EXPLANATION OF PROGRAM & ITINERARY

The following is a copy of an earlier itinerary for the program.
Current programs may have altering locations.
 

Ours is a country of many sacred places. Earth mounds, hilltops, ancient caves, standing stones dot our landscape from coast to coast.

What did our ancestors know about the earth on which we walk and live today? Are there traces of their rituals, and can the sacred geography on our own soil assist us in our personal development?

Return to Beauty, is a 3-5 day travel program (each year different components may create either a 3 or 5 day itinerary.) In a series of beautiful and moving rituals and exercises we begin the process of reconnecting ourselves to the sacred energy of the earth in a deep association with nature. Recognizing that we each have a strong seed within ourselves which holds our potential and our dreams, we will use our time together to rediscover our potential and find new ways to understand and express who we are and what we came here to do.

Mother Nature is opening her classrooms for us for this program : waterfalls, standing stones, underground chambers, mountain peaks and lakes will welcome us and help us connect to their particular energy. We have carefully selected the sites for our work. They hold the collective memory and consciousness of those who came before us and who, maybe for thousands of years, celebrated their rituals here, using these places for visions and to talk to the Holy One.

On our day together begins with Zacciah giving an overview of the Initiation rituals we will perform together, explaining their meaning and purpose. We shall orient you to the details of the program, the sites we will visit, and the work we do in each one.
We shall create a personal mesa (traveling altar or "medicine bundle," and a despacho (offering to the Spirits of the Place where we are going to work, such as the Apus (spirits of the mountain, or PachaMama, Mother Earth.)
 
 

Our Working Itinerary
(While all elements of this program will be incorporated into the program,
specific locations, etc, are subject to change without notice)

We will then begin our journey into the sacred lands of Vermont.  In the first step of the Karpay Ayni, the Reciprocal Initiation, we begin our work of connecting to the three worlds. The upper world is represented by a Sanctuary, a church or temple, which helps us create a link with the Holy One, in both the male and the female manifestation, to remember that we are loved and not alone.

Traveling to Cherry Hill, near Ascutney, Vermont, we will stand on a beautiful, open field, overlooking the central mountains of Vermont.  We shall use the mountains, fired by the power of the sun and winds to connect us to the upper part of this world and the beings of the environment. From here we move to an area called Cavendish Gorge, where an open cave deep inside a forest invites us to feel the energy of the lower world.
We shall also learn how to enter the sanctuaries of the Natural World, enter the inter-dimensional portals of this sacred Gorge, and welcome the ancestral spirits of the place, the Incan lineages, and/or our own maternal lineages.

We shall continue with ceremonies in the cave to balance and align our inner forces of masculine and feminine, both genetically, and spiritually/vibrationally, into a place of rebirthing our spirit and self.
 Here we connect with who we are, taking time to look at our lives as they have already unfolded and as they are to be until our transition out of the earth and our bodies. We will make a deep connection with the spirits of our parents in this life, bringing them to us to create wholeness and peace.  

With an opportunity afterwards to spend some quiet time inside the cave or walking through the tall pines and cedar trees, with the moss-covered earth providing a soft place to stand or sit, Zacciah ends this ritual by giving each of us his Karpay which we in turn reciprocate. We then make our way back to the bus.

For thousands of years, water has invited us to dream and to reflect. Temples and ritual sites dedicated to healing are often found near water, beside a spring or on the shores of a lake.

To go deep into the underworld and into our own subconscious selves, we spend time by a vast and inspiring Reservoir, with incredible overlooks of Mt Ascutney and the region. Here we connect with who the lineage keepers of the Incan wisdom, inviting them to assist us in our quest, working with the laws of Ayni, or reciprocity.

We use the power of this to activate our Seed of Potential, or Incan Seed.  The seed within us which we recognized at the beginning of our journey and which the elements of nature have already honored, now needs the process of germination. We wrok with water, earth, sun and wind as necessary parts of this process, and we begin nurturing the seed with these forces throughout the balance of this journey.

We then journey to the wondrous Queechee Gorge, the deepest chasm in Vermont, with a major tributary to the water systems of the region. Here we cleanse ourselves and create a connection with the energetic field of water. This is where we use our bubbles to bring in sami and to send all heavy energy into the earth.
 
 
(Itinerary has changed.  We will likely be heading for the Calendar One/Two ancient stone lodges and solstice & equinox alignment sites. 
It is a site dedicated by ancient peoples to the beauty of the Divine Mother, the Sun, and other aspects of Creation.  The energies at these sacred sites are magnificent.)
 

After lunch in a charming café in historic Queehcee or Woodstock, we continue on to a high ridge top, a sacred stone site, a mysterious landscape in Vermont, where ancient peoples  are known to have lived and performed their rituals for a very long time. The standing stones wedged into bedrock on the flat top of the hill are clearly aligned to the solstice sun and to the horizon, which can be seen in a nearly full circle from here.  (This will be the Calendar II site, & elsewhere.)

The earth here holds powerful energy. 

We begin by connecting ourselves to the collective spirit of the eagle, using the energy of the pre-historic standing stones/stone chambers, and that of our native friends who hold the collective memory of the ancestors.

In another section on the hill, we will work with the Nusta, the spirit of Mother Earth, in a mysterious, somewhat sheltered place, surrounded by stones and plants.  (Calendar I site.)

Returning to the top of the Hill, we invoke the spirit of the wind and the sun, both needed to help our original seed open and flower.  (There will be some changes in itinerary as specifically described here, all part of the rituals will be incorporated.)

From here, we return to the standing stones in the center of the hill to give honor to the spirits of Manitou and our native ancestors, while we make an energetic connection to the Inca masters of Peru who have taught us so much. We will notice how the tiny seed with which we began has now become an open flower, representing the reality of our full potential.

At the end of our exercises, we will gather in a powerful small peace circle which has been used for many years by indigenous peoples for ceremonial peace talks, for a reciprocal initiation ceremony. They will then jointly offer a special blessing for the keepers of this ancient earth and its memories.

On our final day, we board our vans and travel a short distance to Calendar I where we work with the spirit of the Nusta in this known ancient stone chamber in the hills of central Vermont. Thought to be a point of alignment for solar and stellar rituals by our native ancestors, the site is especially suitable for our work here.

We will continue to work with the energies of the apus & nustas ("princesses," rarified spirits/energies) of earth, wind, water, and fire, in the beautiful countryside near Calendar I.  We shall be taking lunch with us for the entire day working at the Calendar I sites.

After completing rituals with the ancestral spirits in one stone chamber, the nustas in another, and birthing ceremonies in yet final chamber, honoring and recognizing our seed coming to full germination, rising, and blossoming, in the "garden of Wirococca (the "creator",) our final task is to connect ourselves spiritually with a solar temple, where the ancients performed sacred rituals, giving thanks for our abundance and well being. We use a beautiful solar temple, near the top of Calendar 1, for this exercise. Standing stones, chambers and earth mounds surround the temple, reminding us that this land and its structures hold the consciousness of our ancestors.  We then make offering, and receive blessings of the beauty of the Earth, at an ancient spring, touching that place which is our own Beauty, and honoring it in the Earth, and each other.

As we leave to return home, feeling a renewed sense of personal power, we also recognize our responsibility to work with it for our own benefit and that of others.