Transmutation News – June 2002

In a great time of change, as we are in now, there are different ways to react. Many people react with fear that often leads to anger. Many people look to outside authority for direction on how to feel safe. Many people flow with the changes well and see change as an opportunity for growth.

Some people appreciate what they have while others complain about what they don’t have. Some people experience their glass as half full while others as half empty.

This all boils down to an issue of perception, as it is our perception which creates our reality.

As many people fear for their future we see a movement around the world of people choosing right wing forces to create more control and a perceived feeling of safety. Many people are returning to organized religion for the same reason. Many of us have been conditioned not to believe that each of us has the ability to create our present our future. This leads to people wanting to put their lives in the hands of others who say, “Don’t worry, follow me, listen to what I tell you to do and you will be safe”.

Throughout history we have learned this does not work. But people don’t always learn from history.

Those of you reading this know you have personal power to create change. There are no political, religious, or spiritual leaders to do it for us. The power lies in each and every one of us.

It is important as we watch people around us react with fear and anger not to get pulled out of ourselves. Once again, as I have mentioned many times, it is important to stay focused. When we get pulled out of ourselves and lose focus it is hard for us to receive our own spiritual guidance. What we do on the spiritual level does make a difference. But we must accept that the changes our work makes might not always be obvious to us on the physical.

I heard recently that a rabbi, who was obviously in a state of great grief after a suicide bombing said, “What is the use of praying anymore?” It is easy to see how one can lose faith in the invisible forces when so much violence is being acted out on the physical. But we cannot say how situations might evolve without our prayers and spiritual work. There are forces working that we don’t understand. There are foundations and structures that need to end so that evolution and growth can take place. There is more than what the eye can see to what is happening right now.

I had an interesting journey around the issue of judgment and judging. The helping spirit who was speaking with me shared that to judge appropriately we must understand everything about the person or situation we are judging. This is virtually impossible as there is so much about people and life circumstances that we will never understand.

So we tend to judge without a true understanding of what we are judging. The bottom line is don’t judge when you don’t understand.

We must stay true to the truth that lives in our hearts which is in order to create a more harmonious way of living change must occur. As human beings so many of us have to be pushed to our limits before we will change. What we are seeing on our planet is a result of people not willing to let go the behavior that no longer serves all of life. We are being shaken up in the core of our beings. As I have said before move with the changes or suffer the changes. The spiritual work that we do helps us to learn how to move with grace instead of react and resist.


Earth, air, water, and fire are living beings and we need to work in partnership with them. and not try to impose change on them. Partnership, cooperation, collaboration is all strengthened with relationship.

Over the last four months we have together as a great worldwide circle honoring all the elements. This work must be kept up. The rituals we performed should not be only done one time. Ritual and ceremony establishes relationship. We can keep up the potent work of honoring the elements around us and which comprise our physical bodies. As we continue to do this work you will see changes in the physical world. All relationships improve in all worlds with honor, respect, love, and appreciation.

Love creates a feeling that life is magical. When we are in love we experience everything around us in a different light. The magic of life is fed by love. Think about some aspect of your life, nature, or an element that you are in love with. Feed the magic of this life force with your love. Watch your relationship deepen and grow with love.


This month let’s honor all the elements together. Do this by choosing elements at the place where you live – the earth you live on, the sources of water near you, the air you breath, the sun above you. Let’s honor all the elements and state our willingness to work in partnership. During this time as we are experiencing strife on the planet, let’s bring celebration for our lives into our ritual work this month. Celebration is an energy that tends “the garden”.

Let’s do this joyful celebratory work together on June 21 as we honor the summer solstice. Life is bursting forth and blooming all around us. Allow yourself to burst forth in dance and song today. A healing energy for the earth is joy. Even if your heart feels heavy about something in life allow yourself to feel joy by finding something to be in gratitude and appreciation for.


Your assignment for today is to speak to someone who you believe is closed down to his or her connection with nature. Mention something to them that you think is beautiful. You might say something like: “Isn’t the sky glorious today?” “Aren’t these flowers on the desk beautiful?” “That picture on the wall reminds me of the beauty of nature.”

Create a spark of appreciation for the beauty of life. Plant a seed of appreciation and joy in someone who is not in your inner circle that you work with spiritually. With thousands of us doing this together today we plant seeds with the knowledge that they will sprout in a way which nurtures all of life.

Please let’s join in together to continue to create a human web of light on the full moon which is June 24.

A friend of mine recently gifted me with a wonderful book I wanted to let you know about. The book is titled Kiss of God is written by Marshall Stewart Ball. Marshall is a brilliant child can neither speak or walk and depends on others for physical help.

I was touched and inspired by a child who seemingly has so many challenges to leading a joyful life, but experiences joy in his connection with God and the people he meets. He shares his love and inspiring words, which has an impact on everyone he meets.

And he inspires us through his absolute brilliance and love in his writings.

During a time when people look at what they don’t have, I found Marshall’s writing to bring me to absolute tears of how one can be in such appreciation and joy with what I perceive of a challenged life.

The book is published by Health Communications. I know you will be in awe of this being Marshall Stewart Ball when you read his story and his words. And I hope you be as inspired by his story as I was.


I have added some new trainings to the Training and Announcement Section of this web page. I hope you will go to it and look at the additions.

I will be teaching a weekend Medicine for the Earth gathering in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Oct 4,5,6 of this year.

In January 2003 I am teaching a new training I have not taught before. I feel that as the causes of illness today are different than in ancient times, our healing methods must be updated to deal with modern day illness. So much of the illnesses we are seeing today such as the epidemic rate of cancer and the increase in immune deficiency problems are a direct result of the chemical pollution in our environment.

Using the work of transfiguring into our divinity as well as learning how to merge with compassionate helping spirits, this training will focus on how to heal others by bringing through the power of the universe that knows how to heal and transmute illness. We will also look at how to transmute and transform illness and toxins in ourselves.

