African Ancestor Root Healing Ritual with Masankho

My friend Darcy and I went to an African Ancestor Root Healing Ritual last night with storyteller, dancer, healer and educator Masankho Banda. Since we were told to bring a blanket and pillow, I thought it would be some deep meditative experience. My expectations were happily upturned and we spent the time doing a series of dance rituals!

We started with a dance of self. Next we danced to welcome and acknowledge the ancestors. Then we danced a dance for each direction, which was amazingly powerful and the directions told me that since they are always present for me and always watching, I should consciously tap into them and their power more often. We danced a dance for welcoming one another that was also a dance to ask for those who need to see us clearly to do so. I cried through a good portion of that, praying for my parents to see me as I am instead of who they have told themselves I am.

Next we danced a dance for our children and all children. I danced thinking of Clarissa and was filled with such great joy as the dance acted out the way parents must help or not help their children and have the wisdom to know which to do when. Afterwards, we talked about the children of the world who are in need. We all blessed the necklace made by a girl with AIDS in Africa who has amazingly reached puberty and I was led to talk about how I was  abused as a child and how my life is full of love and light like I would never believe back then, to reaffirm everyone’s hopes that the children of the world in need will find the help they want. While speaking, I suddenly had to gasp to breathe and I started shaking and crying. One of the other women came over to hug me, remind me to breathe and to ground me. We stayed in one another’s arms until I had calmed and the enormous rush of energy had passed through.

Next we did the dance of acceptance. We gathered everything in our past and let it go. Gathered all we are now and let it go, then pulled in future goodness towards us.

We next had a session of meditation laying down with the drum Masankho played for us creating a strong heartbeat for us to follow. My sacral chakra felt very strongly activated and was vibrating in tempo with the drumming. I still feel the transformation most strongly there. I woke up and noticed how light and airy it and my energy feel. I know I let go of somethings and felt some blocks in my mind and body had been cleared away.

We ended with a dance to thank the ancestors and allow them to go back to what they were doing.

The night ended with lots of hugs and thank yous and extremely positive energy. I am so glad I went!!! I can’t believe I almost didn’t. Masankho will be back in town in November so I look forward to seeing what other opportunities will arise.

Energy Work, Brain Cleansing and My True Self

Lately with all the crazy energies flying around, I have been forced to deal with old hurts and fears I hadn’t fully acknowledged or released. I also had my priorities re-aligned and am feeling fully in touch with my soul’s purpose.

My friend Darcy who is working to become an energy practioner (click here for details on having her work with you) gave me an hour long session on Friday night. I had some major AHA! moments in between feeling sleepy and contented. She had an amazing OM chant going on in the background and I immediately felt relaxed and in a receptive state. I meditated on Gaia for a while as different feelings and thoughts emerged and left.

I finally started meditating on my future daughter, who has come to me in many visions and to whom I can communicate very easily on a soul level as we prepare for her entrance into Earth. She showed me that I was afraid of her abandoning me because I have had two miscarriages and that I was not trusting her and the Universe as I needed to, being ashamed to be honest with others about how real and alive she is to me. She told me that she has already agreed to be with me as my daughter and that I should trust in this. She showed me herself as a brilliant star, as a baby, a teen, and an old woman, before fading back into a baby. I felt her weight on my chest with her head on my shoulder and I wanted to cry from the joy and peace I felt. She even showed me a vision of me decorating her nursery for her to help me believe fully in her future entrance into my life (which will change everything for me!)

I also forgave myself and my mother for the mistakes we made in our relationship with each other, and had some more realizations about the spiritual aspect of my childhood imaginings and their effect on my life.

The next day, I had my regular meditation session with friends although only one was able to come. We had a very good session that was powerful for the both of us. I received some very strong images and good wisdom, though my head felt as if it had been peeled back to expose my brain to the world. The feeling led me to draw this:

Our meditation led us to merge fully with our Souls, to really SEE it. My hair and eyes and skin grew brighter and my entire body became more elfin in the mediation. This also helped me become more attuned to my soul name & titles: Fire Flower, Truth-Bringer, Lady of the Flame and Shadow, Goddess-Warrior of ALL-THAT-IS, which I feel now is a proper definition of myself instead of something I have to live up to. We connected with the Christ grid that is both surrounding and within the Earth, which activated my third chakra very strongly. It was exhausting and exhilarating.

