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Transmutation News – December 2013

It is hard to believe that we are coming to the end of 2013. This has been quite the year for so many. And I think we all feel how change and transitions are occurring on an exponential level.

The recent storms throughout the world devastated landscapes and life. We hold all who have been displaced and hurt with love. We hold those in the Philippines in our hearts and prayers. There have been other storms and stories of devastation and loss of life. We continue to hold all in light.

Last month I wrote about being on a spiritual path and allowing yourself to be guided by spirit instead of ego.

This month I would like to summarize some practices that will help to empower you during these changing times. I have been in communication with some people who feel so overwhelmed by current world events that they do not know or remember where to begin. I hope this column helps to reinspire all of you.

My helping spirits advice to all of you is this is a good time to settle into yourself and go beyond the surface of your spiritual practices. Creating a rich and fertile inner landscape will help to carry you through what life brings.

In the last month I received such a wealth of stories from clients and students about how the practice of transfiguration has created healing for them.

For new readers of the Transmutation New the practice of transfiguration is to travel within to who we are beyond our skin to experience our divine light and radiate that throughout our body and into the world.

One veteran reported to me that a regular practice of transfiguration healed his PTSD.

I have many reports of how a regular transfiguration practice has created miraculous physical healings for some of my students.

Some people have written to me how a daily practice of experiencing their divine light helped them to ride the waves of very challenging life events.

Others have written me that a transfiguration practice has been helpful to stay grounded and centered while being a witness and holding the space for others who had become ill or suffered from a catastrophic event.

And I have unfortunately lost some dear friends and students who died recently. As they increased their practice of experiencing their divine light, they ended up dying from a place of grace and ease.

The practice is a potent way to strengthen ourselves. As we experience our own divinity and perfection, we create a state within where our cells can communicate with each other and release the knowledge we were born with of how to heal ourselves.

As we transfigure and experience a state of oneness, instead of separation, we can find a calm and centered place inside in which we can ride both the smooth and turbulent waves as we travel through the river of life.

I want to encourage you to take time each day and settle into yourself. Put on some expansive music and allow your consciousness to expand into a state of oneness. Travel within yourself and experience your inner light. Your intention is to experience who you are beyond your skin. You want to experience who you are beyond your body and rational mind. You are a spiritual being.

Experience your light radiating like a star in the night sky. Find your inner starlight.

With the practice of transfiguration, you do not effort to send light to yourself, to another, or out into the world. Just as a star in the night sky you radiate light effortlessly with no intention of where this light should go. A star does not decide where it will send its light. It simply shines.

This state creates a radiance that is healing and uplifting for you. Your eyes will shine brightly again.

When you experience the world through the eyes of spirit and radiate light throughout the world, this light and the love of spirit lifts up the veils of darkness and nurtures all of life. The more you transfigure, you will find it easier to see through the eyes of spirit. If your practice is very inconsistent it is harder to create a spiritual flow. You end up bouncing back and forth between ego and spirit and this creates a feeling of being torn, as you perceive your life and the world around you.

Experiencing a spiritual state changes our perception. And our shift of perception changes our reality.

We have to train our minds to shift out of seeing only the negative and the challenges. When we perceive the world from our divinity, we learn how to perceive the gold and richness even with all the challenges and growth experiences.

When life seems dark and filled with grief and suffering there is another level of fertile ground that transforms suffering into beauty. As you focus on the beauty, your perception changes. As your perception changes so does your life. One way to shift perception is to return to the state of awe and wonder about life that you held as a child.

Remember back when you were a child to how everything seemed so new and fresh. This will assist in experiencing the beauty that life has to offer. By doing this you might notice your attitude towards what life brings you changes.

You do need to keep improving your attitude so that you stop reacting to everything that life brings to you. You do this by lifting the veil to experience the beauty of life no matter what is occurring in the outer world.

By doing this you move into a place of love, appreciation, and gratitude for your life. This always leads to a place of inner and outer transformation.

We can get so overwhelmed by all that is happening in the outer world. Go within and do your personal work. This can be added to whatever action you are called to take to help the earth and living beings.

The intensity of change on the planet is actually forcing us to do our personal work.

Here is a summary of some very simple practices we have worked with together over the years.

Carry a rock in your pocket or have some way of reminding yourself to stop what you are doing and ask yourself the question: “What am I thinking about right now?” You want to learn to stop the negative train of thought that leads away from your desired outcomes.

Surround yourself with nature images and photos of beings that are precious to you. You could carry photos of puppies, kittens, baby animals, an ocean, river, flower, tree, or rock, etc. Whatever energy you send out into the world also goes to all life forms you hold precious. For we all are all connected to one web of life.

You can shift your negative thinking with beautiful sounds such as birds singing, children laughing, etc.

You can write down and look at inspirational words such as hope, brilliance, radiance, awe, wonder, love, etc. When you look at these words your present state will shift.

You can also carry inspirational phrases with you for the same purpose.

Think about something you are grateful for. Remember simple things that you love about life such as the first time you ate ice cream, or saw snow, etc.

It is important for us to be diligent and observe the thoughts we loop throughout the day. For we need to learn how to replace our negative and sabotaging thoughts with thoughts that will lead to our desired outcome.

Our thoughts are made of words. And words are seeds. When we speak, we plant seeds that with nurturance will grow deep roots and strong plants. What plants do you want growing strong in your inner garden and this earth garden? Remember what you feed grows. Remember the Aramaic phrase of Abraq ad Habra (abracadabra) which translates to “I will create as I speak”.

Adding to shifting our perception, living a life filled with gratitude, being diligent about the thought and words we use, we must remember that we dream our life and the world into being with our imagination.

We must all learn how to focus our imagination together to envision the life and world we desire to live in. This takes using all of our senses and stepping in the dream and living from the dream as if we have manifested it now.

We are always daydreaming. It is time for us to focus our imaginations on what we do what to create versus the chaos we are using our imaginations to dream into existence. And at the same time, we do not know what spirit and evolution is leading us towards. The paradox is to do our dreaming work while surrendering the outcome.

When you do find yourself reacting to others and to life make sure you express your feelings while at the same time transmuting and transforming the energy behind your emotions to light and love. Express don’t send. In this way we continue to feed the energy of love versus hate, suffering, and separation.

And please go outside and reconnect with nature as much as you can. It does not matter whether you live in an urban or rural environment. The earth is alive and has a spirit. Everything that exists on this planet is alive and has a spirit. It is time for us to reconnect with the spirit that lives in all things – this means all that is alive.

Connect with the heartbeat of the earth. Everyday give gratitude for your life and the earth, air, water, and the sun for providing all you need to thrive.

We have been doing all the practices I wrote about above for many years together.

For those of you new to the work the practices are written in my books Medicine for the Earth, How to Heal Toxic Thoughts, and The Shaman’s Toolkit (former title How to Thrive in Changing Times). And I teach all this work in “Shamanic Visioning” which is a 6 CD audio course produced by Sounds True.

As we move to celebrating the winter solstice it is important for us to move away from the commercial aspect of the holiday season. In past Transmutations News I wrote about creating a prayer tree in your home, at work, or in your community.

The times we live in call us to strengthen our communities. For when challenges occur it is good to live in a strong community. We have been seeing people coming together and planting community gardens. In times of catastrophe people in communities have been coming together to help each other rebuild their homes and businesses.

We can bring spiritual practices into our community. When I conducted the Medicine for the Earth Heart Study with the Integrative School of Medicine at the University of Michigan my group was positively affected by the work. When I reflect on the power of our time together people in the group were so touched by the love we created in our circle. Everyone knew how much each person cared about him or her and the success of their healing. I personally believe it was that love and support in the community that ended up creating the positive results we saw in the participants.

It would be wonderful to bring that kind of level of support into your family, your community at work, and the community in which you live.

