This is the last blog in a series from a Chapter in the Goddess and Golf book-
Chapter 7 from the book-
“How to Become a Golf Goddess”
Mother Earth -Gaia
Continued Teachings and Ceremony with Dave Courchene Jr.
Sunday July 30, 1995
“Dave begins to tell us about the first time spirit came to him. He was a young boy and was very sick with pneumonia and the doctor said he couldn’t do much. Then one night three grandfather spirits came as he slept. They told him not to fear them, they were there to help him get well. They told him to trust them and they instructed him and no matter what happened to trust them. They told David to take the beaver pelt from the other room and to place it on his chest so he did this but there was a lot of pain and he started moaning and yelling.
His parents came into his room and David was clutching his chest and crying out in pain. His parents removed his hands to see what was wrong with his chest and found the beaver pelt. Not knowing how or why he had it there they took it off him. In the morning David was well again. His fever had broken and he had no other symptoms. He told his parents about the grandfather spirits coming to visit him to make him well. His parents didn’t believe him as they had been raised Christian and didn’t know any of the old ways. He kept trying to tell them and everyone he met, but they just took it for childhood fantasies.
As he got older he started having visions and he would tell people but they looked at him with disbelief in their eyes. So David stopped telling people of his experiences. But that is not what the spirits intended him to do when they came to him when he was sick. He was shown through visions that the higher being wanted him to teach the indigenous peoples the old ways. As an adolescent he was shown how to talk to his people so they would listen and learn. Now he is being shown that he has to teach all humans, even with the disapproval of his own people. He feels an urgent need to inform people to stop harming Mother Earth. Humans have to start giving back, all they do is take. David says that people don’t realize the seriousness of our situation, especially if they live in the city. Those who live in the city get caught up in the fast pace, there’s not much time for yourself to sit and reflect. So with his closing he asks us all to take time to pray.”
Over the years my personal experiences with Dave have been closely linked to helping children, I had a vision for children and golf because of Dave and it happened in 2002.
Sacred Fire Ceremony- November 17, 2002.
Dave came to Ontario just before the Iraq war. He told us he was called by the world leaders of Peace to light a scared fire to burn for 40 days and 40 nights. The request came for Dave and the Elders to smoke their pipes in prayers for peace. The fire was started in Manitoba and he lit one with us in Ontario. He assured us there were many sacred fires all over the world burning at the same time. This was part of his teachings at that time.
“Help the children discover spirit. They need all the spiritual people helping them. They are our future. He cannot fathom all the children dying of disease and starvation while money is spent on destruction. Stop living in denial. We live in very challenging and exciting times because we are accelerating through spiritual growth that used to take yogis their whole life to achieve. We are now in an era of the time of truth. Look to the Native Spirituality for the proof of the strength of spirit to survive. The ancestors and the way they lived, sharing with everyone, loving everyone – that is why they invited the foreigners among them to share what they had. (We still celebrate this at Thanksgiving) But they were only interested in the land and they could not understand the teachings. The sacred fire had to go underground. He was so grateful to be able to light one today and anytime.”
This is what disturbs him the most about schools today, the lack of respect for the Indigenous people, that their children do not learn we are all brothers and sisters – everyone, even the people in Iraq, because we are all born from Mother Earth. The land, air, fire, water, we are a part of all these things. He likes to talk to the Grandmothers because he learns from them. He feels sorry for the youth. There are not many spiritual teachers teaching how sacred women are. The girls are being shown the message that they are only good as marketable, not to bring out their dreams. We are all here to fulfill the Creator’s dream of us. We as a society are not showing the girls how to connect with their inner beauty only the outer. Great Spirit has created a dream for each and every one of us. The dark forces need a balance. What can we do? Look to the Natives and how their spirituality has survived. Everything was taken from them, the white man tried to eliminate them. We need to get back to the land, we live only for comfort not for Creator, we love comfort more then the Creator.”
Dave had a letter that he wrote for the Peace Leaders, which he shared with us that day. As he was reading it I was getting choked up, this is one of the times I did not record what was being said because spirit moved so strongly through me I had what can be termed as a kundalini awakening. Or what I termed an orgasm of the heart. I was opened up. I don’t remember what his words were but I saw words in my own head. Brigham, Young and I saw a Golf Teacher named Sam Young and I was told to work with him. Now I knew Sam had a great reputation for his junior golf program because it was in our local paper quite often. When Dave finished talking he asked if anyone had anything to share. I said I did and it took a while to come out because I was crying, now my rational mind was judging me and couldn’t figure out why I was crying.
I said to the group that I had a vision I am to work with children in regards to golf and I had asked for their prayers at the time to help me follow through with it. I then had to go outside, I couldn’t be with people, and I couldn’t be with sound. I went out into the woods and I had no thoughts in my head for the first time in my life. Unfortunately, if you are not in a place like an ashram where you can just sit and meditate and have people are taking care of your daily needs like cooking it is not such a fun experience living in the daily grind. I had a very hard time functioning when I went home. For the next 3 days I could not work, I could not even cook a meal. I was ungrounded, floating outside of my body, which many people thought sounded so cool, and which many yogic people aspire to. But it wasn’t fun, from this experience I would only agree that it was cool if like I said you could be taken care of. I tried every way I could think of to ground myself and come back into my body but nothing helped but getting my menstrual cycle. This brought me fully back into my body. For the first time I really appreciated my monthly flow. My insight for this experience and others that I have gone through is that Grace descends down but that doesn’t mean you live in the blissful state for long periods. We are part of the Earth and we are Spiritual Beings and the two can come together but then we can also fall back to sleep by living back in our conditioning. After I was grounded, I did my best to working with Sam Young but it was not the right time. Even though I had the vision and I was pushing, it came but not my time but the universes time. It was three years later when I was blessed to work with junior golfers and to give them some of these steps to learn how to coach themselves to play great golf from the inside out. One summer I had an hour with 20 juniors from ages 8-18. It was definitely a challenge to convey my message in a way that each age group could grasp. I ended up writing a story for them and giving it to them as a workbook; “Humble the Bumble bee and the Magical Golf Course.”I really love teaching golf as a metaphor for life and how the principles of yoga and other traditions with respect for earth like the native tradition really help for both.
Sharing this one Chapter of the book was a beginning step to more..I will be sharing more of my story and co-creating a journey with the listeners and guests the second edition of the Goddess and Golf book on a radio show in Oct 2011..in the meantime you can connect on Facebook
Goddesses.Golf. Yoga Book Community-
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Goddesses-Golf-and-Yoga-Book-Experience/251117874924089
The Book Chapter turned into 4 blogs. Here is the order if you wish to read it from the beginning.
- http://sacredconnections.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/gaia-a-greek-earth-goddess-and-playing-golf/
- http://sacredconnections.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/respect-for-mother-earth/
- http://sacredconnections.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/women-are-very-sacred-and-lucky-to-have-menstrual-cycles/
This blog has video links to hear Dave’s Story of a Vision he was given
http://sacredconnections.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/the-man-who-changed-my-life-and-prayers/
