Bathing is the original way of baptism or purification by water. It is a cross-cultural spiritual tradition of death and re-birth and resurrection found throughout all the elder cultures of the world. The full ceremony and ritual is conducted pre-first light and involves prayers to open and close the stream, anointing and complete submersion in the stream in the four directions. When bathing is performed for four mornings in a row, it is an attempt to receive a “spirit” song—a vibrational aspect of your soul that may be used for healing and spiritual power.

When we had arrived the river was low but swift flowing and the land surrounding it—neglected and polluted with the trash of campers that had preceded us. Usually we begin our teachings with a spiritual “opening” ceremony but first we needed to clean up the area and restore a sense of harmony and respect for the land. When the land was ready, we were ready. As part of our opening, Sherry and I sang our spirit songs restoring a sense of love, care, respect and honoring to the land.

Besides the bathing and vision questing, we conducted many experiential shamanic and spiritual exercises to help our students face fear and overcome doubt. As each day dawned we noticed a renewal of the land and a return of wildlife that had been absent when we had arrived. Eagles flew overhead and during the student’s quest, a hummingbird visited both Sherry and I.

But the most amazing spiritual response to our power and presence was the river—it was rising for no explainable reason. Over the six days it raised two-fold—no rain, no dams to let loss more water—a physical manifestation and acknowledgement of our shamanic work. In addition, the spirits of the river sang Sherry’s song constantly over and over again throughout the six days. Witnessed and heard by all, it was an ongoing spirit chorus of her soul’s song.

At the completion of the six-day, we each shared our experiences of all that had happened including the individual vision questing. As the first student explained her feelings and experiences she ended with, “oh and bye the way, a strange thing occurred during the quest a hummingbird came to visit me; it was like “right in my face!” Before she could continue another student said, ”Why I had a hummingbird come to me.” Then another and another, all of our apprentices had been visited by a hummingbird—seen in many cultures as earthly messengers of love and beauty and called sun angels. (Two years before the ‘visitation’ of heavenly messengers—the archangel Mikael and his two assisting angels.)

Thus was born, the Hummingbird Clan of the Feathered Serpent Medicine Apprenticeship.