About the Yes and the No’s That Precede Them

In this practice a hole in the ground is dug, for a person to stay comfortably overnight, while the keeper stays nearby around a camp fire playing a ceremonial drum for 15 minutes every hour. A “roof” for the tomb is built of fallen tree branches and a blanket so that the soil to cover the tomb is not directly in contact with the person. Obviously a good entrance for air is made so that there is good fresh air getting in during the experience. The tomb is dark, quiet and protective. In the tomb an altered state of awareness is achieved and that is how “Mother Earth” takes care of us and gives us advice in the ways of visions, insights or dreams.

The morning after, when Edward came out of his grave ceremony he was renewed. His face looked fresh and full of vitality.

-How did it go?

-It was a beautiful night. I had a lot of dreams and visions. But there is one which stood out. It was a memory of something that actually took place in my life.

-Do you mind to share about it?

-Sure. I dreamed about the time when I had gone to a bicycle race on mountain terrain.  I was there with other friends. Mary did not want to go because she said it would be too exhausting. But I went anyway. Not only that, I went and I won the first place in a race that lasted for five days. I was so happy!

-Wow! That is a great accomplishment! What happened next?

-I went home all happy and proud. I had a little trophy with me that I was placing on one of the shelves in the living room. I was just placing it there but then Mary yelled at me –Don’t place that there! It does not go well with our furniture!

-What did you do?

-I put it in the closet.

-Did you dream all that in the tomb? What do you think about it?

-I don’t think. I know.

-What do you know?

-I know it is not right.

That was Edwards´s vision that night. He did not make any promise and yet, as he would share with me months later, he did not return home the same. He came back and said NO. Enough is enough. NO more of being a guest cornered in his own home.

It was not that he stopped loving Mary; it was just that he remembered that he had to love himself too.