Category: English 2008

Transmutation News – February 2008

The conditions on the planet have been changing for years, and it is obvious that these changes will continue.

Different spiritual traditions teach that everything is energy. In shamanism it is taught that everything that exists is alive and has a spirit.

In today’s world the mainstream population often misses that there is a spiritual component to the elements and to all that manifests on the physical level. Many people get lost in the material world and only focus on the material aspect of life.

Everything that exists in the material world does die. The spirit is immortal. Much of the material world is collapsing on us. The environment we live in is changing rapidly creating much destruction. Cultures are suffering greatly as only the material is acknowledged and we forget about the need to bridge spiritual work into everything we do and to bring a new viewpoint into our perception. The illusion that our identity is based on what we have collected in the material world will continue to dissolve and we need to remember the truth of who we really are.

Of course whether we engage in spiritual practices or not everything in the material world dies. But I think the message the earth is trying to give us now is that we must honor the spirit that lives in all things in order to bring harmony back into the environment. In doing this we will see death still occur but I am not sure we would be seeing such “violent” weather occurring trying to wake us up. As different political structures and economies start to fail we are also seeing a dissolving of a focus on just the material without an understanding of the spiritual nature that is part of everything.

Our world is about joining spirit with the material. Everything that is only recognized as material will dissolve and disintegrate for there needs to be a spiritual component to be eternal.

There is a river of life. The more we can honor the spirit that lives in all things and move in harmony with cycles the less I think we have to suffer so many dramatic changes. Everything changes in this world but the wake up call to understand the spiritual component that exists along with the material is getting louder and louder.

As a spiritual community we can be in service by integrating spiritual practices into our lives. We can become spiritual beings that recognize the spirit and light that lives in everything. We can honor the cycles of change. If we do this we can “ride a different wave” than mass consciousness will need to ride right now until a different way of life is achieved.

We are watching the dissolution of things that are only perceived to be material. And this dissolution and disintegration will continue until a new perception about our own lives and the life of everything on earth is acknowledged.

One practice that we can add to what I wrote about in January is to spend some time each day doing a gratitude walk. This can be done in nature, in a park, or even in an urban environment. For a few minutes each day – it can be as you walk to work or walk home – take some time to give thanks. Don’t pray for anything and don’t ask for anything. Just give thanks to the water, air, earth, and fire for the life given to you. Give thanks to the helping spirits of the land, the hidden folk, the spirit of the city you live in for all you are given. Give thanks to the spirit that lives in all things.

This builds a relationship with the spirits where you live. This practice makes you appreciate the spirit that lives in everything that is material. As you focus on what you are thankful for, the beauty of life, and what is working versus what is not working you build a strong foundation to support your life and your path forward.

And continue to do your work involving perceiving everything that exists as energy. Our bodies, thoughts, and emotions are energy and can be transformed. In this way we continue our work of infusing spirit into the material realms. In this way life is eternal.

I would also like to encourage you to keep working on journeying or meditating to create a strong light that shines from within the center of your being. It is going within that you will find true wealth and happiness. A star’s light shines from within and attracts energy to it.

In January I had many long -term students contact me all sharing a similar theme. It seems that many people I know are traveling into the territory that spiritual traditions call “the dark night of the soul”.

As we continue to do our deep inner work to go within and find God within or the light within there are the “demons at the gate” that try to prevent us from going deeper. Our egos also try to prevent us from traveling to a state of spiritual liberation for the nature of the ego is to experience separation and feels threatened by a state of oneness.

I have traveled through these darker states of consciousness many times in my life. And I continue to travel through these states where I lose faith in the spirits and humanity. I start to wonder what I am doing and if anything I am doing is worth it.

In my own experience I find that the only way out is through. I need to accept where I am at, the feelings of hopelessness that I am experiencing and keep working through the state I am in.

I wrote Medicine for the Earth and How to Heal Toxic Thoughts from my own personal journey of dealing with challenging states of consciousness that have appeared while I have been on my spiritual journey of exploring my own divinity and spiritual light.

