Hot Gate of the Heyoka
The sacred clown who teaches everything in reverse — and why that’s exactly how I’m building Future Vibrant Self.
Black Elk Speaks by poet John G. Neihardt.
Just finished reading this book last night. Found it in Mudwater, in Santa Monica. Took it home. Blue-lined the living text out of it.
What called me to it, initially, was to get a deeper understanding of Heyoka, a sacred clown who teaches everything backwards… a trickster.
Michael Meade, the master storyteller of myth, who I lovingly call the Wizard in the Woods, blessed me with this brand recognition… six months ago during the Arc of Transformation retreat in the mystical Mendocino Woodlands.
He looked at me and named… what I didn’t yet have words for —
He said, ‘Hey, you’re Heyoka. At first, I didn’t know whether you are assertive or arrogant.’
I shared with him some years ago, during one of my Ayahuasca expeditions — I was going through a transformational phase in my life — separating from my wife, falling smitten with a different woman… and pulled an oracle card that read – can you guess?
Yep.
During the Divine Vine ceremony, I was the only person on the trip who laughed the entire time, while everyone else was puking. My Soul got aligned by both what’s within me and a power beyond me. Resplendent with vivid versions and visions of Self-Love.
I love that this book is about a sacred vision that calls upon the protagonist again and again and again — in a rosebud of different ways. Rosebud meaning that it blossoms into a varietal of petals and gnawing thorns, exquisitely beautified.
The only way to show a vision to others is to display, demonstrate, and ritualize it — in a way that others can see and play a distinct role in. So they can understand — in their own way… what the Spirits are saying.
That’s where the Heyoka comes in.
He wrangles our world.
He opens our gates.
Our ‘gates’ are the code word for how we take information — in or give it out. Eyes, ears, mouths, nose. Touch. Sometimes we breathe in this intelligence — so it settles elsewhere deep inside the body and absorbs in the reserves of our Soul.
Personally, I call the heart the ‘Hot Gate’. When you open it, that’s where the Soul resides, ready to blast out its light… its Soular light.
Ceremonies are also a form of rituals, and I’ve been leading rituals in my men’s organization that help them get in touch with the deeper part of themselves.
We arrange our chairs and create a sacred circle, where we can all face each other as equals. Like knights of the Round Table, only with camping chairs and no shiny armor.
Constellations of connections, dying to who you are not, and consecrating the power of your own identity. Those are some of the themes at play — at work — with our inner and outer world.
Black Elk Speaks shows how to be inspired and create ceremonies from visions that come down from places beyond our traditional knowledge, and mount them from the ground up — in a sacred circle.
The circle is the shape of power.
The Earth is round.
The days and nights are round.
Our eyes are round.
Our gates are round,
just like the Sun,
just like our Soular power.
Even our fingertips are round.
Even sportsmanship – the ball, the puck – it’s typically circular.
Could a rectangle eventually have the bounce of a jovial ball?
Black Elk Speaks is also important because it shows the vast culture that was here before this land became something else entirely different.
Still, its legacy has left us with something profound –
The gift of honoring personal and provisional visions.
No matter what’s going on around us. No matter how the world keeps constantly changing under our feet and in screens in front of us.
I’ve also learned, that some folk don’t give a fuck about my vision at all… and all I can say is, ‘Cool.’
So how am I a Heyoka?
I am creating and expanding on Future Vibrant Self.
In order to reach the future, I’ve learned to assimilate my past and reassemble it in a way that gives me the power sacred instead of shambles of shame. It’s easy to beat the mental drum at what coulda, shoulda, woulda… but fuck all that.
As my Ayahuasca vision showed, the Gods like to cackle.
I exercise radical Self-forgiveness to combat previous bombastic Self-sabotage. Everything I experience is an element of a learning curve… which is not angular, or rectangular but round, and full of salient sounds that constantly astound.
The lingering question… the essence of Black Elk leaves me with… is this:
If the circle is the shape of power, why aren’t most living dwellings more circular in nature and architecture?
Consider, even most beds, tables, desks, and altars are rectangular.
Yet most lamps and lightbulbs — circular.
If we honored the shape of power more mindfully…
how would we change our way of being?
Black Elk Speaks teaches there’s the power sacred in shapes.
Once I realize that, I feel more spiritually attuned, reshaped, and reformed.
Yet physically, I’d rather have a cut tummy…
Than a round belly.
