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11/9/2017

Divination, destiny, & the field of possibilities

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I do divinations, which, technically, is any form of divining. I mostly use runes, various decks of cards, and ogham sticks, and intuitively do bird, cloud, and water auguries for what's what.

I still have my yarrow stalks and I Ching from 1970, with stains of cred on its hand-stitched cloth covering. I was just a girl in the woods then, and I don't do the long process of the yarrow stalks for hexagrams these days. 

It's an ancient gig, being an oracle, augurer, or reader of signs. It goes with the territory of being a seer. Traditionally, it's been summoned for foretelling the future. Myths of old are full of it. Usually, the oracle is obscure AF and the king or whoever misinterprets it, and goes to great lengths to keep it from coming true; all of whose efforts, in fact, bring it about. I love that irony.

As a shamanic practitioner, I often get asked
what will happen? or what should I do? types of queries, and that's what this blog post circles: I'm not a fortune teller. And you don't want to think about your destiny or your future in those terms anyway. It doesn't really work that way.

Outcome—any outcome—depends on a lot of interconnected actions in a lot of interconnected worlds in a lot of interconnected dimensions in a lot of interconnected multiverses. Quantum physicists will back me up on this. The field of possibilities is endless, and the person who asks for guidance receives, from a divination done truly, information that can be helpful in navigating the energies of the time. As we move in the direction of our chosen wish, goal, or outcome, many things come into play, and our decisions and actions ping off them, creating more possible outcomes. 

Often, what we thought was our desired outcome turns out to have been something to steer towards, attracting our energy, that instead brought us into play with other factors and forces that move us forward in what we might call destiny. Being aware of the energies present and available to us at any given time is really the salient feature of divination, from my energy wrangler job description.

I did a divination this week for my birthday: I like to check in and see what energy patterns are affecting my life, and birthday energy zings up the silica in us and activates more DNA stuff. These days, my go-to long divination method is the 15 card Thoth deck spread. It's comprehensive, to say the least. The cards are beautiful and highly symbolic, packed with meaning.

What I really like about the spread are the patterns of energy that can be seen in the quincunx. A quincunx—one of my favorite words—is a pattern or alignment of four points of a square with a point in the center of the square, making five points. Three-card groups are drawn in a quincunx pattern. I won't go into each card's significance here. The energy patterns of each card, and the patterns in relation to the cards in its triad, and its positioning in the quincunx, are powerful, palpable, and memorable.

The art of divination is exactly that—an art. While you can get a deck and a book and use them, reading the complex patterns of energy that interconnect, and being able to synthesize that energy into an oracle that will be useful to the client, relating to their query, or concern, takes a bit of mastery, and the intuitive powers of the practitioner.

In my case, the patterns start lighting up and moving and singing and showing me in many different channels what is available, what is transforming or can transform, what can come and what can go; what is being asked of you—the client, and what you might not be aware of. Interpreting and articulating that to you well is part of the art.

It's all energy, as noted on my welcome page. What you do with the energy and the information and your capabilities and desires at any given moment is up to you and free will and intent, belief and courage. What outcomes are possible are myriad. What is possible is, well, open. Knowing you have energies and forces of the Universe within you and without you supporting your quest is empowering. Being aware of energies that you're susceptible to, and fears/beliefs you hold that block or entice your actions, is empowering. Knowledge is power! 

Scientia potentia est

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10/26/2017

Samhain & other holy days

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It's that spooky time of year again. Here on Vashon Island, the leaves are blazing, as the rain, wind and water shift colors and moods. Fall is my favorite season, and a major reason I live in this latitude. Watching the light go, and the seasons change is a big part of why I'm here on this planet. Dreaming is off the charts. 

My birthday is around this time, as is my niece's; I tell her we have the fairy blood in the family. We have the sight.

She was born on Samhain (SOW-in) precisely. I was born at sunrise on the new moon, making me a triple Scorpio, with one foot in this world and the other in, well, the other. Very good for this work. I'm a liminal girl, circling the edges and bridging thresholds.

This turning of the year is celebrated multiculturally with harvest feasts combined with honoring the dead. We're heading into the dark days—unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere, where it's reversed. We want to survive them, are grateful for the harvest we've brought in to get us through, and pay homage to ancestors and loved ones departed, who've helped us live while they've gone ahead. Plus, we want to allay any spirits who may be out and about, looking for interplay. Sometimes disguises are a sort of test of our goodwill; shapeshifting seems more normal, as we all think of who or what we want to be for Halloween. Maybe this year I'll be a poem. Or a heron. Or a  Pictish warrior queen.

