Monthly Archives: July 2016

Feeling Grief + Dreaming Another World

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Inspirations

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Apache plume side

Grieving is an innate part of being human. It is as natural as springs that seep upward in heavy rains. As a species, we have always made space for grieving. In song and silence, chants and wails. Grieving not only had a space in a healthy and functioning existence, it created space. To be in grieving was to be in a state of separation, a place unto itself. A time where you weren’t expected to make any great changes, or birth your next brilliant idea. Grieving was a space where you could retreat behind the veil and simply be in the sacredness of your sorrow.

To grieve is to allow a veil to come between you and the world. To give yourself a time of close gazing and swaddled softness. A period of simplified perspective and inward healing. A sacred sanction to withdraw until you feel safe enough. Strong enough. Clear enough to engage with the world again.

In the past month this country, and this world, have been shaken by violence. Orlando, Istanbul, Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, Dallas. The continued unmasking of racism, extremism, the still fresh ripples of colonialism, slavery and greed. And if you’ve been listening, then you are probably hurting. If you’ve been thinking, feeling, engaging with what has been flashing across the news, then grief has most likely descended upon you like a curtain, with very little knowing of which way to move.

Grief manifests in many guises. Anger, fear, numbness, rage. It can even manifest as guilt. Guilt that you aren’t doing enough, guilt that your own family is safe, guilt because of your privilege, or the color of your skin. In truth, guilt is just grief about our own selves— our smallness, our perceived ineptitude.

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If you are an empath, a sensitive, a feeler in any sense of the word, than you probably have felt a potent cocktail of all these emotions. Something fiery and devastating, halting and heavy at the same time. Whatever you are feeling, it is valid. More than valid, it is vital. Because the only way to heal through grieving is to feel it, deeply. When we open to the naturalness of our grief, in the face of violence, in the face of fear, we open ourselves to the healing that has to happen within. We are invited to tend the innermost wounds, the ones that are normally ignored, in order to be effective agents of change in this world.

Emotions do not lie, they are intimate portals into what is preoccupying our hearts and minds. If we want to understand where we are, and what our deepest selves are trying to communicate about our needs for healing, all we have to do is embrace our emotions honestly. Our feelings are our deepest guides. When we feel our feelings we begin to crack open the shell of our thoughts, the beliefs that have become too small for us. We have breakthroughs, we ignite our ability to radically change. We awaken the DNA of what is possible. Grief will break you open like an acorn and make it possible to become an oak in the strong and healing reforesting of this world.

Quartz on equinox

For the past few weeks I’ve been struggling to heal from a deeply mysterious bout with bronchitis. No one I know has been sick and I honestly cannot remember the last time I was taken so low. It began the same day I heard about the shooting of Alton Sterling. And then Philandro Castille. And then the five officers in Dallas, the then the three officers in Baton Rouge. And then… Soon I felt helpless, strangled by everything I couldn’t say. Couldn’t fix. Couldn’t feel. For the first time in my life I literally, physically, lost my voice.

In Chinese medicine grief is thought to be held in the lungs. Like the everglades surrounding the palace of our hearts. When we grieve, our lungs are flooded with heaviness and emotion. They are the swamp lands through which we process everything on its way to be released. And as I languished in bed day after day and day. Glued to the news, glued to my computer screen, glued to the dark shutters of this world I finally felt I had something constructive to give to myself, to share with all the sweet kindreds who read this blog.

Bloodroot emergence horse knob

I’ve always been a feeler. A deeply emotional person from my earliest days. Maybe you are too? And if you are, then I hope what I’m about to share will be helpful to you. This post is for my fellow HSPs (highly sensitive people), introverts and empaths. All those who have felt stymied, shipwrecked, devastated by the deep upwelling of grief in these times.

This post is for those of us who are allies. For those of us who aren’t necessarily on the front lines of trauma and loss. For those us that don’t necessarily experience daily prejudice just because of who we are or what we believe.

