screwing with him, not the lady, and he agreed. Still he simply could not stop ranting and raving about all the disagreeable things she had done to him. I do not know why I found that so entertaining, but I did. Maybe it was because I got confirmation that even though we can get really into advanced levels of spiritual work, we still have a personality. That means that I am not the only one. And that is quite a relief.

What occurred at Stewart Springs that was of the greatest value to me had to do with the place itself, which has amazing energy, and with the people I met.

There were a number of EDINA Initiates in attendance, and we got together to talk early one morning. That was delightful. Bruce was there, Avida was there, Terry Lee, Irma and I. This was the first time I had met Bruce and Irma in person; I had initiated them into EDINA at a distance. It was very good to see them. There were also some people from the Grand Canyon trip there as well; it was nice to be around them again. I found myself wishing Becky from the Grand Canyon were there, but she was working at "Burning Man."

At one point one day, I do not recall which day, when walking the path alone back to the seminar room from lunch I heard a voice out of the blue speak to me. It said, "You are not a great singer." I argued that I was pretty damn good at singing, and it answered, "You are not a great artist," I replied that I was a superb artist, what were they talking about? "You are not a great writer." "What??? I am just getting my feet wet with writing, don't do that!" Finally the voice said, "You are a great channel." Oh. Okay. Maybe so. Maybe so.

If one can channel clearly, one can write, make music and art, and so on with ease. The "collective unconscious" as Jung would phrase it is infinite; if one can tap effectively into that, one can even seem to be a "creative/artistic genius," seemingly with little effort. The very next day I went in to town to an internet cafe to check emails, and found that an article I had written channeling Archangel Gabriel was accepted for publication by "Sedona Journal of Emergence", which publishes channeled material. Was that just an interesting coincidence? Maybe.

One afternoon, after a group ceremony up higher on Mt. Shasta, after eating lunch, we went to hike down into Bunny Flats to the springs there, to have a different ceremony. The Park Rangers stopped us. Tyb did not know that groups over about seventeen or so people cannot go down there together any longer. This is being done now to protect the vegetation. We were seventy people. So we had the afternoon off to play. I went down in to Mt. Shasta and shopped, then back to the Springs to do a bathing round. It was lovely. A small group of people did actually go down there, to the springs at Bunny Flats, including a man who had come all the way from Mt. Cook in New Zealand to do a ceremony there. Tyb took the afternoon off.

The next to the last night I was there, the temperature outside changed. It became really quite cold. I had kept waking up because it was so very cold in the tent, even inside the sleeping bag and under my extra blanket. Avida was in a suite of small rooms by herself, so she offered to let me stay in one of the two rooms she had the following night. Turns out that my half of the rent cost the same as the camp site! What a deal. I had decided before coming to the seminar to remain one extra day beyond the seminar, and this was the extra night.

Avida and I had dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant in Mt. Shasta that evening, watched the sun set, then went back to the rooms. She left again to go to a meeting at a restaurant with members of the seminar group who were interested in possibly buying Stewart Springs and/or creating a vesica pisces symbol on a donated deck above the two springs, to honor the springs and their coming together.

Within a few days of that meeting, the locals stopped cold all this outsider-meddling with the Springs. Tiara Kumara, creatrix of the Children of the Sun website, was at the seminar, and at that meeting, and meeting her was a real treat for me. Tiara lives at Mt. Shasta, so the locals stopping the process so dramatically rather surprised me. Small towns can be strange like that. Everyone has a role and territory, and you had better not come in and step on their toes. I know this from living for thirteen years in Galveston, also a small town.

When Avida came back from the meeting that night I spent in her suite, I woke up. As I was drifting off to sleep again, something strange began to happen. Eyes closed, I began seeing a very complicated sacred geometrical shape inside my head and it was moving, spinning - shapes within shapes inside a sphere. It was comprised of bright, flashing, multicolored lights, and gave me an intense whole body orgasm that did not stop. I just fell asleep, or perhaps into a trance that lasted most of the night, while this continued. I have never had that particular experience before. The energy seemed to have come down the mountain from behind the room and entered me. I could tell it was a positive thing. I even asked Archangel Michael to protect me if it was not. He just laughed.

The next morning when I awoke I wondered, "What was that?" I heard a voice reply, "That was an anionic shift." I wrote it down. Later when I got home and googled that phrase, I discovered there really was such a thing being theorized about in physics, and it had to do with extra-dimensional shifts, or something. Interesting. How could I have made something like that up? I do not think I could.

Avida had a few days earlier mentioned a very strange energy in the same room I was in, and Bruce and others had tried clearing it, but apparently it did not leave easily. I am still not sure exactly what it was.

Grand Canyon: Part 13

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By way of follow up, I would like to report that I discovered that most Virgos were sleeping a lot in the month of July, 2008, and that Susan Miller had predicted this on her website: www.astrologyzone.com. So some of that exhaustion was due to planetary influences, some due to the energy shift in the Grand Canyon. It is impossible to tease the two apart. They were overlayed simultaneously, as things often are.

