It is November 1, 2012 and last night I slept for the first time in a new house after a move. This time of Halloween/Hallowmas/Samhain/Day of the Dead, which are the days in between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, is when the veil between the worlds is thinner than usual. It is said that the Spirit World is more accessible to us at this time. As I woke this morning I began sifting through the many boxes now sitting all over everywhere…, and I found a pile of paper fliers and newsletters I had written in 1999. My mind went immediately to this past time. The veil of memory parted and I remembered that I had just started my shamanic career, and recently transplanted myself to Tucson, Arizona and the Sonoran desert. I had not yet finished my first website (www.shamanworld.com was first launched in the spring of 2000. I am launching a whole new version of this site this weekend!), and so I actually wrote articles and class announcements on PAPER. I just read one of these paper articles, and transcribed it below to bring it into the digital memory of our time. I always find it interesting to find pieces I wrote years ago. Upon reading it again, I find this article pertinent because this coming Saturday I am hosting a training workshop called ISA’s Healing Practitioner Techniques- Introduction in Tucson, Arizona, and this winter’s edition of Shamanic Practitioner Training Series is beginning on Saturday, December 1. In 2012 and beyond, it is so important to listen within, and to come Full Circle, so that we can step into our true potential as people, and as a human culture. The veil thins now so we can feel our Spirit Guides, Ancestors and Dream World more clearly because they want to help us be our fullest selves!
If you feel it is time for you to come Full Circle and embrace your shamanic practitioner self, consider participating in the upcoming training (link above). If you are not in Tucson, this winter an online version will be available for the first time, through the newly revamped website www.shamanworld.com !
Here is a link to a video I created in 2008, featuring a rhyming spiritually seeking character that comes to me named Shamana Strong. In this edition she learns about the sacred nature of Halloween.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6O7mUl8Mz4]
The following was written in late 1999. I share it with you today, 13 years later.
“I am an American woman who was called by the Spirit World to walk the path of a shamanic person. When I had the initial experience that started the process, I didn’t even know what a ‘shaman’ was, and I had no idea to what I was being asked to commit.
Having been brought up in the dominant white culture of America, I had no context for what I was experiencing after being called to shamanize. Luckily, my family didn’t think I was crazy, and the Universe brought me a woman who helped guide me into my Spirit Worlds.
For the most part, however, my quest to understand what was happening within me was (and still is) a solitary one. At one point I was asked to choose. The commercial life (I owned a small business) or this new life that was unfolding. I sold my business and traveled where the spirits took me. My journey took me around the western United States. I had almost no money, and no idea what I was supposed to do. However, this was part of the test.
For a long time, I doubted the authenticity of my path because I did not go to some far off land, and study with a shaman in a hut. “Is my experience less valid?” I would ask myself. I was noticing, however, that most of my spiritual guidance, revelations and initiations were coming from within myself, with confirmation of my inner experience coming from the outside world. I began to notice how accurate and guiding these intuitions were. I realized that this is where Spirit is. I was then told from within that my personal shamanic practice is called “Full Circle” because I am the first person in many family generations who has heard the call of my Spirit World, and is able to heed that call.
After passing through spiritual initiations, I was asked to begin to share what I learned. Since my learning happened very organically, teaching has helped me break down the learning process into pieces that people can actually use. I noticed that themes were appearing in the teachings.
Everyone is connected to intuition.
Everyone is connected to the spirit realms.
Listen inside for your answers.
I have been going through a process of remembering what feels to me to be my own personal shamanic culture. I listen for the whisperings in my ear. The animals that come to me, the colors and elements of my wheel of life, my “culture’s” name for the role of “shaman” , my own particular ways of connecting to Spirit, and the lands that speak to my heart and teach me well.
This is what I am being asked to help others do. I will share with you what the wind whispered in my ear.
In the beginning of any culture, people had to learn the ways of cooperating with the particular land where they lived. Over time, practices and customs were passed down from generation to generation. Accumulating a body of wisdom and knowledge that worked for a sacred people, in a sacred place.
We are now in another time of beginning.
For many people, their ancestors’ ways of connecting with Nature and Spirit are forgotten, and in some ways they don’t completely fit anymore. We live in a world that would be magic to our ancestors. There are sacred ways of the old shamanic cultures that can help us, but we need to know that we can refashion them so that we can fully utilize them NOW. The only way for each of us to find our way is to listen inside. This is where the ancestors and the land speak to us.
In this way we all come Full Circle.”
