Transmutation News – September 2009

I don’t watch sports on TV, but people who know me filled me in on the British Open, which is a golf tournament. Apparently during this last British Open in July a man by the name of Tom Watson had the possibility of creating history. If he won the tournament he would be the oldest man to have won the British Open.

The first day of the British Open Tom Watson was playing an extraordinary game and was in the lead. He said that he felt like the spirits were with him. This is not a phrase that is usually spoken openly by professional athletes.

By the second day he was still in the lead and again he said that he felt a spiritual force with him.

And at the end he lost the tournament by one putt. For those of you who don’t know anything about golf losing by one putt in itself is an extraordinary event.

The reason I bring this up is that I am sure the spirits were with Tom Watson. But that does not mean he was supposed to win that tournament. And even with his loss he did continue to say that the game he played was a spiritual experience.

I felt that this was a great metaphor for life. For we all have the spirits around us. And when we do a lot of spiritual work we often think that the end result will be some external “win”. But truly life is a spiritual experience and it is the expectations of what we are supposed to gain versus the spiritual lessons gained that can decide whether we live a life of peace and joy or frustration and disappointment.

To follow on the theme I wrote about in the August Transmutation News it is our soul that knows what valuable lessons and opportunities for growth sculpt us into the beings we are evolving into as we move forward on the journey of life.

It is when we can let go of expectations that we can evolve and grow without all the disappointments with gauging our success on external results. And as I keep repeating letting go of expectations has to be balanced with continuing working on creating what you do want. The letting go of expectations has to do with releasing to your own soul the decision of how a successful result will manifest.

Some friends were recently telling me about meeting the 88-year-old mother of a friend. They kept repeating how beautiful she was. I asked was it her physical beauty they were referring to.

They explained that she had been a devout student of a spiritual tradition that teaches the divine lives within each of us. And she has engaged in daily spiritual practices that this tradition taught for most of her adult life to a point that she lived the work. My friends remarked that the beauty she exudes is the incredible light and joy that shines through her.

You can imagine in all of her years of spiritual practice she probably had disappointments to work through. But this woman, like thousands of others who have stayed true to their spiritual work, are role models of the light and joy that is experienced within and without by staying focused on the work.

September 22 marks my absolutely favorite time of year – the fall equinox. In the past I have encouraged you to do a variety of practices of letting go of issues that no longer serve you. This time of year is a great time to let drop from you what is no longer needed to return to the earth to be composted creating new life. For with all types of death – the little deaths we experience through life as well as physical death – something new is reborn from what dies. The cycle of life and death is one unbroken circle.

This fall equinox I suggest you take some time to perform a short ceremony to release your expectations. Really look at your expectations that might actually be holding you back from peace and joy. It might be that you have been engaged in spiritual practices for a long time and you thought by now these practices would have brought you more success, better health, a great relationship, etc. Or you might be disappointed in the expectations of the level of peace and environmental health that exists on the planet.

We all do our spiritual work with the spark of hope that our wishes will manifest. And the key is to stay true to your intention and do the spiritual work. Don’t lose sight of your goals and desires while at the same time releasing them into the wisdom of your soul and the soul of the world.

On the fall equinox you can do this work alone or in a group. Create some kind of short ceremony that can help you feel as if you are releasing back to the universe your expectations. Feel what it feels like to do this. Does it feel freeing? Do you feel resistance to letting go of your desires? Do you feel a sense of safety knowing that your own soul and the soul of the world is working to give you greater gifts than you can imagine? Does this raise a feeling of fear or excitement?

I find for some of us letting go of expectations feels like giving up. But what if it is giving up to something better? What if we hold an intention of what we want to experience while at the same time we trust that the way our desires and intentions manifest is greater than what we allowed ourselves to imagine?

The key is don’t let go of your intentions and focus. But sometimes we have to let go of the outcome. Try working with this in the time of fall where the plants and trees are giving back to the earth the old so that the new can be born.

And for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere we wish you a joyous season as you celebrate all the new birth that life is creating for the beauty of the world. As I have said the circle of life and death is unbroken. As some of the world experiences the death of the old the Southern Hemisphere is celebrating the joy of new growth.

The full moon is September 4. Let us continue to experience the beauty of our divine light and as a global community allow our shining lights to weave together a brilliant fabric of love and light encompassing and holding the entire planet in love and beauty.

And let’s continue our monthly healing work in behalf of each other as is written in the instructions of Creating A Human Web of Light on the Transmutation News page of this site.

I wish you all a joyous fall and spring as we celebrate the power of the changes in nature and in our own lives as well!!

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Transmutation News – August 2009

In practicing the Medicine for the Earth principles it is important for us to keep following where the flow of the river of life is taking us.

I continue to receive correspondence from practitioners from all spiritual traditions. So many of us are experiencing different life circumstances that are drawing us within and away from focusing on the outer world.

And at the same time I continue to get correspondence from people who have been withdrawn from the outer world for years and are ready to come out and do some type of service whether it be teaching, volunteer work, healing work with clients, etc.

We are all being asked to follow the flow that life is guiding us to. Where I find the problems occurring is when people refuse to listen to the signs that are being given. For those who need to go within for awhile and don’t heed the signs around them a disaster can force one to withdraw from the outer world.

And I have also seen people forced to find a way to work more in the outer world when they have gotten too attached to “being a hermit”.