After I got home, I kept thinking about the giant moth, the size of the palm of my hand, that was hitting me in the forehead almost every evening as we all sat in our circle. When I first got home, I had looked up the symbolism of the moth. In Angelic High Magic the moth is a symbol of the Archangel Gabriel. So in late August I decided to channel Archangel Gabriel, just in the privacy of my own home, and record it and see what came out. It was very interesting. As I had already suspected, I am a conscious channel, meaning that I do not lose consciousness. I also have the sense that I am repeating what I hear, not that anyone is taking up temporary residence in my body. I submitted what I channeled to Sedona Journal of Emergence on August 24th, right before I left for a seminar with Tyb at Mt. Shasta. The publisher of Sedona Journal is considering publishing the channeling I did in their November issue. I discovered this at the end of the seminar when I went down into the town of Mt. Shasta to an internet cafe to check in for my flight home. I also checked my email at at that time.

Again, I was guided to attend this seminar with Tyb and Dr. Dave Mikel at Stewart Mineral Springs near Mt. Shasta, just as I had been guided to go to the Grand Canyon. I did not know what would happen there, but I went anyway. And quite a lot happened there. Quite a lot.

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Grand Canyon: Part 12

The morning of the last day was bittersweet. We milled around, saying things to each other which were often our fond observations about each other. We knew we would likely never all be together again in this lifetime. So it was important to say certain things. I was deeply touched by the astuteness and kindness of some of the others' observations about me. I had not known that anyone was looking, or noticing anything that I was doing. I also had certain kind words for others.

Josef was there for me when I needed help hiking or lifting something heavy. When I could not see Josef, Dick was profoundly there for me as well. Mark was there to stop the boat in the middle of a rapid (I thought at the time it was the end, but it was just a flat place in the middle of one of the worst rapids) to get me out of harm's way. Many others helped me when I needed help as well in various ways, Ken the Younger, Cecilia, Glynnis, Becky, Jackie, Kate, Carol, Scott, Tyb, Sigrid, Salome, Hannelie...the list goes on. Others thanked me for being there for them when they needed healing work.

We loaded up onto the rafts one last time, after taking lots and lots of photos of each other in various combinations. Not far downstream was the spot where we disembarked from the boats and waited for the helicopters to take us out of there, six at a time, depending upon our weight.

Yes, we stood there and told this old man who worked for the helicopter company our weight, out loud, and told the truth in front of everyone. Imagine that!! (Because you don't want to lie about your weight and make the helicopter crash, now do you?) We had the option of whispering it in his ear, but by then we were all feeling so close, that I really think everyone just blurted it out.

The old man decided who would sit where in the chopper, based upon weight, and told us where to sit. As the first helicopter left, with Tyb on it, a group of women decided that it might be fun to "moon" the chopper. Someone else actually photographed this, but I don't think I will post that particular photo! I believe it was the Dutch who were "behind" this particular event. Miriam and Chris. I did not that know it was going to happen in advance. So I just stood there and watched in amazement. Bwanaque was onthat helicopter, and said that the pilot was so shocked the chopper wobbled briefly in the air, and she both laughed and wished she had a camera, and wondered if she were going to die in the same instant!

I flew back on the last helicopter, or the second to the last, I am not sure. When we got to the Bar 10 Ranch, where the buses would pick us up to drive to the airstrip for the return flight to Las Vegas, we had the divine luxury of a shower and a clean towel for three dollars! It was worth way more, and my shower lasted a long, long time. I washed my hair with much pleasure. We ate lunch, bought souvenirs, and laid around on the grass talking, and waiting for our turn to board busses. We were there a few hours. Kate put my hair and Beckys into French Braids. I ate potato chips while she was doing that. It was pure heaven.

Finally we flew back to Las Vegas and caught another bus to our hotels. When I finally got to check into my room, I spent quite a while cleaning sand out of absolutely everything I had taken along, and repacking and rinsing out things.

That evening we met at the MGM Grand in their amazing "all you can eat" area. They set a table for all twenty-seven of us; Carol had had to leave early. The all men looked pretty much the same, but the women looked gorgeous, the difference being hair that was fixed, and make-up was applied. Men "have it made" in that way. They never look really awful.

We had great dinner, laughed a lot, and yet not being inside the Grand Canyon, it was different somehow.

I left pretty early, since I had a very early flight the next morning. I walked alone through a huge casino, something I thought I would never in my whole life do, back to my hotel, fell asleep, and took a taxi to the airport the next morning. That was about when the exhaustion hit.

As I was walking down the jetway to board the flight, carrying my huge drum as usual, some young guy asked me what kind of music I played. I was so tired that I just told him the truth. "I don't play music. I practice shamanism." There was a period of silence. Followed by his quietly muttering, "That's wierd. That is really, really wierd." I don't know if he thought an older white woman talking about shamanism was strange, or if he thought a shaman catching an early flight out of Las Vegas was strange. I was simply too tired to care.

I slept most of the way home on the flight, and also slept a lot over the next couple of weeks, just getting used to the new energy I brought home with me. Something was very different energetically. I would never be the same again. The energy in the Womb of Gaia changed me forever, or maybe it was additionally the activation of the Golden Sun Discs. Now that I am getting used to it, I realize that I am vibrating at a much higher frequency, and I am way, way more psychic. Maybe I will say more about that later. And maybe not.