You can make this very simple by finding a tree or bush that you can give thanks to for its willingness to carry prayers. Invite people to loosely tie-on ribbon or yarn (you do not want to choke the branches) that holds a prayer. You could set out a prayer bowl and invite people to put their prayers into a bowl. You would ask each person in your family, at work, or in your community to hold the intention that everyone’s prayers are answered. This will create a bond among people, which will have a positive impact on all. People will feel cared for and this strengthens the bond needed to be a true support for all in your community.

The full moon is December 17. We are a strong, loving, and supportive community. We gather our spiritual light to continue to weave a strong, potent, and radiant web of light within and throughout the earth.

For those of you new to reading the Transmutation News please visit “Creating a Human Web of Light” on the homepage for instructions of how to participate in our full moon ceremony.

The solstice is December 21. Let us celebrate together this change in season. We celebrate the winter solstice and the return of the light in the Northern Hemisphere and the return of summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

I would like to ask you on the solstice to perform a meditation or journey to connect with the elements where you live. Connect with the earth, air, water, and the sun. Express your gratitude for the energy and life they provide. Ask how you can be in service at this time of change that the earth is going through.

Place prayers and blessings on an indoor or outdoor altar on behalf of the thousands of readers in our global community who work together with the practices I share on the Transmutation News. Let us create our prayer bowl and feed the health and life of our circle.

For myself I feel that as the world is changing so rapidly, I need some time to reflect on how I need to change my teachings to help people deepen their spiritual work.

This summer I received two new book contracts. One contract is with Sounds True to write a book based on what I teach in my audio course “Shamanic Visioning”.

I am taking the attitude with this book that this could be the last book I write on shamanism. It might not be, but this is the attitude I am writing with. I am taking a lot of time to reflect on how I wish to shift my prior teachings about shamanism and shamanic practices to take shamanism out of the box. I feel so strongly that the practice of shamanism will change and has unlimited potential to be a healing force on the planet. But the practice of shamanism has been put in a box as people in a modern-day world have tried to give it too much form. The power of the invisible can get lost with the focus on techniques. This is just my opinion.

The other book I have a contract for is a book I am co-authoring with Llyn Roberts. We are writing a beautiful book together on reconnecting with the feminine aspect of nature. This book is so fresh and different. There is nothing on the market like it. Inner Traditions will be publishing this book. I have loved working with Llyn on this project, and I excited about the book.

This is all to say that I only have two workshops scheduled in 2014. For I am taking this year to deepen my teachings through my writings and also to have the time needed to vision what I want to teach in the future.

Of course, it is my delight to continue writing the Transmutation News.

As we spiral towards a New Year and new opportunities for healing, growth, and evolution I would like to thank all who help in sharing the Transmutation News with readers from around the globe.

Let us give thanks and gratitude to Sylvia Edwards who is the webmaster of this site. She has such a generosity of spirit and has contributed so much to keeping the Transmutation News available. Blessings to you Sylvia for all the best that life has to offer!

And just imagine all the work it takes to translate all the words I write in the Transmutation News. Please let us give gratitude, send blessings, and radiate love and light to those who so generously give their time for translation:

Katalin Abrudan – Hungarian
Lena Anderheim – Swedish
Nello Ceccon – Italian
Ines Fermoso – Spanish
Sofia Frazoa – Portuguese
Dorota Goczal – Polish
Els de Graaff-van Meeteren – Dutch
Elena Eva and Rallou Gromitsari – Greek
Annie Idrissi – French
Miriam Kisssova and Jan Lenc – Slovakian
Irina Osechinsky – Russian
Eva Ruprechtsberger – German
Tea Thum – Finnish
Simin Uysal – Turkish

We join together to send blessings, give gratitude, and radiate love and light for all of us in our community as we deepen our spiritual work together which creates exponential changes in our own lives and in the world around us.

We wish all of you a joyous solstice!

Transmutation News – November 2013

Being on a spiritual path is not always easy. For the truth of the matter is that when we are truly on a spiritual path we are driven by spirit and not by our personality and ego.

But we are human beings with a personality, ego, mind, and body. And these aspects lead us to experiencing great joy and but also lead to experiencing states of suffering. For when we perceive the world through the eyes of ego the world is not looking so good. Life is falling apart all around us. The climate is changing to such a degree that we are watching mass changes to the earth right now impacting not just humans but all of life. I don’t need to share what is happening in political and economical arenas, as this is obvious. And the violent behavior of humans toward each other and the rest of life is not what we would like to see continue.

Then we do our spiritual work. And once we are in contact with our spirit, we leave the arena of duality and move into a place of oneness. From this place of divine light and love everything looks different. For in the arena of spirit there is no judgement or imperfection. It is what it is, and spirit accepts the changes that are leading to evolution and growth.

Here lies the paradox. How to do we see the divinity in floods, drought, cyclones, war, violence, etc? And do we just sit and say that everything is in divine perfection so I should not care, worry, or take any action? The answer to this is no.

Human beings have not been taking care of the earth, which is the body that we live on. Consider your own body. If you continue to put toxins into it and do not take care of it at some point your health breaks down. When health does break down it is important to take action and make changes to how you take care of your physical body. You need to learn how to work with your emotions and mental states so that you support your health. And most people find a tremendous amount of healing in also adding some kind of spiritual practices to support their health and well being. Taking care of body, mind, and spirit all works together to create a harmonious life. Disharmony causes illness.

What we are seeing in our lifetime are the results of not taking care of ourselves but also not taking care of the earth, air, water, and sun that give us life. Not working through personal issues such as a desire for amassing more and more on the material level has created disharmony. Not working with mental states have led to people becoming power hungry causing violence towards children, women, and men and all of life.

We go into forests and jungles and cut down trees in the millions without honoring them or thinking about the web of life and how the life of these trees contributes to the health of the planet. We kill entire species in the name of “money” and not just dishonor their beauty and life but don’t recognize how they contribute to the health of the web of life. And the list goes on.

I am certainly not trying to depress anyone reading this column. You know my intention with each column of the Transmutation News is to inspire us to keep up our spiritual work.

I am just trying to say that the human race has not been spirit driven. So, although we fall into places of despair it is time for all us to stand up and do our spiritual work to shift our own consciousness and perception. It is time for us to stand up together as a global community so that we can create exponential change, which leads to healing for the earth and all of life.

And it is time for us to surrender to the fact that the earth is evolving and that landscapes are changing as they have done since the beginning of time.

We need to examine our behavior of how we are contributing with our actions to supporting the health of the earth and the climate. What are some simple changes you need to make?

I am absolutely amazed by how many people on a spiritual path do not even try to recycle. There are some very simple actions we can take to begin to move towards caring and honoring the planet and the environment.

We need to continue our work of looking at the thoughts and words we feed the collective with. We have been doing this work together for years. This is something we must keep up. To add to this, we must be diligent and vigilant about the energies behind our emotions that we send to ourselves and into the collective. What we feed grows.

We need to continue experiencing our divine light and perceive the beauty in life. We cannot stop this practice because we are troubled by world events. Spiritual work that is only performed while remaining attached to the outcome is NOT spiritual work. When we become attached to outcomes this is the work of ego not spirit.

We must continue to do our dreaming work of creating the world we wish to live in. For it has been understood and known since the beginning of time that everything begins in the invisible worlds before it manifests in the physical.

For those of you new to reading the Transmutation News all this material is written up in my books Medicine for the Earth, How to Heal Toxic Thoughts, and The Shaman’s Toolkit. As a global community we have working together for many years with the practices written about in this monthly column.

It is important to acknowledge that although much is dissolving in the fabric of reality of what is no longer supporting life that there are beautiful new weavings that are starting to manifest. Through new ways of thinking and new perceptions, millions of people are shifting into new levels of consciousness. There are positive changes occurring.

You just have to look around and see the positive changes that are happening in your community instead of only being fed “the bad news” that the media provides.