When I first started experiencing the challenges of my mind and moving into places of despair this state lasted sometimes for months. Then as I focused on my spiritual practices this state lasted for weeks. And as I continue to work with the practices of transformation and transmutation that I have shared with you, I can honestly say that when these negative states of consciousness and questioning arise they last for hours or a day.

The point being is that these dark shadow states are part of the journey. And for me it is like walking through a dark tunnel. If I just sit down in the tunnel and refuse to move then I stay stuck. But if I keep walking knowing that the strength of my spirit will get me through I do make it back out into the light.

I don’t know a way to avoid going through these dark states of consciousness. It is part of the spiritual journey as we move towards liberation from the mind and separate states of consciousness.

As I received so many letters from students going through this dark journey right now I thought some of you reading this page might be going through something similar. Keep trusting your own spirit. That is something you can trust.
In January I celebrated my 55th birthday. My husband kept asking me what I wanted to do to celebrate. He wanted to make this is a special day for me. I told him that the greatest gift for me on this day was not to have to rush. I find that I rush throughout my days. I can’t seem to get everything I need to do accomplished without rushing and I just wanted a day where I could move at my own pace. And it was really wonderful.

At that same time I received a broadcast email from someone I knew who was passing on a poem written by a teenager with cancer. She wanted this poem to be passed on to as many people as possible for it is a message she is leaving the world with.

This girl has been diagnosed with 6 months left to live, and as her dying wish, she wanted to send a letter telling everyone to live their life to the fullest, since she never will.

She’ll never make it to the prom, graduate from high school, or get married and have a family of her own.

The poem is called “Slow Dance” and I wanted to share it with you.

Slow Dance

Have you ever
watched kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to
the rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?

When you ask How are you?

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You’d better slow down

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,

We’ll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time

To call
and say, “Hi”

You’d better slow down.

Don’t dance
so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t
last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You
miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry
through your day,

It is like an unopened
gift….

Thrown away.

Life is not a
race.

Do take it slower

Hear the
music

Before the song is over.

February 20 is the full moon and it is also a total eclipse of the moon. Let’s join our spirit together in love to weave a web of brilliant light within and throughout the earth.

And also let’s continue our healing work for each other as written up in Creating A Human Web of Light (for those of you new to this page please visit this section on the homepage). We can as a community join together to help jumpstart the radiance in others who are in need. And I am sure we can all some use “jumpstarting” ourselves.

Transmutation News – January 2008

I want to wish all of you a very light-filled New Year! And I give thanks for all the work you are doing to change your own consciousness, which ripples throughout the entire web of life creating a more harmonious planet.

I started writing a monthly column on this website in 1998 when my visionary fiction A Fall to Grace was published. It was a way for me to write excerpts from the book and share spiritual practices with readers that would give people experience of the teachings I was sharing in the book.

In 2000 the column changed to the Transmutation News where I started to focus on the work I had written about in Medicine for the Earth. The purpose of the column has been to share teachings and new thoughts that come up for me without always having to write a new book. And most importantly, my intention has been to inspire you to keep up spiritual practices regardless of what is happening in the outer world. For it is so easy to lose focus when we hear the news of war, violence in communities, and environmental problems.

The intention of keeping you inspired to keep up your work and for us to join our energies together as a spiritual community to create positive change on the planet is still what keeps me writing The Transmutation News. And last month I did thank the translators, Eva in Austria who coordinates all the translators, and Bob Edgar for continuing his work as webmaster. I really appreciate all who help to keep the Transmutation News being published for people around the world to read.

It is still amazing to me that I have been writing a column on this webpage for 10 years and that we are now going on our eleventh year. So we continue!