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Grand Canyon: Part 11

DAY FIVE: LAVA FALLS

We took off from Havasu Rapids at 12:32 pm, went downstream a bit, and stopped for lunch at 12:45 pm. As always the crew prepared a delicious lunch for us. There were always potato chips and dill pickles, which is one of my favorite food combinations. Plus sandwiches and cookies and so on.

I had a long talk with Kathy at lunch that day about makeup, art and aesthetics. There had been a lot of discussion among the women for the entire trip about makeup, with even some women making tatements about wearing lipstick on the trip as being a very bad thing to do. (huh?) Anyway, as Kathy and I were talking, it became clear to me that a lot of women in the group thought that wearing makeup was like wearing a mask, and a sign of weakness. And certainly it can be that. But that is not the only attitude a woman might have toward makeup. I for one wear a little bit of makeup, certainly not on that trip, except for a bit of lipstick at night because it was creamier than the sunscreen lip balm I brought. But I do wear a slight bit of makeup at home, not because I need a mask, but because I am an artist. Makeup can be applied as an aesthetic consideration, not because one feels inferior, but because one wishes to create beauty.

Kathy and I also talked about painting, as she does a type of Japanese brush technique, and wanted to know what kind of art I do. I was not exactly sure what to say, I never seem to have have a proper "label" for my art. I do have a Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing, with minor concentrations in printmaking and photography, so my attitudes and beliefs around art are of course flavored by that education. We talked about artistic styles, and the idea of fitting artistically into the cultural mainstream versus doing your own thing, which is in my personal opinion more creative than fitting into any current paradigm of art. So I do my own thing.

Sometimes I might paint from a still life; flowers for example. But my real love is "channelling" art, which I formerly referred to as "contacting the collective unconscious" in my younger days. That was before I had ever heard of channelling. This art might end up being abstract, which is a way of expressing feelings directly onto paper or canvas. Or it might look like fantasy art, images that come from inner visions that I have. Anyway, Kathy and I had an interesting, fun conversation over lunch that day.

After lunch we were back on the river, and after a while Tyb assembled us into a huddle, both boats touching in the river. He talked about where we wanted to end up by the end of the day. We had two options. There was another rapid that was even more difficult than Hermit, which had been pretty traumatizing. It was called Lava Falls. He explained that we could do it now, or we could take it in the morning.

Water level was the main consideration to this decision. Each night water was let out from Hoover Dam, and water levels on the river would rise by sevral feet, pushing even more water through the rapids. Later in the day the rapids were actually easier to get through, when there was less water. So Tyb, after consulting with R.D., Leslie, Scott and Mark, our river guides, decided to let us vote whether we wanted to get through the Lava Falls Rapids that afternoon, instead of waiting until the next morning to go through as they had originally planned. He explained to us that the rapids would be much more difficult the following day. So we voted to do Lava Falls Rapids that afternoon.

VULCAN'S ANVIL

Before reaching the rapid, there was a fifty foot high lava plug in the river (see image above). It was actually the core of an ancient volcano sitting within the river, called Vulcan's Anvil. Both boats approached the rock and paused, and we heard the crew tell the rafting stories that surround incidents involving this ancient volcano's core. After the tales, we were told that we would have better luck within the rapid if all the women on the boat kissed the rock. I thought it was really silly, and had no intention of getting up and walking over there and kissing a rock, until I was the only woman who had not done so. Upon reflection, I decided that it might be a good idea not to "rock the boat" by sitting still. (I mean, crap, they said this was worse than Hermit Rapid, and look what happened to me in Hermit Rapid.) So I kissed the rock, you know, just in case.

We took off down the stream and then paused, studying the rapid. Vinaya had some Bach Flower Remedies' Rescue Remedy, and she marched up and down the boat squirting it under everyone's tongues. Twice. It was a good thing. I was freaking out thinking about taking this rapid, one of the few rapids about which we were told, "You do NOT want to fall out of the boat in this rapid."

So again, as I had before the Hermit Rapid in which I had survived staying on the boat hanging on by just one hand, I invoked the Archangel Michael saying, "Archangel Michael, help me, help me, help me." And then the entire group did what we had done before each and every rapid, we loudly TONED!!!

Why have I not mentioned this before? Search me. It was definitely one of the coolest, best parts of the trip which had a lot of very spectacular parts! As each boat went into each rapid, Tyb had taught us to tone together; singing to the water and the air and the river and The All That Is. We extemporaneously created these amazing, beautiful tones together. If we were the second boat, we could hear the raft before us toning beautifully before they headed into the churning waters. It was startling in its beauty. It was deeply touching and uplifting to the soul. And none of us ever really fell all the way off the boat, except Josef who was then picked up by the river and put back onto the boat in Hermit Falls. No one had to be airlifted out, even though we all had emergency helicopter evacuation insurance included in the price of the trip. So we toned as we headed into the most difficult of all the rapids, Lava Falls.

I made sure I was sitting on top of the metal boxes just behind the front of the raft. I had decided that this was the safest location. And it was pretty safe. We were bashed around, got really, really wet, and I almost fell off even the "safe" perch. But in the end, although I had bruises on the backs of both hands and fingers from hanging onto the ropes while the raft smashed us around violently in the rapids, I was still in one piece, and so was everyone else. The worst was over. We breathed a collective sigh of relief, and headed toward the camping area for our final night together. Hermit Rapid had been much worse from my point of view.