There is so much we must attend to in our spiritual evolution during such a time of great change. I am sure you can see that changes keep increasing and getting more dramatic. And it is so important to follow your inner wisdom and guidance right now. It is essential in order to thrive to watch omens, trust your deep inner feelings, keep listening to the inner messages you are getting.

And if you are guided to go within, go within before you are forced to follow the deep calling of your soul. And if you are being guided to do more in the outer world then do that. We each need to align ourselves with the flow of where life is bringing us. Basically we each need to respond to where our soul is guiding us to.

Working with the elements in nature is a great way to move into what indigenous people call “deep listening”. Nature can move us into a trance state where our rational mind quiets down and we can listen to the deep guidance rising from within.

Sitting by running water such as a river, stream, waterfall can help you be transported away from the ordinary allowing your inner wisdom to rise up. Watching the waves in the ocean creates a state of opening so you can listen to the messages of your soul.

Finding a place on the earth where you can look out into the distance can take you away from daily thoughts and allow inner guidance to be heard.

Sitting in the breezes or winds of summer – just listening – allowing your ordinary thoughts to fly away and be replaced by your inner voice can provide guidance for you right now.

Building a campfire in a campground and gazing into the fire is an old way of moving into a deep trance where your own spirit can fill you with guidance needed to create your next steps in life. Or watching the flame of a candle can do the same.

This month use the elements of nature to move you into a place of “deep listening” where you can receive the inner guidance containing the messages of what you need to do and how you need to take care of yourself during these times.

As you know I love to write. I am on the final edits of two new books which will be published in January and March of 2010. And I have already published 6 other books. Writing is a way for me to tap into my inner guidance and deep inner wisdom. And it is a way for me to follow my passion by sharing with a global community what I learn from my own intuition as well as from the guidance of my helping spirits.

Many writers talk about having writer’s block. And there were times in my life where I felt plagued by writer’s block. Early on in my writing career I started to realize that there is no such thing as writer’s block.

For when there are no words coming that is when there is a deep inner process of gestation happening. And I have come to realize that this is the most important part of writing. The gestation process, the deep silence, when nothing seems to be happening is when the most important ideas are being prepared to be birthed.

So over the years I learned to trust the place where it seemed like nothing was happening and there was nothing to say. For I knew that some deep process was going on inside me that would eventually be birthed. And so I stopped suffering when no words were coming. Rather I just gave in and realized that as soon as the process would be complete I would feel the rising of an energy that would bring me to my computer and then the flow into the outer would begin.

I think this is true not just for writing but all we birth into the world. For there is a process to all birthing that requires a gestation process. And I meet and hear from so many people who get frustrated when they feel that they are blocked from their creativity or from moving forward in life.

I think it is important to set your intention of wanting to receive guidance on the next steps to take in your life. And then to trust the inner gestation process that occurs where new ideas will be born from. You cannot rush the process.

For some the timing is such that a flow of wisdom and information will flow. And for some of you the process is slower and it simply has to do with timing.

Over the years I have seen many clients who were given a life threatening diagnosis by their doctor. Often a client would come to me asking if I do shamanic healing work on their behalf will they live or die?

My response to this question is that our egoic and rational mind does not always know what the next step in our healing journey is. For some it is life and for some it is death. Only our own soul knows what the next step is.

I share with clients that the shamanic work will strengthen their soul to make the decision for the next step of their process. This is also true in all transitions that life presents us with. It is really our own soul that knows what the next step is.

We are all being guided right now as we are being asked to change within and also in how we live our lives so that balance and harmony can return to the planet.

In the past I have written that the earth is giving us a wake up call. Well our own souls are asking for us to wake up now too.

Find ways to practice “deep listening”. Learn to trust your own spirit that what you need to know will be revealed to you in the right timing as long as you follow the flow of where you life is taking you.

The full moon is August 6. Let’s continue to gather our divine light together and weave a brilliant web of light within and throughout the earth.

And let’s continue our transfiguration work to support our global community.

If you are a new reader of The Transmutation News we welcome you. And the instructions for Creating a Human Web of Light and for our monthly healing work are on the Transmutation News page of this site.

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Transmutation News – July 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transmutation News – June 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is what Ann wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transmutation News – May 2009

Physicist Mark Comings writes:

“We are Piezo-electric crystals full of living light. We can live in-phase and in harmony. We have unlimited access to an unlimited field of consciousness. We just need a deeper understanding of light, a deeper understanding of ourselves. There is more to light than meets the eye.”

I met Mark Comings years ago when I was presenting Medicine for the Earth at a conference. We spoke together for a couple of hours on the void and creation. He was adamant in our discussion that from a physics point of view scarcity is a man made concept. I spoke to him about teaching people how to create from the void and he calls the void the quantum plenum.

Recently a friend of mine sent me the quote above. And I found it perfect for the work we are doing together. For as we move forward in our evolution of consciousness we must keep exploring the light that we are. So for this month through your meditation work, your shamanic journeys, during your walks throughout the day continue your exploration of what it means to be a being of light.

For as we can experience ourselves as light we can be more of a harmonious presence in the world. And this of course is beyond understanding. For understanding concepts does not create real change. Having a cellular experience of light creates change.

Here is an interesting exercise to try this month. Take some time and lie down and put on some relaxing yet expansive music. Take some deep breaths and allow yourself to go within. Imagine a situation in your life that is full of chaos. Or you can imagine a chaotic situation in the world. And as you imagine the chaotic energy I want you to transfigure into your divine light. As you experience your light notice what happens to the chaos around you. Notice how you yourself can detach from the chaos and maintain your center and sense of well-being. Notice how the chaos around you starts to dissolve.

