Urban Shaman

Lately my connection with nature and nature-as-teacher have become increasingly more necessary in my life. I’ve been spending more time outside and the change it makes in my emotional and mental well-being is dramatic! I’m loving my path right now and how it’s  changing me, making me stronger and better and more capable of helping others.

My guides have been letting me know I’m on the right track through a book my little brother lent me called Secrets of Shamanism: Tapping the Spirit Power Within You by Joes and Lena Stevens. Three of my favorite bits so far:

“When you practice shamanism you become a change agent in the drama of evolution. More than that, you release yourself from the illusion of isolation and step into the reality of the interrelationship of all life. Finally the practics of shamanism leads you to eventually align yourself with the healing forces of nature. You find balance and integration. You know who you are and where you are going. [this is something I've been dramatically experiencing of late]

“Shamans…emphasize the importance of being able to ’see’ the result before actualizing it physically. [this is what I meant last post about my partner being able to imagine the future with me] And yet they are also aware that people can only achieve as much as they can truly imagine for themselves. Thus a shaman will work at heightening a person’s level or ability to have, do and be. The ability to imagine raises our ability to have. Like a muscle that needs to be worked, strengthened, and stretched, imagination requires exercise. Shamanism is in part a strategy for expanding and empowering imagination.”

“The shaman knows that each [element of nature] is vital to basic survival, and a personal relationship with them is critical to living a successful life. Furthermore, the most compentent shamans know that these powers are all representatives of the greater spirit that unifies the cosmos and is the true source of life itself. By communicating to the sun or the moon and thanking them for their warmth and light, the shaman through humility, grows powerful because [s]he speaks directly with the source of life itself.”

I am loving this book because it’s like my guides patting me on the back the whole time, saying “see! look how on track you are! now pick up things you’re needing from this and let’s do more!!” It’s so exciting And since my partner and I changed our relationship status, it’s been so easy to share my spirituality with him. I love it! All the other people I’ve been with were intimidated or upset by this side of me so having someone celebrate it with me is pure joy.

Power Stones and Spirit Bells

Yesterday, for instance, the Universe guided me to pick up 3 stones on a walk, which I then decorated as I have been doing recently with symbols (above). These rocks seemed more powerful than the others I’ve made and the symbols are very strong ones for me. They kept calling to me all day and I knew they were a special gift for me to use. The rock pictured on the left is the Raido rune, the reverse is a book (my guides like to communicate through what I read). The center rock is a heart, the reverse is a bear with teeth bared. The rock on the right is a knife blade and the reverse is the incisor of a wild cat.

I’ve pulled out my spirit bells (pictured on either side of the rocks) and went outside to shake them and wait for the Guides to talk to me. I discovered by holding on to the bells themselves, I have rattles! This was really fun to discover because I’ve been wishing for rattles and here I already had some!! I shook my bells/rattles, swayed side to side with my eyes on the rocks and their symbols, and mentally chanted “love, healing” over and over until the sound and the spirit came on me and I thanked the Earth below me and the Sky above me, my guides and the energetic beings around me and they told me that I should always remember that I can change perspective when I need to and find my calm and that they are always there for me.

I felt full of energy and hope and light and joy and my head felt particularly cleansed and airy (I’m guessing as part of the result of doing a mental body guided meditation with some friends on Friday where we pulled down energy into our minds) and was able to go inside and was able to simply say to my partner what the messages I’d received were and know he’d be joyful with me. Then I was blessed with a 20 minute power nap! I went inside and was so sleepy I fell asleep and let the energy wash through me, invigorating me when I woke up. I tend to lack the ability to nap so this was a very special gift indeed!

I’m so grateful for the energies that support and love me. I love living a miraculous life.

My Animal Totems: Part 1, The Fox

According to In The Shadow of the Shaman, a totem is a sacred animal or object with a unique vibration and energy.  This energy can be used to compliment those aspects of one’s Self related to the totem symbol.  Totems are something I’ve been interested in for quite a while, but it wasn’t until I went to UW and took a class about Native Northwest Coast Art that I felt like I understood the relationship that a person or people can have with a totem.  In the class I learned that it was interacting with an animal in some way that passed power from that animal to a person that created a totemic relationship.  I think that my way of saying it is that these animals have passed inspiration to me and the freedom to accept even the wildest parts of myself.

In this and the next several blogs, I will be examining those animals I’ve claimed as my totems, starting with the most recent: the Fox.

Elusiveness, agility and cleverness are some of the traits associated with this animal.

The fox totem is a recent acquisition of mine.  A couple of weeks ago in the midst of a great deal of personal turmoil, I was sitting in the woods behind my childhood house with a friend.  We’d fallen silent and I was looking over to where a creek cutting through the woods is bridged by a small fallen tree.  As I was looking a fox appeared out of nowhere, crossed the tree and wandered out of sight in the woods.  Seeing the fox move without disturbing anything in its path was a moment of insight for me, and I purposed to try to walk through life without causing a negative disturbance and/or avoiding turbulent problems.  Since I’ve meditated on the subjet more, I’ve found more and more links that the fox already had in my life that I hadn’t acknowledged before.  It was wonderful to connect with something new and old at the same time.

Amber Wolfe’s Shamanic Bonding Exercise for totems is wonderful, or, if you’re not sure of your totem(s), here’s an exercise to help you.

 

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