When we were almost there, we passed another Western River group, who dropped their pants and mooned us. I do not recall ever seeing them before, so I cannot imagine why they did that, but we all got a good laugh out of it, and talked about it again over dinner. Maybe it was something between the groups of guides. Anyway, it was pretty funny.

Before dinner that night Tyb channelled Archangel Metatron for us. Fortunately, I had a recording device with enough space left on it to record that channelling, but ufortunately, not the question and answer session afterward. I was glad I had listened to guidance about what to bring on the trip so that at least the channelling was recorded.

Dinner was amazing as usual, but dessert was simply shocking! They served flaming bananas over ice cream. I am not kidding. They fed us ice cream on the evening of the fifth day. (Allow me to remind you that it was well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit each day we werre there. As a matter of fact,when I arrived in Las Vegas on the 6th of July, it was 110 degrees Fahrenheit at 8:30 in the morning.) The crew had dry ice down inside one of those metal boxes we were sitting on all day, and managed to serve ice cream with flaming bananas for dessert on the fifth day out! Wearing tuxedo shsirts and bowties with their shorts, our guides really outdid themselves!!

After dinner I spoke with a couple of the river guides, and told them that I would remember this trip for the rest of my life. I was surprised and amazed when Mark, who has been taking groups down that river for 18 years, said he would remember this particular trip for the rest of his life, too. The guides had already told us that it was a real pleasure to work with us. And as I think about it, all those ceremonies with singing and druming honoring the four directions, the earth, sky, Creator, river, the Canyon, the Star Nations, etc., must have been really unusual for them. And Tyb's repeatedly honoring and acknowledging the guides as Sacred Guardians of the Grand Canyon; all that toning before entering the rapids, yes, it must have been a very unusual trip for even the most seasoned guide.

We gathered in a circle after dinner and drummed and sang and danced in a circle. We flopped into bed afterwards, totally exhausted, and spent our last night together under the stars.

...

Grand Canyon: Part 10

One of the Falls on Havasu Creek

One of the things I did throughout the Canyon, was constantly, well at least several times per day, honor the Devic Kingdom. Particularly while on the water, I thanked the Undines over and over for this pure, pristine heavenly water. I always thanked them before a big rapid. The Undines are the elementals who created and sustain the water on Earth. They work hard to keep it clean so that it can provide life. There was a time when humans honored them and all the other elementals on a regular basis, and I try to do it all the time, or as often as I can remember to do it. I know it must be hard for them to work so hard on our behalf and be ignored by the vast majority of humanity.

The Sylphs are the devas of the air, who work constantly to purify our air, and to circulate it. The Salamanders are devas of fire, including the fire in the Sun, and the Gnomes are the elementals of the earth. I honored them all during this trip several times a day, and it was easy to remember to do so there, since the awareness of them was around me all the time. I was at every moment very much in tune with the Devic Kingdom while we were in the Grand Canyon.

I will also admit that this was a rough trip, and at times I wished it would be over so I could clean up, and sleep in a soft bed with air conditioning, and fix my hair. I am a Westernized human female being currently existing in the early 21st century, after all.

The evening of the fourth day we slept at the edge of the water, up high on a sandy bank facing the water. It was pleasantly cool. The bathing spot was really lovely, too. I picked up a very nice feather there at the bathing site, and put it onto cord at the inner edge of the brim of my hat for a while. I will tell you who had a very impressive feather in his hat, and that was Mark. We all envied that feather.

DAY FIVE

The next morning, the morning of the fifth day, we were off by 7:16 am. We really never felt rushed, though, because we had eaten breakfast and been up for hours by then. One thing about sleeping under the stars is that the sun just comes right up with no barrier between it and the sleeper. It was divine! We just awoke gradually and naturally because of the slow increase in the light.

One thing several of us on my boat noticed that day, and commented upon, was that many of the other boaters in smaller rafts did not wave back when we waved at them. We did not think that very polite, and wondered aloud why, especially the several of the older men, did not wave back at us. After I got back home it occurred to me that they were paddling, and might well have thought that people who do not paddle down the river had no business waving merrily at them as they passed them up with their little 35 horsepower outboard motor. Or then again, maybe they were just too exhausted from all that paddling to raise an arm to wave!

We made a quick "pit stop" just before Matkatamlba Rapid at 8:40 am, and then stopped right in the middle of a large rapid called Havasu Rapid at 10:00 am. It was really tricky, and we were even more impressed with the skills of the River Guides as they navigated this, docked, and managed to tie up the boats without incident. It did not look easy. I watched with fascination as R.D. drove while Lindsay tied up our boat. We stopped at that spot so we could hike up the side of the cliff, with its horizontal planes of rock, following the Havasu Creek upstream, and up through the Canyon. This was perhaps the most gorgeous of the hikes that I took. My foot was better that day, and for some reason it occurred to me to invoke the "angels of balance, harmony, grace and agility" that day. I pretty much glided over the rock, and only occasionally did I need help with some parts of the hike. We passed about three waterfalls and pools to stop finally at one of them.