As you experience how light has a positive influence in the world it will help you to see the importance of keeping up your spiritual work. You do impact the world by your state of being. And we must continue on our journey to learn how to hold a state of light throughout the day.

The spiritual work we are engaged in has many initiation processes not that different than any activity that has a learning curve associated with it. We make great progress and incorporate new ways of being into our life. And then we reach a new doorway that requires a deepening of our skill set to move through it.

In this regard as you continue incorporating spiritual practices into your life you will find yourself having some real grace periods where you feel like you are living one big “aha” experience. And then you might find your mood changing into dissatisfaction and wondering what is the meaning of it all. This is normal. The key is to appreciate all the work you are doing and to honor each stage of change and transition you are in.

Keep digging deeper within yourself and find the tools that allow you to walk through the narrow doorways of limitation into wider doorways of expansion. In engaging in spiritual work we keep moving beyond the superficial to a searching for deeper meaning. And there are numerous territories we must walk through along the way.

Change is really accelerating right now. The planet is moving and shaking with volcanoes and more earthquakes. We are having earthquakes in our lives where we are being asked to let go of the known and move into the unknown. In this process there will be moments of great excitement and also moments of great despair. The key is to honor where you are at and not get attached to the excitement and not resist the despair. Just keep using the tools we have been working with to keep moving forward.

We are part of nature. And this is a teaching that we all know very well. But when you look at the human race people act as if they are separate. And this is causing the disharmony on every level of existence right now. It is essential that we as a global community reach out and teach the importance of connecting back to the earth.

Last month I wrote a column for the Society for Shamanic Practitioners newsletter. It has to do with reaching out to people in our communities. I thought I would share what I wrote here:

As people continue to be challenged by economic issues and environmental disasters we are seeing people coming together as strong communities to help each other. It is too bad that it has taken tragedy to move people out of a self-centered life style back to caring about what happens to one’s neighbors. But we are finally seeing a transition to a life of helping others.

As shamanic practitioners we know the incredible power of working in community for healing. For over and over again we see an exponential change in results when a group of practitioners focus on healing versus one practitioner working alone.

There are so many ways of being in service to one’s community. We are in service when we share our resources and donate money, food, clothes, etc. We are in service when we do our spiritual work to help our local community and also our greater global community.

And I do believe that working together in community is not a temporary change but an evolution to living in a more cooperative way of life.

Another way of being in service to our communities is by sharing and educating people to the tools that can help during challenging times. We all know how much shamanism has helped our clients, our students, and us. It is time to share on a broader level the gifts of this work.

Of course not everyone is ready for shamanic journeying, as the belief in helping spirits is not a principle mass consciousness is ready to embrace. And many of us reading this newsletter have found ways to use guided visualizations to help people get in touch with helping spirits without using a lot of language that comes from shamanism.

There are many other practices that are core to shamanism that we can share. To me one of the greatest shamanic practices we can share is teaching people to be grateful to earth, air, water, and the sun for the life these elements bring to us. We are all aware of how gratefulness is a core teaching of all indigenous cultures. To be grateful for the beauty of the earth and all the living beings who live on it is a powerful form of global healing.

I truly believe that if we can just teach people about the power of honoring and respecting the elements and all of life there would be an exponential change in personal and planetary healing. The greatest shamanic teaching we can share is remembering how precious life is.

And when you speak to your community if it is not appropriate to use the word “shamanism” then don’t. You can still frame the teachings into ancient spiritual practices. The teachings have been around for thousands of years and it is part of your shamanic education to find the vocabulary that translates into different communities you are part of.

A few years ago there was a terrible drought in Santa Fe. I love to read the letters to the editor in the newspaper. Everyday there were letters that were filled with people asking for rain dances, complaining bitterly about misuse of water, etc. I finally felt compelled to write about the principle that finding harmony within will create harmony without. And I wrote how yes we do need to be conscious about how we use water but we also have to change our inner state of consciousness to see long term healing. I wrote about a powerful shamanic principle and shared a teaching that I know some of the people reading the letter were impacted by. Our role is to educate and let those who ready for the information absorb it and work with it in a way they are called to.

Write an article for a local newspaper or schedule a talk at a local bookstore. It is time for all of us “to come out of the closet” and share the deep and healing wisdom of the ancients so that we can become conscious changemakers on the planet.

May 9 is the full moon. Let us celebrate the preciousness of life together and transfigure into our divine light as we continue to strengthen the web of light that connects us all.

And let’s continue to work in behalf of our global community as we transfigure for those in need as is written on the homepage of this site under “Creating A Human Web of Light.”

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Transmutation News – April 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something to think about:

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

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Transmutation News – March 2009

A couple of years ago Isis who is my spiritual teacher asked me to share a message with all my students and readers of the Transmutation News. She said that people doing their spiritual work do not have to ride the same wave as mass consciousness. As you evolve you do not have to get the same wake call as people who have not begun to do their work.

This is a message I have shared a few times on previous Transmutation News. As I watch my own life and the life of friends and students who are working on themselves I observe huge challenges that many are facing. And of course being on a spiritual path means going through the initiations that carve away at our ego so that we really can evolve. And these initiations do create little deaths in our lives that can be quite painful.

I decided to journey to Isis and to ask her what is one step that can lead to riding a different wave. My nature is I tend to be a step by step person. I like to look at the big picture when it is shown to me and then work with a step by step process to manifest my goals.

