Before I left Denver in 1998.  I had a dream in which I was constructing a bridge so that people could get to the other side of a river.  As I prepared to do the final rewrite for this book, I had another dream.  I was cleaning, repairing and renovating an old barn to create a place where the local community could gather. After removing the chaff that had covered the floor of the loft, I found that it was polished and smooth from years of carrying many loads of hay and perfect for dancing.  And as I removed the last of the chaff and dust in one corner, I found perfectly preserved antique and collectible toy tractors, trucks, and cars.  For playing.  The polished floor of the loft is the ancient wisdom once again being revealed after millenia carrying the burden of human activity, buried under a load of chaff and straw.  Yet it endured to be rediscovered as the foundation of the universe upon which we can now dance and play.  And all the toys are perfectly preserved and ready.  Will you come play?

Lao-tzu taught that the Tao, the Way, is the principle that underlies the harmony of the universe.  When man interferes with the balance there is disorder and discord.  Because he is so simple and child-like, Winnie the Pooh is a superb teacher of this natural balance.  Benjamin Hoff writes in The Tao of Pooh: 

Those who do things by the Pooh Way find this sort of thing happening to them all the time.  It's hard to explain, except by example, but it works.  Things just happen in the right way, at the right time.  At least they do when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, "This isn't supposed to be happening this way," and trying hard to make it happen some other way.  If you're in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time.5 

Jesus had said that to "enter the kingdom of God one must be as a little child," and "Allow the little children to come to me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." He also said that "I AM the Truth and the Way."  He could have just as well said, "I AM the Tao."  The easy, broad way is to worship his divine personality instead of following in his footsteps.  He taught that there was a natural order of things so that the "lilies of the field" and "the birds of the air" are provided for by the Source.  The Spirit of Native America is essentially the same message, honoring "all my relations," thanking the Earth Mother for providing all that is needed, walking lightly on the Earth Mother, Dancing the Spiral, Singing the Songs.  It is all really the same essence with different names, different rules, different personalities.  We are all One in the Web of Being, we all dance the rhythms of the stars. 

The Spirals have danced with me.  They must have an enormous sense of humor to have used a science teacher to demonstrate the potential of the human heritage.  Twice I changed the weather.  Many times I have healed the pain of others, sometimes with touch, sometimes with the drum or rattle, sometimes with my words, sometimes with a smile or a nod.  Healing is simply an expression of Love as it passes through each of us.  It's part of our natural heritage. Everybody can do it if they let go of belief in limitations.  A Native American mother sent me this note about her son and his girl friend: 

Ki and Katie were so silly. I allowed Ki to steal a 2 minute call to Katie and 20 minutes later, I walked into their conversation thru a computer!  They were discussing you!  Ki was so silly.  He and Katie were wondering "how" you make your dreamcatchers "sparkle."  They were discussing some sparkly stuff Katie decorates herself with!  Ki concluded he could use sparkles for his web but yours sparkle the same way you do...you see children should always see as they do! 

At the core of my work is teaching others how to discover and accept their heritage as a human being.  We are truly beings of great natural power and wisdom if we can accept and allow the power and wisdom to flow through us.  I teach this by storytelling, drumming, dancing, dreamcatcher weaving, music and song, art and poetry.  And I help people re-connect to nature through drawing, writing, ceremony, eco-drama, and T'ai chi for the heart. 

You are energy and everything around you is energy.  Energy is spiralling through the time-space continuum, into existence and out.  When your energies are out of balance you experience disease, distress, and disharmony.  Moving your body through this matrix of spiralling energy in a carefully choreographed dance, induces energy flow in your body similar to an electric generator.   

T'ai chi for the Heart is an adaptation of T'ai Chi Chih increasing the focus on opening the heart.  T'ai Chi Chih was developed by a master teacher of T'ai Chi Chuan, Justin Stone, who found that students of the traditional form did not fully experience the flow of energy until they had studied and practiced for many years.  He created an new form based on Qi Gong and ancient Taoist teachings.  Additionally, I found that by bringing energy to the heart people would feel an even stronger awareness of Who they really are.  T'ai chi for the heart is a moving meditation--a series of 20 slow, simple movements that are fun and easy to learn by anyone, regardless of age or physical condition.  The spiralling circular movements promote health in every part of the body by circulating and balancing energy.   