That waterfall fell about 8 feet to a pool below which was about 22 feet across. Somehow the waterfall created a large, swirling vortex in the pool. The vortex moved in a clockwise fashion. If we got into the vortex it would carry us in a circle indefinitely. This was an amazing experience, being swirled gently around and around. We lined up for this and swirled around with sometimes as many as a dozen people swirling in the vortex together. Someone announced that he had been told earlier that we should enter the pools three times. He said that the rocks told him that. I retorted that the water had told me nine times, and so I just kept on going! Most of us could not stop at nine times though; it was just way to much fun!!

The water in these pools, which we could see even better from above while hiking in and out, was a visually stunning turquoise blue, and the canyon walls here were a rusty orange-brown color. The combination was like something out of a fairy tale. There were ferns and flowers everywhere. We were told that it is also possible to hike down into this canyon from above at the Havasu Indian Reservation at Supai Village. This is called the Havasu (or Havasupai) Creek, but for a creek is is very, very large. We were told that the pools and waterfalls just keep going up in a series, over and over until you get to the top of the Canyon. We were quite reluctant to leave this spot, but we had to carry on in order to reach our destination for that night.

...

Grand Canyon: Part 9

Deer Creek Falls

Day four we stoped for lunch at 11: 22 and were back on the water by 12:33 pm, and just after that passed the river's narrowest point, which is 76 feet wide. At 12:56 pm we stopped at a place called Deer Creek Falls. Those who could manage the trek hiked up to a series of pools above, but with my smashed up foot, I stayed behind at the first waterfall, wich fell more than 100 feet to a pool below. There were delicate ferns again, near this waterfall, and the pool below had minerals similar to epsom salts. The water was a gorgeous turquoise. Tyb said if we sat in the mist, it could be very healing.

Tyb and the majority of the group hiked up river to a series of pools. I chose to remain at the first waterfall, which was simply breath-taking in its beauty. And so while many of the others were making what was described as a fairly difficult hike upstream, I fulfilled the lifelong dream of being in a pool at the base of a massive waterfall. There were several of us who chose to stay there. Much of the time I sat in the shade, feeling the mist on my face, when I was not doing that, I was sitting or wading up to my waist in the water. Getting too close to the point where the falls hit the pool was unadvisable, for as Mark the River Guide said, it would beat the "bleep" out of you. Water falling from 100 feet hits whatever is below with great force and power.

I spent a lot of the time there talking with Becky, who felt like an old friend from the past. Marilyn and Franz stayed at this pool, as did Dick, Bwanaque and Anariya. For about the last thirty minutes I lay down near the pool, feeling the mist on my body, and visualized the inside of my injured foot. I saw clearly what the broken bones looked like inside the foot and toes. I watched the osteoblasts and osteoclasts doing their thing, while seeing the blood bringing nutrients and removing toxins, while also seeing the transfer of anything that needed to be removed transferred smoothly and rapidly from the blood to the lymphatic system. Then I sped the "movie" up, intending that the healing process happen more rapidly.

These waters are reported to have healing properties, and this was definitely my experience. I could tell a big difference in the way my foot functioned the next day.

The others came back from above at about 4 pm, and we all got back onto the rafts and went only a short way downstream and camped for the night. I believe that was the night that the crew baked birthday cakes for the two who had birthdays near that time. They actually baked two cakes in dutch ovens over a propane fire! They were divine cakes, too.

The next day was the fifth day of our journey, and the last full day on the Colorado River, followed the last night we would all ever spend together, lying out under the stars in the some of the most powerful, pristine energy on Earth.

...

Grand Canyon: Part 8

Gathering at the entrance to Blacktail Canyon:

In spite of his earlier burns to the bottom of his feet from the hot sand, Tyb fulfilled his committment to the group each day, and hiked everywhere he had intended to hike. On the fourth day, the rafts took off at 7:25 am, the sun having been up for hours, it seemed. We stopped very soon at 7:41 am and hiked up to Blacktail Canyon to do what afterwards felt to me like the most important of all of our ceremonies.

This is a very narrow slit canyon, and from the inside, actually feels more like a cave with a skylight. This is a place where 2.5 billion year old rock, the oldest rock on the planet, Vishnu Schist, abuts the youngest rock on the planet, Tepeats sandstone. Tyb referred to it as a place where time shifts occur.

At the far internal end of the canyon, there was a small rivulet of water softly oozing down the wall, and pooling at the bottom. There are actually mosses and some ferns growing there, which is a surprise in the middle of the desert. We gathered at that end of the slit canyon, and had a drumming ceremony, using my large drum as usual, to honor the place. We also stated intentions and made offerings for manifestation. I was glad that besides the drum, I had brought my sage and abalone shell. We used it all in the ceremony.

After completing the drumming ceremony, we moved back closer toward the entrance and held a pipe ceremony, led by Bwanaque, a Native American Pipe Carrier for more than one tribe. Like me, she looks like a white woman. But Bwanaque is definitely Native American in every other sense of the word. She is highly respected in the Native American community, and her pipe ceremony was a deep honor to experience. This pipe ceremony was located at the exact spot where those two vastly different ages of rock met, or where the "time shift" is indicated.

