I believe my strength comes from Mother Earth.....my great grandmother was half Cherokee....she thrived on being outdoors and lived in the country...she went outside probably everyday of her life. On the day she died, she got dressed and went outside to her rocking chair and died in the chair.!!  (I have that rocking chair)  My father also had a love for the outdoors and I spent many hours outside with him...searching for edible mushrooms and also fishing.  When I was a child there was a medicine woman who lived across the street from us.  I spent endless hours walking with her and gathering edible greens.  I found out when I was 10-11 that she was also a healer.  As I am becoming older...I am realizing that she transferred much to me during our times together.....and I often call on her spirit to guide me.  I realized when I was in my teens that I had a choice in whether or not to be happy and I chose then to be happy in this lifetime and see the glass as always full....

 At the ceremony at Sacsaywaman,(I think that was the place)  We went back early in the morning before the park opened....and put our hands in the fountains.....one represented the cosmos....the other the center of the earth.......when this happened I felt the connection in my heart.  With each step on the Inca Trail I felt the strength of Mother Earth ....I felt the strength of the stones and I felt the presence of the elders.  Sierra, I am not alone (nor is anyone) and I have much peace in that knowledge of being protected, guided, healed, directed,and  loved.  I believe that we need to go beyond faith to a knowing of who we are .....once we KNOW.... we can get on the path and merely be led......nothing is impossible.....

When I first heard about the hiking trip to Peru I knew immediately that it was something that I was meant to do in this lifetime.

One of the many great aspects of the trip is that we were prayed for by Shaman, lead by a Shaman and in the "presence" of the wonderful spirit of Peru.
We did ceremony at 7 temples on the way to Machu Pichu.  Each temple represented one of our seven chakras. Throughout the journey I was able to  experience the connections with my goddess sisters and the ancient ones of the past.  It seems that at times....there was no "time" I was spiritually reborn again and again through the challenges, the washings at the numerous aquaducts and in the water ceremonies.

The journey was physically hard, but in the process of digging deep within, I was able to connect with a spiritual force much stronger than I and I have continued that connection!

Thank you, Sierra