One evening my friend, Michael, had a very painful spasm in his neck which made sleep most difficult.  He was exhausted and concerned that with his diabetes another sleepless night might put him in the emergency room at the county hospital. I taught him the first three simple movements of the Dance and told him to practice them before he went to bed.  When I saw him the next morning he said, "Look, Allen!" as he turned his head easily from side to side. "I slept like a baby!  Thanks!" 

Without effort the oak grows strong against the wind.  The wind in its softness moves tons of water in clouds from sea to plain.  We can become balanced, powerful, and aware when we learn better use of the body and mind, to enjoy the moment, relieve fears and stress, bring inner calmness, let go of judging self and others, reduce conflict, and smile.   

One day on the farm in northern Minnesota, I was doing the T'ai chi for the heart outside on the deck overlooking the lake.  After I had been performing the movements for several minutes, there was movement at the edge of my vision.  I turned my head to see two hummingbirds vying with each other, darting about, chasing each other, as though they were defending a territory.  I smiled and continued the movements.  A few moments later I was surprised by the buzzing of a ruby-throated hummingbird inches from my navel.  As I looked down at him, he looked up at me as if to inquire "Where's the nectar!"  After about ten seconds he flew off and I continued with the Dance.  Almost immediately, the second hummingbird was hovering inches from my navel.  Once again, as I looked down and greeted him, he looked up at me seeming to inquire, "So where's the nectar?"  He, too, flew off after a few moments, probably disappointed.   

What had drawn them to me?  Probably they saw a large red spiral of energy that they misinterpreted as a large red flower.  Little wonder they fought with each other to be the first one to feed on this huge blossom!  

These energy spirals are usually called chakras, or wheels of life.  They are found from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head.  In some traditions there are only seven, in others, nine or more.  When the chakras are open and spinning, power moves through our body without interference or resistance.  I no longer think of chakras as quaint metaphors of some esoteric eastern philosophy.  They are real enough that the hummingbirds could see them.  With practice and a knowledge of spiral breathing you can 'smile' energy into your chakras to remove the resistances or blockages so that subtle, but powerful, energy will move easily, and smoothly and not burn out nearby organs.   

Some people wishing to enter new realms of being spend many years, perhaps many lifetimes, of esoteric practice and learning.  Perhaps that is best for them.  I have experienced ways of knowing that are based on simplicity instead of complexity, on the gentle instead of the rigorous, the natural rather than the contrived.  T'ai chi for the heart is one of many simple shortcuts to the realization of power.  Shamanic journeying with drums or rattles, spiral breathing, dancing for Mother Earth at a powwow, watching sunsets or sunrises or starry nights, walking or just being in nature with awareness, giving or receiving massage, singing or toning, the ecodrama called the Council of All Beings, just learning to watch your "what" create dramas and play games of manipulation and control, weaving dreamcatchers. These are some of my experiences that have helped me on the journey. 

Among the awesome experiences of my life has been the writing of poetry.  It just comes to me, when I let it, usually without any forewarning.  Once I was driving on I-494 in the southern suburbs of Minneapolis when several lines of beautiful and profound poetry started to come through.  (I must be tuned to a poetry channel, too.)  I should have pulled over for a few minutes on an exit ramp and written it down, but I was not far from home and chose to try to commit it to memory.  As I exited the interstate and entered another controlled-access highway I lost track of my speed trying to remember the gift I had been given.  I merged just in front of a state patrol car.  I got a speeding ticket--and forgot the poem.  I've asked that these channeled treasures be offered at more convenient times and places.   I've also learned to be ready at any time to stop and write down the gifts of spirit. 

I have no idea where all of this leads--I just know that it is not by accident that these events occur in our lives.  There is a deep and abiding purpose that lies hidden, cloaked by our rapt attention to the commonly held view of this earth experience.  These are our opportunities to choose to look deeply and insightfully, to hear the music that underlies the drone and hubbub, to feel the soft breath of spirit that shepherds us on our life path.  We play many roles for each other--father, mother, child, teacher, student, lover, wife, husband, wife.  Each of these relationships provides portals to new vistas unimagined and uncharted.  Usually our fear of new, uncharted territory binds us to a life of sameness, rarely probing beyond the known and communally accepted norms.  (It's probably no accident that my last car was a Probe and my present car is an Explorer.) 

We are so much more than we have dared to guess.  There is so much more at stake than we can know.  Yet there is no blind alley, no mistake, no missed opportunity, no time limit.  It's only we who set our own limits. We were born to a heritage of joy, ecstasy, and becoming.  Not by our incessant doing but by our letting go of the limitations of doing and accepting the awesome power of being--discovering our natural Self.    

