Shamans | Writing Creatively With Spirit

8^th March 2013 (Monday)

When Mary announced to the seven of us at today’s session that we’d be doing some work with colour, three of us burst out laughing, because we – that is me, Tim (yes he’s back) and another member of the group – had been discussing a colour personality test.

‘As you meditate focus on a colour, any colour that comes into your head. Try and settle on one colour,’ Mary instructed us.

Gold popped into my head, so too did a golden kite with blue bows tied on a long tail, and some other images that I couldn’t remember by the end of the meditation. I hate it when that happens. I’ve tried to focus on holding the images but when I drop back into the silence I lose them. I’ve come to the conclusion that if I’m meant to remember them I will.

We each gave quick feedback on how we experienced the meditation; some mentioned the colour they got others didn’t. As well as my gold there was electric blue, orange, violet and green.

‘Now you’re going to give each other readings based on the colour you got,’ Mary said as we picked crystals from her hands to find our partners. My dark green (jade I think) was matched by one of the men in the group, the same one who got the message for me to look more deeply into shamanism.

I was happy to be working with him because I thought it would give me an opportunity to give him an update on how far I’d got with the research. As it turned out he’s attended a number of shamanic events and had a lot of valuable information for me. Accidental pairing? I think not.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Mary gave us all a colour interpretation chart to kick start our readings.

‘Use the colour interpretation to get you into the reading, then listen to what else spirit want you to tell your partner,’ was her advice.

I got my reading first. Gold = learned physical commitment to their spiritual pathways/awareness.

He began by highlighting my commitment to this blog and the help it offers to others, then went on to talk about my writing generally and the way that will help many people around the world. (Seems like spirit are really hammering that one home.) He said that was only one part of my spiritual practice though and that healing will play a big part in my life.

His colour was violet = A true spiritual person, perceptive, well-guarded (though has tended to be misunderstood), no ego person, which is a very accurate description of him. However, after I read this to him I saw in my minds eye a foot stepping over a doorstep and was thrown for a moment. It’s the first time that’s happened when I’ve been giving a reading.

‘Do you need to go somewhere?’ I asked, trying to make sense of the image. Before he could answer I realised that what he was being asked to do was step up, i.e. step up his spiritual practice. Then I heard all this stuff flying out of my mouth about how he has so much more to give but that he needs to start using what he has now, because spirit wants to use him in many other ways.

‘It’s like when you’re studying, before you can do you’re A-levels you have to complete your GCSE, before you can go on to do your degree you have to do you’re a-levels. ‘You’re going all the way to doctorate,’ I told him ‘but you have to start using what you’ve been given.’

When I came up for air I asked him if any of it made sense. He said he’d been meaning to step up his healing and readings and had been thinking about doing volunteer session at Oak House. After what I’d said, he was going to ask straight away – and he did – at the feedback. Well, knock me over with a feather!!!

After that Mary offered us a ‘philosophy’ or healing option. We decided we would just about have enough time for both.

‘The ‘Philosophy’ option involved each of us standing up at the front and being given a word on which we had to talk about something uplifting. Nothing like putting you on the spot, as we didn’t know what the word was until we were standing there. The idea was that spirit would speak through us to pass to the group what needed to be heard. Our part was to trust what came out of our mouths.

Given that most of the group are not public speakers, there were some surprisingly eloquent messages delivered.

We ended with a healing circle, where we brought down white healing light and used it for all who needs healing. Oak House has a healing book into which the names of those who have asked for healing are entered. We also added names of people we knew who would benefit from healing.

During our closing prayer, which was being done by a member who hasn’t been for a few weeks, she went into a trance like state, where her words changed for ‘I’ to ‘we’. What I mean is, it’s as if someone was speaking through her, a bit like when Zoe does the trance work, but without the voice change. This member had also had another big breakthrough, as something similar had happened while she was doing the reading with her partner. She was being shown many things about him that she had no way of knowing.

Boy, I love it when this kind of thing happens. Just goes to show we’re not as in control as we think we are.

Please feel free to comment on anything. Have you ever had the experience of starting speaking as you and ending in that trance-like state? If you do reading, how do you get your images, and do they always mean the same thing?

