Shamanic Journey - SandraIngerman.com

Transmutation News – December 2018

As I shared last month, I have been having powerful experiences with a group of very old spirits that I am calling the Ancient Ones, for lack of a better term.

They are giving me a lot to reflect on and embrace. For when they share information with me first, they give it to me through a bodily sensation and then enough words to capture the meaning.

Recently, I feel they have been teaching me about Carrying Power.

The spirits I am working with are so old, ancient, beautiful, and loving. They showed me how in universal terms we are truly here for a blink of an eye. I know people use this line all the time. But I really felt how in the span of billions of years we are here for less than one second.

They also helped me with my greatest pain. For I have devoted my adult life to teaching shamanism. I have been watching how through the popularity of shamanism the practice has become watered down. This is taking away from the great power of this “medicine” for the times we live in.

The message the helping spirits gave me is: “You cannot teach people how to carry a magic they don’t have. When people find the magic, they will carry it.”

This gave me a peace that I have been searching for. I know people will find the true medicine and carry it when it is truly needed for survival.

This entire message gave me peace and comfort as I understand that the time is now to focus more on teaching people skills for living life as I have been writing about on this column since 2000. This is what people in our culture need as we never learned from elders how to behave energetically with our words, thoughts, and daydreams, and learning about our strengths, gifts, shadow, and weaknesses.

So, it is important that we start there before going too deep into our shamanic work.

But recently I was shown an entire new way of how to teach meeting and working with the compassionate spirits. And this goes back to the theme I am working on about Carrying Power, Love, and Light.

In the Western world we teach people to journey and ask for a power animal guardian spirit, or teacher in the unseen realms. And then we know people like to run and look up the meaning of their helping spirits instead of learning from the helping spirit itself.

I received a new protocol for journeying and would love if you are willing to try it this month. I feel it is actually a powerful way to spiral into the New Year.

Here are the steps. Of course, you want to drum, rattle, sing, dance, or find the way you like to work.

Ask if there is a helping spirit who is volunteering to let you step into their field of energy.
Ask the helping spirit what kind of power they carry.
Ask the helping spirit if you have permission to carry their power.
What does it mean to carry power and/or the power of a helping spirt?

This will of course take you into such deep relationship with a helping spirit. And you should do this with every helping spirit you work with.

The truth of the matter is that shamans always carried their helping spirits power in their body. In some classic shamanic cultures, shamans with permission and through sacred acts ate the flesh of a helping spirit. This is a widespread especially when working with plants – eating a piece of plant whose medicine you carry.

But in today’s world we call in helping spirits in a way that makes them separate from us. But in reality, we are not separate. We carry their power for a particular purpose and to share their gifts, strengths, and healing knowledge within the community.

It is a new way of thinking about contacting helping spirits. Who would want to turn to a power animal book to look up the meaning of a power animal when you have such a profound experience in getting the truth of the relationship for yourself?

As we celebrate the Winter/Summer solstice allow yourself to reflect on this message:

“The light of the sun is in everything. We carry the light of the sun”.

I hope that those of you who could buy a copy of The Book of Ceremony: Shamanic Wisdom for Invoking the Sacred into Every Day Life will refer to the material I wrote to explore designing your own solstice ceremony for your community. And if you cannot read the book please journey on one you can share with loved ones, friends or in your wider community. It is time for all of us to step up and bring more empowering and inspirational tools to our community. Performing ceremonies is a sacred act.

The full moon is December 22. Let us focus on carrying our light into the world as we do our transfiguration practice to weave within and through the Earth a beautiful luminescent web of light.

If you are a new reader of the Transmutation News please visit the Creating A Human Web of Light on the homepage for instructions for our monthly ceremony.

Please join me in giving a heartfelt thanks to the translators who help so many people enter into our community so we can work together. Let’s place a special blessing for them on our altar and when we perform ceremonies. And please join me in thanking and sending blessings to Sylvia Edwards who helps me to bring the Transmutation News to you each month and helps with so much more!

Petr Němčanský – Czech

Tea Thum – Finnish

Carole Laplante – French

Bea Salgado – French

Barbara Gramlich – German

Astrid Johnen – German

Nello Ceccon – Italian

Els de Graaff – Nederlands

Sandra Koning – Nederlands

Sofia Frazoa – Portuguese

Irina Osechinskaya – Russian

Anton Uvarov – Russian

Ines Fermoso – Spanish

Lena Anderheim – Swedish

Simin Uysal – Turkish

I join with everyone in our global circle to wish you a beautiful solstice and holiday season. See you in the New Year!

Transmutation News – March 2017

I have received quite a lot of correspondence over this last month from readers of the Transmutation News. The letters, emails, Facebook messages I have received are quite varied.

I hear from people who are locked in fear and anger and can’t seem to move into their spiritual practices. Then I am receiving a wealth of feedback from people who are having miraculous experiences keeping up their practice of transfiguration. There have been miracles that people have reported to me in just transfiguring for a few minutes daily. And then I am also receiving some miraculous case studies in transfiguring for others and even some wonderful changes with local environmental issues.

I feel like our global community is vibrating at an entire bandwidth of frequencies. And we all need to experience whatever is happening for us right now as there are enormous teachings in the challenges as well as in the miraculous.

Over the last year so many in the media and social media have been talking and writing about the shadow that is becoming so obvious around the world. And this is true. We are finally seeing the depth of the shadow showing itself.

In shamanic traditions it is understood that the shadow is simply part of nature. For the sun rises each day and then the darkness sets in. Seasons change from the brightness of spring and summer. Autumn and winter lead to the darkening of the days and the change in plant life, animal life, and migration patterns of birds, and so on.

We continually cycle through phases of initiation and dismemberment. Dismemberment entails disintegration, illumination, remembering, reconstruction, and re-emergence. And this cycle repeats itself over time. Again, as we are nature, we are ruled by the cycles of nature which includes initiations and dismemberments.

In Walking in Light: The Everyday Empowerment of Shamanic Life I wrote a chapter on initiation and dismemberment. I shared a teaching from the Belgium physicist, Ilya Prigogine who won a Nobel Prize in 1977 for his theory of dissipative structures. This is a kind of chaos theory. He showed that a period of dissolution is necessary before any system – a cell, a person, society, or solar system – can jump to a higher level of organization. Seen this way, unraveling, disintegration, or dismemberment is a vital creative event making room for the new.

As I keep sharing what we are seeing in the world is necessary. For the old must be dismembered before we can weave a new fabric of reality into being. And here we are!

Taking a look at the shadow as it is part of nature is some powerful and healing work for all of us to explore.

In humans, the shadow is the state we feel on a personality/ ego level when we feel separate, fearful, angry, hopeless, and so on. The shadow is represented by such states as greed, people wanting to control others and life itself, and people who are power hungry. These unconscious states rise up in our life to take us into the depths where we eventually remember the truth of who we are and are reborn like a new plant bursting through the earth in spring. But many people try to keep their shadow states under the surface of their consciousness. We don’t always want to recognize these “undesired” parts of ourselves. And we end up projecting onto others the states we have repressed and keep hidden.

