In my shamanic work, I have a few tools of the trade. While my rattle and drum are two of the most important, there are others that are just as helpful and powerful. Today, I want to talk about one of my tools that I use everyday… my mesa.

One of the first tools that my teacher had me work on was my mesa. The mesa is a sort of sacred bundle. I carry spiritual objects in it that relate to my power, or objects that I use in my work. I bring it with me when I work with clients. It’s like portable sacred space. As I set up, I open my mesa, set out the items in a sort of mandala, and light a candle. The only part that can be bought is the cloth itself, which is where one starts in making their mesa.

There are certain fabrics that aren’t conducive to this work. Most synthetics don’t hold a healthy charge at all. So, cotton, silk, or wool are best. I found my big mesa cloth at a fabric store. I hemmed the edges with embroidery floss, working in my energy into each stitch. The red cloth is actually from my first mesa, the one that I made on my Assateague adventure with my teacher, Adhi. She had found the material at the Goodwill in Burlington, VT.

My connection to my mesa began with the cloth. I was told to sleep with the cloth under my pillow. The idea was to connect it to my dreaming self, and to see if I had any interesting dreams that could relate to the mesa I was building. While I didn’t have any dreams worth noting, it was an interesting start to connecting to the future mesa.

One of my first big items in my mesa I found on the Autumn Equinox a few years ago. I wanted to find some sort of power object for my mesa before winter came, and the Equinox seemed as good a day as any to search for one. I put it out to the universe that I only had a half an hour to find one, so if it wanted me to have something, I needed it to guide me to something in that half an hour. I made an offering to the land, and tried to to listen to Spirit as to what direction to head in. It was difficult to find the focus to hear, but about 20 minutes in I had a pretty clear sense of the direction I needed to head. I ended up in a swampy area that I must have been through a hundred times before.

I was getting a little worried and skeptical.

Then, I felt my gaze directed past a mossy log. There, hidden in moss and ferns, was a deer skull and a few vertebrae. It just so happens that deer is one of the animal spirits I work with. Specifically stag. And here, hidden for years, was a skull of a buck.

He was in a little bit of a rough state, so I rubbed him down with cedar oil and beeswax, then wired him together. He is now part of my mesa, a connection point to spirit for me.

Talking about deer and my mesa, it was that autumn that I did not harvest any of my apples. I let them fall from the trees and lay about on the ground. The deer were frequent visitors throughout the winter, digging them up from the snow and snacking on them. The spring of next year, an antler lay next to one of my apples, as if it was a gift in return for the apples that I had left for the deer. That also made it to my mesa. It’s a powerful tool for removing things from client’s energetic body, as well as a tool to help things move in the correct flow.

There are quite a few other items in my mesa that connect me to other animals and places that assist me in my work. I have a dried seahorse, feathers from birds that I work with, a rock from my favorite mountain, seashells to keep me connected to the ocean, and more. It’s personal and ever changing. I feed it with offerings and prayers so that it can continue in assisting me in healing and connection to Spirit.

On a side note, Josh and I have officially began fully using our studio. We’re still figuring out hours, and the what and when of our workshops and events, but that will have been all hammered out by this upcoming weekend. One detail that has been decided is that Deep Earth Arts Studio’s website will merge with mine. That means some of the old blog links won’t be usable in a week. All my old blog entries, as well as my future ones, will be found there. I’ll post when the merge happens both on my Facebook and the Deep Earth Arts Facebook. All the pieces are coming together, and I have to say that I am excited.

See you all on the other side….

The Green Mountain Mage

My Mesa