You might know what these are. They are native artifacts, more specifically, pestles. These were chosen for their shape and used in stone mortars to grind things. Each one is from a different property I lived on while walking this practitioning path. One is from Encinal Canyon in the wild north of Malibu (home now to Daryl Hannah), one is from the North Bank of the Wild and Scenic Chetco River in Brookings, on the beautiful Southern Oregon Coast, and the littlest one is from an elk field near the wilder part of the Sandy River, between Portland and Mt. Hood. But how they came into my hands (and hence this photo) is the real story here.

So, I was apprenticing with my shamanic teacher during the Malibu years, knowing little to nothing when I arrived during the wildfires of November, 1993, and rocked by the Northridge earthquake starting off 1994 with an awakening jolt. I was starting over at 40, and during the next 8 years I would grow into my new hoop, new life, and new vocation. I don't remember the exact year the Malibu pestle came to me; probably c. 1999, as I was completing the apprenticeship, in deep relationship with the spirits of the land and the little stone cabin I called home.

Only one room, the cabin had big windows looking out at the live oaks, the creek, the tiger lillies, and the coyotes who would parade down the dirt driveway at night as a family pack. Cougars, bobcats, deer, owls, redtails and hummingbirds were regular colleagues, in ordinary and non-ordinary reality. Sitting on the wraparound stone porch at night after journeywork, a large ceanothus moth came and sat on my hand, furry as a winged deer. Rattlesnakes and scorpions had their own wisdom, but that's another story.

I was journeying one day, on the floor by the window looking east. I don't remember the details. When I finished, I stood and looked out the window. There was the first pestle, lying on the ground. It was a bare gravel/dirt area, cleared and part of the parking area by the cabin. The pestle had clearly not been there before, and could not have dropped from above, nor unearthed itself from below. I received it as a gift with honor, gratitude, and wonder. 

Things appearing out of nowhere were becoming more of a thing during the Malibu years, which led me to buy the Brookings farm in 2001. The farmhouse had a workroom with a separate entry, perfect for the full-fledged practice I intended to begin there. Each day as I settled in, I'd go into the workroom and journey to ask, What am I doing here? What do I do today to further the work and why I am here? I received very specific instructions to find places I'd never seen, up river, on the coast, in the redwoods, and would follow up. Clients began to appear, retreat ideas would materialize with help from contemplating Mount Emily across the river from the property, and one thing led to another. That it would lead me to Oxford was unknown then, but that's another story.

That property had a spring that was part of the hillside spring system that provided water shared by several homes around. The little spring in the forest near my pump house was clearly sacred, and I would often go to pay respects and honor it. Springs, you know, are kind of a big deal multiculturally as places of reverence and spirit dwellers. I loved that tiny secluded watery magical spot, one of many wonderful spots on that property, all of which imbued the work with extra potency. The lingering spirits of the native people played a major role in my years there, I would come to find out. Their energy was palpable, and much respected.

So one day, I go to the spring to say hello. There, lying pristinely, on the wet muddy back part of the little spring, was the second pestle. Clean as a whistle. Dry as a bone. Placed on oozy saturated mud; everything around it wet and muddy. No prints or marks anywhere around it. Its similarity to the Malibu pestle was remarkable. I don't quite remember which is which.

The smallest pestle turned up when I returned to doing the work fully in Sandy, after nearly 7 years of academic focus with lessened shamanic practice. Reconnecting fully with the work, the crystals and stones, and the energy of remote and in-person transformative assisting felt revivifying, powerful. While there elk, bear, deer, owl, redtails and geese were frequent cohabitants. I visited the native museum in the Columbia Gorge and felt the presence of spirits in the woods and waterfall areas where they'd been so heinously ousted. I gave them sage offerings, said prayers, wrote poems, and studied the anthropological and geological details of the area.

Rattling and drumming and smudging and using feathers is not about pretending to be Native American, or a ritual that must be enacted to make stuff happen. Core shamanic practice draws from many cultures, respecting all. But as an empath, I feel what's around me, and who's around, and what they feel. The energy in much of Oregon notes the sorry way things went, and it wasn't long ago, less than 200 years. 