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Transmutation News – May 2002

In April I attended an extraordinary gathering in Oracle, Arizona which Shamanic Circles put on. Shamanic Circles is a non-profit organization that has been dedicated to networking people involved in the practice of shamanism worldwide. They also sponsor Carol Proudfoot’s workshops and co-sponsor my Medicine for the Earth gatherings. Through their web page ~ they have connected people around the world whom might not have people in their own communities to share their work with in shamanism. In the US. this is not so much of a problem. But in many countries there is not as much shamanic work going on and often people can feel quite alone in their journey. I appreciate Shamanic Circles for keeping the fires alive around the world where people can share their stories from where ever they live.

Carol Proudfoot, an extraordinary shamanic teacher and one of my closest sisters, founded Shamanic Circles. She is a true visionary.

About 115 of us came together from the US., Ireland, Israel, Japan, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, and England with a focused intention to work on behalf of the Sacred Hoop, the Tree of Life, and the Web of Life. Throughout our week we did ceremonies for transmutation and visioning. There were a variety of offerings of short workshops from teachers involved in shamanic work. Just to give you a sense some of the workshops offered were using shamanism to work with grief, plant spirit medicine, mask making, drum making, and others. It took us days to create a sand painting of a world map on a volley ball court at the site where we were. Also included in our time together we did an all night “Earth Renewal Dance” around a fire.

It was a wonderful experience to be around people who could keep their hearts open as we served one purpose together that of healing and renewing the earth.

There was a previous gathering two years ago and I look forward to more to come. I hope you will visit the Shamanic Circles web site.

As the levels of violence toward all of life continues as well as the unconsciousness to the sacredness of our environment we must step up our commitment in our spiritual practices. I recently heard that just the wing motion of one butterfly could alter a hurricane. Think about that. We talk about the web of life and how everything is connected. Here is an awesome example of how such a small being can effect such a giant life force.

Let’s use this metaphor to describe how the motion of our spiritual practices can affect the storms ravaging through earth today. I have asked you this question many times, and I will ask it to you again now: What are you willing to commit to in honor of the earth we live on, the air we breathe, the water that nourishes us, and the fire that gives us life? What are you willing to commit to for visioning a planet that embraces the principles of harmony within creates harmony without? What are you willing to commit to as you act as caretaker of the earth and all living beings?

Your commitment to your spiritual practices does make a difference. Skim through Medicine for the Earth, which is filled with suggestions of spiritual practices for transmutation which you can integrate into your life. Find one practice that you can focus on this month. Like the wings of the butterfly you will affect the movement of the “storms” around you.

So far since February we have done short simple ceremonies to honor water, earth, and air. It is now time to honor fire. Fire creates light in our lives. Fire is passion. There is no life without passion. Before we had electricity and heat the power of the sun and fire were honored daily. People around the world drummed up the sun for the sun coming up meant a new day of life. The sun gives power to plants that is passed onto us. The sun was worshipped by many around the world for the light it shared on all levels. The fire inside the earth keeps her life force burning.

As above, so below; as within, so without. We must honor the fire that lives inside of us.

During this month I ask you to merge with the fire which burns inside of you. Look at pages 152-155 in Medicine for the Earth where I write about merging with the elements. Check out the health of your own fire. Fire, as all living beings needs to be fed. Do you have too much fire burning in you causing you to be anxious or angry? Is your fire burning too low causing depression and fatigue? How balanced is your fire?

The full moon this month is May 26. Let’s all together wake up at dawn and greet the sun. You can drum up the sun, rattle up the sun, sing up the sun, dance up the sun, or be in silent meditation when the sun rises and greet it with the power of love in silence. You can do this alone or in a group. I know of groups who on a monthly schedule meet together to do a meditation in nature at sunrise.

Then during the day and evening of May 26 light a candle for a short period of time and meditate on the power of light and fire. Fire is known worldwide as the great transmuter. Journey and merge with fire and learn about fire by becoming it. Again the instructions to do this are on pages 152-155 of Medicine for the Earth. When I lead this journey in my trainings it is quite profound for people. There is so much we can learn from this great living force.

The principle we are using in the simple ceremonies I am suggesting is that as we join together in a great circle around the world to honor the elements, the elements will honor us in return.

May balance and harmony return to the earth and all living beings once again!!! Let’s together vision it as it is happening now.

Please remember to join in on Creating A Human Web of Light on the full moon May 26. There are so many thousands of people around the world of all traditions who have been joining in. It feels so good to connect our lights together.

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Transmutation News – April 2002

I hope that you honored the change in cycles as we moved into spring with performing the simple earth ceremony I suggested. Even though the rituals I have been suggesting are simple they are at the same time very powerful. As we have thousands of people at approximately the same time expressing gratefulness to earth this does make a difference.

As I live in the Southwest where we are experiencing once again a drought I have been watching the water situation in the world. I know some of you live in areas where you have received a lot of moisture. But the bottom line is that a good portion of the world right now is in drought.

On a previous web page I wrote that as we are no longer feeding our relationship with the earth, the earth is drying up. Honoring is one step to creating harmony and balance once again in our environment.

As we continue to watch the devastation of our environment it is easy to fall into a place of hopelessness. It is important to know that where we do have power is working in this world on the spiritual realms.

We need to once again recognize the sentient nature of our environment. We need to once again honor the elements as living beings. We need to honor the elements inside of us as well as the elements outside.

Through honoring we begin to establish a strong relationship. We cannot work in cooperation with nature. without a relationship with nature. Establishing relationships take time and work. What we are talking about here is joyful work. The joy that comes from being in communication with the elements and other living beings creates a feeling of connectedness. We all crave connection with the rest of life.

I don’t think what I writing here is news for those of you reading this page. And you might fall into a trap of thinking that if the rest of humanity does not see that the earth is alive what is the use. Every shift in consciousness that each person makes creates an exponential change on the planet.

