Category: English

Transmutation News – June 2015

I wrote the May Transmutation News before the earthquake in Nepal and the unrest in Baltimore. I trust that you were able to perform your spiritual work and radiate light to the places, people, and nature beings that were impacted. It is so important to stay focused on our spiritual work!

It is so easy to move into a place of pity as we watch people move into challenging situations. And the key to our work is to project strength onto others instead of weakness and pity. And also, it is key to shift our perception to see all impacted in their light. This is key to changing awareness and to provide true healing.

Also, it is important to remember that people and living beings all over the world are facing very challenging situations. Not all of these stories are covered by the media. We are simply in a time where the structure of our world is unraveling. People are acting in ways towards each other, all of life, and the Earth that show such a lack of honor, respect, the understanding that life is precious, and that all living beings contribute to the health of the web of life.

We will continue to see challenges as the way of life we know continues to dissolve and unravel. But the key for us is to not lose hope and to keep working spiritually to raise our own consciousness and to raise consciousness of people in our communities. We must continue to see through the eyes of spirit versus the eyes of ego which only sees suffering, doom, and gloom. There is so much that is occurring beyond what we can see through our ordinary eyes. And by focusing on our spiritual work, we will learn to see a new perspective that will inspire us to know that all is possible.

Last month I had the opportunity to merge with Isis to share wisdom and healing with a group I have been working with.

There were a couple of messages that Isis shared that were not solely for the group I was working with, and that I would like to share with you.

Isis strongly stated that whenever you are triggered or impacted by something happening in the world or in your life to return to yourself and repeat the phrase to yourself, “I love you”. The more that you show love towards yourself the more the world around you will change.

One of the teachings that Isis has shared with me is that humankind has tried to control, manipulate, and define nature. She has shared that when we ask questions of how we can help and be in service these questions are a form of control. For Isis said that these questions lead to structured answers which in the asking is a form of trying to control the answers given. I know it might be hard for some of you to comprehend how asking questions of how to help is a form of control. It is a subtle form of control. But this is interesting to just sit with and reflect on.

Isis shared that it is time to stop asking questions in your journeys and meditations. But this is a time to practice deep listening and “being” so that you can actually hear what the Earth has to share. For we form the questions we want answers to instead of truly listening to what really needs to be shared by our helping spirits and the Earth.

And Isis also reminded us that you cannot create strong new healthy structures out of broken structures that are crumbling. She said we must go back into the world of formlessness to create the new forms that support life in a healthy way. This means to focus our continuing dreaming work by going beyond the world of form and to dream into being new forms and ways of living and being. That is how we can change the dream.

Please take time this month to focus on this wisdom that Isis shared. This is a time for us to step up our work and really expand past our limitations that we put on our spiritual work and the possibilities of positive growth and change that can and will occur on the planet. We are co-partners with the Earth and the helping spirits. We just have to open to new ways of perception and new ways of working.

The full moon is June 2. The full moon empowers our ability to focus on calling into form a good dream for all of life. We really need to step up our work. Let the full moon empower your spiritual work and your practices.

Let us join together as a global community to create a human web of light. Do your preparation work so you can be a hollow bone for spirit. Journey within to who you are beyond your skin which is spirit. You are radiant and divine light. Be a light in the world. Perceive the planet and all of life as light and in its divine perfection. Let us join our inner divine light, our inner starlight, our inner sunlight together as we weave a web of light within and throughout the Earth.

For those of you who are new readers of the Transmutation News please read “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the homepage.

Once again, we are flowing and cycling into a new season. On June 21 we celebrate the solstice. We welcome in summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere. A new cycle in nature and in our lives begins.

As the seasons change the Earth informs us on how to shift our internal cycle to be in harmony and flow with the change. This is a powerful time to integrate the message of Isis into your life. Take some time to just be in the elements. Lie on or put your feet on the earth. Listen to the breezes and the wind. Merge with the water where you live. Absorb the power of the sun. Just be and let your body harmonize with nature. You are not connected with nature. You are nature. Don’t ask the Earth what she needs just simply listen to any guidance that the Earth has to share with you.

And as Isis also shared, we cannot create new forms out of outdated forms. In order for our dreaming work to take on power we must travel back into the territory of formlessness and by engaging all of our senses we can start to create new forms and new dreams to birth into being. Do your work. In shamanic cultures it has been the responsibility of everyone in the community to dream a good dream for all of life. Be a dreamer.

During this powerful time of celebrating the solstice dream a good dream for yourself, all of life, and the Earth.

Let us join together to wish everyone in our community a joyous solstice!!

Inspirational Stories From Our Community:

Here is a wonderful story that Kevin shared to inspire us:

“Giving and receiving is part of my daily being however sometimes I forget about myself. As a result, my day can be negative. All I need for my day to become positive is for me to take my dog for a long trail run. By observing nature and nature’s animals I receive a wealth of enlightenment.

May your day be one of light.”

And here is a lovely sharing from Sylvia:

“I have always appreciated nature. Perhaps it was going fishing with my dad as a little girl in the mountains of western Maryland, staying in a log cabin in the woods and rowing on the lake to my heart’s content. Nature balances me and is one of my teachers.

In the last two years I went through a period where everything was up for review, how and where I spent my time and what I believed to be true. At one point I picked up my camera and started photographing what presented itself while I was in nature. To me this was a pure connection – it was a chance to connect to spirit and just observe while experiencing the elements of nature – the wind, the sun, the patterns of the earth and water. It was just me and spirit, nothing else.

I would watch the ever-changing beauty of the sunrises and sunsets in absolute awe. It soon became apparent that spirit showered me with gifts – the clouds would form objects and pictures, the sun and clouds gifted me with their artistic interpretations each day often with rays that seemed to stretch for hundreds of miles. This connection was real, and the interesting part is that whenever I thought I knew what the sky would look like as the sunrise or sunset approached, I was wrong. I was taught to be present in the moment and from the beauty in sunrises and sunsets, my appreciation for the beauty in all things deepened.

This connection to nature has become my most treasured spiritual practice and my photographs seem to have a different quality about them, as if spirit is the artist presenting a painting for the lens to capture. This time has become the welcoming to a day of new possibilities and a thank you for moving through yet another day. There are times I feel like I am physically bathed in the beauty of nature’s light and seen as a most welcomed guest as I appreciate what nature is presenting to me. It is a connection that continually deepens and helps to outweigh the negativity that we are bombarded with in this world.”

Transmutation News – May 2015

We all know the power of spiritual work. And we really do not need proof of the power. Just the fact that the practice of shamanism has survived for tens of thousands says all we need to know. For the power of the healing results keeps the work alive and thriving.

As there is a resurgence of shamanism in the West many of the people interested in exploring shamanic work do find learning about the results of the work helps them to open to the invisible realms. As we know through social conditioning most people in the Western world shut the doors to the invisible realm of spirit that we were so connected to as children. As people are searching for meaning in life today and ways to improve their health and well-being people are opening up to the possibility of working with the practice of shamanism. But many are still nervous about the practice for they were so conditioned to believe the world of helping spirits does not exist. We were so brainwashed into focusing all of our energy on the tangible realms and following the rules of society. It is sad as we could have strengthened society by supporting people in tapping into their spiritual guidance and helping to add to the collective strength of the whole. The good news is that people are waking up to this understanding now.

Since I started teaching Medicine for the Earth, I have conducted different experiments with my groups to show how powerful the practice of transfiguration is for personal and planetary healing. I wrote about our beginning experiments in Medicine for the Earth: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins. In our beginning experiments we worked with placing ammonium hydroxide in de-ionized water and tracking the change in pH.

We then moved onto working with the GDV camera that was created by Konstantin Korotkov. The GDV camera records the stimulation of photons and electron emission from people or objects placed on the glass of the camera. The software can manipulate that data to show chakra and auric fields in people and energy emitted from objects. It records emission and flow of energy in people and objects.

Sylvia Edwards has been using the GDV camera to measure results of the transfiguration work we practice at my workshops. We have witnessed numerous miraculous healings in these workshops! And at the same time, it has been wonderful to have a way to show people the power of the work through having before and after photos available to view.

Just as a reminder with the transfiguration work no healing energies are sent. We as the practitioners transfigure into our divine light – who we are beyond our body and skin. And we perceive everyone and all substances we focus on in their divine light and perfection.

The practice of transfiguration uses the feminine principle of we create change by our presence and who we become versus what we do.

During a teleconferencing session I taught for the Shift Network I decided to work with Sylvia to design a remote experiment using transfiguration.

Sylvia rented a hotel room in the Boulder, Colorado area. She used the GDV camera to measure the auric field of volunteers who showed up to the hotel. And she also bought a variety of foods at the store to test. Some of the foods she bought most likely had GMO ingredients in them.

Then many hundreds of participants from around the world in my teleconferencing course transfigured and also focused on all the people and substances in the hotel room in their divine perfection and light. So again, we did not send healing. We just perceived everything in the hotel room in divine light. The group had the name of the hotel, address, and the room number.

Sylvia listened on headphones as I guided the group in our transfiguration ceremony. None of the volunteers in the room knew what was happening in the ceremony. They were just instructed to absorb light. Sylvia took before and after photos of the people and substances present in the room.

To read a report and see the incredible photos please click on: https://www.sandraingerman.com/gdvcameraresults.html

Then click on “Remote Transfiguration Experiment Report”. There are also incredible photos from other workshops that you can also view.

It was so exciting to work with an international group remotely. This inspired all of us and hopefully will inspire you to work on environmental issues using the practice of transfiguration.

Llyn Roberts and I wrote a new book that is being released on May 2. It is really a beautiful book and the presales of the book have been quite impressive. The book is titled Speaking with Nature: Awakening to the Deep Wisdom of the Earth.

One of the issues we speak about is how so many of us focus on the nature beings that the Western world talks about in popular culture. We speak about trees, plants, eagles, hawks, bear, dolphins, whales, elephants, and so on. And of course, we are in love with those beings recognized by the collective.

But there are so many nature beings who contribute to the health and vitality of the web of life that we do not recognize in our conversations about nature – plankton, microbes, snails, earthworms, slugs, etc.

I thought this month we can become attentive to recognizing all beings in the web of life that include those we talk about often in our communities and those beings who rarely are recognized but are essential for the continuation and health of all of life. Think about a nature being that is not talked about in popular culture. Connect with it through a journey or meditation and witness how it contributes to the health and well being of the web of life. Perform a short ceremony to honor this living being.

Here is an excerpt from Speaking with Nature to inspire you:

Speaking with Nature Excerpt

Chapter 6

Banana Slug and Earthworm

Banana Slug

Llyn

Imagine strolling on a mossy trail in a dense, wet forest. You breathe in the freshly scented air, rich in oxygen and negative ions. It is springtime in the rain forest. Everything is green and flowing and blooming.