At one point, while we were all relocating, I spontaneously stopped and put my forehead to a vein of rounded quartz crystal material that was "bubbling" out of the Vishnu Schist. What occurred was that I "downloaded" for want of a better word, images and memories from Atlantis. I just folowed guidance and put my head to the rock, and this spontaneously happened. It was very confusing, the blur of images, and I just let it be. I did not analyze. I suspect I will realize more from this, later.

Some experiences are so powerful that the impact, the feeling, cannot be put into words. Those in Blacktail Canyon were among them.

...

Grand Canyon: Part 7

Each day I saw blooming datura, so I was pretty sure what the local shamen had used to facilitate their visions during the full moon ceremony. One of the main jobs of the shaman is to journey to the spirit world and seek answers for self or tribe. It is not done lightly, nor for recreation, and always in the context of sacred ceremony. Seeds and flowers, and less so the leaves from datura have psychotropic qualities, but are highly, highly unpredictable in their effects. One seed from one plant, due to the particular growing conditions and nutrients, might equal ten seeds from a different plant in a different location. One would pretty much have to be a highly trained and experienced shaman, capable of journeying to the plant and asking it how many seeds to use, in order not to be harmed by this potent teacher plant. The reason it is not used recreationally, is that it is NOT a fun trip. They are quite beautiful plants, though, and I enjoyed seeing them everywhere.

Which day it was I am not sure, but one evening while we were in the usual "fireline" formation unloading the rafts, there was an accident. I was standing next to Cecilia, who reached down to get her large bag, when someone threw another big, heavy bag at the pile, hitting her on the pre-frontal region of her head. She was knocked flat down, and lay on the sand beside me looking very shocked. I squatted down and asked her if I had permission to work on her. She said she was okay, but was looking very much as if she were going into shock. She said she heard her neck pop loudly upon impact, and clearly this frightened her. I said that I might be able to help, and could I please have permission to work on her. The second time I asked, she said yes. So I did BodyTalk, starting with Fast Aid to her upper cervical spine and cortexes. When I began to do the cortexes, she lifted her head so I could get to the back of her head. My plan was to burrow down in the sand with my hand to get back there, but she just picked up her head on her own. Good sign, I thought. I did a full session, which took about ten minutes, I think. I could not begin to recall what the formulae were.

Quickly a large group of people gathered around us. At some point one older man said something quite fearful, and I said that this is what I had done on myself after my violent hit on the head, and that I was fine, and Cecilia would be fine as well.

Ater she lay still in the sand for a few minutes more, I looked at Cecilia and said, "Can you wiggle your toes?" She nodded that she could. And then I said, "And you can pick up your head, right?" She said that she could. And then I said, "Your pupil dilation is equal, too, Cecilia. I think you are just going to be fine." After a while, she got up and walked over to her cot and lay down for a few minutes, then got up and changed clothes, and after that ate dinner with the rest of us. There was no further incident, except she reported some slight headache and dizziness, I think, the next day.

Right after I finished working on Cecilia I heard one of the river guides express concern that if they needed to call a helicopter, they needed to do so soon, before it got dark. I walked over to Sigrid and asked her to check Cecilia for that purpose. I told her Cecilia could move her toes and lift her head and pupil dilation was equal, and Sigrid said she was only concerned with the neck and if she needed a neck brace. So she checked her, and decided no helicopter or neck brace was needed. Then Sigrid came to me and quite graciously said, "Good work back there." I was quite touched, and told her so later.

The only other thing I want to say about the experience is this. I did not work on Cecilia until I had her permission. I had to ask twice. I have noticed that not all healers respect the Rule of Permissions. It goes something like this:

We are all on our own path toward perfection, and no one has the right to interfere with anyone else's path, no matter how well-intentioned the helper/healer may be. The person who is arrogant enough to think they know what is best for another person, and so will work on another without his/her permission, is in violation of that person's free will. "Helping" without permission is called interference. After all, who am I, or anyone else, to decide what is in your best interest? The higher self/spirit guides of the inidvidual knows what that person needs for their path to perfection. Jane Healer from down the block does not. And those who "help" without permission are quite likely incurring karma themselves by so doing. Even angels will not "interfere" by acting without permission. Angels help only when asked. It is my understanding that this is a Law of the Cosmos.

******************************************

Besides the datura there were many desert plants, like fruiting prickly pear cactus, short bushes with orange flowers that looked like tiny orchids, and recently introduced tamarind trees. Lizards abounded, as did ravens. If left alone, the ravens would land on our cots and pick through our bags; these are highly intelligent birds. I returned to my cot one afternoon to find my walnut bag ripped open and walnuts spread over the cot. I can only assume that it was a raven. At one point my gloves and fanny pack were missing, and I blamed that on the ravens, too. As it turned out, I had laid them out on a tamarind tree, and forgot.

One evening, and I am not sure which evening it was, we had a talk about teacher plants. Apparently the ayahuasca is an experience that many of us have had. I have not. I experienced teacher plants back in college, and they spurred me toward spiritual awakening, but I have not done ayahuasca, which is a blend of teacher plants used by the shamen in South America. Apparently it causes some people to have a life review, like we have all heard people have at the moment of death, wherein one feels the pain of everyone they have ever hurt. With ayahuasca, one vomits the pain back up. Other people have different experiences, however.