We can get so overwhelmed by the media coverage of world events. Many world events do not get covered. And in former times people did not know what was going on in so many parts of the world. With so much knowledge comes overwhelm.

Find simple practices that you can do where you can focus your spiritual work on feeding what you want to experience for all of life. Be a conscious positive change maker. Work with your emotional and mental states. Remember the literal definition of the word “alchemy” is working within and through the dense darkness inside.

Experience your pain, frustration, and levels of despair and work it through. Be a presence in the world and do your work so you expand more into being a vessel of love and light.

There is a bigger picture to what our ego and personality can embrace right now about what is occurring in the physical world. And simultaneously there is A LOT OF LIGHT manifesting and radiating through the invisible worlds.

Let go of needing to see immediate outcomes of your spiritual work. We have been part of the problem as we have allowed our own bodies and the body of the earth to be worn down. Let us be part of the solution by doing our work to nurture and feed our own health and the health of the earth and all life.

This is not the time to give up. This is the time to stand up and use the elements of the Medicine for the Earth work of intention + love + union + harmony + concentration + focus + imagination = transmutation, transformation, and creation of a good world to live for all of life.

Do not move into a place of pity for humans or any life form that is going through challenges. You end up projecting weakness onto them. Project strength and power onto them by seeing all in their divine perfection.

The full moon is November 17. Let us truly do our preparation work to move our ego and personality aside and let our divine light and love shine through. Radiate that love and light within and throughout the earth. Join together with the light of our global community to create a strong and powerful web of light throughout the earth.

For those of you new to reading the Transmutation News please read “Creating a Human Web of Light” on the homepage.

Recently I was honored by the magazine Spirituality and Health in the November/December as one of the Top 10 Spiritual Heroes in 2013. Other people honored are India Arie, Adyashanti, Paige Elenson, Chief Oren Lyons, Sister Simone Campbell, Stacey Kennealy Pema Chodrin, Robert Peng, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

What touched me about this honor was that the decision to be included in this list was based on the Medicine for the Earth work. It is wonderful to see that spiritual practices done on behalf of the planet are being honored. We have so much potential to help heal the planet right now. Let us forge ahead as a strong spiritual community creating exponential shifts as we work together in love for all of life!!

To read the article in Spirituality and Health magazine, please visit: http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/spiritual-heroes-2013-qa-sandra-ingerman

Transmutation News – October 2013

Thank you for your patience with the challenge we had with the first link we sent out for the September Transmutation News. Sylvia Edwards did resend the correct link. I hope you had a chance to read the column I wrote in September for I feel it included some powerful teachings to work with.

On that note, the last few monthly columns have been pretty rich and deep with teachings and practices to integrate into your life. As I wrote years ago I go in waves with the Transmutation News. Sometimes I feel I have nothing left to write. Sometimes I repeat certain teachings. And then after the quiet cycles new insights present themselves which I feel passionate about sharing.

I do feel what I have written in the past few months is a lot to digest. Please take your time to review some of the more recent columns and reflect on which insights I share speak to your heart and soul. For those insights that do resonate with you please make sure you are integrating new teachings and practices into your daily life so in the end you feel your quality of life has been improved. As your consciousness shifts this does touch and resonate through the entire web of life.

Over the years I have written about the teachings, revelations, and healings I have received by taking walks in nature. I live a few miles outside of downtown Santa Fe. There is arroyo below my house that runs for miles in two directions. In Santa Fe County it is illegal to fence off your property so that people can walk the entire length of the arroyo if they choose to.

An arroyo is a dry riverbed. Although there are many houses where I live when you enter into the arroyo and walk through the dry riverbed you cannot see the surrounding homes. It is such a gift to live in a place where you can easily enter nature and be completely unaware of the population that surrounds you.

I have been walking through this arroyo for the eighteen years I have lived in my house. Sometimes I jog through the arroyo simply for exercise and allowing my mind to wander. And there are times I walk slowly truly connecting with the wealth of plants and trees that grow here. Surrounding the arroyo are juniper, pinion pine, ponderosa, cottonwood, and aspen trees. I have gotten to know many of these trees and over the years I have felt that I have connected so deeply with some of them that I can truly call them my friends. Sometimes even when the air is silent and still as I approach certain trees the leaves will move as if greeting me.

There is one old ancient ponderosa pine tree that is so magnificent and seems to thrive during the most extreme climate changes such as cold, heat, wind, and of course drought. There is even a bench for the elderly that has been put by the tree with cushions marked on them “for the elderly”. This tree gets a lot of love and respect by the local residents.

Some trees I worry about. I can see them struggling a bit. I do my work to not project struggle and illness onto them. I see them in their divine light, and I often touch the trunk and deeply feel the bark of the tree and radiate love and light. And there are times when I walk through the arroyo in a very focused state and perceive all the trees in their divine light as I walk.

There are also times when I do not feel well emotionally or physically and ask that the trees recognize me in my divinity. Nature is intelligent and does recognize us. I have written about this before.

As I walk through the arroyo with questions or concerns I find that nature continues to show me omens. I love working with omens, as this is a way to experience just how much support we are always being given by the universe. The universe, the helping spirits, nature itself is always giving us signposts that light our path in life.

As you incorporate what I wrote about in the September Transmutation News about enlivening your senses you will be more aware of the omens and signs being shown to you.

On the homepage of this site you can find an article that I wrote on “How to Work with Omens”. I promise you that if you bring this work into your life you will once again remember the magic of life.

There are times that I have walked through my arroyo praying and crying asking for some help to guide me through particularly challenging times. And I always receive some kind of extraordinary sign showing that the universe is listening and sending help my way.

There were two times where I received such extraordinary omens that I wanted to share with you.

Many years ago I was having a challenging time with someone who I was connected with in my spiritual community. I had been walking on my treadmill focusing on this challenge. I heard a very clear message telling me to go walk in the arroyo, and I would receive an omen.

So I stopped my treadmill, put on a different pair of shoes for walking in sand, and began my walk. After walking for about 10 minutes a hawk came flying through the trees and flew right up to me and slapped my head with his wing. Then right behind him a hummingbird was flying and swooped down and slapped my head with his wing. Then they both landed on a branch and sat right next to each other just staring at me for what felt like an eternity. No one moved until after minutes I finally continued walking. Can you imagine a hawk and a hummingbird sitting on a branch quietly next to each other and not moving? It was amazing.

It took me quite awhile to get the message being shared. It is not always a simple matter to interpret signs and omens. But over time I got the message. From time to time I find myself thinking about this walk as the hawk and hummingbird showing up was beyond the ordinary.

Two years ago I was really challenged with the care of my father who was 97. I had to make decisions that felt were beyond what I was emotionally capable of making. Hospice could support me on some levels. But they could not make certain decisions I was facing.

One day I went into the arroyo. I was crying so and praying for some help and a sign. The day I went into the arroyo was a cold and rainy October day.

As I was coming back home a baby snake crawled over my hiking boot. I could not believe what I was seeing. As I was so distraught at the time I was not thinking clearly. I bent down to see if it was a worm or some other nature being. It was a snake. October is certainly not a time for snakes to be birthing. And a snake would not be out on a cold and rainy day. But there it was in the flesh. I could not deny its appearance.

The omen to me meant that something was changing and transforming. I saw it as a real sign of death/rebirth. And indeed my father did die shortly after I saw this omen. He ended up dying in such a state of peace of grace. There was a new birth and a transition for my entire family.

As I reflect on how many gifts I have received from walking in my arroyo I feel strongly that it has been my regular ongoing relationship with the spirit of this place that has brought forth a wealth of signs to help me on my life journey. I not only walk the same path on a regular basis, but I also always walk with honor and respect for all that is alive in this area.

I believe that it is the relationship I have built up with the nature beings here that has created such a deep and strong field that lifts the veils between the worlds. The help of the hidden realms can reach through to give me guidance and to let me know how much I am loved and supported.

