Do you want to learn to journey? You may have heard of shamanic journeying, had a shamanic practitioner journey for you, or simply be curious about what that's about. Do you journey already, as a personal spiritual practice, and want to deepen your practice? If you live on or near Vashon Island, I invite you to the Journey Circle, Sundays from 6-7:30pm at Vashon Intuitive Arts (VIA) .

My training allows me to guide others in this ancient multicultural way of shifting consciousness and traveling into other worlds, to receive guidance and healing experientially from helpers and teachers. More about me here.

Learning how to shift into the shamanic state of consciousness—through rattling and drumming to initiate the theta brainwave state, creating a clear intent for your individual journey, finding pathways into the other worlds, and developing relationships with helpers there is a fascinating process, different for each person and each journey. Like learning any skill or ability, it takes practice to establish, and time to develop relationships with helping spirits. Having a teacher is the traditional pathway to journeying, and allows support on multiple levels, facilitating your unique experience in a safe environment. It is powerful and magical and profound and surprising. 

One book, of many available, that you may wish to check out is Shamanism as a Spiritual Practice for Daily Life, by Tom Cowan, Amazon link here. It provides a thorough and easy to understand introduction to what we'll be doing in the weekly journey circle. Or just come and see!

Whether you already know how to journey, or have never heard of it until now and are intrigued, sign up for one or more sessions now, and see if this is for you. I'm offering two options: buy 1-4 sessions here, or signal your intention to commit to your journey practice and save $5 per session by ordering a series of 5 here. If paying by cash or check, just come and bring the $$ with you.

If you have a drum or rattle, bring it/them along, but don't worry if you don't. Eye covering, like a bandana to wrap around your eyes or sleep eyeshades, is helpful. Or, you can simply place your arm over your eyes, as a traditional method. Bring a shawl or blanket for comfort, if desired, as you will journey lying down. These things help you keep your body safe and warm as your consciousness and spirit move to other worlds and endeavors.

​Let me know your questions, through email here. I look forward to seeing you and having you in the circle.

Have you ever had a Soul Retrieval? If so, you know what they are. If not, you may be curious. I just did one, and this one I can talk about, because it was for myself. I do many Soul Retrievals, but the work is confidential, and their power—as the power of any journey—can be dissipated by describing them in any detail to others. But it feels today, for some reason, like this is news you could use. So here goes.

There are several books in my Resources list that focus on this important shamanic service. What I tell clients in a simple description is that, as human beings, when we experience a shock or trauma or major unexpected moment in our lives, we often experience a fragmenting of our soul. A soul part will either fly off or stay stuck at the scene, unable to handle the energy. We are fragile souls, indeed. The accounts you hear about girls watching themselves being raped from somewhere on the ceiling is an extreme example, while sadly also not uncommon.

But soul parts can flee or stay stuck for less violent shocks and traumas, particularly when the experience pings something in their life path, or longer soul path through many lifetimes. At the time of the experience, reality seems to shift. It can become hard to speak, emotions rising, face flushing, lips trembling, pulse racing, without really understanding why these body responses are happening. Signals of trauma can make time slow down, as our brains stop working and everything goes into a slo-mo sequence of bewilderment, fear, disbelief, or the shock of being totally misunderstood, negated, abused, or maligned.

Sometimes the scene is difficult emotionally, such as having to euthanize a beloved pet, watching one die, discovering an accident or traumatic scene, and these kinds of experiences with other loved ones. Moving house suddenly without willing preparation, losing something important, finding out something life-altering, witnessing something traumatic, all of these can cause soul loss.

Power loss and soul loss can be stolen deliberately, requiring a trickster-type retrieval on the practitioner's part. I have some wild stories about doing those, but I cannot divulge them here. Retrievals of any kind require a high degree of skill and the ability to shapeshift, fly, and think fast without thinking. Part of the skill is in doing a thorough job, not causing harm, and returning with soul part(s), power, and information intact.

Shamans have worked with restoring wholeness and power from soul loss and power loss, multiculturally, for millennia, as a key part of their service to their community. Core shamanic practices—meaning practices shared by many different cultures—employ the journey for soul retrieval work. When a client comes to me with a concern, they don't necessarily know they have soul loss, nor do I. Shamanic practice is about being the channel through which the helping spirits and guides do the work, so I don't presume to know what someone needs. I journey and ask, and am able to do the work required. Even if there is soul loss, that may not be the work for the journey at that time. Requesting a soul retrieval means, in my practice, that I would journey to ask if there is a soul part or parts that need to be retrieved at this time, and if so, then who will help me, and we go from there. If not ready at that time, other necessary work for the concern would be shown and we'd do that.