Anyway, again, one day I finished my work in the workroom and went out to rake Sir's area near the barn. He had a big pasture to graze in and share with the wild herds when they roamed through, and then a dirt area by his water and shelter which I kept cleaned daily. There are no trees there, just bare earth that sprouts camomile and buttercups in summer and gets muddy in winter. There, lying on the bare earth, was the third pestle.

What prompted this post today was this morning's journey work, which led me to open a basket to see what was in it, which was another found stone, another native artifact, used for scraping hides as seen here. Chosen for its initial shape and moulded by the fingers gripping it and the hours of scraping, the human presence is still very much intact. I put it on my heart and journeyed about gifts, tools, work, and things appearing out of nowhere. It's the deft combination, under grace, that allows such transmissions, transformations, and materializations. I am grateful. Hoy ya hey!

Woke up from a night of intermittent sleep and howling winds to a clear blue sky and thick ice on Sir's water bucket. But in comparison to the extreme commutes I glimpsed on the morning news feed of friends, from my blanketed comfort zone, my work schedule on this blustery cold day is a dream. I'm working right now, in fact, as Alice Sara Ott plays Chopin piano waltzes for the delight of Tigs and Tux, destined to stay in until temps climb to today's high of 30. Mid-20's is quite a bit warmer than -11 currently playing in my hometown back in Illinois. Winter work for me today is centered on clearing channels, residing in open space, working with the energy of light, and learning the healing powers of sound. And writing of course, from a variety of positions. Starting here with the first blog post of 2014. Aloha!

The photo shows one of my main work stations: the pillow on the journey rug in the workroom, with the apophylite and amethyst that often hold the high chakra ground while I work, and are known to be effective in such a position for the work. The word work shows up four times in that sentence, and that's indeed the word for it. Doing the work is a real thing, as is the writing or editing work I'll also do today, from another work station in a comfy chair looking out at the blue. Which is a different kind of real work from the laundry, or the soup stock making also on the docket today. No driving required, no money spent, and I can attend to my old horse, Sir's, hydration by carrying out hot water buckets throughout the day. Simple, but effective, allowing perfect movement breaks. The simplicity and balance of today and today's winter work is a joy, and I am grateful for the myriad small and immense wonderments all around me. The light is phenomenal.

Basically, we're all doing the work of transformation on various levels.. Winter work here today includes turning bones to clear liquid; turning ideas into exchanges that in turn transform into checks in the mailbox; turning blue sky and ice into tankas; turning sound into healing. The foundation of all transformation is open space filled with light, and the different ways we real-ize and work with it through our minds and soul's knowing. 

In journeying, I look in and out at the same time, with eye covering blotting out all light. Headphones feed my mind with repetitive drumming by a group of fellow practitioners, keeping the theta waves going in a sound-generated lifeline to this world, the lifeline I literally journey on so I can get back. Doing the work requires being in multiple dimensions at once, going into other worlds or realms at will, interacting with the assistance and guidance of helpers, and bringing back energy to this world. In remote work, that energy gets transported through Middle World to the client wherever he or she may be. 

So, as in dreaming, there's a lot of traveling, which is why it's called journeying; a lot of interactions and transmissions. The mind receives an amazing array of information through many channels, visual, audible, sentient, metaphysical; yet to the ordinary reality eye, nothing happens. There's nothing seen, eyes are closed, there's nothing said, and nothing done. A dance of embodied spirit with disembodied spirit that medicine men and women have danced through the world for hundreds of thousands of years.

In meditative practices, such as with the Warrior Syllables I'm doing at present, another kind of relation to open space is happening. Mind is stilled, channels in the body where the chakras spin clear and open, obstacles are removed, and groundedness in space allows positive qualities to spontaneously manifest. Doing this type of practice before journeying, and others such as discharging energy through placing my hands on the crystal clusters set up for that job, readies me for the work. Doing it for my personal attunement is, I'm discovering, essential. And as a practice for healing, it is most effective. I am just beginning to learn this technique. The ability of masters to affect cellular structure through this practice is astonishing and seems miraculous; it is in truth an adept use of open space. For me it is another area of work in progress. To the ordinary eye, naturally, it appears as if nothing is happening.