The Celtic day begins at sunset, so Samhain begins at sunset on October 31st and goes through November 1st to sunset. If you're interested, here's the info on Samhain from the source: Newgrange, the ancient site in Ireland, where it all happened. 

The veil between the worlds really is thin at this time of year, take it from someone who feels and sees such things strongly. This means you might be aware of the other side more than usual.

I do my own thing, no one ritual or observance, but a mashup of the cultures I've lived around: giving offerings at the local Dia de Los Muertos altar, enjoying squash soup and candy corn, toasting and thanking my ancestors for the life that runs through my veins and DNA—and all they went through to keep the family line going. I reach out to the invisible—which I do daily anyway, in this work—honor my guides and helpers, journey for insight, listen for messages.

It's an amazing time to do divinations, journeys, house clearings, all forms of shamanic work.

Taking time to tune in to the energy of a moment that captures your attention is an excellent way to open to your inner senses and feel the magic. You may have dreams, insights, intuitions, memories or premonitions. You may feel presences of invisible beings, hear or see things that aren't technically there. Stop, tune in, listen, look, feel, and let your soul connect to what it feels. Don't be available for predatory energies; stay grounded and centered and fearless.

There are many dimensions to the universe, and we dwell in many simultaneously. Like walking around with a radio, tho I know it's an old form of transmission. Tuning into different frequencies lets you receive different information, hear that music and connect to different things going on at the same time. We are receivers, and also transmitters. We are seers and dreamers and want to feel the magic, the positive power of this life we're living.

​Let me know if you want to do some work, and we'll do it. 


Samhain blessings and may the force be with you.

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7/16/2017

Summer Sings Itself

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The line, from poet William Carlos Williams is In summer, the song sings itself. But I like it shortened to the title of this blog post. Either way, you get the idea. The soft breezes of summer, the dappled light, the blue blue sky and waters, the winged things cruising and floating and flitting, the stars and sunsets and twilight indigo that thrills me every time. And maybe, tonight, here on Vashon Island, maybe even a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis, courtesy of a major solar event, It's all part of the dreaming we swim in, the song that sings itself.

Dreaming is traditionally undervalued in our work hard, make stuff, buy stuff, be somebody civilization, while simultaneously being honored in art, music and stories everywhere we look. Even there, often it's a thing to struggle to keep alive; as in keep the dream alive, hang on to your dreams, etc. We're taught to push ourselves through our days, weeks, lives, to meet goals. It creates a lot of friction as we push through, and anything we hadn't foreseen appears as an obstacle in our path. Or a failure. Irritating.

I've always been a dreamer. I was born that way, and that's how I roll. Most important life changes have first appeared to me in dreams. As I've given myself over more and more to dreaming as a full time practice, as my real job, the more I'm able to relax into dreaming—awake, asleep, or in journeying—the easier it is to stay in the dreaming field and be present. The more you look the more you see is a bit of guidance I was given recently while dreaming awake. On the audio channel, then, the more you listen the more you hear. Including summer singing itself, and dreaming you up with it.

Things I saw this week include a little Rumi poem that goes

When I run after what I think I want,
My days are a furnace of distress and anxiety;
If I sit in my own place of patience,
What I need flows to me,
And without any pain.
From this I understand that
What I want also wants me,
Is looking for me
And attracting me;
When it cannot attract me
Any more to go to it,
It has to come to me.
There is a great secret
In this for anyone
Who can grasp it.

I stumbled over it—or it dreamed me up—exactly at a perfect time in my dreaming up reality, aka getting shit done without losing heart. I applied it to my hypnopompic state: that liminal zone when you're waking up but not fully awake. It's my favorite state, and I've talked about how I allow myself to stay in the drift and let dreams linger and process. But with this advice from Rumi, I allowed myself to give over fully to my occupation as dreamer, as my modus operandi for real, and found a subtle but remarkable shift occur.

You know, the way you 'shake off' your dreaming to get going; how you shift into waking life with a bit of a push, some adrenaline, like you stayed in dreaming too long and are now behind on what you're supposed to be getting done. I let that go completely. I am allowing dreaming to be real in that way, and to relax about the shift between realities more than ever. It's making a significant difference in my Being, in being able to carry the dreaming consciousness into the day with grace, into feeling soft and plugged in to the field of infinite possibilities Deepak Chopra talks about, from which you dream up whatever you want. Applying Rumi's 'great secret' you let its wanting you as you want it to guide it to you, and welcome its arrival.

