[I originally wrote this report of an experience at Cahokia Mounds in November 2012. Given that I have been again drawn to Cahokia for a variety of reasons and have as a result experienced new things, I am posting this older spirit journal entry in order to provide some explanatory background to the stories I am now recounting.]
November 8, 2012
I feel the need to recount my last experience at Cahokia in part simply to record the information of that day, but also because I know I have been avoiding confronting what happened then and what it might mean. I’ve been avoiding it because it involves ego issues for me that I am uncomfortable with. Getting to the point, the event was a kind of Matrix-movie dramatic showdown between the forces of Life and the forces of Death, and I was playing the leading role as the hero shaman who saved the day.
This has become an issue for me again as Melchizedek (one of my guiding spirits) has been urging me to step up to my identity and my calling, to accept the power that I know I have, and yet I am uncomfortable with appearing to be sunk in some ego hero drama. It seems, though, that rather than coming to some kind of balanced understanding of who I am and what I need to do, I keep getting caught in this see-saw back and forth between denying myself any power at all and seeing myself as the all-powerful savior of the movie. And Cahokia itself draws this out of me because it is there that I am most being called on to take a stand, not simply to understand the past but to correct it.
So to the story of that day: on October 2, 2012, as I was driving back to Athens, Ohio from Lawrence, Kansas with the goal of closing up the house so it could be ready for a buyer to move in should it sell while I am in Finland, I stopped by Cahokia again. I was called to do so, but I had no idea what the plan might be. I wasn’t aware of any new mound to explore or situation to take into account. I just knew that I needed to go there. So I did, despite the fact that I was also eager to make good time on the fourteen-hour drive back to Athens.
As soon as I stepped out of the car into the moody, rainy afternoon, I knew that I needed to walk between the Twin Mounds. I still didn’t know why. As I approached the mounds I felt a growing sense of anticipation, knowing that there was a large host of spirits gathered here for this very visit and that I was somehow going to be involved in something big. I walked up along the southern end of Mound 60 (which Anna and I take to be a male energy mound) and entered into the space between it and Mound 59 (which we take to be a female energy mound).
As I entered into the space in between the mounds I could feel the combined energy vortex there growing in intensity. At this point I found myself quickly shifting into the consciousness of what I knew was one of my former selves—a shaman who had lived and died at Cahokia during the critical time of the take-over by the sacrificial priests. With reassurance from my Higher Self, I gave this shaman permission to use me as his vehicle for this action.
I immediately knew everything about this former self who was now controlling my body, speech, and actions. I knew that this shaman-priest was very powerful but that he was now confronting the power of a rising class of sacrificial priests who were converting the mound powers from structures of love to structures of death and mind control. As with many other early communal experiments in democratic spiritual societies devoted to superconscious development of the Power of Love, this Cahokia was facing its destruction and conversion into a technology of death. I was the shaman representing the losing side, the advocates of Love Power. But I was now here to turn the tables and bring back the Power of Love.
I—I will now speak of the shaman in the first person, given that he and I were now unified in action and that this was a lesson for me from a past self, even though I was watching the entire scene as though I were a passive observer watching a movie—I walked solemnly and powerfully to the power point where the vortex energy of the two mounds converged. I raised my hand to the west and began drawing in the energy from Mound 59. Then suddenly and completely by surprise, I found myself shouting prayers to the mounds in a language I have never heard before. I continued to speak this language, shouting out sacred orders and incantations of some kind throughout the rest of my time at Cahokia.
Next I turned my face to the east towards Mound 60 and began taking in that mound’s energy. Two whirlpool columns of light shot up from each mound high into the heavens. During all of this thousands of voices were cheering me on, shouting “Gabriel! Gabriel! Gabriel!” I then found myself turning my face northward and drew in the energy from Monk’s Mound, the massive earthen pyramid that draws most tourists to Cahokia. As I did so, a whirlpool column of light shot up from Monk’s Mound and then arced downwards towards me. The power point between Mounds 59 and 60 was now triangulated by this addition of energy from Monk’s Mound. Suddenly a massive tower of light shot up from my power point high into the heavens, illuminating the entire quadrant of the planet in the midst of the rainy overcast Illinois sky. This was accompanied by the increasing sound of cheering voices coming both from other past inhabitants of Cahokia and from a host of spirits and fairies.
