A BRIEF HISTORY

It all began in 1985. Foxfire was living alone in the woods of Maine recovering from nursing school, when she was given the vision.  It was the culmination of an idea that had been born on a previous night in Maine as several women sat on a hillside together.  They had decided to watch the traverse of a beautiful full moon all the way across the sky, staying up all night, singing songs and talking about their lives. “Why should we do this kind of thing for only one night?” someone asked.  The question rang like a bell in their hearts.  The seeds of the vision were formed and co-created, then, out of the heart-songs of a group of women together.

And so it was that the vision came into bloom and Fox put out the word: Were there 13 women who might want to spend one moon cycle together in the wilderness to ceremonially honor the ways of the earth? There would be no leader, no guide, but instead an acknowledgment that everyone has wisdom to offer. The group would guide itself. That is how the vision looked. It was one moon cycle, so that we could dance with the waxing and waning of that great orb that pulls at our inner waters. And the number 13, because it is a magical number, and a potent number in women’s gatherings of the past. She was curious, and wanted to see what that might be all about.

Thirteen women heard the call… and so the journey began. Several of the women had been on the moonlit hillside that night of songs. We ranged in age from 19-40, most of us in our 20’s and early 30’s. All of us Caucasian women, all of us unmarried without children.

We spent a year meeting monthly to vision, to decide where to go, how to get there, and what we would do once there together. In order to find a place to do this experiment, we played global roulette, spinning a small globe with our eyes closed. One after the other, each of our blind fingers landed on either Hawaii or New Mexico! Coming from New England, New Mexico was financially and practically much more sensible. Two women would drive a truck out with supplies. The others flew out.

The following was written after our return. We decided to make a booklet to share about our journey. Some women have added a current description of their life as well in 2012, some 27 years later! A few we have lost touch with, and even with advent of internet, we have been unable to locate them.

These are the 13. The group photo taken after our return, dazed, tired, and distraught returning to the societal world!


 

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THE BEGINNING

When we finally all joined together in the Santa Fe National Forest at our ‘spot’ (found by Luna and Laura 5 days before the rest of us arrived!) we were experiencing a mixture of feelings ranging from total excitement, to depression and fear convincing some of us that we would rather be traveling around the USA in the truck, than sitting out here in the midst of pumice, desert, ponderosa pine, and 13 women for a month….You know, that kind of fear that chases you away from the very thing You’ve always dreamed of doing….

But we did stay, everyone of us, moving through our trial of fear into acceptance of our commitment to live here and come to know the Eagle Canyon, the Butterscotch smelling pines, the 80 foot waterfall, the coyote calls, the passionate purple prickly pear fruit, the life of women on the earth. We found the land stunning and fulfilling all the priorities we had named when choosing a place to go… warm sun, no biting bugs, little rain, caves, canyons, cliffs, water, shade, big trees, big wild animals, no other people, Indian ruins, and much more that we hadn’t even thought of asking for.

We lived in a special area distinguished from the outer world in spirit and physical arrangement, requiring us to slip past the huge Guardian Rock in order to enter the Earth Mission Domain. In passing, the Rock offered a luscious gift… the scent of fresh rain-cleansed air mixed with a dab of sunshine and healthy rock lichen. This particular scent would rise up from one particular small spot on the Rock, but would flavor all the air as we passed. Once past that Guardian, we were immediately entranced into a magical world, (where women cavorted naked or in buckskins studying earth rites and its’ secrets!)

