Transmutation News – April 2024

I know most of you feel significant changes in your life, work, and spiritual practices. Although many people I know don’t agree with me, I feel strongly that this world is a play, and we are actresses and actors in this play of life. We play a role for a while and then something happens, and we lose our part and a different role for us emerges. Or we make a conscious decision to remove our old costume and find a role that now suits our level of consciousness.

A metaphor seems to be emerging for me in weaving together conversations on social media, the news, and having deep conversations with others. It feels to me like on many levels the curtains have been closed for some of us. And we are in the wings examining new costumes with new colors and textures and exploring taking on a new part, a new role that reflects the huge changes we have made in consciousness.

I am working with people now who are facing the biggest decisions of their lives and if they will still be alive. I have so many students who are finding new avenues to share what they are learning in their spiritual practices such as creating stronger communities, helping people using spiritual practices who are dying, creating fire ceremonies in their communities to help people learn the power of letting go of a lot of the burdens we carry, and the list goes on.

We have a new generation of practitioners who are not only being trained by human teachers but also are getting amazing new healing information from helping spirits and from Nature itself. And they are stepping into new roles of service as with every new lesson we embrace we change the world around us.

My friend HeatherAsh Amara is truly a brilliant writer and teacher. Recently, in her substack column, she wrote an article about coming out of challenges. HeatherAsh’s land was deeply impacted by one of the biggest fires in the U.S. set by the fire service not paying attention to how high the winds were blowing. Some of the oldest and sacred rural areas of New Mexico were literally destroyed.

 HeatherAsh doesn’t write fluff. She deeply goes into what she is seeing from her perspective and practices and new ways of living we need to adopt as the world changes so rapidly.

In her column, she brings up the issue of spiritual bypass. She questions if only looking at the positive is a healthy way for us to live, and do we sweep under the rug things we can be doing to be in service.

Our perceptions do create our reality. This is one of the main teachings of the Medicine for the Earth work. It is to keep us positive so we can keep moving forward and not sit down in the dark. We can drown in negativity and start projecting it out into the world in very unhealthy ways. And so there is a big role for keeping positive and staying grateful for your life.

Many people today want to do something to help and there are endless ways. There are many of us who are elders who are taking the traditional role of doing deep inner work and preparing for our own death. This takes us into being a true healing presence in the world. Yes, being in meditation, taking walks in nature, and being in deep reflection, or finding inner peace all contribute to the health of the planet.

But are there more ways you can make a difference? HeatherAsh wrote out a list of some simple practices that you can add to the spiritual work you are doing if you are so disturbed by what you are observing in your community and in the world.

From HeatherAsh:

“Three actions every week, one local, one global, one self-care

Volunteer. Donate. Pick up groceries for a neighbor. Call your representatives. Make art. Replenish your inner battery. Reduce your use of the precious, and limited, resources of water, electricity, etc. Support a local business. Help send someone to school. Google “how can I help…” Lean into organizations that are on the ground in the areas you want to support. 

Set aside time each week/day/month to take action in your local community and your global community, AND to replenish yourself.

Drink lots of water, rest, and resource yourself. Find joy where you can. Don’t guilt, shame, or blame yourself or others. Let’s use creativity, intuition, compassion, fierce love, and tenderness as our guides.”

There was a period in my life when I was taking a sabbatical from my work. I wanted to make sandwiches for children at the Food Depot. I had called. I was so excited. I had my hair nets! They were happy to have a new volunteer. Unfortunately, I had a family emergency, and my life went in a different direction for a few beautiful and very challenging years.

But I still find ways to contribute outside of the shamanic work I do and it helps the community I live in which just feels like an act of sacred reciprocity to me.

There is an inner smile that we naturally experience when we reach out to help others.

HeatherAsh’s article is deep beyond my words here. Here is how she ends her writing:

“Remember, beloveds. Both, and. We can’t hide from the hurt and harm happening around us. And we also can’t allow ourselves to drown in our / other’s anger, fear, or struggles. We need to foster creativity and sustainable, willing action. We want to learn how to hold the long view AND take action in the short term. 

These are a few of the heartbreaking things. 

May our hearts break open to more fierce love, more wild compassion, and more willing action towards the local, and global, vision of equality, freedom, and happiness for ALL beings.”

To read her entire article here is a link:

These are a few of the heartbreaking things

By HeatherAsh Amara from Out of the Fire

https://heatherash.substack.com/p/these-are-a-few-of-the-heartbreaking

Or here is a Google link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BPUjR_LOUmZArwr8PPZdCGkLP1a3EvFmHCTSdkwCIyg/edit?usp=sharing

The full moon is April 23. We celebrate the Pink Moon this month. Let’s drop our robes that hold the consciousness of separation and focus on oneness. You know the work you need to do for our ceremony Creating a Human Web of Light. Let’s fully connect as one loving light-filled energy that keeps circling within and throughout our great Earth.

If you are new reader of the Transmutation News, please read the instructions for Creating a Human Web of Light on the homepage.

I am re-reading Walking Through Darkness: A Nature-Based Path to Navigating Suffering and Loss. I will be re-reading it again and again. There is so much wisdom I want to really deepen my own experience with.

Recently I found an old folder of insights that I had a few years ago. I was actually working on a very small book to share these. Some of them are so profound that starting next month I will be weaving them into the Transmutation News.