03/05: May 3rd, 2007
My Grandmother is being buried today. She was a beautiful spiritual woman short in stature, tall in natural wisdom. Along with my parents, my Grandma Durkee taught me the sacredness of nature, and reverence for all of life. For as long as I can remember, everyday she walked the half mile lane back to the woods carrying seed for her feathered and four-legged friends. I recall her often sharing stories of her intimate experiences with chickadees and chipmunks. Near the end of her days on Earth, she nearly had a heart attack with excitement at seeing the red bird and his wife at the bird feeder. I love you Grandma. I offer this journey in honor of you, and all of our ancestors.
In ancient times, shaman masters had a rigorous training regimen for their charges. Some of the methods they employed were extreme, even brutal, such as regular beatings, or forcing the student to undertake a quest which seemed to virtually guarantee their death. Later on, as we can see from the Meso-American record, they used methods like the sun dance, a grueling ordeal that included skin piercing and exhaustion. Also cave sitting, in which the shamanic apprentice would sit in a cave, known to have high, yet non-lethal, levels of CO2 in it. I’m sure there were hundreds more besides, but the point of these trials was not to test the determination of the student, but instead to break down the student’s ego. Or more accurately, to introduce the apprentice to what’s underneath it.
My work regularly takes me to rural Pennsylvania where I have the honor of sharing the sacred power of energy healing and shamanism in two apprenticeships and through various writing projects. But no day should be all work and no play, so while in Pennsylvania I also bless myself with some time to wander the wooded hills and meander along the banks of the mighty Susquehanna River. It is the awareness gleaned through one such excursion that I would like to share with you.
The day was unseasonably warm for January, as has been the norm so far this year. The thick, humid air was hard to breathe and gave the hills a shrouded, mysterious feel. I rounded the pond and was sent off on my journey by the loud chatter of the resident Kingfisher. Climbing higher and higher up the hill, that as a Michigander I call a mountain, the mist thickened and gathered in around me. It was spooky, even for a nature-lover that had been up this mountain at least a hundred times over the past 6 years. The usual expansive vista from the peak was obscured by the low-hanging clouds and even the startled hawk hung low to the trees as she flew off to the west. “What an exciting adventure”, I thought to myself as I decided to make this a long trek by turning left through the field instead of heading back down the mountain.
The day was unseasonably warm for January, as has been the norm so far this year. The thick, humid air was hard to breathe and gave the hills a shrouded, mysterious feel. I rounded the pond and was sent off on my journey by the loud chatter of the resident Kingfisher. Climbing higher and higher up the hill, that as a Michigander I call a mountain, the mist thickened and gathered in around me. It was spooky, even for a nature-lover that had been up this mountain at least a hundred times over the past 6 years. The usual expansive vista from the peak was obscured by the low-hanging clouds and even the startled hawk hung low to the trees as she flew off to the west. “What an exciting adventure”, I thought to myself as I decided to make this a long trek by turning left through the field instead of heading back down the mountain.
Blogs 1 through 5 in this shift happens series have briefly demonstrated through story and practice how to shift into a new paradigm to create a new reality for ourselves. The process that we have been working through is an exercise in awareness that has given us the opportunity to discover some important things about ourselves. This awareness is extremely important, but we are not quite finished yet, for the worth of the work is in the “do”. The benefit lies in how we make our lives different through our actions and applied wisdom. Once we have gained knowledge of the issue from asking the hard questions, applying the tools of energy cleansing, journeying, recapitulating and reclaiming, and integrating and sealing we must bring this work into practical everyday reality. In other words, it’s time for us to put our learning and healing to work. We do this last piece through even more awareness, blended with mindful, conscious choice.
In blog 4 I went on a journey that helped me to connect with some very powerful energy – the energy of my soul-self part and my soul path. I learned about the importance and power of taking care of myself and making choices that release struggle from my life. Even though this was an incredibly powerful healing experience I know me, and after awhile, the busy, everyday workings of my life will gradually cause the energy to silently slip away. Because of this, I have learned the importance of taking just a few minutes to integrate, fully embody and seal in the power and energy of my reclamation. One of my favorite ways to accomplish this is by lighting myself up from the inside out by becoming a luminescent energy egg. You can do this too. Here’s how:
My daily walk takes me through a mature deciduous forest and into a grassy park with a small stream and 4 ponds bursting with wildlife. While walking around the ponds today, I objectively pondered the revelations uncovered in my psyche inventory process and found that I was still caught in the energetic entanglements of my perceptions. My mind understood the issues all the way to the bottom, but I still wasn’t completely free from the struggle. I guess I should not be surprised since in this new light it was clear that I had been behaving and living my life from this belief and perception for most of my post-college life. I am a healer - a counselor, shamanic practitioner and an energy worker by trade. Professionally, and personally as my own healer, I know intimately that in order to be truly free one must be energetically free. If I am not yet free of this struggle it is because there is still energy tied up in the issues, which in this case, is my self-imposed perception of duality. To be completely free I must not only let go of the mountain and soar, I must clear away any filaments of energy attached to the mountain and the struggle, and recoup any personal energy that was lost due to this perception. I can do this energetically through the process of recapitulation and reclamation. How this process helped me free myself from struggle is described at the end of this blog.
You can recapitulate and reclaim energy also. Here’s how:
You can recapitulate and reclaim energy also. Here’s how:
While walking today I watched the leaves fall silently to the earth and saw the intrinsic beauty in the process of this annual shedding. Each year the sap runs from the earth-wrapped roots through the trunk and branches to sprout buds that blossom into sun worshipping leaves that transform each fall into vibrant autumn dress as their attachment to the tree loosens. Eventually they drop to become compost that will spring forth new life while the tree rests in the winter snows. A powerful cycle of energy – resting, awakening, flowing, growing, sun-soaking, blossoming, fruiting, seeding, changing, transforming, releasing, falling, floating, landing, changing, resting, transforming, always transforming. This same cycle we must do to be free of our struggles. When we fail to shed the old, no longer useful leaves, we disrupt the cycle and become stagnant. This is what was happening to me, causing the feelings of struggle that I began to discuss in blog 1. To learn more about cycles you may want to check in on the New Moon Journal. If you want a powerful tool to help you identify those leaves that need to be transformed and released, the Psyche Inventory is that tool.
28/11: Update
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to put up a quick note to say that we are working on the notification issues with feedblitz. Hopefully the problem is fixed for good, but should you run into any issues please send an email to webmaster@colleendeatsman.com
Just wanted to put up a quick note to say that we are working on the notification issues with feedblitz. Hopefully the problem is fixed for good, but should you run into any issues please send an email to webmaster@colleendeatsman.com
It is my passion and my way to take my concerns to the woods. In nature I find the solitude, raw life force energy, and spiritual wisdom that helps me to quiet my mind and temporarily step away from my busy-ness so that I can think and feel more clearly. In the first blog of this series I briefly shared my experience of offering my struggle to the woods for comment, clarity and healing while washing away the energetic cobwebs with the rainbow fountain energy movement exercise. I also checked to see what was going on astrologically. During my meditative walking contemplation I was reminded by Spirit (the inner wisdom of my soul-self and my Helping Spirits) of a shamanic journey I underwent many years ago that dealt with struggle. I was guided to revisit that journey both in thought and by taking another journey to that mountain. I will share this journey, but for those who don’t know, shamanic journeying is a technique in which the journeyer enters into an altered state of consciousness and invites their soul to travel into the realms of the Spirit otherworlds.
19/11: Testing..
Currently we had to switch Blog engines.. everything should be back up and running in just a couple days. Thank you for your patience!