Our living space was near the running steam, whose rocky bottom sparkled with tiny opalescent rocks. Our kitchen was a circle surrounded by logs, apparently a corral in years past, with firepit at one end, and altar in the middle around which we held council, danced hula and folk dances, created stories (like “How Juliana decided to Become Miss Universe” and “The adventures of Amanda Georgette Scruple and Walter Nu-nu”), and ate our meals. We were in a gentle canyon through which this stream ran southward toward the Rio Grande. Huge Ponderosa stood watch. After passing us, the stream ran across the main trail and dropped 80 feet to Shangri-La where lush green plants surrounded a small circular pool. It was a secluded pool, arrived at either by a treacherous slide and rock climb down the Cliffside, (too treacherous for some of us to bother with, or a roundabout walk down a dry streambed and along the edge of some shallow caves. This was the place often of solitude and retreat, as well as a place for story reading, basket weaving, showers and hair washing with yucca roots dug from the hillside.

The main trail, which was blessed with fresh coyote tracks and scat every morning, led up the westward slope to the desert meadow… a fragile land with tiny plants holding tenaciously to the loose dry soil. The meadow was embraced by the northern cliffs rising 200 feet high, with few passable areas, and, at least in our fantasy, with hidden cougar lairs. Juliana compared this scene to a giant Medicine Wheel– the universe. The four directions held in the wheel are often associated with certain qualities, animals, rocks, etc. For instance, North may represent wisdom, clarity, earth, winter, while South represented trust, innocence, emotion.

Juliana saw the northern cliffs as the great protector spirit watching over us. The red cliffs rising high in the East and West were two great arms cradling us. They created our canyon where we sat in circle, and enlightened us to realms of light and dark within ourselves. The south opened wide to a view of the valley and plains far below to where the river flowed, opening us into trust and innocence.

There was no room for doubting the beauty and magic of this land. Indeed, we were overwhelmed and found ourselves for the first week mostly in silence, apart from one another, exploring the cliffs and waters, and drifting through the dreams of this reality so different from what we had left behind, and seeking the way to merge. We were at an elevation of 8000 feet, in an entirely new climate. We were unwinding the patterning and mind conditioning of a society disconnected with Earth rhythm; we were dissolving who we had come to believe we were, waiting and allowing the unexpected process of adjustment to run its course.

Soon though, there were callings for us to come together, to look at what we were doing there. One morning we found ourselves together as a group in the desert meadow, greeting the sunrise. We sang songs of thanks and praise to each of the Directions and finally asked permission of the Spirits of this land that we may live for this time in their home. We made offerings to the Grandmother. Just as we turned to the East, the Sun shone her face over the ridge, and we cheered her on, encouraging her to come spend the day with us.

Every aspect of our lives there held a certain magic and sacredness. Ceremony and reverence was as much a part of digging the toilet as it was part of the greetings to the Spirits. A first-aid talk inevitably became a sharing of our hopes and fears of death. Through tears, fears, angers and hurts, we explored thoughts about dying in a hospital rather than here on the earth, questioned how we could morally and responsibly not to mention legally, deal with an accident out here with one who does not want to be in a hospital. We came to realize that at a time as that we would know our strength and love as a circle of women. We would call ourselves together to converse with the divine Spirit for guidance and safety through whatever choices were made. We did not need to be immobilized by our societal standards or expectations. We had strength and knowing in our Circle to heal or to aide on our passage. We recognized that which is not usually acknowledged as valid in our society.

Time taught us of patience and process while allowing the days to flow as they may, trusting for Truth to emerge. Thirteen women meet very randomly, sporadically, spontaneously, and slowly when there is no leader, and no demands. It could be on par with trying to corral 13 cats. Many hours we sat in council, circled around our altar, processing emotions, listening to our little girls cry, offering mothering nurturing, allowing our tears to cleanse. We also would feel anger and frustration at the lack of movement, at the lack of group activity, or too much group activity, the miscommunications or projections of one’s own issues, the mixture of needs and desires, the splits in the group. After hours in circles of talk, we often found we had no energy for gatherings ritual.. we needed to be alone, and we would move off to our caves or special alone spots.

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WHAT BECAME IMPORTANT TO US AS WOMEN IN THE WILDERNESS?

