Walking the Land Sedona, Arizona: In Search of Bololokan’s Path-The Snake’s Coiled Tail

WHO ARE WE?

Eileen Nauman (Ai Gvhdi Waya is here Eastern Cherokee name) is 1/8 Eastern Cherokee via her father’s side of the family. Her great-great grandmother was on the Trail of Tears and as a sixteen-year-old, escaped and ran into Kentucky, where she later married into the Gent family. We know only two things about her: that she came from a medicine family and was from the Wolf clan of her people. Her medicine was being a shaman. And this gene has gone down through our family. Eileen was the chosen child to be taught this ‘medicine’ (this means an inherited skill of healing) by her father. She trained with him from age 9 through 18. Later, she had other Native American teachers and in 1990 began training others for Soul Recovery and Extraction, the medicine of her great-great grandmother.

Marchiene Reinstra is an interfaith minister. She has written many books and has been an advocate of women being equal to men in all organized religions. Coming from Dutch missionary parents, Marchiene grew up in India. She is cosmopolitan and has many natural psychic skills. She met Eileen in the mid-90’s and since then, they have become a psychic team in search of understanding the energy of the land where they live in the Verde Valley of Arizona. This includes Sedona, but the scope is much wider than that. Please see our blogs from 2009 as they worked to bring the chakra system of Sedona back online.

WHAT IS WALKING THE LAND?

Eileen’s genetic knowing about the land comes through her Native American blood. She simply sees Nature as symbolic and is able to interpret it so she that she understands the visible and invisible energy in an area and what it is doing. Further, she is clairvoyant and can see the spirits, the guardians of sacred places, vortexes and everything else associated with the land. Her belief is that if we understand the energy and beings where one lives, that you can live in a deep and positive harmony with them.

The land is fed by the human’s gratefulness and attention. And the land’s energy/spiritual beings, in turn, create a far more positive energy framework and environment for the human. They must work together for harmony. Otherwise, if one ignores the other, we are ignoring Mother Earth and all her relations. That is like ignoring your neighbors and pretending they aren’t there or exist.

This blog is dedicated to showing the fundamentals of Walking the Land in hopes that you will take the information and apply it to your own area. And if you will, then you will forge a positive and healing link as a result. And the energy of your area where you live will be amplified, lifted and online so that the positive applications of this teamwork will benefit all. Weather will return to what it used to be. There will be no more floods and droughts, as an example. Water can be cleaned up with prayer and attention to the spirit of it. And so much more. You will learn as we Walk the Land here in the Verde Valley.

TWO BLOGS: Eileen will post her blog on Walking the Land first and then the next day, will post Marchiene’s. Each writes a blog based upon her experience as they walk the land in search of the planetary water snake, known as Bololokan to the Yavapai Native Americans who live in the Verde Valley. There are many powerful planetary beings that work with Mother Earth. Humans can interface with them as well but it is always the planetary, regional or local spirit who decides that. You can’t work with one unless your heart is in the right place, you practice daily humility and understand that humans are a small part of the mighty woven energy that is here on our home, Mother Earth.

Their intent is to discover the natural energy geology of where Bololokan moves/slithers, through the landscape of their valley. In discovering Bololokan’s path, Eileen and Marchiene will then perform ceremony to reawaken this path. In doing that, the energy comes back online and it lifts and helps feed the area in a natural way as it used to be when the First People lived here in union with Mother Earth and all her relations. It will change the weather pattern of the area, which has been in a twenty-year drought. Bololokan is the WATER snake. There are three other planetary snakes for the other three elements: earth, fire and air. Bololokan utilizes the Verde Valley area as one of her many sipapu’s (emergence hole) to come up into our area. She has sipapu’s around the world and slithers inside Mother Earth in tunnels that connect them all. We’re fortunate to have her with us and we discovered her when we opened up the chakras of Sedona. She came to us and we had no idea she existed before that except in Yavapai legends who spoke of “Bololokan.” Once she contacted us at Rainbow Bridge, one of her sipapu’s, she has been with us ever since. This year in 2010, she asked us to discover her energy path throughout our valley and clean out those sacred points with human attention and ceremony. In doing that, her third dimensional energy in our valley will reawaken and bring harmony to it once more. We hope the drought will be broken and the rains that Bololokan brings, will once more, go back to its normal pattern. Join us on our journey and you can be a part of the discovery and education as well.