One of the journeys I lead in my Medicine for the Earth and Healing with Spiritual Trainings is to visit a helping spirit and ask to be shown the nature of the shadow. You can also journey to learn about the nature of your own shadow. But as the Medicine for the Earth work is more focused on the environment, I ask people to journey on the nature of the shadow.

After the journey is over, I ask people to go around the room and say a phrase or sentence that is the core of the teaching they received. And after we finish sharing, we are all struck by the beauty and the necessity of the shadow. In teaching Medicine for the Earth and Healing with Spiritual Light internationally since 2000 I have never heard a participant receive any teaching about the shadow that was not inspirational, moving, and so natural.

This month I suggest you perform this journey. You can also do it as a meditation if you do not know how to journey.

If you have a practice of shamanic journeying visit a helping spirit you trust and ask to be shown the nature of the shadow. And be inspired and comforted from what you learn.

You can also do a meditation where you just hold the question and observe what comes up through the silence.

You can put on some music and do some automatic writing. Write your intention on the top of the page and just let your hand write without thinking about it. The information you will receive will come from the deep well of spiritual knowledge that lives inside of you.

You can also put on some music and dance with this intention and notice how your body moves and changes as you touch into how the shadow impacts your own body, its rhythms, and flow.

I hope the work removes some of the fear of the shadow. It is a phase in nature that comes and goes and is part of life.

On March 20, we celebrate the equinox – spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. So, we are moving through a change of seasons where we live but also in our own lives.

I journeyed to ask what would be a good ceremony for me to share with all of you to welcome in the equinox.

I was shown that a powerful ceremony would be to find a place in nature where you can walk and take some time to reflect on the season you are moving out of in your life and the season you are moving into. Reflect on the changes in nature that you see all around you. Notice how the quality of air is different, the colors of the plants and trees are starting to change, animal behavior is changing, migratory patterns are changing. Notice the wind and messages that come to you as walk in nature. The fragrance of the air might seem a bit different. There might be a variation in the texture of the earth. Notice how the currents in the bodies of water where you live might be shifting – the movement and nature of the water might be just a bit different. The voice of the water might be singing about the signs of a change.

You might be in a city park or you might be able to get out a little further out of town and find a more isolated place where you can walk. Wherever you are, get down on your knees and put your hands on the earth and start to hum. I realize that if you are in a park with other people this might not seem too comfortable. Try and find a place where you can be alone for just a few minutes. It would be powerful if you can do this with a group of friends or people who you perform spiritual practices with.

Just hum while touching the earth. Try and do this for about 10 minutes. I was shown in my journey that you will notice a distinct change in the flow of your energy moving through your body. You will feel a strong and deeper connection with the earth than if you just take a walk. Humming while touching the earth with your hands might bring you to a feeling of the ancientness of the land where you are. And you will have a stronger connection with the heartbeat of the Earth.

If you cannot go out into nature for whatever reason you can do this in a journey or in a meditation by using your imagination to touch the earth and hum.

I was told in my journey not to chant or sing a song. Just simply hum.

I was also shown as thousands of people around the world do this on the same day some wonderful and exquisite change will happen all around the Earth. Use your imagination to feel this change rippling through the Earth.

The full moon is on March 12. Let us do our preparation work and be fully present in our ceremony to go beyond our body and mind to experience our authentic self which is pure spiritual divine light and love. Perform your transfiguration practice in a way that works for you whether through a journey, a meditation, singing, dancing, drumming, and/or rattling. Allow your light to flow through you. First absorb that light and unconditional love into all your cells so you feel refreshed and regenerated. Then allow that light and love to radiate out creating a human web of light within and throughout the Earth. Feel the connection, the change in vibration, and frequency of our entire circle while we do this.

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

Let us join our hearts together and wish everyone a beautiful solstice. I can already feel the power of all of us humming together!

Transmutation News – September 2016

Take a bit of time out of your day for a short time of reflection. Get into a comfortable place, take a few deep breaths, and imagine sitting in a favorite place in nature. It can be a place in the country or in a park you walk through. You can also choose to do this exercise outside in nature.

We are shifting once again into a new season. In the Northern Hemisphere we are shifting out of summer and out of winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

As you sit in nature feel the earth you are sitting on and notice any changes in the texture or the fragrance as the season begins to shift. Smell the air and notice if you can pick up any hints of change in how the air feels on your skin and changes in the temperature. Notice if you have been able to sense how the plants and trees are responding to the change in season and if you notice changes in the population of birds, animals, insects, other nature beings where you live. Have you observed how the sunrise and sunsets are moving to a new time and how the moon and stars are shifting positions in the night sky?

Drop in and feel the change inside of you. It has been a long and intense season for so many people around the world. Our hearts have been touched by terrorist, political, and climatic events. Our hearts keep expanding with compassion as so much has occurred that impacts us on deep levels. There is the desire to hold to a positive vision for our world, and when we witness so many challenges it is often tough to keep the faith.

As you feel the change in the air notice how you are feeling. I always feel such a tangible change in the air when we begin to greet a new season. It is not something I can describe in words, but I can feel such a difference as the air touches my skin and as I breathe it in. Reflect on what changes you have witnessed in the past season that have touched your heart. Think back to your reactions and how true you have been able to stay to honoring your emotions but also performing your spiritual work to keep a good dream alive and transmute the energy behind any challenges you have been effected by.

Travel inside to your inner landscape and open your invisible eyes and take in all you have planted and what has grown in your inner garden. What type of care does your garden need as we move into a new season?

As we move into the season of fall/spring it is good to take some time to reflect on the season we are spiraling out of. It is also important to reflect on how we participated in life and all that is happening in the world. For once again change is in the air that brings new possibilities as nature reflects back to us a time to let go of what needs to be returned to the earth to be composted into fertile ground and what seeds we want to plant in our inner and outer landscape.

When you feel like you have taken the time you need to tune into the subtle or not so subtle changes within and around you bring your awareness back to the present.

In past columns of the Transmutation News, I have usually asked you to merge with the earth where you live during the changing season. For you experience the same changes as the earth does. And to merge with the earth gives you a sense of the inner changes that are occurring. We often numb ourselves as we get lost in the flow of the collective trance and just go from season to season without opening our invisible and visible senses to the shift in our inner our outer world. And when we take time to notice how our inner world is changing it improves the quality of our participation in life instead of letting life pass us by.

This month in my journeys I have felt a strong pull from water to focus on how the tide and current of our life is shifting as we move into fall or spring. It is a good time to see what messages water has for us as we celebrate the Equinox. How the shifting season impacts the currents brings information for us on how to flow with the changes rather than resist them.

Pick a body of water that you would like to connect with and learn from. Water reflects back the nature of our soul and gives us life. Our waters within are impacted by the change in seasons just like the waters around us.

Listen to some music and tune into a body of water you wish to connect with. You might wish to merge with water and let it inform you about the changes ahead. Or you might wish to imagine yourself sitting beside a body of water that you wish to communicate with. Once we move into the invisible realms we can communicate easily with nature. You might also go outside and sit with a body of water and allow the stillness, or the waves, or the running water give you a message of how to attune to the change in season.