The word that Isis gave me that embraces the first step is “surrender”. Many of us have had to fight for physical and emotional health and well being. And there is a place where using our will and fighting for what we want is appropriate. And then there is a place for surrender. So once again we find ourselves dancing a paradox in life in not giving up on what we want and at the same time surrendering to our divine will which knows what is truly right for us.

Many years ago Osiris gave me the following message in a shamanic journey: “It doesn’t take real strength when one only uses will. Real strength is when one can open to the powers that be.”

It is impossible to be on a true spiritual path that leads to an evolution of consciousness when your life is ruled by your ego or thinking mind. So the dance that we must learn is how to hold a vision, for we need some kind of vision to fuel our creations and at the same time let go to our spirit which holds a bigger vision. And when we can surrender to our spirit we move into another level of freedom. I started to write about finding freedom in January.

During my 20’s and 30’s I struggled financially. I often did not have enough money to buy food or pay my bills. When I moved to Santa Fe in the early 1980’s my struggles only worsened. I worked constantly but could not pay my bills. I kept my Volkswagen van in case I had to move into my car. This was my only perceived security in life.

I often would wake up in the middle of the night and spend hours in the darkness worrying about how I was going to pay my rent. It was really painful, as many of you know this scenario. One night I woke up in the middle of the night and my worrying chatter started back in. My stomach was once again in a knot and something snapped in me. I got out of bed, and I spontaneously shouted out in my room, “I am not willing to spend one more minute of my life worrying about money. I am going to put all the energy I have spent about worrying about paying my bills into being the most creative person I can be.” It was like a magical moment in my life and I felt my world shift.

In that magical moment I gave up the egoic struggle and turned it over to my spirit. And my spirit knew how to create a life where I could be in service and at the same time not have such a struggle to survive in the physical world.

This is one example where surrendering to my spirit saw me through very challenging times.

Then later on in my life I went through a very tough emotional experience. And “the mantra” that pulled me through was, “The strength of my spirit will carry me through”. And it did. This was a theme of my book A Fall to Grace.

I could share more examples of how surrendering to my spirit, my divine will opened doors for many opportunities or got me through challenging times. But you get the point.

This month I would ask you to reflect on your life. Reflect on times when you relinquished what you wanted on an egoic level and surrendered to your spirit or what you might call a higher power. Write down some times in your life when good things happened when you moved from working from the little self or small will to giving up to your divine will.

Surrender does create freedom in our life. We don’t want to give up on our visions. We want to balance action and surrender. And finding the balance of where it is important to keep to our vision and where we need to release what our ego wants to our spirit is a dance of balance we must all learn right now. Our spirit can see a picture that we cannot always see from the perspective we hold. And sometimes surrendering to your divine can lead you to fight for something where you had previously taken a passive stance.

The key is when we can release our burdens to our inner spirit and inner creator we move to an enlightened state of consciousness and from this place we can ride a different wave.

Try working with an affirmation such as, “I release my life to my spirit/divine will and I ask that the next step be shown to me.” You can create your own phrase and wording. Try this and notice if you get a strong intuitive hit about how to proceed next in your life. Or you might find an unexpected opportunity being presented to you in your life.

Another aspect to look at in our lives is what energies we need to disengage from in order to ride a different wave.

Recently I made an emergency trip to the home of my mother who had become very ill. She is 94 and was battling a bad infection in her blood. Those of us close to my mother did not believe she would make it through. I would go to see her at the hospital and she was in a delirious and fevered state. She would say there was a party with people all dressed up in her room telling her it was time to go with them. And she refused.

One day those of us around her did not think she would make it through the night. So I decided to stay the night with her at the hospital and be with her if she decided to join “this spiritual party”.

I went back to my parent’s apartment to get what I needed to stay over at the hospital. And I was driving back to the hospital during rush hour. My parents live in a crowded and over populated city. The rage driving going on was amazing to me and I felt myself moving into the same state of rage of the drivers around me.

And I had to stop myself and remember that I was going to a very sacred event and make a choice to disengage myself from the energy around me that was so dense.

My mother made it through the night and made it through the infection. She is now home trying to get back to her life. But I learned many things during this adventure. And one of them was to be able to remember how sacred life is and make choices about what energies I am willing to engage in.

For myself one way I disengage from energies that do not feel “real”, honest, and part of the sacredness of life is to bless what I am in reaction to.

We have done work together to bless the earth, air, water, fire and the beauty of nature. We can also bless people and life situations that we are challenged by.

I have found that when I get angry at someone I bless them instead of spending hours of my day thinking about how angry I am. I acknowledge my feelings as we do in the work of transmuting and transforming the energy behind my thought and emotions as I wrote about in How to Heal Toxic Thoughts. And I have found that by blessing people and situations I am in reaction to stops my looping thoughts which takes energy from me throughout the day.

This month take an inventory of the energies that are draining you. Make choices about what energies you want to feed and what energies you want to disengage from. This is another aspect of riding a different wave. For the energies you engage in throughout the day will impact the state of consciousness you hold which ends up choosing the wave you ride.

The ultimate key to riding a different wave is recognizing that it is not what life brings you but how you react to it. And of course learning how to ride out the rocky and turbulent times is a work in progress.

March 20 is the spring equinox. Time sure is moving quickly. Take this day to surrender to the fire of your spirit to assist you in bursting forth into new life. Each seed holds a destiny and does fight to burst forth from the seed stage out onto the earth. But unless the seed is warmed by the spiritual fires within it does not have the fuel to grow. Trust the spiritual fires within that will fuel a life of beauty and creativity. Surrender to your own divine will.

