The Way Home: A Newly Released Book by David Santangelo
"The sun rises 
every morning, and you are like the sun. You are like the sun, more than you know, and you are bright, and you are warm, and you rise everyday and you glow, and you are like this, and this is the real you. It is true that you are like the sun, and if you were not like the sun, why would the sun be there at all for you? It is there for you so that you can know, and you can remember. So that you can remember who you are, now and in the coming days." - The Way Home, messages from Arcturus
David is currently traveling the world with project SHINE channeling the messages from Arcturus and working with people in a variety of capacities. Click the below link to stay updated on this great and wonderful adventure.
READ THE PROJECT SHINE TRAVEL BLOG HERE
Spirit Warrior Teen Immersion, April 2011
We had a fantastic group of guys for our latest teen spirit warrior immersion, a nice range ages 14-17.
We opened the day around the fire at Lucius' house, catching up with one another and discussing what it means to be a Spirit Warrior. Authenticity, strength and loyalty were common answers to the question, and then the conversation turned to what stops us from living this way. To a man, and in different ways, the answer was fear of judgement from the outside world. It seems no matter what the age, this is the challenge!
The rest of the day was spent out at Shevlin Park building our sacred site, sending the guys on solo journeys, working with totems, talking about the things that are truly important to us as individuals, and playing ultimate frisbee! (and trying to avoid tripping over stumps) in a clearing in the woods. The guys were enthusiastic and engaged all day, and each displayed incredible wisdom and points of view as these young guys regularly tend to do-but it still blows me away, everytime.
This is what I a most struck by working with these young men. They are so wise and mature, so insightful, and it really seems to come out when given the opportunity to go deeply into their authentic nature, to connect to life on a spiritual level. I don't remember being this insightful when I was a teenager! But perhaps I just didn't have the right venue.
We're trying to put together another Immersion for early june, and we're also gearing up for the Spirit Warrior Retreat July 7-10. Looking forward to it all and continuing to grow and learn from this work.
Raw Feminine Power: Woman's Workshop November 2010
I went out on a limb a little facilitating a woman's workshop this past weekend. My beautiful wife tells me that I am somewhat clueless, which is the only reason I can pull some of these things off.
Clueless or not, I have a deep, and somewhat renewed respect for raw feminine power.
Having worked with groups of men, and mixed groups, I can safely say that there is nothing in my experience like working with a group of women. In a group of men the underlying energy is a perceptible sense of fragility, a need for understanding, a certain lost quality without the presence of the feminine. The underlying energy in a group of women, however, I would liken to a volcano. A volcano, perhaps, ready to explode.
There is a strength present in the women that is clearly not present in the men. There is a knowing. This is not to say that women are stronger than men, and that men are by nature weak, but rather that there is an earth in women, a su
btle quality, that when accessed is nothing like what a man possesses. It is that thing that, emotionally and spiritually, allows a woman to go through the process of giving birth. Many of the mystical traditions claim that the woman is naturally closer to God than the man, and I believe this has something to do with why.
When this power is unleashed, and recognized by groups of women across the world, it will bring the planet back into balance. When women are no longer afraid to express their own power, the world will be a better place. And this is not to say that there need be any man-bashing involved, but instead that we all, men and women alike, learn to bow, honor, and deeply respect the divine feminine force, and allow this force to guide our civilizations rather than building civilizations that try to stamp this force out. Aho.
The Warrior Spirit
The Warrior Spirit is alive and well, let this be known.
The twelve men who gathered this past Sunday to experience their inner warrior proved this, beyond any doubt. There were tears, there was togetherness, there was sharing. There was fire. Mother Earth. There was letting go.
To a man, the reason for gathering was the open-heartedness. A space to be real, to be honest, to not have to pu
t on airs, or pretend. To know that it was okay to be vulnerable, and to know that in this vulnerability was the real warrior spirit, the true courage, and the medicine for our culture and for all men. In a society where we value the strong, we rarely realize the truly strong are the ones with the willingness to look within and face the truth of what is there.
A real warrior
must do this. A real warrior must face his own death, and understand what this means. He must face his death to know what is truly important in his life, and in this wa
y he must also know his interconnectedness, his place in the Sacred Hoop of Life. He must realize that anything he kills, or tries to kill, or injurs or harms, is really himself. That he is inextricably connected to all things, and he can never be separate. Therefore he must treat all things, even his enemy, with the greatest of honor.
The men built this symbol in silence, to honor our part, as men, in The Sacred Hoop of Life.