  • To be a circle.
  • To share responsibilities and power.
  • To have minimal impact on our home and to beautify our place.
  • To have an altar spot for our daily found treasures of bones, antlers, rocks, art.
  • To have spontaneous playing, being animals, gnomes, journeying into other worlds.
  • Singing and sitting by firelight.
  • Honoring the earth, moon, water, cave spirits around us.
  • Honoring the voices which might at any time call or guide any one of us.
  • Respecting the spirit guiding voices without question.
  • Touching, holding, loving each other (not in sexual ways, but in caring sisterhood)
  • Talking about issues of importance to us all: sex, food, relationship, death, sleep, ice cream.
  •  Honoring our Bloods and having space to let them flow freely.
  • Being naked or decorating our bodies as we like.
  • Trusting one another to do as she needed.
  • Following the flow of our energy.
  • Discussing the fact that the only things some of us fear at all as a threat to our lives, is men and masculine aggression.
  • Discovering how many of us have been raped or molested.
  • Learning that according to Laughing Tree, in Hawaii, sexuality is seen as a beautiful thing. Our “pualani” (vagina) is considered a beautiful heavenly flower visited only by the loveliest of hummingbirds.
  • Deciding that our work in the world is to follow the cosmic allurement, to go for what we feel passionate about.


Gifts from the land included:
rattlesnake meetings, squirrel talks, hummingbird delights. Hummingbird point, overhanging the waterfall was a favorite place for meditation. Luna’s basket weaving, full moon ceremony, gin and tonic journey. Regularly we found bones and antlers scattered on the land, as well as prized rocks and luscious cactus fruits.

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WHAT DID WE DO?

Each of us had a special activity that kept us happy and excited.
Luna took on a project of making baskets for each of us with native materials. Laughing tree could be found in any thunderstorm sitting out in the rain on Hummingbird Point.
Judy danced with and talked to the animals.
Laura played her flute.
Washing each other’s hair at the waterfall.
Tobin worked on gleaning messages from her dreams.
Foxfire was into tracking. A typical scene for Fox…. breakfast interrupted by Bear siting by Juliana. Naked tracker Fox hops into moccasins only, foxtrots upstream to follow. Naked brown body, slipping now barefoot through cool stream pools, paw prints here. A scratch mark, wet piece of earth, a trail, skeleton of freshly killed mule deer… finally a Cliffside. No Bear, but 100’s of bird songs, woodpeckers, little wren-like birds, yellow, black, green, near, high, dancing from tree limb to limb…

The last 2 weeks of our time there were devoted to fasting, solitude, questing.
We spent one week clarifying our purpose for being called to sit for 3 days and nights alone, fasting, exposed to the earth’s forces, the wild animals, and the calling sprits. After 3 days and nights, 10 women returned to the 3 who had stayed behind to keep vigil for those who went out. Sharing gifts and visions with their circle, they brought gifts of farsightedness and clarity of their unique paths.

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THE RETURN

And then it was time to return. Too soon! For days we cleaned and packed and restored the camp and grounds. We said goodbye to our special places, thanking all for our stay. The return was brutal… to speed so quickly down the dirt road at 15 mph, to see what is done to the land where humans live.. dug up , mutilated, rigid structures built for human dwelling. To see, feel the rushed pace, the hardness and blindness of people, the swallowing of Earth under concrete as we moved into Albuquerque was difficult. With this return came more vision: Why should we return to this crazy life? We have all left our lives behind in order to do this, … how can we now return and pick them up again after what we have been through? And why should we?

And then someone said “Let’s make a recording of the singing we’ve been doing, before it’s too late, before we lose this harmony we made in the wilderness.” That was the next dream.

Not long afterward we found ourselves in two recording studios in Boston, making the tapes that would eventually become Inner Voice.  We gathered together as we had around the fire in New Mexico, and let our voices blend as though the tall pines were still around us. We did it for ourselves, to remember.  But in the end, we realized we could share this music, that it could maybe bring enjoyment or encouragement to other people, and that we could donate the profits in gratitude.  Within a few years we were able to fund the construction and outfitting of a Navajo women’s weaving center.

