Transmutation News – July 2009

Father Thomas Berry died in June at the age of 94. He was considered a leading ecological thinker and wrote a wonderful book titled The Dream of the Earth.

Throughout his life he conducted an ongoing study of the ecological nature of Earth, the way everything affects everything else. He realized then that human beings are part of a larger natural order.

“The catastrophe of our time is the loss of any real human connection to the natural world,” he told a reporter in 2005.

“Trees, birds – all living things – have rights”, he wrote. They require that people treat the natural world not as an object, but as a living being. “If nothing has rights but humans, then everything else becomes a victim,” Berry said.

As a global community we have been working together to honor “the spirit that lives in all things”. And we have been honoring our connection to nature and recognize everything in nature as alive.

It is so important to continue practices to maintain our connection and to honor nature. And we must get to a point where this goes beyond performing practices to just being a way of our minute to minute life.

This month let’s incorporate into our daily practice sending love to the natural world.

Find a spot on the earth where you can send loving thoughts that spread throughout the entire earth. Blow your love into the air which circulates throughout all the airwaves. When you drink some water give thanks to all the waters of the world. And when you go outside give thanks to the sun for all the life it gives. These living beings help us to thrive and not just survive. As we continue to thank the elements which are alive we bring harmony and balance back into the environment.

Continue this work by honoring the trees, plants, the birds, animals, reptiles, fish, insects, rocks, etc. These beings are part of our global community and when we give them respect we honor the web of life.

Each day I take a short walk in nature. And I know all the trees where I walk. I am a real tree lover and spend time relating to the trees I meet along the way.

There is one tree I visit with each day. As I touch the trunk of the tree I ask the tree to send a message of love to all the trees on the planet.

All beings are connected and when you send love to one you send love to all. As we connect to nature with love on a daily basis we receive the gift of love in return. This should not feel like work but rather a way of being in the world. Just as you breathe in and out air you can also send loving thoughts to the spirit that lives in all things.

The changes that keep happening on the planet are intensifying all over the world. These changes are happening on all levels – the weather we are experiencing, economical changes, political and religious unrest. We are seeing increasing health challenges that are impacting all of life.

As we are being asked to wake up and evolve there are different reactions to wanting to keep the old versus moving forward to the new. And this is being reflected in many different planetary events.

It is important to keep observing how we are reacting to situations in our local communities and in our world community. We must continue to do the inner work to transmute our negative states of consciousness so that we are beings of light and we are being conscious changemakers.

As we approach 2012 there are a variety of predictions that we can be exposed to. I know when I celebrated my 40th birthday I was shown a vision for the future. I am 56 years old now and keep being shown the same vision.

There is a part of me that would love to write about this vision. But everytime I start to do this a voice inside of me says “no”. For my own guiding spirits keep telling me the future is created by what we are doing in the present.

And as we read or hear about prophecies for the future this can actually be a distraction from our present. It is so important to stay in the present and keep up your transfiguration work and also your creation work as I wrote about in Medicine for the Earth. We must use all of our senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting to create the world we want to live in now. We must bring all our work into the present and that is how we impact our future.

It is easy to get distracted by all that is going on personally and globally. It is important to contain your energy and not scatter it. Last year I suggested doing a meditation or a journey to merge with a star in the night sky. The purpose of this was to really experience how solid a star is and how it shines from within. It does not shine from the surface but rather from its depths. And by doing this the light of a star reaches many millions of miles in sharing its light.

We also want to make sure that the light we share emanates from a solid core from within. Take some time to repeat this meditation or journey to merge with a star. If you have not done this before it is a wonderful and powerful experience. Just set your intention to merge with a star in the night sky.

This experience will bring us back to a center of strength and light that cannot be damaged or depleted and that has the power to light up the world.

During this wonderful month of July go outside and find a park or place in nature where you can lie on the earth. Connect with the earth and feel yourself becoming one with the heartbeat of the earth. And dream the world you want to live in creating a world of balance, harmony, peace, love, light, and abundance for all of life.

The full moon is July 7. Let’s together share our light and breathe love into the web of light that we continue to weave. And let’s share our light with all in the global community who need some healing help. For those of you new to our monthly ceremonies please read the instructions in Creating a Human Web of Light on the Transmutation News page of this site.

Together we can create a healthy and loving environment for all of life. Our earth garden needs some work. Let’s commit to gardening our earth garden together. We all have gifts we bring to the work. Allow yourself to feel empowered by the knowledge that you do have skills that you came here to share at this time. Do your work and as each of us works in the way we are guided we do become master gardeners of our great earth garden.

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Transmutation News – June 2009

It is so easy to allow ourselves to be swept away by too much work and staying too busy. It is important as time keeps speeding up to continue to set priorities and make sure you have time to relax and experience the joys of life. If we are truly saying that we want to be conscious changemakers we must be able to live a life where our spiritual work and a spiritual way of living is a priority. This means taking care of ourselves on all levels and finding time to honor earth, air, water, fire (the sun) for all that we are given so that we might thrive.

Throughout time it has been the role of the shaman and spiritual healers to help to keep harmony between humankind and the forces of the nature. And today it is essential that we all step into that role. And finding time to honor nature and the spirit that lives in all things is what brings harmony and balance back to the planet.

Honoring the forces of nature is as simple as taking a moment while walking to and from any activity or stopping what you are doing for a few minutes throughout the day to give gratitude. We tend to make our spiritual work more complex than it needs to be. To truly do “our work” for ourselves, all of life, and the planet we want to find simple ways to weave our practice of experiencing ourselves and all of life as divine light and expressing gratitude throughout out our daily activities. And the more you can weave spiritual prayers and blessings into your daily life the more you become “the work”. For we must live our spiritual work for it to truly make a difference.

I know some of us are challenged feeling that there is no time for ourselves. Time is an interesting illusion. Time tends to make us feel as if we are a slave to it. And we must free ourselves from feeling so stressed by time.

Over the years I have had a very interesting experience in teaching my workshops. Sometimes I realize that I have let a discussion go on for too long and that I might not have time to finish my teaching. Some of my workshops are non-residential and participants count on me to finish on time so they can meet other obligations especially on the last day when people have to get to the airport to catch an airplane flight.

I have found that when I don’t have enough time to finish my teaching I actually slow down my speaking. Whenever I do this I find that time actually slows down with me and I finish my lecture with time to spare.

Right now I am experiencing a huge surge in my workload. My rational mind says there are not enough hours in the day to finish all my tasks. So what I have been doing is slowing down how I do everything and time is also slowing down with me. I take long deep breaths and just slow down.

This is an interesting exercise you might try this month if you find yourself feeling stressed by a lack of time in your life. Do everything you have to do but take some deep breaths and actually move and speak slowly. Watch what happens.

As we move into summer we want to reflect on what we need to live in harmony as a new season greets us. A wonderful way we have been doing this over the years is to merge with the earth where you live and experience the movement and qualities of the earth. If you have never done a merging meditation or journey take a look at my book Medicine for the Earth. The instructions for how to do this are in there. Merging meditations and journeys are a potent way to learn about the elements by becoming an element. And I have found it to be helpful to merge with the earth at the beginning of each season to learn about the change in energies of the earth during the change in seasons. It helps me to gauge what is happening to my own body, as I am earth.

I also find on an emotional level we all have different needs during different seasons. I know many people feel like they want to be out more and more social during summer. And many people like myself feel a need to be alone and quiet during the summer months. The more you can track and follow what you emotionally need during the change in seasons and the changes in the cycles of the moon the more you will find yourself flowing along with the river of life. Flowing against the river of life causes stress which causes illness. Flowing with the river of life creates harmony and true health.

This month take some time to be still and listen to what your own soul is calling for as we move into summer.

A spiritual practice to try is to hold the intention of adjusting your vibration and energy to the divine light of the earth. I do this when I wake up and when I go to sleep at night. And this is a way for me to create harmony in my body during the change in seasons.

June 19 is the summer solstice. It is also father’s day. This is a great time to honor the sun for all the unconditional energy for life the sun provides for us without asking for anything in return.