What I have to offer is this, a sacred task for myself and an invitation to join me. A call to feel the sweep of sadness that has blanketed our world. The racism and ecological destruction, the fear and hate. To feel our sorrow fully, fully and deeply. To say look at everything it is asking us to see, shift, and healing within ourselves, and then release to it. To move past the grief in any way we can, to become strong for those that are hurting even more. To become strong enough to hold each other. And strong enough to begin to envision, and be a part of birthing, another world.

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In Celtic lore there is a world just beyond our perception, just beyond the thin filament that separates all things. This world is the Otherworld. As in many rich spiritual societies, in Celtic philosophy the world that we actively experience is seen as only a single facet of reality. Just beyond what we think of as “the real”, are entire universes of other possibilities. In traditional Celtic stories it is said that the membrane between this world that we experience, and the Otherword, is as thin as a veil. Normally, in our day-to-day existence we walk around willingly veiled. Unable to perceive what lies just beyond. But on special days of the year, during times of powerful movement and transformation, the veil can be lifted. And we can access a vision of an other world.

We are in one of those times right now. All of the pain, all of the tragedy and horror has created a kind of tear in the universe. A powerful moment in which another world can be glimpsed. Can be dreamed into existence. Can be felt.

And so I truly believe that this is what we must do. Those of us who have the privilege of safety. Those of us who have the privilege to day dream and create whenever we feel. We must move through the grief, that grief that helps us to see just how much we care about the healing of this earth, and begin to actively envision another world.

My dear friend Milla recently turned me on to a speech by legendary sci-fi writer Ursula Le Guin at the National Book Foundation’s award ceremony last year. At the ceremony, she said something that struck me deeply: Now, it is the task of the young writers and sci-fi creators is to start dreaming up a new reality. We need writers who can remember freedom. Not the dystopian future we all dread and that fuels box office funds. But a bright future, a healed future. A truly utopian future. This is the task at hand. To begin dreaming it into existence, starting with every small detail.

It is up to us, those of us that have the immense blessing to be able to bridge out of grief. Who have the immense privilege of being able to hold space for those who have actively lost so much. It is up to us to move beyond the veils that separate this world from the next. It is up to us to use the power, and privilege, we’ve been handed to actively dream into a new world.

Fog on late eden

Anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows that spirituality is at the heart of how I think, what moves me and ignites my passion for being alive. In the past few weeks I’ve seen a deep struggle in the spiritual community. An inner tension of that central allegiance to a perspective of positivity and love coming into direct conflict with the reality of the violence that is perpetrated in this world. I sat with this every day for the past several weeks of being shuttered in with bronchitis and, for me, the truth is this:

We are here to live in both worlds. Both are equally valid, both are important. We must actively hold and acknowledge this world where racism is incredibly real. Where injustice is incredibly real. Where fear explodes out into violence again and again. We must acknowledge this at the same time that we continue to grasp the reality of the otherworld. To inhabit the bone deep knowing that there truly is no “other.” That we are all waves in a single vibrant ocean. That love is the ultimate reality.

To see beyond a veil isn’t to leave one world behind for another. It is to take away the separation and see that it is all real. To do the sacred work of confronting the needs for inner healing your own grief illuminates, and hold this world in even greater compassion, in even greater care because of the ways you have said yes to your own wholeness. To give of yourself, in action, in words, in prayer, to the healing of the wounds that are bringing sickness to us all. And to dream and invoke and actively envision ANOTHER WORLD.

Because another world is possible. It is being created, right now.

Midnight hole 1

So if you are ready. If the grief inside you has fulfilled its purpose, I invite you to send it back home. To release your grief and start envisioning, in every detail, what another world could look like. To use your connection to what is beyond the veil to call it into being. To take action in both worlds.

If you would like a small sailboat to help bridge you into this work, keep reading for my simple grief releasing ritual below, and for the links I’ve complied that offer some ways to connect into the waves that are moving through this world. As always, find your own way. Trust where your inner heart leads you and begin, right now. Today.