Sunday I spent going through the rest of Brain Respiration by Ilchi Lee. Once again, I did a meditation where I looked at my brain and cleansed it in a stream of energy. This time it was pink where the new shiny bits have started healing the scummy rotten bits I had to cleanse a few weeks ago. And when I shook out the “dark energy” it was like a sprinkling of pepper instead of the stream of blackness that flowed from it last time.

One of the last exercises was to meditate in order to see your soul’s vision play out. I did this and saw myself dancing around the Earth planting roses and bearing fruit for others out of the tree growing out of my head (an image I’ll probably draw soon). I saw myself giving birth to Clarissa (my daughter) as if in a womb myself, painless and joyful. When Clarissa joined me on the Earth, still connected to me by the red embellical cord, she and I started dancing in a new pattern (one she taught me) and in this new pattern all the other people on the planet started dancing with us until we were all vibrating at such a rate that we were shimmering and on the same level as our star families who embraced us with open arms.

It was the perfect accumulation of all the work I’ve been doing: to see this vision and to know I can trust the Universe to bring it to pass without my having to force anything. I can simply allow and be my True Self and watch the future unroll beautifully.

I am so blessed.

Singing Bowls

Last night I went to my second Joey Klein Singing Bowls event, where Joey Klein – an energetic master – leads one in guided meditation to the sound of crystal bowls being played. The crystal affects your energetic body in awesome ways and the meditations have so far both led me to have really joyous visions where my guides were actively interacting with the meditation and my higher self in a way that is new to me.

This time, as we were led to follow a great beam of light I was met part way by an energetic body. At first I was confused since I knew I was supposed to keep going, but this being had stopped me. Then I recognized her as a guide, bowed to her and asked her to help me continue on my way and off we went!

We were led to the “womb of creation” where I met Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu greet us. We all held hands and danced around in this womb which was also a garden. (Krishna’s been on my mind a lot lately, since I‘ve been chanting his name and the image of the flute I’ve been seeing as a pillar of strength also is associated with him, since he plays a flute. I’ve seen a couple statues around locally and I plan to get one to further invite him into my life).

Then we sat together by a small pool and watched the rest of the guided meditation happening through it. The meditation was to see ourselves as an infant of light taking on human form, being born and knowing ourselves as light. In the past, I’ve only felt sorrow when thinking on my birth because my mother decided she didn’t want me after the doctors told her I was a boy, and being the way she is, she just never really changed her mind. So the thought of being unwanted in the womb always grieved me before.

But this time, watching it happen in the garden/womb of creation with a guide and Krishna with me, I was totally okay with it. I saw myself as being born into the life that would mold who I needed to be and I didn’t attach anything further to it and I was happy and content to simply be.

It was a wonderful gift and I feel blessed. Also, the more I trust in my guides, the more they help me. It’s marvelous to feel so supported in all ways. It’s something I’ve really longed for in my life and didn’t think I could have. But, of course, I already had it and didn’t realize.

Death, Change and Growth

It’s been a rough few weeks for me. My girlfriend and her husband came to visit, which was a wonderful experience and the Universe showed me once again just how truly perfect she and I are for one another and how wonderfully our weaknesses and strengths compliment one another and our relationships with our mens.

On the other hand, they arrived the same day my Uncle, my mom’s brother, died in a freak construction accident. I had a strange relationship with my Uncle. He was the only older family member I had who understood that the Universe was concious and who could talk to trees like I do. The stories he told me about his life and about my family went a long, long way towards explaining who I am and how I fit in with my family, making many things that seemed totally strange suddenly familiar knowing that they rested in my DNA.

Unfortunately, he was also an alcoholic, selfish jerk who often made inappropriate comments to me and who tried to rape me. I didn’t have a relationship with him after I tried to talk to him about it and he refused to acknowledge any wrong. Because of this and because it was his own not taking care of himself behaviour that was part of what made him such a jerk that caused his death, I had a lot of anger to process towards him.

