For so many years now I have been writing about the shadow side of the shamanic community riding surface waves. When riding surface waves, we learn how to tread water well.
But do we end up missing a valuable part of the initiation and the journey to come home to our true selves when we don’t allow ourselves to sink under the surface waves? Although we live in the unknown, we prefer an unknown that does not involve sinking into the darkness of life – an initiation commonly called the Dark Night of the Soul.
But this is where we learn to talk to our soul. This is where we shed our former identity to see the beauty, gifts, and strengths of our inner landscape. And when we find this we step into a glory of love and light that we never experienced on this Earth. But it takes being willing to make a journey that is in an unearthly territory that we all walk through when we get ill, lose something important to us, experience grief, dissolution, a lack of faith, and so on.
In the modern western world, many of us called in transformative energies during this time. We said we wanted to transform. How we tried to do this was by discovering practices that make us feel peaceful and raise our endorphins to make us feel good. But this might not have been the best decision to make. For this keeps us swimming in the surface waves of change.
When you ask for transformation in shamanism you ask to enter into The Dark Night of the Soul. This is such an amazing territory that sounds scary as once there you are stripped of your identity and everything you think you know.
But what a rich journey that in the taking away that which no longer serves your identity leads you to finding your true identity, power, strength, inner light and love. For you are a true reflection of the creative forces of the universe, and this is what you will discover as you traverse the territory called the Dark Night of the Soul. You will discover aspects of unconditional love and experience a light you did not know existed.
In this initiation you die to your ego while alive, being reborn into a being who is self-sufficient in all your needs.
I really believe that when one learns how to traverse The Dark Night of the Soul you learn how to ride out any wave life brings with power and strength. You become a presence of unconditional love and light beyond what you have experienced to this point.
If you would like to learn about this territory and learn how to walk it you can register for my new course The Dark Night of the Soul as a Portal to the Shaman’s Light.
You can register here: https://shiftnetwork.isrefer.com/go/dnsSI/ingerman/
I have left Facebook for a while. I just needed a break. But I will be back to work with participants in my new course.
Before I left, I read this beautiful poem by Jack Wyrd who posted it on the Facebook page for The Shamans Cave. Jack gave me permission to share this with all of you.
Blessings of the Dragonfly
Exuviae are the remains of animals which must shed their skin in order to grow. The dragonfly is such an animal. It spends its first two years as an aquatic nymph. Swimming and breathing water, never touching the air. But once they have found all they need in the wet world below the waves – they crawl up into the air. There, they are unable to breath, unable to see. They trust they most go towards the light, into the unknown. There, helpless, they burst out of their back and unfurl their wings.
This is a summer thing. As they drink air into their lungs for the first time, they must lay in the sun drying their wings and hardening their shell. They don’t know what to expect, but they know they must. They don’t let fear stop them; they only know it is right. As they rise up, dragons of the sky, they leave their old exuviae behind. They don’t look back, they just fly.
It is summer, time for transformations under the Sun. May you be like the dragonfly, trusting enough to make the transformations you must and flying free as you were meant to be. May you embody the beautiful blessings of the dragonfly.
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Exuviae is latin. It is pronounced ig-zoo’-vee-ee
Jack Wyrd practices and teaches core shamanism and hosts monthly community journey circles in the Bangor, Maine area. He has an upcoming spiritual folklore book, tentatively titled Maine’s Rarest Creatures: a Field Guide to Mythological and Legendary Creatures and Beings of New England and Adjacent Canada, it will be published in June 2021 by Down East Books. You can check out Jack’s page on FB.
The full moon is August 3. Let’s drop into the depths of our spiritual light that is reaching for us. Meet the reach with your own light. Join with the radiant light of our global community, and let it build a healthy field of energy for all of life.
If you are a new reader of The Transmutation News please read the instructions for our full moon ceremony in Creating A Human Web of Light on the homepage.