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Visit the Isle of Ancestors Tonight Gather up your candles and prepare to go to the Isle of Ancestors tonight, from the Duwamish Quay, to be with your ancestors for a few quiet hours before the Christmas festivities begin.
image courtesy of Fran Sbrocchi Journey to the Island of Ancestors "In this meditation, you will journey to meet an ancestor. Remember that an ancestor is a person from your past, who is no longer living, who has helped shape the person you are today; an ancestor may be a predecessor from your bloodline, a previous incarnation, a person who has given you a meaningful tradition or philosophical basis, such as an adopted relative, a teacher, a mentor. You will not choose who will appear to you and it may be someone you know or do not know. Now prepare for a journey. (Pause)" You stand on Duwamish quay. The night is clear; the waxing moon rises over your shoulder, and you hear the gentle rolling of water past the barges that are lined up in the Duwamish. Board the barge and you will be carried over the sea to the Island of Ancestors by a Ferry Woman. (Pause) You see an island emerging before you. The ferry woman stops at the shore and you see a grove of apple trees. "There is a moonlit path between the trees and you follow it. Ahead is a mound. In the centre of the side is a doorway made of two immense upright stones topped by a massive lintel. There are two torches burning at the door providing light for the entrance into a passageway. At the far end of the passage is a faint red glow. Proceed through a corridor inclining downward. (Pause) You emerge into a shadowy great hall. In the centre is a hearth with the glowing embers of a fire. Seated before the fire facing away from you is a hooded figure. Across the hearth from this figure is a bench. You circle halfway around the hearth clockwise and sit facing the figure. This is one of your ancestors. Greet that person. (Pause) You may now ask your ancestor one question. It may be about his/her contributions to your life or your family, it may be to clarify something about yourself, or about your future. (Pause) When you have finished, your ancestor gives you a token of help and guidance. (Pause) In a fair exchange, your ancestor now asks you a question. Answer as best you can. (Pause) You find that you have a gift for your ancestor. Look at it and present it to your ancestor with thanks. (Pause) Finish your circuit around the hearth, go behind the ancestor, and pass out of the mound and back along the path. (Pause) " Boarding
the barge, you return to Duwamish as the first light of dawn breaks
over the eastern horizon. At your own pace, return to the Duwamish
Inn bringing your experiences and token with you.
piece reliant on Sisters of Silver Branch Meditation More Ancestor Meditations Healing
from your ancestors The Well of Forgiveness I haven't come here to forgive the things others have done to me. I've come here to forgive myself. I walked through the ruined gates and murky waters and passed the ruined tombstones and and when I walk back out I'm going to leave behind every injury I've ever done to myself. I need to lay it all to rest and move ahead. So I'm going to forgive myself for all of those awful things I told myself over the years: I was stupid, ugly, worthless, dirty, a failure and a disgrace. Words and deeds more hateful and harmful then anything inflicted upon me by my worst enemy. It's important that I forgive myself for making a life a chore, a task a sentence instead of the gift of adventure it was intended to be. I've come here to forgive myself ... once upon a time my worst enemy. I hope she will become
my friend. Visit the Silk Road's Well of Forgiveness and leave a note of forgiveness. Cabinet de Curiosities Here are just some of the curiosities that came from the Black Ship
Illustrations by Heather Blakey Reading the Sands -
courtesy of Aramaco World le Enchanteur has mostly set up her divination tent at the Sunday Market Place on the Lemurian Archipelago but tonight she has her tent set up in Sheba's old lands. In the early 1980's photographer Wayne Earstep lived for three months with the Amrah clan of the Murrah. One of the shots that Eastep later used in his 1986 book Bedouin showed a footprint in the sand by one of the members of the clan, Nassa al-Amrah al-Musrri. "Before printing the book I took the layouts to Haradh for review by the Murrah" says Eastep. "The members of the Amrah had not seen any of the photographs, and the version they were looking at had only English captions, which they could not read. But when they turned to the image they spontaneously responded, 'Ah, Nassar al-Amrahi' recognizng this image of his footprint as instantly as one would would spot a family portrait. This week scientists uncovered the world's largest collection of fossil human footprints in the Willandra region in Australia. The prints are 19 to 23 thousand years old and date back to the ice-age and were found in western New South Wales. The 457 footprints, from toddlers to a huge size 12, were uncovered by earth scientists in a clay pan underneath sand dunes in the Mungo National Park, 110 kilometres north-east of Mildura. Travellers have left footprints all over the Silk Road this year and it has become easy to identify their unique style. Early this year I ran a footprint challenge which talked about leaving footprints in the sands. Acquire some sand and make a footprint. Look at it carefully, read the sands and predict this footprint's destiny. Now make a footprint that shows you fulfilling that destiny and post it on the walls of le Enchanteur's Tent for all to see. le Enchanteur
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December 24 2005 Chief Seattle said that "The young men, the mothers, and girls, the little children who once lived and were happy here, still love these lonely places. And at evening the forests are dark with the presence of the dead. When the last red man has vanished from this earth, and his memory is only a story among the whites, these shores will still swarm with the invisible dead of my people. And when you children's children think they are alone in the fields, the forests, the shops, the highways, or the quiet of the woods, they will not be alone. There is no place in this country where a man can be alone. At night when the streets of your towns and cities are quiet, and you think they are empty, they will throng with the returning spirits that once thronged them, and that still love these places. The white man will never be alone. So let him be just and deal kindly with my people." Christmas Eve at Duwamish Bay Travellers on the Silk Road like to visit this little town called Duwamish Bay- especially during Christmas and Halloween.