A few months ago Ann Drake sent me a letter asking me to let people know about a ceremony she is hoping we will join in for the oceans of the world. Although Ann is actually asking us to go to the ocean for this ceremony we can participate through a meditation or through a journey. I live in the desert and cannot physically travel to the ocean at this time. But I can take some time in meditation to close my eyes and experience my own “free soul” which is the spiritual aspect of myself being at the ocean. In this way wherever we live in the world we can join together to be part of the ceremony.

Here is what Ann wrote:

“Last summer I went on a whale watch on which we were visited by many incredible whales. The marine biologist poignantly spoke of the rapid rise of toxins in the ocean and the threat to marine life as a result. She painfully told of a beached whale in Puget Sound that was so full of toxins that the whale had to be buried in a toxic waste dump. This tale re-enforced the need to not only work politically but also in spirit to reverse this trend.

A circle of women in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the oldest seaport in America, are proposing that as many people as possible line the coasts on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific on the Summer Solstice to drum, journey, and pray for the transmutation of toxins in the oceans and in marine life. The goal is for each of us to journey to part of the ocean where we ask our guides to send divine healing light, then hold the intention of transmutation as we watch as the toxins are absorbed into the light, shifting the vibration from that which harms to that which heals. As we gather in small and large circles throughout the day, a miraculous shift in the vibration and health of the ocean can occur.

Please join us on Sunday June 21 as we gather to heal the ocean.”

For more information on plans for the day visit www.anndrakesoulwork.com or contact Ann Drake at anndrake1@gmail.com

Ann sent this out to the shamanic community that she is involved in. For those of us involved with the Medicine for the Earth work we have an opportunity to work in partnership with the helping spirits by transfiguring into our divine light and perceiving the ocean and all marine life as pure divine light.

Life began in the ocean and in that sense we all come from the ocean. To add to the ceremony that Ann is suggesting you might want to do a meditation or journey to the ocean and ask if she has a message for you at this point in time.

One of the many joys of summer is watching the bloom of the plant world and the birth of babies in the animal world. Let’s pay intention to our “seed thoughts” and “seed words” that continue to bloom and birth in our lives.

Please keep up your creation work and use all your senses to experience a world filled with love, harmony, peace, light, and abundance for all.

Our global community of Medicine for the Earth practitioners and readers of the Transmutation News includes many who live in Australia and New Zealand. And you are celebrating the winter solstice and the deep stillness of the earth while others in the world in the experience the bloom of life.

The full moon is June 7. Let’s gather our spiritual energies together as a strong global community to continue the weaving of a brilliant web of life within and throughout the earth.

Life is bringing many in our community challenges as we are faced with looking at making changes in our lives that support living a life of harmony. In this regard many of us are going through initiation experiences that create the little deaths needed to grow and evolve. These little deaths require us to let go of what keeps us from a state of true health. They can seem quite painful when we are going through them but in truth we are being sculpted into spiritual beings. We are constantly asked to let go of whatever part of our lives keep us from living a light filled with light, joy, balance, harmony, peace, and love.

As we grow and evolve and go through our “growing pains” we can feel ourselves being held in love by our global community. On June 7 us keep up the transfiguration work for our circle as is written about under “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the Transmutation News page of this site.

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Transmutation News – April 2009

The core principle of the Medicine for the Earth work is that it is who you become that changes the world and not what you do. This means we must live the work and over the years we have been exploring different aspects of this principle.

Last month I wrote about the need to surrender to our inner divine spirit that knows the bigger picture and has more wisdom about what we need than our egos do.

This month I am writing about letting go. This is just another aspect of surrender.

Here is the example my helping spirits gave me when I journeyed on this month’s Transmutation News. Part of the Medicine for the Earth work is learning how to live life filled with joy. And when we live life filled with joy, the energy of joy exudes naturally from us as water springs forth from a deep well.

Many of us attach the experience of joy to outer events rather than allow joy to flow through us. When we attach our joy or any feeling such as love to outer events we become dependent on what is happening outside of us in determining how we feel on a particular day.

And the truth of the matter is that when we do this all good feelings of joy, love, wonder, harmony will be fleeting as conditions of life change moment to moment. Safety and security fall into this principle also. For as our outer world changes one minute you feel safe and one minute you do not. One day you might feel secure in your job and then the economy changes and your outer job security might now be at risk.

As the world continues to change, transition, and evolve we are being asked to continue our deep inner exploration and find joy, love, safety, security, etc. that permanently lives inside of us and is not dependent on changing outer conditions.

Sounds good – doesn’t it – but not always so easy to do. I don’t have “a recipe” to do this but I can tell you that setting an intention is key and also surrendering to spirit is important.

My spirits shared with me the importance of staying with the minute to minute experiences that tap us into our inner well of joy, love, safety, and security. Take a walk and just experience the beauty of the planet – independent of what is happening environmentally. No matter what is happening the planet is still filled with great beauty. Experience the simple joys of life that are not dependent on what is happening in your life.

We can see the laughter and the brilliance of light in the eyes of indigenous people who might be living in extreme poverty with nothing tangible that we might associate with happiness. That joy, laughter, light is coming from the depth of an inner well. It is a joy for life itself with no conditions.

Sit with this principle, meditate on it, journey on it, take walks holding your questions and experience if you can begin to find some doorway in to the inner core of your being that experiences safety, security, joy, and love independent of what life brings to you.

This is going to be key in the coming times in order to live the work. For life will continue to bring such great changes to help to bring us back to harmony again. And it is the inner core of our being that stays centered and harmonious in the midst of change.

After I wrote the above I went out for a walk in nature. As I was walking I received a message to add to what I have written here, a reminder I have given you many times over the years.

There is a delicate dance between creation/manifestation work with your egoic desires, your helping spirits, and your own divinity. The divine and your helping spirits see everything that happens in life in a neutral way and as a learning/growth/evolutionary experience. There is no judgement about a life experience being good or bad. Illness, being homeless, being out of job is all a growth experience.

Therefore it is important to state your desires and not put all choices in the hands of spiritual forces. And then you can work in cooperation and collaboration with the spiritual world while at the same time surrendering to a larger picture beyond your comprehension. But it is important to note that the spirits expect you to make choices and state your desires as part of your life journey this time around. The dance is around getting clear on what you want and at the same time letting go to the highest manifestation of your desires.

The universe is giving us what triggers us to teach us how to ride the waves and stay centered. Staying present in the moment, observing your thoughts and feelings, and staying non judgmental helps you to ride all the waves from a centered and stable place.

Pain is inevitable but your suffering is controllable by your response to what is happening around you.

Allow your huge emotions to come up. If you judge them or analyze them, or try to repress or get rid of them you can’t stay centered. As you work with using the power of words, decrees, affirmations feel them in your heart so your unconscious can grab onto them which works with the conscious mind to bring into manifestation your heart’s desires.

Everyday hold in your heart what you love. Place your hands on your heart and really experience deep love for someone, something in nature, the planet. Keep doing this throughout the day. This starts to shift your energy and thoughts from feeding what isn’t working to what you love with the energy needed to hold, heal, and support that which is sacred in your life and on the planet right now.

Find a small rock or pebble that you can keep in your pocket. As you feel this rock or pebble ask yourself, “What am I thinking and doing right now that leads me to where I desire to be?” Stop throughout the day and ask yourself “What am I thinking, feeling, and what energy am I feeding right now?”

The full moon is April 9. Let’s continue to weave a brilliant worldwide web of light bringing love and healing through our willingness to shine.

And on April 9 we also continue our monthly transfiguration practice in behalf of our global community as is included on the Transmutation Page under “Creating A Human Web of Light”.

I wanted to let you know that How to Heal Toxic Thoughts is now available in Spanish. Planeta in Mexico has published Liberate de pensamientos toxicos: Herramientas sencillas para tu transformacion personal.

Sylvia Edwards is the webmaster of www.sandraingerman.com and www.shamanicteachers.com. She is a brilliant shamanic practitioner and teacher. For the past couple of years Sylvia has been working in collaboration with spirit to bring forth a new healing modality. She paints on a round flat disk specific colors and symbols in a pattern to produce a frequency which changes something going on in our energy fields. She has reduced a few of these to wallet size and they are available for sale.

One of these is the Divine Disconnect Healing Disk. Looking at this for just a few seconds clears everything out of one’s energy field that isn’t a Divine connection and sends it back to the source from which it came with a higher vibration so that it is unlikely to return.