One question Tyb asked us all was how many had experienced such plants. Then he asked how many of us were aware of being concurrently incarnated on other "planets." The same people were in both groups. All of us were aware of having had experiences of past lives in Atlantis, Egypt, and in Native American communities. Most of us were aware of a connection to Sirius.

I saw flashes of one lifetime in particular with another woman in the group in which we were both men in a plains indian tribe. I was an old chief, and she a young warrior, itching for a fight. I had seen my share of fights, and knew that innocents would be harmed, and believed that there was no reason for starting a fight with our neighbors. She (he) ultimately had to be relocated to another tribe. She is still mad at me. That's okay. She has been spending much of this lifetime having fun and making people laugh. An excellent change of plans, it seems to me!

Comforting note to self: I may be wierd, but I would vastly rather be living this part of my life in this way, than spending it improving my golf game. But that's just me. And everyone gets to choose.

One last thought: at some point AA Metatron said through Tyb that we are not here just to serve others. We are here for ourselves, to evolve and grow spiritually. This was an important reminder to me.
...

Grand Canyon: Part 6

If you look closely, you can see at the back of the boat, Mark the River Guide, jumping over one of the big metal boxes to get into the "mousetrap" and shove me up and out. You definitely cannot see me; I am down in the hole. Right behind us is the tail end of Hermit Rapids.

Day three was the most difficult of all where rapids and physical comfort were concerned. Almost the entire day was one rapid after another, and on that particular day, it happened to be overcast much of the day. So we were wet and cold, no sunshine to warm us. This was one day that I definitely wore my green, plastic rain suit, grateful that it was so good at holding in heat.

Nervous about sitting on the pontoons in front again, after my bonk on the head the first day, I sat in the back, holding onto the straps that went across the padding on top of the largest of the metal boxes. The far back was reserved for the boatman doing the steering. In between was what is called the "mousetrap". This is an open area about five or six feet wide kept clear of everything so that the rubber pontoon boat could flex in the rapids. We were warned not to end up in the mousetrap during a rapid. We could walk back there in between, or when parked, to get things out of our daybags, or to fill our cups/bottles with water or lemonade. So, I was sitting just in front of the mousetrap, holding on to some rather loose straps, not ropes. But I had the idea that this was a "safe location."

I did pretty well during all but the Hermit Rapid. We watched the other boat go first, and at one point it went almost 90 degrees to the earth, and it flexed a lot. This was a very intense, powerful rapid. When it was our turn to go, I realized that the loose straps were going to be a problem. If the hand-hold is tight, the hands can hang on easier. When they are slack, it is harder to hold on, due to momentum, gravity, the weight of one's own body. Add to that the weight of the wall of water which is hitting, over and over, and it can be impossible to hold on. At one point, my right hand came loose, but my left held onto its strap, and my legs flew back and forth through the air, like the fingers on a hand that is waving, with my left hand being the only pivot point. My legs and right arm banged into metal boxes that were flexing toward each other at the top, as the rubber boat flexed in the rapid just like it was supposed to do. I landed inside the "mousetrap," and laid there for a while, watching the boxes flex above me, but not touching me once I had landed. Oddly, I did not feel fear during time, but just intense focus, with an awareness of everything that was going on. Cecilia, who was sitting in front of me on the back box called out as my legs waved in the air, "Hold on, don't let go. I've got you! Hold on, hold on!" I was holding on.

Immediately when the water levelled out a bit, I felt a pair of really strong hands come under my derierre and shove me back onto the large box where I was supposed to be. Later I confirmed that it was Mark, the river guide steering the boat. When I asked how he did that and drove, too, he said that he cut the engine, hopped over, pushed me back up, hopped back over the back boxes, and re-started the engine. This was right on the edge of the rapids, just a few feet over.

From the other boat they could see someone's legs waving in the air, during our run, but not whose. The result for me was not broken bones, but massive bruises on the legs and one on the upper right arm. It looked dramatic, but I actually got off pretty light, considering I was in the "mousetrap."

We were to learn later that the other boat, driven by R.D, had some pretty un-nerving situations, too. Josef, who was riding on the extreme front of the pontoons, also let go with all but one hand, and was under the boat, heading for a keel-hauling experience - with an outboard motor at the back of the boat. Several others on the front pontoons lost their grips in the massive waves. Lindsay, the crew member not driving the boat, hopped up front and started re-attaching hands to ropes. By the time she reached the position to where Josef's lone hand was, another wave had come and shoved him back onto the boat! Josef said he was very aware the entire time of where he was, and of the danger. We decided this was our miracle of the day. The guides said they had never seen this happen before - a wave pushing someone back onto the boat. I am still wondering how Lindsay managed to walk or crawl around over that boat in those waves. This was serious heroism. We honored her and all our guides in our circle that night.

This was also the day where we stopped at the flush toilets, as mentioned in the last post, and where we saw people and donkeys walking across the bridge from one side of the Canyon to another. We lunched at Crystal Creek, and later made camp at 4:21 pm, at a place called Stephen Aisle.