Eileen’s Blog 12.7.2010. The snake’s coiled tail:

I had spent a frenzied Tuesday morning before picking up Marchiene looking at Google maps. The “tail” of Bololokan, the planetary water snake, began on Mingus Mountain. On her eastern slope was a round circle of land rising up out of it. We had identified this as a birthing channel last year when working with the chakra system of Sedona. In Yavapai myth, it is Grandmother Komwida who comes to Mingus mountain to be impregnated with the “fire” of the sun. It is the mingling of the water/moisture within a woman’s womb with the sacred fire of the Great Spirit. And if you look at these photos, you will see that round circle on the slope and there is nothing else like it geologically speaking around it. Further, with input from Grandmother C., who is the snake clan priestess we met on December 3rd at the Snake Clan Rock in West Fork area of Oak Creek Canyon, she showed me it was Bololokan’s coiled ‘tail.’ And indeed, it is coiled looking—just as the Great Serpent Mound snake is in Dayton, Ohio. See my previous blog on this for more in-depth information.

I honestly didn’t think we’d be able to access the snake’s tail at all. But Google maps showed two possible forest service roads that got near it. I made copies of them, talked to my husband Dave about them, because he’s good at maps, too.

Then, I ran out the door. As I hurried to my hogan to gather up my ceremonial items, a raven cawed from the tip of Hope, one of our sacred Cottonwoods. I thought: double check! Why? Because Marchiene has raven medicine. And on the last exploration to West Fork, a raven had flown past the Wildflower bakery window as we ate, going north where we would go later. It’s always good to see your spirit guide in reality. It’s a sign of “thumbs up,” or that you’re doing it the right way. In my rush, I tried to remember the things I always took on these adventures: my colored pencils, my journal, my abalone shell, my sacred white sage, and this time, cedar as an offering instead of cornmeal. What I didn’t take along was my Bololokan drum! I didn’t realize that until I went to pick up Marchiene. When she heard that, she laughed and said she was bringing her drum along. She had obviously picked up psychically on the situation…but that is the connection between us….and I was relieved.

We went to Wildflower as usual for our lunch. I was so excited to show her the map. I showed her the snake’s tail coil on Mingus and the two Google map roads. One led above it and the other, beneath it. I told her I suddenly realized, looking at it, that the roads around the birthing channel, that was the snake’s mouth around the egg—again! Sure enough, Marchiene saw it too. We both got chills on that one. And then, I told her on the way to pick her up, I’d mentally ask Bololokan why the snake’s mouth/egg was at her coiled TAIL. I told her that Grandmother C. had shown me that her head and mouth was around the ‘egg’ of the Four Grandmothers (Humphrey’s peak). Bololokan laughed and said: “watch.” I saw her pull her mouth from out around the mountains, lift up her huge, rainbow body from Oak Creek Canyon and then form a circle in the sky as she came down and put her mouth around the circular spot on Mingus Mountain. She said, “ouroboros.” Stunned, I realized Bololokan was reenacting the snake who is in a circle and closes its mouth around its own tail—one of our most ancient symbols know in our world!

Here is an example from my journal. By drawing the land, you not only really see it, but you are energy connected to it as well…which helps you see the macrocosm or greater picture of what is in front of you—and what ELSE it is connected with :-). Drawing also opens up the right hemisphere of our brain where all our macrocosmic and psychic equipment is located…. another reason to draw. Art has far more ramification that one would think. In Walking the Land, it’s absolutely essential you draw.

Marchiene gasped at that information. Her eyes got huge. I was so excited about this discovery. Clearly, we were uncovering a much deeper layer of energy in this regional landscape than we ever had before. We’d been building it and opening it up for the past two years. Now, we got far more meaty information. You might Google ouroboros and see the wealth of information on this phenomenon. For me, ouroboros means energy moving for eternity. It can be about a person, place or thing. It is the perpetual motion machine where energy moves in balance and harmony. It also means that if ouroboros is operational, that person, place or thing is “on line” and functioning at one hundred percent. They are in balance. And when you’re in balance you don’t get sick and neither does the planet.