There are many thousands of people who do honor earth and the elements as alive. The more each one of us chooses to commit to be in service to the earth change will occur. But we must commit to concentrate our efforts on establishing a strong relationship with the earth and the natural world daily not on an occasional basis.

By the act of honoring and expressing gratitude and appreciation for all you receive from the elements you keep feeding the relationship. You know in your own personal. relationships where there is honor and appreciation there is a strong bond.

I have been doing a lot of shamanic journeying on the drought. My own helping spirits have not been saying much. The drought is really a symptom of the bigger issue of how out of balance we are with nature.

But the interesting message that the spirits keep sharing with me over and over is that places will weather the drought where the spirit of the land is strong. I started to think about our bodies and immune systems and the strength of our spirit. When our spirit is raised and strong it is much easier to weather trouble in our lives. When our spirit is low it is hard to temper tough times.

As you nurture your relationship with the land where you live, you build on the relationship which will naturally strengthen the spirit which helps to carry all life through challenging times.

In sitting with all this you might ask yourself what you are willing to commit to? Putting our efforts together we can temper the environmental changes. It does take a commitment from all those who are willing to be in service to the earth.

In my own spiritual practice it has just become habit for me to give thanks to the elements for all I receive. Everyday I give thanks to the earth. As I drink and use water I give thanks. At different times of the day I give thanks to air as I breathe. I look up to the sun and thank it for its warmth and the power it gives to all of life. The affirmations I make are simple. Simple is good. The effect on me has been quite profound. It not only feeds my own spirit as I feel my connection to the web of life, it opens me up on a heart level. I have also found that my ability to receive life has expanded which strengthens my own spiritual self helping me tap into my spiritual light. Spiritual light is really what all of us are truly seeking.

You want to establish a new habit of honoring and being in a state of appreciation of how you are part of a great web of life. You might want to put little notes around your house or your office saying: “Have you fed your relationship with earth, water, fire, air today?”

In many transmutation news I have written that some of us must be willing to “keep tending the garden” while all the disharmony continues on the planet. One way to tend the garden is through what I just wrote about love and appreciation. You have I am sure visited a garden that has been fed with love. I am sure the light, spirit, and beauty of that garden touched you.

We also must learn how to hold the space by holding the light. This is so important during a time where our garden is not being honored by many and is being trampled by unconsciousness and ignorance. To hold the space and the light takes a great deal of concentration. Remember “concentration” is one of the elements of the formula for transmutation. To hold the space we must also keep our hearts open maintaining a state of love for our garden.

Try everyday to do a simple meditation. Imagine breathing through your heart. Think about some place on earth that you really love that is precious to you. Or think about some life form that is really precious to you. Keep that feeling of preciousness in your heart allowing your heart to expand in love. Keep breathing through your heart experiencing love for the garden of life.

If you are new to meditation just start with five or ten minutes a day. Building concentration takes time. So you want to meditate on holding the light only as long as you can maintain concentration. Have faith you will build up your ability to concentrate it just takes practice.

This month we want to join together and honor air. April tends to be a time when the winds increase so it is a good time to honor this life-giving element. When we are born the very first relationship we bond with is air as we take our first breath. Our relationship to this life ends as we breathe out our last breath. With every breath we are in relationship with air. In indigenous cultures it is believed that air through wind carries messages throughout the world.

The air we breathe gives us life. On the full moon of this month, April 26 (because of the time of the full moon it will be full on April 27 for some of us) throughout the day whenever you can remember to honor air for the life it brings to all life. Imagine the air as you take it in to be pure and holy. Imagine the air you breathe back out to be pure and holy. As we do all do this through out the day we honor the element of air and remind it that air is loved and appreciated by many.

Last month I invited you to write to me if you wanted to make a comment on the honoring ceremonies we have been performing.

A friend wrote me that I didn’t put in my address. I apologize for this faux pas.

You can reach me at:
Sandra Ingerman
P.O. Box 4757
Santa Fe, NM 87502

As I will be traveling and teaching most of the month part of it in Europe, please give me some time to respond to you.

Last month I did travel back to Brazil to visit Joao de Deus (John of God). I wrote about my extraordinary first trip to him in the August 2001 Transmutation News. He is in service by allowing his body to be a vehicle for spiritual entities to work through him to relieve the pain and suffering of others. It is quite extraordinary to watch him work and be worked on by the entities he brings through.

I choose to go to see Joao de Deus with Heather Cumming who serves as a wonderful expert guide and translator. You can take a look at her web page
http://www.healingquests.com

Heather and I planning to combine a five-day Medicine for the Earth training in Brazil with a week trip to visit Joao de Deus. Right now we are thinking about June 2003. 1 will give you more details, as I know more.

Please remember to join in on our full moon creating a human web of light meditation on April 26 or April 27 (depending on where you live).

Remember, it is only love that heals.

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Transmutation News – March 2002

I just returned from meeting with a group who participated in the five-day Medicine for the Earth Gathering in June of last year. We decided to meet again and share how our work has been going. It was very exciting to see how everyone is taking this work out into the world in his or her own way.

During one of our sessions we got into a discussion about transfiguration. In Medicine for the Earth I shared how in a dream I was told that this was the missing piece to the transmutation work I was attempting to share.

There was agreement with the entire group how invaluable the practice of transfiguration has been in each person’s lives. The positive changes that this practice has produced for everyone is quite exciting.

There is such brilliant work going on from all different groups around the world in working on solutions to our environmental issues. The piece that the Medicine for the Earth work brings to the puzzle is the process of transfiguration.

Although everyone in the group agreed that this process has been life changing there were a lot of questions of how to explain transfiguration to others. Sometimes we can experience spiritual practices and have a great effect from them, but it can be hard to find the words to share in the explanation. I figured if the people who are practicing transfiguration are confused on how to explain and understand the process you might be too.

As this is so key to the transmutation work I describe in Medicine for the Earth, I would like to explain it again.