Aunt Akela by Heather Blakey They love to hear about the Adventures of the Amazing Bendanti, learn about the incredible Amusement Park and check out the very famous Sideshow. Visitors flock to Livia's Bookshop, the strangest bookstore to ever exist, and they invariably call in at the Duwamish Bay Curiosity Shop where a story tellers captivates visitors with stories about people like the Malloy Sisters and tells everyone how the village of Duwamish was founded.
Limited Edition Duwamish Sideshow Prints
Silent Knight A Christmas tale about the founding of Duwamish
The Story of the Silent Knight is very famous here in the Northwest. "Is it a true story people ask…it can’t be true can it?" they say after they hear it. Of course it is and this is how it starts… The Plague Ship sails on black waters in permanent twilight. Her crew sleeps below her deck wrapped in gray shrouds with gold coins placed in their long stilled and quiet mouths. Her sails are filled with dust and her compass is stilled and useless. It's been useless for centuries. Still, she travels from one port to another and in each she only finds dust and ruins and decay. The Black Ship doesn't know how she came to be in this place, but she hasn't stopped trying to find a way out. Her home was warm and light and alive and she won't stop sailing until she finds that place again. Safe Harbor, no matter what she comes up against she will find it for her crew and herself. The Plague Ship was a fine ship in her day. She outran storms, survived attacks from other ships and men and always brought her crew home safely no matter how hard they tried at times to stop her. She tolerated them sometimes and cared for them the rest. “ It’s like she sails herself most of the time, “ they’d laugh and the Plague Ship who knew better would come about and they’d be tossed around like coins in a tin can. “ The lady has a temper,” they’d laugh and she’d laugh too. That was the last time she remembered laughter anywhere on her decks because in their next Port of Call she saw something come aboard with her crew and she was powerless to stop it. She did try to push away on her own as the thing boarded her but of course she couldn't. In the end The Plague Ship could only watch as this stowaway killed one of her crew after another and when it was done it looked to the sky and she remember it laughed as it crashed into the surf and was carried by the black fetid water she now sails across. It was always dark in this place and the sun never rose and the moon never set and the stars were small red bright points of light in the skies above. Then one day, against the horizon she saw something moving, something breathing. Something alive. She came to a full stop and faced the thin red line against the horizon and she listened. She inched closer and closer and then she heard voices. But they weren’t the voices she had heard centuries ago, when her name was taken from her and she was given a new one. The one that cursed her to this place. She didn’t hear angry voices shouting that cursed name" Plague Ship"… Instead standing on a stonewall was a woman, a dark women and she was waving her arms and laughing. “ Hey, hey you over here! Come on! Over here! “ The Great Black Ship and her long dead crew listened and then her sails caught a long dead breath of air and she moved towards the figure on shoreline. The once shunned ship that in all of this time carried the sounds of the dead in despair made her way carefully but hopefully towards the sound of laughter. The Black Ship’s new crew spent most of their time below deck. They were an odd group, they spoke of night and death and curses and hexes and magic and graveyards and they did it through... of all things songs and laughter and idle conversations. They told stories of being hunters and then the hunted. They talked about worlds and places that no longer existed and through it all even the crew members that seemed partial to the dark expressed dismay in the fact they were now in a world where there was no Sun. She was also surprised at times to hear them down in her hold, with her first crew. The dark woman who was named Kincross had whispered to one of her companions “ It’s like the Catacombs back home “ Then she heard two women who for some reason appeared as one ask "who do you suppose put them all down here? “ And the three women looked up and around and the Black Ship still searching for safe harbor sailed on. She wasn’t sure exactly what day it was she discovered her new crew was escaped convicts but the Plague Ship does remember the day they were nearly caught by the Wardens of Sawakin. The Plague Ship was sailing on the dead black waters when something slammed against her starboard and sent her reeling back in a great wave of rank fetid water. She spun around and was caught and then something raised her from the water and slammed her back down again. The woman called Kincross took her helm and the rest of the crew went to the deck and lashed themselves to the masts and rails. “ Get the Venda down in the Catacombs! Now, here they come…hang on! “ Above her the Wardens of Sawakin swarmed down towards the Black Ship. They tore at the Plague Ships sails they pulled at the crew and they roared when they found them tied to the Plague Ship. Instead the Wardens beat at them with clawed hands they bit at them with