I keep one of the Divine Disconnect Healing Disks on my desk and use it throughout the day. The first time I used it I received quite a physical healing as I felt energies being released from me that did not serve me. Now I look at it when I need to and find it is a potent way to bring me back into my spiritual divine light.

To get more information or to order these healing disks, you can go to Sylvia’s website www.collectivelight.com or e-mail Sylvia at sje@collectivelight.com.

Something to think about:

A few months ago I watched on the news a story about Jacob Massaquoi who is a refugee from Liberia. Jacob lives in New York and has nothing in the material world to speak of yet he has become quite famous for his work to help other African refugees. The newsperson conducting an interview with Jacob asked him how someone who has so little could help so many. His response was:
“The problem is that people don’t think big enough”.

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Transmutation News – November 2008

In this month’s Transmutation News I am going to start by writing about work we have already been practicing and then lead you into a new place to work from.

The winds of change are really blowing hard and fast. And there are many ways that we can react to what is happening. Between the global economy spiraling downward, the extreme emotion over the United States election, and continual changes in the environment people everywhere are being triggered.

As I go out into the world for my daily activities I notice the fear in the eyes of people who are acting in anger. The energy of the collective is very chaotic making driving an “interesting” activity.

The winds of change are blowing for a reason. We have not been living in balance. We might not like the strong winds blowing but they are here to help us simplify and get our priorities straight.

You have a choice right now. You can feed the collective energies of fear and anger or you can choose to stay positive and do your spiritual work knowing that there are spiritual forces that are behind you and supporting every positive thought and change you feed the web of life with.

I wrote a column on the October newsletter for the Society for Shamanic Practitioners (www.shamansociety.org). And I shared some of the spiritual practices we need to keep doing to stay centered and focused during this transition. Here are the practices I shared:

It is really key right now for all us to keep focused on our spiritual work and to be part of the solution by watching the energies we are feeding in the world. We must stay focused on not allowing ourselves to continue to feed thoughts of fear and disaster.

If you are having troubles right now in being able to stay centered in the midst of this great time of change and readjustment it might be worth visiting your helping spirits. Ask for ways you can shift your perspective and for practices you can engage in throughout the day to stay centered and focused.

I would not journey to ask for predictions about the future for the future is being created by our present behavior.

Other tools you can work with utilizing shamanic practices is to remember to walk through your life with honor and respect for the earth, air, water, the sun for their life giving properties. You can honor the spirit that lives in all things by remembering to live your life honoring all living beings even those who trigger you into states of anger.

Remember to be grateful for being alive and for all that you love about life.

Remember the shamanic teaching of what you bless blesses you return.

You can shift out of a negative way of viewing the world by working with the power of gratefulness. This is a teaching that comes from all shamanic traditions. It is interesting to note that the alpha waves in our brain help to support our immune system. It is now known through brain mapping that being grateful is a potent way to increase alpha waves in your brain.

Keep up your creation practices where you continue to focus on dreaming into being the world you want to live in rather than focusing on what creates fear and anger for you.

Use all your senses and fully engage in an experience of participating in a life and world that brings joy, love, peace, light, harmony, equality, and abundance to all.

See the visuals of such a life and world, hear the sounds of nature and children laughing, feel the feelings of living in such a world, smell the fragrances, and taste foods that are prepared in love. Don’t watch your creation like you would a movie on TV. Rather make it three-dimensional by fully stepping into your dream.

And remember to watch the energy behind your thoughts that you are sending out to others. In shamanism thoughts are things. When we send out thoughts of hate we are sending psychic arrows to others that only feeds the energies of fear, hate, and warfare. We must learn how to see the divine in all creation and transmute the energies we send to ourselves, to others, and into the world. We must also learn not to pity others but rather have compassion for their suffering.

Remember we are caretakers of this great earth and we must continue to tend our beautiful earth garden. Don’t allow yourself to stay in dense states of consciousness. Use your spiritual practice to rise up and fill the world with love and light.

We are limited as egoic beings from really being able to get a full perspective of what this time is about and what it is all leading to. Journey to merge with a teacher and walk around (not drive) and look through the world with “spirit eyes”.

Over the years I have gotten very powerful guidance from the spirit of earth, air, water, and fire. They have assured me that I am not working alone but in partnership with them and that I can count on their support.

The Egyptian Goddess Isis who is my spiritual teacher has been teaching me for years how to ride a different wave than the wave of fear. She has assured me that my thoughts and attitude will create the dimension of reality that I wish to live in.

She started talking to me about this when I had moved into a state of fear after watching a program on TV in the 1980’s predicting extreme droughts and famines in the future. After watching my reaction she shared with me, “If you think you are not going to have water to drink, you will not have water to drink. If you think you will not have food to eat, you will not have food to eat.”

Her words follow me as I find myself being impacted by the news. Even newscasters and financial experts are saying that the turn of the world economy is being fed by fear. We are being shown what fear can create in the world.

This all takes us back to the work we have already been doing. And we have been doing this work together as a global community for many years now. Keep doing your spiritual practices. Choose to ride a different wave than mass consciousness is riding right now.

And it is so important to understand that strength and change comes in numbers. This month I ask you to meditate on or journey on a practice you can engage in to feed the collective energy of the spiritual community who is shining light and love versus hate and anger into the web of life. Even if you choose to focus a few minutes a day on experiencing yourself as part of a community working in behalf of all of life this is so important to being a changing force in the world.

I am now receiving some more guidance about this from the spirit of earth, air, water, and fire, as well as Isis. They said to me that it is important to learn how to project your spiritual energy in the world.

This brings up interesting issues. For one many people engaged in spiritual practices want to remain “hidden” even in the psychic levels. The reasons for this are varied. Some people live in fear of being punished for working spiritually as we remember times when many were killed for working in this way. Some people want to remain humble and staying invisible is seen as a way to do this. Some people are afraid of the attention it will bring to them. And some are afraid of intruding their energies on others space.

But my spiritual guidance is telling me that the time to remain hidden on psychic levels is over. For this is a level that we do need to project our light and loving energies on. As long as you are not trying to force a result moving into working with the principles of “power over” and “manipulation” you are fine.

You can say that you have been doing this in our monthly meditation Creating A Human Web of Light. Well maybe you have. But I ask you to spend some time this month on reflecting on how much you actually project your spiritual divine light and love into the world. And how much do you project your spiritual energies into the world – not trying to manipulate, but rather simply by being a strong presence in the collective. There is a difference between watching yourself be a light as if you are watching a movie or TV and fully stepping into the collective and engaging in it.

I imagine that some of you will notice you have not been a strong personal spiritual presence in the collective. You shine your light to a degree while hiding or holding some part of you back at the same time.

There are many writings from authors who speak to the issue that humankind has destroyed the planet before whether through ordinary means such as warfare or through spiritual means as humans started to move into abuse of power on psychic levels.

So here we are again in human history needing to look at next steps and choices. Are we going to repeat what has been done before?

In using the principle of the hundredth monkey that has been talked about so much throughout the years we really should have seen more change by this time. This statement contradicts what I have been saying for months now in saying we must do our spiritual work and not get distracted by the results that we are seeing in the world.

And I still believe this. But at the same time I also think that many people are becoming complacent with the practices we are doing. Complacency is an issue I wrote about in the October Transmutation News.

We need to keep deepening our practices and evolving our work. For example, when I first started learning the practice of shamanic journeying I was taught to journey into the non-ordinary realms and work with my helping spirits and then at the return beat on the drum to say good-bye and come back.

But I never truly felt that this was a traditional way of working in shamanism. I never felt inside myself that the lines between the worlds were drawn so strictly. Yes, shamans had regular lives and jobs and families. But in watching indigenous shamans it never looked like there was such a strong boundary between “here” and “there”.

So then when I started teaching the practice of transfiguration in the Medicine for the Earth work I did not bring people all the way back from the transfiguration work. Rather I encouraged people to hold that state of divine light throughout the day as much as possible. And I started reminding people that in transfiguring you are not going anywhere you are just allowing your own spiritual light to merge with who you are on a personality level.

In working with projecting oneself more into the spiritual realms there is no longer a boundary between here and there. You are in both realms simultaneously here AND there. And I think this is one of the keys to how true shamans and mystics work. They are in ordinary and non-ordinary realms simultaneously all the time.