In different esoteric teachings you will see the statement “as above so below, as within so without.” In our lives we often put spiritual sources of power outside of ourselves. We see God outside of ourselves, power animals and spiritual teachers outside of ourselves, deities outside of ourselves, etc. From a spiritual perspective these spiritual forces are “us” too.

In all my books I shared a message from “the voice” which came to me in a dream in the 1980’s. The voice said, “Man has been looking for God outside of himself for the last two thousand years. Man will be looking for God inside of himself for the next two thousand years.”

Transfiguration is a practice that helps us experience our own divinity in whatever form that takes to fit our philosophical, religious, and spiritual beliefs. The actual definition in Webster’s of transfiguration is shapeshifting. So in the process we shapeshift into a divine force.

Many saints, mystics, and spiritual masters are sometimes described as shining brighter than any light seen. This is the process of transfiguration. And the process is not reserved for spiritual masters. You can do it to.

When we look at the obsession today with gathering money, material objects, relationships, etc. what are people truly seeking? We are seeking spiritual light. We are just looking for it in all the wrong places. When we experience spiritual light through some divine force inside of us we are fulfilled. We realize that what we need in life is available to us in ourselves. We stop reaching to outside forces for safety, enlightenment, and happiness. We begin to get in touch with our creative energy. We start to transmute as we walk through the world.

If you have not been working with the process of transfiguration please look at the section which discusses the process in Medicine for the Earth. I am not suggesting you transfigure to a level where you cannot live your life and you have to move to a cave where people bring you food. There are many levels to the process. I am talking about getting in touch with your divinity and letting your light shine through you which will give you the power to manifest light and love in your life and transform those problematic forces which need to be transformed.

One of the questions that the group I was in spoke about is how there is not one way to transfigure. As people sat around talking about the process we realized that everyone did it in a different way. So although I offer suggestions in Medicine for the Earth you might find that you need to find your own way. You will find that you need to encompass all the elements of the formula for transmutation. You need a strong intention and must stay focused and concentrate on your intention. You need to embrace love for yourself and your divine nature and be clear that you are doing this to bring harmony within and without. You need to be in union with your creator. And you need to be able to imagine that you have the capability to transfigure into the divine.

I find in my own transfiguration practice my level of concentration only allows me to stay in this state for a short period of time. With practice one can maintain this state for longer periods. Again the end result we are looking for is carrying a light inside that transforms your life and the environment as you walk through the world.

I hoped you felt good about the water ritual you performed in February. I think it is very important to understand that the more we can work together as a collective the better results we will see in healing our environment, creating a new dream, and transforming consciousness.

A friend of mine shared with me the following excerpt that was on an online Reiki newsletter:

Global Consciousness is Being Measured by William Lee Reed

“A team of researchers headed by Roger Nelson of Princeton University has been conducting an experiment to measure the effects of focused global consciousness on random events. They have had some very interesting results.

Called the Global Consciousness Project, their experiment involves the use of 37 computers located around the world using random number generators to flip virtual coins. The experiment has been going on since 1998. Each computer flips 200 virtual coins at a time and the results of all computers are compared. The results are usually completely random, with the virtual coin tosses come up heads or tails 50% of the time.

However, when a global event takes place that focuses the attention of billions of people, the randomness of the coin tosses changes and they tend to go significantly more one way than another. In other words they become more coherent or non-random. This took place on September 11 when so many people worldwide were focused on the events of the World Trade Center disaster. This produced the strongest effect so far, but other events have coincided with changes in randomness too, including:

Each New Years Eve, the papal visit to Israel, the first hour of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, a variety of global meditations, several major earthquakes, the funeral for Princess Diana and last years sinking of Russia’s Kursk submarine.

This seems to indicate that consciousness has an effect on other wise random events.”


I spoke with Roger Nelson a few years ago as I was thinking of trying to get a random, number generator to use at my workshops. It was clear that I was not ready to work with one yet, as it is a quite complex system. But I think the point that is being shown is that when we focus together something happens.

Last month we focused together to let the element water including all the waters of the world know that we love you and appreciate all that you give to us. We placed pure water into a water source where we live to help water remember its purity and divinity.


As we will be celebrating the spring equinox together on March 20 I suggest that we honor “earth” together. On March 20 go outside and hold some soil in your hand. Rub the earth between your fingers. Give love and appreciation to “earth” for all it provides for us and for its life.

If the only way you can do this is with soil from a potted plant then use this. The point is, just do it!

As I wrote in a past transmutation news: The earth is alive and if we would deepen our relationship with it, it would once again produce an abundance that we can only imagine.

We must once again feed our relationship with “earth”. As our relationship with earth is drying up so is the earth.

Here is another practice that you can start with the beginning of spring. Plant some seeds in a pot in your house. You might consider using some herb seeds that are easy to grow like parsley. You can also get a new houseplant. Over the next months notice what thoughts and beliefs you are feeding “your garden”. See this plant as the garden of your life. Notice how you take care of “your garden”.

Notice how with nurturance your plant grows without being forced to grow.

This month be observant to how balanced you are in allowing growth and change in your life versus forcing it.

In a shamanic journey once, the Egyptian god Osiris said to me, “It doesn’t take real strength when one only uses will. Real strength is when one can open and surrender to the powers that be.”

If you would like to contact me about how the ceremonies for water and earth have been for you, please write me at P.O. Box Santa Fe, NM 87502. If there is any comments you would like publish on this web page let me know.

Please remember to join us in continuing to nurture the global web of light on the full moon which is March 28. If you have been practicing transfiguring into a divine force, you might wish to try transfiguring before you work with the web. You will find that your experience changes and what you contribute to the web is greatly amplified.
Next month we will perform a ceremony to honor “air”.

Happy Spring!!

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Transmutation News – February 2002

Every few months I contact the participants from my Medicine for the Earth trainings and we set up a time to do some long distance work together. At all the trainings where we are present together we have found that the work of transmuting water infused with the pollutant ammonium hydroxide has created a good change in pH. As we have been getting good results in working together I have felt it is important to work on issues long distance together.

