BURDEN BASKET: The Lessons of Kokopelli
by Jesse Wolf Hardin • Reserve, NM

On the sacred crimson and vermillion cliffs near where I live, one can find the visage of the Green Man of the Southwestern Deserts, the mountain emissary of the ancients who lived here until a thousand years before my arrival. He is the symbol of fertility, the bearer of magic and medicine: Kokopelli.

His name once called out from the escarpements, his image pecked or painted into volcanic rock. They call him the hunch-backed flute player, but that is no deformity you see. It is, rather, his burden basket.
The “burden basket” is a shared concept common to a wide range of primal cultures. It may contain only the personal quandaries or overwhelming responsibilities of an individual’s life, or be filled to the top instead, brimming with the joy, needs and anguish of an entire planet as experienced by each sensitized bearer. Its freight is a product of our emotional engagement and the degree of sensory input we allow access to our psyches. Therefore, the more conscious, alert and caring the person, the heavier their load.

The more we allow the eyes to see, the ears to hear and the heart to feel, the more we pack into the basket. A lifetime of lessons. The cooing of babies and the joy of relationships. Accomplishments. Dreams in the night and visions of the day. The experience of and desire for smells and sights, new sounds and a familiar touch. People and places and ideas we become attached to, stored carefully where we can find them. Kisses and art next to laughter and sighs; retrievable memories at the top, with precious hope lying deepest in the basket.

But do leave room for disappointment and the strength it engenders. For personal slip-ups and the humility that comes with them. For the certainty of bodily death, the frustration of campaigns to save the life of the planet, the silent screams of humanity’s unrealized dreams. Enter the hurt of unwanted children and saddened wives. Add the taste of disappointment, the scent of lost lovers and the lessons they leave behind. Intolerance and profit, and the “war against terrorism.” Pile in conscious identification with the non-human world and the basket strains at the seams, stuffed with the plight of birds and coyotes, mountains groaning from strip mines, earth pierced by oil wells, leveled for golf courses and condominiums. With creatures big and small, shot, trapped and poisoned, crushed by unfeeling cars and trucks, denied more and more habitat until faced with the complete and irreversible extinction of their kind. For the truly sensitive, for the conscious and awakened examples of humanity making use of every unhampered sense–it can be one heavy basket. For those who see and feel enough, those given to love, truly carry the weight of the world on willing shoulders.

The key word here is willing. One usually has the option of “keeping it light,” of ignoring the gravity of unfolding events while suppressing intuition, instinct and emotion. In modern society illusions receive widespread support, and denial is seen as an acceptable way of dealing. For the most conscious and engaged, however, the basket may house the accumulated transgressions of our kind, the mistakes
of the past, and the formidable weight of future choices. Yet, always, it’s a choice.

Like Kokopelli, our devotion is to sacred life, to flesh and God in unbroken unity with the rest of the Earth-body in a glad and holy communion. The lifting of the basket is a matter of tuning in to the ecstasy as well as the agony of uninsulated perception. It is willing participation in destiny, the response-ability inherent in consciousness, and the rewards and consequences of our acts of love.

The nice thing about the basket is that you can always put it down when you need to. You will be the first to know when you’ve rested enough, and when the time has come to move ahead with it again. With each wearing, it represents our willingness to share a living world’s pleasure and pain, and our inspiration to actively and accordingly respond.

Wherever the image of Kokopelli is found, with bent, laden back and flute in hand, cast into silver earrings, decorating cafe menus or carved into crimson canyon rock, a single message cries out: No matter how heavy the load, one must dance their dance, and live their song.

To fail to enjoin is often to fail to enjoy. Interestingly enough, those who eschew the burden of the basket are the least likely to dance, the least likely to fly. But for the load-bearers every movement is a dance, gracefully and powerfully making their way between the obstacles and pitfalls, delights and desires of their destined paths. It is the spirit of Kokopelli, providing us with a magical, visual metaphor, setting the example of a basket so heavy and a heart so big.

Jesse Wolf Hardin is a teacher of Earth-centered magickal/spiritual practice. He is the author of Gaia Eros: Reconnecting To The Magic & Spirit of Nature (New Page 2004), and performs on the CD The Enchantment http://www.cdbaby.com/gaiatribe. Wolf and his partners share a remote riverside sanctuary, providing retreats and quests, intuitive counsel, wildfoods gatherings, resident internships and the annual Wild Women’s Gathering. Contact: The Earthen Spirituality Project & Sweet Medicine Women’s Center, Box 820, Reserve, NM 87830 http://www.earthenspirituality.org.