Late summer flowers in Cannon Hill Park
I may be venturing into new writing territory. I was asked today to consider writing a biography. From fictional stories to real life ones. Interesting. Anyone out there with experience of biography willing to offer me some advice?
I need to do a Shamanic journey to seek some guidance on this – feels a little outside of my comfort zone.
The long silence has been the result of getting my head down and focusing on completing 3 major pieces of writing.
Love is Not a Reward – Stories and Sourcebook
I’ve come up for air. I’ve been going through the proofs of the two Love is Not a Reward books – text and source books. They will be available for sale soon, just a few more corrections and they’ll be on the shelves.
Also, I’ve just completed the first draft of a play. I won’t mention the title at the moment because it might change. It’s out to readers so I can breath for a few days. Initial responses have been very favourable, though the indications are that more work will be required to make it ready for stage.
I am, however, very excited by suggestions that it would work as a radio play, and also as a book (narrative). One person even mentioned film.
Does the spiritual work affect my writing? Absolutely!! Particularly the subject matter. Even the colour of the cover for Love is Not a Reward was shown to me in a shamanic journey.
I’m just coming to the end of 3 weeks in Carnforth just outside the Lake District.
I came up to try and finish the workbook that accompanies Love is Not a Reward – and it worked. Not only did I finish it (thanks to an extra FREE week at the Pine Lake Resort – a long story) but I’ve also started to write the play for stage that I agreed to do a year ago.
Most of the time was about the writing, but I took some time out to do a little exploring.
I loved the walks along the side of the Lancaster Canal. On the day I finished I walked the ten miles from Pine Lake to Tewitfield and back along the canal on an air of elation.
I managed to get into Morcombe a couple of times and strolled along the promenade eating ice cream, as well as frequent trips into the lovely town of Carnforth.
Sculpture of mother and child in Morcombe
I’ve been guided by spirit on numerous occasions during the writing of Love is Not a Reward, from being told to keep the title when I was about to change it, to being guided to the colours to use on the cover – and many more pointers on the content.
Most of the guidance came through journeying and dreams, but some came through messages from mediums and fellow sitters in psychic development circles.
Boats on the Lancaster Canal
I set of at the beginning of this blog curious as to whether my spiritual development would influence my writing – silly to think it wouldn’t!
I feel a book about the whole experience coming on – but not until I’ve finished the play – which I guess will only add more chapters.
Both the text and workbook of Love is Not a Reward are in production at the moment and should be available by the end of August.
Having looked for and not found a shamanic group in Birmingham, I decided to start one. We’ve had one meeting so far with voice, drums and journeying. It was very healing.
There were 3 of us. Our next meeting on February 25th will have a 25% increase in participants. Yes, there will be 4 of us.
The format is that I do a little teaching session on the principles of shamanism followed by the experiential work. Last time I looked at the place and purpose of ritual.
From small acorns great oaks grow. Watch this space. Let me know if you’re interested in joining us.
Thursday 21 November 2013
Moringa pods
Yesterday I had my first mosquito bite. I got a sense that I had stayed too long in there space and they just wanted me to leave. I had been six hours in the same place in the lounge writing. I took myself off to my bedroom and noticed a small lizard on the wall. My friends told me that lizards eat flies and mosquitoes. That news was strangely comforting. I felt that the lizard was protecting my personal space.
Since I’ve been in Barbados my UK mobile phone has not worked. It kept saying ‘no service.’ This morning I had my cleaning head on and was doing it to the music on my phone which was stuffed down my cleavage.
As I bent over to move some shoes out of the way a small lizard (the same size as the one that was in my room) ran out from behind the shoes. Startled, I jumped back and my phone fell to the floor. The back fell off and the battery fell out. I replaced them both and immediately started receiving texts. Service had been resumed.
As I continued with the cleaning I couldn’t find a pair of rubber gloves. The same (or pretty near identical) lizard scurried past me. I watched where it disappeared to, and there was a hand of glove.
At this point I decided to look up the spiritual meaning of lizards. When lizards show up it’s mainly an indication to pay attention to one’s dreams and visions. I have not done a shamanic journey (meditation) in over a week now. Maybe this is a prompt to either meditate, or to pay closer attention to my dreams.
In terms of writing, I stayed on the project for about 12 hours yesterday. We have a meeting tomorrow to discuss progress and I was feeling a little panicked.
It’s been difficult to get my head back into academic writing – but I’m there now. Ably assisted my regular intake of moringa, both as tea first thing in the morning, and the seeds throughout the day.
Open moringa pod, exposing seeds
My friends have a friend who owns a moringa tree. It’s interesting to break open the pod and get the seeds out fresh.