To honor spring take some time to be out in nature blessing the beauty of the elements and all that they bring to you. Spend some time with friends and discuss some of what I have written in this month’s Transmutation News. Support each other in surrendering to divine will. Discuss with friends the energies you wish to feed and the energies you would like to disengage from. This brings us to freedom and to joy. And there is no better way to honor the earth during springtime than to feel joy. And don’t forget to find some time to play and celebrate as we welcome in this wonderful and fertile time of year.

One of the qualities of people who are devoted to service is that we tend to focus on others rather than ourselves. We keep seeing our spiritual community in their divine light. And this is so important as we gather our energies together to create change.

But we must not forget to honor our divine light. On March 11, the full moon, as we continue to weave a web of light that honors the earth and all of life let’s remember to honor our own light.

As we do our monthly healing in behalf of our global community make sure you focus on your divine light as you honor the divine light of others.

For those of you who are new to The Transmutation News please read the instructions for our full moon ceremony and for the healing of our global community on Creating A Human Web of Light on the Transmutation News page.

Denise Andes in Santa Fe shared a wonderful exercise that she does with her clients to smooth out the nervous system. And it fits in well with honoring your own light.

“Find an image of ‘wrapping’ oneself with a ribbon of light and expanding into that ‘wrapping’ to have the experience of being ‘held’ in love….a place that is full….a place where fear cannot exist.”

I thank Denise for sharing this for it is a lovely exercise.

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Transmutation News – February 2009

The teaching that words can either bless us or curse us is very ancient. I know many writers take this teaching from the bible. But in truth this teaching dates back further than the writing of the bible.

In our culture we tend to use a lot of words and we are entrained with different idiomatic phrases that we grew up with or heard through songs, the news, TV shows, etc.

When you begin to embrace the teaching that words can be used as a blessing or a curse it is important to stop and take time to reflect on sayings, phrases, and words that you use throughout the day.

As I continue to work with this teaching I find my listening skills becoming more acute and feeling a need to slow down and carefully consider the words I am using.

I was watching a special on TV one night where an actor was being acknowledged. I loved a phrase that he used and found his words going deep within myself. As he was growing up and watching other actors he began to see that “the great ones were lit from within”. As you have been reading the Transmutation News I keep writing about the importance of being a light in the world. And this actor’s words really hit a chord in me about the power of people who are “lit from within”.

I encourage you during this month to listen to phrases and words that seem to strike a chord in you. Try and bring more awareness and listen to the words that come out of your mouth. Notice if the words and phrases you use come from a true place of blessing within. Or do you speak phrases and words that come from habit and don’t truly reflect what you would you like to communicate and create for yourself and others.

I know so many people who are afraid to tell friends or loved ones about a new idea they have or a new project they are thinking about undertaking. For often when we share something that is considered “edgy” by others their immediate response is, “You are crazy” or “That will never work”. When we respond in this way we usually really don’t consider the excitement of the other person in following their passion. And we end up taking power from their dream instead of feeding the energy with adding our support and enthusiasm.

It is a very interesting exercise as we begin to let go of the old ways of operating in the world as I began to write about in January. Part of finding new solutions and ways of operating in the world has to do with truly looking at how we communicate. And the truth of the matter is that people in the modern world use too many words and also speak faster than they think. The result of this is creating energies that we didn’t intentionally want to manifest for ourselves, friends, loved ones, and in the world.

This month slow down and listen to your words and the words of others. Reflect on words and phrases you want to begin to delete from your thinking and your vocabulary. Reflect on phrases that will lead to your desired outcome.

We use the term “train of thought” on a regular basis. Take a minute to reflect on what this term even means. We must watch the track our thoughts and words are running on and learn to change the track by creating new tracks. With all building projects it takes a lot of energy to break new ground. But the rewards are great in learning how to focus your thoughts toward your desired outcomes. And this goes back to the words you use in your own thinking process as well as the words you state out loud.

I think one reason I like Celtic prayers and decrees as I wrote about in “How to Heal the Earth” is that the statements made empower us and fill us with hope and the feeling that we are unlimited in what we can create.

Some examples of this might look like:

May the power of the sun remind you of the creative light within.

May the beauty of the night sky fill you with wonder.

May the deep still waters fill you with peace.

May the breezes of the wind bring you messages of joy.

Blessings to you as you begin new projects.

Blessings to all of us in our global circle as we work together in support and love in behalf of the planet and all of life.

As we look at creating a new world that embraces a higher consciousness we are looking at a new building project. We do have to put energy into breaking new ground. And this begins with creating visions that are supported by a strong foundation of thoughts and words that are solid.

Unhappiness, dissatisfaction, a lack of freedom comes when we compare ourselves and our lives to others. And many of you wrote me after reading the Transmutation News in January that comparing yourself to others is a great challenge in your life. We all must acknowledge our own light and when we are lit from within our life unfolds with grace and beauty helping us to fulfill our personal dreams and destiny.

We live in a fog when we compare ourselves to others and take on the collective definition of fame, success, and happiness. When you lift out of this fog you will probably discover that it is really the simple things in life that actually create those deep inner smiles. It is something that happens in the moment that creates a feeling of joy versus trying to review your past or thinking about the future.