I’ve talked to his spirit several times since, working towards full forgiveness and healing, but I don’t think it’s a process that will happen easily, especially since he’s the first person in my life I really cared about who has died. Also, I keep checking my chakras for damage from him and finding knives stuck in my lower three chakras, though I keep working to remove them and heal… not really sure what it will take except just time, which seems to be the greatest healer of all.

On top of this, my grandmother, my dad’s mom died. This didn’t really effect me emotionally since grandma has always been completely insane and I had no relationship with her. She’s the reason my dad hates women, which is somewhat understandable since she tried to kill him and his siblings many times, but it’s still a difficult legacy to live with and  contributed to so much of what made my childhood absolute hell on earth.

The funerals were both this weekend and it was extremely trying for me. I haven’t talked to my parents because they haven’t had any interest in trying to repair our relationship and I made it clear to them via a sibling that I wouldn’t talk to them until they did. I renigged on that a bit since I was led by my guides to move towards healing (although they’re the one’s who also made me give up completely on having a relationship with them… they like when I give up so they can do the unexpected, I’m learning) and talked to both my mom and my dad slightly.

Of course, they’re trying to pretend like nothing has been wrong between us and treat me the same as always, which is really poorly. It’s especially painful right now because mom is so in love with these two married and pregnant/just delivered a baby cousins of mine… and my parents really don’t give a shit about their kids at all. We all know it, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I really held on to meditation, yoga and chanting to get me through. With the way my emotions and energy were buffetted around, I can’t imagine how awful it would have been if I’d been trying to get through without my practice!

I’ve very grateful to my guides and the Universe for making me strong enough to deal with this. I’m still seeking their wisdom on what to  do with my parents. But I know that they’ll show my path as I need to walk it and I can trust in that. I’m also grateful to them for the healing in the relationships with my sisters. We got along this weekend like we haven’t in 8 or 9 years. It was such a wonderful gift!

Oh! One last awesome thing that happened before the funerals! Because of that shaman book I was reading, I met the power animal guides for each of my chakras! They are (from  crown chakra to base): dolphin, raven, fox, penguin, peacock, rabbit, snake. After meeting them, I now see my chakras as globes containing gardens in which my animals live and frolic and where I can visit with them for wisdom or comfort. The vixen in my heart has  been especially comforting during this time.

Blood & Stone

Something different for you…. a short story I wrote that is kinda morality tale about respecting the Earth… Hope you enjoy!

When Gaia was young, her spirit longed to stretch itself. So plants appeared, birds, insects and animals, fairies, sprites and humans flew or walked across and within her mighty body. Gaia was happy flitting around herself with new eyes and new powers and all the creatures she carried lived in balance and harmony.

But one day a man called Stone became convinced that he had no true connection to the people and things he saw around him or the earth beneath his feet. He began telling the other men they should take from the earth enough in one blow to never need again and so live out their years in ease and pleasure. Together they began widening the cavern from which the people took their precious metal for the sacred rituals of birth, initiation, the change of the seasons, union and death.

They lay Gaia bare and harbored what should have been the wealth of generations for themselves. They stopped tilling, hunting, creating and gathering in favor of buying what they wanted, making the sacred profane and common.

Soon others heard of this state of affairs and they too wanted to have the riches of generations for their own.  They dug up what was precious until it became hard to find and some forced their children into dangerous underground passages to seek out ever more gold to sate their greed, even turning to taking from one another.

The women, who now were doing all the work of being human and caring for the community, became concerned as violence between men and tribes increased. Under the guise of harvest they gathered together in a great field, filling it with laughter and dancing until a wise woman named Blood stood atop a hillock and raised her arms, requesting silence.

When no more sound ran through them than the playful wind, she spoke: “My sisters, we have all seen the shameful changes brought about by lust for owning what is not ours to have. Our children are not protected and our work has doubled while tribes weaken and die. Our precious rituals have been tainted and our sacred source polluted. Gaia is calling out for balance. Blood has been shed and gold stolen. Blood and gold must be returned for her to rest in peace once more.” The council of women agreed it was so.

