Through Beauty, Space and Balance School of Feng Shui and Space Clearing, I will be teaching a drum making workshop on Sept 19, 2009 at the Inn at the Rustic Gate in Big Rapids Michigan.

I am so looking forward to the Drum Making, Ceremony and Sacred Tools Sampler Course. The spiritual act of making your own hand drum is an experience that will remain in your memory for years to come. The birthing of this sacred tool brings together the all the divine aspects of ourself (mind, body and spirit). The drum is a 15 inch maple hoop and elk rawhide is used for the drum head and lacing. Attendees also learn how to make their own drum sticks.

In the course we will also be connecting to nature as we make magic wands, smudge feather fan, incense and eco-friendly cleaning solutions. Beauty, Space and Balance School of Feng Shui and Space Clearing is a school where I co-teaching with Deb Swingholm and Minnie Kansman.

Beauty, Space and Balance: Drum Making, Ceremony and Sacred Tools workshop on Sept 18-20 will be a weekend filled with nature connections, connecting the divine aspects of your self through guided meditations, bird watching, fireside drumming circle and scrumptous meals.

Check out Two Feathers page to find out more details about this workshop. I hope to see you there.

http://two-feathers.org/blog/beauty-space-and-balance-certification-courses/drum-making-ceremony-sacred-tools/

Migwiitch, Neshi.

As the New Moon Solar Eclipse comes and goes today, leaving behind the energy of going from darkness to light and from old to new, I too feel a sense of completion.

I returned home from a week of teaching at the annual Great Lakes Retreat in Olivet Michigan. I taught a drum making workshop, I also taught a single session about Medicine Wheel Feng Shui and Space Clearing – Harmonizing, and also presented a lecture about my Medicine Dress. I love to teach, to share information and be a witness to others spiritual growth.

I have actually been off line for a month to six weeks. As I prepared for the Beauty Space and Balance Advance Space Clearing course which I co-taught with Deb Swingholm and Minnie Kansman in June, I took a week to finish preparations for the Great Lakes Retreat travel and course material. I had held energetic space for both teaching venues for almost a year and now that both are completed, I feel a huge sense of personal completion. Today, I am cleaning off my desk (yes, I can finally see the top of my desk) feeling like I should be doing something, much like when I finished my Masters degree course. After a few years of juggling a full time job, family, and an accelerated Master’s degree course, I had lots of time to myself when I completed the degree — time on my hands.

This sense of completion reminds of the journey through the Medicine Wheel. I began both teaching projects in the Eastern portion of the Wheel where birth and new beginnings occure. As the projects began to come together, building energy, I walked the Wheel through the south and young adulthood. As I moved the teaching projects to the West energies and experiencing the abundance of the south with the sense of harvest from the west energies, the courses came to fruition and completion. As I file away notes and copies of course information, I feel the energies of the North and dormancy as we begin to gathering energies to begin germinating seeds for the next teaching dates for both Beauty Space and Balance and also the Great Lake Retreat for 2009.

Its good to be home and turning my energy towards the upcoming Feng Shui and Space Clearing certification courses I am teaching in September, turning my enery toward the short story I am writing about the Drum Mother for a new book called The Wisdom We Gained, and also spending time with my family.

I am looking forward to writing blog posts both for Two Feathers and Where Energy Flows.

Migwiitch for reading Between the Beats. Blessings, Neshi.

All Rights Reserved. Copyright, Yvette Neshi Lokotz, August 2008.

Come join us at a Spiritual Gathering in Olivet Michigan for the Great Lakes Retreat….Where Heaven and Earth Meet. I will be presenting Sacred Drum Making, overview of Medicine Wheel Feng Shui and the story of my Healing Dress at the Great Lakes Retreat this year.