In journeying sessions with clients, I observe the energy that begins moving around them as we talk about their concerns and wishes. That guides the intent we create for the journey. The intent then guides where the journey takes me, and the work the helpers show me to do. As an energy wrangler, I am shown what energies need wrangling at this time, and the universe works through me. It's all energy.

As shaman Viejo Itza said to John Perkins, in his book Shapeshifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation: 

"It all boils down to a question of energy. Energy. It is everything. We are energy. The earth, the trees down there, this pyramid. The universe. Energy. That is all there is to it. The shapeshifter believes she can influence her relationship with the physical world. Therefore, she can. It is only a matter of energy. And belief. And one more thing. Intent. If we understand that everything is energy, it is easy to understand the importance of intent. How can you influence energy without first intending to do so?"

This is the multicultural essence, or the core shamanic tenet. In the book Healing with Form, Energy and Light: the Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra and Dzogchen by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, he writes: 

"In the shamanic view, the soul abides in the heart center in the central channel. The soul is not healed until the energy is brought into the subtlest level of experience. The sign of accomplishment in the practice is that the whole being is affected. The more strongly you can generate the experiences in the practice, the more profound the effects will be."

Restoring wholeness is the accomplishment of shamanic work, and practice. It is the overarching aim of energy wrangling with belief and intent in a profound way. In doing this work, this practice, the energy moves through the practitioner. Being in a dreaming state 24/7 allows this to happen fluidly with grace and ease. There is no big shift needed from belief in ordinary reality to opening to non-ordinary reality, which is expanded in dimensions and has different laws of physics, space and time. By allowing myself to give over fully to being a dreamer I am deepening my work and advancing my practice. Instead of there being a contradiction between work and dreaming, it is one and the same.

Arnold Mindell suddenly appeared last night on the news feed in a rare little video his partner Amy shot while they walked through a forest, saying Don't forget, the dreaming comes first!  His showing up, 'live' as it were, right then, to affirm the dreaming comes first, was a synchronicity of the first magnitude. I commented to him on it, and included the Rumi poem and my shift, and he affirmed it again. That energy from him is priceless to me, and he also got an instant affirmation from me as the universe 'getting it' and being grateful for his message. 

​So, kids, as you enjoy your Sunday singing itself, remember: the dreaming comes first. Let yourself dream up what you want, without the ifs ands and buts or the how am I where do I what do I s enter into your process. Dream all you want. Know that what you want wants you. Believe and intend and relax. And dream some more. And let summer sing itself.







​

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6/11/2017

Stillness & Dreaming Up

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Happy June to you! I am finding the butterflies, flowers, birds, blue skies and all very uplifting and hope you are too. In this time of strange realities, I'm also finding it imperative to cultivate stillness and develop my fifth dimensional mind skills.

I've blogged about Being Your Multidimensional Self before (just scroll down a ways you'll find it), and it's more handy than ever these days, as third dimensional heaviness feels heavier than ever with the swirl of negative energies being promoted 24/7.

Luckily, we have helpers—visible and invisible—to assist, encourage, guide, and remind us that we can claim the world, and our lives, for the Love+Light Joy brigade. It's a choice, and we are the choosers, in this free will exercise with energy.

If you're like me (and I know I am :) the daily now what is stressful and overwhelming sometimes. Well, more than sometimes. Empaths and highly sensitive people are feeling the strain. Being aware of when it's altering your energy field is not only good self-care, but it keeps you from tanking or going to the Dark Side in anger or fear. We are getting a master class in impermanence, uncertainty, and the fact that everything changes. There's been helpful teachings on living with uncertainty from many sources (Pema Chodron comes to mind as one.) Change is the only constant, and we can live with that. In fact, since we have no choice, it's wise to choose to live with it with grace and ease. See what I did there? It can be light, magical, and more like flying than a world-weary freaking sort of dread. We can learn to play with reality and dreaming up instead of reacting to headlines and memes.

The Dalai Lama says never give up, no matter what is happening. He reminds us in the West to develop the heart. Develop peace in your heart and in the world. Developing stillness does this, and is an excellent way to disconnect from the madness and connect to the heart of the planet, and the heart of the galaxy, through the hearts we have within. Being still and getting your connect feels so good, informing the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies and restoring wholeness. Our souls get nourished with this connect, and we can hear their voice guiding us on our soul path.

