Workshop in California

Hey there =)

Last Weekend I have been to California, at a Anishinabe Workshop.
The Lodge we were staying at was very beautiful, it was around 15 minutes away from Santa Cruz, and the people very nice. The Workshop itself wasn't for me. Already after 20 minutes of a 3-day Workshop I was asking myself: "WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE?": One thing for example was the asema. It actually is just tobacco you give to Mothe Earth when you take something from it. That means, when you take an apple from the tree, you put down some asema to thank Mother Earth. One other thing was that we would have to get some stones, and one of the so called Spiritual Leaders said, before we take the stone we should talk to the stone, ask him if it is ok to take him away, and then listen to the answer... Well yeah, like I said, nothing for me. But since I was there and couln't just walk off, I participated the first 2 days. I even help making a hole into a gourd, to pour the water in the sweat lodge. In the evening of the second day we had the sweat lodge. In there it was absolutely dark and when they started to put some herbes on the stone and then poured water over them I felt uncomfortable. Unfortunately I couldn't get out until they finished their round of prayer. That was when I got claustrophobic, the voice of the girl, sitting right in front of me, suddendly came from my right side, so I had no longer any orientation and didn't even know, where the door was. As soon as their prayers were over I stood up and walked (it was more like crawling though^^) out of the sweat lodge.
The next morning I slept in and get to the meeting too late, but I wasn't the only one. When Connie, the main spiritual leader, started to tell us about the visions she had, I was fine. But when she said, that these vision were real, that she didn't only made them up, I just wanted to leave the room, because this seemed like brain washing to me. Well I left the room then and because I haven't had anything else to do, I went into the kitchen. The rest of the day I helped in the kitchen to prepare the food. I helped makin the cornbread, the meatloaf and the mashed potatoes. In the evening the meeting of the group took way longer, than the had planned and since the two cooks had to leave, they put me in charge of the kitchen, I really enjoyed this day!
On Monday then, we left the Lodge and started on our way home. My hostmum wanted me to see the coast once, so we drove along Highway 1, which is right next to the coast. We made it just to Big Sur, due to our late departing at the lodge and because we took it really easy, and even went to a bookstore in Santa Cruz, so I had something to read while driving. We stayed in a lodge in Big Sur for the night, and my hostmum actually planned to go for a hike in the morning befor leaving, but we sort of slept in, so we didn't had the time for a hike, and we left the lodge around 11:30 in the morning. We kept going along Highway 1 and made a short stop at Hearst Castle, unfortunately we didn't had time to go on a tour to see the castle. But I saw some pictures of it, it is HUGE! After Hearst Castle we soon turned inland, and the boring part of the travel began. We were finally home at 11:20 in the evening and I went to bed pretty soon, because I had to get up for school at 5 the next morning.
This Weekend was really great and luckily I only had school on Wednesday, because of Veteransday. Then on Thursday I got the most awesome message ever, guess what? I am going to South Dakota around Christmas, isnt' that awesome? Well I may tell you that my twin sister is in South Dakota for an exchange year, so in other words, I'm going to see her after 5 month of not seeing her. And that's just AWESOME!!!!!!!
So, that's it, I may make another post after this weekend, because there is the sleepover and aviation thing today =)