The intention I set for the last long distance work we did together on December 16 was to transmute the quality of air at the World Trade Center in New York. I had also received a request from a resident in Nevada to ask for help with moisture for at the time Reno was experiencing a drought that was endangering water supplies which would endanger the migrating birds.

People either worked on their own or in the numerous groups that have formed to do the work. Two days after the work it was reported in the New York Times that the fires were officially out at the World Trade Center. Once I wrote up the request for people to work in behalf of the state of Nevada the storms started rolling in.

The fires going out at the World Trade Center and the storms coming into Nevada could be coincidence. As I wrote about in Medicine for the Earth the principle of ambiguity is essential for not taking egoic credit for the work. When we really don’t know what created an effect we stay in balance. I also wrote that Einstein said, “Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous”.

The spiritual work we do does make a difference and it is vital that we remain proactive with our spiritual work.

I would like to ask all of you to join in on some work that we can all begin to do together. I got the idea after hearing about Christian Bollman’s “Peace Pool Project”. He asked people to place prayers, sounds, and songs for peace into bodies of water which would then cycle through the waters of the world.

In working with the transmutation of pollution here is an adaptation that I would like to suggest. Researchers have found that water carries a memory. This means that water remembers the pollution that it carries. We also carry a cellular memory of trauma that has occurred to us. This is why the work of transfiguration is so important. It helps us remember our own divinity and the truth of who we are.

Depending on how much work you have done with the Medicine for the Earth material will depend on how you proceed with joining people around the world in ceremony. The purpose of the ceremony will be to imbue a container of water that you collect with the intent for the water to return to a state of purity and holiness. This water will then be placed into a large body of water where you live. As thousands of us do this we start to change the memory of water around globe to remember it’s purity and sacredness. The date that I propose we work on is February 27, which is the full moon. The energy of the full moon will magnify our work.

It’s important when we work with an element to really get to know the element. So please look up in Medicine for the Earth the section of working with the elements on page 149. Try to do some meditation this month with merging with water so you understand its nature before we work on February 27.

Sometime before February 27 collect some water from a stream, river, lake, creek, ocean that you can put in a cup or jar. If you do not live around any natural water source you can of course use water from your home. All water can be transmuted.

On February 27 pick a time where you can create a quiet space around you. You can do some drumming, rattling, dancing, and singing to get into a quiet space. As an alternative you can put on some music that is calming and slightly altering for you. Or of course you can sit in silence and bring yourself to center.

At this point if you have been working with transfiguration you would want to transfigure into a divine force. If you have not been working with this you can just tone or sing holding the intention to remember that you are divine. In this divine state you might find yourself singing into the water or holding the jar placing into it the intention that you honor the waters divinity and purity. Give prayers of love and appreciation for water as a giver of life.

Remember intention + love + union + harmony + focus + concentration + imagination = transmutation.

You will have an intuitive sense when the work is done. You now want to ground yourself and fully experience yourself present. If you transfigured into a divine force, with intention disengage from that force. Get up move around and if you can go outside and place your hands on the earth or sit with a tree for awhile. If you are in an urban area with no land around you can do a simple visualization. Visualize yourself sitting with a tree in nature. Experience the strong roots and how the roots ground the tree. Allow yourself to ground with your own luminous roots into the earth. This should help you feel centered and present again.

Whatever method you choose to do make sure you feel fully back and present. Get up and eat some food. Drink some water with deep appreciation for all it gives to you.

You can either work alone or with a group of friends. Within the next couple of days take the water you have worked on to a body of water that you can place it in. The water imbued with purity and sacredness creates divinity as it flows home to its source.

As you do this work on February 27 please remember also to focus on the human web of light circling the world.

As I finished typing the above, I looked at my clock. The clock read 11:11.
I take this as a good omen for the work.

Recently I was delighted to receive a manuscript on Jewish shamanism. The title of the book is Magic of the Ordinary: An Introduction to Jewish Shamanism and it is written by Gershon Winkler. It is such an extraordinary book that I wanted to tell you about it.

Gershon Winkler started out as an orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn. Through a series of experiences he felt called to go live out on the land for a few weeks. He ended up in a little cabin with no running water or any amenities in the mountains in California. He never returned to an urban way.

Gershon speaks Aramaic and Hebrew fluently. So he has gone back into the old texts and discovered that the Jewish tradition is rooted in a shamanic framework. The ancient texts speak to the importance of working with spirits including the spirits of the elements, animals, stones, trees, plants, insects, etc. Drumming, chanting, and dancing were used for ceremonies and to enter ecstatic states of consciousness. Basically, if you have done any reading on shamanism you will find all the principles that you have read about also existing in the Jewish religion.

So here we see that the original teachings were lost and somehow, a modern organized religion formed that does not match the teachings of the original texts.

There are many people who have rejected the religions that they were raised with as they often don’t feed our spiritual needs. After reading this book it is clear that anyone of the Jewish faith practicing and studying shamanism is really walking the path of his or her ancestors. What a revelation and healing this will be for such a large population of spiritual seekers.

David Carson, co-creator of the Medicine Cards, writes in the forward: “Like so much of Native American cosmology, ancient Jewish cosmology too, downplays the clamor for spiritual experience in the beyond, and encourages us to instead find it right here in the earth, and in what we call Nature.”

Magic of the Ordinary does not offer techniques. It is a book educating people about Jewish Shamanism and the importance of reconnecting with the natural world. Gershon Winkler encourages people to experience life and not sit back and observe it. What he says reminds me of the Haitian proverb I quote in Medicine for the Earth: “The gods won’t appear, the magic won’t happen, if we are not living our real life. Studying life is not living life, and therefore has no magic.”

Gershon is in the process of finding of a publisher for his manuscript. For the meantime copies are available in manuscript form. For information on how to order a copy go to his web site, http://www.walkingstick.org. When I spoke with him he told me it is truly amazing all the material that is available in the old Aramaic texts. This manuscript is just one of more to come.

