By mid-day, the air grew sultry and still after the morning thunderstorm. It was the Summer Solstice 2006, and I’d just arrived at Serpent Mound, Ohio’s great historical and ancient sacred site. I came to the mound with a group who gathered to celebrate the turn of the season. I was delighted to be among kindred spirits who joined together to experience the energy of this wondrous place.

I first laid eyes on him as he explored the site, following the trail around the mound like all other curious visitors. But there was something different in his travelling. He was in a wheelchair, with his lame feet curled below the seat. He rolled by me with magnetic grace and once my attention was captured, I did not look away. His quiet, gentle power and his serene face drew me to watch him closely and I followed him.

Although excited to be with my fellows, I had to admit I’d been dragging a heavy burden of sadness behind me since I arrived at the mound. I felt a loosening of a painful knot within, an emotional block that needed release. I realized once again how often we ‘kill’ each other with a look, a judgement, or an act that isolates. Too often we feel outcasted by another’s opinions and behavior. Too easily are these hurts flung at one another, and over time, the accumulation of pain becomes an oppressive weight upon our shoulders.

As I followed the magnetic stranger, I reflected upon an article I read in the paper that morning. It detailed yet another report of the 'honor killings' happening across the globe. Recalling this extreme of killing behavior brought the heavy burden of sadness over me again like clouds pregnant with storms. My consciousness continually shifted between my personal agonies and the vast painbody of universal suffering.

Are women really being forced to kill themselves for looking at a man? How can this culture of honor killings be real? Women in isolation from family, friends, and loved ones are outcasted from all they hold dear. Locked in rooms with a gun or a rope, they are told to kill themselves so the family’s honor can be upheld. The juxtaposition of realities left my mind spinning when I read of these killings while sipping coffee in the comfort of my sunny kitchen.

For centuries, brothers carried out these brutal honor killings in order to re-establish the family code. But now, since brothers are being brought to justice and imprisoned for what is finally being judged a crime, the loophole has been discovered – have the girl commit suicide and save the brother from prison.

Even by forcing myself to read the reality of these reports, I cannot wrap my mind and heart around such atrocities. The universal suffering of women weighed upon my heart on this oppressively hot summer’s Solstice day. Images plagued me of women in isolation for having a girl baby rather than a boy; women accused of dishonoring the family for the most trifling of reasons whom end up dead or disfigured. Such images are a far cry from our American ‘Sex in the City’ culture. These two ends of the spectrum can hardly be reconciled for they are fraught with a hotbed of contradictions. Such images, thoughts, and feelings tightened the heartache in my chest, and I walked more slowly around the mound, still compelled to follow this mystery man.

At one place on the trail, I came close to passing him by and he stopped and swiveled his chair to look at me. He nodded in my direction and I smiled in return. He said, “It is good to see you again.” I smiled again to hide my confusion, but I’m sure my furrowed eyebrows gave me away. Although familiar to me in some inexplicable manner, I was certain we were strangers. My face flushed with embarrassment realizing he probably thought of me as some kind of stalker. I walked on, feeling jilted as my skin prickled with goosebumps. There was something about his voice that held me in the moment our eyes met. I tried to brush it off, deciding his odd remark was most likely a form of greeting he stated to friend and stranger alike.

Our group melded with the man and his female companions, and once assembled, a woman from our group spoke up, relating her feelings of spiritual isolation. She expressed joy in participating in a solstice ceremony with others of like mind and heart. Too often, she said she had carried out such celebrations alone. Other sentiments were shared and our circle drew close and intimate.

Our leader eventually introduced the mystery man. We learned that he is a Maori healer from New Zealand. We welcomed him and he expressed his thanks in a very soft and kind way. After our ceremony, the group dispersed to explore the mound further, and the woman who spoke up about her sense of isolation greeted the Maori man and expressed well wishes. I stood nearby, gawking as he took her hand. Suddenly, his female companions encircled her, sweeping me up into their intimate circle as he began to pray. I don’t remember his exact words. I remember he shook an egg-shaped rattle and offered prayers to the grandfathers, and then to the grandmothers. His words were sweet, simple, and spoken with a voice that expressed the purity of a little boy.

When he addressed the Grandmothers, he asked for comfort for all the sisters who walked alone in life. He expressed exacting words that pierced to the core of every woman’s loneliness, the sorrow of isolation, of being the outcast. All of us in our tight circle around him began to cry. Our tears flowed and the weeping took me over. I was completely undone. Immense pain shot forth from a bottomless well inside my heart. I cried for myself and for all women. I felt that he peered inside my heart and gave expression to my secret and intensely personal feelings. He spoke to the universal suffering of all women, the women who are at one extreme, killed for dishonoring family, and at the other, pushed aside and ignored, used up and tossed away, living in the shadows of the discarded.

My tears liberated a flood of feelings that once released, transformed me in the moment. When he finished praying, I could say nothing. I was so moved, I felt lost between worlds, still so entranced, yet changed immeasurably. I dried my face on my shirt and slowly moved away. I had no words of thanks for him, just a look of compassionate gratitude when our eyes met for the last time.

Walking beside the undulating coils of the serpent’s body, sweat ran in rivulets down my back along my spine and I felt as though the moisture was peeling off my old skin as I wriggled like the snake, freeing myself from the past. I walked in witness to woman’s lonely path, trusting that moments of understanding and compassion would show up for me along the trail. I perceived the microcosm of my tiny world of suffering and embraced the immense suffering of women across the globe.

It was an eerie reckoning within time and space, distorted like the kind of silvery light you witness at a full eclipsing of the sun. Too often I am caught up in my personal torrents of stormy emotions. When it comes to suffering in this ‘all about me culture’, it is nearly impossible to see beyond our personal point of view. My presence in the hurricane of woman’s universal suffering would have been impossible to bear without this Maori man’s gentle stewardship.

Today I wonder, how could a man, one man, seem to carry an understanding of woman’s collective suffering when all the world turns a blind eye? The mystic is one who mystifies us in their ability to make the leap between the personal and universal. This Maori Mystic held the synthesis of our intimate collective, which once embraced, touches and opens the world’s heart.

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Here's what some readers have to say so far...

As I began reading Landings I knew this would be a book I would share with two of my very dear friends, who I know will benefit greatly from all it has to offer. I also have come to realize that even now, I put glue inside of me to block the flow of information regarding traumatic memories. Recent memories of trauma rather than so long ago. It is a gift to have this knowledge, and a challenge to begin to get rid of this glue. -- Jan Samo

Half way through this amazing journey, I can't seem to put the book down and when I do, it calls me back from across the room. I am so filled with all the possibilities whose gateways you have shined a light on. There are so many chapters that could become entire books. -- Vicki Dobbs

I love the structure, the depth of insight, and how the two healers worked together. To me, Landings felt balanced, a real world application of spiritual teachings. I can't wait to see what Margaret does with this book...class-wise... The Tree of Life/chakra vices and virtues section is a small portion of the book with big impact. The section on teacher/apprentice was excellent, as well as giving a clear example of the responsibility of the apprentice.- - Emily Blair

Reading this book gave me such an interactive feeling of being cared for and of being healed right along with the main character, Jesse. Landings is empowering. The author extends a "rose compass" to the reader, by which we can actually map out and use the Spiritual teachings in our day to day lives. -- Jan West Volpe