And so Diana Earthmission continued.  Some went off to try further explorations of lands and music far and near, including a five woman voyage to the Caribbean. A new Women’s Ritual Healing Gathering was planned for the next fall. Others of us are still planning for new adventures in our future. Dreams of traveling through the USA and Europe feed us through the winter months as we organize craft sales to raise more money for our journeys. DEM is alive and wild!

Following here are words from some members from DEM who wished to share their feelings from the journey.

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HOLLY

When thinking about what to share of my experience with DEM, a very clear and simple learning for me comes to mind. It goes like this: Listen to, take seriously, base my life doings, actions, focuses from moment to moment on the inner voice within me who is all knowing, creative, and knows no boundaries of time and space.

This learning was nurtured in many ways:

The way in which we made decisions, (also how we didn’t make decisions!), by consensus, self-initiated facilitating of group activities, and a good friend telling me to ‘speak up’ help me to share, to listen more closely to that voice inside me.

Participating in the vision quest process, seeing how every person returned from their earth-solo time with answers to their questions that they sought answers for.

The daily sharing of the song and dance woven into the day opened me to the source of these expressions, allowing them to spontaneously arise.

The focus and exploration of our dreams with all their insightful revealings of ourselves.

The daily communication and listening with the rocks, trees, rainbows, stars, moon, animals, everyone! Learning that very clear relationship and communication is there if one simply listens and believes!

So with the limitations of words, these are the main ingredients in the recipe for me. Quite the nourishing dish we did cook up!

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TOBIN


What it meant for me to be on the land in New Mexico with my 12 sisters…

  • A challenge to feel my feelings fully with the space to do it in
  • Time to listen and decipher message from my dream life
  • Making a powerful sweatlodge
  • Calling in the four directions one at a time and feeling their different energies
  • Knowing that the east, the south, the west, and the north all have different qualities and are important in a way that I am working on understanding
  • Space to feel the grieving of the earth, of her species dying out, of her voice not being heeded
  • Space to lay in a clear, cold valley stream and merge with it
  • Opening my voice to the canyons—crying out as loud as I could
  • Being part of a community that lived (and still lives) with the most consciousness we could muster of our inner guidance and of the voices of nature, especially the trees, rocks, and stream
  • I miss the smell of the earth, of making my bed on the earth.
  • What I miss the most is not having a community around me that is all the time being conscious of our connection and responsibility to the earth.
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MARYANNE

I am the otter rolling playfully on the ground; I am the water flowing; I am the mermaid swimming; I am a horse running as fast as the wind. I am fire; I am the stars; I am the eagle flying from night to day; I am the mouse crouching.

Before the time came for us to leave for New Mexico, I wrote down my intent: I want to free myself. I want to enter the wilderness and find a quiet place where I can shed my skins. I want to gather together all my fears, sorrows, disappointments, anger, and falsities from the past and release them as I would a handful of balloons. (Then I could live in the present). I will watch them float away and then it will be time to celebrate. In a circle we will all laugh, and cry, and sing. Our heat will mingle with the heat of the fires. Our life blood will flow and we will feel strong! The animals and plants and celestial bodies will join our circle and when we return to the Northeast, our circle will join the men’s’ circle, and we will all dance together, as one.

I do feel that I freed part of myself, though I learned quickly that no one rids themselves of fears, sorrows , disappointments, and anger. I learned and am still learning, to accept my emotions. As for the rest of my intent (or dream), we did dance and mingle with the fire, and we certainly did bleed a lot. Oh, if you want to begin your period, sniff the armpit of a furry female friend, .. It really works. !