As medium Paul Selig (whom I was fortunate to have as my MFA director before his channeled texts went global) teaches through his guides, the time is right and the guides are here to help us claim the world, our knowing and worth, use our love and creation to attain mastery of truth, and basically, save the world and our own lives by holding the higher frequencies humans can now hold. But we have to do it, to choose it, to claim it, and keep claiming it with our hearts, minds, words, and actions, despite appearances and agenda pushing that tries very forcefully to keep us swirling. 

Mired in samsara is how one client said she's been feeling lately, and that's very apt. It's easy to get stuck, and it's easy to be swamped into not feeling well or dreaming up the life and world you actually want. As if you have no choice. It's amazing, tho, when you do! You can uplift your thoughts, words, and actions to 5th dimensional dreaming up more easily, with practice, than grappling with trying to change old patterns and conditioning by simply remembering to do so, and go! This is the idea of claiming. Claim it! Claim the world you dream, the life you dream.

I claim love and light, grace and ease, health and wealth, truth and beauty, unity and harmony, knowledge and power, rest and relaxation, spirit and soul, heart+mind working together for a one world new earth in which all beings are loved and cared for, including Gaia herself. Including me. The more you claim what you are dreaming up the more your energy moves to it and it to you.

I use my shamanic practices and crystal medicine (the crystalline energy is SO helpful for this at this time, lifesaving in fact), nature time, lucid dreaming, rest and relaxation, breathing and stillness practices, along with claiming in thought and speech and writing, and helpful information from an array of sources. I can feel my vibration rising, my head changing, my symptoms being alleviated, my energy stabilizing, my attitude improving, and my optimism growing exponentially, and that moves energy for dreaming up the world with real power. It's fun and feels good, and I only need to remember to do it. Here I go again. Powering up! Together we hold space and create in this beautiful universe. We are loved and supported more than we know. A swallowtail butterfly told me so.

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3/8/2017

Working with Core Fears Now

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The world has changed since my last blog post. The shift of power from election night shockwaves to the daily machinations of the madmen, ransackers, warmongers, and haters currently in power are creating havoc as part of an agenda that threatens all life. The old playbook and its players are back, in our country this time, gleefully destroying what we hold dear and need to live in balance, peace, safety and freedom, as if channeling Voldemort himself. 

Less than two months in, many of us are feeling the fatigue of being pinged into constant anger and fear at the bombast of lies and foul deeds. This agenda activates our deepest fears, as it is designed to do. The agendas of the last ditch efforts of, let's call it the Dark Side, to keep control over the people and resources of the planet uses the energies of fear, confusion, chaos, destruction, lies, perversion, and just plain bad hombre intent to ransack the globe. You can do your part to foil their nefarious plans, help the earth heal, and feel way better as you do by releasing old fears and fear activators at this time. To encourage this noble enterprise, I offer a Releasing Fear Series package.

Our fields, cells, DNA and subtle bodies hold many types of fear. There's DNA-held fears from previous regimes in history—from previous lifetimes or family cellular memory of WWII on back; personal fears of enslavement, survival, and safety; societal fears of otherness, exclusion, apocalypse, dystopian futures, you name it. They're all surfacing in us with such palpable force many cannot sleep at night and can't disengage from the latest barrage of bad news to center and balance.

Being in anger and fear all the time is not healthy, and exactly what the agenda wants. As any Buddhist or Taoist, Dune or Star Wars fan knows, fear and anger lead to the Dark Side. Basically anger is a highly activated form of fear. The opportunity to transform, ease, and release those core fears is the silver lining in these crazy awful times. It's also a major superpower in the turning of the energy back to love+light. It's your magic wand. It's using the Force. It's la piece de la résistance.

So let's get to it. Being terrified and pissed off is exhausting. So, what works? Shamanic work to the rescue! Of course it is not the only way, but it's what I do.

In our sessions, focusing on your personal concerns, we allow your fears to be articulated, and in the journey I follow threads of energy back to their origin. Not just fears of the world, whatever is coming up for you in your life. There's love and caring in DNA-held ancestor messages, meant to help you have a better life than they did, through their story of struggle. But they present as ominous warnings of disaster with a big fear load and a strong emotional effect. The transformation often comes with an emotional charge that brings tears, like on Finding Your Roots, as you understand your ancestors, and yourself, in a new light. We don't have to repeat those harsh scenarios, but it feels like we do until we unpack the encoded information.