The key is not to try to manipulate energies in the ordinary or non-ordinary but to simply be a presence of love and light as we have been doing in the Medicine for the Earth work where we engage with the feminine principle of “being” versus “doing”.

When we do try to manipulate then we get into a place of working with “power over” and that is where psychic abuse comes in. To avoid moving into such a trap it is crucial to keep working on our egoic self that wants to control.

As you tap into the power of “the unlimited” the ego can easily be tempted to use the power to manipulate spiritual energies.

It is also important to be as fully embodied in your physical body as you are in the spiritual realm. You need to continue to do whatever emotional work that needs to be done so that you are fully present in both the visible and invisible realms.

Last year I did write about the journey/meditation where I was led into the Inner Chamber of Light. And I have now added this ceremony into my Medicine for the Earth Gatherings. In this work we become part of an anonymous global spiritual collective that works in the inner worlds to weave and strengthen the web of light. And I still work on this level.

In this meditation/journey you experience yourself going into the inner realms where you are met by two anonymous figures
who bring you to a place to work in strengthening the web of light. The beauty of this place is there are millions of other people working here anonymously to heal the web of light.

Now my spirits are asking me to add to that work. For working in the inner worlds and on a level of anonymity is important work. And at the same time – the operative word here is AND – to also be more of a stronger presence in the collective.

You can think of it this way. You know what happens when someone in a state of love and light walks into a room that is filled with people in emotional chaotic states. The whole energy in the room calms down. Well our collective is in a chaotic state. Project your spiritual presence filled with love and light into the collective and allow the chaos of the collective to calm down by your state of being. As with all our work there is nothing to do. Just be a presence of light and love.

I feel that as a spiritual community we are still allowing ourselves to be limited by human laws of what the collective believes is possible. We continue to get caught up in limiting methods for healing and change. We continue to be influenced by what science says is possible and not possible. We continue to be more influenced by collective beliefs than by allowing ourselves to open the prison doors from ordinary laws and allow ourselves to move deeply into the spiritual.

Journey and/or meditate on this issue this month. We can be a strong psychic presence that creates change. Other factions have been doing this for years now but maybe not with the same motivations that we are working with. As long as we don’t try to manipulate others we can be a greater positive force than we have been.

For years now I keep getting that the work we do spiritually and on psychic levels is where change can happen in big ways. And I am getting stronger messages on this as the psychic level of the collective keeps being fed and moved by fear and anger. Imagine how the collective can change which also impacts our physical reality if we feed the collective with love, light, hope, and inspiration.

 

I don’t know if you heard this news but penguins ended up in the oceans of Brazil. I can’t think of a better example to show how much confusion is feeding the collective of all of life right now. Be a positive force in the collective – don’t be afraid to be a strong spiritual presence. We must remember to be part of restoring balance to nature not just ourselves but for all of life.

And most of all remember that there are many waves of consciousness people are riding right now. Choose a wave that matches your change in awareness and consciousness.

Be excited and remember the power of being in awe and wonder as I wrote about last month. For the universe will match your state of excitement bringing joy into your life.

The full moon is November 13. Let’s use the principle of projection that I wrote about this month to be a stronger presence of love and light in the collective while we continue to weave the web of light throughout the earth.

And as always we continue to support our global collective by performing the transfiguration ceremony for those of you in need as is written up in Creating A Human Web of Light on the Transmutation News page of this site.

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Transmutation News – July 2008

Changes are happening very rapidly. We have been watching change in the world increasing exponentially, but one cannot miss observing how speedy things are happening.

On one level advances in technology are growing at rapid speeds. But we are also seeing more natural catastrophes occurring throughout the world, as life has become so out of balance. One can say that the earthquakes, fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons represent a natural change in the earth. And I do agree that there are natural cycles and shifts and changes that we are part of. But I cannot help feeling that maybe some of “the violence” of these changes could be tempered by a global shift from living life from a stance of power over nature and fueled by greed to living from a place of honor and respect for nature and all of life.

With the changes in nature, the economy, the state of health many are in right now it feels like we are being forced to shift our priorities of what is important and to seek a simpler way of living. The nature of humans is often to be forced into making changes rather than stopping and reflecting on what supports a healthier life style. I look forward to the day when people move away from learning and making change through pain and suffering.

As change in the world is swirling so swiftly I feel it is important to look at how you can stay centered in the midst of change. One important factor in staying centered is making sure you are finding some time in your life for the quiet needed to adjust to everything that is happening and to regenerate. Spending time in nature is essential to keep the feeling of connection to the web of life. There is a larger picture going on than what our ordinary eyes can see.

In the past I have asked you to set an intention to observe the world through “spirit eyes” instead of an ordinary way of looking at what is happening. I would suggest that you continue to keep up this work.

Spend some time in meditation or through shamanic journeying to find centering practices. This will change how you respond to what is happening in the world and also in your own personal life.

We really are being forced to look at finding simpler ways to live that create more time to regenerate and to absorb all the changes that are leading to a new evolution in the world. We need time to reflect on how we are being asked to change our lives and to live spiritually to help balance return to the planet again.

I know for myself I can force myself to continue to work at the pace that I used to. But I don’t want to anymore. On a psychic level I need so much more alone time then I ever needed. I have always been an introvert and needed time to be alone. But this need to be alone and quiet is extreme right now. My own psyche is calling for a time out and a time to just be.

This need for quiet ties into the shamanic teaching of “deep listening”. As our consciousness is evolving and a new way of life is being born we need to be able to slow down and listen for new direction. The guidance we truly need right now will not come while we are moving at a frantic pace.

We need to make the choice to slow down and listen before that choice is made for us. In this way we begin to make the positive changes called for in the healing of our planet.

Over my twenty or so years of teaching shamanism, seeing clients, and teaching workshops on reversing environmental pollution I have witnessed countless miracles when a group gathers its energies together in behalf of a purpose.

There is a result that happens when one works alone that is different than when a group focuses its energies together. There is exponential healing when a group gathers their energy together.

When I started teaching Medicine for the Earth trainings we began experimenting with the process of transfiguration in a group setting. First we started working with placing ammonium hydroxide in deionized water and taking the pH to a toxic level.

Using the principle of it who we become that changes the world and not what we do we focused on transfiguring into our divine light and perfection knowing the water would reflect the change in the circle. We did not pray for the water or focus on it in any way.

After a few years working with ammonium hydroxide in water I purchased a gas discharge visualization (GDV) camera which is based on the Kirlian effect. The camera was developed by Konstantine Korotkov, a Professor of Physics at St. Petersburg State Technical University in Russia. He has published over 70 papers in leading journals on physics and biology, and holds 12 patents in biophysics inventions.

The GDV camera is a special camera that allows one to capture the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energies emanating to and from an individual, plant, liquid, powder, or inanimate object and translate those energies into a computerized model. This diagnostic camera measures and evaluates the energy of the auric field and integrates the information into a computer-generated report with pictures. This camera enables us to document the change in energy that we place inside our circle during our transfiguration ceremonies. We have worked with different foods, soil, as well as have continued to work with water. For the results and some of the photos taken you can visit www.medicinefortheearth.com and click on “results”.

What I wanted to share here is what happened when we worked with a peach taken from the peach tree from my garden. This was a few years ago and Santa Fe had been in an extreme drought when the peach was growing. As I could not give the trees at my home the water they needed, I walked around each day visualizing each tree in its divine light and perfection.

When we took the first picture of the peach before the ceremony the light it was emitting looked good. But it looked even better, and significantly brighter, after fifty people performed a ceremony of transfiguration. This was a great teaching for all of us about the power of working in a group versus working alone.

We have such an opportunity to gather our energies together as a global community. Twenty years ago it was not possible to reach out to thousands of people around the globe over the internet. Today it is.

As you do any praying, meditating, shamanic journeying for yourself, people you know in need, for the world at large allow yourself to feel yourself as part of a global community working along side with you. You know what it feels like to try doing a task in your life on your own. And how it feels so good when others volunteer their help to get your project done.

Let’s use this same concept for sharing the task of being a positive force in the world. Include all those people who are working spiritually in behalf of all of life. There are people of all different spiritual traditions who work to be in service. Let’s join our hearts and spiritual energies together in every spiritual practice that we do. And this will help to create exponential shifts toward healing and achieving balance.