This is another map. You can see the ‘jaws’ of the snake (white lines which are forest service roads) around the circular area (and it’s Chuckwalla Road). Here is the ouroboros or snake’s mouth around the ‘egg’ of the sipapu, it’s coiled tail. You can plainly see it here symbolically speaking. The road we eventually took to reach the snake’s tail was FR 493 above the sipapu. We got off the road and then walked down that zigzag white line area (called a switchback) and arrived at the base of it! And it was on forest service land and we were not trespassing.

Why is this important to know? Humans are not anywhere near in balance or harmony. They spend thousands of lifetimes trying to get back into balance. On our planet, Earth, she is alive and conscious. Ouroboros can be found in the landscape of her body, the crust that we live upon, everywhere. You just have to know HOW to look to see it in action. And Walking the Land, our job is to clean out etheric dross that has plugged or blocked a chakra, vortex or other system (such as a stream or river). When a conscious human who is connected and in communication with the unseen world, they can affect monumental changes toward health for our planet by simply being there with their heart and intent. If we can get Mom Earth back into Ouroboros, or harmony, then the devastation that is coming (and we’re seeing it right now), can be stopped.

Even crop circles over in England show ouroboros. At the bottom of the circle is the snakes head and it is connected with its tail.

Marchiene and I decided to take the first road and see if we could get to the snake’s tail. We drove through Cottonwood, following the map.

While driving to Cottonwood, you can see Mingus mountain. I’ve deliberately darkened the round circle that is the sipapu or birthing channel of Yavapai myth, so you won’t miss it.

At the end of the road it said: No Trespassing. It belonged to a local rancher and we had no desire to trespass upon private land. There was a huge iron gate and you couldn’t go any further. Undaunted, because for us dead end simply meant, this particular place was a dead end, but it didn’t negate our mission to reach the coiled tail.

Here is a close up of the snake’s tail coil or the sipapu from Chuckwalla Road. We were stopped from using that forest service road because it was on ranch land. So, we turned around and hunted up the other FR road to see if we could get any closer than this.

We took the map and drove another way. We ended up on a dirt road (there’s lots of ‘em in Arizona). The map showed a switch-back kind of road that led to the tail. We found it. This was forest service land so we were not trespassing. Parking the van, we had to hike up a hill. And down on the other side, to the east, was our coiled tail hill!

Leaving the van and hiking up the road that was impassible for my Toyota van, we climbed to an even higher hill. Marchiene said, “Look! The Grandmothers.” I turned to the north and sure enough, there they were. Our four Grandmothers (Humphrey’s Peak) fifty miles away to the north and yet in perfect alignment with the snake’s coiled tail.

As we turned south on the hill, there, across from us stood our prize: the coiled snake’s tail or sipapu! We were so excited because neither of us thought we’d ever get this close to it.

This little bird met us at the top of the hill and chirped and sang to us. Then, it took off to show us the way down in order to reach Bololokan’s coiled tail. It would hop from one bush to another, always a bit ahead of us, guiding us down the trail. That’s a double check in itself when Nature around you gets into the act to be a way shower.

It took us about half an hour of hiking to reach it. Once there at the bottom of the slope, we gave gifts and prayers to the sacred area. And then, we asked for permission to approach the slope itself.

Marchiene has gone into her pack to find her cornmeal and tobacco in order to give prayers, offerings and asking permission to go further and walk the slope of the sipapu.

I saw Grandmother C up on the top of the feminine, rounded hills, her arms stretched skyward, welcoming us. I was glad she was here and didn’t know she would be. I like it when a guardian can help show us the way. She told to follow the dry creek downward and we did. That creek was dry at the moment, but would have water running furiously in it during Monsoon season in the summer. Plus, by walking the creek, we were emulating the snake’s movement and that fact she’s a water snake. Synchronicities like this occur all the time when you’re in the Flow of the moment. It’s another ‘double check.’ In our work, we don’t do without them.

Grandmother C guided me and told us to walk down the creek bed. It would emulate the movement of the snake as it twisted and wound around the desert landscape. Tough going on rocks!