I know many of you reading this are fans of Masuro Emoto’s extraordinary work of photographing water crystals. His first book Messages from Water has been very successful in changing people’s consciousness about water. You can check out my April 2001 web posting where I talk about his work if you are familiar with it. He now has published Messages from Water volume 2. It is a continuation of the work he has been doing and has some pretty extraordinary photographs in it.

You might have your own source for his books. It you don’t, I order my books from Source Books in Nashville, TN. You can reach them at 1-800-637-5222 or http://www.sacredspaces.org.

I give thanks to Masuro Emoto for being able to show the world that water is alive and intelligent. He is doing so much for changing people’s consciousness about the life force and intelligence of the natural world.

Every few years I receive an auditory message from what I call “The Voice” in a dream. This past month the message I received was “stretch or be stretched”. We really are living in a time where it is important to make a choice to expand to all kinds of possibilities.
Think about it.

Next month I will invite you to perform a ritual to work with the element earth.

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Transmutation News – January 2002

A key ingredient of alchemy is heat. Heat is power and heat and power create change. The end result of alchemy is transmutation, transformation, and change.

Some form of “heat” is involved in creating change in our lives. When one is suffering from emotional or physical pain there is heat thus resulting in some kind of change and transformation.

When one is in love with someone, a cause, some form or work, life, nature, etc. the passion of love creates heat. This passionate heat also contains the power to create change.

As we step into the new year, typically a marker for many of us in linear time where we hope for change, let’s use the basic and fundamental principle of alchemy. We can transmute, transform and create change with the heat of our passion. The door has always been through our hearts.

Think about what you love and have passion for. Commit to doing what you love. Heat up the alchemical cauldron of your life with what you have passion for and watch and observe as your life unfolds to a new level of evolution empowered by love.

At the beginning of the new year many of us work with making resolutions. Besides committing to what you love, I will plant a seed of something to think about and be with during this time.

Last month I wrote that everything manifests in the spiritual before manifesting on the physical. This is a truth known in all spiritual traditions.

In working with this spiritual principle there might be some “spiritual corrections” we need to make so what starts on the spiritual is not created as chaos on the physical.

During the next few weeks use shamanic journeying or your meditation practice to ask for guidance on what spiritual corrections are required for you to truly manifest “your heart’s desire”.

In the last few months I have written about using focus as well as the rest of the formula for transmutation to create a new dream. The need for visionaries and new dreamers include the children of the world. How do we help children become visionaries? Nancy has given me permission to share a project she was directed to start. I hope this inspires you in some way.

This is a letter that Nancy wrote to art teachers:

Dear Art Teacher, Like you, I am sure, the range of emotion I have experienced since the 9/11 terrorist attack on The United States has left me feeling helpless and somewhat exhausted. For the last week I have been looking at ways to empower my community, and empower myself so that we face what the future holds with a secure vision of what our ideal world is.

The more energy we can generate to hold such a vision, the more power we will have to make it visible to other communities and the rest of the world. Less time will be spent on fear of the unknown if we can hold the known close to our hearts, and one way to know our vision is to make it concrete.

While thinking along these lines I envisioned an art project that could be used by Schools and Libraries, and perhaps museums to help people, and especially help children, to hold a secure vision of community, and understand that their voice is heard within their community.

This project would involve making or acquiring a large container, appropriate to the scope of the project in your school, and making it beautiful. This container would represent an ideal community. Then each participating student would be encouraged to think of something that in his or her opinion is necessary for the vitality of a perfect community. The student would then make a visual effigy of his or her thought with art supplies appropriate to the age of the student. These effigies or symbols of the ideal would be placed with some care or ceremony into the container. A book might be kept listing the contents of the “Community” and the finished project could be displayed along with the book.

I have put a bowl, a small pad and some colored pencils, and fimo clay in the entrance to my home for this purpose. Family and guests have made images of the sun, the moon, food, a heart, animals, and different colored people hugging. There is a vial of pure water, and a little bundle of fertile soil in the bowl. There is an acorn, some rice, and a peace sign. There will be a cross, and a symbol of Buddhism by the weekend. There are little folded pieces of paper with words and poems. Someone put a dollar bill in the bowl, and someone else added a chocolate bar. The enthusiasm and positive emotion put into this project are less visible but by no means less tangible.

On another note some friends of mine have alerted me to a situation little known to the public. Michael and Lori of Wild Angels have great passion about this issue, as I am sure many of you will.

Here is what Michael wrote:

The Hopi elder pointed to a bend in the parched, sandy river bed and said, “This was always our swimming hole”. But now the water is gone. The springs and streams that the Hopi have depended on for over a thousand years are dry, or going dry. The cause? Peabody energy pumps more than 3.3 million gallons of pure, drinkable water from the Black Mesa area’s sole source aquifer every day to move coal through a pipeline to a power plant 273 miles away in Laughlin, Nevada.

Wild Angels, the nonprofit group working to save the dwindling freshwater resources of the Hopi and the Big Mountain Navajo, has achieved some breakthroughs in this crucial effort. The group got a revealing article published in Time magazine and initiated a shareholder’s resolution in the parent company (Lehman Brothers) urging an end to the draw down of the aquifer for coal slurry. In other words, there is, at last, some significant movement on this issue. Active participants and funding are needed to propel this important work to success.

If you can help with funding or have funding ideas please contact www.wildangels.org or phone Wild Angels at 505-989-1818.

Continue to practice staying in your heart and let the power of love and appreciation fuel the changes in your life.
Please join us as we continue to create a human web of light on the full moon January 28.

I wish you a joyous and passion filled New Year.

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Transmutation News – December 2001

One of the main principles talked about at the Bioneers Conference I attended in October was that the “war on terrorism” in many ways distracts us from the chemical and environmental pollution that we are all dealing with that has huge effects on the life of all living beings.