On September 22, which is the Equinox I invite you to create a small altar with representations of the elements. Spend some time in silent meditation reflecting on your love, honor and respect for the elements. Breathe in love and breathe out love. Sing to the elements and honor them as we move into a new cycle of life. After you have breathed appreciation and sung love into the elements bring them to a place in nature and leave them outside allowing the love you expressed to sink in and become one with the earth.

When you are outside, continue to sing to the elements and the nature spirits. All life sings and loves to be sung to. Touch the ground beneath you and feel your energy attune with that of the earth. Reach your hands up to the air and let the breezes or wind play with your fingers. If there is water where you live touch the water with your eyes closed and feel the softness, beauty, and life force merging with you. Reach your arms up to the sun and absorb the power while singing a song in gratitude.

Our prayers and love do have meaning and do affect the vibration of the web of life in ways we cannot notice with our visible senses. But the effect is real.

When intense events occur on the planet, sometimes the simplest spiritual practices we can do uplift us and have an impact on raising the vibration on the planet.

If you have a personal altar at home, make a change to your altar marking the movement into a new time of life. It is always good to change your altar to reflect outer changes that are occurring.

If you are cycling into fall reflect on what you are ready to release in your life creating more space in your inner landscape. What do you need to clean up in your life? If you are greeting spring, let your imagination move you to what new practices or dreams you would like to set into motion.

Most of all let us all honor all the invisible helping spirits who continue to be by our side and guide us through life. Let us thank our ancestors, and the ancestors of the land we live on, earth, air, water, fire, and the nature beings that live in the elements. Let us honor the hidden folk who caretake this great earth.

Let us put our focus into honoring all of life. This is a way we can join together as a global community in love to greet and celebrate the Equinox and all that gives us life. Remember the power of reciprocity. When we love and honor Nature we are loved and honored in return.

The full moon is September 16. Let us sink deep inside to the radiant light that flows so effortlessly within each of us. This light is as radiant as a diamond and has so many facets. As we allow ourselves to feel our own light while opening our hearts to our global community, we weave a beautiful strong loving tapestry of light within and throughout the earth. Take time on the full moon to feel the subtle fullness of energy in the collective as so many thousands of people join to work together in behalf of the Earth. We have more spiritual strength when we can feel the tangible nature and energy of our spiritual collective. As we keep up this practice with love, concentration, persistence, patience, and focus the frequency of the web of light and the web of life becomes vibrant in a way that allows a new dimension of life to be born into our world.

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

I join our circle in wishing you all a joyous Equinox! May all of life know how much love and light is holding them in honor and respect at this time on the planet.

Transmutation News – August 2016

I can start every Transmutation News speaking to the turmoil we are seeing all across the planet today. And since I started writing the Transmutation News I have been writing about how the fabric of reality is unraveling. And this continues. It is no surprise as we observe humans getting more lost in the collective trance that the material world can lead people into it. Yes, there are people who are waking up out of the trance, but not at the levels needed to turn the quality of life around on the planet.

I am a dreamer. And I still do my dreaming work to dream into being the global community becoming so spiritually strong and so focused that we can shift the current vibration on the planet. But we are not there yet. I just believe we can do it if our priority in life becomes our spiritual work, and we truly dropped into the power of focus. The ancient ones knew how to focus and concentrate in ways that did create huge dimensional changes.

So we keep continuing our work in any way we can and in how we have been been guided. And we ride the waves that our work produces and creates.

I journeyed on what practice I can suggest for us to do together this month. I was told to journey or meditate to either the planet Earth or pick an element of earth, air, water, fire and ask to be told a healing story.

For there is a healing story and healing words to be shared by the Earth and the elements. The elements are our allies.

In our work we give thanks daily to the Earth and the elements for our lives. In my journey I was shown it is time to let the Earth, air, water, and fire inspire us.

If you know the practice of shamanic journeying you can journey to the Lower World, the Middle World, or the Upper World to meet the spirit of the Earth itself or one of the elements and ask for a healing story. If you do not journey put on some spiritually expansive music and simply hold your intention and you will receive the healing story from the element you wish to communicate with. You can sit in nature and let nature speak to you. You can take out crayons or paints and let images of a healing story be transmitted through you. You can do the same with writing. Write your intention on the top of a page close your eyes half way and just allow your hand move in an automatic fashion while you become a hollow bone for the spirit of an element to write through you a story that will bring you to a place of awe and gratitude. You can play some music and dance the healing story you are gifted with.

I think we all might learn something that can inspire us to keep us focused on our work and also learn how much support the Earth and the elements that give us life have to share with us.

In the July Transmutation News I asked people to share any wisdom that came through the journey work I suggested.

If you did not have the opportunity to read the July Transmutation News here is a link to the column: https://www.sandraingerman.com/tnjuly2016.html

Here is some of the information that readers in our global community felt called to share. I did a bit of editing and deleted everyone’s last names. I am very grateful for your responses and your willingness to share with our community as we all have pieces of the puzzle to share.

From: Richard

Hi Sandra & Sylvia

This is the information that I received regarding this important question keeping the invisible realms clear of “thought pollution created by our own emotional and mental baggage.”

The energy level that contains the pure and clear messages of love and healing for our planet radiate at very high levels of vibration. It is like a radio tower transmitting radio waves on the radio station of love . If we are not at that same energy/vibration level, we will not be able to receive the messages of healing and love as clearly as we’d like.

We will get some “static” on our inner “radios”. But, we are not able to “pollute” those vibrations – we simply won’t be able to connect completely with that level of pure & positive energy. The Source energy that transmits those vibrations is patient and loving, but is not damaged by our emotional turmoil.

The sun continues to shine clearly above the clouds, even though we may be experiencing our own inner emotional turmoil of rainstorms, hurricanes and tornadoes.

Blessings,

Richard

From: Francoise

…smudging was the indication I had received for my patient as I had not well prepared my sacred space , so it REMINDED ME TO DO IT PROPERLY …that’s it

From: Hana

Before the journey, cleanse the hands ritually, with the intention of washing away the energies from here.

In the journey, rabbit came and led me down the rabbit hole. Down the long corridor we came to the cave of the ancestors. A shaman met me at the entrance. I asked him the question at hand, and he indicated that we must come through all four elements to be cleansed of all energies. We had already come through the earth element. Now we must travel through fire, water, and wind to be completely cleansed and purified.

I hope that helps.

From: Nancy

I have thought about this issue for a long time. I have a power animal (this one does not want to be revealed- some others don’t mind) who helps me a great deal with home and family issues. I have some family members with severe communication impairments. I communicate with them a great deal from a spirit level and frequently walk with one foot in the physical world and one foot in the spirit world, which facilitates this. This power animal helps me clear to avoid letting material concerns seep into the spirit realm, both in daily life and when I go on a shamanic journey. By seeing this power animal’s clearing technique frequently with my inner eye, I have gradually become able to quickly ask for clearing when needed and instantly feel the clearing. In addition to this, I very often visualize everything, including material world problems, completely permeated with bright spiritual light and love, so that even material world problems can show their spirit aspect and the spiritual path through them can be revealed. For me doing a little rattling facilitates this, but is not necessary if it’s not convenient. I am seldom in a position to completely remove myself from material concerns for very long, so techniques like this that can be used even in the midst of daily concerns have been of great value to my ability to do positive spiritual work.