I did not always live in a place where I had the opportunity to go right outside my door and walk for miles in nature. I grew up in Brooklyn, and I sang to a tree outside my house everyday. I talked to it everyday. And I felt that tree communicating back to me.

I also lived in San Francisco where I had my favorite walking paths in nature where I built up such a strong relationship with the nature beings there that I felt a strong sense of mutual love and support.

The point I am trying to make is that you can build up a mutually supportive relationship with nature wherever you live – in a city or in a rural environment. There are parks you can walk in where you live. There might be a tree or plant you can radiate love to everyday. There is the sky above and the earth below that you can continue to honor. You can honor the living beings we call earth, air, water, and the sun as you go about your day. It does not matter where you live.

Nature will respond to you. Your life will change. Your relationship with the universe will change as you notice signs being given to you to light your path and let you know you are being recognized, supported, and loved by the spirit that lives in all things. Most importantly, your deep connection with nature will fill your soul.

Hawk, snake, and dragonfly often visit me on my walks in my arroyo and also while I am walking in other places in nature when the universe is trying to give me a sign. Who visits you? The wind gives me some potent messages, and I have come to rely on the messages that travel through the wind and breezes when I need guidance in my life.

Find a park, a place in nature, and connect with nature everyday. As you build up a relationship notice how the universe responds to your questions, challenges, and prayers.

The full moon is October 18. You can integrate what I wrote about by deepening your relationship with the moon. The moon does recognize you. Honor the moon, go out and sing to the moon, and learn about how your cycles harmonize and are impacted by the cycles of the moon.

Notice how the moon participates in the ceremony of Creating A Human Web of Light that we have been doing again and again each month since 2000. Do your preparation work to create sacred space and move into a heightened state of consciousness and join with all in the global community. Experience who you are beyond your skin- pure spirit; pure light. And radiate that light throughout the web of light within and throughout the earth.

If you are a new reader of the Transmutation News please visit “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the homepage to read instructions for our full moon ceremony.

Transmutation News – September 2013

There is a lot for us to discover as we deepen our connection with the unseen, the hidden realms, and the formless energies we work with in our spiritual practice.

As I wrote about last month we often get lost in methods and miss what is happening beyond the surface as we touch into the invisible realms.

We often try to follow instructions of how to perform our spiritual work and forget that the instructions just help us get to the door. But at some point, in order to go through the doorway and into the true depth of the unseen we need to let go of the instructions and methods. For the “instructions” can keep us on the surface and limit us from a true exploration of the beauty of the world of spirit. Instructions and learning methods can get us started on our journey. We all have to start somewhere. However, at some point it is time to let go of what we learned in courses and by reading books and find our own way.

We are so overwhelmed by sensory stimulation that is part of the world we live in. It is difficult to find the quiet space within where spirit, the helping spirits, and nature can inform us through ways of communication that are beyond words but more of a transmission that touches the depth of our soul. We cannot stay on the surface or understand on a rational level the mysteries of spirit.

Over the years I have encouraged you to work with your own story of creation and meet your creator. And in the August Transmutation News I asked you to experience the energy behind creation.

There is an energy behind creation that is beyond words and that we cannot rationally understand. To drop the words and experience the meaning behind the story allows us to get a transmission that speaks to the depth of our soul.

When we take a walk in nature and speak to the spirit of the elements and to other nature beings, the true wisdom comes through a transmission that is beyond rational understanding. This energetic transmission touches a knowing that we are born with which acts as fertilizer for our growth.

The same is true for those of you who practice shamanic journeying. We get so caught up in the visual and verbal messages from our helping spirits. We often stop looking for the deeper meaning that they are trying to share with us.

The purpose of initiation is to carve away what is on the surface of our ego and personality so that the depth of spirit can shine through.

In the August Transmutation News I put in the announcement section the link to an essay that Sparrow Hart wrote titled “Of Dreams and Dragonflies.”

In the essay Sparrow Hart shares how he learned that dragonflies have two sets of eyes that have 16,000 lens. Sparrow Hart was reflecting on how dragonflies inhabit a universe we cannot conceive or fathom. This has really triggered a deep process of reflection for me.

As humans we have our internal and external senses. But in the Western world we cut ourselves off from using the depth of our senses.

I started to reflect on how in the modern world we have deadened our senses. We live and work in environments that are stale. Many people use scented candles and artificial fragrant sprays to cover up how the air smells.

We listen to music on our devices throughout the day. Many of us live surrounded by so much external noise that we cannot hear the beautiful bird songs or the sound that comes to us from the gentle breezes, strong winds, or the rain.

When was the last time you heard a tree sing? Trees do sing and if you really open your “invisible ears” you will hear them.

And many of us are disconnected from our bodies and we don’t let ourselves fully touch all that is in our surroundings.

We mask the taste of our food with so many artificial flavorings and sweeteners we no longer can appreciate the fresh tastes that the earth gifts us with.

We often surround ourselves with so many material objects that we go on sensory overload and we cannot take in the beauty of the sights of the natural world.

A friend of mine was sharing with me how she was on a boat trip on a river in a rural part of Australia. The guide on the boat was trying to point out to all the tourists a tree in the distance with a snake on it. The people in the boat could not even see the tree that the guide was pointing to. As they got closer everyone could see the tree and the snake and was amazed at how the guide could see them so far away. Obviously, the guide’s senses remained enlivened by living out in the natural world. Have we lost the ability to stretch our awareness and perception? We can get this ability back with practice.

This is all to say we are missing out on a lot that life has to offer. We cannot perceive the beauty in life and connect with nature unless we truly use the senses we were gifted with.

We must fully enliven our senses once again to contact the beauty and power of the world around us. And then we can truly appreciate the beauty that lives in all things.

Also we have non-ordinary senses. We have the ability to tap into our shamanic, psychic, and intuitive knowing through using our inner senses. But here again I find that so many of us have stopped working with our own psychic senses.

Before an earthquake or other natural disasters occur animal behavior changes significantly. During the destructive tidal wave in Thailand animals had moved to higher ground and to safety before the tidal wave was apparent to humans.

I have a friend who had a boa constrictor and before an earthquake the snake became agitated. The same behavior can be seen in birds, dogs, cats, and other animals. Most humans have deadened their psychic senses to pick up on messages that animals receive. The senses of other nature beings are heightened enough to pick up changes occurring in the earth and in the environment.

One of my biggest frustrations in teaching shamanic journeying is how focused people are on “seeing” their journeys as if they are watching a TV show or a movie. It has been difficult for me to get people to experience the depth of all their non-ordinary senses. For the spirits do not communicate solely by showing us images.

Shamanic journeying is not an out of body experience as many practice the work today. By shifting consciousness, the shaman lifts the veil between the visible and invisible realms and steps into a different dimension of reality. The shaman is in this world with his or her senses activated. A shaman sees, hears, feels, smells, and tastes just as we would in our daily life. The shaman walks up to his or her helping spirits and engages with them as we would with people who we interact with in our daily lives.

As we live our daily lives, we can open our non-ordinary senses to perceive a rich and magical world around us. We might hear a message in the wind as we walk to work. When our ordinary senses are not so overloaded, we find ourselves in touch with inner knowings where we simply feel the truth of guidance or wisdom in our bones.

The nature beings with all their internal and external senses are great teachers for us in how to reconnect with the earth within us and the earth without. As we do this, we find our perception changing about everything occurring in our lives. Life takes on a deeper meaning and we can begin to see the beauty that life has to offer and how precious it is to be in a body.

Many people don’t want to be connected with their bodies. For a variety of reasons maybe through past trauma or illness being in a body is a source of pain rather than a joyful experience. And many of us also disconnected from our bodies as we have disconnected from nature. For to really be in nature immediately connects us back to the beauty of being in a body.

It is time for us to honor our bodies and not reject or judge them. It is time for us to allow ourselves to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell all that nature offers us. And then we inhabit a universe that right now most of us can only imagine.