The Great Lakes Retreat begins on Sunday, July 20, 2008 and ends on Friday, July 25, 2008. We are meeting at Olivet College in Olivet Michigan. (www.thegreatlakesretreat.org)

My good friend and collegue Minnie Kansman is also presenting at the Retreat. She is presenting on her book Spirit Gardens: Rekindling our Nature Connection,as well as Fairy Houses and Altars.

I am looking forward to teaching at the Great Lakes Retreat and to spend time with friends. If you are looking for a week where you can learn about spiritual topics, rest, relax and have fun….register by going the Great Lakes Retreat website. See you there!

Spirit Drum Making                           

The rhythmic beat of a drum is like the heartbeat of our Mother the Earth and our Soul all wrapped up into one.  
 
In Native American tradition the use of a hand drum for ceremony is well known, yet the use of drum for Space Clearing is done by only a select few. Space Clearing with a drum is Big Medicine, with power that comes from the blending of the essence of the animal hide, the wood of the frame, the maker of the drum and of course the energy and intention of the person using the drum.
 
A drum can be even more powerful if it is made by the person who will be using the drum.  Native American tradition tells us how the maker of such tools embed their thoughts, prayers and energy into the drum knowing that it will be used for the good of the people.  It is a privilege and honor to make such a tool.  

To birth a drum is a gift handed down from the Creator.  And, as a very special part of the Advanced Space Clearing course “Beauty Space and Balance” you will have the extraordinary opportunity to make your own Spirit Drum.  In a unique blessing ceremony you will be initiated into the circle of Sacred Drummers.  Sacred Drummers are distinctive, as they are personally connected to the Spirit who brought Medicine Drums to the Potawatomi people.
 
I will be co-teaching this advance space clearing course with Minnie Kansman, author of Spirit Gardens, and Deb Swingholm, Master Reiki.  All three of us are Master Educators of Interior Alignment™.  Deb and Minnie wrote this about me, “We are very excited about this part of the course!  Neshi Lokotz, a gifted drum maker, has been crafting and teaching others how to make beautiful elk hide drums for several years.  As ancient Medicine Women have done for centuries, she brings her Native American heritage and all she has learned to help others walk in balance, and live life in health and harmony.”  
 
I invite you to be with us for this unique and Spirit-filled course.

As a reminder, space at the Inn is limited, so register soon to reserve your place in the course.  Register today by going to the Two Feathers workshop course listing where you will find the listing for Beauty Space and Balance.

Many Blessings, Neshi.

All Rights Reserved. Copyright, Yvette Neshi, Lokotz, April 2008.

Veterans Day Observed

This past Sunday, November 11, was Veterans Day in the United States.  I would venture to say that few people observe this American holiday.  I come from a family that has served in the military and I have come to enjoy and look forward to this one day when we remember those in the military service who have passed away and those who have completed their service. 

In my family and culture, warriors, are valued and honored.  On Sunday, I attend the Veterans Day Pow-wow held at Volk Field in Camp Douglas Wisconsin.  It was a rather small gathering for a pow-wow as it was meant to be more of a social gathering rather than a competition pow-wow.  I visited with many people who I have not seen in months and even years.

I am most grateful for the time I spent with one of my Aunties.  My Auntie Della is my youngest Aunt/Mother. She will celebrate her 76 birthday in February.  Aunt Della is the person who taught me how to dance in a traditional style when I was just 6 or 7 years old.  She passed on her love of traditional dance to me.  I had such fun and joy as I danced with her and her daughter for several songs.  At one point, I was very aware how significant that moment in time was because we had not danced together in a very long time. 

On a day to honor our warriors was also a day I danced in honor of my Aunt and all that she has taught me about Native American dance.  She taught me that we are sacred dancers as we step to the beat of the drum. As we dance, with each step we take to the drum beat, the beat of Mother Earth we send prayers to Mother Earth. 

This year as in years past, my prayer is for peace.  Migwiitch for reading and spending time with me at Between the Beats.  Much Love and an Abundant of Blessings, Neshi.