Of course we can focus on one intention to heal a place or situation. But I would like for you to start working with the awareness that a global community constantly supports you. This community is not asking anything from you, taking anything from you, or sending anything to you. This is just a collective energy that can empower all the spiritual work we engage in throughout the day.

It is also important to keep up your creation work of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting the healthy world we are dreaming into being. If you are new to this work you can read the chapter on Creation in Medicine for the Earth.

The full moon is July 18. Let’s fully gather our spiritual light together to shine bright and experience ourselves weaving our light together throughout the earth.

And let’s continue empowering each other with our monthly healing circle as is described on my homepage under the topic Creating a Human Web of Light.

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Transmutation News – April 2008

In March I led the Medicine for the Earth reunion that meets in Santa Fe each year. A core group of people has been part of these reunions since 2001 and new people come and go each year.

This year the theme was to reflect on our relationship with the Medicine for the Earth work. We all have a desire to go deeper with the work and this means looking at how much the work has become part of our lives.

I cannot go through everything that we did throughout our four days together. But I can share some of the key principles that we looked at.

Some of the principles of the Medicine for the Earth are:

– It is who we become that changes the world.
– We need to be a light and lift everyone up by our presence and perceive everyone in his or her divine perfection.
– The outer world is merely a reflection of our inner state of consciousness.
– Words are magic and thoughts are things. We create the world we live in through our thoughts and words. As thoughts and words are seeds we end up eating their fruits.
– We must continue to transmute the energy behind our thoughts, emotions, and belief systems. We must continue to do the alchemy work to work through the dense states of consciousness and change heavy leaded consciousness into gold light consciousness.
– The elements are living beings and we must continue to deepen our relationship with them.
– We are a reflection of our creator and through the gift of our imagination we can create a healthy planet.
– Harmony within creates harmony without.
– Our perception creates our reality.

You need to reflect on how you work with these practices moment to moment and not just at certain times during the day. You need to ask the question do you shine so brightly that people who meet you are hungry for what you have? Do you truly lift everyone up who comes into contact with you? Do you lift up the planet and all of life by the power of your words and thoughts?

Are you dependent on results in the outer world to be in a state of peace and joy? Does the outer world distract you? I did write about this last month. Please review the March Transmutation News.

Have you found joy within? Do you understand that your state of consciousness is birthed from the inside out and not from the outside in?

Are you in a state of appreciation for your life and all you experience throughout the day?

These are some questions to reflect on. The Medicine for the Earth work lights the path and now we must walk the path. And it is a process. From time to time it is good to stop and reflect on your commitment to the work.

There were some exercises that we performed in the reunion I encourage you to do this month.

I continue to write that words and thoughts are seeds that grow into plants. And I have asked you to consider if you are growing plants of love and inspiration or plants of fear and hate.

Seeds have enormous potential. As we look at the plants we have been growing it is very important to look at the creative potential of a seed.

During this month and the time of spring you can perform a shamanic journey to actually merge with a seed so that you can truly experience it’s creative potential. If you do not practice shamanic journeying you can use meditation. Find a quiet space to work and set your intention to merge with a seed and learn about its power.

This experience is a very potent way to really experience how much creative potential your own thoughts and words have.

As I wrote in December 2007, it is important to make sure we are not leaving our bodies when we transfigure. When we transfigure into our divine light we are letting go of the body and thoughts that clothe our spirit. We are experiencing the truth of who we really are.

I had suggested in the December Transmutation News to journey or meditate to merge with a star to experience the solidity of a star’s light and how we can experience the light of a star millions of miles away. We too are starlight and can expand our light to a greater extent then we are presently doing.

During the day as we let that light shine through us we can walk through the world looking through “spirit eyes” instead of our ordinary eyes. In this way we can really shift the perception of our lives and what is happening in the world.

In my book Medicine for the Earth I encourage people to write their story of creation and learn about their creator. It is important for you to keep working with this and to keep reflecting on your relationship with the creator. For you also have that same creative potential inside.

Reflect on your relationship with earth, air, fire, and water and ask the elements through a journey or meditation how you can deepen your relationship.

Look at the formula of intention + love + union + harmony + concentration + focus + imagination = transmutation and also creation. Do you need to strengthen your practice with any of these elements of the formula?

What is the vision for your life and the planet? And are your thoughts, words, and actions in alignment with this vision?

Are you embracing a vision of unlimited possibilities?

Continue to do the creation work I wrote about in Medicine for the Earth to use all your senses to dream a new world into being. Fuel your creation work with the power of love.

In March I was interviewed for a movie on God. One of the questions I was asked was what was needed for the healing of the planet. I said that we need to move from a hierarchical structure where we believe that a few people have the ability to save the world. We need to move to a horizontal and feminine structure where we all understand that we hold a piece of the puzzle and that we can work together to create positive change. We are all brilliant and creative beings. There are not a select few that have the ability to “save the world”.

By continuing to work over time with the issues I have presented this month will help you to work with the power within you so that we can gather our energies together to create exponential positive change for the planet and all of life.

Heidi in Germany shared a couple of practices she does in her life. She says that the exercises she does each day are what are important versus doing big ceremonies. She tries to do all things with consciousness.

Heidi is known for her animal communication work and she cares for many animals. She writes:

“When I look into my dog’s eyes and stroke her, I think that my love for her is flowing through all dogs in the world. And when I stroke my pigs’ stomach, I think that this ease and light is flowing through all pigs in the world, especially to the pigs at the slaughter-houses including all people who work there. Or when I fill the trough for my horses with water, I send light in this water and think that my light is flowing through all waters on the earth.

Another thing is, I bless the earth everyday. When I walk with my dog through nature I bless the earth and give thanks with every step. When my feet touch the earth I send blessings and thanks deep in the earth. And a few weeks ago I suddenly felt, that the earth began to give me thanks back. Now I touch the earth with my right foot and send my blessings and thanks and when I touch the earth with my left foot the earth sends me thanks and power. It feels like a power-circulation and a special connection with the earth.”

Heidi’s words are a direct teaching of what we bless blesses us back. And I thank her for sharing her work with us.

She also shared something she does in the winter that we can all adapt to a springtime practice.

“After a snowfall I walk through the fields with my dog and write in the fresh snow with my finger – peace, love, wisdom, freedom, joy,….

And I think, when the sun is shining the snow water brings the energy from these words into the earth.”

We can adapt this by writing in the earth and letting our words soak in after a wonderful spring rain.

Annette from Germany shared the words of a wonderful song:
One by one,
everyone
comes to remember,
we’re healing the world
one heart at a time….

I am in deep appreciation for those of you are willing to share some practices you engage in which inspire and remind us that we are a global community working in behalf of the planet and all of life.

A few years I participated in a one-day event with the Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. He has written some wonderful books. He has been writing about the feminine and the world soul on:
http://www.workingwithoneness.org/feminine.html

Here is one excerpt from Llewellyn’s writing from Teachings on the Feminine and the World Soul:

What does it mean to reclaim the feminine?
It means to honor our sacred
connection to life that is
present in every
moment.

Please visit his website to learn more.

I was a contributor in a beautifully written book titled Soul Companions. The book was published in England but I wanted to let you know it is now available on Amazon for sale in the United States.

I also wanted to let those of you who read the Transmutation News in French speaking countries know that we have found a translator to continue to translate my monthly column into French. I am in deep gratitude for Annie Idrissi being willing to donate her time to do this.

And I also I wanted to let you know that my book How to Heal Toxic Thoughts is now out in French. The publisher is Tredaniel. You can visit www.shamanicteachers.com to get the link that will assist you in purchasing the book in French. Tredaniel published Soul Retrieval and Medicine for the Earth in French last year.

I have just found a publisher in Brazil who will be publishing both Soul Retrieval and How to Heal Toxic Thoughts into Portuguese.

And I have found a publisher in Italy who will be publishing How to Heal Toxic Thoughts in Italian. Soul Retrieval and Medicine for the Earth are already published in Italy. And my book Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner’s Guide will be out in Italy shortly.

All of my books have been published in German. It is wonderful to see the work spreading around the world.