Which brings me to the famous line by the poet W. H. Auden that poetry makes nothing happen. Nothingness is the primary field of interest in my poetry and critical work. I can't help it, it enthralls me. Here again is the awareness of open space as the stuff of life, what the universe is made of, what we are made of. Looking out on this clear blue sky day, it appears there's nothing happening. The wind moves through the high treetops, and they respond with their own movement and sound. The wind chimes on the porch play a few notes, in tune with Chopin. In open space what arises arises, what disappears disappears. Without open space nothing would happen. Nothing does happen. I love my work: to let the arisings come through, let the open space fill with light, and energy transmit and transform. When I do my work, I aspire to be a hollow reed the wind blows through, creating sound and resonant vibration that affects matter across time and space. I myself do nothing.

Okay, back to work! May your winter work be warming and transforming. Oh, and speaking of those two things, it may be a perfect day for this alchemical medicine: Jane Grigson's Celery Soup, a genius recipe from Food52. May your journey home be magically assisted by helpers in many forms.

There's magic in the air, or to be more accurate, in the solar system, the galaxy, the universe , and we are part of it! We are needed, loved, and supported in raising our frequency and creating new direction for our lives. Moving into new light, new realization of choice, new self-knowledge and out of fear is fully supported by the heavens today, tomorrow, New Year's Day, and into the year ahead. The key is to know and to choose and to practice, so the outer appearances of the exact opposite lose their authority. A little info can really help us do that with gusto.

Remember The Wizard of Oz? All that way and all those trials and tribulations (all those scary flying monkeys!) to get to see the Wizard, and what happens? At first it appears he's the great and powerful authority, as he intimidates them and tells them to get lost. But that's not really true, is it? Same deal here, if we pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. And the Source of All is with us on this. It is us on this one.

Said another way, we are aligned with the Source of All That Is if we know we are. Aligning conscious choice and subconscious mind takes, well, alignment. It's key to disempowering the old conditioning, and it takes doing, but it's doable. And the alignment of the planets and the energies available to us now makes alignment the thing to do. This week we are getting a super boost with the Super Moon and other alignments. Here then are some ways of furthering that, for maximum uplift and forward motion in this turning of the year.

If you want to know more about the planetary alignments, one source is astrologer Pam Younghans, who writes her NorthPoint Astrology Journal weekly reports. This week is a corker! And might well put you in the mood to feel supported in removing the chains of fear and servitude from your personal belief system and taking your rightful place as authority in your own life. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain who is working overtime to keep you in the old paradigm. And boy is it getting old. Unsubscribe for the New Year!

Another boon to this important work, for your personal life, the care of the planet and all creatures, and the uplift of the human race, has just been published. It is the third channeled text from Paul Selig, The Book of Knowing and Worth. All of his work is of great benefit in this personal transformation call to rise.

And from my services, I suggest that now is a powerful time for divination work. Here we stand a moment in stillness, poised between past and future. When you think about it, we are every millisecond of every day, and that's a lively perspective to keep in your pocket. But on these last days, we are inundated with looking back at the year in review. And if we choose to go there, I suggest we focus on the positives; the negatives are hurled at us and obsessed over in our own minds quite enough. We have been conditioned to focus on what we don't have, what we don't look like, can't do, can't afford, haven't done, aren't allowed to do. To feel powerless and unworthy, not as good as those we imagine have everything they wish. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, and shift focus. You'll discover you did a lot of good stuff and have made progress. With what you learned, experienced, accomplished, or even failed at, you know more now what means the most to you, what you want for your self and your life now, what feels right and good and lovely, even if it seems a major leap from where you are. Even discovering your areas of deepest fear is work well done, because it's much more ready to be transformed. Now now now.

Now we look ahead and create what we are dreaming of. We choose to lose what keeps us in fear and servitude. Because we can, and we have a lot more to give that way. Journeys and divinations are excellent for this at this time. During this powerful Super New Moon, they are especially potent. What is your question? Ask the oracle. (To clarify: it isn't me, I am just the receiver.) A full strength divination can be done as a journey, or with divination tools, as an in-person or Skype reading. 