From: Jennifer

Hello,

I meditated on Sandra’s July newsletter. I came up with parables but they were long stories, too long to share, but fun for me to read over. The upshot of the stories is that I think this space of light and spirit can absorb people’s emotions rather easily, whether it be anger, fear or depression. But the space of light and spirit can’t absorb the unhealthy ego so easily. It can absorb or integrate the ego but not an unhealthy ego.

What I mean by this is I see some internet psychics and teachers who I think are actually genuinely psychic but have adapted belief systems, like new age beliefs, that they teach people. This means their belief system is intertwined with their psychic abilities.

I have drawn and written many stories, but so far my spirit or my inner self has never taught me about law of attraction, which is a common new age teaching. What I am taught by my stories is about focus and will power and also lessons in synchronicity and receiving help from Love.

Thank you for letting people contribute!

From: Katharine

Helping Ancestral Spirit of Shamanism appeared as Snake/Woman/Goddess who shared that humans have been influencing wherever they are for a very long time, sometimes wisely, sometimes insanely, developing a strong habit of dominance.

She advised that to support the beauty of life and keep the field of inspiration clean to follow the Earth’s breath. The Earth breathes Life anew.

Throughout the day/night knowingly breathe in the pure air of the New Earth. Let your out breath go where it will as a blessing.

Create a habit of knowing that you are drawing in pure New Earth air. This will lead you to being one who uses human dominance to purify yourself and support the field.

From: Natara

Dear Sylvia:

When I tried to go to the Forum to share, I received a message that the link did not require authentication and it may not be safe. We have a strong firewall which is good. At first I thought, well perhaps I am not meant to share the message I received re letting go of energies in our world so we do not pollute the invisible realms. But this morning I read the message and felt called to share it. Of course I also have a tenacious nature and I also know that it is meant for me if not for the Global Community. Here it is:

First unburden yourself from your ordinary world – I saw an image of a heavy backpack and letting it fall from my shoulders onto the Earth. Cleanse yourself by either lying in a shallow stream or stepping under a waterfall. When done, see yourself wearing white clothing. Light and Purity must be greater than your need for Guidance & Healing. Use your transfiguration and come as Light/Spirit only into the Invisible Realms, emptied of your Life.

When I trained with Alberto Villoldo, when we began our Journey, we always cleansed in water first. Then when I trained with John Perkins, he shared the backpack unburdening. Now I am training with Sandra and have learned transfiguration. All three are included and then the most important is surrendering our personal needs to keep the Invisible Realms pure.

Many Blessings,

Natara

From: Samuki

Hi Sandra, here is the result of my journey in response to your question.

During my journey a scout-person came to my encounter to escort me. I was shown an immense plain. At the horizon I saw the profile of a distant mountain. I was told to walk the whole way through. Under way the person escorting me called an eagle, which took away my backpack, then another eagle took another piece of baggage, and further eagles came to take all the rest away from me, piece after piece, until I was entirely light and freed of any charge.
Arriving finally at that mountain. I was expected and smudged with something like sage. I was invited to enter. In complete darkness I waited fore my senses to accustom, but no vision, no sound came… I was however fully aware of presences around me. I realized then that even my senses had been neutralized. I could communicate directly from soul to soul(!). This was an utmost unusual feeling!

The message was that we need to journey deep in the other reality to arrive at a real and authentic communication. The long way we have to walk may allow us to leave our ordinary baggage behind.

On my question how to keep the invisible realm clear from our ordinary worries and thoughts, a very simple answer came: everything that we leave there will be absorbed into the vibrations of the invisible world and ‘digested’ !

The full moon is August 18. Let us deepen our practice, perform our preparation and cleansing work and truly become a giant diamond of light with all of us in our circle as being a facet of this diamond. Let us truly radiate the depth of our spiritual light touching the threads and beams of light from all of us and allowing this light to dance and flow within and throughout the Earth raising the vibration of the web of life and holding all of life in love.

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

Transmutation News – July 2016

Some of you might have listened to the introductory call for my upcoming course “Shamanic Journeying for Guidance and Healing: Shamanic Practices for Divination, Collective Blessings, and Helping Others”.

I brought up an issue during my intro lecture that I would like to ask us to focus on and try to receive some guidance on.

We all know the potential for the practice of shamanism to heal on personal, community, and global levels. As the practice has been around for tens of thousands of years that speaks to the good results that come from the work. When good results are not seen practices tend to die out.

I have been so passionate about not just teaching individuals the practice of shamanic journeying and ceremony. But I feel my soul’s purpose is to gather people to work together in community to work together to solve problems that we now all face individually and collectively.

Before traditional shamans enter into the invisible realms, they perform a lot of preparation work. This preparation work lifts them out of their humanness and allows them to leave their ordinary thoughts and lives behind so they can enter into a pure and clear field. In this pure field they can work in partnership with the helping and compassionate spirits to weave healing energies, blessings, and positive change that form in the invisible realms and are birthed into manifest form in our tangible world.

I have been reflecting on the importance of stepping out of our humanness and daily concerns as we enter into the field that shamans work in. Otherwise, we are simply carrying our psychic baggage into the invisible realms. And what happens when we do that? I think for one we limit the power of the work that is possible. But I also think we end up leaving energies in this field that were never meant to be intermeshed with anything but the purest intentions and energies of love and light.

This issue has “called to me”, and I feel a desire to explore it with you. For are we polluting the invisible realms preventing the magical healings that we know shamanism is famous for?

This month I invite you to journey or to meditate on this issue/question. You can always journey to your own helping spirits and ask them about the importance of keeping the invisible realms clear of our human thoughts and emotions. But I thought it would be interesting to consult with the ancestral helping spirits of shamanism.

In May we journeyed to the Cave of Ancestors to work with symbols ancient ancestral spirits left on a cave wall for us. You can visit the May Transmutation News for instructions of how to journey or perform a meditation to the Cave of Ancestors by clicking on the link: https://www.sandraingerman.com/tnMay2016.html

Once you have the instructions of how to visit this cave, set your new intention. The intention I propose is to ask that a helping ancestral spirit of shamanism greet you there to give you guidance. It might be more than one helping ancestral spirit as a group might greet you and volunteer some guidance.

The guidance you are requesting is knowledge about the importance of keeping the invisible realms clear in which we partner with our helping spirits to perform our ceremonial work on behalf of ourselves, clients, loved ones, our local community, or the planet. Ask for ways that you can let go of the energies from your ordinary world that you carry into the invisible realms.

If you do not practice shamanic journeying, you can still join us in this work. You can go into a place of stillness and hold this question and pay attention to any messages or visions you receive. You can take a walk in nature and find a place that calls to you to come and sit. While connecting with the power of nature and the land you can hold your intention and raise your awareness to what is being shown to you. You can also listen to some meditative music and see what comes.

