shaman
Our Totems And Spirit Animals
It is my belief that we all have animal spirit guides that guide and support us along our life journey.
Each spirit animal represents a different aspect of life. Some show up when we need their particular energy or receive their symbolic message, while others show up consistently throughout our lifetime. These animals, birds, mammals, reptiles, and even fish, are like our personal totems.
I have three main spirit totems: the eagle, the red tail hawk, and the owl. Each has shown up consistently in my life, especially when there is a time of adversity, grief, or crisis occurring.
I was made of aware of these three totems early in my life, when I consulted with an indigenous elder. He gave me my spiritual name: Soaring Free. I instantly loved my name. It represents the proud eagle that soars on high, the red tail hawk that soars in broad circles high in the air, and the owl that is wise and roams free.
The Eagle
After my parents passed away, I was cleaning their house. Not only was I grieving at the time, I was also very distraught, having to decide whether to sell their home or not. I was not at all sure if it would be the right thing to do.
Then, I asked my angels to give me a sign. Moments later, as I looked down towards the lake, there were two beautiful bald eagles sitting on the edge of a tree branch.
The Divine Magic Of Manifesting
We cannot always control our environment, but we can be an active force in how things play out in our own lives. Through our actions and choices we impact our personal universe, even without any occult practice.
However, this changes once we become aware of our metaphysical ability to manifest, and we realize we have already been doing it our entire life as spiritual beings in human form. And once we become aware of our innate power to manifest we simply need to improve it and have a deeper conversation with the many layers of reality.
Our minds and, in particular, our expectations already influence the world around us. We do this unconsciously every day, and without direction. Sometimes we let our fears run wild and then we create dark mirages that end up taking shape in our material world. Yes, indeed, these are mishaps of our own creation.
We all want to guide, foresee, and control life, but for some of us this possibility has always eluded us. There seems to be too many variables and our judgments appear to lack the clout required to guide even our own most basic wants. Maybe reality is simply too complicated? Perhaps we just need more resolve? Or maybe ‘magic’ may teach us something about that.
The magic of manifesting is a technique or method, as well as a spiritual path. It is a tool for self-discovery, since it rearranges our perceptions of reality and it is a path because it leads us to personal revelations and inner realizations. Furthermore, it assists us in seeing how malleable our life really is, which is unquestionably the first step toward personal transformation.
Magic as an occult tradition has a bad reputation. It may appear that anything related to so-called magic is supposed to be dark and dangerous, even evil, but this is not the case at all. Instead, the magic of manifesting brings our true desires into reality. It is a continuous process that teaches us a lot about our minds. We actually become more aware of our most difficult personal aspects by engaging with the things we desire. In the pursuit of magic we often discover how we are sometimes our own worst enemy.
Haunting Tales From The Condo Complex
There is a condo building with a paranormal reputation in my area that has been around since the early 70’s. It was originally a rental apartment complex, which meant occupants constantly came and went. As a result much negative energy has been imprinted in the walls over the years.
For almost three decades this complex would often attract unsavory inhabitants, including drug dealers, criminals, and all sorts of disreputable individuals. Local law enforcement often had to intervene and escort many of them out with court orders and arrest warrants.
There have been many reports of a prevalence of dark, negative energies over the years, especially in the front of the building. Several people also died here and the earthbound souls of some still haunt the complex. I have been asked a few times to do some shamanic work to help release these restless souls and clear the unwanted energy there.
For example, a woman was brutally murdered in one of the units in the early 90’s, before her lifeless body was transferred to a car in the parking lot of a nearby local business. Some residents had seen her standing near their beds on the night she was murdered, asking for help.
I was subsequently asked to perform a cleansing on the building, and since then her spirit has not been seen again. I felt she had been released and have since moved on to the Other Side. The thing I heard her say clairaudiently at the time was, “I will choose my company better in the next life.” The man who murdered her had asked her out at a local chain restaurant that she would frequent, and she thought he was attractive. She regrettably said yes.
Frank, an 80-year-old gentleman who lived in the front of the building used to be a ‘busy body’ who felt it his duty to enforce the rules of the building. He would religiously be outside in the parking lot, instructing those who drove through which area was not meant to be used as part of the road, since it ended in a cul-de-sac. But some would stubbornly continue to use this area as a shortcut through the parking lot to get to the main road, which was not allowed.
Throwing The Bones
Before studying various Western disciplines of healing and divination, I trained to become a sangoma some 30 years ago, on the borders of Mozambique and Kwazulu-Natal in Southern Africa, where I learned among other things the divination method known as ‘throwing the bones.’
A ‘sangoma’ casting the bones is the African equivalent of the Native American shaman, the Old Norse rune reader, or the European Tarot reader. To uninformed Westerners, indigenous African methods of divination are often thought of as ‘witchcraft,’ but just like there is good and bad in all cultures and professions, the true calling of the African diviner or shaman is a spiritual one of seeking advice through the wise ancestors. In the same way modern Western diviners rely on spirit guides, angels or the ascended masters for divine guidance, so the African diviner relies upon the ancestors.
My training came about after I consulted another sangoma and was told it was my calling to become sangoma myself. She also cautioned me that until I took up this calling, I would repetitively become ill – and how right she was!
Eventually I heeded the ‘calling’, as unusual as it was at the time for a young English woman to enter the mysterious realm of African mysticism in the country in those days. Training was harsh and intense with my mentor and included coaching in various disciplines, such as divination, dream interpretation, ritual, indigenous medicines, and herbalism over a two and a half year period.