Another idea is a new service, just hatching. As of, um, this morning. It will soon have its true design and form on the website, but I don't want to wait for its official launch, because the time is so gonzo, and it could come in really handy for you or those you wish to gift. So here is a special offer, in this blog, for whomever stumbles on it. The oracle. A flash divination. Boom.

For this stupendous week, here's what to do. Email me or use the Contact Form on the Scheduling & Payment page to let me know you want a flash Oracle, when, for whom, and what about. Give me the email to whom it should be sent and your email as well if you are not the recipient. Pre-pay for the oracle by choosing the $40 Phone Conference service for each oracle ordered. That's it! I will do the rest, with my bevy of divinatory tools. No journeying in the flash oracle. Here's how the flash oracle goes.

I will pose the question, intuit the divination method, draw one answer or divine a single oracle. In a flash, the oracle is given. Photos are taken of the process, and the email with them is sent. Done! It's a flash path to guidance, done in a sacred state in sacred space.

Yesterday's inaugural oracle received this feedback from the recipient: WOW! This blew me away. Thank you so much for this thoughtful, useful, wise, wonderful, brilliant gift. Magical!

I offer this oracle service as a special offering for this powerful time, and am available for a flash flood of flash divinations through this Super Moon week.

However you interact with the universe this week, may it be magical, powerful, harmonious, and full of love and light.

On days like this when the sun comes out after days of cloudy rain, the river calls and I walk on down the road. I just took this snap of the Sandy River coursing down from Mount Hood fresh with rainwater and snow. Yesterday's big rain had it churning brown when I drove over the high bridge where I stood today to take this shot, now transformed into its frothy jade green look. Two ravens circled high above, giving an oracle that I heard interpreted as keep going, and variations including  perseverance furthers, and go with the flow. 

The Incredible String Band's Water Song came to mind and I sang the line wizard of changes, teach me the lesson of flowing back to the river, as I often am impulsed to do around flowing water. Being in flow as part of All instead of sitting on the bank with your worries feeling out of flow is an image I've received from others who work with invisibles, with assisting self and others in raising frequency, transforming fear to love, trusting and participating in flow. The way we assist each other, encouraging, inspiring, and sometimes directly transmitting information or energy through and to each other is reflected by the mirror all around us. Just then, the message from the ravens, the sound of the river swollen with yesterday's rain, the resonance of what I was watching with the metaphor from the written material on flow, and the welcome rays of the sun did their stuff and I received the benefit in mind, body and spirit, helping me sync with flow.

In doing shamanic work – and in many other modalities of healing, lightworking, wayshowing, channeling, dreaming up – part of the assist comes from the practitioner's connect, gifts, and medicine, certainly. But a lot of what is going on is in the connect in us all: the connection of the people working, but also the connect that happens within the person receiving the work. What information, inspiration, guidance, helpers, wisdom, energy, power you personally connect with that was needed, to return to flow and raise your hum. 

Sometimes I describe shamanic work as energetic jumper cables from one human battery to another. Sometimes each of us needs a jump to start up again and get back on the road, so we can go with the flow. Sometimes we need encouragement, support, information, affirmation, or a key energetic component we don't feel, can't see or locate. News we can use. The receiving of that is deeply connective and reflective, awakening parts of our soul that were fragmented, lost or sleeping, freeing shadow parts from the dark shameful closet we've locked them in. Helping each other through our helpers, our shared fragility, our innate insight and gifts, our connection happens in each moment, all around us in nature and beyond, throughout the universe. 

When we're in flow, the universe flows to us and through us. Our brains light up and we feel that sense of group belonging psychological experts tag as essential to a person's well-being. We can each connect with flow and allow it to flow through us as we travel through our day, in traffic, at the store, at work, with our peeps, or in nature, seemingly solitary as I often am, but never alone. When you're in flow you can feel you are one with Source, and things are easier, simpler. What you're looking for turns up, whether it's a parking space, that thing in the junk drawer you need, the name of the guy you were supposed to contact, or the next step in your career, home, or relationship situation. The phone rings, the email pings, the eagle flies by overhead. Ideas come to your writing or project and revisions are obvious, delightful.