When the fog of the collective beliefs lift you can really get that momentary pleasures create joy such as waking to the birds singing, or feeling the warmth of the sun after the weather has been cold, watching the beauty of snow flakes falling, hearing the sounds of children laughing, or seeing a beautiful tree or flowering plant on one of your walks in nature.

As you discover this and keep your awareness on the present you will stop comparing yourself or your life to others and settle into living in the present. And this is how healing and spiritual visions come – from that peaceful, still, and quiet place.

We really need to include children into all the work we are doing together. If you have children, grandchildren, or spend time with children start to compose stories with them of what the world would be like if we all lived from a place of light, light, peace, and harmony. Teach children how to engage all their senses (as I wrote about in Medicine for the Earth) in imagining the world they would like to live in. Let’s help our children keep the light of hope burning strong.

The full moon is February 9. Let’s create some blessings to include all of those who continue to weave and create a web of light. And let’s continue to deepen our work with experiencing the web of light going deeper and growing stronger during these changing times. For the web of light supports our growth into a life filled with love, light, joy, peace, harmony, abundance, and equality for all.

And for those of you who are experiencing pain and suffering during these transitions see yourself in a global circle of light as is described on the link on the homepage Creating A Human of Light which also includes the instructions for our monthly healing ceremony.

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Transmutation News – January 2009

Let us take a minute to wish our global community a glorious New Year! Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and let’s connect together from a place of love. And after you have wished our circle blessings for a New Year extend your blessings to include all of life!

All human beings have a variety of core needs. One need we all have is to feel loved. And the desire for love actually drives us in all areas of our lives. Not feeling love is what drives all misbehavior. We all seek love. And many people have forgotten how much love went into our creation. We did reflect on how we were created from true love in 2008.

Another basic need humans strive toward is freedom. And freedom is what I would like to talk to you about this month. This is a deep rich topic that I can only begin to speak about. For there are so many different levels of freedom that we seek.

On one level we seek the freedom from different emotional painful states of consciousness. We look for freedom from fear, and humans have all kinds of strategies to feel safe. The tricky side of this is that the part of us that experiences ourselves as separate from the divine will never feel safe. And all means to find safety usually create more pain and suffering.

In Medicine for the Earth I wrote about Jack Schwarz who was able to heal his wounds while being tortured by the Nazis. He was able to achieve a state oneness with the universe in which there was no way to hurt him. While Jack Schwarz was in this state he could not be in an egoic state feeling fear. The state of oneness had to be complete for such a miraculous act to occur.

For many of us on a spiritual path we go back and forth between separate states of consciousness and divine states. The mind comes in and tells us all the things we should fear. And then divinity comes in and says fear is an illusion for as a spirit we cannot die or be hurt. We waver back and forth. And true freedom comes when we can be released from this wavering back and forth. One key is for us to choose spiritual practices that we feel passionate about committing to that will lead us to a deeper state of experiencing a state of oneness in every cell of our being. This of course is a work in progress.

Our egoic thinking mind is great at listing all the things we should fear as well as listing all the reasons that living a life filled with love, joy, light, unity, peace, health, wealth, and success are impossible. It is amazing the beliefs that we hold that regularly sabotage us. The collective has done a magnificent job in brainwashing us to believe that we do have not our full power to be a creative genius in the world.

At the same time society has also told us what we should desire. So we spend quite a bit of time attempting to acquire physical possessions that don’t bring us to a place of feeling true wealth or to a place of freedom. For we become a slave to our egoic desires, the need to acquire, and then to keep our acquisitions. And when we believe that others have what we perceive to be more than we do jealousy and envy start to invade our daily thoughts bringing another level of suffering.

So where do we go with all of this? The key is finding balance. For we do have egos that experience ourselves as separate. And yet we are divine and in a place of divine light all things are possible, what we need looks different than when we are in a separate state, and the destiny we are evolving toward takes on a different meaning.

To continue our journey toward freedom we must keep surrendering our egoic desires to the divine within. I use the words “to continue our journey” for we have been on this journey whether we have been conscious of it or not. To be walking on a spiritual path means walking toward freedom.

We don’t always know what our soul’s journey has in store for us. But there are so many opportunities we are not exploring as we try to control our destiny. To surrender our destiny to our divine light brings us to truly manifesting what will bring to us true joy, wealth, and health on all levels.

We are all going through an initiation. The planet is going through an initiation and we cannot separate ourselves from the whole. An initiation is an experience that takes us from the past and brings us to a new place in life that we have never experienced before.

Initiations demand from us to discover new ways of thinking and moving through the world that we have never tried before. What we have used in the past will no longer work.

For years we have been watching organizations whether they are business, religious, or spiritual starting to be challenged in maintaining power and their hold over us. On one level organizations give us “manuals” of how to live our lives and also how to solve different problems.

I believe that one reason organizations are so challenged today is because “the manuals” for how to operate in life are outdated. We have the download of the true “manual” and “operating instructions” inside of us.

I will use the practice of shamanism as an example since this is a path I have been practicing for many years now. The definition of shamanism is that it is a path of direct revelation. That means all the answers are between you and your helping spirits. So to go out and search to learn methods of healing from others versus from your own direct revelation is the opposite of the teaching of shamanism. Yes many of us want to be a circle of like-minded people and experience the power of community. And this is great. The question that remains is do you show up to circles owning your own power of direct revelation or do you look to others to “show you the way”? The work of others inspires us all and inspiration is a wonderful thing. We need to be careful to remember that we are being inspired to work from our creative genius as others do instead of giving our power away.