Seeming to walk with you on the lush and sopping trail, moving so slowly that you barely see it move at all, is a small, plump snail-like creature with no shell. Of the countless nature beings I live with in the Hoh River Valley, the Banana Slug is a prolific and intriguing presence.

Why are Banana Slugs called Banana Slugs? The skin of a Banana Slug is colored yellow with brown spots, like the casing of a ripe banana. . . .

Soft, fleshy, and fragile, the Banana Slug has no protective shell like its snail cousin.

Does Slug mirror our underbelly?

The divine feminine knows there is power in being vulnerable. Does this tiny being cause us to bristle because it hints at those parts of us that we deny or conceal? The sensual, sensitive aspects of the sacred feminine are still something many of us hide as well as hide from. . . .

How do we honor Banana Slug medicine, touch back into tactile Earthiness? One way is to learn from young children who love to lie on the grass gazing up at clouds and stars, run through summer downpours, and squish mud between their toes. The simple, sensual explorations that occupy healthy youngsters signal a hearty connection with body and the Earth. These kids are in touch. . . .

Spirit and body are inseparable. We are also one with our planet’s body. Touch is innate to who we are and how we know self, and world. Banana Slug suggests we get back in touch, with each other and the Earth.

Banana Slugs are vital to the decomposition of plants and spread seeds and spores across the forest floor. They are also amazingly sentient. Come to Slug with malice, and it retracts and plays dead. Speak in a soothing tone, and this fellow being may lift its head and turn to look at you. Chatting with Banana Slugs can make me weep.

Life would take a different spin if we also hugged the land like trusting and tender Slugs, who appear happy to be in their bodies here on Earth. The unguarded Banana Slug freely shares her deep feminine teachings: “Remember the sensual, and the power of little.”

Practice

Banana Slug wisdom tells us to get back in touch and empower the small.

Think on tiny aspects that largely impact your life in a positive way right now. Envision and appreciate these. Give energy to the little.

Open your heart and senses and see how alive the small makes you feel.

Remember little Banana Slug who is what it is and does what it does, nourishing and seeding the Earth despite the killing fields of cut forests all around.

Throughout all, meek and wise Banana Slug encourages: “Stay simple and in touch. You and I, we are just enough.”

Earthworm

Sandra

There is a quadrant of our garden that does not support the growth of much plant life. . . . We have consulted with many landscapers to examine the soil in this quadrant of our garden, for something in the chemical makeup must have changed to go from supporting many plants to only sustaining the very hardy. The issues seem to be beyond water.

I believe the issue is that the soil has become so hardened in this area by minerals and drought that the only solution is to bring in an army of earthworms.

Earthworms are tube shaped, segmented, hermaphrodites–each individual carries both male and female organs. They are both blind and deaf, but their skin is covered in cells that allow them to taste the soil and sense light and dark. Earthworms live in soil, burrowing themselves into various levels, naturally allowing oxygen to get in, which is beneficial for plant growth. They take leaves, leftover food, and anything they are able to decompose and turn it into fertilizer. They breathe through their skin and have five sets of double hearts in segments that are close to their head. . . .

There is such a weaving of mystery in creation, and we often miss the magic of how each and every creature in the web of life serves a role in creating, maintaining, and sustaining life. All in the web of life has something vital to share in creating a healthy earth garden. All life is interdependent on other life-forms.

Every acre of well-cultivated land contains up to half a ton of thriving microorganisms, not to mention up to a ton of earthworms. The earthworms create a ton of castings that are essential for the health of the soil, nurturing it with much needed nutrients that promote healthy plant growth. The mucus that the earthworms produce along with the castings promotes the growth of helpful bacteria and fungi.

Use your imagination to leave your ordinary life behind and take a journey with me into the world of the earthworm and the gift of its life.

Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a rich and fertile garden. As you examine the soil you are led to the small life-forms that are the tenders of the soil.

Using your invisible senses notice how microorganisms built the soil, but nature’s true tiller of the soil is Earthworm. Observe how these blind small beings are powerful diggers and earthmovers, capable of burrowing down as deep as fifteen feet. Watch as they force air through tunnels as they move. Experience amazement at how as they burrow, they aerate the soil, mix up the soil, break down clumps, and bury stones. Watch as they carry down leaves and other organic matter, while others bring nutrients and humus to the topsoil. Earthworms cannot live without enormous amounts of decaying organic matter.

Return to your ordinary awareness with a sense of gratitude for how earthworms create healthy soil that supports the growth of food that sustains us.

We often judge the importance of the role of a person or a nature being. We tend to compare the power of life-forms based on their size and how colorful and loud they are. Llyn reminds us to honor and to acknowledge the power of small.

When you honor the small beings, who are so vital to life, you start to let go of your judgments and comparisons. You can without judgment tune in to yourself and acknowledge the gifts that you personally contribute to the web of life. And in doing so you feel on a cellular level that you are enough.

Practice

As you go about your day notice the people who you meet who are in service to the community and to the planet who do not need any acknowledgment. Honor the power of anonymity while doing your spiritual work and your practices on behalf of all of life.

The full moon is May 3. During the full moon let us honor all of life – the beings we do not usually think about, those who are always in our conscious awareness. Let us wake up to the beauty and wonder of all that is alive.

Perform some deep preparation work to move your ordinary consciousness out of the way. Step back from your daily thoughts and concerns. Perform a ceremony to travel within to experience your divine light – your inner flame of life, your inner starlight, your inner sunlight. Shine and radiate that light as you focus on all that is alive and our great Earth. Touch the Earth and all of life with your love and radiance. We join our love and light together as a global community to weave a radiant web of light into reality.

If you are new to reading the Transmutation News please visit “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the homepage.

Due to the wealth of information in this month’s column I will wait to continue sharing inspirational stories from our community until June.

Transmutation News – April 2015

The focus of the Transmutation News has always been on been on engaging in spiritual practices to raise consciousness in your own life and to be a healing presence on the planet.

But as you know I also teach and write about classic shamanic healing work. I still perform soul retrievals, power animal retrievals, extraction and psychopomp work. I love working with the classic form of shamanic ceremonies. If you are new to shamanic work, you can read the article on the homepage titled “Abstract on Shamanism”. In this article I give a very brief summary on how shamans perceive the spiritual cause of emotional and physical illness.

I continue to perform and teach classic shamanic healing ceremonies. And as you know I also focus on bridging the transfiguration work into my work with clients and in my teachings. For I do believe that we can truly heal and transform personal and planetary issues working with spiritual light.

Recently I recorded an interview with Nicholas Breeze Wood, the editor of Sacred Hoop. Sacred Hoop is a wonderful magazine on shamanism. And Nick publishes many thought provoking and educational articles on the practice of shamanism.

My interview with Nicholas appears in the newest issue of Sacred Hoop #87.

You can learn more about Sacred Hoop at www.sacredhoop.org/offer.html

One of the issues Nick raised while we were talking was his sadness/frustration that shamanic practitioners are not working with the helping spirits in a way where we can allow them to intervene in our world to help with the problems we are facing.

The issue brought me to reflecting on the difference between “intervention” and “manipulation”. For until we have engaged in daily spiritual practices to look through the eyes of spirit and carve away our ego, we can fall prey to egoic desires for asking for spiritual intervention that is not for our own highest good or for the good of the planet.

And this month I encourage you to journey or meditate and try to get some understanding of the difference between “intervention” and “manipulation”.

I do agree with Nick that the practice of shamanism has so much more potential to heal than we are tapping into. I think part of the issue is that people are surfing too many different teachings so that the skill level is not being developed to bring through the true miraculous power of the work. I have talked about how many are surfing spiritual teachings in many issues of this column.

Developing skill with your work is a key to bringing through more power and healing. But I also think developing a sense of spiritual maturity to know how to engage with the helping spirits is a key to letting more healing power flow from the invisible realms into the tangible realms.

I do not have all the answers. I am simply bringing awareness to the question and encourage you to explore the issue of deepening your level of skill to bring through the helping spirits in a way where they can intervene in positive ways as we face so many personal and global challenges.

The same week I recorded this interview with Nick I recorded a bonus program for the Shift Network.

And in this interview, I also spoke about the classic causes of emotional and physical as diagnosed by shamans with the assistance of their helping spirits. And again, I spoke about the power of the practice of transfiguration and how we can heal with spiritual light.

The focus of this interview was on how powerful working with shamanic healing can be whether or not the client is present or if the work is performed long distance.

I shared just a few case studies that show the power of long-distance work. Here are some of the case studies I shared.

I once worked with a client long distance. I did not know him personally. He contacted me and asked for my help. He was dealing with severe depression. When I journeyed, my power animal said this man needed a power animal retrieval. But instead of sending him a power animal my helping spirit sent him Tree as a guardian spirit. In the practice of shamanism people can have trees as guardian spirits so the term power animal and guardian spirit is used interchangeably depending on what “nature being” appears to restore lost power.

After the journey I shared with my client that I sent him Tree. Upon the healing his depression lifted, and he developed a beautiful and healing relationship with Tree.

I once was asked to work on behalf of little girl who had been kidnapped, found, but returned to her family very traumatized. She had stopped talking.

I journeyed in the Middle World to get permission from the little girl to work for her. As she was not verbal, I could not talk to her on the phone, so I obtained permission to work on her through performing a journey.

My power animal had me blow her returned soul essence that she lost into a crystal. We wrapped it up in beautiful cloth. He also gave me the words to speak into a recorder that had a metaphorical healing story to help her feel protected and safe again. It was a beautiful healing story he gave me to share. I sent her (via Fed Ex) the crystal and the recording. I told her to hold the crystal and feel the light, love, and joy return to her again.

I stayed in touch with her parents for months. The child’s progress was slow. But the parents told me how she would never be separated from the crystal and that she played the recording over and over again all day long. She would hide the recording when she was not listening to it so no one would take it away from her.

Her healing was slow and gradual, but the long-distance work provided her with great benefit.

And the last story I wanted to share was an example of the power of long-distance transfiguration work. A group of us were at a workshop in Santa Fe at Sunrise Springs Retreat Center. We were planning to perform a transfiguration ceremony on behalf of water. Shortly before the gathering I was contacted by Mark who lived in Findhorn, Scotland. He asked me if a group would do some long-distance work on his philodendron. He sent me a photo of the plant, and I placed it on our altar in the middle of our circle. He had attached a device to the philodendron so he could measure its activity. Mark did not know exactly when the group would be working.