Will science actually be able to reverse the extreme destructive pollutants now in our environment? We are getting help from some natural forces. Paul Stammet, a brilliant mycologist, has discovered mushrooms that will eat some very dangerous toxins. So nature is working in cooperation with us. I still hold that we will also have to include spiritual methods to reverse the damage.

In Medicine for the Earth the question was raised of whether the work I was sharing would change the toxins we were working on or would we change so much that the toxins would not harm us. I do believe that the answer to this question is that both are true.

I also wrote about the dream that I had when I started writing the book in 1998 where the Egyptian god Anubis told me the missing piece to my work with transmutation was transfiguration. The work with transfiguration has been so powerful in helping people access their own divinity which is so needed in many ways right now.

In June right before I taught a five-day Medicine for the Earth training I had a dream saying it was important for me to bring the eucharist into my work. As I was not raised Catholic I didn’t know what that meant. It is my nature to take things out of a religious context so I started to search for a deeper meaning. In the summer issue on Light in the magazine Parabola I read a statement by Otto Von Simson where he looks at the eucharistic sacrament as divine light transfiguring the darkness of matter. With the work I was doing this has made perfect sense to me.

On Oct. 23 I had another dream to get my attention to keep looking at this issue. In my dream I was in a bookstore and I heard someone talking about an author who had written a book about “transubstantiation”. In the dream I was desperate to find out more information, as I knew this was my work.

I had never heard of this word so when I awoke from the dream I got up and went to Webster’s where I did find it. The definition of transubstantiation is “the change in the eucharistic elements from the substance of bread and wine to the substance of the body of Christ with only the accidents (as taste and color) remaining.”

It’s interesting that my dreams keep giving me religious concepts, but I know that my dreams are giving me the vocabulary of what the work is about and I need to let go of the religious forms that the words come from.

I have been teaching the process of transfiguration as you have read about it in Medicine for the Earth. We use this process in the transmutation ceremonies with the realization that as we transfigure to divinity the substances we are working on will reflect this back to us. Using the principle of “as above, so below; as within, so without” we also need to hold our intention to transfigure the harmful substances we are working with. We want to focus on the holiness of air, water, earth, and the fire burning in the sun and in the earth. As we focus on the divinity in all the elements and all of life we will transmute the harmful substances they now contain.

I have had the inclination in the last few months to call ourselves spiritual warriors. I find myself resisting the word “warrior”, because of the energy behind the word. Now I see us as being called upon to be the spiritual dreamers of a new time on our planet.

It is so important for us to use spiritual practices to stay centered and not be pulled out of ourselves. In Welcome Home: Following Our Soul’s Journey Home, published in 1993. I wrote: In times of change it is important to stay focused, stay positive, stay centered. We must hold the line of light as the collective does what it does. We must stay focused and continue to hold the vision.

In the five-day Medicine for the Earth gathering we work on visioning a new dream for the planet and we then perform a fire ceremony to ask the fire to take our prayers to the power of the universe! the creator. We draw pictures or create talismans we can empower with our dreams. It’s like a giant prayer smoke where our dreams and visions are sent up into the universe with the prayer that our dreams and visions will be manifested on earth.
The firekeepers are instructed to build the fire with the intention that this be a blessing fire. Often fire ceremonies are done to transmute negativity. With this ceremony our intention is different.

Recently as I was journeying I was reminded that although visioning is very important there are many ways to create a new vision besides just making a visual affirmation. Remembering that most cross-cultural creation myths say that the world was created into being by a sound or through words. Some people create through movement. The helping spirits I work with asked me to instruct people to not limit their ways of expressing their visions to the universe. If you are working with ceremonies of visioning please remember to expand on your ways of expressing the new dreams and visions you wish to create.

Last month I wrote that I felt one of the keys to successful transmutation work is to make sure you are inviting in and working in cooperation with the ancestors and the spirits of the land. I wanted to say something more about this. Many of you who have been trained in shamanic journeying have been taught to work with the helping spirits of the upper and lower worlds. There are also helping spirits in the middle world. For good reason students are steered away from working in the middle world, as this is also where deceased spirits can get stuck. When someone suffers a traumatic death his spirit might not transcend out of the middle world. This is the cause of ghosts, poltergeists, and possessing spirits.

There are also invisible beings that live in the middle world that have transcended the human condition and are here to help. There are helping and compassionate ancestor spirits who love the earth and all of life of much as we do. With intention, when we perform our transmutation ceremonies, we want to also ask for the compassionate, helping spirits of the land who hold the ancient wisdom of transmutation to help us with our work. In this way we are working in cooperation with all the helping spirits who can offer us assistance. As I wrote about last month the cooperation of the helping spirits of the land you are working on is vital to the success of the work.

Everything manifests first in the spiritual level before manifesting on the physical. As we have forgotten the importance of being proactive on the spiritual level we have been manifesting chaos and toxicity on the physical level. The spiritual work we do does make a difference.

We celebrate a great cycle of change as we honor the winter solstice on December 21. May your winter be full of warmth and peace as we continue our visioning work.

During the winter months use the time to do some work with visioning your life and the world you live in. Humankind has become so focused on consuming resources. In your visioning work focus on ways to transmute and transform consumerism energy. Let’s look at ways we can give back, honor, and be in service to the earth, air, fire, water and all the visible and invisible beings who give us so much.

Please join in on the full moon meditation for creating a human web of light on December 30. Last month I only mentioned the full moon on Nov. 1 and did not mention there was another full moon on Nov. 30. I do hope you caught my oversight and continued you meditations. Again I want to remind you that you can meditate on the human web of light everyday if you wish to strengthen the force of light that surrounds our world.

In Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge’s book poemcrazy Susan shares a wonderful insight about the word “abracadabra”. “Abracadabra, the seemingly nonsense word we invoke in magic tricks, comes from the Aramaic, the language of the Bible: ‘abraq ad habra’. These ancient words mean ‘I will create as I speak’.”

Never doubt that a group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead (taken from the Autumn 2001 issue of the newsletter of the Findhorn Foundation.).