Looking back on our journey to New Mexico, I realize that I gained a greater understanding of what it means to be a part of the medicine wheel. On my vision quest I explored death, one small part of the whole, and when we all reunited, we shared our experiences with each other. This sharing, gathering of views of the whole of life, made me feel enriched. I realized how important it is to listen to each other. There is no One Way, so we needn’t feel threatened by others.

I think it important to say that our journey did not begin in New Mexico. Our shaping of the group and our way of making decisions was very important. I, for one, quickly learned the difference between facilitating and leading. Although facilitating is a longer amoeba-like process than leading, which is a forceful process, it makes me realize how important the individual is. Thank you everybody.

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MARN

HEART’S DESIRE THY WILL BE DONE. Words unspoken flowing from the earth mother into my consciousness telling me to LISTEN to PAY ATTENTION, to be SLOW, to RESPECT BOUNDARIES.

Beauty all around. SO Beautiful and all a reflection – a mirror–of the beauty within. “I am so glad to be alive, so grateful to be here.” The days being with the slow and peaceful rising of the sun. Giant vulvas in the clouds. Ancient rumbling cliffs. Oh wondrous stillness filled with the dawn’s soft colors. “

Other Messages:
MY BODY IS SACRED, I must take care of it. MY ANGER IS SACRED, I must honor it . “ For I am a wise and powerful being. My visions come to me in my dreams and mediations and the forces of my anger helps carry them through. “ NO, I am not to be violated. The earth reverberates through me. Ancient mother, I hear your song.

DEM was a time for me to really listen to the earth and hear what she is saying. All of the above words in capitals are sacred Earth Mother wisdom. They are my sacred earth mother wisdom. DEM was a time for me to discover what the earth speaks through me.. through my feelings, my thoughts, dreams, and visions. Through my dance. Through the essence of my being the earth speaks.

It is hard to express in words what I learned in New Mexico, because I did not speak it there. I speak too much. My words cut me off from who I truly am. How can I hear, see, feel, the pulse when the words drown it out? LISTEN< LISTEN< LISTEN and know the soul’s purpose. “It is so wonderful to realize how unique each of us is, how much wisdom we each have to offer, and how much we have learned about listening.”

During this time I felt the universe supporting us: “COURAGE MY CHILDREN, FOR YOU ARE TRULY BLESSED AND LOVED BY THE POWERS THAT BE.” And we were humble. The earth asked for her boundaries to be respected. We followed our heart’s desire. So many messages. And we heard them. We listened. The messages came in many forms. Not always in words. In dance; in butterflies; in water flowing; in beams of light touching the earth; in sharp and painful cactus stabs.

All remarks in quotation marks are from my DEM journal.

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LUNA

We were called I believe… 13 women bravely facing themselves.. willing to ask for guidance and to take the risks involved in following our inner truth. By the end of the 5th day, I began asking myself in earnest “Just what am I doing here? “ I reflected on the vision I had during my quest in Oregon a year ago: How did my experience there relate to what I’d come to New Mexico to do?

I decided to create a sacred time of listening, making the commitment to follow whatever guidance I received.

The following day, Laura and I descended the cliffs and entered the magical land of the waterfall… we built an altar beneath it, asked for the protection of the spirits, and spoke our intentions for the day. We removed our clothing and crawled onto large boulders that straddled the creek. Water flowing over rounded stone silenced us… the listening had begun. I felt a tingling, something was about to come through and I moved to another boulder, cool and egg-like, smelling sweet of moss and lichen. “You are to be still during your time here. DO not stray far from camp.. learn to travel the universe inside yourself and in your baskets. Your quest is to practice readiness.. .learn to weave your intuition into form by creating a basket of each of the women in your circle. Sit with their spirit and allow it to guide you in the design and material that make the vessel. Offer your giveaway, and know that in doing so you are empowering your spiritual journey.. you are moving closer to your vision.”

Hello? Oh my goddess! Laura found me moments later, saw a change in me and asked what I was experiencing. I think it was spiritual shock and recognition undeniably strong. I was stunned that my higher self answered so swiftly and with such clear direction.. that was a powerful lesson that I learned again and again during our journey.