As a group we did not try to heal the water on our altar or try to send healing to the philodendron. We transfigured into our divine light and radiated that light while focusing on the divine health and perfection of everything on our altar.

We worked at about 9 PM in Santa Fe. And when Mark checked the readings of the device attached to the philodendron the plant became so alive energetically at the same time, we were working in Santa Fe which was in the middle of the night in Scotland.

You can see the results of the recorded activity of the philodendron by clicking on “GDV Camera Results” on the homepage. Look at Findhorn Remote Plant Experiment Results.

These are three stories out of many hundreds of amazing case studies I collected from my own work and also those of shamanic practitioners I trained.

As you know I do teach about the difference of “healing” and “curing”. I write about this in most of my books as well as in my most recent book Walking in Light: The Everyday Empowerment of Shamanic Life. For with most cases the client has to do a great deal of personal work in order to see long term results after receiving a healing performed by a shamanic practitioner.

The helping spirits can help us to intervene to heal the issues that people, other nature beings, and the planet are experiencing. But we must be willing to dive deeply into our spiritual work so that we gain the emotional maturity to know what kind of help to ask for and to open the veils between the worlds so that the amazing and unlimited power of the universe can flow through.

I am so impressed by the stunning stories and case studies my current students are sharing with me. They are bridging shamanic work into working with children, relationships, family life, business, organizations and community. I am feeling deeply inspired by the people who are truly working in partnership with the helping spirits to make a difference.

The full moon (which is also an eclipse) is April 4. Let us be a vessel of light and love that shines from within and through the invisible realms. Perform your transfiguration practice while also giving thanks to your helping spirits for dropping their form so you can both merge formless energies together. May the energies of light, love, and oneness radiating from all worlds weave together to form a web of light within and throughout the Earth. Miracles are possible. We need to focus and do the work that allows the invisible threads to be spun from the invisible into the visible to weave a new fabric of reality that embraces love, light, peace, equality, and honor and respect for all that is alive including the elements that sustain us.

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

Inspiring story to share this month:

From Judi:

I was asked by a group of women, to lead a meditation night. I was reluctant at first, thinking I was unprepared and not worthy.

After some encouraging words I decided to try once.

I spent a number of days meditating to create just the right meditation for them. When I felt satisfied that I was ready, I gave it a shot.

I had a successful group of eighteen women show up and afterwards they only had positive comments. During the month after the meditation, they would tell me how their lives had been shifted by that night. The time I spend in preparation also helps shift consciousness in me.

I did another one and from that experience I have been leading a meditation once a month for several women who tell me each meditation is better than the previous one.

Because of those meditation evenings I was asked to lead full moon drum circles and those also have been successful.

For my private work (I knew nothing of your trees) I used a Mimosa tree on my back hill that had lost its life force (beetles had infested the trunk). The birds still would sit in the leafless branches and sing so I didn’t remove the tree. I collected can lids with the tab. I added names to the lids, of people asking for prayers. With ribbons and colored plant ties I tied them to the tree branches. They are a constant reminder, as I look out the windows, of those needing help. Each day I release their needs via the element of wind so their needs can be taken to the Universe for manifestation.

Thank you so much for your healing work and encouragement.

Transmutation News – March 2015

One metaphor I often use is that we are musical instruments playing in the orchestra of life. This is a metaphor that many teachers use as it really touches a truth about our vital role in being part of a world community.

It is crucial for us to reflect on how we can fine tune ourselves to share the music that contributes to raising the vibration of the collective field and also creates harmonious notes that combine together in beauty and love.

The block to doing this continues to be how we get distracted by people and events in the outer world. It is not just the news stories that continue to distract us. The distractions come in as there is such a wealth of books, audio and video lectures, and teachings that are now available to all.

On one level this is wonderful, and we can learn so much. But it has also created a lot of “spiritual surfers”. I strongly believe that the challenges we are now facing on the planet call for people to go as deep into a practice as they can go.

There is of course the need to be exposed to different types of spiritual work and a wealth of spiritual teachings. But at what point do you feel that a path calls to you and decide to stay on the path with focus?

Last month I suggested that you find one simple practice to engage in until it becomes who you are. This is what I mean by fine tuning. For as we become the work and stop seeing our spiritual life as separate from our ordinary life that is where positive change happens in your life and in the world.

And I use the word “simple” in a way that does not refer to practices for beginners. It refers to practices that speak to your heart and soul and do not just speak to your mind. For I find that when people want to perform complex practices their minds get fed, but change might not happen on a cellular level. If you have to focus on the steps instead of on the work, you are too distracted to be the bridge between the invisible and the tangible realms.

As you all know I began teaching Medicine for the Earth in 2000. I have taught the work in the Transmutation News, in many of my books, on audio lectures, interviews, and at conferences.

After I started teaching Five Day Medicine for the Earth Gatherings many participants from my groups would gather together once a year for reunions in Santa Fe. At first, I attended the reunions as it was so wonderful to join a circle devoted to working in behalf of all of life.

At some point due, to the intensity of my teaching schedule, I moved away from attending the reunions. The reunions continued for years and participants continued to share the work they were doing, and the circle continued to bond and deepen.

One year the two friends contacted me to ask me if I would come back to the reunion to help the group explore the next level of the work. I was honored to be asked and immediately said, “Yes”.

I journeyed to my spiritual teacher Isis who had been a source of inspiration in writing Medicine for the Earth: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins. Together with the guidance of Isis, Osiris, and Anubis I had developed the work.

I asked Isis if she could give me exercises or practices to share in the reunion. Her response was that working with light and unconditional love is the key to personal and global transformation. She said it was not that the group needed new, updated, and more complex practices. She said that the group needed to recommit and rededicate themselves to integrating the work fully into daily life.

She advised me to show up to the reunion and teach the Five Day Medicine for the Earth Training again and have people reflect on how much they were living the work.

The point I am trying to make is that we distract ourselves by thinking there is a more powerful “method” or “technique”. We forget the key is that we are the instrument for the divine and we have to fine tune ourselves as the instrument.

Shamans have always worked with light to heal. In their initiations shamans are filled with light and have some experience of a transcendent state of oneness giving them their psychic and healing abilities. This opens the shaman to the world of spirit.

And how shamans have continued to be the instrument of the power of the universe, the divine, and the compassionate spirits is by entering into an ecstatic state where the shaman loses his or her sense of separation and steps aside from ego and personality.

Shamans have and still do this by engaging in long periods of drumming, rattling, singing, dancing, and spending extended times alone in nature.

Shamans step fully into the invisible realms in order to bring through the magic, beauty, healing, power, and new dreams into the tangible realms and into manifest form. They also practice deep listening in nature and watch for omens and signs. They are always “tuned in” and dream with their full body.

Take the time to do the preparation work needed to bridge the healing and power from the invisible realms into the tangible realms. Step away from our social conditioning to embrace a bigger dream that includes the belief that we are unlimited in what we can manifest through spiritual work.

We can get lost in looking for that magical “cure” that will create positive change without realizing that “we” are the magical cure.

And I wonder how loud and intense the wake-up call has to get. A teaching shared in many indigenous stories is, “We are the ones we are waiting for”.

As we move into spring or fall, we enter into a new season in nature and in life. I ask that you review the practices you have learned over the years. And take some time and walk in nature or sit in silence. Reflect on how deep you have delved into the practices and all the spiritual teachings you have learned. Honestly ask yourself if you are surfing the surface waves of your work? Are you living the work minute to minute? Do you separate your spiritual life and practices from your daily life? Can you laugh at yourself and love yourself when you fall off the path? How committed are you to deepen the work and become it?

Commit to working with the power of imagination. Imagination is dismissed by many, and it is not understood that our imagination fuels our psychic abilities. For as you engage your imagination you stir your psychic invisible senses to call something into your life and physical world and release that which does not serve you. I had a dream one night in February where I received a transmission of the power of this teaching. The teaching was absorbed by my cells but difficult to find words for.

In February I gave a free introductory lecture through the Shift Network titled “Shamanic Journeying for Community Healing: How Shamanic Practices Can Heal Families, Communities, and Nations”. The call was too short for me to be able to share the depth of what I wanted to share. But to everyone’s amazement about 13,000 people signed up for this lecture. Just the interest alone is a wonderful sign of the desire to work together to heal our communities and the world. There was a palpable energy of love and beauty in our collective field that I know rippled throughout the web of life.

From a shamanic point of view, we are all going through an initiation. The planet is going through an initiation. We are being asked to shed or burn away our old identity and old ways of living that no longer serve us personally, all of life, and the Earth.

And as I have shared previously, it is our spirit that guides and carries us through any initiation. We have to let the depth of spirit guide us now. We have to let go of our mental distractions. It is time to become the work.

We need to join together in spirit, beyond ego and personality, to support each other and stand strong together. There is so much we can do together as a strong devoted spiritual collective working together on behalf of all of life and the Earth.

But we must fully open ourselves to the world of spirit and spin threads of beauty, love, light, honor, respect, equality, peace, and abundance for all from the invisible realms into the tangible realms. That is how a new fabric of reality will be dreamed into being.

The full moon is March 5. Let us spin into being a human web of light and love that contributes to the new dream of the Earth. Do your preparation work and let go of your distractions. Fully inhabit your body and engage your senses as you experience your divine light and be that finely tuned instrument that sings the song of light, love, peace, and harmony within and throughout this great Earth.

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

We are mostly water and we live on a planet that is mostly water. The element of water connects us all. As we do our spiritual work together, we can change the vibration of our inner waters. This change in vibration will be reflected back to us by the outer waters that flow through the Earth. We can create an immense amount of positive change and healing by harmonizing together the molecules of our inner water!

On March 20 we celebrate the equinox. We welcome in spring in the Northern Hemisphere and fall in the Southern Hemisphere.

To celebrate the equinox, connect with a body of water. You can do this through a shamanic journey or meditation and sit with a body of water you travel to in the invisible realms. This would be a Middle World experience. Or you can physically go into nature and sit by a body of water. As you sit with this body of water feel your inner water harmonizing energetically just as you would harmonize and connect with the heartbeat of the Earth.

Find a song or chant that shifts and heightens your vibration. Listen to the song or chant of the water you are sitting with. Attune your vibration to the song of your inner water and the outer body of water you are connecting with. Let us focus on the waters within and without that connect us all. As we all do this together the vibration of all “our inner and outer waters” will harmonize together. Imagine what healing this will bring to all of us and to the planet. Let the vibration of our collective field of energy be changed by the harmonizing Water within and without.

Let us join together to wish all in the web of life a beautiful and joyous equinox!

In February I woke up with a beautiful insight that I want to share with you:

Even when a star in the sky is invisible to our eyes it is still shining.