Couples Retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs
"Relationship is the way in which we walk, in which we grow, in which we see ourselves in somebody else completely as the holy mirror, the divine mirror, the reflection of The All within us. This is the purpose of relationship, the real purpose, to see oneself in another completely, and to walk through this other as the perfect vehicle to the realization of God, which is the realization of the essence of you." The Way Home p.53
I am always amazed at what transpires between couples at our couples workshops. I do not think there is any harder path than the path of relationship-my apologies to all the ascetics out there, but relationship is as tremendous a challenge and opportunity for awakening as exists in this world.
Julia and I facilitated a couples retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs this past weekend, and there was a point in the weekend in which we split up the men and the women. At first the women gathered with me and the men with Julia. Then we switched, I took the men and she the women. The idea was to open each sex to the parallels that are at play in the larger masculine/feminine dynamic, the truths and patterns that we all work with-much larger than any individual or couple.
With the men, we first spent some time in circle discussing purpose. It seems to me that purpose is foremost on our minds as men, the key to our availability, our happiness, our presence. We then went to the forest (the old growth Emerald Forest that surrounds Breitenbush is an astoiunding and magical place) on a silent expedition to locate a sacred object that represented our purpose. Once found, this object was to be given to the woman, in ceremony, for her safe-keeping, her cultivation, her care and support.
This giving of our purpose as men to the woman for her cultivation and care was a powerful exchange. What this means, in the way of medicine, is that this object that represents our purpose, our gifts, our work in the world as men, is actually not in our own keeping but in the keeping of our woman. It is ours as men, yet it lives in her medicine bundle or mesa. This, as Wake Wheeler of Sacred Pathways pointed out to me, puts us as men in quite a conundrum for it means, in order to access this medicine, we must be in right relationship with our woman! And if we are, we access this medicine not only with our own masculine power, but also the deep feminine support, love, and trust. Aho. Now this is the power of relationship.
We Are the Ones We've been Waiting For
I was blessed to have been invited last week to the International Gathering of Shaman hosted by Wake and Kinlen Wheeler in Yachats, Oregon. Five days between the ocean and the fire.
It was the fourth year of the gathering, yet for the first time this year the Wheelers decided to open up the facilitation to the group. They created the sacred space, set the intention for the gathering to happen, opened the doors, yet when we all arrived we were asked to step in equally as facilitators and participants at once. Each participant had an opportunity to tend the fire (that was built Thursday at noon and kept burning for three days and nights) and during this time it was their opportunity to give their gift. For some this meant dancing, singing, performance. For others this meant ceremony, or workshop. And for some this meant hanging out casually.
What came to mind for me, and perhaps many others at the Gathering, was the Hopi poem and line "We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For." It took a measure of courage as facilitators for Wake and Kinlen to step back and allow the unfolding to take place. As facilitators we often want to control the situation, make sure people are having a valuable experience and get what we think they need. But when we step back and allow, we are leaving it up to something greater, a greater force that moves through all the people, and moves through the space.
For it is not as if Wake and Kinlen did nothing. They created, and they held, the sacred space. They created the space for ceremony. They were the poles. But perhaps this is really the role of the facilitator-to create the space, the ceremonial space, for others to flourish. Kudos to Wake and Kinlen for this as I, for one, felt truly free to dance. Click the link below for chanting around the fire.
And thanks to Barbara Ann O'Leary for some great photos of the Gathering.
The Sacred Fire
The sacred fire is there for us to pray, for us to give thanks, for us to put everything that we have into its flames for the purpose of transformation, for the timeless song of prayer.
IGS, International Gathering of Shaman, took place this weekend on the coast in Yachats, Oregon. The purpose, as far as I understand for myself, was to build a fire, a fire that is being built at the same time in hundreds of locales around the globe. The fire is a fire of transformation, of prayer. It is a fire for the healing of humanity, for world peace. It is a fire for the Great Mother Earth and all that she gives to us. A fire of community, of sacredness, oneness, and a way of life in which all things are honored and respected, in which all of humanity is one.
The Way Home
The Way Home is a book, but I've realized in recent times that it is more than this, it is a way of life. The teachings in the book, both through the channeled 
transmissions and autobiographical stories, are not simply pointing towards one way, or one truth, or one spiritual path. They are about all of it, the core that lies beneath it all, the heartbeat, the planet, the fundamental foundations that we all share. This is the way home, this is the way back.
Around the 1st of October, 2009, I was told by an intuitive named Kathy Nagel that I had to write a book in 3 months. "This," she said, "was what her guides were telling her, " and I instantly believed her every word. As i began this process-awakening before dawn, building a fire in my studio, saying a series of prayers and sitting down to write, I found that the words would not come. I was used to writing, had always done so with relative ease, yet something was different. Something was not like it was before, and I burned in the fire of not being able to make a single word form on the page.... to continue reading click here