Living so close to a river is an excellent mirror, or flow chart if you will, and I've been fortunate to find myself living near several through the years. Each day the river is different and fluctuates wildly. Each drop of water is unique and different than any before or after it. Yet it's all river, and all rivers flow to Source. And from the source, come to think of it. Conditions affect flow but flow continues, sometimes more than we think we can handle, sometimes less than we think we need. Learning the lesson of flowing is the work of many lifetimes, but in essence, simplicity itself. 

If you are feeling out of flow, what will help you return? It might come through stillness, movement, silence, or sound; words or dreaming or nature or love. It might be all of the above. How do you restore your connect? If you need a jump you feel I can assist with, let me know. Our work might be in the Lower World, in water flowing underground [yes, cue the Talking Heads], or emanating in Middle World from an ancient water bubble in a crystal, from a waterfall in a past life, or from a few drops of a flower essence, or from a celestial Upper World wash of light that jumpstarts your cells into resonance and healing. We might actually be working at river's edge in an intensive nature training session. Or you might be on the other side of the world. Maybe a part of you returns, carrying the heart medicine you lost in an estranging event, re-lighting the fire in your head after a bewildering situation, renewing your thirst for life.

Wherever we are, may we be going with the flow, awash in the ever-present universal glow. 

I'm not sure I just saw an albino dragonfly float directly past me, but I did. I just don't remember ever seeing one before, and I've seen many dragonflies of various colors, shapes, sizes, and wing patterns. Dragonflies are big with me. They've embossed letterhead and business cards for my practice. My house is full of them, in cloth, metal, china, stained glass, beadwork, you name it. People see I have dragonflies and give me more dragonflies. 

Clients and friends call me up and say I visited them as a dragonfly, riding around crowded fairs on their baseball caps, or appearing in the desert where there aren't dragonflies because there's no water. As a shapeshifter, it's one of the things I guess I do.

So when dragonfly appears, such as on this beautiful fall afternoon after days of cold hard rain, I take it as a sign. When this white dragonfly appeared and disappeared just now... well, that's some big medicine. Dragonfly medicine. White Dragonfly Medicine. Whew. Let me explain.

Dragonflies are being studied scientifically because of their brains, their eyes, their wings, their having been on the earth for so long. They have powers that astound, and endurance that prevails. And yet they live most of their life under water, without wings, as larvae. Imagine being able to see all around you at the same time, and to instantaneously fly in any direction. They seem to dart in and out of visible reality because they don't have to travel in one direction or turn around. They don't think, 'Oh, wait, what was that over there? Am I going the wrong way?' They simply go, as their inner guidance system directs. I don't imagine they do much second guessing. I bet they don't keep mental lists of what they didn't do, where they didn't go, mistakes, and the like. 

As a totem, they remind us that we create our own reality. Repeat after me, 'I create my own reality.' And we might as well get really good at it, and create lives that are fabulously us. This requires some alterations to the stuff that created our neural pathways and early adaptive strategies before we knew that much about what was going down. It's a people thing. Largely subconscious, pretty unavoidable, fairly resistant to change. But, with attention, intention, and practice, possible.

And boy howdy, that's exactly what I'm doing. And, if you're like me (and I know I am), sometimes during the process of creating a new chapter from scratch there are moments of such uncertainty it can seem impossible. And then dragonfly pops up, nonchalant, easygoing, just cruisin' on by, saying hey. You got this. I'm impossible, friend, but here I am.

Dragonfly has been a special power animal teacher since an orange and blue one came up to me by a wild river and gave me one of my early songs, when I was seventeen. But I've never seen an all white one until just now. In this present moment, I am doing some personal work akin to surgery, removing old blocks, burdens, and bindings that are acting like sea anchors. It's time to rise out of the water, grow wings and fly in any direction, and act natural. Okay! Let's do this. 

Are you in transformation mode? Are you re-inventing yourself, changing old mental patterns, releasing entanglements, searching for what's next, your purpose, your lost energy, your creative zazzle? In journeys we fly through time and space without the encumbrance of time or space, effortlessly shifting direction with the energy. Sometimes this happens in dreams. And sometimes, with dragonfly's help, in ordinary reality.