The full moon is April 20. Let’s join the light within with the light without to continue to weave a brilliant web of light throughout the earth.

And let’s continue our healing circle with light for those in our community in need.

For those of you new to this website please visit “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the Transmutation News page for the instructions and information on our full moon practices.

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Transmutation News – December 2007

I had a really good trip to Europe in October and it is also good to be home getting ready for the wonderful season of winter. I really cannot believe that we are preparing for the winter solstice again. The cycles of the seasons keep coming around faster than ever. It is hard to believe that the year is ending.

Shortly after returning from Europe I had a dream. In the dream there were circles of people in different countries in Europe singing to create change. The circles of people were filled in, meaning they were solid circles. The message that I received was the old songs don’t work anymore to create change. We need new songs of a higher frequency for the changing times.

I found the message in my dream to be important. For we can get bogged down in looking how people in the past worked for different issues. But the truth of the matter is that for there to be life and potency in any work it must address the times. And the times we live in require different solutions than people turned to in the past. We can definitely be inspired by how our ancestors worked. But we must continue to grow and change our ways of working to fully address the issues of the time we live in.

On that note I have written about changes I have made in teaching the healing practice of soul retrieval and how I work with clients. This appears in past Transmutation News and also in the new edition of Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self where I added a new Afterword in 2006.

While I was in Europe I really stressed the need to bring in a new element to the soul retrieval work. As I was teaching a Soul Retrieval Training in France I had my participants experience the changes I have made. I also taught Medicine for the Earth and Healing with Spiritual Light in Germany. I was able to share how to bridge some of the work with light with the practice of soul retrieval.

It really is time to move away from emphasizing the past traumas of our clients and to get them to really absorb the light of their returned soul. And to also share the healing stories needed to help people be inspired to change their lives and live up to their creative potential. We need people to feel empowered right now to be able to create positive change in their own lives and for the planet.

Soul is our essence and it is pure light. So in returning lost soul parts to people we are returning light. And in doing so if we can help people to really absorb the light of their returned soul parts it is amazing the healing that happens just like we see with the practice of transfiguration. Since I have been working in this way with clients I cannot even begin to fully share the exponential results I have been seeing.

I really do believe that those people who work with sound and light are the new shamans of our times. For the potential for healing others and the planet is unlimited with bringing in the power of this work.

I know that sometimes I have been criticized for making changes in my book Soul Retrieval. Everything that exists in this world is in movement and is evolving. Where movement stops there is death. It is so important for us working to heal others, the planet, and ourselves and to keep exploring the next steps with our work. For when we stop questioning, exploring, and evolving in our lives and work life stops. I continue to add changes I am making to keep up with the needed evolution of the work.

Another important factor for us to keep looking at is the principle of expansion I wrote about last month. In times of change we tend to contract in the fear of the unknown. This only feeds the state of separation.

This is not the energy needed to fuel our dreams. Our dreams are fueled by expansive energy.

Travel inside yourself – using the principle of as above, so below; as within, so without – find a star in your inner night sky you can merge with. Allow yourself to be as expansive as that star. Notice how far the light extends and how many million of miles it touches with it’s light.

This is the energy we need to work with to fuel and energize our dreams to manifest a planet filled with love, light, peace, harmony, equality, and abundance for all. Allow that expansive energy to shine light and love on all of life.

This experience needs to come from within to embrace the experience of spiritual solidity.

One of my challenges in teaching transfiguration to experienced shamanic journeyers is that they tend to go out of body to experience their divine essence. This is not actually what the work is about and ends up separating people from the physical temple that holds the divine light.

We need to allow the light to shine through from our inner core and not have an outer body experience.

Today more and more gyms and physical trainers are teaching exercises to strengthen the physical core. We need to build on our spiritual core otherwise the energy becomes diffuse and also can drain our physical energy versus healing us.

If you are an experienced shamanic journeyer used to journeying without into other realms try some journeys into your inner world. Reverse directions and go within. Then try to transfigure into your divinity and then try to merge with a star.

As we enter this time of winter journey deep within and be warmed by the fire of your inner light. Strengthen your inner core so that life, light, and love can burst out and be born from a place of spiritual and physical nurturance.

December 22 is the winter solstice. Continue to work with the practice of experiencing the depth of your light shining into the world. To add to this on this day please do a journey or meditation to merge with the earth where you live. If you are new to this work you can read the section on merging with the elements in Medicine for the Earth.

You can do this alone or you can do this in community with a group that you meet with to do spiritual work together. Learn about the changes the earth is going through with the change of seasons. Remember that even frozen earth has a tremendous amount of movement. All healthy elements have movement. All healthy life contains a lot of movement.

Experience the energy and power of the earth where you live during this time so that you can harmonize with the energy. The more we can harmonize with the power of where we live the more harmony we will feel in our life.

And then journey or meditate to speak to the spirit of the earth where you live and ask what changes you need to make in your life to bring more harmony into your life and into the world during the time of winter.

In the merging work we learn by becoming the element we are working with. But we can also do a journey to or we can meditate on an element to get information through the process of direct revelation.

The full moon is December 23. As we create and weave a human web of light within and throughout the earth make sure your light is expanding deep from the core of your being. And let’s continue our healing circle and allow yourself to feel the love and light shining within you as you either experience yourself lying in the middle of our circle or standing in the outer circle. Focus on absorbing that light shared into every cell of your being.

Remember the most important principle that a lower frequency entrains to attune to a higher frequency and not the reverse. To shift the dense states of consciousness within ourselves and on the planet we must shift into a higher frequency. We can do so by experiencing our divine light flowing within and throughout the planet.

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Transmutation News – November 2007

I was teaching and traveling in Europe for the month of October. So I wrote the Transmutation News for this month before I left on my trip.

I journeyed on what might be important to share for this month. When I met up with my helping spirits a message was immediately given.

The hope is that you had a chance in October to work with letting go of what distracts you from being able to go deep into your inner world. And that you had a chance to travel into the inner worlds and do the work I had suggested.

The next step is to fully emanate the light from within. We have been doing that for years now but my spirits suggested that we broaden our energy fields. I have been writing about shining your light when you are in the grocery store, the bank, etc. Now we want to expand the light emanating from us to fill the world.

In the past I have shared with you my definition of the spiritual aspect of ourselves. For me our spirit is who we are beyond our body, mind, and past experiences. This part of ourselves is naturally expansive and has no boundaries. And it is a part of ourselves that cannot be seen with the visible eye but others can feel this presence around us.

To remain “invisible” in the world we stuff our naturally expansive spirit into our bodies to clothe our essence. As we allow that invisible part of us to expand forth we change the world by our sacred presence. For our spirit is divine and sacred.

I know those of you reading the Transmutation News are from many different cultures. And most of us reading this column grew up in cultures who on some level taught us to contain our energy. Words might not have been actually been spoken about this. But we were given many messages in unspoken ways that taught us to keep our energy in, don’t stand out, and don’t shine your light too bright.

This way of being in the world has been a way to conform to society and has been an important way of surviving. But what would the impact on our own personal health and the health of the planet be if we all decided to really expand our energy and not contain it. And if we allowed our light to fully flow as far and wide as possible. In some way we have been doing this in our monthly full moon meditation of Creating a Human Web of Light. But I am suggesting a different aspect of the work. Instead of connecting with a web of light you just want to experience your own inner light being projected throughout the world.

If your energy has been very contained through your life meaning you keep your energy in and don’t allow it to emanate and hide your light, you need to take some time to work on this. Everyday allow your energy and light to go a bit further. You might start by experiencing your energy completely filling your house or apartment. And then allowing it to fill your neighborhood, and then your city, and then keep letting it expand. At first try this for a few minutes a day and notice how you feel.

My spirits shared with me this is a good way to focus our energies together to continue to create positive change on the planet. Changes in the environment are moving fast. We must exponentially increase the focus on our spiritual practices which create positive change. If everything is energy we have a choice about what with do with it. We can project the energy of anger and fear or we can project love into the world.

And we can take this same teaching into our work with dreaming the world we want to create into being. We experience with all our senses – seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling the fragrances, and tasting the tastes of a world filled with harmony, peace, light, love, equality, and abundance for all. Just like a seed that grows in the earth or a fetus that grows in the womb at the time of the birth the plant or living being bursts forth into the world.