For the last couple of months I have been encouraging you to journey within or use your meditation practice to experience those deep inner landscapes that exist within you. And the more we really experience the solidity as well as the fluidity of our inner light the more it can shine forth into the world. The main teaching of the Medicine for the Earth work is that it is who we become that changes the world and not what we do. It is not methods and techniques that will change the world it is living a conscious life that creates change. A spiritual life is about living a conscious life. If we just do spiritual practices at certain times of the day and do not live the work we limit the possibilities for change.

As we continue to deepen our work and learn how to bring spiritual practices into our daily life it is important for us to also work in ceremony to help to heal the places on the earth that have been struck with violence and disaster.

I would imagine that all of you know a place that could use some spiritual work close to where you live. I don’t believe that there are many places which have not been affected by an unconscious culture living in today’s world. For as a culture we have not been living in a way that honors the land and all the living beings inhabiting our communities.

This month and each month to follow I would like to encourage you to actually work in your local communities to perform a transfiguration ceremony which leads to bringing forth the radiance of places that have been negatively impacted by building, pollution, violence, etc.

The best way to work is to bring others in your community to be part of the transfiguration ceremony so that change begins to happen on many levels. But for those of you who cannot bring others from your community into a ceremony then start by working by yourself knowing we all must start somewhere. And that change happens by each of us stepping into our power and not waiting for some perceived “leader” to make it better for us.

Transfiguration ceremonies are actually quite easy to lead and do not require previous spiritual training. When I lecture in groups I do lead short and powerful ceremonies that do create radiance in the room which we know ripples out into the web of life.

I explain to people that we are more than a body, our mind, and our past experiences. If you strip that all away we are spiritual light. And I do a short guided meditation to ask people to travel inside of themselves to experience that spiritual light shining through them. And when they experience it to stand toning the song of that light and the universe into the space they are in.

Toning is the best way I have found to hold a transfigured state. In teaching toning I just instruct people to start to sound a vowel and just keep it going and it will change to different sounds over time.

For those of you who are English speakers you can listen to my CD “Miracles for the Earth” produced by Sounds True if you need to brush up on your instructions.

But it is really easy to lead a group in a transfiguration ceremony for healing. You do not need to feel intimidated in doing so and people just love it. Just a few minutes of toning one’s divine light gives people a transcendental experience that effects them, the land, and all of life in that area.

Can you imagine how much light we can inspire throughout the planet if all of us around the world would travel to one place where you live and continue this work each month?

To add to this find a spiritual practice you can do on a daily basis to honor the spirit of where you live, the compassionate and helping ancestral spirits that live there, the hidden folk who are caretaking the land, the angels, guardians, and helping spirits of the land and your communities, and the spirit that lives in all things. We also want to honor the spirit of earth, air, water, and fire as in the sun, all which bring us life.

You can create a very simple ceremony. It can be as simple as going outside every day and leaving an offering or just simply saying a prayer that acknowledges your partnership with the spirits I just named. And this same prayer and/or offering would be a way of giving thanks.

You will notice an energetic change in your own consciousness as well as feeling a change with the connection to where you live if you do this on a daily basis. It does not need to take more than a few minutes a day.

And the key is to add this to living a life of allowing your inner light to shine through you wherever you go throughout the day as well as living a life filled with gratitude.

If you would be willing to share with me some of the ceremonial work you do in your communities through the use of transfiguration and any effect you notice I would love to share it during the months coming on our Transmutation News. Also if you would like to share a simple daily ceremony which might be helpful to others that would be great.

As for most of you I experience time speeding up and it is difficult for me to find balance in my own life. One way for me to keep some sanity in my life is not to have a published email address otherwise I literally would spend my whole day answering emails.

I know people do not generally like to write letters and put a stamp on. But in asking you to do this to share your ceremonies with our community is one way to help me be able to stay on my spiritual path.

In advance I will thank you for your generosity of time and energy so that we can feel our connection to our community of worldwide readers and inspire and be inspired by each other. And in this way we create energetic fuel and support for each other’s work.

If you are willing to share something with us please write me at PO Box 4757, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502 USA.