Right now, at midday on this placid Labor Day weekend Sunday, I am looking out from the back deck onto this. Sir Galahad, my 33 year-old horse, has finished his mid-morning nap and is back out, grazing in his field. And all around us, visible and chatty to us but unseen in the photograph, are flights of swallows. They are today's teachers, advisors, entertainers.

A flight of swallows is the collective noun, as is a murder of crows or a gaggle of geese. All around me for the past few days are flights of violet-green swallows, barn swallows, tree swallows. The barn swallows that come each year to build their nests and raise their babies on top of the fluorescent lights in the barn have been joined by other barn swallows. Each year the swallows gather in flights, dive-bombing the cats and chasing each other about in the air, eating bugs in preparation for their migration. They become my teachers for this period.

But I'm not going to relay facts about swallows, or even copy any of the many poems I wrote about them in the past two years of writing Into the All Empty. Suffice it to say they feature prominently among a host of other feathered friends. At this moment there are hundreds of them flying and chattering, as a red and blue light plane flies overhead, one of several small aircraft that populate the skies over me on the weekends in fair weather.

The swallows teach me that uncertainty, movement, change, and the urge for going can be beautiful, graceful, natural, effortless, and fun. They show me that you don't have to take anything with you except your joy in being alive, your energy, and your natural instincts. They demonstrate that community is important, and that community shows up when it's time. Playfulness is an obvious part of their preparation for a journey of thousands of miles, along with gathering, self-expression, and eating whatever food they encounter in the sky. The are flying madly about partly because it feels lovely, partly to feed up for the journey, partly to gather together, partly to pair up, and partly to get in top shape for the long flight ahead.

What are they saying to each other? I always wonder what birds say to each other. What do you think?

In a half hour I'll be preparing to fly myself, in a remote shamanic journey for a client. I never know who my helpers might be for the work. Perhaps a swallow, or a flight of swallows, will show up to guide me to a lost soul part, or take away a thread of energy that does not belong to my client, or bring some energetic gift that is needed. Whomever I work with today, the swallows have helped me find that place of detachment, of lightness, and openness to simply be, that is required for the work. The wind chimes softly play a note here and there on the breeze. A few cottonwood seeds drift over the house from the woods. In each moment we can connect with the field of all possibilities, the invisible that creates the visible, whatever we need. This is where the work happens, where we know, and receive. This magical anything can happen feeling is pervasive this weekend. I hope it's surrounding you wherever you may be.

Last night's Blue Moon – the rare second full moon in a solar month – lulled me early into dreaming, and woke me in the wee hours with its light and power. I don't think I was alone in responding to the 'whispers tucked into the turning of Earth's curve' as she flew across the sky. The title line of this blog post is from a recent poem I wrote, and felt apropos for this time, this moon, this subtle seasonal shift.

Morning flights of geese, calling to each other; a certain crispness to the air, changes of light at sunset, and the first few yellow leaves signal that the planet is at that place in her cycle where our hemisphere is tilting away from the Sun. My favorite season approaches, and with it the strong magical pull through space and time I always feel. It's as if time kaleidoscopes and the matrix of past, present, and future aligns and opens. I'm aware of all three at once, and of threads coming through the opening. The veil between the worlds thins.

One of the medicine tools I use to work with time is this Selenite Wand. Selenite is very good for journeying into the past and future, and seeing the threads that connect who we are, were, will be. This information can be very helpful for a number of reasons and in a plethora of circumstances. Dreams, body symptoms, subconscious emotions, premonitions are, like the whispers, telling us something we need to know, relocate, release, re-member.

This wand has a story. I had the selenite, and it told me it wanted to become a proper wand. So I asked one of my dearest friends, a master artisan of wood, stone, ash splint basketry, and darn near anything, if he would make the handle. He asked what I wanted on it, and I think I said a dragon or something. He took the stone away, and when he returned with the finished wand, he'd carved the triskele instead. 

A triskele is an ancient Celtic symbol, sometimes seen in this pattern, sometimes in other whirling patterns of three. It symbolizes the unending interconnectedness of past, present, and future, through life, death, and rebirth. In the triskele, the three are also one, with no beginning and no end.

