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!
Copyright 2017 Sandra Ingerman. All rights reserved.