You are a human walking star. You are shining all the time!

Stories from readers:

Alorah wrote:

Dear Sandra and Community,

In response to your invitation to share what has had an impact, made a difference in my life, in life, I offer the following.

I must say that to share one story or practice is like trying to separate the air that I breathe. Having meditated and merged with the element of fire, I feel the heat, the smoldering in my body, the spark of inspiration that shoots from the eternal flame in my heart. Although it appears as a single, separate spark, it is seeded or born from the eternal flame of life.

Another practice that grows within me is feeling myself as a strand, a jewel in the vortex of the web of life. I love connecting with the web, with all of us who reflect the light in each other. It is so beautiful and gives me a feeling of belonging and solidness; a place to land and rest before going back out into the world, the marketplace.

Also, connecting with the spirit of the land is grounding and again feels me into belonging to this beautiful universe. I do this wherever I live, as I have moved around a bit. I do this when I travel. I tune into the heartbeat of our earth and all my helpers and guides in all forms. It is magical and very real.

Sandy J wrote:

While under stress a few years ago, I retreated to the shore for a solitary summer weekend. After checking in I went directly out to the beach. The wind was howling and the waves were crashing. Even though there were other vacationers on the beach, the songs of nature were loud enough to squelch even my own reluctance to address spirit directly. Standing tall, my chin up and my arms out wide to receive, I asked spirit, “What do you have for me?” I then dropped my head and my eyes fell directly to a shark’s tooth lying on top of the sand.

I picked up the gift and smiled. I held its smooth blackness in my hands and contemplated the shark. Shark must move constantly to remain alive. It travels confidently through dark waters. Though it is very powerful, Shark doesn’t use its power to consume everything in its path. It feeds on specific queues.

This gave me much to consider. Am I just sitting down in the dark? Perhaps I should keep moving? OK, maybe it’s dark at the moment. Keep moving to brighter waters. How am I using my power? Am I consuming everyone in my path? Perhaps I should give greater consideration to how I engage others along my path.

The tooth remains upon my altar, even today. It’s both smooth and sharp. I endeavor to learn to respect and handle myself as carefully as I respect and handle the gift of the shark’s tooth. I am thankful for both the gift of the shark’s tooth and the gift of life.

Since then, instead of waiting until I’m in a dark place, I regularly address spirit asking, “What do you have for me?” It’s amazing what will result from being present with and receptive to spirit.

Transmutation News – February 2015

If you have been reading the Transmutation News over the years you have probably figured out that I am a true eccentric. I have been writing the Transmutation News for 15 years now!!

I wanted to share with you some of my process in writing Walking in Light: The Everyday Empowerment of Shamanic Life.

I have been writing my books and my Transmutation News on one of the first iMac computers. I have had my computer since 2001, and her name is Blueberry. Blueberry and I have formed quite the partnership. Sometimes we get so merged I think Blueberry starts doing some of my writing as words form on the screen, I don’t remember writing.

I looked on the web to see how long a computer as old as Blueberry will continue to live. I have read posts that allude to a life span of about 13 years. Well Blueberry has surpassed predictions. We wrote two books together in 2014. I am sad to say I do believe my time with Blueberry is coming to an end. And I want to honor all she helped me bring into the world through my books and my monthly columns. Well, we will see. We are not done yet!

The house I live in has a very strange electrical system. And my office is adobe and that means the walls are very thick and hold in the cold. The way my office is wired is if I turn on Blueberry and a portable heater at the same time the fuse blows, and I lose electricity.

I have not had heat in my office for the 20 years I have lived in my house. Can I get this fixed? Sure! Do I want to “No!”. I get some kind of enjoyment in staying connected to nature as I write. I personally love the cold and winter! Fall and winter are my favorite seasons.

The photo I have attached is of me writing Walking in Light on Blueberry on a very cold winter day in February 2014 – one year ago. I have on two sets of glasses, my father’s hat, my mother’s heart necklace (which you can’t see in the photo) and gloves. Thought you might enjoy seeing this. I definitely look different than in the photos I use in advertising!

I believe Walking in Light is an important book. I summarized the teachings I have been sharing for years. I truly believe if we put into daily practice shamanic principles as I outlined in Walking in Light we would feel empowered and the world would become a better place for all in the web of life.

I hope you will read a copy!

To start the New Year, I journeyed to the track “Rattlesnake” on “Shamanic Visioning Music: Taiko Drum Journeys”. The Odaiko drum really took me deep into a journey. By “synchronicity” my journey was about why a snake sheds it skin. As we know a snake sheds its skin so it can continue to grow.

In my journey, it was suggested to me by Snake, and my helping spirits, to look at how I have started to outgrow my old beliefs and old stories. I was told that it was time for me to be reborn into a more expansive being that continues to embrace life, sharing from the depth of my spirit, and moving past my perceived limitations.

I think this is a great message for all of us to journey on as we move forward together.

To order Walking in Light and/or the taiko drum journey CD please visit:

https://www.sandraingerman.com/booksaudiovideo.html

Unlike a snake, as humans our skin continues to grow. Although our skin does shed, we more go through a major shedding on a spiritual and emotional level as we continue to experience the initiations that life brings for us. We don’t always get to see how much change we have been through and how our presence has changed as our skin does grow with us. We continue to grow into new skin.

There is a balance between being too passive in life and trying too hard. Balance is created by achieving a state of harmony between being active and passive. This is really the key to much of what we need in the mastery of life.

On the note of being passive, I find that often times we get so caught up in predictions. I have written about falling prey to predictions in many columns of the Transmutation News that begin the New Year. People often get caught up on wanting someone to tell us the forces that will change our life and the world we live in. But this is akin to weather predictions. At this point in time the weather moves in patterns that no one could have predicted. And I do believe that the same will be true in all areas of life. We live in a time of unknowing, anything can happen, and our creative potential is great if we tap into it.

My advice is to pick one spiritual practice that I have been writing about in the past issues of the Transmutation News. Work with it on a daily basis and allow it to become part of your life. As you work daily to integrate a spiritual practice that calls to you, you will find yourself growing into the work naturally and it will become who you are. In this way you live and work spiritually from a place of balance instead of waiting for some outside force to change your life and the world or trying too hard to work spiritually to force change. We need to focus on our spiritual work and let it change us at the same time.

I have been so inspired and changed myself from teaching my teleconferencing course. The virtual ceremonies I have been leading is giving direct experience of the true power of joining together as a community to create a collective field of energy that is so alive and vibrating with change.

In the course participants have been stepping in fully into the virtual ceremonies I lead. I can feel and see how when we enter into a collective field engaging all of our senses, we have the opportunity to open the veils between the worlds and bring through the power and healing of the invisible realms into the tangible realm. This has been so exciting to be part of and witness.

We do this in our monthly full moon ceremony “Creating A Human Web of Light”. The key is that when you perform your transfiguration practice and experience your inner light you must step fully into this state. And you need to step fully in the collective field that our global community has been and continues to create together. This is where the change happens. The healing happens as we learn how to bring the invisible into the visible. This is required to experience a positive tangible change.

Our collective paradigm and model is broken and cannot be fixed. So, we need to continue to support each other as we engage in spiritual practices to envision a new model and weave a new fabric of reality into being. Performing ceremonies together is such a powerful way to create positive change and join together in the feminine model of collaboration and cooperation.

A few months ago, I recorded an audio program with Dr. Lewis Mehl- Madrona. I asked him to speak with me about the power of telling healing stories. He is the author of Coyote Medicine and is a Native American healer. In his practice he weaves indigenous culture into his practice as an MD and clinical psychologist.

In this talk with me he shared that we are sum total of all the stories that have ever been told about us, and that we have told about ourselves. He said, “Let’s only tell good stories so we can have more good people!”

And then I heard the shamanic teacher John Perkins share a powerful story and teaching. When John Perkins visited the Amazon rainforest, he had the opportunity to listen to the stories of the Shuar people. When John asked an elder how we could help them the response he received was: “If you really want to help, change the dream of your people.”

The time is now to reach deep within, beyond personality and the distractions you create. It is time to tap into and discover what your soul came here to express. Move past all you tell yourself about why you can’t reach your potential and manifest a new dream for yourself and the Earth. It is time to let go of your distractions and manifest your soul’s destiny. Time is moving so quickly and change on the planet is intensifying. It is no longer appropriate to say “I hope someday…..” or wait to for someone else to change our lives. You are being called to participate fully in life now.

We can grow into deeper and more creative people as we sink into the true power that each of us holds within us to be positive changemakers.

We must let go of the old stories that no longer serve us personally and on a collective level, and we also need to change how we are daydreaming the world we live in into being. We have the opportunity to grow into an unlimited being in this lifetime.

Albert Einstein said, “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”

Here is a story shared by a reader of the Transmutation News that I think goes with bringing the invisible power of word into the visible to inspire tangible change.

Please note in future columns I will only share a paragraph of people’s stories. But I felt that this story flows with what I wrote.

Jenny worked with the practice I shared in the October 2014 Transmutation News. The practice was to work with one word for a month and really feel the vibration of the word working in and transforming all your cells. This is a powerful practice and worth repeating. You can re-read the October 2014 Transmutation News by clicking on www.sandraingerman.com/tnoctober2014.html

Jenny wrote:

“I was Given the word ‘HARMONY’ in my Meditation. At first it did not seem that inspiring. . . . Then I did my Medicine Wheel ritual later that morning, and suddenly it sort of, “took off”. . . . . .

I wrote to a friend: Sandra has some lovely simple advice. Like just focusing on one word, for a month. I was ‘given’ the word ‘Harmony’ , and I have had such joy, in looking at all its meanings and applications. For harmony within myself, all my parts, my cells, my child, my soul, etc. As well as music, colour, scent, and between people, both those close, and all humanity, and Mother Earth.

Harmony is in music, and in dance. It is in the Air, the birds singing. It is in Water, the waves in the sea. It is in the Sun and the Moon and Colours, like a rainbow. Each colour different, but all creating a harmonious whole. It is in the Wind, and the leaves and branches moving in it. In the Stars, and the Universe, the Planets circling the Sun.

Harmony can be within ourselves as individuals, and between us all as humankind, and in the whole of Mother Earth, and all sentient beings, and all creation.

The Divine as the conductor of a huge orchestra, that is all of us. Each of us is a different sound, in the orchestra, but together, under the direction of the Divine, we can make wonderful Music, wonderful songs, all in Harmony. Each instrument different but contributing to the whole. In fact, if all instruments were the same, and we all played the same note, there would be no real harmony, and it would all sound quite boring, lacking depth and interest. Harmony requires different sounds, different colours, different scents. There is much in Aromatherapy about harmonizing scents too.