As we learn how to expand our energy into the world in the same way we can project our dreams for the earth into the world. Experiment with projecting out those inner dreams this month.

The full moon is November 24. Let’s use the principles of this month’s Transmutation News and use the flowing of our light to connect with the light of others to continue to weave a web of light throughout the planet. And let’s continue to use this emanation of light to heal those in our circle who have placed themselves in our inner circle asking for healing and help as is written up in Creating A Human Web of Light.

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Transmutation News – August 2007

On July 17 there was a worldwide ceremony to create planetary healing by focusing for one hour on joy and gratitude. What a wonderful event to create great ripples throughout the entire web of life.

I think it is great that people are getting spiritual information to do such global ceremonies and wake people up to the need of meditating on joy and gratitude.

And I want to keep creating a continual reminder that these global community ceremonies are potent but the most potent form of healing is living the work. It is one thing to meditate on joy and gratitude for an hour it is another thing to continue to experience what you on in gratitude for continually throughout the day. We need to keep building on the inner energies created.

But we all have to start somewhere and I do believe that as people join in to creating these global ceremonies people will start to wake up to the power of focusing on joy, appreciation and gratitude, honor, and respect for life and our great planet.

There has been a lot on the news about different environmental disasters happening. There was the earthquake in Japan in July that ended up with the leakage of nuclear waste into the environment. There has been a lot of coverage of the extreme drought in the Western part of the United States. And there was a devastating storm that created many millions of dollars of damage in New Zealand also displacing a large part of the population. These are just a few among many other environmental issues occurring all over the planet.

Our planet continues to undergo great environmental change. And I was brought back to a time in my own life when my health started to fail in different parts of my body and the teachings that came from that.

About 15 years ago I started getting different infections in my body. I had an eye infection, a sinus infection and a kidney infection. At the same time I kept getting recurring bouts of the flu. I was visiting different doctors for each different issue so no one was connecting the dots.

About a year later I suffered an injury where I hurt my shoulder. I was in severe pain. After months of treatment with my osteopath he said to me that the injury was not bad enough to not be healing and he felt something else was going on in my body.

So he sent me for a blood test to get my thyroid tested. It turned out my thyroid was not functioning creating problems with my immune system and also not having the energy in my body to allow healing for my shoulder.

My thyroid function was so low that from a medical standpoint I should not have been able to get out of bed. And I was traveling and teaching about 40 workshops a year.

There were a couple of things I learned from this experience. One was how the power of will can keep us moving through extreme circumstances instead of stopping to really look at what is happening and what is needed.

And I also saw how by not looking at the core of a problem but only looking at individual symptoms can lead to missing the true treatment needed that cures the core problem versus chasing and trying to handle symptoms. The body is a complete organism and one cannot just look at what is happening in one organ alone and expect to create long term healing.

I also had to look at every level of my life to create true healing. I had to explore the emotional and spiritual aspects of my life that had created such physical exhaustion. And I had to look at what my body needed to move into being supported so I could thrive versus being dragged around.

I learned about the strength of my own spirit and how my spirit not only helped me move and continue my life during that time but also how the strength of my spirit had helped me survive other great challenges in my past.

We cannot split the planet up into different countries. The earth is one organism. Just like you must look at the body as an organism and not just treat separate organs we must treat the earth as an organism. So what is happening in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand is happening to the entire organism.

And we must acknowledge that the environmental changes and the extreme increase in all kinds of disease that are hitting the human, animal, and plant population are being caused by disharmony.

We must continue to search for solutions for the pollution problems that are effecting the environment of earth and the internal environment of the physical bodies of all living beings.

And we must keep examining the core changes we all must make in our spiritual and emotional behavior toward ourselves and all of life. We must look at whether we really appreciate the lives we were given and how much we complain throughout the day instead of live in gratitude.

We must look at how much we honor every part of the web of life. For we are all linked together and the health of each individual life form on earth does effect the health and well being of all other life forms.

We must look at the energy of our thoughts that we send out throughout the day. Who and what situations do you send “ill will” to? Who do we think “ill” of? We cannot get lazy about observing the energy we are sharing in the world and we must continue to work on transforming the energy throughout the day.

The more we can wake up to the importance of working on the invisible levels the more we can help to create exponential change on the planet. Just looking at how we can create less carbon emissions by the year 2020 is not enough. Yes, we have to look at the physical changes we need to make to support our environment. But too much is happening too fast for this to be the only aspect to look at. We must approach looking at all levels that impact the body, mind, and spirit levels of our behavior remembering that from a spiritual level our outer world is a reflection of our inner state.

I know I keep repeating myself on writing about this but we need to remember this and work with this on a daily basis. To only address one aspect of the problem right now is not enough.

We can continue to keep “powering through” and surviving from a place of will to a point until there is physical collapse on all levels. Or we can treat our earth and all living beings as one organism and look at what the organism needs to be healed and move into creating the energy that leads to the ability to thrive.

We have a strong spirit. And our spirit does have the ability to help us find ways to create change. I will say once again the spiritual practices we engage in throughout the day does create change. So please keep up the work you already know how to do on a daily basis.

And we must remember that we are working in partnership with many helping spirits including ancestral helping spirits and the spirit of earth, air, water, and fire. We must remember to connect with the spirits that want to team up with us to create positive healing and changes. We are not in this alone.

We must continue to find practices that keep us centered and help us to maintain our focus when the distractions of what is happening in the outer world start to throw us off balance and into a state of fear. We must stay focused on the work, our intention, and our vision.

I would also like you to review what I wrote in the February Transmutation News on the importance of holding the space. It is another focus that should become part of our daily spiritual practice. And it will help to support the process of remaining centered.

Keep reviewing the practices that I have written about on the Transmutation News and in Medicine for the Earth and How to Heal Toxic Thoughts. And be inspired by other sources you have found that keep you moving forward with your spiritual life.

And we must remember the teachings that have survived for thousands of years taught by all spiritual traditions. The power of love has the ability to create more change that any healing method. For the key to healing is love. Methods alone do not cure. And it is so important to keep shining our light in the world. Be a light, embrace your light, and shine it.

On that note we continue to weave a human web of light within and throughout the earth on the full moon which is August 28. And we continue the healing work with each other to help us all remember and get in touch with our divine perfection and spiritual light. If you need instructions to do this work please visit the section titled “Creating A Human Web of Light” on my homepage.

The Transmutation News has been translated into German, French, Spanish, Italian, Slovakian, Portuguese, and Dutch for years now. We now have someone in Romania who wants to make the Medicine for the Earth work and the Transmutation News available to the Romanian community. So we will be adding this onto to our worldwide link. We really are a global community supporting each other in many ways to hold the space and do the spiritual healing work needed that we know creates positive change.

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Transmutation News – July 2007

I receive a lot of correspondence from people and everyone is asking me how my sabbatical is going. At the beginning of the year I had announced I was cutting back on my teaching for this year.

As I keep repeating myself I thought I would give you an update. And there is a deeper message to come after my sharing.

My sabbatical didn’t really turn out to be a sabbatical. I have been really busy. On a good day I have only 2 hours of desk work. But most days I have about 4-6 hours of work and that includes weekends. And of course I am always working on a variety of writing projects.

The wonderful part of the year for me has been staying in Santa Fe versus traveling. I do not travel again until October when I go to Europe. I have not been home for more than a few weeks at a time for over twenty years. It has been so wonderful to just stay put. I have been teaching in Santa Fe and I have presented at a few conferences that ended up being in Santa Fe. I have also seen quite a few clients.

I am still spinning away and crocheting blankets out of what I spun. It is a wonderful meditation to spin fiber into yarn with intention. I might spin in love, light, joy, beauty, harmony, and peace. And then when I crochet I repeat those words with each stitch. I find that this keeps me centered no matter what is going on in the outside world.

I have had a garden for years, but this year I have planted vegetables. And I also took a course on raising bees. As the bees here start to prepare for winter on the summer solstice I decided not to start a hive this year. But I have been learning a lot. I have signed up on a beekeeping yahoo group and I am learning how to problem solve situations that might arise when I finally start a hive.

My husband and I are also studying Taiko drumming (Japanese drumming). It is quite the workout but we love it.