I thought it would be interesting to set up a forum to share the information we have received. If you receive some pertinent and helpful information that you feel our global community would benefit from hearing, you can send in a message to stories@sandraingerman.com. Only do this if you feel called to share. For obvious reasons please keep your messages short and to the point. One of the teachings in shamanism is that less words carry more power. For often the important teachings and wisdom can be lost in too much of the story of the journey.

Sylvia Edwards, our webmaster, will collect the messages. If there are too many messages to share within the August Transmutation News, then we will create a separate section of messages that will be posted. It will appear under the link for the July Transmutation News. Let us join our hearts together to thank Sylvia for helping us share the potent and helpful messages we receive.

I feel this is a deep and rich topic that is important for all of us to explore in our own ways. There is a lot to reflect on as we turn to shamanism to provide answers and help for the times we live in. How can we keep the field where shamans have always worked clean from our ordinary energies that might prevent the manifestation of the true power of our dreaming work?

The full moon is July 19. Let us gather in the pure field of our own inner landscape and reflect on the seeds we have planted in our inner garden and what is growing within us and in the world. Is our garden filled with the energies of light and love that we would like to see manifest in the web of light we are creating? Take time to reflect on if you need to clean up your own inner garden/landscape. And then travel within beyond the world of form into the depths of your own light. Allow your light to radiate through you into the field of energy, the web of light that connects all that is alive on this great Earth.

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

Transmutation News – May 2016

Over the months (and years) the focus of the Transmutation News has been directed towards bridging daily spiritual practices into our lives to improve our own health and well-being, that of the communities we live in, and on behalf of all of life and the planet. This of course is work to be continued. For the outer world reflects our inner state of consciousness. And working with spiritual practices is where we have so much power to create change if we really use concentration and focus as I wrote about in April.

So much is unraveling and there is little we can depend on in the outer world for safety. I do not have to go into talking about the unraveling in politics, the economy, the environment, or people’s state of mental health that is leading to violent acts against life.

When we look at different perspectives and let ourselves view different dimensions of reality we can observe through feeling and using our invisible/psychic senses how the vibration and frequency of the Earth itself is changing. And this is all part of the Earth’s evolution.

I think the changing of the Earth’s vibration and frequency is having a huge impact on people’s physical and mental health as unless you are consciously aligning yourself with the new energy you are no longer living connected and in harmony with the Earth.

In a meditation I was guided for all of us to join together to work with the ancient ones to find ways to align with the changing vibration and frequency of the Earth. Of course, spending more time in nature sitting, walking, and/or lying on the ground is one way to harmonize with the Earth’s vibration and heartbeat.

And you can perform a meditation or shamanic journey to merge with Earth to experience the new vibration by becoming Earth.

I was guided for us to use ceremony to visit what I was told is “The Cave of the Ancient Ones” to find ways to align with Earth’s changing vibration.

You can put on some expansive music and listen and just dive into your own inner landscape to find this territory.

You can journey and follow the same path I have given you in the past months to travel to the place where we have been working. Your intention once there is to find “The Cave of the Ancient Ones”.

For those of you who want me to repeat the path to travel on in a journey or meditation here it is:

Choose a day to perform this experience when you can hold a relaxed but focused attitude. Close your eyes and begin to travel into the invisible realms. As we have done in the last couple of months, walk the path from the room you are journeying or meditating in. You might find yourself walking down a path that is surrounded by tall, beautiful, strong, and healthy trees. The earth you walk on is fine and you are stepping on rich dark soil. You can feel your footsteps making an impression on the earth. As you walk you listen to the beauty of the sounds in nature and take in the exquisite fragrances shared by the local trees, plants, and air which gives us life. Is there grass growing? What other nature beings are in this place? You can even experience how the air tastes. Notice if there is a body of water in this place, and if you can hear running water. Feel the power of the sun as it is setting, and the stars and moon above start to shine their beautiful light.

As you walk feel your heartbeat and just notice what you are feeling. We have taken the time to open our hearts in love to each other. Feel your connection to a family of like-minded souls who do everything possible to be in service to others and to the Earth.

As you continue to walk you arrive at a large clearing. Use your imagination to see, feel, hear, smell, taste all that is around you in this clearing. Step fully into this clearing rather than watching your journey/meditation/daydream as if it was a movie. Be here now. Give thanks to all the helping spirits you continue to work with who are now also part of our circle.

As you enter the clearing you will be met by a guardian spirit who will cleanse you on a spiritual level. This compassionate spirit might cleanse you with incense, or a feather, or sing over you, or touch your hair, or whisper a message into your ear. Be open and know these are helping spirits who wish to help you feel unburdened by your ordinary thoughts and concerns.

Notice the fire burning strong in the middle of the clearing. This is the same fire that has been burning for months receiving the blessings we wish to manifest and the wounds we wish to transform. Step up the fire and listen to the crackling sound and smell the smoke. Sit with the fire for awhile and ask it for a message. Fire is intelligent, alive, and a true source of wisdom. Before moving onto the next step of our work share with the fire a dream for yourself and the planet you wish to see manifest. Feed the fire with the beauty of this dream for all of life.

Now leave the fire and keep walking allowing your own inner compass and intuition to guide you to “The Cave of the Ancient Ones” You will come to a mountain ahead of you with the opening of a cave you can easily step into. You notice when you step into the cave that the earth is red. As you walk further you will notice a fire that is lighting the cave so you can easily see around you. When you touch the walls of the cave you can feel the softness of the red earth. It is like red clay but has a soft and earthy quality to it.

Look around you. You will notice that there are ancient symbols carved into the walls of the cave. These are not symbols you have seen before – except maybe in a dream, journey, or meditation. There are no books that contain or talk about these symbols.

Find a symbol that draws you to it/ calls you to it. One of your invisible senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste is awakened by this symbol.

Put your hands on the symbol and stand and be still as the symbol shares its energy with you. These symbols were carved into the walls by the ancient ones to give us a map of the future and how to align our energies with the changes ahead.

As you feel this energy fully enter your body sit or lie down with your eyes closed. Breathe deeply allowing the key to the wisdom of this symbol to be unlocked as you feel the energy swirling through your body and soul. This knowledge awakens something deep inside of you. This knowledge is how to align yourself with the changing frequency of the Earth. This knowledge speaks to your psyche and the seed of life and knowledge within. This knowledge bypasses your conscious mind as you cannot understand this on a rational level.

Continue to breathe slowly focusing on your breath. And notice how your breath changes as your body starts to change its vibration to align with the knowledge of this symbol that holds the new frequency of the Earth. Deepen your breathing and now to align with the heartbeat of the Earth itself.

Stay here just soaking in what you need. And with a sense of renewed energy and a new gentle vibrational shift choose to leave this place when you feel your work here is done.

Taking your time slowly retrace your steps back to the room you are journeying or meditating in. Keep breathing and experiencing the vibration of the Earth that is now changing and will continue to change over time. Give thanks to the ancient ones who provided these symbols for all of us to be able to work with to harmonize with the new energy of the Earth.

Open your eyes feeling completely grounded knowing you can visit the “Cave of the Ancient Ones” at any time you feel you need to take a time out and realign with the new vibration, energy, frequency, heartbeat of the Earth.