On a more personal level, I have been Healing over the past 6 years, from recovered memories of terrible sexual violations as a child, leaving my body, soul, emotions and my myriad child selves, very tattered, fractured and separated. I understood from the word Harmony, that my Healing is bringing all of myself, me, back into harmony. All parts of me, resonating and integrating into a harmonious whole. This is what Healing is – restoring harmony to our Being. There is harmony between the chakras. Colour harmony and sound harmony. Harmony between the Heart and Mind and Soul and Voice, and Body and all levels of our Aura. Our past and present lives. All can be brought into Harmony, and really that is what we are about, that is our aim. To be wholly and fully ourselves in complete inner harmony, and to express ourselves within this authentic harmony.

Love is Harmony. The Ultimate Harmony. Peace is Harmony within ourselves, and between people. When there is Harmony, there cannot be War and Violence. Harmony has a flexibility, an ability to move and adjust – a rhythm, and a dance to it. It is never rigid, hard or unbending.

Contemplating the word Harmony, made me want to make my family relationships more harmonious, and gave me a vision I can hold for all of us.

Harmony is a Flow, and is Beauty, and Joy and Laughter. Harmony is what we want for the Earth, and what the Earth, Mother Earth offers us, if we will but bend to her Music, and listen to what she has to say to us, and take time to allow her to embrace us.

Harmony is now part of my life. I often think of it at different moments in the day. So, thank you Sandra, for that lovely simple idea, and thank you Spirit, for the beautiful word you gave me, and all, the Joy and inspiration it has brought me. It has been like opening a window in my Soul.”

Take a few minutes and close your eyes, Feel the vibration, light, and power of “harmony” feeding your cells and your soul.

We are entering our fifteenth year of performing together the full ceremony “Creating A Human Web of Life”. How amazing! Time really is moving quickly.

The full moon is February 3. I invite all of us to step fully into the collective field of energy we have woven together over the years. In shamanism we spin threads from the invisible world into the world of form with the work we do. Journey within and experience your divine spiritual light and allow that to radiate into the world joining with the love and light of others to weave a vibrant harmonious fabric into physical form. This fabric creates a web of light that flows within and throughout the Earth.

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

Transmutation News – January 2015

We join together in love for our global community and on behalf of all of life while we cycle into a New Year. It is really amazing to watch how many communities create ceremonies, rituals, and celebrations to welcome in the New Year. Talk about a virtual collective field of energy weaving excitement and a wish for new hope as we enter into another part of the spiral of life.

This month I would like to encourage all of us to reflect on the following themes:

Inspiration, Excitement, Preciousness of Life, Tapping into Our Creative Genius, and the need to Wake Up!!

I had a few very inspirational teachers while I was in school. They really impacted me and helped to shape my life and my work.

When I was in ninth grade, I had a chemistry teacher Mrs. Goldstein. She graded on HOW we solved chemistry and math problems not on the answers we came to.

I rarely answered test questions correctly. Or when Mrs. Goldstein asked a question in class, I rarely got the correct answer. But I was inspired to think, and I always could share my process of how I came to an answer. It was such a great inspiration to see my teacher’s eyes light up as she would listen to my willingness to think a problem through while not focusing on the outcome. I received a great grade in all my tests due to my willingness to 1. try and 2. be creative in my thinking process. What a gift this was in my growth as I was inspired to be creative.

Then I had an amazing teacher in college while I was studying Marine Biology at San Francisco State University. I was taking a course on the study of algae. My instructor at the time of the class had reached the age of 65, and this was the last course he was teaching before retiring. He was one of the top world experts on the study of sea algae.

I do not remember his name. I remember his face, his stature, his voice, and how he dressed as we wandered the tide pools. I mostly remember the bliss and radiance shining through his eyes as he welcomed students into the magical, mysterious world of sea algae – this is a path not many follow. The mystery and magic of the red, green, and brown algae is a deep rich world that most do not explore. Some of the most beautiful and intricate plants that exist are some of the red algae.

My instructor would jump up and down in such excitement, and we thought he would pass from his excitement as my classmates would wander, and we each found rare and wonderful algae in the tide pools.

For our final test of the semester we had to collect as many species of sea algae we could individually find and collect. We had to keep them alive. And then we had to lay them out on a sheet on the floor and say their names.

My teacher would use a stopwatch (as we only had a certain amount of time to go share our collection), and he would jump and cheer loudly as each student went through their collection naming the algae correctly.

I would practice the names of all the algae I had collected for hours each night. I had friends who would come to my apartment in San Francisco and support me during my memorization process.

Did this add to a life mission – no! But this taught me about the power of excitement as I joined in with the amazing energy my teacher radiated. I was not trying to prove anything to my instructor. I did this for pure excitement and joy! Why, because through his love of the subject he inspired me and others to learn.

And lastly, I am deeply grateful for Vern Haddick who was one of my instructors while I was getting my MA in Counseling Psychology at CIIS in San Francisco. Vern taught me about the power of unconditional love and how we can hold people in love and accept them unconditionally. I will always be grateful for how Vern simply accepted me unconditionally during a time in my life when I felt so insecure about my own gifts and talents that I had to share.

In this time of continued challenge, despair, and unrest on the planet we can inspire and create excitement about the preciousness of life. We can teach people to tap into their own thinking process and creative and spiritual inspiration.

We can inspire people to wake up!!

What are you excited about? And how can you share this excitement with friends, loved ones, children, co-workers, and others in your local community?

My teachers led me to be available to my students of shamanism and help them feel welcomed into the practice and into the circle of our community, to shine, to laugh, to feel excitement about unlimited possibilities. I love to watch and match the energy of excitement as my students step onto the path of shamanism.

Be a force of excitement and inspiration with your friends and community!

Help people to Wake Up!

It is important to remember that the helping and compassionate spirits only see us in our beauty and light.

It is up to us to live a more conscious life and shine our beauty and light in the world.

At this time of the New Year where hope for a new chance and positive change abounds rededicate yourself to your spiritual work.

Continue to work with the practices we have been performing together that I have shared over the last 15 years of writing the Transmutation News.

Transmute and transform the energy behind your thoughts and words.

Align your thoughts and words to create a positive outcome.

Cultivate your inner landscape and inner garden.

Be conscious of the power of your words and your thoughts to create in the world.

Release core limiting and blocking beliefs that prevent you from tapping into your creative energy.

Wake up each day and give thanks and gratitude for your life, earth, air, water, and fire (as in the sun), and for the exquisite life forms that live in all the elements, for the moon, stars, planets, your helping spirits, the spirit of the land, your helping ancestors, the Hidden Folk and so on. Reach into your heart and give daily gratitude to those who you wish to thank. By giving thanks for your life every day you create so much positive change for all of life.

Look at changes you need to make in your life to find peace, balance, and harmony.

Spend time in nature!!

Continue to perform your dreaming practices to dream into being a world filled with love, light, peace, abundance, harmony, honor, respect, and equality for all.

Be open and find balance in how you give and receive.

Surrender the outcomes. Perform your spiritual work no matter what you witness in the outer world. The spiritual work we do does make a difference. But yes also take actions in the physical world to be a positive changemaker.

Continue to feel the love of our global community who joins together as we continue to work together in behalf of all of life.

Be a light in the world!

In my new book Walking in Light: The Everyday Empowerment of Shamanic Life (Sounds True) I take you by the hand and lead you through all the practices I have shared with you over the last 15 years. The book will be released February 1.

The full moon is January 5. Let us continue to weave a golden web of light into the fabric of reality. Do your preparation work so you are fully engaged with the practice. Move out of your ordinary state of consciousness and enter into a state of oneness. Connect with our global community as we weave a radiant web of light within and throughout this great Earth!

If you are a new reader to the Transmutation News please read “Creating a Human Web of Light” on the homepage.

Early one morning in December I had the most extraordinary dream. I shared the dream on Facebook but not all of you follow me on Facebook, so I want to share it here.

The first part of the dream was very complex and deep, and I do not remember it. I know I was in an apartment in a city having a very deep discussion with others, and I think the topic might have been on death.

Anyway the discussion had moved to a place where I knew it was time for me to leave. And I had come to the city as I wanted to buy light blue mascara. So, I decided to move on with my mission.

I was walking through the streets of the city, and I came to a construction zone. There was a new development being built for commercial properties and stores.

A river had to be drained for the building projects to proceed. I know this sounds strange, but this was a dream.

The next part of the dream will be with me forever. I walked along the drained riverbed. The sand was still wet. It was not like where I live where I walk along arroyos which are dry riverbeds. The sand in this river was still very moist and wet.

As I walked the river started singing to me. The song was exquisite. And every new curve I came to in the river the song changed. I came to one part of the river where through the song symbols started appearing in the sand. I went back and forth the entire length of the river and kept listening to this beautiful song. The song remained constant depending on where I was on the river.

I was so touched and moved by the beauty of this song and that the river was still singing although the water had been drained.

I walked back to a group of construction workers. And there was one large Native American man with two very long braids. I thought to myself maybe he will listen to me. I told him my story that the river is singing. He looked at me, and when I started crying, he said he would walk with me and try to listen.

We walked to the riverbank and started walking the length of the river. At first there was only silence. And then a song emerged. It was different than the one I heard when I was walking alone, but it was a song. I asked him if he could hear it. At first, he could not. And then the song got stronger and louder. He looked at me in amazement as he heard the song. And together we walked the length of the river listening to the river sing.

He went back to the group of other construction workers and said they had to stop the project for the river was alive and still singing. I left the group knowing they would stop the work.

And then I went on to buy my light blue mascara.

I woke up so touched by the dream and the song of the river! In the early 1970s I drowned in the ocean in Mazatlan and I experienced myself traveling through a tunnel into a light. I found myself in an extraordinary garden and sat on a stone bench while I listened to the most beautiful music that I will never be able to describe or have never heard in this earthly realm.

Everything in life sings and the song is eternal.

Go out and sing to the land, the waters, the air, the sun, the moon, the stars, and to all the exquisite and amazing beings who live in the elements. Open your heart and listen as they sing with you!

Happy New Year!

Stories Shared by Our Community

I was truly overwhelmed with all the stories people sent me about the power of engaging in shamanic work. I guess I should not have been surprised by this as we all know the power of shamanic work which includes the Medicine for the Earth work. Right now, I have about 30 pages of stories combined into one document.

I will include some stories sent to me by our community in future columns of the Transmutation News.