We need to celebrate childhood and children and keep alive the child in each of us.  That's the part that is creative, imaginative, and intuitive.  Creativity is the engine that drives business enterprise, the arts and sciences.  Imagination expands our world beyond the base limits of logic and linear reason.  Without it business would stagnate into number-crunching and bottom lines, art would become paint-by-numbers and color inside the lines, and science becomes engineering. 

There are many paths to knowledge.  Rational, logical, linear inquiry can be immensely valuable, but it is not fully congruent with the way the universe operates.  Research in the field of chaos, at the frontiers of science, has shown that the natural world primarily functions according to nonlinear principles.  Among humans this can be experienced in its most natural state in children.  .When I travel, write, and teach, I remember that it is especially for all the children in the world that I do what I do. Bawaudjigaeaun wae-ondji manitouwiyaun.  In Ojibwe this means, "To dreams I owe the mystery."  I tell the children, "Remember your dreams, learn from them, and always remember that what you see is truly what you see, it's not always what adults see.  Keep your vision and your belief in the impossible because it's true, even if they've forgotten.  All things are possible, even though as adults we've agreed to live and play in a much smaller world.  The only thing bigger about adults is their clothing and their shoes.  Teach your mother and aunts and uncles what you see so they can remember Who they are and why they came here.  This is your gift." 

The most important role of parents and teachers is not to control or limit the children, but to help them remember their natural Self.  Children are not empty vessels into which we must pour our knowledge and other limitations.  They are born with an immense capacity to love and to Be.  In our hurry to make them in our own image, fit for the common society, we teach them our own limitations, and dismiss their belief that "they can fly."  As we employ our love to limit "Who" they are we demand their respect for our authority.  We create a hierarchy of power filled with illusion in which respect and honor is unilateral.  We need to reexamine ourselves, our motivations, our goals.  Respect and honor should be circular, bilateral, multilateral, spherical, all-encompassing, spiralling.     

I have been doing drumming and storytelling in public and private elementary schools to share the stories of the dreamcatchers and the stories of All My Relations.  The story of The Littlest Acorn teaches of the power and wisdom that lies within each being that will naturally unfold if allowed to just Be.  The story of The Adventure of the Snowflake teaches the warmth and depth of love with which the Creator graces us on our Earth Journey.  At Park Rapids Elementary in northern Minnesota, dozens of kids waiting in line for gym came over to me as I walked by with their teacher, they wrapped their arms around me, and hugged me.  They had understood that they were in the presence of love.  I had only been with them for a short time, but it had been enough.  In one class I had done some drumming and storytelling and then asked for their questions.  The first hand that shot up was that of a little boy who displayed Down's syndrome.  I called on him and, seeming surprised that he was recognized, he said, "I love you."  "I love you, too,"  I replied as my heart warmed in the simplicity and innocence of his loving kindness.   

Treating children with equality and love will earn their respect and love more surely than any system of control and manipulation.  When I speak to children I learned to kneel or crouch or sit, whatever is necessary to be face to face at the same level as the child.  Otherwise, there is an implicit "looking up to" a figure of authority.  The lessons of the dreamcatchers is that we all are one in the Web of Life, that there are none higher than another, to be aware of the illusion of "better than." 

Kahlil Gibran said it very well in The Prophet: 

     ...Your children are not your children,
        they are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
        They come through but not from you,
        and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
        You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
        For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday...4 

Bit by bit the pieces have come together.  I saw that I must teach people how to be guided by spirit and how to receive energy from the universe.  Then they would become Ogichidaag‘, leaders who would use their power with gentleness, wisdom, and love to guide others to a new way of life.  To do this we must emphasize the importance of the way of the circle in remembering the Original Instructions of love, honor, and respect for all beings.  Many others have taught the way of the circle but the circle was not integrated into the lives of people.  There must be a focus, a purpose that creates a vortex around which the circle can spiral into being.  

"The time has come!  Let that which has been hidden and forgotten be found and remembered!  With the wisdom of the spirals They can become a bridge, a rainbow bridge, to show and teach a balanced way of being human.  They will Sing the Songs and Dance the Spiral into Balance and Walk in Harmony." 

Bawaudjigaeaun wae-ondji manitouwiyaun. In Ojibwe this means, "To dreams I owe the mystery."

<back> The Stories Dream Catchers Weave