The full moon is May 21. Using the new energy and vibration you are now feeling coursing through your body prepare yourself for your transfiguration work. And let us join our divine light as a global community and pulse our light together within and throughout the Earth lighting up all of life with our beauty, brilliance, and radiance.

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

Transmutation News – September 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transmutation News – January 2013

Let us join our radiant energies together as we wish everyone a Happy New Year! We have gone through many personal changes. We have also experienced many in the world around us. And throughout all that has occurred, our global circle continues to hold you and all of life in love and light. Experience and soak in the love and light of the circle. Continue to feed that love and light. Giving and receiving is all part of one cycle.

Take some time out of your daily routine. Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down and imagine yourself being in a beautiful place in nature. Take some deep breaths and notice where you are feeling any tension in your body. Breathe into the tension and let it go. Allow the energy behind the tension to be transmuted into light.

Start to align your breathing with the heartbeat of the earth. Notice if the rhythm of your heart is out of alignment with the heartbeat of the earth. By simply stating your intention to create balance, allow the rhythm of your heartbeat to align with that of the earth.

As you do this, start to experience the vastness of your energy field. Allow your energy to keep expanding while you let go of your limitations.

Life in the physical and material form is like a garment made of many-colored threads. There is a range of colors and experiences that we all experience in life.

There are very dark shadow states that are filled with anger, despair, and fear that can lead people to acting in unthinkable ways.

The range goes from the darkest states to the highest brightest state of light. This is all part of nature as in nature there are different cycles. There are different cycles in the day. There are different seasons we are all part of. And there are the different lunar phases.

We all have deep compassion for those who suffer during tragedies. We all grieve when children in all countries around the world die from violent behavior. We grieve for all the species that are killed from ignorant behavior towards the value of all of life.

We grieve and have compassion and at the same time we must also pick the color thread that we want to be that makes up the garment of the physical world. Other ways of experiencing this might be what is the musical note or chord you want to sing in the choir of life? What is the frequency you wish to contribute to the vibration of life?

The time is now to make a choice and fully become that color, that musical note, or that vibration. Experience it fully now. Radiate that color, sound, or vibration into the world. Make a commitment to continue to be a vessel of unconditional love and light into the world.

This is what is needed for the healing and evolution of the planet.

When you feel ready, come back into the room you are in with a renewed sense of commitment about being in service.

I was reflecting on what in the practice of shamanism is called “The Shaman’s Death”. I know many of you reading The Transmutation News do not practice shamanism. But this type of initiatory death does appear in all spiritual traditions.

There are no exercises that one can lead in any type of workshop that provides a true “shamanic death”. Life brings this initiation to us. We might experience a “spiritual death” spontaneously in a meditation, journey, or dream. But you cannot plan for such an initiation as it comes in its own timing. This true initiation has no safety net. In such an initiation we lose the identity we are attached to on an egoic and personality level. The recreation and rebirth come as we learn to journey within and find our inner voice and authentic self.

Life circumstances that provide such a death experience are typically very harsh as the turbulence of life helps to reshape us and sculpt us into our true nature and strips away anything that is inauthentic and no longer serves us. In the end as we surrender to our new identity, we emerge reborn and refreshed.

I am bringing this up now as I feel that so many of you have been experiencing this type of death/rebirth. Life circumstances are creating shifts and changes within that lead us to the place of evolution we talk about and many write about. But again, this evolutionary experience is never pre-planned by our rational mind. Our soul creates this at just the right time.

I feel that the power of shamanism in the 21st Century is about journeying to our Inner World. We have been journeying within over the last years as we have been doing practices that cultivate a rich inner garden. We live on planet earth, which is a garden. And inside of us is a garden that needs to be cared for and cultivated. We are caretakers of our earth garden within and without.

The practices that I share in my books Medicine for the Earth, How to Heal Toxic Thoughts, and How to Thrive in Changing Times are filled with practices and meditations that help us to plant strong and healthy seeds. These practices and meditations also assist in removing plants that have grown deep roots that no longer serve our health and wellbeing.

I have shared all the practices I wrote about in my books on this monthly column in order to assist all of us in our global community who have been reading the Transmutation News. I have made the information available to everyone.

All of the practices I have shared over the years create a beautiful inner garden that led us to a place of understanding that “I am enough”. When you evolve into this place you are no longer thrown off center by all that happens around you. For you can now move through life from a place of being centered and from a stance of grace.

The New Year ushers in a feeling that we can “begin again”. Of course, we cannot go back and change the past. But we can spiral back to a place of deepening the practices that we have been doing that lead us to a richer and healthier inner environment.

Many of us feel we have new opportunities as we move into a new cycle. And we do. Every shift in season provides new opportunities for growth.

I suggest that as we look at beginning the year with new eyes and a desire to experience a richer and healthier life that we revisit our inner garden we have been cultivating.

Put on some nice relaxing music and travel into your Inner World with the intention of examining the soil in your garden. Don’t worry about the seeds and plants in your garden. Just examine your soil. Notice the texture, the depth of your soil, the level of moisture. Does your soil seem rich and fertile? Does it seem dry and uncared for?

Allow your own inner knowing to provide you with the instructions of what is needed to make sure the soil of your inner garden is rich, healthy, and fertile.

For your spiritual practices to take root you must have a healthy base of soil for any new seeds of knowledge, inspiration, creative spark to take root in and grow in.

Last month, to end 2012, I asked all of us to release what energies that do not serve us into a great cauldron of light.

This month to help to create rich soil in our inner garden I invite you to drink from the cauldron we created. Drink the light of the divine. Absorb this light. Take it in. Be fed by it. You deserve to be fed and nurtured by the love and light of life. Feel the healing power as this light is ingested and absorbed by all your cells. This light is eternal and ever abundant.

Now let us imagine taking a glass – a beautiful glass that you might use for a celebration. Fill this glass with the light and love of the cauldron. And let us raise our glasses as a global community toasting each other as we wish each other a glorious New Year.

The full moon is January 27. Let us open our hearts and embrace with love every living being on this earth. Let us give gratitude to earth, air, water, and fire for all the life and nurturance we receive from these life-giving elements.

Journey deep into your inner world and experience your divine light. Let that light flow through you as it merges with the light of each of us as we continue to weave a beautiful, potent, and strong 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 of this site.

I wish all of you a joyous New Year filled with the best that life has to offer!

Transmutation News – January 2012

It is an exciting time as we welcome in the New Year and the much-anticipated arrival of the year 2012.

Before you continue reading this month’s column take a minute to close your eyes. Imagine thousands of people around the world who have been reading the Transmutation News in many languages and who have been focusing together to radiate light throughout the planet.

Take some deep breaths and imagine yourself breathing into and through your heart. Experience the love you feel for life. Life is so precious. Now allow your heart to fill with love for all of us in our global community dedicated to being a light in the world and dreaming into being a beautiful dream for all of life. Radiate that light and also absorb the light shining back to you. Breathe universal love – breathe it in and breathe it out.

When you feel that you have radiated love and light throughout our global community and the earth itself open your eyes and continue reading.

Together we wish you the best for the New Year!! Take a deep breath and experience the blessings sent to you from our circle.