As mentioned earlier, we had ceremonies in a circle each night. Many times Tyb referred to our river guides as "Guardians of the Canyon," and we honored them as such. This is a sacred trust, being Guardians of the Womb of Gaia, and though they might not have put it into those words before, I could tell that this really resonated with the guides. There are still politicians who want to further dam the Colorad River inside the Canyon, and destroy the Grand Canyon. This has been going on intermittently since the 1950's. It was this same rafting company, Western River Expeditions, which took a key player in that political event in the '50's on a tour of the Grand Canyon down the Colorado River, and changed his vote, preventing the damming back then. So these river guides, in taking the limited numbers of people allowed each year, to go down the river in the heart of that immense gorge, are still doing this today. They are educating people experientially as to the stunning beauty and perfection of this ancient geologic miracle of nature, in hopes of saving it from the perversion of politics and human "progress."

Again I honor Mark, R.D., Leslie and Scott: our River Guides and Guardians of the Grand Canyon.

...

Grand Canyon: Part 5

The first image is a picture taken by either Dick or Jackie of Becky walking back from the "yellow tent." The above rafting image came from Western River's website, but saved to my computer (not using their bandwidth). Here you can see how "cleansing" the rapids are for the boat and everyone on it! You can also see people sitting on some of those large metal boxes that house food and other items, like my massive drum, that needed to stay dry. They are holding onto the straps that go around the boxes. In front, people are "sucking rubber," especially at the far front, and holding onto ropes, one hand in front of their body, one in back. If you do not do the front and back hold, and get your face down onto the pontoon if you are at the extreme front of the boat, you will come off the boat in a really big rapid.

TOILETS

So far I haven't said anything about the toilets. They certainly are worth mentioning. Each day the boat crews would set up a yellow tent with a flap which had a portable toilet inside. We closed the tent flap when we were inside, and opened it when we left. The container beneath the toilet was a large, silvery metal box with a lid. The lid was open, and had a small toilet seat on top of it, and there was another, smaller, silvery metal box in the tent, with toilet paper and some kind of spray sitting beside it. The spray seemed to me like a joke, there is no spray on the planet that will get rid of the stench of so many big piles of human poop. There were twenty-eight of us plus the four crew members.


We were told to urinate in the river, and poop in the boxes. Of course, the crew understood if ladies could not control both streams in the middle of the night. But for men, we were told, there was no excuse to urinate in the boxes at any time. "Men can make their own shade," said the crew, meaning they could turn their backs to the group and have privacy at river's edge.


Additionally, there was a secondary toilet placed up in the bushes with no tent surrounding it. At first, only the men went up there, but as the odor increased, we all vied for the chance to use that one. Down by the toilet tent, there was a big yellow floatation square with the words, "NEED HELP" written on one side. That was the outdoor toilet ticket. It sat next to the hand-washing tubs. When we went up to the uninclosed toilet with the "beautiful wallpaper" (real trees and sand and rocks) we took the ticket with us, and returned it when we got back.


Hand washing consisted of two five gallon plastic containers and a foot operated pump system. We put a squirt of soft soap on our hands, and then pumped water out of the clean water pail with a foot pump, and washed our hands over the one marked "nasty water." The water came from the one marked "clean water." The water came from the river, and later went back to the river. It was an ingenious system.


We made regular stops during the day to urinate, and it was assumed that we would have bowel movements during the evening stops or before we left the next morning. Of course, if anyone had an "emergency" during the day, we were told that a stop would be made for that, but we were expected to bring back the poop in a plastic bag. Needless to say, no one had such an emergency; I mean, can you imagine walking back to the parked boats filled with humans watching you return with a plastic bag filled with your excrement? We all managed to hold it, and there was plenty of time from late afternoon through the night and morning to do our business.


Naturally, after a couple of days, we all figured out that if we urinated on the boat during one of the big rapids all would be washed overboard, and no one would be the wiser. I felt sorry for the people who just could not pee in their pants.


No one ever said what happened to the poop each day, but I suspect that one of those gigantic metal storage bins on the rafts housed all the poop until they could get to the end of the complete nine day run and empty it. We were on the rafts for six days, and when they dropped us off, there was another group to take our places for a slightly more tame three day trip.

On day three, we actually stopped somewhere that had flush-toilets. You do not have to go for long without them to get really excited about flush-toilets, and most of the group excitedly trotted up the hill to partake of the joys of these miracles of modern science. My foot was still too banged up to do that on day three; there was a sandy slope to climb from the boat to the level earth, which would require bending at the toe and foot juncture, and a long trek after that to actually get to the toilets. I watched as several people from different expeditions walked across donkey bridges from the other side of the canyon to get to the flush-toilets as well. The flush-toilets were a big deal. I sat on the boat and ate red licorice, or peanuts, or whatever it was that the crew was handing out for snacks that day.

I was content to miss those scientific miracles, anyway. There is something serene and peaceful in feeling the wind blow softly over the skin, and walking silently across loose, deep sand in the middle of the night by moonlight or starlight to go the the toilet. Truly, I did not mind missing the opportunity to use the flush-toilets.

...