No beach for me yesterday. Doesn’t look like it will happen today either – but I am going to Oistens tonight to eat fish as part of the food and drink festival that’s going on here at the moment.
29th August 2013 (Thursday)
It’s been five weeks since I last went to circle. This is because I’ve been focusing on publishing Never on Sunday and also I been doing more shamanic work. I’ve been journeying most days and gaining amazing guidance. I will write up some of the more profound ones. Time is a factor at the moment as I’m preparing for Cameroon and trying to edit Love is Not a Reward.
There were eight of us at circle, five women and three men (including Greg). Of the eight of us three were new, at the start of their journeys and very excited my cards and the prospect of trying out psychometry and working with other tools.
After the relaxation meditation we focused on getting messages for each other. I got a message for one of the women.
I saw a toilet brush. The handle was the carved head of a horse. As it wasn’t obvious to me what the message was I asked, ‘what is it I need to tell her?’
‘That she needs to make a decision about how she’s going to handle the crap that’s in her life at the moment.’
It made sense to her, and was supported by the messages she got from others.
I’ve been thinking for some time that I’m getting more out of the shamanic journeying than out of these sessions and it was reinforced tonight.
Ribbon carousel
I realise that these sessions were my introduction to a systematic way of connecting with spirit. The messages I received week after week gradually shifted me to this position. I recall too that it was here that shamanism was first mentioned to me and how resistive I was to the idea then.
I will of course be visiting Oak House from time to time for Sunday service, and to connect with some of the wonderful people who shared this part of my journey.
I know that Mary’s follows this blog, so she will be able to keep tabs on my goings on. Thanks for your blessings Mary.
Saturday 3rd August 2013
Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Patrice Some
I’d just finished reading Malidoma Patrice Some’s book Of Water and the Spirit and was so envious that he knew what his life purpose was so early in life that I decided to do a journey to try and find mine. I’ve been asking since January to be helped to remember what it is.
I set the intention three times – ‘my intention is to journey to the lower world to meet my animal guides and to ask them to show me my life purpose.’
I felt very apprehensive as I walked to my usual axis mundi, and the journey down the roots of the tree was slow and laborious.
Both the eagle and the jaguar were waiting for me. They bowed to me as before and I told them why I’d come. I began to gibber away about what I’d been told before about being a high priestess in Egypt, about being a writer, a healer and a shaman. I rattled on for ages while they patiently listened and didn’t interrupt.
‘So can you tell me,’ I ended.
‘You said you wanted to be shown,’ jaguar reminded me.
They both looked kindly at me, before eagle flew off.
‘Where’s she going?’ I asked jaguar.
‘To keep watch,’ he replied and indicated to me to follow him.
I was expecting something akin to what I’d been reading in Malidoma’s book – some kind of initiation. We walked through a clearing, through a forest and past the mouth of a cave. All these things are in Of Water and the Spirit.
Each time I thought the jaguar was going to show me something, but he just kept on walking till we came to another much bigger clearing.
It took me a while to work out that we was standing in the middle of a massive heart. Gradually the outside of the heart filled with men of all different shapes, sizes and ages. Although of different races they were predominantly black.
‘You are to heal men my opening your heart to them,’ the jaguar said.
I wanted to scream ‘NO! NOT THAT! THAT’S TOO PAINFUL!’ I looked around at all the men and began to cry. I wasn’t just crying in the journey, I was also crying into my blindfold. I felt as if my own heart was breaking.
All I could think of was that it would mean no happiness for me – men constantly coming and going in my life. The jaguar tried to reassure me that all would be fine.
‘But what about the women?’ I asked, ‘Don’t the women need healing too?’
‘When the men are healed, the women will be healed too,’ he carried on in his soothing way. ‘The women are strong but they look to the men for leadership, they look to the men for love. The men need to heal. It’s why you came.’
All I kept thinking was, ‘what about my own happiness,’ while the jaguar went on about the importance of the men healing.
Then all the men disappeared and were replaced by prepubescent boys. My heart went out to them and I sobbed (I must find a less clichéd word) literally and figuratively. Then they were replaced by the men, then the boys. They kept interchanging.
‘How am I going to do this?’ I asked the jaguar.
‘That’s for another journey;’ he answered softly, ‘this one was about your purpose.’
‘Where’s the eagle?’ I enquired.
‘She’s gone to check out the way,’ he said before the call-back tempo made me realise how quickly 30 minutes had passed.
I was still crying when I returned, with a heaviness that made it difficult to move. It wasn’t really what I’d wanted to hear or to see. It felt (feels) like too much at too big a personal cost.
