ALUNA TEMPLE MAGAZINE Edition No3 'INITIATIONS' | Seite 41

ON A QUEST FOR 'KULTA' with ZOË BICÂT [email protected] www.cdbaby.com/cd/ZoeBicat In 2010 I went on a wilderness kayak trip in Finnish Lapland, organized by the Northern Drum Shamanic Centre. The trip was led by Petri Leinonen, a Finnish guide, and Chris Lüttichau of Northern Drum. I was unhappy in my work but afraid to leave. Part of my fear was in facing the challenge to leave a structure defined by others for one that I would need to create myself, which would use innate gifts and talents. I had regular dreams of escaping from a mortal threat. Before leaving for Finland, I had pulled a card in a reading with a Mexican healer. The card was ‘Water’, a call to release whatever was blocking the natural flow of energy in my life. There was little choice involved. I was headed for Lake Inari, the third largest lake in Finland. It lies on a bed of late Archean rock, from the ancient Greek Arkh? : “origin”. Embedded in veins of green quartz within this rock are deposits of native KULTA, Finnish for gold. Gold is irreducible, a chemical element in its own right. It reacts very little to outside influence. The image of the gold in the rock drew me. Back in job and my life at home, I felt I could not “tap into” what was elemental in myself. We set up at Ukonjärvi base camp and unloaded our kayaks. Petri asked us to deliberately capsize and find our way up to the surface. The last time I’d capsized was at the bottom of a weir on the River Dee. My foot had caught in a cross bar and it took time to free myself under the water. The line of people along the jetty waiting for their turn to capsize could have been waiting for baptism. I could barely bring myself to rock the kayak off balance. It felt like dying and being reborn. We had to trust that we would know how to rise again. Setting out on the lake was a joyful reminder of how to trust water. I learnt to find the most economical twist of my torso against the weight of its liquid body to propel the kayak. Evening meditation on an island shore 41