There are so many levels of awareness we can open to as we learn how to sharpen our perception.

September 19 is the full moon. Find your own doorway into experiencing your divine light. And as I wrote about last month perform the preparation work necessary to go beyond the surface of knowing to fully experiencing that you are a being of light. Your vibration should change. Your consciousness should be heightened.

From this heightened state of consciousness and vibration experience your light as one with the web of light. Experience a pure state of unity with the light all of us are radiating.

If you are new to reading the Transmutation News you can read an introduction to our full moon ceremony “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the homepage of this site.

September 22 is the equinox. I cannot believe we are once again welcoming in a new season!

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere what a perfect time to reflect on dropping our habitual ways of being in the world that no longer serve living a life where we can experience the true depth of our visible and invisible senses. It is a great time to make a choice not to compromise and to fully bring vitality back and experience a wider and deeper sense of perception. It is a great time to dive deep and leave how we operate in superficial ways that keep us on the surface of life. As we let go of ways of living and working that no longer serve us and the planet we open to new birth. We open to a new way of life.

For those of you in the Southern Hemisphere what a fertile time it is to plant seeds that hold the vision of what I wrote above.

I wish everyone a joyous, vibrant, and radiant solstice!

Transmutation News – August 2013

In teaching my workshops I have really been stressing that there is a magic behind all the healing methods that shamans perform. I feel strongly that a lot of the potential of shamanic healing is being lost as practitioners today focus on the steps of a healing method rather than bringing through the healing energy and power behind the method.

Shamans have always reached expanded states of consciousness. These states of consciousness might have been reached through deep initiations created by elders in the community or through destiny itself. Expanded states of consciousness have been and still are reached through fasting, vision questing, and/or working with vision plants. Many shamans carry through the energy of ancestral spirits as they are taught shamanism through a family member. What is taught is far beyond the steps of ceremonies to perform. There is a transfer of ancestral energy that goes along with the teaching.

It was not through teachings of methods and ceremonies that creates the healing and transformation from the work. It is the energy behind the methods and the expanded energies that the shaman brought through – the formless energies.

We have been working together with formless energies as we go into the transfigured state. But I do find that many of us transfigure and attempt to work with formless energies without the required preparation work. I have written about this before.

But I bring it up again as I feel we are really limiting the power of the work that is possible and needed during these times. I surrender to the issue of timing and I surrender the outcome of the work. At the same time, I do believe we must start a practice of inquiry and ask ourselves if we are really going to the deep well of spirit that lies within each of us.

Do we just stop our activities for a short time and from a mental state say, “I am now a being of light radiating love and brilliance into the world?” Are we really moving into a state of expanded awareness where we can truly heal by our presence? Or is this principle simply a mental concept for us?

The paradox that we continue to dance is being able to function in the world while at the same diving deep into our spiritual work. We must move away from the superficial aspects of performing our spiritual ceremonies. We must become the state of being that naturally transforms.

We get so caught up in the day-to-day world many of us say I just don’t have time. We must find ways to make our spiritual work a priority. We must do this for ourselves, for all of life, and for the planet.

During this month take some time to reflect on, journey on, and meditate on ways that you can create time to move into a true expanded state of consciousness as you perform your work. You do not have to go on an extended vision quest or fast. And I am not suggesting that you ingest vision plants. But you do need to make some sacrifices as far as putting in some time to do the preparation work needed to shift from your ordinary consciousness filled with thoughts to a consciousness that opens the door into the realm of spirit that is filled with unlimited possibilities.

In past writings I have shared how taking some time to walk or sit in nature can open this doorway. Singing and dancing can do the same.

In many of the columns of The Transmutation News I encouraged you to work with learning about your own story of creation and exploring the nature of your creator – God, the goddess, Source, the power of the universe, etc. We must all find the name for the creator that fits into our personal beliefs.

The reason I keep stressing this practice is that we cannot fully merge with the divine if we have no feeling of what the divine is. This goes back to the issue of losing power of the practice if we are merging with something that has simply become a mental concept for us.

In the past exercises I have shared I have asked you to meditate on or journey on your personal story of creation. I have asked you to meet your creator and also to experience and absorb the unconditional love that went into your creation.

Many years ago, my dreamtime teacher Isis encouraged me to reflect on the question, “Would a loving creator program you with fear and scarcity or with joy and plenty?”

She asked me to imagine a seed in a garden programmed with fear. What grows?
Imagine a seed programmed with scarcity. What grows?
Imagine a seed programmed with joy and abundance. What grows?

For many of us our foundation is fear, and everything is built from that and grown out of fear.

When we can experience in all the cells of our being the love that went into our creation, we can then start to experience that we are programmed with love, joy, and all the knowledge to create health and abundance.

This month I would like to ask you to take this practice a little deeper.

Put on some music and ask to meet your creator. Experience the pure energy of creation without any form or trying to understand the how’s and why’s of creation. Just experience the energy of creation.

Then bring the energy through into the physical world. You can use some crayons and allow the energy to come through color. You can also dance and/or sing the energy into the world. You can work with any craft to bring through the energy. Cook something and let the energy transform your food.

We did something similar last month where I asked you to experience the energy of your ancestral line. This month I want you to experience the pure energy of creation itself.

When you can bring through this limitless and bountiful energy you will experience the magic of the energy behind the methods, techniques, and practices you work with.

Each month I encourage you to bridge spiritual practices into your day-to-day life so we can truly become the people who can make a difference in the world.

We must remember to acknowledge and honor ourselves for all we have been doing. We must acknowledge all that we have been through in life that has sculpted us into who we have become.

Let us join our hearts together and acknowledge the brilliant work we have been doing as a spiritual collective. We really have done extraordinary work on behalf of all of life and the planet.

Last month I announced that my book The Shaman’s Toolkit is available. I have been so focused on letting people know this is the same book as How to Thrive in Changing Times. I have not wanted my spiritual community to be disappointed in buying a book that they already have.

I do want to talk about the power of this book. For I am sure many of you have not read it.

I really love this book as it is filled with tools for keeping a state of hope as the world changes and life intensifies. It is filled with practices to help you transform your beliefs that might be outdated so you can create the world you wish to live in for yourself, for all of life, and for the earth.

I wrote this book for a non-shamanic community so that the language fits with all beliefs and the practices are easy to work with whether you have ever performed any spiritual practices or not.

As I wrote last month it is so important to remain in a state of hope and to learn how to project the best for yourself and the planet. Working spiritually is how we can all gather our energies together to create positive change.

If you have not read How to Thrive in Changing Times, I encourage you to read The Shaman’s Toolkit.

The full moon is August 20. Prepare and move out of your ordinary consciousness so that you can experience the boundless energy of divine light and love that resides within. You are divine light and love. Radiate that light throughout the web of light. Feed the earth within and without with light. Join with thousands who are doing the same.

If you are a new reader to the Transmutation News please visit “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the homepage of this site to read the instructions for our full moon ceremony.

As I drive home from doing my errands, I pass a church that posts inspiration sayings outside.

I find that sometimes they post a saying that truly inspires me.

This month they posted:

If your day is hemmed with prayers, it is less likely to unravel.

Let us hem our days with prayers and with our spiritual work from the deepest place within.

Transmutation News – July 2013

We join our hearts together as a collective to radiate love and light to all life around the world that is being impacted by floods, drought, fires, and severe storms.

We rededicate ourselves to living a harmonious life that will be reflected back to us by the Earth.

I just returned from teaching in Europe. I had some deep experiences as my groups were filled with lovely people and very dedicated to the work. It was also a treat to be back in Europe again. I taught in both Germany and Scotland, and it was a beautiful time of the year to visit both countries. The hills in Scotland were just covered with blue bells. It was such an amazing sight, and the air was filled with their sweet fragrance.

In Scotland I taught Medicine for the Earth and Healing with Spiritual Light. I personally work with all the practices daily that I teach in the training. But as I taught, I was able to reflect on what practices that I need to deepen in my own life.