Start dreaming.

Start envisioning.

Start creating another world with every fiber of your deeply creative being. In movement or action, or writing. In music, in speech.

Remember that simply through the innateness of who you are, you can become an emissary of this other world.

Move into solidarity by beginning to dissolve your ideas of what is possible, and take into the center of your being the radical hope that healing is the collective destiny for us all.

Let it start right now. Because, truly, it has already begun.

“ Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
– Arundhati Roy

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<< Grief Releasing Ritual >>

Find a quiet day when the heaviness in your heart feels ready to be given back to the earth as good compost. When you have faced all the inner mirrors that this grief has asked you to gaze into, and you are ready to enter a new era of personal strength and power. Engage in this ritual when you are ready to become an active part of seeing and creating another world.

1. Find a cloth that you are willing to bury. Choose one that feels particularly sweet or close to you. I love to cut up old, much adored, dresses for this purpose.

2. Collect pieces of paper, or other biodegradable mementos, that can hold the tragedies, people, feelings, and events that weigh most heavily on your heart at this time.

Write down names. Get personal. If you are grieving the deaths or oppressions of those you do not know, weekly magazines often have pictures to clip so you can connect on a more personal level. If this kind of acknowledgement feels powerful to you, collect these photos in prayful care for your parcel.

3. When you have collected everything you want to acknowledge, put everything into a basket and bring it out to a private place in nature. (the edge of your backyard can work wonderfully). Feel free to include any stones, herbs, or small gifts of healing care and love. In the same moment that you will be releasing your grief you will also be amplifying a deep prayer of transition and healing for all those you hold.

4. Dig a hole. If you are feeling particularly raw you might even want to dig with your hands. Let this be a cathartic process.
As you dig let yourself experience every single swing of emotions. Every edge of realness and sorrow. Feel it all, all over again.

5. When the hole is ready, place your cloth on the ground and one-by-one, place each item into the center of the bundle and speak to every grief. Call out the names, the places, the wounds.

And with every item you place in the center of your cloth, give a prayer….

“Philandro Castille. I honor your life by releasing this grief to go home. I release this heaviness in my heart so I can be an active part of creating a new world”

“To the people of Nice. I honor your lives by releasing this grief to go home. I release this heaviness in my heart so I can be an active part of creating a new world”

“ For the non-human communities who are devastated by strip-mining… For the three officers who were killed in Baton Rouge… For anyone who preaches hate and division… I honor your lives [or the lives that have been affected by your wounds] by releasing this grief to go home. I release this heaviness in my heart so I can be an active part of creating a new world ” etc.

6. When you transitioned every item from your basket into the bundle, when you have cried enough, prayed enough, sung enough, wrap your bundle up with a piece of natural string and place into the ground. Feel free to place any last offerings to help these emotions and prayers move to where they need to go, and cover the hole back over with dirt.

7. When you are done take some time to lay like a child for several minutes over the burial spot. Curl up into yourself and imagine the earth moving into you with an endless well of support. The earth never forgets how to forgive, how to transform. Give everything over to the soil. Run the dirt over your face and arms. Feel yourself becoming empowered with a new strength and whenever you are ready, move on. Lift your face to the sky and walk back into your place as an active dreamer in the coming of a new world.

 

<< Links to Learn + Be a part of the Healing >>

http://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/
http://blacklivesmatter.com/getinvolved/
http://www.thehoodwitch.com/blog/2016/7/7/coming-back-to-life-healing-through-crisis
https://asaliearthwork.com/2016/07/09/walking-through-fire-a-gathering-of-survival-strategies-by-communities-and-allies/
http://www.wortsandcunning.com/blog/black-lives-matter
http://www.marieforleo.com/2016/06/marianne-williamson-spiritual-healing/

Become a Shaman of Your Life

14 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by in Inspirations

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For a long time I equated shamanism with esoteric antiquity. Something practiced in the far past, or only pertinent to those who were born and raised in an indigenous culture. As an anthropology student in college, I was trained to see shamanism as an isolated practice of healing, one that was far more rooted in a dream of the past than the reality of our modern-day world.