Masquerade dancer

When I received the information to look more deeply into Shamanism I was more than a little reluctant to be associated with this form of practice. I threw some questions out about where to look and got what I can only describe as divine guidance from ‘R’ who responded with a comment on the blog.

If you read A hero with a thousand faces or The Writers Journey they suggest writers are modern day shamans. Maggie Whitehouse has some interesting things to say on shamanism – also google ayuhuesca and modern shamanism. X

Thank you so much ‘R’ for this comment. There was so much contained in such a small space. I spent a big chunk of today researching all the areas you suggested. It made immediate sense to me that writers would be Shamans. Especially after watching Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk on genius, and my experiences with my second novel. As a writer Joseph Campbell’s work is part of my tool kit so it was easy to find a hook for this.

I hunted everywhere for Maggy Whitehouse’s comments but the only sites with any references to Shamanism were unavailable.

I’ve made it this far without taking any consciousness enhancing aids but found the information on Ayuhuesca fascinating.

By far the area that absorbed most of my time was the information on Modern Shamanism.

There were a few sites but the first one I went to made me understand my reluctance.

In the Western world, when we hear the word “shaman,” most of us tend to conjure up an image of a masked and costumed indigenous tribal person, dancing around a fire in the dark, involved in some sort of mysterious ritual, accompanied by singing and drum beats.

This is not an easy thing for me to visualise myself participating in. It wasn’t till I read a little further that I began to relax, and even to become slightly excited.

But inside that cultural shell of mask, costume and ritual, there is a woman or a man with a set of very real skills. The shaman is the master of the trance experience.

All true shamans are able to achieve expanded states of awareness in which they can direct the focus of their consciousness away from our everyday physical reality and into the inner worlds of the dreamtime while very much awake.

The first thing they discover is that these inner worlds are inhabited, for there they encounter spirits–the spirits of nature, the spirits of the elementals, the spirits of the ancestors, and the higher, compassionate transpersonal forces, many of whom serve humanity as spirit helpers and guardians, teachers and guides.

It is this extraordinary visionary ability that sets shamans apart from all other religious practitioners. And it is through their relationship with these archetypal beings that shamans are able to do various things, initially on behalf of themselves and then increasingly on behalf of others. What sorts of things?

At the top of the list is probably ’empowerment.’ Working with the assistance of their helping spirits, shamans are able to restore power to persons who have lost theirs or who have been diminished by their life experiences. Shamanic practitioners are able to access information from ‘the other side’ through divination; some are skilled at guiding the souls of the deceased to where they are supposed to go in the afterlife, an ability known as psychopomp work; and many shamans are master healers at the physical, mental-emotional, and spiritual levels of our being.

www.sharedwisdom.com/article/modern-shamen

I’ve resisted this spiritual journey every step of the way, because of the negative connotations attached to most spiritual practices that fall outside of the main stream religions. I’m a scientist and psychologist. At each step I’ve questioned my sanity, wondered whether I would be ridiculed, loose friends, gain enemies, loose livelihood.

Yet each step has brought me better health, more harmonious relationships and greater peace and sense of purpose. So why would this be any different?

I’m not saying that I’m rushing to become a fully paid up student of Shamanism, but I’m certainly considering the possibility. What is very clear from the research is the central role trance plays in this practice. Another reminder of how important meditation is.

Shamanism is about service to individuals and to the community, about helping to repair damaged bodies, emotional turmoil and to heal fragmented souls. The language of Shamanism is the same language of Constellation work. It has been suggested that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the result of a fragmented soul.

I see the use of parts integration techniques in my Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) training as related to making fragmented souls whole. Healing the whole person is the principle of all spiritual healing such as my Reiki, and sitting in a spiritual development circle is all about connecting with the spirit realm who instruct and guide us.

Maybe it’s not too big a step… like I said, at least worth considering. Thanks again R for your very helpful suggestions.

Has anyone attended any workshops in the Midlands of England? I note there are some in London but I was wandering if you know of any closer to the centre.

http://www.sharedwisdom.com/article/modern-shaman

http://www.huna.org/html/modshmn.html

http://www.modernshamanism.org/

Writing Creatively With Spirit

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