The practice that I realized I need greater focus with is how and what we project onto others and in the world. The example I use in my workshops is something that happened in my life many years ago.

I had arrived at a workshop to continue teaching a long-term training so I already knew everyone in my group quite well. The first day of the workshop a woman came up to me and asked me if I was okay. She said she had never seen me looking so tired. I actually was not feeling tired, but I found my energy dropping dramatically after she made this comment to me. A minute later someone came up to me, and she said that she had never seen me looking so refreshed and bright. Immediately I felt my energy shift, and I could feel radiance flowing through me.

This goes back to the Medicine for the Earth teaching of our perception creates our reality. As humans we all project. We can project suffering onto others and onto the world or we can see the brilliance and divine light in all that is alive.

What we feed grows. The more we nurture our projections of perceiving suffering the more that energy grows. The more we nurture our projections in perceiving the beauty and what is working we feed the energy of strength and beauty.

This does not mean that we should deny the challenges. But when we lift the veils between the worlds and look beyond human conditioning what we see is beauty, joy, love and health.

We really need to reflect on how our shifts of perception is an important piece to creating the world we wish to live in. For the more we feed the energies of what is not working the more we manifest problems. As we can focus on beauty the more all of life is lifted up. I realize how difficult this can be as the times we live in are so intense and filled with so much change. But at the same time this is an important practice to keep up.

This has to do with energy and what energies we choose to feed. And there are some very practical changes we can make in our daily life that can help to shift our perception, which shifts the reality that manifests.

When you look at friends, loved ones, and people shown in the media notice whether you focus on how someone you know, or groups of people are suffering. We can have compassion for what people are going through. But to pity people and focus on suffering creates a heavy energy for those you are projecting onto.

While you are conversing with people notice something that you can focus on that feeds the energy of their beauty and divine light. When you watch the news or read newspapers focus on the courage, beauty, strength, and divine light of groups of people that a news story is focusing on.

This does change the energy. It changes your perception, so you feel lifted up and on an energetic level you lighten the energy of all around you.

When you look at yourself in the mirror don’t focus on how tired you look or how your age might be showing. Focus on how beautiful you are and the light shining out of your eyes.

Notice the difference of how you feel when you do this. Also notice how the energy might change for another as you silently focus on their beauty, strength, and divine light. You will notice a true shift as you do this.

We need to learn how to project the best onto life. Right now, as a collective we are projecting suffering and challenges onto all of life and the planet itself. This needs to change for us to witness a shift in the energies needed to create true healing.

There is another piece of work that might help you to learn how to project the best onto others and the world.

I have written quite a lot about creating a rich and fertile inner garden. We need to nurture a fertile and rich inner landscape.

The light and joy shining out of the eyes of indigenous people comes from the depth and richness of the inner landscape they have developed.

If our inner landscape is barren, then when we look at others and the world around us, we see our outside world as barren too. If we feel empty the world around us seems empty too.

In 2011 I wrote an article for the Huffington Post on “How to Create A Rich Inner Garden”. You can read the article by clicking on Huffington Post Links on the homepage of this site.

Here is another practice you can work with to go along with creating a rich inner garden and landscape.

After my training in Scotland was over my husband Woods and I spent some time with my sponsor and his family. Stephen, who sponsored my workshop, is a long-time student and has become a good friend.

My husband and I have spent some wonderful time with Stephen over the last 10 years, and it was a joy to have some days together after the training.

Stephen really likes Woods a lot and they always spend their time together joking and laughing. Stephen decided to honor Woods and induct him into his family clan.

So, one night he created a ceremony for Woods. Stephen’s wife and I were also at the ceremony. Woods and I were so touched by Stephen’s words and the ceremony he created.

At the end of the ceremony, we held hands and shared words that came from our heart. When it was my time to speak, I found myself talking about my family. My ancestry was tribal, and I felt that the tribe of my family was coming through in love towards Stephen.

There was such a deep rootedness that I felt inside me. At that moment my inner landscape felt so rich and deep. I cannot even find words to describe the feeling. I cannot really remember feeling such deep fertile earth filling every cell of my being.

So many of us today focus on what we did not get from our ancestors. But the fact that we are alive shows we are carrying on a richness and gifts from our ancestors.

In my books and workshops, I have people journey on the gifts and strengths that they are carrying through from their mother’s and father’s line.

But I have never asked people to journey or experience the pure energy that they are carrying through their ancestral line. To do this I believe makes us feel a whole new level of feeling complete and rooted to this great earth.

You might wish to take some time in silence, get still, and to try to experience the energy of your mother’s and father’s line. It does not matter who your ancestors were and what they did or did not do. They were part of the earth and carried to you a richness of living on this earth. And to experience this will help you to feel a deep power growing in the soil of your inner landscape.

The more you can work with nurturing and deepening your inner landscape the easier it will be to project love, light, beauty, and gratitude into the world. For if you are feeling barren and empty within you cannot project the beauty onto others. You have to feel and experience and carry beauty from within first.

The full moon is July 22. Let us travel within and connect from a place of depth and beauty to experience our own fullness, radiance, and divine light. Feel yourself as part of a global community radiating love and projecting that love within and throughout the earth. Allow our collective radiance to feed and weave a human web of light within and throughout our great earth.

If you are new to reading The Transmutation News please read “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the homepage for instructions of how to participate in our full moon ceremony.

A few days ago, I had a dream. In the dream I was speaking with a woman who had been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. She asked me for advice. I told her the most important advice I could give her was not to lose hope.

For when we lose hope what is the point of going on? She agreed with this, thanked me, and then the dream ended.

It is so important as we go through so much change to keep up a state of hope. This is key in helping us to ride the waves of the times.

If you do the practices that I write in The Transmutation News, which are also included in Medicine for the Earth, How to Heal Toxic Thoughts, and How to Thrive in Changing Times (now titled The Shaman’s Toolkit) you will find yourself experiencing more strength, power, and most important you will experience hope.

When I taught Medicine for the Earth as part of the cardiac study with the Michigan School of Integrative Medicine, we found that the Medicine for the Earth group experienced long term feelings of hope. Hope is key for creating and maintaining a state of health and well-being.

Transmutation News – June 2013

I want to thank everyone for your kind words, beautiful messages, prayers, love, and support when my mother Lee Ingerman passed away. I really wanted to answer every email and card that I received, but it was not possible for me to do so. I hope you felt my thanks and love coming back to you.

This is a deep time of reflection for me. The last four years of my life completely revolved around caring for my parents. And I have a lot to process over time.

We all embody our life experiences. Our experiences settle into our cells and then sculpt us in a variety of ways. We have the ability to transform and transmute challenging life experiences – to feel them and decide how they will sculpt and guide us.

We always have the choice to evolve and use our challenges as gifts and tools to help us grow.

We can allow life experiences to settle and harden us. Or we can focus on the positive and even though we hurt share a smile and a kind word. This changes us, lights us up in the darkest of times. I really appreciated being witness to how my mother became more peaceful and bright the last few years of life whereas previously she might have been stuck in the hardships of life.

In How to Thrive in Changing Times I shared a story about a Tibetan nun who had been imprisoned by the Chinese. She was tortured and was in prison for many years.

This beautiful nun was in a bookstore in Santa Fe. Someone had asked her how she healed from what had happened to her. For now, the Tibetan nun was a bright and happy person. She said she repeated to herself like a mantra, “Thank you for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever.” This change in attitude created healing for her and a shift of her perception about life.

I have been finding in my own life that when I am feeling down, I think about one of my favorite trees I visit as I walk. I imagine putting my hands on the bark and feeling my deep connection and love for nature. This continues to lift me up.

At the end of my mother’s life, she focused on what she loved instead of her challenges. I made a choice to focus on how much I loved both my parents and the wonderful memories instead of the times of challenge in our relationship.