broken jagged teeth they cursed at them in a long dead language. The Plague Ship tried to outrun the wardens, but they caught her and tried to pull her in half. Her timbers screamed and she roared against the waves the minute she felt the surf below her. Then a horrible weight crashed against her side and the Plague Ship spun and turned around and around and when she came about she saw they were spinning out of control towards a wall of fire and in all of that she heard cries for help. And the cries weren’t coming from her crew. They were coming from the flames. From the Burning Island they were about to crash into. The Plague Ship felt her anchors trying to find something to grab onto but they spun useless below her in the black icy waters. Then her anchors caught and she was reined back and she rose like a dark terrible shadow from the wall of water and she was brought back down with a terrible crash. She was stilled there close to the shore when the Sawakin Wardens roared from above her and were about to come in. They were about to board her when she saw that Kincross had untied herself and she raced to her side and she called to her crew “ People! There are people in the fire! Get over here and help me!" The Plague Ship who had sailed past Ghost Ships, seen the dead begging for passage to the next world, she had sailed into harbors filled with shadows and men and women pretending to be things they were not so that they could steal flesh and gold and souls had never seen anything like the Wardens. So she was not able to explain to herself why it was that as Kincross leaned over the railing and then called to her crew for help the Fierce Wardens of Sawakin burst into flames above her and fell broken glass into the waters off the shores of the Burning Island. But to the core of her being the Plague Ship was glad those foul creatures never set foot on her decks. The women called Kincross and her family who called themselves the Benandanti helped the people from the fire on board. The other family the ones who took refuge with the dead were the Venda Family were starting to make their way topside and they were not amused. The Venda were not fond of the water or of daylight. Kincross chuckled weakly as she advised the Fire People (as the Plague Ship thought of them) “ Yeah, well, you might want to steer clear of them for awhile. They’re not day people and they’re well, hungry. “ Then one of the Fire People looked carefully into Kincross’ face and asked, “ So exactly what are you? “ The Plague Ship listened because it wasn’t in her nature to ask why a face was shaped a certain way, why flesh and blood creatures could turn to mist and drift through her walls and halls like shadows. How it was that her new crew could go into the place they called the catacombs and listen to the dead dream. “ Does it matter? “ Kincross answered and the Fire Woman who was about to become her best friend looked into Kincross‘s face which was a mass of scars and who’s mouth was full of heavy white pointed teeth Then she looked down into Kincross’ s dark orange eyes and she saw something there that made her smile. “ My name, “ said the young Firewoman “ is Olympia Saramento. “ “ Kincross Benandanti. “ Below the Plague Ship that night the waters slowly turned blue and then green and a wind, a real wind filled her sails and carried the Plague Ship to a chain of Islands that were called The Bridges and to her final port of call. It was snowing the day the Plague Ship did the one thing she was meant to do. She brought her crew to Safe Harbor.
safe harbour in Duwamish Bay That was also the morning as much as her crew tried to stop her she ran aground. Her Crew and the Fire People made it safely to shore and throughout the day they buried her first crew and then they went to a little Ridge that's now called Mourning Ridge (it’s there on any road map of the area if you care to look for it) and looked down at the Black Ship and saw her name gleaming in bright gold letters in the Winter Sun. “ Look “ a voice whispered from all around her " look at her name…” The voices said her real name with wonder and delight. It was the last thing she heard before the Great Black Ship died. So that’s the story about how Duwamish Bay was founded.
Limited Edition Duwamish Prints Of course you won’t find it in any of the history books because really who’d believe a village had been co- founded and built by Werewolves and Witches, Ghosts and Vampires…all who were escaped convicts from a Prison at the edge of the world called Sawakin Prison. Can you believe that those same Escaped Prisoners saved the living from a fiery Death on Christmas Eve and helped found what's described as the Jewel of the Northwest ...Duwamish Bay. Well believe it because you can visit the Duwamish Bay Curiosity Shop where you can find an Egyptian Mummy, an Electric Chair and other strange and curious objects from all over the globe who's stories and adventures can rival the story I've just told you. The question of course is you brave enough to accept a tale like this? Would you be brave enough to travel to a place where the Living and the Dead live side by side and would you be strong enough to visit their homes and beloved Marina that were created from remains of a Great Black Ship called …The Silent Knight? |
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