In my Teacher Trainings I encourage teachers to develop their workshops to help participants learn from their own helping spirits how to perform different healing methods. And I also encourage teachers to teach their workshops from their own inspiration and not to teach as I do. This is where the real power of the work is – to learn from our own spiritual source. The key is in empowering others.

The same is true for being on any spiritual path. For the goal of spiritual paths is to bring us in touch with our own divinity and creative genius. All of us have the same creative potential. To believe that only some people have the answers will not move us into creating a healthy planet. Of course we all bring through different answers on different levels as we all express our unique gifts and talents. We all bring through aspects of divinity like a diamond has different facets that come together to shine brilliant and dazzling light.

When we begin to surrender our destiny to the divine within we begin to manifest a new path in our lives. When we truly honor the unique gifts, talents, and strengths that we came into the world with we truly add strength to our global community. And when we all realize that inner wealth is what creates true joy then we stop being envious and jealous of others for we all are pure divine light and love. As we continue forward on working with spiritual tools we move toward a greater sense of freedom. For being tied to the external world for a sense of freedom does not bring freedom.

What is needed right now is for us to start to act with spontaneity. For if we watch what life is bringing to us the energy that is manifesting in our lives is unexpected. The ego of course fears the unexpected. It is our spirit that meets the energy of the unexpected with a sense of wonder and spontaneity.

Here are a couple of ways to work as we begin to welcome in the new of the New Year. In 2008 I asked you to experience how much love went into your creation. This month I would like to ask you to list qualities of the creator or creative forces of the universe you would like to emulate. And commit to yourself and to our global circle to pick at least one quality and to find different ways to manifest this quality into your life and into the world.

And I want you to come up with your own unique way of problem solving. If you work with clients go within and ask for a way of working that you have never tried before. If you are dealing with a challenge in your own life I want you to go within and ask for a completely new way to meet the challenge that life has brought to you as an opportunity for growth.

Throw away “old life manuals” and “operating instructions”. They have been incredibly useful and have provided you with a solid foundation that has brought you to where you are right now. Reach within for new instructions. You will be in complete awe of what you are shown. The new that is revealed to you holds the promise of new life, joy, wealth, and health beyond anything your egoic mind can come up with.

As a global circle let us hold the excitement for each and every one of us as we discover the new gifts we have available to us. For the universe will meet the energy of our excitement. The universe will give us what we call in the world of business “a challenge grant”. It will meet and excitement and give us more opportunity to expand from where we are. Imagine the match from the universe coming from the excitement of our global circle versus just from one of us.

We really need “to get” the power that we have as a community to support each other on a personal level and also to manifest true health and harmony for the planet and all of life.

I have been very happy with the results I have seen from teaching Medicine for the Earth. I love teaching the gathering myself and continue to hear wonderful results of the work from my own students as well as from people who have trained with other teachers.

And we continue a Medicine for the Earth reunion each year where there is core group who regularly show up and we welcome others who would like to join us in deepening the work.

I have been feeling I want to try to go even deeper. And I have been thinking about this for a year now. I finally am coming up with a way I would like to proceed.

The work I have been writing about in my books and The Transmutation News was profoundly influenced by my journeys with Isis and Osiris. My Medicine for the Earth work was directly born out of my Egyptian connections in the spirit world.

And then I found that what I had written was also work that was written about by a variety of writers in the 1930s – 1950’s.

I know the unlimited potential that can come from working within on the inner landscaping that is needed to give birth to the fruits of the world we wish to live in.

And I also know how much practice went in to what the ancient civilizations were able to accomplish.

We all are doing the practices we feel passionate about to change ourselves, which changes the world we live in. And at the same time our lives are filled with distractions. It is part of living in a modern culture. I often wonder about the results that I could accomplish if I had no contact with the outside world. And that is not my destiny.

I would like to work with a group who really is willing to commit to a circle to work with creating the inner landscape needed to give solid results in the outer world. The goal would be to learn the difference between the desires of the ego and replace those with our guidance from divine will. To really look at how we can concentrate our thoughts and words so that we can produce our desired goal. And to work together in full support of each other so that each person’s goals are exponentially met by the group’s energy. This means that we all need to work through together issues about how we compare ourselves to others and move into states of jealousy and envy.

Simply the group would commit to work with creation and manifestation practices as well as practices to truly use the power of concentration and focus where our thoughts are words are in alignment with what we want to produce. We will work with personal goals as well as healing for the planet.

And I know we have been doing this work together as a global community. But I would like to bring a group together to meet and to really devote themselves to the work and commit to a circle.

The group would meet in Santa Fe for four days and then we would continue our work together through teleconferencing. But we would stay committed as an ongoing group.

I am trying to get a sense of how many people would be interested in being part of this course. If you are interested please email aruthabelle@aol.com and just say you are interested.

I will of course post the workshop and open it up to all of you. I am just trying to get a reading on the interest level.

The full moon is January 11. Let’s add excitement and passion to our monthly ceremony of creating a human web of light that we continue to weave together as a global community. And let’s continue to support our global community with using spiritual light to help those in our circle who need healing. Instructions for both ceremonies are on the page under Creating A Human Web of Light.

I have deep hope and hold a lot of excitement for all we can accomplish this year!

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Transmutation News – December 2008

As the time grew nearer in the United States presidential election it felt to me like the collective conscious was getting very stirred up. This election created a lot of emotion on many different levels. I found myself having a hard time getting a good night’s sleep as I felt my psyche was tapping into a great deal of chaos in the collective.

