A quest toward Soul Retrieval, traveling to the edges of the archetypal Shamanic journey, is both the outcome and the unconscious purpose of my 2009 Summer Fieldwork with the community of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers.  In my role as community nurse, I acted as participant observer to this collective of Elder women and the community of women who have risen to support them at the sixth council gathering which convened in Lincoln City, Oregon.  The social justice work of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers is “to represent a global alliance of prayer, healing and education” through the view of the Indigenous mind seeking balance in relationship with “Western mind" for the benefit of the next seven generations of all life on this planet. Living into this phenomenological inquiry, a whisper of what may be calling me to my work of soul in the world broke the surface of my unconscious: an embodied sense of estrangement from the soul of the Divine Feminine in our collective unconscious and her longing to be called home. 

Gina Belton--Summer Fieldwork

Sitting on a grassy hill sipping coffee

Ocean crashing in front of me

Holding in my heart

Grandmother Tsering, Crone from Tibet

Wrapped her injured ankle

in ace bandage, love and prayer

humbled to my knees

when she asks:

"My English broken, prayer good?

His holiness come through?

You hear the Buddha? She gave the mid- day prayer.

I whisper yes and save my tears

for the ocean and the grassy hill

we bow to each other

in gratitude

she giggles as I stand in the

threshold.