One of the divination methods I was taught is known as ‘throwing the bones’. Since the beginning of recorded history the notion of throwing tokens, casting the dice or drawing lots to interpret the divine will of spirit and the ancestors has been viewed as symbolically linking the diviner to his or her mission. Casting or throwing the bones is an ancient practice native to many regions of the world, including Africa, Asia, and North America. In Southern Africa it is a long-standing ritual among the sangomas of the Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa and Ndebele tribes.
Each bone or token used for casting is part of a kit the sangoma carefully selects with the guidance of spirit, initially with the help of a mentor. Spirit and the ancestors instruct the seeker as to the symbolism and meaning of each sacred item in the collection, and precisely shows the student where to find it and which one to use in a divination. In Southern Africa, a mentor assists the thwasa (trainee sangoma) in the process of learning to receive information from the bones, and in reading the patterns in which the bones are likely to fall.
Love Is Everything
Hello friends of my mommy, Mountain Sage. My name is Babe. I’m her one and only favorite pup and she thinks I am a ‘cutie-patootie.’ Well, I don’t know about that, but I’m sure glad she thinks so. I try to be. I really do. But there are so many instructions: “sit, down, stay, no-jump, hold hands, leave it.” Phew! What’s a cute four-legged fur baby like me to do?
Well, there are treats sometimes, and that helps, but The Sage is not always so generous. Sometimes, she seems to think I should do all those silly things for free. It’s okay, I guess. Anyway, if I want to get those cuddles and kisses, as well as go to Bow-Wow Camp (which are two of my very favorite things), then I simply have to do it all her way.
But, when I’m outside hunting, then I do it my way. The Sage is most definitely not a hunter, I can assure you! Nope, not even one little bit. So, I have to bring home the bacon, right? A nice little mouse, for example. I brought it in the doggie door, as a gift, while she was on a phone call with a client.
I assume it was a client because that’s when I have to be ‘all quiet.’ Anyway, she made all these mad gestures. She clearly could not contain her excitement about the juicy mouse. Strange, I tell ya! Making all those weird motions. I mean, really, it was just a plain ole’ mouse. Nothing special in my world, but she acted like I’ve brought a month’s supply of meat into the living room?
Then, there was the frog. It showed up on the porch after a heavy rainstorm. I had never seen anything hop quite like it did. It was intriguing – all shiny, plump and green. I decided to lick it on the back. I was just curious. No need for The Sage to become all hysterical, right?
But I have to be honest: that frog was the most vile and disgusting taste I’ve ever experienced. I had to spit, and spit, and spit to try and get that yucky goo out of my mouth. “It’s poison,” The Sage was complaining, as she picked it up and put it outside the fenced garden. Well, I guess she might have been right. Anyway, I was a satisfied dog and more than glad to see it go.
The Spirits Of The Mountains Are My Soulmates
There are times in our lives when we know that our inspirations are coming from something beyond the personality. These visions come from a land beyond the physical, even beyond words. They are concepts we have no words for, we have only our inner knowing. The personality moves over and we find ourselves relying upon something beyond the five senses, or sheer logic.
Perhaps that sixth sense is the emerging force, which is the next step in the evolution of the human race. A developing being knows it is no longer appropriate to depend only upon the physical world. This being will develop the skills it needs to see and feel and work within the unseen territory of the soul.
Once we acknowledge the soul’s existence and approach it with respect and sacredness, the personality becomes aligned with the soul. With this alignment comes respect for all life, and many difficulties usually experienced with the unconscious personality can be avoided.
When our soul becomes mindful and directly involved with the physical world, we greet each day with the deepest part of ourselves, and all activities become gratifying and purposeful. It is the gratitude that we give each day that gets us off the karmic wheel of debt, because we now see the sacredness of all life. W
I have much to be grateful for. The desert’s barrenness, along with the mountains’ majesty, stripped me of my ego long enough to allow the healing forces of the sagebrush to greet my soul. Sage has healed my physical body during illness, my emotional and mental bodies during depressions and confusion, and it has healed my soul of desolation.
Promise Of The Stones
Those of us who find ourselves drawn to stones or minerals are called to be servants of the soul of the world. Our teachers, showing us the way to do this, are the stones, and what they have to teach is far, far beyond anything we can possibly imagine. The stones are spirit beings who through millions of years of development are embodied with great healing and wisdom.
Rocks, minerals, crystals and gemstones are known in traditional shamanism as “the stone people.” They are the original beings of who came long before the plant people, standing people (trees), animal people and the human people. Philosopher Alan Watts said in one of his talks, “Rocks are not dead…minerals are a rudimentary form of consciousness.”
For this reason, they are much older and wiser than us humans and we can learn much from them, especially when it comes to energy work and healing.
The spiritual-metaphysical properties of stones are the promise, as spoken by the stones, of what could happen if we approach them as living beings. It is their promise and has to be heard and felt on their terms, not in the terms of our personality needs.
For example, if a stone promises prosperity, to take that offering literally is to abuse the meaning of the stone, for ‘prosperity’ spoken in an intimate relationship cannot possibly mean “you are going to make me materially rich.” If I say to a dear friend, lovingly, with all my heart, “I wish you prosperity,” I am not saying, “You will become materially wealthy because we are related!” What I am saying is that because of our intimacy, your soul will prosper and the world will shine brighter.