Our second journey was to the upper world. I chose as my axis mundi a mountain in the north east of England. I had once been walking with friends and got lost. We ended up on the mountain when the sun was setting and became part of the sunset. We had merged with the colours of the setting sun, became golden with fringes of rust and a touch of orange. I couldn’t think of a better place from which to access the upper world.
Sunset in the Caribbean
Simon said that the upper world was divided into several levels and that if we didn’t meet our teacher on the first level, to keep going up until we did.
If we met anyone to ask, ‘Are you my teacher?’ And if the answer was no, to move on.
Again we were blindfolded in our chairs or on our rugs.
As the beat began for the journey to begin I repeated the intention the whole group had been given.
‘My intention is to go to the upper world to meet a teacher in human form and either ask a question or request a healing.’
Simon had suggested that we avoid ‘when should’ questions as spirit existed in a timeless place and guidance on time has always proved problematic. Also to avoid ‘and’ questions because it invariably means we’re asking two questions in one.
I was in two minds whether to ask for healing for my broken finger and trapped nerve, or to ask that I lose the sudden craving I’d developed for sweets. I need to purify my body before taking the Yellow Fever vaccine. In the end I decided to go with the help with the craving.
By the end of the third repetition I was spiralling up into the sky from the top of the mountain. I found myself in a strange landscape – a bit like something from a science fiction film.
I saw a man running very quickly some feet ahead of me, but he didn’t stop. No one else came so I decided to move up to the next level.
As I moved up I lost all awareness of everything around me. I felt the pulsating beats of the drum and felt myself merge with them. My whole being became the beat of the drum, and despite the insistence of the beat I experienced a sense of calm, total oneness with the beat. I was vaguely aware of movement somewhere in my head, but nothing defined, nothing tangible that I could describe.
I stayed in this state till the change of tempo in the beat signalled the return to the middle world. It was a reluctant return as I was so at one with the other beat, so at home being the music.
I apologised to the person I had to do feedback with for having so little to share. Interestingly he said he’d had a similar experience toward the end of his journey. Did we share this during the journey I wondered?
Although Simon found it interesting, he didn’t comment on it further.
On relaying the experience to a friend of mine a few days later, she said to consider that in the upper world music is my teacher.
What do you think?
PS. The following day one of the participants brought in a bowl of cherries to share, which kept me away from the biscuits!!! Was the sweet craving healed or was this just a coincidence.
Simon explained that we’d be making our first journey to the lower world to see if there was an animal there who wanted to work with us.
He explained the drumming signals, i.e. the steady beat for the intention setting and the journey, the rapid beat that signals our return, and the beats that would signal that we be fully present in the room.
So, with blindfold in place, (as the journey needs to be taken in the dark without distractions), we lay on our rugs or sat in our chairs and waited for the drum beat which would be the signal for us to set our intention three times before finding our axis mundi and beginning our descent.
As the monotonous beat of the drum began I repeated the intention we’d all been given three times.
‘My intention is to go to the lower world to explore and to see if there’s an animal for me’
My axis mundi was through the roots of a magnificent copper beach tree at the front of my house. I had to make myself really tiny to get into the roots, and became smaller and smaller with the descent as the roots narrowed.
It was a weird feeling and I opened my eyes to look around – only to find I was looking into a blindfold, and realised why we’d been asked to use them.
I finally emerged through a tiny door at floor level into a round room, very much like a mouse hole. As I stood there trying to acclimatise my eyes to the dim light I grew back to my full size and became aware of my grandmother sitting at a table. She wore a white veil which covered her face and was looking deeply into a candle on the table in front of her.
When she became aware of me she lifted her veil, stood up and held out her hand to me. Without speaking she took my hand and we walked through the wall (there were no doors in the room) into blinding sunlight outside. We were standing in what appeared to be a small village in Africa.
We walked for a short time till we came to a large circle of animals, all kinds of animals, from lions to boars, from elephants to deer.
‘Are one of these mine?’ I asked, but my grandmother didn’t answer.
As we walked up to the circle the animals parted to let us in, and then closed the circle around us again.
My grandmother walked with me to the centre of the circle then beckoned me to continue walking while she stayed there.
As I reached the other end of the circle the animals parted to let me through then closed the circle again.
After a little while of walking on my own I became aware of a black jaguar walking beside me.
‘Oh, it’s you!’ I exclaimed, really pleased to see him.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ he smiled.
‘I was so happy to have you with me last night on Kilburn High Road when it was late and I was lost because I’d been given the wrong directions by somebody who didn’t know.’ I gushed.
‘That’s what I’m here for,’ he said reassuringly.
‘I have a question for you,’ I said, remembering the question from the meditation in the circle on Thursday about how I get rid of fear.