I was led to an area on the northern slope of the snake’s tail. And interestingly enough, it was like the womb and birth canal of a woman. There was a narrow path into the round, womb-like area. It was thick with surrounding trees and bushes, and yet our center circle only had grass in it. I always see the repeat in the landscape, large or small of whatever it is we are encountering. In this case, the rounded hill is a sipapu, emergence point. And it’s synchronistic to be led, by the guardian, to a womb to reflect that energy all around us. Marchiene gave me her drum. And she had a Cedar tree painted on it. And I had been told by my spirit guides to bring cedar as an offering to the spirits today. Double check! We got comfy, grounded ourselves and closed our eyes. I used my fingers to tap on the surface of the drum. Almost instantly, I shifted into non ordinary reality.

Here I am in the “womb” that Grandmother C led us to. I used Marchiene’s “cedar” drum because I forgot and left mine behind. A mistake actually turns out not to be a mistake at all. I was told by my spirit guides to bring Cedar as an offering to this sipapu. And low and behold, the main theme of Marchiene’s drum is the CEDAR tree. How much more synchronistic can you get? Plus, in our ‘womb’ there were cedar trees surrounding us from all sides except for the small birth canal trail that led from the U-shape to the dry creek bed outside all the brush.

I saw Grandmother C. appear within the womb where we sat. I thanked her mentally for coming and asked if she had a message for is. She said that Marchiene and I had been her granddaughters in that lifetime at Snake Clan Rock in West Fork area. We had trained together. And, she said more seriously, that now, we were back here to care for the sipapu. We were in a different incarnation, but we came back to be of service once more in a land we had lived in. She said we had been trained as snake priestesses and it was our job, once a year, to come to the snake’s tail and perform the opening ceremony. By doing that, it kept the area cleaned up and in balance. Human interaction with the land is an absolute necessity then, as it is now. But now, nearly everyone has forgotten their connection with Mother Earth.

This beautiful and sacred place is the starting point of the planetary water snake, Bololokan, of Yavapai legend and stories. It is here that Grandmother Komwida came. The “fire” of the sun penetrated her womb (water) and she became pregnant and birthed the first child here. The energy is very, very light. As we sat in our ‘womb,’ the silence was so deep you felt as if you were in one of the most sacred places ever to be found. It was moving.

Grandmother then said that there was a group of people on this Earth right now who had come in from previous lifetimes as priests and priestesses to serve the Mother. And where ever they live now, they had lived long ago. And part of their job was to care take the land once more; which meant having an active, conscious connection with the land. Grandmother said that this information we wrote about now and in the future, would help others to do the same in their areas, no matter where they lived in the world. She seemed very grateful and happy that it was time for such information to be shared on a global level.

After the drumming and we came back from our individual journeys, we always remain silent, grab our journal and start writing. The reason is that so much is ‘imprinted’ telepathically upon us that we’re afraid we’ll lose part of it if we start talking. Drumming puts a person into their right hemisphere where all that inter-dimensional communication equipment is located. When someone speaks out loud, it instantly destroys the connection…and some of what was said or shared…and its lost forever. We never talk to one another until both of us are down journaling.

I saw a huge flame rising higher and higher over the top of the snake’s coil. It became a huge, roaring flame of red, yellow and orange tongues or fire. Grandmother said by us coming, we had re lit the sacred fire of the water snake in this region. She then pointed to Sycamore Canyon that was to our northwest. “When you perform ceremony there, granddaughter, the sacred flame will then move from the snake’s coil to the headwaters of the Verde River in that canyon where you will be.” She showed me telepathically the flame moving like a huge red, roaring line between the snake’s tail and the canyon. “And every time you go to a new area where the snake moves, the fire will follow and once again, reconnect.”

Here is my journal drawing of what I saw. Grandmother C was on top of the sipapu with her arms raised toward the heavens. She was singing and chanting. Later, after we did our journeying and ceremony, the top of the hill burst out into the flames of the Great Spirit. It burns 24 hours a day and is the beginning of lighting the entire water snake’s journey through the regional landscape. As we move from one sacred point to another, the sacred fire will create a path of fire to it. As the fire burns in the fourth dimension, it will create the “fire” needed to meet the “water” of Bololokan. And then, RAIN will be created and feed this drought ridden part of Arizona.