My friend said, "It just seemed to be the right thing." I don't think he knew the stone's properties and main purpose, but on another level he realized it perfectly. Selenite sees the past, present, and future, and can illuminate information on the soul's path and progress, aiding understanding in the present, and showing connections that assist the onward journey. Bingo!

The carving is not an overlay. Yew wood has an outer wood layer that is lighter. Mark Kelz, the carver extraordinaire, created the triskele by carving away the wood around it. The entire handle, from its delicate petal-like top to its perfectly turned round end, he carved by hand, and gave me as a gift. The Selenite Wand resides in its own basket with preserved Flicker wings as its attending spirit. It seldom calls out to be used for the work, but when it does, I know we're going to be flying through time.

Yesterday was one of those days. The work fit the whispers, the V's of geese, the magnetic pull to the stones and green valleys of my once and future lives. I think I've been doing this a long time.

Today is a pretty amazing day in the solar system, galaxy and universe, I hear from the astrologers. It's a Grand Sextile, a lineup of six planets and nodes,  forming a two triangle star configuration, each sixty degrees apart. It's a rare event, which is said to be very good for launching new plans, dreams, projects.

This new blog is an offshoot of working with that energy. I like to work at 11:11 and 1:11 for client sessions. Today I did a personal journey to connect with my Upper World teachers. The Upper World is where one visits teachers that are somewhat like angels, not in full physical form, humanesque presences that, in my work, I often feel and hear more than see. They change form. 

They administered to my energy body (the Sextile is a major Light Body energizer, so I've read.) As in past journeys for over a decade, they sometimes also perform a sort of surgery: they put in crystals, take out flotsam and jetsam, old junk, tangled up thoughts and jumbled energy. They are very direct and waste no energy whatsoever. In my body, lying in my workroom, the crystals I'm holding change position, fill with energy, transmit jolts, calm and ground, release negativity, rebalance, get warm, cool down, shoot energy through my hands. In short, they do their work as I do mine and the teachers do theirs. I'm both here and there, it's not difficult or painful or scary. I am trained to visit other worlds and come back. They told me what I needed to know and pointed out some old thought patterning and frequency downers that are beneficial for me to jettison at this time, in order to better rock my world. Duly noted! Thanks guys!

I worked with two crystals: an old, hoary Smoky Quartz etched crystal that is for my personal work alone and shoots through time in a flash, and a rainbow Chlorite included Phantom Quartz crystal I call the Shaman crystal because the rainbow is in the shape of a shaman in a cloak pointing with a staff. Crystal energy is part of my medicine, and the medicine tools pick themselves for each journey. I ask who is working and they simply tell me. Do stones speak? Well, in a way. The same way that seeing is done with eyes closed under eye covering blocking out all light. I speak of hearing and seeing because I do, but it's a little different.

The Crystal Bible is an excellent reference among many that I use, and I see her website has newer editions and other works which might be of interest to you, gentle reader. if you are not familiar with crystal and stone terminology, words like phantom and rainbow and etched describe types of crystals besides the type of mineral they are composed of, i.e. quartz. All of these properties and formations affect their properties, how they interact and what they do. Let me just put it this way for now: they are very smart. And in my remote work, they do a lot of heavy lifting, or maybe flying would be a better word. Space and time behave differently in journeys, and they know all about that.

I journey (as do others) to the sound of repetitive drumbeats and other sounds. Today I journeyed clear through the drumming track playing in my headphones, over a half hour. It felt like a few minutes. Often the reverse is true. I 'came back' with the callback: a halting in the repetitive drumming, then a series of four seven beat intervals, followed by rapid drumming for about 30 seconds. One rule of journeying is you must come back with the callback, if you haven't already. Floating around out there by Upper World (or anywhere else) is inadvisable. Period.

What did I get out of my journeywork today? Direction, clarification, focus, information, the removal of energy that does not belong to me, the gift of beneficial centering crystalline energy within me, guidance, ideas, inspiration and support. Just what I needed to assist in launching an integrated series of moves and work projects, release obstacles and open to receive the abundant flows of the universe, ramped up to 11 on this Grand Sextile day of wonders. Light bodies up and at 'em! And may the Source be with you.

– Susan