Due to the length of this month’s column I will only share some links to blogs that a couple of our people in our community wrote:

Simin Uysal in Turkey decided to write up her story in a blog. It is quite beautiful and touching. Here is the link:

http://anatolianstories.blogspot.com.tr/2014/11/dreaming-with-ancestors-in-land-of.html

Jeff Nixa had shared some articles he wrote that I found quite powerful. You can read them at:

The first story posted in Nov. 2013, We’re All Living on a Rez: My Week on Pine Ridge Reservation

http://urban-shamanism.org/2013/11/05/were-all-living-on-a-rez-my-week-on-pine-ridge-indian-reservation/

The second story posted this Nov. 2014, Where The Heart Is Hidden In Plain View. http://urban-shamanism.org

Transmutation News – December 2014

This is the time of year where during the holiday season there is so much marketing focus on the gift of giving. I have been contemplating and meditating on the principle of giving and receiving. In our Western culture we learn that it is better to give than to receive. And on many levels, we all know the joys of unconditional giving without any expectations of getting anything back in return. For it is a true act of service to give whether it be on a physical, emotional, and or spiritual level. Gifting others is a true joy!

Then there are those who have given in a way that has created physical and/or emotional illness. Doctors and psychotherapists talk quite a bit about treating people with a variety of illnesses such as cancer that can be attributed to the over tendency to give without being replenished. So, some form of self care of being able to receive has been proven to help people stay healthy.

When you observe nature you can see the balance of giving and receiving. Our inhalation of air fills our cells and also fuels the power of our out breath. If you only exhaled, you would not continue living.

When you watch the tides there is the ebb and the flow. You never see in nature only an ebb or only a flow.

The earth receives nutrients from the sun, rain, and through the wind and this provides what is needed to produce a wealth of beauty and plants that provide us with nutrition.

A garden that receives not just physical care but also love thrives in ways that can seem miraculous.

When we share gratitude and appreciation, and when we honor and respect others and all of life we engage in the principle of reciprocity. We experience gratitude, appreciation, honor, and respect in return.

There does seem to be a balance that life teaches us about sustaining our health and feelings of well-being. And although unconditional service seems to get so much attention I wonder if we need to re-look at how much we focus on giving without receiving.

Giving and receiving comes in many forms. There are many practitioners who give and receive on a variety of levels that fuels balance. As we experienced with working with the meditation to The Inner Chamber of Light (Transmutation News January 2014) there are millions of souls working anonymously to be in service to the planet without getting recognition for what they are doing. This is an example of unconditional giving. And at the same time love is shared when we shine our light in the world, and it is important to take this in and receive the love we so deserve.

We started this year performing a meditation/journey to The Inner Chamber of Light. You might wish to re-read the January 2014 Transmutation News and repeat this exercise as we end the year together. It is a lovely, inspiring, and empowering meditation.

Balance is needed to continue to thrive and stay healthy.

Take some time and simply sit in silence and breathe while you watch your breath. Experience the natural flow as you breath in and breathe out. There is a flow and a balance needed to sustain your life.

If you live by the ocean or by a body of water where the tide changes observe the ebb and flow.

You can perform a meditation or journey to merge with the ocean and experience the natural ebb and flow that occurs. This ebb and flow never cease. It is part of life.

The sun comes up each day and goes down at night.

The earth gives, and it receives.

The air receives nutrients and then shares it with earth and water.

Spend some time contemplating and meditating on the natural flow in nature of giving and receiving. And do some merging work with an element that calls to you so that you get the feeling of giving and receiving in your body. To merge with an element simply set your intention that you want to learn about an element by becoming an element while you meditate or journey. When your meditation or journey is complete with intention disengage from the element you are merged with. Return fully to your ordinary state of consciousness feeling grounded and refreshed.

Once you feel the natural flow take some time to reflect on your own state of balance. Contemplate and reflect on a small change you can make to bring your life back into balance, so you experience the flow of giving and receiving in your own life.

In the 1980’s I studied tarot for many years with Angeles Arrien. She was a great teacher who died last spring. Angeles was an anthropologist who studied cross-cultural symbols and also studied what created states of health and well-being personally and in communities.

One of the principles Angeles taught in her work was that you never really learn how to give unless you learn how to receive. For giving and receiving are all part of one cycle.

Where are you in this cycle?

You can link this work up with the work we did together last month to merge with the moon. For in the merging work, you experienced the power of attraction. It is time to attract and absorb loving energies so that you feel filled up and healthy.

You can also repeat the meditation/journey to experience the love that went into your creation and absorb the love and light into all your cells. You were created from unconditional love. You came here to be a vessel of unconditional love. It is so important to align your energy so that you receive and give unconditional love in a balanced flow.

Over the last few months I have encouraged you to open to the true power of words and how words impact us on a physical level. The word that emerges for me as I journey on receiving is “invite”. When you receive, you invite in life’s nourishing energies. Set an intention to “invite” in what you need to feel replenished.

Over the years I have received a wealth of letters and emails sharing with me results from working with the Medicine for the Earth work and the practices I have shared in the Transmutation News.

When we experience change within ourselves and when we hear about how others were inspired it does add fuel to the work. For although our lives and the world continue to go through initiations that will lead us to finding balance it is important to recognize the small everyday miraculous events and changes that do occur.

I feel it would be such a gift to our community if some of you were willing to share a short story about how your life has changed or benefited in some way by a practice I have shared or from your daily practice in general.

This would only be for our community and would not be used in any other way. If you are willing to share something to inspire all of us, you can send it to me at: stories@sandraingerman.com. (PLEASE NOTE: Only emails that share an inspirational story that I can share on the Transmutation News will be answered. This is not an email address to use in any other way.)

I know people are busy but writing something no matter how short will add to what I write each month. My intention in writing the Transmutation News has always been to inspire readers to keep up your spiritual work no matter what is happening in the world around you. I have been writing the Transmutation News since 2000. And I invite you to join me in inspiring our community.

In my own journeys I have seen the importance of dedication to performing spiritual practices and living the work. The world is changing with such intensity that many are moving into a state of despair, fear and anger.

We can get so distracted by our ordinary lives and what is happening around us. We tend to lose focus so easily. Take some time and rededicate yourself to the work you are doing and living a conscious way of life.

Remember what you feed grows. Continue to experience the depth and range of your feelings. But then do your work to transform the energy behind your feelings and thoughts to an energy of love and light that feeds you, your loved ones, all of life, and the earth. Choose to plant seeds of love, light, and inspiration.

With all that is going on in the world it is time to step up our spiritual work and join together in unity as a global spiritual community.

Open up your strong eye (your third eye) as the true shamans have done since the beginning of time and view what is happening in the world through the eyes of spirit versus through your ego and personality. As we change our perception, we change our reality.

The full moon is December 6. Let go of your ordinary thoughts and the distractions of your day and travel within. Experience your inner starlight filling your cells. Radiate that light and imagine it joining with many thousands of others radiating their light while we weave into creation a beautiful golden fabric of light that flows within and throughout the earth.

If you are new to reading this monthly column please read “Creating a Human Web of Light” on the homepage.

The solstice is December 21. We celebrate the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere. As I wrote about on the Transmutation News, when we celebrated the equinox, there is a beautiful flow of one season to the next. The seasons flow into each other.

I did journey on a solstice ceremony we can all participate in together. I know it will be quite cold where some of you live. I was told that each of us should stand outside even if you can even do this for a few minutes. Stand with your feet on the earth with a somewhat wide stance. And lift your arms up to the sky. In this way you will be in the shape of a five-pointed star.

Take some deep cleansing breaths. Inhale, pause, exhale. Connect your heartbeat to the earth and feel your connection with the sky above. Open your heart to the earth, sky, to our circle, to all of life, and to the planet. Imagine bringing through unconditional love and light that flows and radiates forth. Absorb this love and light into all your cells. And feel it flowing within and throughout the earth. Let us uplift all of life on this day. Let us join together as a great circle of human stars.

Each year I have encouraged you to create a prayer tree in your community where people can come together and tie on a ribbon (loosely around the branch of the tree so that it can continue to grow) with a prayer, wish, or blessing.

There are prayer, blessing, and wishing trees all around the world that have been created by local communities throughout time.

You could bring in a bowl to your office and invite people to place prayers, blessings, and wishes in the bowl.

We can return to engaging in spiritual practices during the time of the solstice and break the collective trance that participates only in being a consumer and feeling pressured to buy gifts during this time of year.

Teach others the power of joining together in community to share prayers, wishes, and blessings. These might be of a personal nature, in behalf of loved ones, and/or for the planet and all of life.

In this way we all participate fully in the spiritual flow of giving and receiving from the highest place of love, light, and peace.

Let us join together in deep gratitude and appreciation for all the work Sylvia Edwards (my dear friend and webmaster) and all the translators volunteer to bring the Transmutation News to all of you. Sylvia and the translators all do this as an act of service as they love to help to share the work with the global community. Let us share with them blessings and love that they can receive in return for all they give.

Lena Anderheim – Swedish

Fabio Braga – Portuguese Brazil

Nello Ceccon – Italian

Ines Fermoso – Spanish

Sofia Frazoa – Portuguese

Dorota Goczal – Polish

Els de Graaff-van Meeteren – Dutch

Eleni Evangelinou and Rallou Gromitsari – Greek

Annie Idrissi – French

Miriam Kisssova and Jan Lenc – Slovakian

Eva Ruprechtsberger – German

Tea Thum – Finnish

Simin Uysal – Turkish

We also include in our blessings our Farsi translator.

Now let us join our hearts together for all in our community as we support each other by holding each other in love as we focus together to be a light in the world.

We join our hearts together in love as we wish you all a joyous solstice!!

Transmutation News – November 2014

I hope you had the opportunity to work with the practices that I shared with you in the October Transmutation News.

If you did I am sure you have a deeper physical connection to the spiritual work we have been engaged in. For to really make a difference we need to embody the practices instead of simply mentally understanding them. Through the embodiment of the work we change our field of energy or auric field which changes what we energetically radiate and project. By doing so we truly impact the collective field of energy.

This month I ask you to put into action working with the power of words. For the shamanic path is a way of creating change through blessings. When we bless ourselves, the world, and all in the web of life we create an energy that manifests the blessings in our ordinary world. The energy of our words spins fibers that weave first an invisible fabric that ultimately creates a new fabric of reality in our ordinary realm of existence.

David Mathisen, author of The Undying Stars, writes a wonderful blog. After reading what was shared on blessings in Awakening to the Spirit World he wrote a great blog on the topic. He shared a couple of sentences in particular that really spoke to me. David wrote that in saying blessings we recognize the invisible spirit within and call it out to shine forth. We recognize the hidden spirit world and invite its energies to flow into the visible worlds. (mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2014/09/blessing.html)

Each day pay attention to using words that bless and create beauty. Before you go to sleep at night end your day and start your nightly dreams by stating words of blessing for yourself and all of life.