Some fears are there, in you, like a recorded loop, waiting for you to be ready to retrieve your energy and power from your past trauma and experiences, whether in this life or another. Shamans have done this retrieval work for many thousands of years. It's not like therapy or life coaching, it's more energetic and experiential in nature. Clients often find recurring fear-based patterns that play out in relationship, money, or health problems originate in their own past life experiences. They feel sort of doomed to repeat scenarios they know aren't supposed to be happening again. Following those threads back down the line to their origin helps transform that pattern, retrieves the lost power and energy, and brings deep insight into your soul path.

Flower and/or gemstone essences are very helpful in this work. One of my medicine gifts is being told, clairaudiently, which vibrational essences are needed during a journey for a client. It's different than matching symptoms to an indexed reference, and the helpers are quite astonishing in their acumen. I am finding these to be extremely valuable in the releasing fears work, and a perfect bridge between session energetic components and physical medicine. I provide the link to the essences in the journey notes you receive, and you order them yourself. They are inexpensive, harmless used with any other medication, and transformative in a magical, soothing way.

Working on transforming core fears now is key personal life-directing, planet-saving action. To encourage this important work, I offer a Releasing Fear Series package--remote or in-person it matters not. Because doing this work requires more than a single session. Order a series of 4 sessions (2 hours each) and pay just $140/session (instead of $160). We'll schedule them as you need/want throughout 2017, to change fear to fearlessness, retrieve energy and power, and free you from obstacles that block your happiness and soul path. Love+Light!

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12/20/2016

Stopping the World at Winter Solstice

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Tonight (exact time 2:44am Pacific Time Wednesday morning) is the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year following the shortest daylight: the darkest day. And yet the sun is shining brightly outside my door, a rarity in December here on Vashon Island.

The times feel dark indeed, and yet through the darkening the light shines in us, whoever carries light in their hearts and minds. At this time of year, at this time in our personal lives, at this time in our history, it is a powerful thing to tend that inner light, so you can stay strong and calm, loving and kind as you create the world as you dream it. For traditional shamans long have said the world is as you dream it. Dreaming up the world is a full time job.

Another thing shamans do is stop the world. Don Juan (as named in Carlos Castaneda's books) said the most important things warriors (another name for us) must learn to do, and do, are to a) lose self-importance and b) stop the world. These tasks take lifetimes to do well. Zen monks do the same thing, as do others multiculturally. The winter Solstice is energetically a time for silence, stillness, reflection, reverence for all life, courage, and trust in the turning of the world; holding inner light through the darkest hours, awaiting the life-giving return of the sun. The arc of the sun in northern places skims the horizon, barely rising, traveling slowly, and seemingly stands still before setting early for a long winter's night. 

In far northern locations, like Newgrange in Ireland, people enter international lotteries for the chance to wait in the inner chamber for the first Solstice daylight rays to enter the light box and travel the passage of the ancient mound to illuminate the inner chamber. Times were dark, perhaps darker than we can imagine, when this mythic structure was built, and yet, somehow, here we are still, welcoming the return of the light. Feeling small and fragile, wondering what the new year will bring.

Stopping the world links to the energy of winter solstice in the power we have, individually, to hold space, to focus our minds, stop our thoughts, awaken our hearts, become fearless, and still. In stillness, something deeper, stronger and more enduring speaks. As we allow that frequency to enter us and resonate our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies as one, we align with Universal energies, with all of nature, the turning planet, the revolving solar system, the galaxy, the universe. Paradoxically, by attuning to the larger forces, always spinning beyond our comprehension, we are able to stop the world. 

So, that's what I'm doing. And in my stillness intention and practices, I am renewing spirit, aligning soul, synchronizing heart and mind, holding space for the light, raising frequency, and sending out big aloha and gratitude for every person I had the honor to work with this year. 

2016 work included every type of shamanic service I do: from location work with trees on January 1st, deathwalking souls and clearing spaces both locally and by remote, as far away as France, healing remote journeys for people facing grave illness, divinations and Flash Oracles, energy wrangling and disentengling lots of old ties, patterns, perceptions, and emotions, working with sudden physical needs in a shamanic context, lucid dreamwork evidenced by recipients in many localities, journeys for life changes and personal development, half-day island visits, soul retrievals, teaching people to journey here on Vashon, remote location scouting for a client, following many energetic life threads back through time, and forward as well, and on and on.

As of this last weekend, I added a new service: officiating weddings. This one witnessed a magical crow blessing! Last January's Hestia Stillness Retreat was wonderful, and now I'm creating the upcoming January 2017 Sweet Soul Care retreat. There are a few places left, if you'd like to stop the world with a little help, and the company of others, in a really beautiful place.