With their path clear, they returned home, some in silence, others in song or with clapping hands and drum, but all were somber thinking on what must be done. When they returned to the village, they gathered all the gold they could find and placed it in the mouth of their once-sacred cave out of which they could hear the sounds of mining.

When the moon came up, all the women in all the villages joined hands and began to hum a secret tone that caused Gaia to tremble and the stars to halt their endless journey and take note. Upon this, another tone was taken up, then another, until they formed a powerful chord. The women raised their joined hands and wished for deliverance.

Low rumbling sounded beneath them, growing into a roar loud as a sudden tsunami crashing against the shore. The women watched as Gaia reclaimed her sacred caverns. They sank deep into the ground, taking the men with them and leaving large depressions in the ground.

The women bowed down and tanked Gaia, touching their faces to hers as rain began to fall. They let it bathe them together and it filled all the empty spaces left from the sinking cavers with lakes of pure water.

They returned home to find them men who hadn’t been mining terrified, but the women welcomed them as brothers and led them back to the lakes to be purified. But some would not, choosing the wild instead of life with the tribe.

When the earthquakes come now, the women say Gaia is laughing at those who thought to use her as they would. And every spring when the first rains have renewed the lakes, the tribes bathe together in remembrance of what was lost and what was saved.

Accepting and Relearning Old Lessons

Trifecta (featuring my primary relationship's power animals)

With all the crazy energy circulating lately I’ve been ruminating on past lessons, gleaning more from them now that I did at the time.

For instance, one of the most powerful prophetic dreams I’ve ever had was a warning/promise about my eventual marriage and the way it would require an incredible amount out of me. The dream consisted largely of my wandering around in a strange city that looked like Greek ruins being stared at by people in togas as I walked around half searching for something, half running from a pursuer, all the while with blood pouring out of deep gashes in my wrists, elbows, throat, etc… but I’m partly made of marble myself so all that blood loss doesn’t really affect me. The lesson from that I didn’t see before was that even when I thought I was at my weakest, the essential part of me was never changed or damaged by the experience.

I gained acceptance of the flower for my birth month (September/aster) that I always used to dislike as a kid by finding an aster blooming in my belly. Turns out the aster stands for love and patience, two really big ongoing themes in my life.

I’m also re-learning just how perfect for me my darling partner is. I’ve been realizing that what sets him apart from my other lovers (besides being incredibly more awesome and caring) is his ability to dream with me about a shared future and to work towards making that a reality. That was missing in all my other relationships and it made them seem lifeless to me after a while. If you can’t grow together, you’re just dying a little bit each day. This lesson was driven further home for me today by the daily email from DailyOm talking about squirrel energy. My partner is the squirrel to my tree (also my penguin and fellow rabbity-thing – which is what the above triptych is about) and reading this made me so happy, because it just shows me another way in which to rejoice in how he’s so perfect for me:

Affirming an Abundant Future
Squirrel Medicine

Native Americans considered all living beings as brothers and sisters that had much to teach including squirrels. These small creatures taught them to work in harmony with the cycles of nature by conserving for the winter months during times when food was plentiful. In our modern world, squirrels remind us to set aside a portion of our most precious resources as an investment in the future. Though food and money certainly fall into this category, they are only some of the ways our energy is manifested. We can conserve this most valuable asset by being aware of the choices we make and choosing only those that nurture and sustain us. This extends to the natural resources of our planet as well, using what we need wisely with the future in mind.

Saving and conservation are not acts of fear but rather affirmations of abundance yet to come. Squirrels accept life’s cycles, allowing them to face winters with the faith that spring will come again. Knowing that change is part of life, we can create a safe space, both spiritually and physically, that will support us in the present and sustain us in the future. This means not filling our space with things, or thoughts, that don’t serve us. Without hoarding more than we need, we keep ourselves in the cyclical flow of life when we donate our unwanted items to someone who can use them best. This allows for more abundance to enter our lives, because even squirrels know a life of abundance involves more than just survival.