For most of my early adulthood I understood shamanism to be naturally inaccessible for a westerner of no particular origin.

Then, the dreams started.

Soon after I moved to the mountains I began to have nightly dreams in which I was studying with teachers who called themselves ‘shamans.’ Every evening I was being taught things that defied the framework I’d been handed in life: like how to move through space and time, or heal with snakes, or sing to the soul of plants. When the dreams first began I had no idea what they meant, except that I woke up with the word “shaman” imprinted on my mind.

Just like our ancestors might have brought an important dream to the village oracles, I eventually took my dreams to the Google oracle, and when I typed in “shamansim” I found, not an isolated or ancient cultural oddity, but a vibrant, living practice that was at the heart of a new healing movement in our world. Soon, every idea I had about shamanism, imprinted from my anthropological education, began to dissolve.

 

 

Shamanism, a spiritual practice that can be traced back over 40,00 years, is, at its root, a way of seeing. The word itself “shaman” comes from the Evenki people, a Tungusic tribe in Siberia and meant one who sees in the dark. Commonly considered the ancestor of all religions, shamanism is, today, a global phenomenon predicated on the idea that everything is alive and has a spirit. That every aspect of this world is interconnected, and that our earth itself is a gorgeous co-creation. A living dream we spin together.

Shamans are those that can see the living in-between, who can peer into the worlds of the invisible, the universe of the unseen. In truth, shamanism is a practice of exploring and expanding consciousness to perceive wider reality. In traditional cultures, a shaman’s job was to interact with the wider world of the invisible for the healing of the entire community. Depending on your tradition, these worlds may be called alternate realities, parallel universes, the Otherworld, the Dreamtime, the spirit realm, or simply non-ordinary reality.

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We all experience spaces of non-ordinary reality— every time we dream, or get lost in the maze-like beauty of the forest, or fall in love. Non-ordinary reality happens when we have a brilliant flash of insight, or feel the heart-calming presence of a loved one who has passed. It happens when we follow the threads of our intuition or when we have a bird swoop overhead and we get a shiver because we know— this has meaning. Shamans are fluid interpreters of meaning in the world. Traditionally, a shaman was someone whose life work involved interacting with the meaning hidden behind illness, blight or obstacle. When meaning is retrieved from the realm of the unseen, true healing begins.

So what does it mean to become a shaman of your own life?

It means that you practice seeing beyond the obvious, beyond the physical day-to-day to peer into the subtle mystery behind it all.

It means opening yourself to a wider meaning, to the possibility of what is hidden beneath the confusing, diluting or painful aspects of your life.

It means connecting with the spirit of the world. Talking to plants, and communing with waterfalls, and recognizing that you are a part of it all.

Over the years I’ve come to love this term shaman. It has helped me understand, in so many ways, the work I am drawn to. It has helped me describe my experience of being alive, and all the wonderful depth and complexity of healing that is available on this earth. And it has helped me locate myself in a vast history of humanity. To see that the desire to seek meaning, to move gently through a world of consciousness, and to perceive magic in the ordinary is not a new age concept at all, but a shamanic one.

Interested in going deeper? Join us for for a local class on Shamanic Self Care next Thursday June 13th at the apothecary with the radiant Julie Travis, the practitioner and shamanic healer of Stone Flower healing.

Also, check out our most recent post for a guide to Shamanic Journeying, and begin to plumb the depths.

So explore on, find the gateways that speak to you, and expand your perception of what is possible because there is a wide wide world of magic out there. And this is just the beginning.