Today is the stillpoint in the year. From the deepest heart of my heart to your heart, thank you. Blessings, love and light surround you. May you enjoy the power of presence, give and receive the gift of your presence, and beam out the light within you to warm everything and everyone around you, and create the beautiful world you love as you dream it.




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8/25/2016

Learning to Journey

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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.

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8/19/2016

Soul Retrieval

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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!

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8/6/2016

Lion's Gate 8 / 8

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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.


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6/6/2016

Being Your Fifth Dimensional Self

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In the 3rd dimension, the universe responds to what you think. In the 4th dimension, the universe responds to how you feel. In the 5th dimension, the universe responds to what you say and act out. To work on trying to change your thoughts and feelings keeps you spiraling in the 3rd and 4th dimension. Yet, when you bring greater consciousness to your words and actions, no matter how you think or feel -- your thoughts and feelings spontaneously change on their own. This is the heart of conscious action.
                                                                                                                   
​—Matt Kahn
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Coming across Matt Kahn's clarifying quote inspired this blog post. I've been remarking, lately, on multi-dimensional work and how it's the thing we're doing these days, more and more. It's time for us to open to these levels of being for powerful personal transformations, happier lives and a better world. But keeping track of the dimensions and how we interact in them is new for most of us. If someone asked you, "hey what's the difference between the 4th and 5th dimension?" what would you say, off the top of your head? Matt's quote helps clarify, and elucidate why, these days, I'm practicing fifth-dimensional beingness more and more. I think it might be news you too can use.

Do you feel—like me—yourself "spiraling in the 3rd and 4th dimension[s?]" Working with your thoughts and feelings, re-patterning, changing personal narratives, inner critic voices, old fears, lingering unresolved feelings, releasing cellular memory, DNA-held trauma, past life vows and stuff?Practicing when you catch yourself doing the old conditioning instead of the new stuff? It can feel like work, and like homework, like studying for a test. Going over thought patterns and memories and storylines feels like it happens in your head, and it can feel like work. People suggest making lists: gratitude lists, old stuff you're going to jettison lists, stuff you're asking the Universe to co-create with you, goals and affirmations, on and on. While naming can be a powerful component in transformational work, to be sure, it doesn't feel, well, fifth dimensional.

Experiential knowledge is fifth dimensional transformation in a nutshell. Something happens, you feel it, you and everything around you shifts, and wow, felt that! It's often inexplicable but usually undeniable. These experiences are what Matt Kahn refers to as "bringing greater consciousness to your words and actions" and that phrase needs a little unpacking. What do you think of when you see the word consciousness? We can intellectualize it as thinking, think of it as an intellectual process. Yeah, I did that on purpose. But actually, not so much. Consciousness is what we are, and when we are in a state of conscious awareness, we feel that as knowing and being. But not as a feeling, like, oh, say, the feeling of being pissed off. When we feel our conscious awareness we are in knowing and we feel our knowing. We feel, experientially, the truth of being. And that state of consciousness changes everything within and around us.

It also feels really good, as you probably know from having experienced a conscious moment or two sometime in your personal history. I'm tuning into rocking the fifth-dimensional me more and more as the experiential path to conscious action. As the way to be. The more you open to multi-dimensionality and practice recognizing the way you interact in 3D, 4D, and 5D, and how you feel (your frequency if you will), you increase awareness of what shifts and how things happen around your state of consciousness. It gets easier and easier to switch channels, to use proprioceptive language. And it's fun. The fifth dimension is fun. And it's a great place to get shit done.

Shamanic experiences are very fifth-dimensional. The experiential knowledge accessed and gained from shamanic work is definitely conscious action, healing, transformative and connective. It's not just the practitioner who transforms and shapeshifts across time and space. The energy wrangling of a shamanic session is all about going multi-dimensional in an experiential connectivity that bridges and shifts things intentionally for the soul's well-being. These days, as we open to our powers and abilities, it's not all about fixing, being fixed, getting over, making it happen. This multi-dimensional conscious action is new, or being remembered from long ago in a galaxy far far away. It's using the force, and yep, awakening the force. It's about learning, doing some Yoda time, and becoming aware of our multi-dimensional selves. Practicing and getting good at shifting. It doesn't have to feel like work, or study, or dredging through past harm and bewilderment. It can be fun and feel fantastic, sentient and magical, mindblowing, and clarifying, all at once. Ready?

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