We’re still playing catch up here at The Mesa and at home. We have had every good intention of getting all kinds of things done, like cleaning up the gift shop, making our Summer schedule, painting the tipi liner, and much needed yard work at home, but time has been slipping away from us. This has been in large part due to the increasing number of visits by people drawn to our center who are tired, depressed, or in pain. They feel isolated, confused about life, and want to get on their spiritual path and don’t know how. Some come for classes and events, but many just pop in to tentatively find out what we’re “about” or come by to “visit” us, seeking a compassionate ear, some informal counseling, and a little TLC.
Lately we’ve not been getting out of the building after Mesa classes until hours after they have ended, because people just don’t want to leave. They admit that it feels much better to them to be in the sacred space of our center compared to their homes, offices, churches or shopping malls, so they linger. They ask questions about everything, bask in the feeling of being accepted just as they are, drink in reassurance that they are not going crazy as their higher awareness opens. Things slow down for them as they visit and they, and we, lose track of time. We chuckle that instead of the regular time zone for our area, we run on “Mesa Time”.
The new tipi is adding to the good energy up on the flat hill we call The Mesa and we’ve been getting a new kind of visitor: Tipi Gawkers. They pull in off the highway, drive slowly past the tipi, turn around and drive back out. If we’re not too busy, we’ll go out and wave to them; chatting through rolled down car windows if they stop. Sometimes they actually get out to look at it, and we teach them a little about the sacred lodge. We’re thinking of putting up an info box like the ones real estate agents put in front of houses for sale.
All this doesn’t even count the seekers who call on the phone, like the lady in California who is beginning to empathically feel the energy of other people’s negativity and suffering as her own physical pain and doesn’t know what to do about it. She left a message expressing her distress and lamenting that no one can tell her what’s going on, “not even” her church. She found our website and pleaded for us to call her back. How could we refuse?
There are those who would tell us that we have serious “boundary issues” and need to just tell people to leave, but the way we see it, it’s our sacred duty to help others when the moment merits it. We also know that what we give is being returned to us many fold and we are seeing it happen as our sacrifices become less requirements of circumstance and more conscious decisions to give.
We saw evidence of this the other day with a newcomer to the Mesa who leaned against the fence and asked questions as I trimmed the grass around the perimeter of the Medicine Wheel. I thought about asking him to pitch in and help, but decided that he had come to learn and might not like being nudged into service. Still, I wasn’t surprised when after a few minutes he asked if I had another pair of trimmers and we continued our conversation about how to walk a spiritual path in our material world as we snipped our way around the Sacred Hoop. Kate and I invited him to share our dinner and afterwards he commented, “I’ve read a lot of books about this stuff, but I’ve never met anyone who actually does what you do.” He stayed for that evening’s class and had a surprising opening of his chakras. We felt blessed.