And so I honored my guidance and sought to learn about an art form that I thought I knew nothing about. I was greatly challenged to weave my personal time with the demands of the circle. Everyday required increased flexibility and discipline. I spent mornings sitting with my teacher tree, a young ponderosa pine rooted precariously on the cliff over which the creek tumbled 80 feet. I would sit at her base, around which a perfect seat was carved by nature in the rock.. legs and arms wrapped tight finding great comfort and strength from her spirit… both of us understanding each other’s love of living on the edge.

I spent many hours gathering material to weave.. the baskets for some women required roots of juniper, cedar, and fir. .. others called for the flexibility of willow, for pine needles, wild flower, yucca and small creek side plants. Each woman’s basket grew as I did. Some were easy births. Others took weeks to complete. As our days in the wilderness drew to a close, my work became more intense… having surrendered many day of basketry for the benefit of time spent in council. Balance of group and personal time called me to return to my inner voice, to seek guidance again and again as the circumstances of our circle changed.

The day before we left, my baskets were complete. I prepared for the giveaway ceremony. Women gathered flowers while I smudged all of the baskets. At dusk we drew together, welcomed the spirits that had guided me and silently beheld the altar of 13 uniquely different baskets.

My sisters had known little of my journey through the weaving of intuition and form. I shared my struggles and successes… and sitting there before my creations, in the circle that honored my process and never doubted my ability to fulfill my purpose, I joyfully gave away my lessons in being a beginner, speaking to each woman, telling her how I had journeyed with her while making her basket. Though there were insights that didn’t always make sense to me, they of course understood. We passed each basket around the circle, and I asked each of us to feel, smell, and sense the power held within it. I asked that we visualize filling these vessels with feminine power, this being part of my original vision. At the close of this ceremony, I gave silent thanks. The giveaway had so empowered them and I know that my vision was now being held by 12 women I deeply love and trust. I buried the 13th basket in the pit we dug for our sweat lodge that night.. giving back to the earth the beauty and courage she has given to me.

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FOXFIRE

What I got from DEM was an experience of the possibility of a different kind of world… a world where what is consistently valued is trusting one’s inner voices; trusting that one is always doing the best one can at the moment; trusting one’s feelings, intuition, dreams; trusting other ways of communication besides words. … dance , song, art, silence, tears… and hearing truth beyond the words used; trusting the spirits who we live amongst; trying to listen always to their voices and guidance and needs as well as our own; a world where people know and believe in–without doubt–elves, druids, gnomes, Little people; where all children of the great spirit have voice, .. rocks, trees, birds, wind, moon… ; where we know the earth as our Great Grandmother; a world where what is valued is loving oneself, and loving life.

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Diana Earthmission

How does on put into human words the sound of coyote yelps and screams rising up to the ancient ruins, while a pregnant moon laughs down up one two lone women’s fears? … Or what we heard as the sound of Earth crying out with intrusions on her body, the rape of her essential self, the calling for her healing?… Or the sound of the heartbeat of a gathering of women in the wilderness? I do not feel agile enough, at home enough with the world of words to do more than this feeble attempt here, which I offer to you as a shadow of what Diana Earth Mission was about.

“To those who have had the experience, no explanation is necessary.. To those who have not, no explanation is Possible”

Cathy Tocci: For years there was no sign of her, but then in 2014 Cathy’s family reached us to let us know that she had died at 75 after a full and beautiful life.  Her Guest Book of memories and condolences is kept permanently online courtesy of Diana Earthmission.  We are grateful to have known her and to count her as one of us always.

Judy Dacey: No sign of her. We have hunted high and low, and if you are out there Judy, let us know!

Holly Field: The last we heard, Holly was living in Massachusetts, and making beautiful baskets.

Lindsay Hammonds: Lindsay is living in Maui, Hawaii.

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