Shifting our focus to what we love about life changes our neural pathways and opens up new possibilities of feeling joy versus pain. We are not denying the pain that we feel or the challenges that we have experienced. But we do have a choice of how our life experiences shape our presence and ability to allow love and our light to shine through us.

We celebrate the summer/winter solstice on June 21. No matter what we have been through in life we are who we are now based on all that has occurred. We all have borne great fruit from all our labors.

Let us make a choice to reflect on the beauty of the fruit that grows from us as we have grown and evolved into beautiful beings. Celebrate all that you are now. As you do this you honor nature and the universe for the life you were given.

My mother had such a passion for life. She believed life was a precious gift. I have felt the best way to honor her life is to be in deep gratitude for the life I was given by my parents, my ancestors, earth, air, water, the sun, and the power of the universe. I have always had my gratitude practices, but recently my state of gratitude comes from a deeper place from within. My well of gratitude is much deeper now.

To be deeply grateful for our lives honors the source of our life. It is time for us to celebrate the gift of life that we were given.

Take time on the solstice to reflect on the gifts you have been given from your ancestors and from earth, air, water, and the sun. Allow your state of appreciation to deepen and flow through you celebrating life!

Over the last couple of years, I have been writing about unconditional love, light, joy, and gratitude. These states of consciousness are always who we are and are not based on our outer circumstances.

All that life brings us takes us deeper and deeper into our inner well where we can allow unconditional states of consciousness to flow up through us and into the world.

During the solstice, take some time to reflect on how deep your own well has become.

Let us join our hearts together to wish everyone in our community a joyous solstice! Let your light, love, and gratitude flow through you feeding all of life on our beautiful planet. Happy solstice!!

Weave this state of gratitude and appreciation into our full moon ceremony creating a web of divine light and unconditional love within and throughout the earth touching every living being on our great earth.

Life is precious! Let us celebrate and honor life!

If you are new to reading The Transmutation News please visit “Creating a Human Web of Light” on the homepage of this site for the instructions of how to participate in our full moon ceremonies.

Transmutation News – May 2013

During this month of May, I would like us to focus on balance.

We are body, mind, and spirit. Often, we get too lost in our body sensations, and we forget that we are more than a body. On the other side sometimes, we do not tend to our bodies through the nurturance, exercise, and rest needed to maintain our physical health.

We can drown in our emotions and problematic thoughts and attitudes. On the other side we can do what is called a spiritual bypass and refuse to look at what is troubling us on an emotional and mental level. This state of denial and repression ends up impacting our state of health.

We are spirit and we have a body and mind. Our body is the vessel of our spirit, and as the ancient Egyptians believed is the temple of our spirit. Sometimes we focus so much on daily challenges and stresses we don’t experience our spirit shining through and the flow, beauty, grace of our spirit. But spirit is always there. In some cases, we don’t attend to our needs by saying nothing matters, as we are only spirit.

For many of us the pendulum swings in an exaggerated fashion. We must attend to our body, mind, and spirit to call in and create balance in our lives.

Acknowledging what is happening on all levels is key while not overidentifying with the body, emotions, or mind. This creates balance.

In Medicine for the Earth and How to Thrive in Changing Times I shared a practice called “Disidentification” that comes from Roberto Assagioli who created the branch of therapy called Psychosynthesis.

The core of this exercise is to realize I have a body, but I am not my body. I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I have a mind, but I am not my mind. I am that which has a sense of being, permanence, and inner balance. I am a center of identity and pure consciousness.

When I get caught up in overidentifying with something going on physically, emotionally, or mentally I repeat the above paragraph to myself. In this way I acknowledge challenges I might be experiencing and at the same time not getting lost in these challenges. I can rise above and get a broader perspective, which always brings me back to a state of balance.

The morning of Good Friday I had a dream. The dream was very involved, and I won’t share all the details.

First, I was at the scene of a battle in medieval times. The battle was quite bloody, and people were being tortured. Then the scene switched, and I was at a conference of people involved in spiritual healing. It turned out the battle scenes I witnessed were all part of a Hollywood movie.

At the conference some of the stars of the movie came out on stage. The stars were all young with blond hair, they were dressed in white, and they were all shining brightly with big smiles on their faces. The conference attendees started to ask them questions about how they felt about playing their role in the movie. I could feel my relief as I realized that I was not witnessing an actual battle but rather scenes from a movie. In the dream I was reminded that all of life is a dream and that we take on characters just as actors do in a movie.

I know I have written about this before, but the dream was a reminder that we all playing a role in this movie we call life. Even during the most challenging times where we almost feel “tortured” we are these bright lights evolving and learning during our earthly experience.

When we learn to disidentify a bit from all that is happening on a physical, mental, and emotional level we can step back and start to investigate the part we are playing. We can make a decision that it is now time to play a new role, a new character, a new part. We do have a choice to say, “I have been playing this same character for too long, and it is time to take on a new role.”

As a character actor preparing to play a part, we tend to immerse ourselves so deeply in our role. We forget it is a role in a movie and that we can make changes. Sometimes we do have to immerse ourselves fully in the role to learn the lessons we are destined to learn. We just have to know when it is time to make a shift and realize that it might be time to explore a new role in life so that we can keep moving forward.

You might take some time to reflect on this during May.

The full moon is May 24. Let us disidentify from all the challenges we are facing and remember that we are divine light and a vessel of universal consciousness, light, and unconditional love.

Let us join together and continue to weave divine light, love, and joy within and throughout our beautiful planet.

If you are a new reader of the Transmutation News please read the section on “Creating A Human Web of Light” for instructions for our full moon ceremony.

Transmutation News – April 2013

I was having a stimulating conversation with another shamanic healer, and a topic came up that I wanted to share with you. I think it is an important aspect to add to what I have been writing on initiations.

In my workshops and in my books, I teach about a delicate subject that can come up while working with a client, a friend, or loved one who has been diagnosed with a serious illness.

Sometimes a client or a loved one might ask those of you who journey to consult with a helping spirit to get a prediction of whether they will live or die.

The issue that arises is if someone has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and is cured, he or she will die on some level in order to heal. For that kind of healing involves quite a lot of dying to what does not support a healthy life.

If you journey to a helping spirit and ask if a client, friend, or loved one will die the answer is yes. If you journey and ask if a client, friend, or loved one will live the answer will be yes. For our spirit is eternal.

In my practice sometimes clients show up saying that a doctor gave them a terminal diagnosis. I am often asked to journey on whether my client will live or die.

My response in these cases is that I will perform the healing needed so that you are whole. I perform a soul retrieval as part of the healing to return any lost soul parts to a person. In doing this the soul is now present to help to guide the next steps of the process. It is only our soul that knows the next step. For some people, the next step is physical death and for some it is remaining in this life.

Life is a series of initiations where we die to certain aspects of our life so that our own inner light, our divine nature can shine through.

As we continue to bring back lost parts of ourselves, we live in a more conscious fashion. And when it is our time, we die consciously. The key is being fully present so that we can raise our awareness to the gifts that life brings to us so that we can die to the old and be reborn into new levels of consciousness.

People in the helping professionals who work with people who are in the final stages of life often remark how bright a person is as they are facing death. I have seen this again and again with people I know. The light shining through as the body declines is quite amazing and beautiful.

And I also find that people have the same brilliant light coming through as they go through initiations in life that create a death experience where so much of the old is left behind. The death leads to something new being born. People who have some kind of life dismemberment come back feeling renewed and regenerated. We all know how brightly a pregnant woman glows. When we are giving birth to a deeper and more conscious aspect of ourselves, we glow too.

The process of dying and the process of birth all bring us to a deeper level of spirit where the divine shines through.

Last year I wrote about how heart break leads to our hearts expanding so that we can become bigger vessels of unconditional love. I wrote about how unconditional love is beyond personal love. It is love that has no attachments to people or life circumstances. It is the pure love of the creator and is a reflection of the love that went into our creation and also the creation of the world.