We have been working with the power of the full moon in our monthly ceremonies. This month perform a meditation or a shamanic journey to merge with the moon. I would suggest that you merge with the power of the full moon so that when you do join in with the full moon ceremony “Creating a Human Web of Light” you have the physical sensation of the power you are working with. Feel the power of the full moon in your body as you learn about the moon by becoming it.

Put on some meditative music that expands and heightens your consciousness or listen to a drumming or shamanic music CD. You can also drum or rattle for yourself.

Hold your intention that you would like to merge with the power of the full moon. You can do a series of merging journeys/meditations with the different cycles of the moon to embody the internal shifts that you experience with the moon’s changing cycles.

This is not about getting messages although the moon might share a message with you as you experience her. The key is to feel how your energy becomes one with the energy of the moon and what the changing phases feel like in you. Notice the power you have to project and also attract to you during certain phases. This will help you in your creation and manifestation work as you learn through becoming the moon the most potent times to perform some of your ceremonial work.

In some native cultures the moon is seen as a masculine energy and in some it is seen as a feminine being. As shamanism is a path of direct revelation feel for yourself what gender you connect with as you merge with the moon.

This is a very powerful journey that will help you tap into your body’s intelligence as all of life is impacted by the lunar cycles. We know how the moon effects the tides. As we are mostly water the moon has a great impact on us too.

As we watch what is happening in the world we can see the imbalance of how water is impacting different places on the earth. We are seeing flooding rains and extreme drought. This month let us honor the living being that we call water.

Bring simple spiritual practices into your life to honor water. Understand that water is reflecting back to your own inner state of toxicity. Learn to transmute and transform the energy behind your emotions and thoughts to love and light.

Make it a daily practice to honor water. As you wash yourself, the dishes, etc. connect with water and give thanks for how water sustains life. It also heals and cleanses you. As you drink give thanks to the life and nourishment that water brings to you.

Whenever you drink water or visit a body of water always see it in its divine light. Remember your perception creates your reality. If you perceive the water as polluted it is polluted. Lift the veils between the worlds as shamans have done since the beginning of time. And choose to see the divine light in the waters of the world.

Earth, air, water, and the sun sustain our life. We must not pollute that which gives us life. Honor water and all the elements that give us life. And they will honor us in return.

Find a body of water that you can sit by. You can travel to a beautiful place in nature or visit a nearby park that has a lake, pond, or stream. Sitting by running water such as a river, stream, waterfall can help you be transported away from your ordinary concerns allowing your inner wisdom to emerge. Watching the waves in the ocean creates a state of opening so you can listen to the messages of your soul. If you sit by the ocean feel the waves welling up inside of you. While sitting by a river or stream drop into your sensory awareness of the flow of your inner water. A lake or pond might put you in touch with the stillness within you.

Listen to some music that you find relaxing and expansive. Lie or sit down. Close your eyes and hold the intention that you wish to experience the waters that run beneath and through the city where you live. Experience the waters and learn about the qualities of water that run through the land. Open your sensory awareness and notice what you feel in your body as you do this.

Reflect on the people, trees, plants, animals, and other nature beings that live in your area. Meditate on how they reflect back the qualities of the water where you live.

When you feel you are finished return from your meditation. You can take some notes. Take a walk outside feeling the water running beneath the land. Even if you live in a city there is still water in the land where you live.

In some places the mighty rivers and oceans run strong. In some locations there might be gentle streams and still lakes feeding the land. And in some places there are deep pools of water beneath the land that sustains the life that grow roots deep enough to find the water below.

Merging with water is a wonderful way to experience becoming one with the flow of life. Water flows in a natural and graceful way. Water is a reflection of the divine feminine and water reflects the nature of our soul. We can learn about the power and nature of water by merging with it. When we merge with an element the teachings we receive go beyond mental understanding, but rather impact us physically as we become one with the energy of another living being.

Listen to some relaxing and expansive music. Imagine becoming one with a source of water such as a still lake, a river, a waterfall, the ocean, rain, mist, etc.

Go deep within and experience yourself losing your own boundaries and become one with this water source. Learn about water by becoming water. Open your sensory awareness noticing all the feelings in your body as you do this.

Relax into being water. This is such a powerful and regenerating practice.

When you feel ready disconnect from the water source you are merged with and gently come back to yourself and into the room you are in. Feel revitalized from your experience. Feel yourself grounded and present.

If you need some help with feeling more grounded after such an expansive practice imagine deep roots growing out the soles of your feet into the earth. Or imagine sitting with and leaning your body against a tree.

Listen to a piece of music that creates an expanded state of awareness. Set your intention to travel within to experience your inner light. You can imagine traveling within your body and merging with a star. Remember a star does not try to shine, there is no effort involved. A star does not choose where it’s light shines. A star simply radiates light and brightens all of life.

Allow your divine light to nurture all the cells in your body. Absorb this light deeply into your cells. Soak it in and luxuriate in this light.

After about 15 minutes of experiencing your divine light return from this experience without disconnecting fully from your true spiritual nature. We are luminous beings.

Now drink a glass of water. And notice as you radiate and experience your light how smooth, fresh, and sweet the water tastes. It is the same water you drink each day. But as you allow yourself to experience and live from a state of light water will always reflect back your luminosity.

Be conscious about what you put into water. and do not pollute it. As we give thanks and bless water for all it shares, water will also bless us in return.

The full moon is November 8. Let us do our spiritual work and connect with our global community, the power of the moon, and the spirit of water to weave into being a radiant and healthy web of light. Remember that we are mostly water so we are truly water beings. Let us bring in the element of water into performing our full moon ceremony together.

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

In the United States Thanksgiving is celebrated in November. It is a good time for us to remember that in shamanic cultures every day is a day of thanksgiving. When we give thanks each day for our lives and share our blessings with all of life then all of life will bless us in return.

Transmutation News – October 2014

This month I am sharing some simple practices to help you shift from working with practices as mental concepts to enlivening your body on a cellular level. As we make this shift, we become more cohesive as a global community as we engage in our daily spiritual work. We will create a more tangible light filled energy that will manifest in the collective field.

We have been working together performing daily practices that come from the Medicine for the Earth work. And I know from the correspondence I continue to receive that many of you have experienced positive results from doing the work. At the same time the challenges and turmoil we face in the world keep increasing. I know that we need some fuel to remain inspired, focused, and deeply engaged in our spiritual work. We must not be brought down by the denser collective energies. So, I did journey to ask for guidance on how we might deepen our work together. And I did receive some guidance on how we can add fuel to our work together.

One night in September I was watching the national news. Watching or reading the news is certainly one way to get lost in a denser field of energy! President Obama was giving a speech to the public. I do not remember what world challenge he was responding to. But I was so shocked and surprised to hear him say that as we watch the news it looks like the world is falling apart. And then for the next few days a newscaster on the nightly news started each night’s broadcast with, “As we watch the world fall apart….” Then the news program would continue with reporting challenging news stories.

Well of course due to all that is happening in the world we can choose to perceive that all is falling apart. And last month and in past Transmutation News I have asked you to look at the turmoil as an initiation. For the world as it is operating right now simply does not support life. Therefore, the fabric of reality is unraveling.

You can think about it as a layer of skin that is shedding. You can reframe your thoughts about this time on the planet as a snake that is shedding its skin.

For years I have shared with you that my spiritual teacher Isis has encouraged us to not be brought down by the wave that much of humanity is riding.

We are all aware that when one tries to save someone who is drowning the danger is drowning along with that person. The weight of the world’s challenges can simply bring us down.

We must choose another wave to surf. For on the waters of life different waves are being presented that we can ride. Choose wisely!

During my first journey in preparation for writing this month’s Transmutation News I was shown a beautiful image of an abundance of spiritual lightkeepers. These are helping compassionate spirits whose only role is to hold beacons of light that not only keep the world lit but also light the way for spiritual practitioners to follow.

Perform a series of meditations or shamanic journeys to establish a connection with these spiritual lightkeepers. These beings are so enthusiastic about keeping us inspired with our work. One or more of these helping spirits can be consulted with when you forget the truth of who you are and the power you have to create positive change in your own life and for all life on the planet.

Listen to music that helps you heighten your state of consciousness and where you can expand out of an ordinary state of consciousness. Or listen to a track on a drumming or shamanic music CD. Of course, you can drum or rattle for yourself.

Hold your intention to meet a spiritual lightkeeper. Ask to be shown how the collective of spiritual lightkeepers is providing light for the planet right now. Ask for advice on ways you can shift your perception to embrace a feeling and attitude of hope. Ask how you can feed the light of the earth and all of life.

The wisdom and knowledge you gain through this experience will inspire you on many levels but also might inspire you to deepen your work as we perform our monthly ceremony to create a human web of light.

Pick one word that embraces the power and energy you would like to see manifest in your life and for the planet. Choose just one word that holds deep meaning for you. Just some examples might be splendor, beauty, joy, wisdom, life, peace, love, gratitude, laughter, health, harmony, and so on.

Remember that in the practice of shamanism, as well as in other spiritual traditions, words have the power to create our reality. Every word we speak creates a vibration that travels up into the universe and from the invisible worlds is then birthed into material form and into the world of substance.

We have been working with the power of words in our work together. But the key is to avoid working on a superficial level where you state words without the true feeling and power programmed in the word. For the deeper you can sink into the feeling sense of the word the more power you will have with your dreaming and creation practices.

During this month only work with one word at a time. Pick one word and write it down. Place it on your altar. Your altar can be quite simple. You can place a cloth or small rug on a table or on the floor. Put a candle and some items that you collect from nature on your altar. As I have written in the past place objects that feel sacred to you on your altar. You can simply place a candle on a plate or cloth.

Once you have chosen a word commit to focusing on this word throughout the day. Meditate on the qualities, colors, shape, sound, sensations that go with this word. Feel the color, sound, and sensations start to flow through your body and filling your cells. As you do this notice how the power and energy of this word replaces some of the challenging energies you are feeling and those from the collective field that need to be released.

To add to this practice, play some music, close your eyes, and move the energy of this word. Dance it. Feel the sensations of this word moving through you. Take out some paper and crayons or paints and draw and express the color and shape that this word embraces. Use your voice to chant or tone the sound quality of this word.

By working in this way, you will absorb on a cellular level how to “feel” instead of “mentally comprehend” the power of creation and how to shift the energy in the collective through the use of your words. You have to get the physical sensation and your feeling sense engaged to fuel the creative power. You have to infuse your energetic field with the power of the word for it to have the impact to create a change in the collective field of energy. This is where the power of change lies.