Shamanic Journeying

12 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Inspirations

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Big Bend pond

Shamanic journeying is a kind of meditation, combined with focused intention, to enter an expanded state of consciousness. In journeying, a Shamanic practitioner enters a kind of “trance state.” If you have ever had one of those moments of being lost in thought, like following the fading lines of a beach trail onto the shoreline of sand, you know how a trance state feels. Trance states are common in meditation, prayer, or intense life transitions—including birth, orgasm, and death. Trance states can be as light as a deeper feeling of awareness or as deep as the seemingly comatose bodies of deeply seasoned Shamans.

When we undertake a journey, part of our consciousness is able to detach itself from the body and explore realms that the physical body cannot perceive or move through. The object is not to escape reality, but to venture deeper into it. Many people who journey for the first time expect to have completely out of body experiences, but this is most often not the case. I often liken it to a branch of a river tree breaking off the main trunk to join a stream. The tree stays put, but an aspect of its being is free to travel. The tree still feels the gentle sway of the water over its roots, sustaining it crown, allowing it be what it is, a tree— it has simply chosen to send part of itself downstream.

Shamanic experiences are different for everyone. Some people liken it to the sensation of being in a dream. Some people have vivid imagery, tastes or smells, others simply have a feeling sense. Above all, try being curious. In his book The Way of the Shaman, Michael Harner likens Shamans to scientists. “Both shamans and scientists,” he asserts, “personally pursue research into the mysteries of the universe, and both believe that the underlying causal process of that universe are hidden form ordinary view.” As you work with connecting to expanded states of consciousness, you may have experiences that are odd, unexplainable, or peculiarly striking. Instead of casting off such experiences or images, save these perceptions as bits of evidence or data. You may not understand their importance now, but catalogue it for later evaluation. Surprise is an integral part of the shamanic experience. Consciousness often speaks in metaphor and we are continually learning how to be better readers.

whales

Traditionally, most Shamans worked through the power of spirit guides. These guides can also be called transpersonal forces. Guides can take the face or image of many beings; plants, animals, stones, or even other people. Many traditional Shamans worked specifically with what we call “power animals.” A person’s power animal is a guide that represents the overarching spirit or soul energy of an animal group. Each being on earth has its own essence or being, and thus has its own power. Animal guides are often called “power animals” because they bring certain abilities and innate powers to their work in guiding you. In this way they are thought to actually impart their power to you for use in your healing work.

One of the first journeys many shamans undertake it to connect with their spirit guides. Many people say working with guides in the world of the unseen is essential. In my way of thinking, each and every one of us always moves with a guide. For, in a way, our own wider selves are our spirit guides. I think working with guides, however, can deepen and enrich your journeying experience in profound ways.

For your first journey try connecting into an animal who is ready to guide you at this time in your life.

 

Pintura_Trois_Freres

Steps of the Journey (How to Journey)

1) Find a comfortable and quiet place where you can relax. Before I enter a journey I like to take some time to call in my guides, the four directions, ancestors, or any personal divinity that has meaning to me. This is a time to get clear on your intention. Let your wider consciousness know: You would like to meet an animal guide.

You are setting the stage for a safe and guided space of journeying. If it helps to relax, try some gentle yoga, dancing or deep breathing beforehand.

2) Most people like to journey in near darkness. I suggest turning out the lights and closing the blinds. Some people light a candle at the beginning of their journey, as symbolic gesture of keeping an aspect of their consciousness in the here and now.

3) Drumming can be profoundly helpful for journeying. Find a Shamanic drumming CD you like (or track on youtube) and use it to deepen your journey. When you are ready to begin, sit in a comfortable position or lie down (if you aren’t in danger of falling asleep!) and begin the drumming.

4) Many people like to envision an entryway for themselves. For meeting with a spirit guide traditional people usually went into what we call the “lower world,” deep into the earth. I like to envision traveling down through the roots of a tree, but you may prefer a staircase, a tunnel or a cave. These gateways can often be a signal to our conscious minds that we are transitioning in our consciousness and that it’s okay to let go.