Throughout this drama of energy and light I was still clueless as to what the whole show was about. Things started to get a little clearer, though, when I found myself turning my whole body around to face the south—where Mound 72 lay in the distance, secluded from the greater community of mounds. Mound 72 had been revealed to me during an earlier visit to be the site of the sacrificial priests, all of whom were represented by the figure of the Birdman of Cahokia, the honorary priest whose corpse was found by anthropologists with its bones lying among the skeletons of dozens of women. This particular mound had become the primary embodiment of the sacrificial turn at Cahokia.
While initially a figure that commands awe and fascination (and today is the official Park icon), the Birdman in the end represents the power of the bird of prey turned against the innocent. In order to enhance their own status and power and prestige, the shaman-priests here began a culture of ceremonial sacrifice that converted the site’s Power of Love into the Power of Destruction. Now here I was, with thousands of shouting spirits by my side and in the skies above me, solemnly and powerfully marching southward towards the representatives of the Powers of Destruction at Mound 72.
As my shaman-self continued marching confidently towards the mound, my watching self was getting pretty nervous. This was shaping up to be some kind of major confrontation, a battle between the forces of Love and the forces of Destruction. While this was all very exciting, I was at the same time a bit embarrassed at playing such a Neo-type role in this drama. Who am I, after all, to be drawing such attention to myself, with throngs of spirits and followers shouting in support as hosts of fairies sang their songs of anticipation and praise from the surrounding woods? I was both thrilled and embarrassed to find myself unexpectedly cast in this messianic role. I was also uneasy with the thought of the impending violence that promised to be unleashed in this righteous confrontation.
When I arrived at Mound 72 I circled around it from the west and then the south, walking to the southeastern corner of the mound. This is where I had sat months before when I originally received the vision of the blood and sacrifice that the mound had always represented. Now I saw that it was my intention to challenge this figure of destruction. This was to be the initial showdown in my attempt to turn the tables once more and raise the Power of Love. The shouts and songs echoing around grew in intensity.
I raised my arms into the sky, staring intently at the center of the mound, seeing the Birdman of Cahokia ready for attack. I began to open my mouth to shout, expecting this to be the onset of the great battle. I leaned my head back and shouted, “Birdman of Cahokia, bearer of sacrifice and destruction, representative of the Priests of Death, I am here to tell you that we love you! We are here to welcome you into the Circle of Love where you have belonged from the beginning. Forgive yourselves for the destruction you have created and unleashed upon the world. Forgive yourselves for the rape and the murder you have conducted in the name of all that is holy. Join us in this Circle of Love!” I was absolutely stunned by this speech. This was not what I had expected at all. Here I was, nervously expecting the beginning of some battle of Armageddon, and what I witnessed instead was a call to Love and self-forgiveness.
The Birdman of Cahokia was clearly just as stunned as I was. He drew back into his mound, not sure what to make of this surprising turn of events. All around me the fairies of Cahokia were singing and cheering, thanking me for finally returning and beginning the Great Turn of Love. I looked deep into the woods into the heart of the fairy throngs and smiled. I knew that I had finally stepped up and had accepted my calling. I knew that now I had finally embraced the Shaman of the Circle of Love who I had always known myself to be but had never dared to acknowledge.
Just at this moment, I looked back northward at the space between the mounds. A deer ran into the space from the same southeasterly direction in which I had approached Mounds 59 and 60. The deer ran right to the vortex power point where the light funnels from the three main mounds had converged. It stood there, facing Monk’s Mound, surrounded in intense light. And then it turned and looked directly at me for what seemed like a full thirty seconds. I thanked the deer for consecrating this event. At that point it turned and ran off towards the north, disappearing from view as if it had evaporated before my eyes. I felt truly blessed at this sight.
I marched back towards the Twin Mounds as triumphantly and gloriously as I had marched down to Mound 72. I spoke with the spirits of the trees as I passed. I returned to my car, looked back briefly at the Twin Mounds, and then pulled back out onto the street to continue my trip to Ohio in the gathering rain.