When a soul retrieval is part of the journey, often a specific power animal comes to me, and I know we are going for a soul part, or more than one. This happened in today's personal journey, and I followed the animal down a steep ravine into the dreamtime. This animal had actually been gazing at me while I was dreaming, yesterday morning, through my bedroom window in ordinary reality, so that gave me a head's up that a personal journey was in order. Each journey is unique and unpredictable; I ask and follow the helpers that come to my aid.

In this soul retrieval journey, I was led first to an office where I had stayed stuck after an experience that affected me deeply. It had fragmented my sense of self and purpose, and I had left the encounter quite shaken, feeling dispirited, disoriented, and missing, without knowing why it was affecting me so strongly. In the journey, I was both helper and client, and was two people in the room. The stuck me was dressed exactly as I had been, briefcase in hand, shocked into incredulous paralysis and unable to respond in my power. Journeying me, and my power animal, entered the frozen scene, touched her on the shoulders, helped her to stand, and explained that the other person did not understand her life path or gifts, and had no idea she was affecting her so strongly, but was pinging something very old in the client (me), like a tuning fork hitting a resonance that makes a glass vase fall off a shelf and smash on the floor.

In this instance there was power loss more than soul loss, but the soul part had to be retrieved along with the power to restore wholeness. I gathered all up and returned the energy to myself, journeying on the floor to the drumbeat, through the crystal I had on my heart chakra.

My body felt waves of energy, as my emotional body felt it all deeply and tears moistened my eye covering. My mental body relaxed, as information it had needed to process and regroup became available, and my spiritual body expanded to surround all of us in Oneness and feel supported and verified in our soul path. I let all the swirling energy and palpable feelings move as my heart rate, breathing, blood flow altered, and my brain waves, cellular memory, and even DNA-held memory transformed. After a few minutes the movement on all levels settled and I felt more whole, with more power and energy, and definitely a resolution to a memory that had perplexed me into a feeling of powerlessness for 7 years.

One soul retrieval is plenty for one journey, and when working with clients, the helpers are very sure to only do the work necessary at that time. Too much and you'd feel you were hit by a truck. In this case, however, there was another soul loss that was ready for retrieval, and linked to the first, and so the scene changed and there I was, back four years previous to the last scene. This scene was traumatic in another way, and a lot of emotional energy was released as it was accessed, and power and soul loss gathered up for retrieval. I allowed my emotional body to fully feel it all as I, as helper, made sure I gathered up all the energy to bring back. It was in puddles around where I'd been sitting looking down my old driveway. It was leaking down the driveway. This took a while, and was part of the work, to let the energy come through and release simultaneously, as needed. It is often surprising how much emotional energy is held in our bodies, unable to be felt, processed, and released until the right time and way is made available.

Today was the day for these two incidents of soul loss and power loss to be transformed and resolved. The energy of each of them linked to a longer story, enabling me as practitioner to access information about my soul path through lifetimes that empowered it anew, while shedding much needed light on the impact these experiences had had on me, and how they fit into the bigger picture.

After returning that energy to my body, again through the crystal, I continued to journey while my bodies integrated it all. The power animal gently led me away from that scene and we had an interim soothing time passing through the realms, timeless and primordial, both known and unknown to me. I was given audio information about my soul path and power, blocks to power and willingly giving away my power as soul experiences of growth and learning. The information and guidance I received was itself empowering as well as clarifying, and supported the return of my lost power intelligently and lovingly.

I finished the journey feeling totally different than when I began, although I felt fine then. You don't know what wholeness feels like until you've got it, or get more of it, and then you recognize how fragmented you were. Restoring wholeness is a prime objective of shamanic work, and soul retrieval is one of the prime ways that occurs.

I've had many soul retrievals since I began to do shamanic work. Most of them were done by my teacher, Amanda Foulger. Doing soul retrievals, particularly on yourself, is advanced practitioner work only. I was not given permission to do this work until I'd successfully completed my seven year apprenticeship with Amanda, including all the knowledge taught through the Foundation for Shamanic Studies programs, up to and including the advanced three year work.

After the journey, I worked a little more with two of the crystal helpers that had lain on my heart and throat. And as I gazed at them, a little Azurite nodule beamed out to be included. As I held it in my hand and on my third eye, I saw why. It instantly expedited the integration of energies! As if bringing all of the past energetic components forward into NOW in a flash with calm, benevolent skill. No dizziness or fogginess, just now now now, power restored. At peace and energized.

