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. 

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