THE SECOND WELL TRUST presents

The Great She Bear Stories of Nature

The Lesson of the Shivering Rocks

SOUL'S JOURNEY TWELVE

Songee asks, Are you sitting comfortably? Take a great deep breath into your middle self and relaxing your body. And prepare yourself once more to step onto the spiral of the Great She Bear. Imagine you are surrounded by your silvery mist and prepare yourself to move through to where the spirals are. And as the mist parts there in front of you is the spiral of the Great She Bear. And as you step now onto the spiral remember all the things of your day, all the matters that have concerned you and thwart you and so on and so forth. And as you walk along the spiral let them drift through your mind and let them be at peace. Put them perhaps, some of them, to one side - the ones that you don't need the spiral will absorb, the ones you do you can collect on your way back.

So you journey along the spiral, moving ever towards the center getting closer to the center of the spiral now. Moving always forward, forward to the center of the spiral and then you come to the spiral, the center. And at the center you hover for a moment and know that when you take your step forward it will be into an Otherworld from whence comes the Great She Bear.

Prepare yourself now to step forward into the Otherworld.

And as you open your eyes to the Otherworld you find yourself where you were at the end of the last story - standing with Windrunner sitting in front of you.

And as you stand there and look about you and then look down at Windrunner. He looks at you and he says to you, "Welcome, traveller to the Otherworld, welcome and thrice welcome to your return to us. We have been awaiting your coming so that we may proceed with our journey." And with this he turns around and you will see that now it is the time of day. The night time has passed away and the sunshine has come to this land. And the Great She Bear is up on her feet and preparing to journey. And the Little Bear cub has picked up his magic crystal and the Little She Bear has shaken herself and rubbed her sleepy eyes.

A she wolf comes forward and rubs herself against Windrunner. "Farewell my Beloved," she says, "I will await for your return. I know that you have to go and be guardian to these people on their journey and we will see you in good health when you return to us."

And now your are all ready to begin your journey. Windrunner come to you and nudges your hand with his nose to indicate to you it is time to move off on your journey. He leads the way out from the sanctuary where the wolves have their place of rest, up through the rocks and out into the mountain trail. This part of the mountain on which the Great She Bear lives is a little more towards the bottom of the mountain and it is still surrounded by the forest, yet it is closer now to the valley from which the Little Bear cub first saw the smoke from the fires of the two-legs.

Come now, all together and follow Windrunner as he leads you out along the mountain trail. As you look out along and down the valley you will still see the smoke of the two-legs rising to the sky. It is closer now and from your vantage point you all also be able to see beyond the mouth of the valley to where the great plains stretch to the horizon and where the river runs like a silver ribbon all through the valley and out onto the plains. As you look at this beautiful vista and you see all this wondrous sight around you know that you are part of this vast beauty.

Suddenly behind you - bump. The Little Bear cub bumps into your behind self.

"Woooorr rrooor rroooff," he says to you. You don't know what on earth he's saying. He can't say very much because he has his crystal in his mouth so he puts it down for a moment and he looks at you and he says, "Get a move on! You are standing still and we have to move along now." So you move along now behind Windrunner and the Little Bear cub picks up his crystal and follows along behind you and every time you seem to be slowing down or standing still he will bump you with his nose to encourage you to move forward a little more swiftly.

Windrunner is now leading you down, down the mountain paths through the rocks. Some of them are a little bit shivery. They like to shiver and quake and move out from under your feets. So you have to place your feet very carefully. You have to go slowly and place your feets just so. Windrunner stops every now and then to look back at you and to smile some encouragement to you.

He says to you, "Be careful where you put your feets for these are the shivering rocks. The shivering rocks do not stay still in one place for very long and anybody that is at the bottom of the mountain pass that is underneath when the shivering rocks fall down will get a great bruise on their head place. So you place your feets very carefully. And down below you, you can see where the shivering rocks are falling down into the depths, down the side of the mountain to the tree tops below and to the ground below that. And you know in your heart that you must tread very carefully. Watch where others place their feets. Watch the nature of the way they place their feets and you do the same thing. Place your feets with great care, great consideration. Bring your whole being into focus on this one task that you have before you now.

And now Windrunner comes to the other side of the shimmering rocks and leads you onto the firm path once more. And behind you, you can hear the Little Bear cub making grumping noises and grunting noises and grumbling noises and complaining bitterly around the outside of his crystal about how the shivering rocks make him feel shivery also. And that he doesn't want to fall down that great cavern down below and he doesn't want to lose his crystal. Only all you can hear is grumble, mumble, woooorr rrooor rroooff, coming from his mouth as he makes his way towards you.