You can keep working with one word through the entire month. Or you might find that once you have incorporated the power of this word and your cells are filled with its power that you want to work with another word. But again, I encourage you to work with one word at a time to really get the true full sense of a word’s power.

To add to this practice, choose one simple thing about life that you fully appreciate. This might be the taste of your favorite fruit or other food. It might be your favorite image, color, fragrance, sound, or feeling.

Throughout the day focus on this one thing that you so appreciate. Again, get the feeling into your body and your cells. Fill your energetic field with the feeling of gratitude and appreciation so that it truly radiates from within.

If you choose a favorite food close your eyes when you eat it. Feel the texture of the food on your tongue and focus on the taste. Notice how it feels as you swallow and how the energy from this food travels through your body. Focus on the energy that comes through the color of this food. Smell the fragrance of this food and absorb it. Do you associate a sound with this food or a tone coming from its energy? Feel your emotion as you eat this food.

From the above example you get the idea of how you can also work with your favorite color or image, sound in nature, or texture that feels so good to touch. You can choose a favorite smell in the air like how it smells after the rain or you might choose a fragrant flower.

With each thing that you appreciate you want to wake up your sense of sight, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting. As you can enliven your senses with one simple thing that you appreciate your body awakens and fills with the power of how appreciation can completely shift your perception and also fill and shift the collective field of energy. But again, you must experience complete sensory awareness of what you appreciate to embrace and fuel the full power of change. You need to build an expansive positive field of energy.

And the last practice I would like to ask you to add is to state a blessing for the world before you go to bed at night. If you engage fully in the practices of meeting a spiritual lightkeeper and embracing the sensory power of a word and what you are in appreciation for you should feel your vibration and frequency change. You should feel more expansive yet more solid at the same time. And with being in touch with a fuller range of spiritual energy you should feel a stronger tangible connection with our global community. So when you state your blessings for the world you should experience a resonance as the energy of your blessings connects with the energy of blessings of others in our community.

The full moon, and also the total eclipse of the moon is on October 8. As you work with the practices I have shared in this month’s column, this will deepen your engagement in our full moon ceremony Creating A Human Web of Light.

Take the time you need to prepare so that you shift out of your daily activities and thoughts and move the ordinary world out of the way. This is a time for you to commit to being in service to the planet and all of life.

Perform your transfiguration practice and radiate your light experiencing that light connecting with the light of our community. Imagine this light flowing within and throughout the earth touching every living being. Let us continue to weave a radiant and vibrant web of light throughout the earth.

If you are new to reading the Transmutation News, please read the instructions for our full moon ceremony by clicking on “Creating a Human Web of Light” on the homepage.

Please incorporate into your daily life the practices I have shared this month to infuse more power and energy into your work to help improve the quality of your life and to be in service to the planet.

Transmutation News – September 2014

First, I want to share that it was so wonderful to sink into our ceremony of Creating a Human Web of Life during the Super Moon of August. It was really a lovely feeling joining with the light of our circle.

I think you have probably had the experience where the universe keeps giving you a sign of something you need to reflect on. I feel like I have been in one of those periods.

As I have shared, I wrote a new book that is being published by Sounds True. The book is titled Walking in Light: The Everyday Empowerment of Shamanic Life. It is scheduled to be released February 1.

When one writes a book there are different phases of the editing process. And in August I was in the final editing phase. That meant that after I turned in my final edit, I could not make any changes. The book is now being prepared to be printed.

So, I read and re-read the book multiple times to make sure there was nothing else I wanted to add, change, or delete.

One of the chapters I wrote on includes a section on initiation. And in this chapter, I raised some questions that stay in my mind. These are questions I continue to sit with and think about. Sometimes you might be done with a piece of work, but the work is not done with you. I completed this chapter to the best of my ability, but the work is not done with me. It keeps ‘working me” and settling deep within.

In June Tami Simon (the owner of Sounds True) interviewed me on an anthology about depression. The book will be released the beginning of April.

My editor sent me the transcribed and edited interview to review in August a few days after I sent Walking in Light back to the production department.

In my interview I addressed the shamanic understanding of depression as an initiation and rite and passage. I also wrote about my own life journey dealing with depression.

My initial interview had to be shortened to fit into one short chapter for the anthology. But in its succinct form I talk much about shamanic initiation and how it relates to depression.

And then sadly Robin Williams committed suicide. And I wrote a short post on Facebook about depression as an initiation and a bit about my own experience navigating the waves of depression in my own life.

So, the theme of initiation is really coming up for me. And I think that one key point about initiation is that through “surviving” an initiation we learn how to live.

We continue to witness the intense journey that people all over the world are experiencing today – whether it is through living in a war-torn area, being in the military and engaging in war, religious and political persecution, dealing with climatic changes, physical illness, a variety of emotional and mental issues, and so on.

We tend to put labels on certain issues. But I do believe that most of what people are experiencing today is an initiation into a new way of living.

And while you are going through an initiation you cannot think about it. You cannot mentally plan how you are going to walk “through the fire”. An invisible part of yourself has to take over and carry you through.

Yes, our helping spirits and invisible forces can provide support for us. But in the end, we must tap into the strength of our spirit.

During the process of dissolution, it is our spirit that continues to shine through.

And I do believe that this is a great teaching of our time. The teaching is as old as humanity. But it is time we wake up to the strength of our internal spirit.

I remember in one of the first journeys I ever performed in 1980 my power animal came to me. He instructed me not sit down in the darkness. He told me to stand up and put one foot in front of the other. He was not referring to a specific situation in my life. He was sharing a general teaching with me.

This advice always stayed with me. For in any initiation, you really cannot stop and sit down and refuse to move. For in a true shamanic initiation the only way to live is to keep moving guided by the strength of spirit.

I know many of you experience personal challenges and are also touched by all you witness right now. I do believe that movement is key to coming through. As I use as one of my daily mantras, “The only way out is through.”

Reflect on any initiation you might be experiencing in your own life.

The key is really to develop the tools needed to navigate the waves of joy as well as the turbulent waves. The tools I have been sharing with you over the years are the same ones I use to navigate the dark waves that I ride. They truly have kept me alive. I work with all my tools daily whether I am riding light and blissful or dark waves. I do commit to keep moving and flowing with the phases of life. I am compassionate towards myself, and I do not judge myself for whatever I am experiencing. But I do keep moving even if I can only take the smallest baby step.

Both of my parents were powerful role models to me who showed me how to forge ahead in the midst of challenge. But my mother modeled to me how to keep moving to not just survive but to thrive. I watched my mother’s dedication to thrive on a psycho-spiritual level despite the challenges in her life. We never talked about it. But I learned a lot just by observing her.

Everything in nature is in constant change and movement. And all living beings grow towards the light and absorb what it needs to thrive. We are part of nature and not separate from it.

This month continue to cultivate a rich inner landscape as I have been inspiring you to do. When you do this, you do step into a new and beautiful dimension of reality. The doorway into this beautiful dimension is through our inner world.

First you have to love and honor yourself enough to want to do the inner world work. Go into your inner garden and clean it up. Pull out old plants and roots that do not serve your well being.

Really experience taking care of your inner soil so that when you run your fingers through it you feel moisture and it feels rich to touch. Smell the freshness and richness of your inner soil.

And then with loving care plant the seeds that you would like to see grow.

Remember to leave space for some wild plants to grow too.

In the garden at my house there are hundreds of this one wild plant that is growing for the first time. I do not know the name of it. When people come to our house, I can see them looking at the garden and then looking at me. I can hear them thinking why doesn’t she weed the garden. For the plants that are thriving and growing would definitely be considered weeds to most onlookers.

I don’t pull them out for many reasons. One reason is that they are so green and strong. And in the desert, it seems like a crime to me to actually pull out green strong plants.

But also, the plants flowered in August. And my garden looked so alive with all these vibrant yellow flowers blossoming everywhere. If I pulled these plants out, I would have missed seeing such beauty.

Sometimes we try to domesticate our inner and outer garden too much. It is good to leave space for the wild plants to grow. You never know what great beauty will grow and blossom in your life.

Isis has shared with me that it is so important to focus on the temple of our spirit. And of course, the temple of your spirit is your body. This means that your body and temple is holy ground. You do not want to destroy holy ground.

This statement goes even deeper when we think of the sacredness of all of life. Everything that is alive is holy ground and all of life should be honored and respected.

Continue to build a strong inner temple.

Absorb the light and power of your divine light and the light of life into your cells. Do this daily!

Experience what it feels like to be lit from within.

Notice how you feel physically and the sense of inner peace. Notice if you feel a difference in your vibration as you do this.

The full moon is September 8. So many of us want to be in service during such a time of transition on the planet. We forget that there are spiritual practices that we can engage in that do make a difference.

If you have a drum or rattle that you can use do some drumming or rattling. This will help you to step away from an egoic state of separation and will assist you in finding your center so you can focus on your spiritual work.

Focus on your intention to be a light in the world. And on the full moon let go of your state of consciousness that keeps you separate from your inner divine light. Travel deep within and experience your true spiritual nature which is light. Experience unity with Source and with all in the web of light. Radiate your light and let it flow and grow exponentially as it adds to the light of our global community. Imagine that light traveling within and throughout the earth creating a radiant web of light.

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

The equinox is September 22. We flow into fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere.

I think that as we celebrate the change in seasons, we often perceive that one day we are in one season and then as the calendar gives us a date we are now in a new season.

The seasons do flow into one another. There is a smooth transition as the change from one season of life flows into the next.

Notice the subtle changes happening where you live that give you signs of how a change is beginning to occur. Notice the change in temperature, how the air is moving, the plant life, the animal life and how birds in your area begin to migrate. Feel the difference in the texture of the earth. Put your feet on the earth for at least 10-15 minutes a day and sense through your feet a shift in the movement, hum, or vibration. Notice the change in colors and the fragrance in the air.

Change does not just happen. There is a flow to all change. We just don’t pay attention to the signs of how cycles flow from one into another. We tend to think and perceive in linear ways instead of in the circular fashion as the earth teaches.

On the equinox take time to appreciate how the seasons and cycles of life flow. In the Northern Hemisphere it is a time to surrender and let go of what needs to be released into the earth to give life a time to rest after the growing season of summer. And in the Southern Hemisphere there is the excitement for the birth of the new after the long gestation process of winter.

On the equinox let us together honor the earth and all of life. Give gratitude for your life. Take time to go within and experience the flow of change happening within you. Experience how one season flows into the next within you too.

Let’s take time to acknowledge our own inherent gifts and strengths as well as our loved ones, others, and all in our global community and in all of life. When we acknowledge the gifts and strengths that everyone and all living beings contribute then we truly honor life.

I wish you all a joyous autumn and spring!!