‘Yes?’ he encouraged.
‘How do I get rid of fear? I don’t mean how do I manage it, I mean how do I get rid of it.’
He paused for a moment. ‘Well, you can always jump on my back. I will carry you.’
‘I can do that?’ I was incredulous. Me? Travelling on the back of a black jaguar?
‘Yes, because you have a lot to do that could be scary. When get really scared jump on my back,’ he said as he turned his head to look at me, as if to make sure I knew he meant it.
I was about to say how grateful I was when I heard the rapid drum beats which signalled our return to middle world.
‘Thanks, but I have to go now!’ I said, giving him a quick hug before running back the way I came, through the ring of animals, back through the room, said a quick goodbye to grandma and headed back up the roots. This time it didn’t feel so strange to be small again. I was moving with a sense of urgency. I didn’t want to be left in the lower world when the beats ended. I didn’t know what would happen.
I made it. By the time the signal for being back in the room sounded, I was there, marvelling what had just taken place.
I arrived for the first day of the course at the Amadeus Centre in Little Venice, West London on foot after a thirty five minute walk from my B&B. It had been a hot and sticky night, airless on the inside and too loud on the outside to open the windows. I hadn’t quite grasped that Kilburn High Road would be alive for so long after the witching hour.
The Amadeus Centre, West London
By the time we were all seated in the large room there was a buzz of anticipation as people made contact with others who had made this journey (no pun intended) to learn about shamanism and shamanic practices.
The things we’d been asked to bring, a palm sized stone, a blindfold, a rug or cushion, pen and notebook, were all laid out beside us. (Well, I was sitting on my rug.)
When we were all seated Simon and his assistant Martha welcomed us. After the housekeeping arrangements were relayed Simon began by putting shamanism into context.
He said it was the ultimate democratic spirituality. There’s only you and spirit, no rule book to follow and no intermediary.
He paid tribute to the two people who had been highly influential in his understanding of and development as a shamanic practitioner, namely Carlos Castaneda and Michael Harner, and gave us a quick overview of shamanic
In all traditions where shamanism was practices.practiced (and this was world-wide before organise religions brutally squashed it, ridiculed it, or killed its masters) three things were consistent:
The Drum: 4-7 beats per second encourages the brain to move into theta waves, the state between sleeping and waking, where connection with spirit is most effective. Most spiritual practices such as meditation, chanting, and prayer are designed to help you reach this state. The drums have been proved to be the most effective at getting you there quickly.
The Voice – Is used to connect with spirit and with each other, particularly in healing when it can have a soothing and healing effect on the client.
The body – movement is an integral part of shamanic practice. Often the shaman will act out the journey he or she is undertaking on behalf of a client.
A shaman is someone who is able to move awareness from this reality into another to access information and bring it back into this one in order to heal or to provide guidance. A shaman works in partnership with spirit, and is able to make him or herself a ‘hollow bone’ or an ‘empty reed’ in order to allow spirit to work through them. A lot like trance mediumship. Indeed there was a lot of references throughout the workshop of similarities between the two forms of practice, with some small but significant differences. Mainly that a shaman would never interpret the metaphors of the journey s/he undertakes for the client, whereas spiritualist sometimes do.
He said a shaman is not a title one gives oneself, in the same way a hero would not call himself a hero. It is a title bestowed on one by others for the practitioner’s consistent ability to heal and to help.
He went on to say there are no rules as such in shamanism – the individual gets the direct revelation while speaking to spirit during a ‘journey’. This is in contrast to religions where the rules include all that is in the holy book and must be obeyed and carried out by all in the same way. Religions also require that other people interact with God on our behalf, i.e. the Pope.
A shaman’s map consists of three worlds: Upper, middle and lower. The upper and lower worlds exist as spiritual reality and it’s where the shaman journeys to find answers to questions, solutions to problems, or means to heal. The middle world is the reality as we know it.
A journey always involves an intention which is set prior to undertaking the journey. The nature of the intention will determine whether the shaman travels to the upper or lower world.
Spirit present primarily as animals or as humans because we are both. Animal spirits mainly, but not exclusively, inhabit the lower world, and humans mainly, but not exclusively, the upper world.
The shaman always travels from an axis mundi, i.e. a recognisable point on this earth. If travelling to the lower world it could be through the roots of a tree, down a rabbit hole, or in a lift. Journey to the upper world could be from the top of a mountain, a tree etc.
The final bit of information he gave us before our first journey was that a shaman engages all his or her attention with intention. There’s no scope for thinking about what to cook for dinner, or what to wear for the work’s do.
With this we were taken into our first journey.
Writing Creatively With Spirit 