That's the little nodule in the photo, with the Dogtooth Calcite and Labradorite. They all, as physical stone helpers, did me a great service, along with the power animal and invisible speaking helpers. Without deep relationships with helpers, developed and maintained through practice and dreaming, a shaman is nothing and can do nothing. I am grateful to them all, for my well-being, my work, and my life.

Now, on this hottest day of summer so far, out to water plants and play in the sprinkler! Weeeeee!

Hello hello! You may not know that August 8 — 8/8 that is — is called the Lion's Gate. It's a cool opportunity I didn't actually know about either, until recently, but I sure have been feeling something going on. The Leo New Moon was on the 2nd, during the ancient, multiculturally observed fire festival of Lammas (or Lughnasadh, or many other names) on the 1st. Opportunity for what, you may inquire? For opening to, developing, and connecting with your multi-dimensional self, of course! And we on the Earth plane get massive uploads of light-filled, encoded assistance, if we want it and we're ready. Want it? Ready? Don't know WTF I'm talking about? Let me explain. Before I do, see the Green Tourmaline 'Lion' in the photo, ready to take a bite of the Green Kyanite wand? Roar! These two just helped me in this morning's journey work, as did the Labradorite behind them. All bring Light in and drive fear out.

Have you felt a little buzzy this week? Majorly cranked up? Maybe careening a bit from fear and dread, doom and gloom, pissed off and fed up-ness, to spiraling out with big feelings, hope and equality, glimpses of real knowing, big ass joy, and off the chart dreams? Maybe the upsetting uncertainty of what's real or what's going to become real, or the vacillating incongruities of what folks perceive as real is feeling a bit overwhelming — or maybe  a lot. Well, there's a lot going on.

The daily news feed is full to bursting with fearful, hateful, divisive emotion, and all that goes with. It's triggering, and it's intended to be. Fear and power and the use of fear by power is the age old distractor, controller, time-tested for crowd control and for keeping humans from realizing their own light-filled powers and abilities for good. Especially during power times of upliftment like the Lion's Gate. If you are in fear more than usual these days, or pinging in and out of fear, you are under the influence. It's hard not to be. But it will keep you from being ready for Lion's Gate. Not to mention make you feel like crap, maybe make you become testy with comments, and keep you from putting out the kind of vibe you really want in your life, your home, your community, and your planet.

Not that there aren't real issues and actions to pay attention to and be informed about. It's just that RIGHT NOW, actually July 26th-August 12th, the Earth has a Galactic birthday, a New Year cycle, a new increase in light energies access. This is a time of great good positive light-filled news, for us to receive and beam back out as the power of good. And as good galactic beings on the Earth plane, we have major energy wrangling to do, We get a birthday party with so much candle power it can blow our doors of perception open wide, if we're ready. Ready? Ready to be fearless in love & light?

I've been talking about multidimensional awareness and development for a while now, and the Lion's Gate star energies portal is all about that. It may sound way out there to some of you, but you know, it is way out there — in the galaxy and beyond. We're part of a big neighborhood. I'm talking major party thrower, Sirius, and the Sirian multi-dimensional stuff. I'm talking Seventh Dimension opening. That's Mastery, and we can be ready for it if we practice and intend and open. You may want to read this. Navigating Lion's Gate multi-dimensional energies of this period will help you deal. Period.

To release old fear, transform current fears, and align to my multi-dimensional self, I use shamanic journeying along with a lot of study, contemplation, and nature time. My personal medicine gifts include clairaudience with stones and crystals, and they are major helpers in this. Click on the Instagram icon to check out my page and follow. I play with crystals daily and work in nature, and take snaps.

So, I've been doing personal journeys through this period, to open up, to connect with Upper World teachers, to align and expand my field, and to release all old programs of fear, servitude, and all that lower frequency junk that gets so triggered during contentious battles with bloviators. If we are coming from a frequency of fear, we won't be open to the influx of encoded goodies that are streaming in. Our DNA will be pinging instead with the old fear-based junk, and that's not good for us or the larger picture.

So, let's do some work together. As the hashtag says #shamanicworkisfuntoo. And powerful, soothing, connecting, and enlightening. Let's do it. Today, tomorrow, on 8/8 and beyond, right through the 12th. And then keep going. Light up your life and the world with your multi-dimensional badass self, beaming along with others, here and beyond, in love and peace.