And the Little She Bear is being very careful where she is putting her footselves and she's going very carefully forward, and she is doing much better than the Little Bear cub is because she is more focused than he. And coming behind is the Great She Bear.

Now the Great She Bear has much, much more body weight than any of you. And she has to come across the shivering rocks and as you all gather on the other side, on the path of safety, watch how she moves.

First she places one great paw on the shivering rocks and she puts down her nose to them and blows through her nose into the rocks. Then she places her next great paw onto the shivering rocks and wriggles it about just a little and then breaths once more onto them. And in this fashion she moves forwards one step at a time and where her hand paw was she places her feets paw and so she moves across the shivering rocks and lo, no rock falls! All remain on the side of the mountain. And she comes now to the place of safety, the firm path.

And the Little Bear cub puts down his crystal and he says, "Muma how did you manage to do that without sending the shivering rocks down to the ground below?"

And the Great She Bear sits down on her behind self and looks at him. And she says, "Well my son that is something that you are going to have to learn as you grow older because sometimes the path of life contains shivering rocks. And sometimes when you encounter these places you must employ all of the powers of your concentration and your focus in order to traverse them safety and yet to maintain the integrity of that over which you traverse. For just because they are shivering rocks it does not make them bad or evil. It is only the nature of their being and you do not have the right to abuse them or to send them crashing to their doom away from their partners down into the valley below. So you use your powers of focus and you become one with them so that instead of them attempted to run away from under your feets they cling to you as a brother or sister and they stay with you while you go across. And so it is, my son that in life you will have to transverse the shivering rocks from time to time and you will need to become one with them so that they will feel secure with you and not attempt to run away from beneath your feets and so take you and themselves crashing down into the abyss."

And all this time that she has been telling this story to the Little Bear cub she has been looking at each of you including yourself. Letting you know that this is a lesson for your life, that is something that you need to practice now for your life - how to move across the shivering rocks.

Now it is time to move on some more so Windrunner says, "It is time now, come." And he places his paw onto youself and touches you with his nose and says, "Come visitor to the Otherworld, now you know how to go across the shivering rocks we will move along now on the trail."

And before he picks up his crystal the Little Bear cub says, "Where are we going Windrunner? Where are we going?"

And Windrunner looks around and stares at him and says, "We are going to the Ocean Little Bear cub, to the Ocean."

And the Little She Bear jumps up and down and says, "The Ocean, the Ocean." And then she stops and she looks and says, "Muma, what is the Ocean?"

And then the Little Bear cub says, "I bet the two-legs that have come to visit the Otherworld knows what is the Ocean." And turns to you and says, "You know don't you two-legs, what is the Ocean?"

What are you going to say to the Little Bear cub about the Ocean?

Before you can answer Windrunner says, "That is quite right we are going to the Ocean and the two-legs does know much about the Ocean however we have a journey to make before we get there, however that is our destination. So come now and let us step forward and continue our journey down the mountain side. We have yet to reach the place where dwell the two-legs. We need to introduce our visitor to the Otherworld, to the two-legs." And with this he moves off now along the path down through the rocky pass and down further to where the trees are beneath. And entering into the cool forest steps out proudly along the trail down, down through the forest.

And all around the birds and the insects are singing their song and the sun is shining brightly through the tree tops and down to where you are walking on the ground. And there is a beautiful sense of peace and harmony around you. A sense of excitement also for the beautiful things that are coming ahead of you, the lessons that you are going to learn on this journey.

And that is where we are going to leave you for this journey, walking through the forest down towards the place where the two-legs dwell. So as you walk along and the sun is shining and the beautiful shafts of sunlight, spilling through the trees, casting light and dark. And as you walk through these patches of light and dark your eyes begin to lose focus and as they begin to lose focus you find yourself now floating and drifting. Floating and drifting until you find yourself once more back in the center of the spiral of the Great She Bear.

And now it is time for you to journey back along the spiral, slowly. Remember every lesson of this journey and your experiences and your feelings, bringing them with you as you journey forward now along the spiral into your own life. Collecting up those things that you do need to have for your life, that you have yet to complete in your daily living and not worrying about the things that you no longer need that the spiral has absorbed for you. Bringing yourself back now to the outside, back to the outside of the circle, as you come to the silvery mist once more and enter into it. And it will bring you back slowly into your here and now life, where you will take a deep Breath of Life into your middle self.

So I leave you with the Power of learning to walk on the shivering rocks.

SO BE IT