I also have started to experience in my Inner World how joy has that same unconditional quality.

I continue to write and teach how true joy, health, wealth, and peace lie within. And that the key to our spiritual practice is cultivating our inner garden in a way that creates a rich Inner World.

I write and teach what I need to learn myself. And my life is truly devoted to practicing what I share in my teachings. I have been challenged through my life as I have searched for that real sense of inner joy.

And what I have come to realize is that my block to experiencing that inner joy is that I attach joy to my conditions in the outer world. But from a spiritual perspective joy is unconditional. Joy is beyond any personal desires. Unconditional joy is simply the joy for life itself. We were born into this material world to fully experience the joy of life. And when we can tap into our original desire to experience the joy of life beyond conditions, we experience unconditional joy as we do unconditional love. This is also true for the spiritual definition of wealth and peace. For these qualities that we embrace in our Inner World have nothing to do with our outer conditions.

The full moon is April 25. Let us travel within and experience unconditional love for all life as well as unconditional joy for the gift of being alive. From this potent place of divine light, love, and joy let us continue to weave a brilliant human web of light within and throughout our planet earth.

Let us continue our transfiguration work for each of us in our global circle.

For those of you new to reading the Transmutation News please read “Creating A Human Web of Light” for instructions on our full moon ceremony.

Transmutation News – March 2013

In January I had the wonderful opportunity to be interviewed for a book that is being written on death and dying. One of the questions I was asked was, “What do I feel is important for us to do as we move towards the end of our life?”

I responded that I felt it is important for us to find inner peace. At the end of our lives, it is crucial that we make peace with all that life has brought to and for us. For I feel so sad when I see people leave life feeling bitter. What a gift to leave this world from a place of peace.

I continue to write that there are many deaths we experience through our lives. There are the little deaths we go through marked by initiations and change. And then there is the big death as we transition out of our physical bodies into a transcendent reality.

Whether we are experiencing the little deaths or the end of our physical life it is always important to go deep into our inner well and come to a place of inner peace. For the world around us continues to change, grow, and evolve. And there are so many challenges that are presented to us. But these challenges are also gifts. The more we can establish a strong sense of inner peace then we will not lose our balance and get so thrown off by what life brings us. This has always been a key teaching in living a spiritual life. I feel that we are here now and the world itself is in a very turbulent cycle. We must find that deep inner peace within that keeps us protected and buffered by so much of the turbulence around us.

As you keep up the spiritual practices, I have been teaching throughout the years you will strengthen your own Inner World and find the peace, wealth, and health that lives within.

Last month I wrote about how important it is to follow the path of spirit. To continue with this theme, when we follow the path of spirit, we also must learn how to honor ourselves.

I know that many of us get stressed out when we feel a need to meet the demands and needs and others. My helping spirits have been showing me how this kind of behavior ends us creating energetic leaks in our body.

When I was shown an image, I saw how energy leaks out in a horizontal fashion creating a weakened state on a physical and emotional level.

I was shown how important it is to stay true to ourselves and create the necessary boundaries so that our energy is flowing vertically connecting us to the heavens above and down through the roots of the earth. As we do this and find a strong and centered state within, then the energy can flow through us from all directions as we bridge heaven and earth through our heart and radiate love and light throughout to those we love and to all of life.

Continue to work with releasing your unhealthy energetic connections into the Cauldron of Light. I wrote about this ceremony in the December 2012 Transmutation News

The full moon is March 27. Travel deep within yourself to the power of your divine light. Join together with thousands of others in our global community as we continue to weave a strong and radiant light throughout and deep within the earth. This weaving holds all of life in love as the fabric of reality of unhealthy conditions continues to unravel. Together we dream into being a life of true health and harmony.

For those of you new to reading The Transmutation News please read Creating A Human Web of Light on the homepage of this site.

In the instructions for our monthly full moon, I had added a healing ceremony for our global community. I added this many years ago. I realize that in the past year or so I have not been encouraging us to continue this work.

As I hear from so many people who are on a spiritual path, I am hearing more and more of how many are being challenged on a physical level. For as we learn to create more harmony in our lives our physical bodies must shift and align with the new frequencies. Sometimes we experience a level of disharmony in our health before we can rebalance and realign with new energies that are flowing.

Years ago, I had written how on the full moon we can do a transfiguration ceremony for everyone in our circle. On the full moon as we continue to create a human web of light also see yourself taking turns of lying in the middle of a giant global circle. When you are in the middle allow yourself to absorb the light and love being radiated by those in the outer circle. And then at some point move into the outer circle radiating divine light and unconditional love to those lying within. Allow this movement of going into the middle and being in the outer circle to flow with ease.

We can join together to strengthen all of us as we move through life. There are going to be times we find ourselves riding down smooth waters and enjoying the ride. And there will be times when we enter into the turbulent waters. This is life and being part of nature. We can be a true support to each of us as we ride through the river of life.

It is hard for me to believe that we are welcoming in the equinox and the change to spring or fall depending on where you live. I cannot believe how fast time is moving!
I do believe that the times we live in call for all of us to view reality in a different way. We have been working together to break out of collective beliefs that keep us so tied to only looking at the material world around us.

In spiritual teachings it is understood that there is a web of life that connects us all. And part of shamanism is finding practices where you can honor and respect what we call “the spirit that lives in all things”. It is important to find ways to honor the plants and trees where you live that support life. And it is important to honor the animals, insects, birds, rocks, etc.

The more we can respect nature the more nature respects us. This goes back to the principle of reciprocity in shamanism. The Salish Indians use a word “skalatitude”. This means, “When people and nature are in perfect harmony, then magic and beauty are everywhere.”

To welcome in the spring/fall equinox do some deep soul searching about how you can connect more with nature and live in harmony with the natural laws that call for us to live in accordance with nature’s cycles.

On the equinox honor the living beings where you live. Leave an offering for the spirits. Hold your intention that this offering is a way to express gratitude for earth, air, water, and fire (the sun), which give you life. Give gratitude to all the living beings that live in your area. You might wish to add giving gratitude for the helping ancestral spirits where you live and also your personal ancestors who gave you life. You can also give thanks to the spirit of the land, the hidden folk, your own helping spirits.

It does not matter if you live in a city or in a rural area. You can find places in nature where you can give your offerings.

There are no “correct” offerings to give. I leave blue corn meal as an offering as blue corn meal has deep meaning for me. You can leave a bit of your favorite food, flowers, water, your favorite drink, etc. as an offering. The key is your intention to give gratitude versus what you leave as an offering. Nature reads your heart not your mind.

During a meditation or a shamanic journey, connect with the spirit of the land where you live. If you do this as a meditation, put on some expansive music and hold the intention that you want to meet the spirit of the land. If you do this as a shamanic journey hold the same intention as you travel into the invisible realms.

Ask the spirit of the land how you can make shifts in your life so that you are living in harmony with nature. Ask for guidance of how to improve your life.

When I first moved to Santa Fe in the early 1980’s I had a hard time settling in. I did not feel like Santa Fe was my home and although I worked a few jobs I could not support myself. I finally journeyed to the spirit of Santa Fe and asked for guidance. The spirit of Santa Fe showed herself to me as a beautiful goddess, and she became my teacher in my journeys for many years. She gave me five things to do. I followed all of her advice, and it was amazing how my life changed and how all of a sudden everything I needed just began to flow.

During the change in seasons, it is wonderful to merge with the earth where you live. We have been doing this practice for many years. It is also good to connect with the spirit of the land. You will receive a wealth of information by learning how the earth is changing during the shift in seasons which is a reflection of how you are changing too. And you can move into a place of harmony by connecting more and more with the spirit of the land.

Let us join our hearts together to wish those of you in the Northern Hemisphere a joyous spring and for our circle in the Southern Hemisphere a deep and wonderful fall!

Category: English 2013