5) Once you “step into” the journey itself just let yourself explore. Images, feelings, sounds or smells should come spontaneously. Shamanic journeying is not about conscious control, it’s about allowing yourself to have an experience beyond your rational mind. During your journey you will stay conscious in your body. You can expect to hear cars passing down the road or feel any itches or bodily sensations. Many people liken journeying to a powerful daydream. You remain conscious and aware, and yet another aspect of yourself can travel. If you feel any distractions in the here and now, forgive the intrusion and simply let yourself drift back to the journey.

It’s always okay to ask questions. So if an animal comes to you in your journey don’t feel shy in asking, “are you my guide?”

6) If you are listening to a soundtrack of drumming the end of your journey will be indicated by a series of rapid rhythmic beats, followed by several slow thrums. Now is the time to “come back.” I often like to retrace my steps, going back through the entryway I have chosen. If, at any time, you wish to end your journey early just retrace your path and head home. When I arrive back into my body I like to imagine my spirit sifting in from the top of my head and settling down firmly into my heart and all my limbs.

7) Take some moments before you move to deeply breathe and feel yourself completely in your body once more. Once you are ready, I highly encourage writing down an account of your journey. Consciousness most often speaks in metaphor and sometimes the deeper meanings will be made much clearer once you take time for reflection. If only a few sentences, jot down some impressions from your experience and close your journeying time with some gratitude for your guides and for the perfection of this particular journey.
Did you give the shamanic journey a try? I’d love to hear about your experience! Leave a comment at the top of this post to share about your journey.

Your Life is a Poem

08 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in Crafting

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We think of our lives like a timeline but, really, they are poems just waiting to be experienced.

Poetry has always fascinated me. Like moonshine spirits, poetry holds an essence that is both distilled and incandescently free. It belongs to no one but itself, and it captivates you totally.

In poetry the true magic happens in the unseen.

There is a Zen saying that I stumbled upon once that has always stuck with me.  A good poem is like a fishing net. It is not the well-twined rope that makes a net so effective, but the emptiness that exists inbetween. Unlike a longer fiction, each word of a poem is thoughtfully placed to reference an even greater meaning. A good poem offers us a single lotus flower, floating in an empty pond, so that we are invited to dive into an understanding of the unspeakable gorgeousness that lies just beyond.

True magic happens when we begin to view the events of our own days as droplets of meaning in a much wider lake. When we can sit in wonder of the day-to-day. When we can experience our lives as poetry, an opus that is ultimately pointing towards something inexpressibly grand. Just like when we are given a book of poems, and asked to find the meaning, sometimes it can seem as though the days we’ve been handed are just a collection of disconnected memories. But open to your life with a poetic mind, eyes trained on the unseen, and you will find a stirring gateway of meaning.

Live in the midst of poetry.

The first poppy blooming in your garden. The way warm honey dissolves in your tea. A chipped dish, the flecks of mica in concrete. Every gesture, every small movement in our life has the ability to point our gaze towards the ineffable, the magnificent, the intangibly radiant.

In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, postulated that the ultimate driving force behind humanity wasn’t the search for security, affirmation or luxury… but the ache for meaning. And that the need for meaning doesn’t just belong to the poets and professors of the world— it is part of the longing of every human being.

When we can connect to the experience of our lives as a poem, we naturally sink into meaning. All we have to do is leave some space in-between. Whenever you can, however you can. Summer, with all its bustle and fullness, is a clarion call to simplify one’s life. To let go of all the million details of plant, harvest and seed and take long moments to just enjoy. Read a book for an hour at sunset. Go swimming on a Tuesday. Spend a whole weekend trying out new popsicle recipes or create a fairy altar with your kids. There is a reason why summer is the season of vacation. It’s meant to be a time of ease.

As John Keats so beautifully described, “A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving into a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is an experience beyond thought.”

Your life is a poem, allow yourself to experience its beauty.