For thousands of years spiritual traditions have shared that life is a dream. These teachings show us that our outer world is a true projection.

Neville taught that the whole world is yourself pushed out. Personally, that phrase has great meaning for me.

Our world is created from our thought forms. Just reflect on this for a minute. The phrase “thought forms” means that our thoughts create form.

All my life I have truly understood that we were born to experience ourselves as spirit who came here to manifest form just like the creator/creative forces of the universe manifested this great earth.

For we came here to manifest joy, beauty, and love. We came here to learn to be a reflection of our creator.

As we welcome in the New Year let us take this month to reflect on what thought forms we are creating as form in the world.

Many people make New Year’s resolutions for a variety of changes they wish to see.

Let us make a resolution to see a bright future and to focus on the thoughts needed to manifest a beautiful dream into being for all life on earth.

Keep holding a positive vision for the world. Remember that what we give energy to we give life to.

Be diligent about holding strong to a vision of a world filled with peace, love, light, harmony, and abundance for all.

Continue to use all your senses to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste what such a world would be like as if it is happening right now. And don’t experience this creation as if it was a movie. Step into this world and live it. Give it form!

We must learn to let go of the immediate outcomes and what we are seeing on the news.

We are in a process of evolution and this process requires all of us to stay true to our dreams. I truly believe so many of us give up too easily and lose focus as soon as we don’t get immediate results.

As time speeds up the results of our practices do manifest at an exponential speed. It is so important to stay focused. For so many of us want to dream a beautiful dream but find ourselves falling into fear and anger. And the power of the energy that we feed our fear and anger with often supersedes the energy for the beauty and love we wish to manifest.

This is such a powerful time of learning. What do you have to lose if you decide to let go of feeding the nightmare and choose to focus on a bright and beautiful dream?

I think we have more to lose when we simply give up and allow our fear and anger to lead us.

Part of the teaching during this evolutionary process is to raise your consciousness and become a being of light, love, and peace.

Yes, this is a work in progress so keep your focus!! And let us support each other as we join our hearts and thoughts together to stay focused on a bright present and future. For what we can do as one is exponentially increased when we work together.

A few times during last year I asked you to meditate or journey to meet your creator/the creative forces of the universe. The purpose of the work we did together was to first learn who created you and all of life. And then I asked you to experience the universal love that went into your creation and to really absorb that love into every cell of your being.

To begin the New Year I would like to move forward with this practice. If you did not do this exercise previously, please do so now.

Once we experience the universal love that went into our creation it is time to also experience the power that lives within us that is a true reflection of our creator. For as we are born from God, the goddess, the creative forces of the universe, the power of the universe, etc. we are that power too.

And it is time for us to tap into that spiritual power and use it for the good of all. It is important to remember that power is the ability to transform and transmute energies. And when we truly experience universal love then we will always use our power to work in cooperation and collaboration with life itself and not misuse it to gain power over others.

Many of us have allowed ourselves to get stuck in the collective dream that is only addressing what is going on in the material world. Yet I know so many of us crave to go to a deeper depth of what life is about. For when we only look at the material world at some point life starts to lack meaning.

In order to go to a deeper depth to engage with life on different levels we have to transcend the collective beliefs. And the only way we can do this is to deepen our spiritual work. And this means to explore the truth of who we are which is spirit. We have been doing this through our transfiguration work.

Another aspect of this is to meditate/journey to the creator/creative forces of the universe. In this experience ask to be shown the truth of who you are and the spiritual power that lives inside of you to be used for the good of all of life. And ask how you can use your creative potential at this time on the planet. Ask for simple steps that you can start to use immediately.

Whether you meditate or do a formal shamanic journey let the creator/creative forces guide you. You will get the information you need if you really allow yourself to sink within to the depth of your spirit.

When you get caught up in the collective dream and beliefs and start to experience pain and suffering you can give thanks to your inner spirit for unburdening you from your pain and suffering. You can release your pain to your inner spirit which knows how to transform all.

It is also important to continue the practice we have done together of observing through spirit eyes what is happening in your life and the world around you. You can do this by meditating to experience your divinity and then look at all in your life through the eyes of spirit.

I do lead an exercise on looking at the world through the eyes of spirit on my CD “Shamanic Meditations”. For those of you who are English speakers you can get more guidance by listening to the guided meditation that I lead.

But in reality, you just need to set a strong and clear intention to allow yourself to go to your inner spirit and observe life through the perspective of your divine spirit.

The more we can sink into this level of awareness the more we can shift out of the collective dream and limiting belief systems and focus together to be a unified force of positive transformation in the world.

I would like to suggest a ceremony to welcome in the New Year.

Pick a day at the beginning of January when you can let go of your list of all you have to do. Decide on a day when you can spend a significant amount of time-sharing love and appreciation for life.

You can take a walk in nature and/or you can spend a day in quiet meditation.

Either in silence or with the aid of relaxing and expansive music radiate universal love to all the waters throughout the earth. Really experience yourself in your divine light and radiate love. The waters of the world will carry this love to the earth and all of life.

Keep focusing on radiating love and light to the waters of the world on a daily basis. With so many thousands of people doing this around the world we will create great healing. Share this practice with others in your local community and personal community.

Then on the full moon, which is January 9, fill up a glass of water and leave it out for the day. The water will continue to collect and absorb all the blessings that have been shared by our global community.

At the end of the day drink this water and fully absorb the love and light of the water and the blessings that have been shared by all of us.

We continue our work on January 9, the full moon, as we radiate light throughout the web of light that connects all living beings on this earth. Let us give thanks for the spirit that lives in all things and embrace all with universal love.

If you are a new reader of The Transmutation News please read “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the homepage of this site for the instructions for our monthly ceremonies.

I wish you all a year filled with light, love, and with deep and meaningful adventures!

Happy New Year!!

Transmutation News – August 2008

The fires in California that have occurred this summer brought up quite a bit of emotion for me. I had students and friends who lost their homes or were in danger of losing them. I have friends whose health became seriously challenged by the smoke created by all the fires. I received a variety of emails speaking to the effect of the fire on the animals. I was very touched by a siting of a mother bear carrying her cubs toward the ocean to try to escape the fire. I continued to receive emails asking for prayers and help.

In the past I have written that we are in a time of great change. There is a part of climate change that has been created by humans by the lack of respect for nature and helping to keep balance in nature. We have to ask what kind of life form destroys its environment? And then we also have changes that are a part of a cycle as the earth evolves and changes.

The reason doesn’t matter at this point. The key is to keep up our spiritual work.

Keeping with this, I have spent the last couple of months writing away. In July I completed the writing of a new book of how we can come together as a global community to use spiritual methods to create change. For as we have been working over the years there is so much potential we have to create change if we would make a decision to focus our spiritual energies together.

This new book I have written has not sold to a publisher yet. But I am sure a publisher will pick it up. And I will give you more information once this happens.

It is so interesting to listen to publishers’ responses to books written about healing the earth. They say that the public is so overwhelmed by the problems happening today they don’t want to read books about healing the planet. Readers are more interested in their own personal healing.