Without getting into politics I do feel the results of the election were significant, exciting, and hopeful. For I feel as a collective we were faced with a choice of whether the collective was choosing to move forward to a future of new possibilities or whether fear would keep the collective choosing to move backwards in time.

There are worldwide challenges that keep growing. And the challenges keep forcing us to look at how to create a life that is simpler and more balanced. And the challenges we face also ask us to stay focused on our spiritual work.

This is not a time to feel that any one person or political party will create sweeping changes for us. We are responsible to be part of the changes that need to happen. The present and future still rests in the hands of the collective.

The election in the United States was an example of how the collective can join together and create a shift in leadership. We can learn from such focus. It is a time to continue to build on the collective energies that have been put into motion. And how we do this is to continue to be a spiritual presence in the collective as I wrote about last month. And to add to this we must support and strengthen the collective energies that can move us into greater change and be a healing force on the planet.

Find a place within your home or outside in nature to build a small altar that represents the global spiritual community working together in different ways to create positive change for the planet and all of life. Everyday visit the altar and put a small offering such as a stone, a flower, or a prayer to give thanks and to honor all those working in behalf of life.

Over the years we have been working together to dream the world we want to live in into being. I have given different suggestions of how to work with creation and manifestation out of my book Medicine for the Earth.

Recently my helping spirits gave me an interesting exercise to suggest. As you know there are many books written on the law of attraction. These books have been popular since the early 1900’s and today there is a resurgence in the topic.

I was told to suggest that you find a magnet and a pin to work with. When I did this exercise I worked with a strong refrigerator magnet.

Hold the pin close to the magnet and notice the pull, as they are attracted to each other. Repeat this everyday a few times a day to get the feeling in your body of what is needed to actually attract to you what you are working on manifesting.

In doing spiritual work it is one thing to be able to experience something being created in the invisible realms. It is another to understand how to pull the creation through, to birth it in the physical realms.

Here is another exercise I was given. I found that as Election Day in the United States grew closer I had to deal with feelings of anxiety.

I kept doing a lot of work to surrender to whatever outcome occurred. And I had good days and challenging days. One day I found myself thinking the worst.

I immediately felt the presence of Isis surrounding me. When I finally took some time to get quiet and go within she showed me a ball of yarn sitting on the floor that represented my desired outcome. And she asked me to reflect on what thread of thought I was feeding into the yarn. It was a real wakeup call for me as I realized I was not aligning my thinking with the result I was hoping for.

I think that the more we can get our body and mind to work in partnership with our spiritual practices the more fuel we give to the work we are engaged in.

Find a ball of yarn or some other object that you can use to represent what you consider a healthy and balanced planet. You can also create a drawing or you can write your goal on a piece of paper. Place these on an altar. Run pieces of thread, yarn, string to your ultimate goal that are infused with thoughts that would align with this goal as well as those infused with blocking beliefs.

Take some time throughout the day and especially before you go to sleep to reflect on the threads you have been feeding. Did you feed the thread leading to your ultimate goal or away from it?

Try to get a tangible feeling in your body of how these “threads of thoughts” contribute to creating your ultimate goal.

I think both exercises of working with magnets and watching what threads of thought you are feeding will help you to make changes in your daily life. The goal is to contribute to the global community from a deeper level of awareness as we work together to create positive planetary change in behalf of all of life.

Shamanism as well as the Medicine for the Earth work practiced as a way of life requires you to be fully embodied. For so much of the practice of shamanism has to do with deep listening and observation of nature. In this way we are living as part of nature and truly working from a place of full cooperation and collaboration with the spirit that lives in all things.

In today’s world many people are drawn to spiritual practices because they don’t want to be in a body. Past experiences have people disappointed in others and life itself and looking for an escape.

But spiritual practices as they were developed in ancient times were never meant to create out of body experiences. Part of thriving and living a life of joy means being fully in our body and fully inspirited.

Some of us are losing out and missing the point of spiritual work. In the October Transmutation News I wrote about losing our sense of wonder, awe, and becoming complacent creates life as more of watching a movie or program on a flat screen TV. We miss out on truly living as part of nature when we reject our own bodies.

Winter tends to be a time of stillness in nature. This stillness supports us to take the time to draw our energies within.

In 2008 I asked you to merge with a star and notice how solid starlight is. It does not try to shine. It just does from an inner solidity and that light reaches across many millions of miles.

I also asked you to merge with a seed to understand and feel in your cells the intense power of unpotentiated energy.

If you did not do these journeys/meditations I suggest you do them as a foundation to work with.

As we move closer to the time of winter begin to draw your energy in. Review your successes. Look at where you might have lost faith in yourself as a being who has the potential to share brilliance and beauty in the world.

Everyday make yourself “love potions” where you infuse love into everything you eat and drink. Remember what you bless, blesses you. What you honor, honors you. In this way of blessing and honoring yourself you bless and honor the earth. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the winter solstice, which is on December 21.

During the winter solstice take some time to be still and silent. And tune into the stillness and regeneration process of the earth. Ask the earth how you can support her regeneration during this time of change and transition.

The full moon is December 12. Let’s continue to strengthen our spiritual presence in the collective as well as strengthen the fibers we are weaving in the web of light.

As this year draws to a close let’s continue our healing work in our circle to empower each of us so that we have the energy and passion to keep up our spiritual work to help with the changes ahead.

If you are new to this website please read Creating A Human Web of Light for instructions for our full moon meditations.

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