Shift Your Consciousness Internally

The subtle shifts in thinking, the heightened awareness that leads to the alternate states of consciousness and ultimately to the expanded consciousness of enlightenment require practice. Some find the practice difficult, (read hard work), but more find it difficult to make their spiritual practices a priority in their lives.

There are a lot of people I refer to as Ph.D. Shamans, (see Alberto Villoldo; Michael Harner) who have studied and practiced in both the western and shamanic traditions of thought and healing. They are important "opinion leaders" at this epoch of "New Age" cultural development, but we westerners tend to put so much emphasis on credentialism and pedigree that we lose sight of the need for our own practice. I remember a story about Jesus who, being a supremely enlightened individual, encouraged his followers to heal others and to use their faith to create miracles. The followers in turn, (apart from a few Apostles) fell to their knees in reverent worship, almost completely missing the invitation to elevate the spirit of all people and therefore raise the consciousness of the human race. But do we give away our power to cultural heroes and thought leaders in the same way?

I'm afraid we are a society of "tryers." We claim that we "try to get good grades" in school and that we "try to be nice to others," but that word "try" is almost meaningless. I saw a demonstration of this a few years ago and was reminded again recently.
"Try" this yourself - right now. "'Try' to pick-up your pen!"

Did you pick it up?

Either you did or didn't, but what happened in between wasn't trying - not exactly. Presuming you have the physical capacity, what you did, whether you are aware of it or not, is you shifted your consciousness to a space where you intended to do it, (or not), and then effortlessly manifested that intention.

I think that schooling, (in the North American sense), teaches us among other things to forgive ourselves in advance for potential failure. We learn that it's OK to "try" and fail, because the answers are in the back of the book. But when we graduate to real-life questions, where there are no right or wrong answers, that attitude is no longer useful. That attitude leads to the life of "quiet desperation" that H. D. Thoreau talked about... the feeling that we lack the power to change our lives.

A moment ago you shifted your consciousness and effortlessly manifested your intention.

Compare that with your first experience of dressing yourself or singing or riding a bicycle... Do you get it? We either do something or not. We might not do it well the first few times, (but that might be due to our flagging intention rather than our suitability to the activity).

Now think about meditation. The first time you attempted meditation, did you "intend" to touch that great pool of consciousness... or did you just "try" to meditate? How could your experience change if you began each meditation session with the belief and intention that you would have a mystical experience?

My Shadow

My keen eye reveals my gentle prey.
My Shadow snarls and shouts and I kill the small bird.
My mother chastises and coos and shames me for my act.
My father frets and turns red, and slams the door as he leaves to do his chores.

In my Shadow Life I kill the bird;
feel remorse in the violent act;
grieve for the bird and for the child's lost innocence -
then I take myself in my arms and love me fiercely for my humanness.

And I love my experience for its ancient wisdom.

Shamanic Living

Shamanism as a methodology affords its practitioners to live fully in the everyday, ordinary reality of life, and at the same time access non-ordinary states of consciousness at will for the purposes of healing, advice or gaining understanding. In indigenous cultures, the shaman acts as the psychological and medical healer of his community. Non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by the steady beat of a drum, physical deprivations such as fasting or ingestion of enthenogens have been employed by nearly all mystical wisdom traditions; they allow practitioners to discover how to live a richer, more meaningful life. Shamanism, together with quantum physics and chaos theory, which I encountered during my studies at Bryn Mawr, gave me answers to the questions I had asked since childhood: Who are we? Whence do we come from? Where do we go? My travels to Ecuador, Nepal and Peru and my studies there with powerful shamans provided additional answers to these perennial questions. All my teachers, in ordinary and non-ordinary reality, assist me in developing and shaping my intellectual, spiritual, intuitive and psychic faculties. At this point in my life I feel so capable to participate joyfully in the universal dance of life. (By Jeanne-Rachel Salomon ’00)

Darkest Night

For more than 5o,ooo years the most important ritual between the first snowfall and planting has been the Winter Solstice. The Northern Hemisphere's longest night marked the return of the Sun's cycle and therefore, important passings and new beginnings. Here is a link to a couple of ideas for your Solstice ceremony: http://www.create.org/elchai/herbcer1.htm.

The Red Stone

Someone from another site has asked me why I use the Red Stone for my logo? The short answer is that it symbolizes a value that is fundamental to my worldview.

I had taken a workshop at Elk Island National Park (near Edmonton, Alberta). A local Shamanic practitioner, (I don't think she calls herself a Shaman) holds an annual retreat to teach people how to get in touch with the natural world and the non-ordinary reality, (some people refer to this as the Spirit Realm).

The weekend was full of rituals and celebrations and we did half a dozen exercises that were geared to increasing awareness, trusting intuition, and opening-up to a broader definition of spirituality.

For me, the most significant activity was this:

We were asked to wander away from the camp and dowsing with a pendulum, find 7 stones - 4 to represent the directions and 3 for any intentions that came to mind while we were undertaking this task. We spent the next hour or two gathering stones, thinking about the presence of Spirit in all things and anticipating what would happen next, (the Red Stone was not one of the stones I found that day).

When we returned, we were asked to prepare the stones by washing them and decorating them with paint and then blessing them with rattles and incense, (I chose not to paint mine).

Next we were given a demonstration on how to do "Intuitive Readings" by listening for the symbolic messages that the stones would reveal to us. Then finally, after the demonstration we were asked to pair-off and start doing readings for one another. This step, of course, made many people uncomfortable or at least brought-up doubt, but I was moved to embrace it.

The Red Stone was the first stone I added to my original set of seven. I found this lovely red stone when out walking with my children, but had some strange feelings about arbitrarily adding it to my "Spirit Stones." So, I carried it around with me as I tried to discern what to do. I also had questions about how I would discover the meaning of the stone, because I had had an intention in mind when I found each of the others.

Within a week or so, I realized that I should include it with the others and I decided that because of the redness, it would stand for "passion." But when I started doing readings with it I discovered that it really represents something more like "motivation" and that it actually has 3 subtly different meanings, the most powerful of which is "the best outcome for all concerned."

I feel completely at ease doing these readings and I now understand that I have a gift. In the intervening two years have done more than a hundred readings and people are continually impressed with the information that is revealed to me by the stones and through intuition. The original set now consists of 12 stones, two bones, and a little metal wedge, (and I use another set of six stones for energy work).

Interesting to note is that one of my closest friends and a man who is quite clairvoyant recently said to me that "I sense there is a Shaman archetype emerging through you (me)." It's a weird thing for me to comprehend, but I'm trusting that by following this path, I am indeed moving towards that intention - "the best outcome for all concerned."