My new book How to Heal Toxic Thoughts is doing well and the promotion of the book keeps me pretty busy. And on that note I did do a radio interview with New Dimensions. It will be playing around the country on July 16.

New Dimensions now also has an internet program. You can now listen to New Dimensions Internet Radio. My program #3202 titled “The High Road to Love and Light” will be airing on New Dimensions Internet Radio during the week of July 16.

Go to http://www.newdimensions.org. Click on Listen to NDIR now! Or you can hear it during that week on-demand at the New Dimensions Website as well as its network stations.

I received some good reviews on my new book. But I especially wanted to share the kind words I received from Publisher’s Weekly. I was very excited to be reviewed by them.

How to Heal Toxic Thoughts: Simple Tool for Personal Transformation  (Sterling Press) $14.95 (120 pages) ISBN 9781402742606

Publisher’s Weekly Web Exclusive (June 11, 2007)

Readers with an open mind will find much to reflect on in the latest psycho-spiritual self-help guide from Ingerman (Soul Retrieval), who provides ways to “manifest positive energy and power in your life”.

With simple, straightforward writing touched with occasional poetic flourishes, Ingerman pulls ideas from a number of disciplines- including meditation, psychotherapy, shamanism and quantum physics- to formulate methods for combating fear and frustration, which may initially confuse readers; it’s this broad reach however that keeps the book firmly grounded in a number of different belief systems, allowing for a flexible approach. Sprinkled with short assignments (“take at least a fifteen minute walk a day; it will clear your head and move the oxygen in your blood”) and fable-like stories, Ingerman’s creative, multi-pronged plan for healing is gentle, practical, and encouraging, making it a fine resource for the overstressed.

In the month of June I was part of a panel discussion at the Whole Expo in Santa Fe. The host of the panel gave all of us who were going to be part of the panel twelve questions that he wanted to discuss. He asked each of us to pick four questions to talk about.

I picked the four questions that I felt really represented what I teach in Medicine for the Earth and How to Heal Toxic Thoughts. It is not just that I know how to talk about the subject matter in these books, but they contain the messages I am passionate about sharing in the world.

After each panelist shared the audience could make comments or ask questions.

I have to say that I was quite surprised about what I said and how I heard myself responding to questions. I spoke very little about the spiritual material I had planned on sharing. I spoke more about what nature has to share with us right now.

And I heard myself saying a few times that nature would teach us how we need to change our behavior, we don’t have to talk about and discuss philosophies or hypothesize what will happen. Using the principle of survival of the fitness and “adapt or die” nature would continue to teach us what changes we need to make in our behavior to continue to live on this planet.

Many times I used examples of what is happening to the bees. We all know that bees are dying and disappearing. And there are many causes for this. The insecticides used on crops caused a great deal of death. Then the growing of genetically modified crops was another cause of death. And now some of the disappearance of bees is being hypothesized as due to electric magnetic frequency pollution caused by cell phone towers and wireless internet.

In some countries growing of genetically modified food was banned because of the problems being created in the bee population. And certain insecticides have been banned because of the death rate they created in the bee population.

As we learn what supports life and does not support life we learn to change our behavior. We look to what supports the life of humans but also other living beings that are part of the web of life.

Over the last years I have spent a lot of time in nature. But I think the fact that I am home more to be on the land has been important in many ways. My husband Woods and I have been feeding hundreds of birds for years now. And I have been able to really observe changes in migration patterns and behavior. I have been able to observe changes in how the winds flow and the changes in temperature of the wind.

I have been able to be more aware in changes in landscape and the behavior of animals that come through. In watching all these changes it becomes clearer of the changes ahead. For our future is based on our present.

I feel like we are like lobsters in a pot of water where the heat is raised gradually until the temperature reaches boiling. And if we are truly aware of the gradual changes we can see that we are moving toward boiling temperatures soon.

Of course I still believe that adding spiritual practices to the environmental work that is going on today is essential. The spiritual practices we engage in really do make a difference. And I am still emphasizing the message of the Transmutation News in June about needing to bridge a different state of consciousness into our daily life. We must live the work. We must be a true manifestation of spirit.

Life is so precious. And the beauty and the gifts that the earth provides for us need to be appreciated.

I am still optimistic and I do believe that the earth knows exactly how to heal herself. And I really believe as we live a life filled with love and appreciation for life itself and all of life on the planet all life thrives.

It is the simple spiritual practices that make a difference. And I believe it is the holding and sharing of spiritual energies throughout the day that create positive change.

Throughout this month throughout each day please keep up the practice of expressing in every way you can think of your gratitude for life – your own life and the life of every living being on earth. Shamanism teaches us that everything that exists is alive and has a spirit. Feed the spirit that lives in all things with love and gratitude. Celebrate life with each breath and step you take in the world. If we all do this positive change on many levels is sure to happen.

And as Carol Wilde, a beekeeper and reader of the Transmutation News shares: “Whenever you see a honey bee on a flower, wish it well!”

I was consulting with my spirits on if there was anything to add to what I had written this month. I wanted to say something about the publicity electromagnetic frequency pollution is getting right now. When I consulted with my spirits they said that this issue is just a symptom of a larger issue.

The message I received was how important it is to work with the principle of reciprocity of looking at what nurtures you and what do you nurture. I know you all know this information, but it is important to bring it to the forefront of our awareness.

We can be nurtured by engaging in working with crafts and other hobbies, gardening, taking care of houseplants, taking care of animals, the friends and important loved ones in our life, being part of a group, the work we do in the world, etc.

If in our life we nurture and are nurtured in equal proportions this is one way to strengthen our immune system. So many of the physical and emotional problems caused by different forms of pollution come from a weakened immune system. If we raise our immune system we can rise above many of the problems caused by living in our modern world.

This is also another way to feed and create a strong web of light and life. As you nurture and are nurtured a byproduct of this is strengthening the light, love, and joy in the web of life without focusing on the web itself. It just happens.

The expression that we so often hear – stop and smell the roses – is part of the principle of reciprocity. As we are nurtured by nature we nurture nature back. When we appreciate the smell of a rose we feed ourselves and give something back to the rose itself.

We are very focused on the wars going on at different places of the planet. One of the points of How to Heal Toxic Thoughts is that on an energetic level we are being shot, bombed, held hostage throughout our day. So on some level we are all at war and can work to create peace by working on our inner states of consciousness.

We can also take the principle of looking at how we are nurtured to another level. We are very focused on the issue of starvation in Africa. This issue touches all of our hearts. And when you look at people in the West we do see people who are starving on emotional and spiritual levels. And this is also creating death and illness on all levels. As people struggle to survive in this world there are many ways that failure to thrive occurs.

As we look at how we are nurtured and how we nurture we move into a healthy way of living. Nature gives to us on many levels and our level of appreciation as we take in the emotional, spiritual, and physical food and gifts we are given reflects our state of health. We can create balance and harmony in our environment with balancing out how we are nurtured and how we nurture. This is one more place where we can create positive change in our lives and on the planet.

Over the years we have been performing ceremonies as part of “a virtual circle”. We have done ceremonies for issues happening in different parts of the world. We have celebrated together changes in seasons, we have been creating a human web of light within and throughout the earth, and we have added performing monthly healings for those in our circle who need it.

This month consider how the circle reading the Transmutation News joins together. How are you fed by it? And consider how you feed this circle each month. As we work with the principle of reciprocity we can deepen and increase the power of our work together.

The full moon is July 29. Let’s continue to weave a web of light within and throughout the earth with deep appreciation for life. And let’s continue the global healing circle that is written up on “Creating a Human Web of Light” which appears on my homepage.

Stephen in South Africa who reads the Transmutation News wrote in saying:

“I like the idea in your monthly writings of the healing circle. You should advise people to spend half their time around a full moon available to give healing and half to receive. It makes a nice balance.”

I thought this was a good suggestion. I know for myself during the full moon I keep switching back and forth throughout the day. Sometimes I experience myself in the outer circle in a transfigured state and sometimes I lie down in the inner circle fully absorbing the light that is shared.

When I am in the outer circle in a transfigured state I am healed by allowing myself to move into a state of divinity. Healing happens whether I am in the inner or outer circle.

Karen Furr, shamanic practitioner and teacher, shared the following quote:

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”– Carl Jung

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