I can certainly understand this. I do write that we must continue our own personal healing. But as the earth is the home where we live we can’t abandon taking care of our home. We can do both at the same time. We would never say I am not going to grow food this year because I am involved in my own personal process. We have to garden and take care of ourselves simultaneously. And as we heal ourselves we ultimately heal the planet.

When Gandhi was asked if he thought India would be liberated from England he said, “That’s none of my business. But I do my work because I am here to serve. Because it is right to try.”

In this regard I am thankful to you readers who are working together to create change on the planet. We do not know what the end result will be but I am thankful to be working with a community who continues to do the work.

I am also co-writing a book with Hank Wesselman who is a wonderful shamanic teacher and writer. The book came out of a vision I had to join together with some other shamanic teachers and writers to teach about what shamanism is, what practices are part of shamanism, and describing different practices we can engage in to transform ourselves and the world around us. I invited board members and advisory board members of the Society for Shamanic Practitioners to contribute to the book. And Hank and I will weave all the different material together. This book did sell to Sounds True who published my book Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner’s Guide as well as my audio CD lectures.

Once we have the contract signed I will share with you the title and the expected date of publication.

I am a board member of the Society for Shamanic Practitioners and you can learn more about the organization by visiting www.shamansociety.org.

Love heals. I think we all understand this teaching. There is a difference between knowing you are loved by the creator, the earth, the elements, and nature and feeling that love throughout your body and on a cellular level.

People are attracted to trance states. And I think the reason for this is that when we get into an expanded state of awareness we typically bypass the mind and can feel more in our body and on a cellular level. And it’s on this level that true healing happens. When we can feel fully how much we are loved we not only heal on a personal level but we heal the planet too.

This month journey or meditate to feel the unconditional love of the universe. Some of us who did not get the love we needed as children need to feel the love of the male creative forces; some of us the female creative forces. Whether you use the terms father or mother god, the goddess, earth mother connect with the creative energies to feel true unconditional love in your body.

In the June 2008 Transmutation News I did ask you to go back and experience how much love went into your creation by the creator. The next level is to fully feel it and try to hold that feeling more each day. As we engage with others in the outer world we often lose our ability to feel the unconditional love that life continues to share with us.

There is no light without love. To fully be a light in the world you must feel love.

Dave in Ireland gave me permission to share his lovely story of creation with us.

Creation Journey

“In the beginning there was a breeze, a dancing warm playful movement, seeking and searching. Something like heat and warmth, something like music – soothing, moving, transforming, smiling. The breeze was lonely. It loved itself and could form anything. It had only one intent. It wanted to feel and be felt.

The breeze became a whisper in the dark, a stirring and echo, a vibration, a breath, and it began to form, to interact, to relate, to intertwine. It had only one intent, it wanted to speak and be heard.

The whisper became a seed, bursting with potential – a seed that could grow into anything, and become anything and that seed had only one intent. It wanted to grow and become.

That seed became me and within me the breeze still stirs and the whispers echo. We have only one intention we want to love and be loved.”

Over the months I have been asking you to watch your thoughts and the words you use throughout the day. Linde in Austria found an interesting note in a German magazine called “Focus on Light”. It was a report about the idea of Will Bowen for a complaint free world. You can learn more about his work by visiting www.acomplaintfreeworld.org

From reading about his work Linde suggested that we can be supported in watching our thoughts and words by wearing a bracelet. If you find yourself complaining you change the bracelet to the other arm.

She said that the idea helps you to be very aware of your thoughts and words and the use of the bracelet is the visible outcome of your inner attitude. She used one of her bracelets to try it out. And she felt it was an interesting experiment.

In March I co-taught with Kappy Strahan an advanced workshop on the “The Spiritual Practice of Spinning”. One of the exercises I gave participants was to make a bracelet for someone else in the group. The intention was when we each wore the bracelet and looked down at our wrist we would ask ourselves the question, “What are you thinking right now?”

The intention was to become more aware of what we were thinking and then to replace any negative line of thinking with thinking that would lead us to our desired outcome for our own life and for the world.

I still wear my bracelet each day and I find it very helpful. You can make a bracelet out of yarn, string, or beads. Use your imagination. Just hold the intention that this bracelet is to help you become more conscious of the thoughts and words you use.

And as Linde suggests you can try moving the bracelet to your other wrist when you find yourself complaining or thinking defeatist thoughts.

Kappy and I are co-teaching a multi-level workshop on The Spiritual Practice of Spinning November 6-9 in Santa Fe. It’s a chance for those who wish to learn how to spin fiber into yarn with intention to join those of us who love to gather together to spin with intention in a group. For more information please email Ruth Aber at: aruthabelle@aol.com

The full moon is August 16. Creating a human web of light around the world is a powerful way to work to create change. We continue to experience the divine light of the planet and of all of life. In this way we continue to weave a new fabric of reality into being.

And we continue our monthly group healing to help those in our community that need some healing help. For instructions please visit Creating A Human Web of Light on my homepage.

I was asked by Sounds True to contribute an essay on Medicine for the Earth for their new book: Measuring the Immeasurable:

The Scientific Case for Spirituality. Below is some more information on the book.
Available: September 1, 2008
Can your thoughts heal another person, even from across the globe? Can meditation create “superhuman” levels of perception? Do prayer and intention actually affect reality? A few decades ago, scientists would have dismissed such ideas as superstition. Today, a growing body of persuasive research has turned many scientific thinkers into believers in the power of spiritual practice. Measuring the Immeasurable brings together some of the most prominent and informed authorities on the new frontier where science and spirituality intersect.
Synopsis
The scientific evidence continues to mount to support and question
spirituality. An essential collection of new essays and research from today’s most compelling pioneers of “frontier science.”

Praise
“Measuring the Immeasurable is a superb collection examining the
relation of science and spirituality. Full of insights from some of the
most respected names in the field, it is highly recommended.” Ken
Wilber, The Integral Vision
Contributing Authors
Jeanne Achterberg, Ph.D., Tina Amorok, Psy, D. James H. Austin, M.D., Denise Bendl ,Gregg Braden, Dawson Church, Ph.D. Karin Cooke, Larry Dossey, M.D., RobertA. Emmons, Ph.D., Les Fehmi, Ph.D, Owen Flanagan, Daniel Goleman, Joan H. Hageman, Ph.D., Rick Hanson, Ph. D., Sandra Ingerman, Katherine N. Irvine, Ph.D., Leila Kozak, Stanley Krippner, Ph. D., James Lake, Peter Levine, Ph.D., Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., Justin Mager, Nancy Marriott, Lynne McTaggart, Dan Moore, Andrew Newberg, M.D., Candace Pert, Ph.D., Kenneth Rachlin, Dean Radin, Todd Richards, Jim Robbins, Peter Russell, Suzanne C. Segerstrom, Ph.D., Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D., Dan Siegel, M.D., Gary Small, M.D. Leanna J.Standish, Charles Tart, William Tiller, Ph. D., Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D., Sara L. Warber, M.D., Ian Wickramasekera, and Garret Yount, Ph. D.

Various authors
Hardcover, 552 pages
U.S. $24.95
Category: Spirituality, Science
ISBN-10: 1-59179-654-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-59179-654-1

Category: Shamanic Journey