I asked her what it meant to have the fire moving along all these points of Bololokan’s movement. She said that with the fire being reignited it would mix and mingle with the water of this land (this used to be a shallow ocean millions of years ago and much of the geology is sedimentary as a result. And there is volcanic basalt on top of it). I was confused. “I thought Bololokan is a WATER snake. And you’re saying that now her path is sacred fire. How does that fit?” Grandmother gave me a very patient look and smiled. “You must have water WITH fire in order to create steam. And it is the steam that creates the WATER or RAIN in order to nourish the land.” WOW! That sure made logical sense to me. Besides, Grandmother C said that this land also had fire energy because of the volcano and volcanic activity. But that EVERY place that receives water, there must be this mix of fire with water. She said that our area has suffered twenty years of drought and that by awakening the path of the water snake, the fire would once more mingle with the water to create the cosmic, invisible steam. Then, the drought would be broken. It was great to find out WHAT we were doing. And why.

Then, Grandmother said she would be accompanying us at every sacred spot and I was relieved. Nothing like a wise old guide to stop us from screwing things up as human are want to do. She said farewell and Bololokan manifested above the hills. I greeted her and she came and gently put her coils around each of us in gratitude. She thanked us for doing this. I was happy we could be part of a greater energy pattern by bringing this template on line once more.

After I came out of my non ordinary state and stopped drumming, I shared my communications with Marchiene. She will share what she got in her blog. Needless to say, they dove tailed amazingly. And it always leaves me in awe.

As we left the sipapu and climbed the road back up to the top of the hill, I turned and took this photo. The sun was low on the horizon and I was shooting into it, which caused these rainbows. What I find interesting is where the concave arc of light is — that is where we performed our work and journeying.

We left about 3:00 p.m. The sky was cloudless and a powdery baby blue. As we walked back through the dry creek to once more symbolically emulate the snake’s movement, we loved the energy here. It was so quiet that you could feel the deep, spiritual presence of energy at this birthing spot. It was light, ebullient and we left smiling. At the top of the hill we saw the Four Grandmothers in the distance—in perfect alignment with the snake’s tail. Humphrey’s Peak (the Four Grandmothers) is the tallest mountain in our region. It is sacred to both the Hopi and the Navajo. And here were the Grandmothers due north of our round sipapu in the south, on the slope of Mingus Mountain. Wow….there’s never any mistakes when you read the land correctly. Everything dovetails and aligns perfectly. We were at Bololokan’s coiled tail and fifty miles away stood the Four Grandmothers, the “egg” in the spirit water snake’s mouth. For a moment, we just stood there in grateful and humble silence. We were a part of something so beautiful, so great and it would help heal the area and bring much needed water to our area. What gifts!

As we were leaving our sipapu and climbing the trail, Marchiene pointed to the east of it and said, “Look! They look like breasts.” I took a photo of these two peaks in the distance. All land can give us hints about it. In this case, the Verde Valley is very feminine energy oriented. And these mountains in the distance simply repeat what can be seen in the red color of the soil. Red is the color of a woman’s moon time blood. Black is the other color, caused by the volcanic and basalt that forms from it. Black is the color of the interior of a woman’s fertile, creative womb. These are the two predominant colors of this valley. Even the land and the way it shapes, those curves, tell us of feminine energy.

I took Marchiene to Starbucks and bought her a latte. I told her we needed to get topo maps of this area. We have them for the Sedona area, but not Mingus. I did have one of Sycamore Canyon, which is where we’re going on our next stop. We’ll be studying it before we go…. I’m sure we’ll become of aware of new revelations that we need to know as we go on that long, hard hike.

If you look closely, you can see my burgundy Toyota van out in the vast desert reaches of the land surrounding us. This is all the slope of Mingus mountain. It’s not for the faint-of-heart and you have to be in good physical condition to get to these spots. For us, it’s part of the joy; simply sharing time and space with all our relations.

Tomorrow: Marchiene’s blog will be up, part 2 of our adventure of December 7, 2010. Don’t miss it!!