Squirrels use their quick, nervous energy to enjoy life’s adventure. They are great communicators, and by helping each other watch for danger, they do not allow worry to drain them. Instead, they allow their curious nature to lead the way, staying alert to opportunities and learning as they play. Following the example set by our squirrel friends, we are reminded to enjoy the journey of life’s cycles as we plan and prepare for a wonderful future, taking time to learn and play along the way. (Source)

I also re-realized why I can’t have a relationship with my parents, especially my mother. I need to foster emotional health and healing for myself in order to share it with others and being near my mother is like having a raptor shred my heart relentlessly and that’s not something I can heal from and still have energy to do everything else I must do to function in this life. I think this has helped me finally accept that I can’t expect support to come from my parents, as I’d always wistfully hoped would happen in a perfect world where they would accept me for who I am.

I’ve also learned to accept that mine is a path of struggle that will probably be bloodied emotionally over and over again, but I’m big enough to handle it. I’ve been able to see things and respond with “well, here’s a new challenge” instead of the self-pitying and shaking my fist to fate that I used to waste my energy on.

My many issues with child birth (which was linked to my creativity in many ways) that you may remember if you’ve been reading this blog a while have come compltely full-circle and now I’ m waiting with joyous anticipation for the time when the Universe will let me know that we’re ready to bring the little soul, who’s already waiting for her new life to begin, into this material plane. I recently watched Orgasmic Birth, a documentary showing real births where women are beautifully transported into ectasy while delivering children and it was so beautiful and powerful that I cried through most of it. I know the Universe and I will be working on making my childbirth glorious like that and I’m excited to see the changes that this single goal is working in my life and mind.

Generally I’m just happy that I seem to finally have my life in balance, that I’m contributing to my community and creating a beautiful life I love. The recent shifts are really doing amazing things for me. I hope you’re able to enjoy it too.

Growth and Power

Drawing a snake mandala for healing, based on a Navaho sandpainting

My guides are teaching me lessons about strength, healing and power that I need to become a more effective shaman.

Focusing on bringing healing to each relationship I have has dramatically changed how I react to people. I used to get very upset quite easily by people, but now I am able to step back and see their faults for wounds asking for healing and that gives me so much patience and grace and love for them that it effortlessly flows from me. I am incredibly grateful for that.

My new job as well as other things – like taking part in a local public art display (pictured) that was physically grueling – is teaching me that I have all the strength I need… and what I don’t have, I can get by simply doing what is needed and expecting the strength to be there. The Universe is definitely not letting me down!

I find it easier and easier to float above my emotions instead of letting them mire me down in angst. I can touch my higher self so easily I feel as if she and I are gripping hands tightly. She is showing me how to see and observe and react with love and acceptance and it is giving me new, wonderful insights into myself and others.

The most miraculous one happened yesterday when I was making love with my partner in a kind of odd mood. I was aroused but saddened as one more of my attempts at domme behavior fell flat just before we began. I was watching my emotions, my reactions to them, watching him, feeling sensations of my body and my energetic body and all of a sudden as an orgasm started to gather I realized that I’ve been using my orgasms (and sex in general) as a conduit of healing power for myself and my partner.

I saw the orgasm bloom in my belly/womb as if a fire flower or an atom and its cloud of electrons and I could see the energy streaming in from the universe to create this in me. I am tempted to compare it to a nuclear reaction; it’s what popped into my head at the time and it seemed to me to be a source for power that I can now use more deeply and purposefully since being aware of it.

I feel like I’m not expressing this well enough yet so I will keep trying: Sex has always been powerful for me and I knew there was some significance behind it that I was missing. So being able to understand the totality of what is occuring on all levels is absolutely life-changing.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Love Lifting Me

Working two jobs is as emotionally and physically as draining as I knew it would be. I feel exhausted and unsupported, but every day I wake up and ask the Universe for strength and I receive it.

I walk to work in the mornings with the hare rama, hare krishna mantra rolling through my mind like a river and I see the core of untouchable power within me  that I see at simultaneously being a pillar of iron, a pillar of white light, and a flute through which the Universe plays its tune on me.