What you write can just be a few sentences. We don’t need much to get the idea of what you are doing. And you can do this throughout the year so that I can keep posting inspirational experiences.

The full moon is January 22. This is a day for us to continue our ceremonial work and to gather our energies together and focus to keep weaving a web of light filled with beauty and harmony within and throughout the earth.

It is also a time for us to continue the healing work we have been doing for each other using the practice of transfiguration.

If you are new to this site or need a reminder on the process, please visit the link on this site for Creating a Human Web of Light which explains both weaving a web of light and the healing work for our circle.

One night in December I was watching the national news. There was a great news story I would like to share with all of you. First I need to explain to those of you outside of the United States that we have coffee houses here where you can drive up to a window and order your coffee drink or tea and not have to get out of your car. Someone takes your order in a window, you pay your money, and you wait and your drink is delivered to you.

Starbucks, a coffeehouse chain here, provides such a service in some cities in the U.S.

A man was in his car at the Starbucks window ordering his coffee. Behind him in another car was a man who was getting frustrated with how long things were taking and he started to honk his horn. The man waiting at the window was a Tai Chi teacher. He got out of his car and he bought the man behind him a cup of coffee. Well that act spread and everyone in line bought the person in the car behind him or her a cup of coffee.

When the Tai Chi teacher was interviewed on TV the interviewer talked about his act of the kindness. The Tai Chi teacher said his action was not an act of kindness. His action was to change consciousness. By his action he knew he changed the consciousness of the man who honked the horn and everyone’s consciousness who was in the drive through line that day. His intention was to transform the negative energy into something positive and to change the consciousness of others who were present. And he was successful in doing this.

This is such a marvelous example of how the simple ways we interact with people during the day can create long term positive change on the planet.

I also want to let you know that on www.sandraingerman.com there are now four short articles written by me which you can share with others. My article on “Soul Retrieval” I just updated last month so you might want to see what I added throughout the previous article. There is an article on Medicine for the Earth and also an abstract on shamanism, which provides a brief overview of what shamanism is about. And I have just added a short article on “How to Heal Toxic Thoughts”.

Lenore Norrgard is a Medicine for the Earth teacher and a shamanic practitioner and teacher in the Northwest of the United States. I have known Lenore for years and I have deep respect for her work, her teachings, and for how many people she has touched sharing the work. One of her passions has been to share her work on the topic of spiritual activism.

She has written an article titled “Ritual and Activism” and it was published in the magazine the Sacred Hoop and also in a local magazine called Alternatives Magazine.

Lenore has made available the link to the article in Alternative Magazine for anyone who would like to read it:
www.alternativemagazine.com/43/norrgard.html

It would be great for you to take a look at the version that was in The Sacred Hoop. Lenore feels that this version of the article is more accessible to international readers, plus there are photos.

Sacred Hoop doesn’t have the article online but if you click on this link you can quickly and easily download a pdf of The Sacred Hoop version:
http://www.circlelivingearth.org/ritual-and-activism.pdf

Every month I get a few letters asking me to consider teaching another Two Year Teacher Training. For the last year I have been saying I might consider teaching one more training starting in 2009 in Santa Fe, New Mexico and that I would announce it in the January or February Transmutation News.

I wanted to let those of you who are waiting for my decision know that I am leaning in the direction of saying yes to your requests. I do want to say that there are already many brilliant teachers listed on www.shamanicteachers.com. I am looking at doing another training for those of you who have the experience and qualifications I am looking for. I am not looking to work with a large group but just working with those of you who could not do one of my previous trainings. I will not accept anyone who is not qualified.

For a list of qualifications please email Ruth Aber at: aruthabelle@aol.com and if you meet the qualifications we will send you more information.

My heart feels very warm knowing how many people around the world are focusing on shining their own light which will be reflected back to us by the earth and the rest of life.

“Example is a language we can all understand” – this quote came from a billboard outside of a church in Santa Fe. I think it is a good quote and applicable to our work.