All rights reserved.  Yvette Neshi Lokotz, November 2007.

Today is a beautiful day here in Tomah Wisconsin.  This is my first Autumn Equinox ceremony done by myself.  I am usually with friends and family.  It is unusual but very serene and peaceful.  I created an Earth Medicine Wheel on my property for the ceremony.  I took my time as I selected stones from the land, listening to which would like to join the ceremony.

I love what Ted Andrews wrote in his book Nature Speak about the Autumn Equinox.  He calls the Autumn Equinox the Beginning the Hero’s Journey.  This is the time of year that is about endings and beginnings.  This is a time of new starts as we clean out the old.  We had a great harvest this year.  We had an abundant year of inner work, peace, solitude and joy.

In the past months, I have come to know what it is to Be.  I had thought I had learned how to do this Being rather than Doing, but I had only learned a layer.  Now, I have learned what it is to be quiet, still and peaceful.  Spirit led me to this new deeper way of Being.  As we begin the Hero’s Journey, I am planning gardens for the next growing season.  This is both symbolic and actual.  I am planning my courses for 2008.  I will continue to teach certification courses in Interior Alignment (instinctive feng shui and space clearing), guiding Rainbow, 12 Gifts and A Song ascension groups, teaching sacred geometry and drum making. 

My new garden to sow seeds will be adding Medicine Wheel Feng Shui and Sacred Space to my list of courses.  I am very excited about this new part of my Soul’s Journey.  It will be a time where I will blend together all that I have learned about feng shui, sacred space, sacred geometry, ceremony, drumming, Synchro Alignment with my cultural heritage. 

I will also be co-teaching with two wonderful souls, Deb Swingholm and Minnie Kansman.  We will offer a course in advanced space clearing called Beauty, Space and Balance.  This course will be offered in June 2008. 

As I stood in the middle of the Earth Medicine Wheel and drummed my prayers, I was filled with joy and excitement to begin anew.  This new year will be different than others that I have experienced as I remember how to be quiet Being yet continue to teach. 

Blessed Autumn Equinox

Neshi

Between the Beats

This is my first Two Feathers article and I am very excited to write it as well as nervous. In many ways this first article catapults my dream of becoming a writer into real life. I know that this isn’t like publishing a book or a major magazine article, but the feeling is the same as if I were doing a major publication.

Between the Beats is the title of my on going writings about the services I bring to the earth as well as my insights into life. My good friend, Theresa Plenty, actually came up with the title. We were sitting in my four season porch working on the updates for Two Feathers when we knew that I would have an editors area to write articles, but needed a name or title.

Theresa connected my Native American culture/heritage, my love of drumming and drum making to my new love of writing. And, what an insightful and lyrical name she came up with for these articles! Migwiitch, thank you, Theresa.

Between the Beats refers to the dynamic area where magic occurs. I have come to learn that we are attracted to things like flower essences, drumming, the use of sacred bells or the use of certain crystals because at a soul level we are responding to that items particular and individual vibration. Like vibration attracts like vibration.

I am attracted to drumming and the sound of the drum since I was a very young child. The space between the drum beat is the sound vibration and is where the sacred geometry that is held by the sound of the drum. This space of sacred geometry is where our prayers and intentions ride as they flow out into the Universe. In Celtic tradition, this is may be the betwixt and between where magic occurs. I also believe this is the “gap” that Dr. Wayne Dyer writes about.

Two Feathers is an organization based on love and service as we assist others to claim and reveal their unique gifts and qualities for their service to others. As a teacher of feng shui, sacred space, soul clearing, drum making and as an ascension guide it is my honor to be of assistance. I am also very grateful for the opportunity to use the gifts that I came onto the Earth plane to use in my service to others. Between the Beats is one vehicle for this service. It is in gratitude that I write this article and future articles. May you find Between the Beats a place that will pique your imagination and curiosity.

Many blessings of peace and joy.
Neshi