Never before has such a stressful experience been so spiritually pleasing – and I’m even not putting in the time I would love to with yoga and meditation most days.

I feel very clearly I am being held up by hands I cannot see and I am incredibly grateful that I still have the energy to pour love into my partner and my friends.

I think it helped to realize that my unconscious goal of most days was to promote emotional healt hand healing in others. Once I made that my conscious goal, so much of what would normally have bothered me before fell by the wayside.

Love is lifting me and while it doesn’t lift me OUT of the problems, I am most certainly floating along on them rather than drowning. And that is all I need.

Hafiz’s Gift

I’ve been feeling very tired, emotionally drained and unsupported lately. But something that has been bringing me comfort and moments of joy is The Gift, a book of poetry by the Sufi Master Hafiz. I tend to write down inspiring or touching things that I read. The selections below are all handwritten into my journal; all are taken from The Gift, some are full poems and some just fragments:

We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners

We have not come here to take prisoners
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run, my dear
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

…

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and LIGHT!

Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe
Me.”

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.

Like
A pair
Of mismatched newlyweds
One of whom still feels very insecure,
I keep turning to God
Saying,
“Kiss
Me.”

When all your desires are distilled
You will cast just two votes:

To love more,
And be happy.

I know the ectasy of your heart’s wings
When they make love against the Sky.

Something divine happens to the
Heart

That
Shapes the hand and tongue
And eye into
The world
Love.

I cannot sit still with my countrymen in chains.
I cannot act mute
Hearing the world’s loneliness
Crying near the Beloved’s heart.

Love Is the Funeral Pyre

Love is
The funeral pyre
Where I have laid my living body.

All the false notions of myself
That once caused fear, pain,

Have turned to ash
As I neared God.

What has risen
From the tangled web of thought and sinew

Now shines with jubilation
Through the eyes of angels

And screams from the guts of
Infinite existence
Itself.

Love is the funeral pyre
Where the heart must lay
Its body.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,

Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife

Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

The Vintage Man

The
Difference
Between a good artist
And a great one

Is:

The novice
Will often lay down his tool
Or brush

Then pick up an invisible club
On the mind’s table

And helplessly smash the easels and
Jade.

Whereas the vintage man
No longer hurts himself or anyone

And keeps on
Sculpting
Light.

Indeed God
Has written a thousand promises
All over your heart

That say,
Life, life, life
Is far to sacred to
Ever end.

Long-Distance Healing

Open and Enter

The simplicity of astral projection continues to amaze me. Once I did it just to see what would happen and ended up meeting one of my guides (who presented himself as an old, sage and smiling medicine man) and receiving the exact message I needed to hear then. Last week I used it again, this time with a purpose: to help my girlfriend heal.

During some of the energy upheavals of the Easter weekend, I, my girlfriend, and at least two other people I know injured their backs. I ended up on mine all week (which ended up being a very nice break from the stress at work and a chance to draw a whole lot of pictures) as did my girlfriend who had a slipped disc. I just had a sprained muscle at the base of my back so I healed up with just some rest. She, unfortunately, wasn’t doing so well, was considered a possibility for surgery and was having a hard time healing.

So after we had talked last week and she was still feeling badly, I very strongly desired to help her heal. If you remember, she is out of state, so there was nothing I could do hands-on and I decided to astral project. The door in the picture I drew at the top of this post is the door you enter for astral projection. The mental ritual I do for this is to imagine myself projected in a ball of white light and then I allow my mind to step out from my body and the door appears in front of my spirit self in my mind and I enter in. Breathing deeply and laying down help to keep you grounded.

I asked the energies to carry me to her and less than a second later, I saw my spirit self beside her and her husband sleeping in their bedroom. I asked the Universe to turn me into a conduit of healing energy, placed my hands on her back, which was very easy since she sleeps on her back, and allowed the white light to pour through me as if I were a funnel with my head as the top and my hands the bottom. Happily, she has been feeling better.

This is the second time I’ve simply asked the Universe to make me a conduit of healing and been able to see a direct result. The first time I was massaging my boyfriend’s back. I’m grateful for it.