Happy winter!

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Transmutation News – November 2001

I hope you have been able to stay focused on holding the light and tending the garden during this great time of change. There are many aspects of environmental pollution. We are experiencing a great deal of troubled energy in our psychic space from all the fear and anger that is being generated from people around the world.

Although all parts of the formula for transmutation (intention + love +harmony + union + concentration + focus + imagination) are needed to be used right now it is important to really work on your ability to focus. During unknown times it is so easy for us to be pulled outside of ourselves and lose focus. We must also be able to focus our imaginations to believe that we can create a different reality. It is important to use the tools you know and those discussed in Medicine for the Earth to stay centered and focused.

I have received a lot of feedback of how relevant the material in Medicine for the Earth is in helping people stay centered during this time.

As you bring small practices into your life to shift your consciousness, you will notice a shift of awareness happening. As you continue your reflection you will notice that your energy field changes and that it is easier for you to maintain your focus on your spiritual path. Please remember that the benefits come with daily practice.

It did not take many people to create such a drastic sudden change in our world. Any work that you are willing to do by yourself or in small groups will have an impact on the collective conscious. Know that every change in consciousness you make does make a difference.


In October I led a five- day Medicine for the Earth gathering on the East Coast for a group of people who had worked together for years. In my journeys I had been getting that it was important to do some transmutation work for the energy of fear, anger, etc. that was floating around the air waves.

I was given a vision of a ceremony to lead to work with the transmutation of energy in the collective. The ceremony was so powerful I would like to share it with you. For those of you working in groups where you do journey and you have been working with the material in Medicine for the Earth I hope you will try this.

First we all wrote down on pieces of paper what energy around feelings, beliefs, and thought patterns needed to be transmuted. For example, one might write down fear, hate, despair, and hopelessness. We then put all the pieces of paper around the altar that also had a beaker of water with ammonium hydroxide in it.

I asked half of the group who would transfigure into a divine force to sit in the middle. The people who were to transfigure were to keep their arms and hands outstretched and be a vehicle for healing energy to pass through. I asked the other half of the group to stand around those seated. This half was to merge with a power animal or teacher used for healing. During the first stage of drumming the people in the middle were to transfigure into a divine force where they could just be a vehicle, a hollow bone, for energy from the helping spirits to pass through. The group standing was to merge with a power animal or teacher. After a few minutes of giving people time to transfigure or merge I signaled with the drum that it was time to work. Then I began drumming again. The transfigured group was to tone to keep the transfigured state and once again just be a vehicle for healing energy to pass through. The power animals and teachers kept circling the group placing their hands on the transfigured group sending through healing energy for what needed to be healed.

When it felt like a lot of healing happened I did a return beat. The people merged were given the instructions beforehand that during the return beat they were to disengage from their power animals and teachers. The transfigured group was also instructed to disengage during the return beat.

After people came back we switched roles so everyone could get a chance to merge and transfigure. The next morning the papers that had been in the middle of the room were burned. There was so much spiritual energy in the room we decided to leave the papers to continue to be worked on.

There really were and are no words to describe the sense of healing that took place that evening. We were all just left in awe. For me the spiritual energy in the room was so expansive and planet earth seemed so small in comparison. I also received information that the water in the middle along with the ammonium hydroxide both helped take on and transmute the energy worked on. The pH did change from 11 to 10.

The evening was so powerful I want to incorporate this ceremony into all my Medicine for the Earth gatherings. But I wanted to share it here for those of you who are already working in journey groups where the members have experience with the material I have already written about.

If you have any questions about how to perform this ceremony or if you want to give me feedback once you have done it with a group, please write to me at P.O. Box 4757, Santa Fe, NM 87502.


I have continued working with groups in working with the transmutation of water infused with ammonium hydroxide. The work continues to go well. I have learned something in the last few months that I wish to share with you. The results of the work are definitely stronger when we work in collaboration and cooperation with the ancestors and spirits of the land. Please take some time to establish a good connection with the ancestors and spirits of the Land where you live. And if you attempt any long distance healing work for water or land, please take plenty of time to establish a good relationship with the spirits of the place where you are trying to work. The work will only be successful if you work in cooperation with the spirits of the land.

Debra Chesnut in Fairbanks Alaska participated in one of my five-day Medicine for the Earth gatherings in Santa Fe. When she journeyed for a vision for the earth she was told to start a company to test soils for toxic contamination and start clean up using the transmutation method. In her vision she was shown that the main culprits of environmental contamination in Alaska, the military and the oil companies, need to see numbers and be convinced that it is worthwhile financially before they will accept the “transmutation” technique. The real goal is to convince them that it is good financially then “train” them to change themselves. Debra was told that we shouldn’t just go around cleaning up after the military and oil companies without making them responsible in some way because they will have no reason to stop contaminating, in fact, may contaminate more because it can be cleaned up so “easily”.

Debra was given a tremendous amount of Information in her vision including what to call the company, how to work, who to contact, etc. She has already acquired the necessary materials to start soil testing. She has taken this information and has moved forward to make her vision a reality. I am extremely excited with the direction Debra is going.

If anyone reading this has worked with soil and might be able to share some information with Debra you can contact her directly at:

Four Winds
P.O. Box 83486
Fairbanks, Alaska 99708
907455-9067

I will also keep everyone posted on her progress in upcoming transmutation news.

In October I presented at the Bioneers Conference. The annual Bioneers Conference is the pre-eminent gathering of environmental visionaries with practical solutions for our most pressing environmental crises.

At the conference I conducted a 90-minute session on the material in Medicine for the Earth. I led participants on two journeys. One journey was to merge with an element; learning about the elements outside and inside of us by becoming an element. The second journey was to find a method to transmute the energy around problematic emotions, beliefs, and attitudes.

There were between 400-500 participants in attendance during my presentation. The work was received incredibly well. I really believe it is important to add a spiritual component to all the brilliant environmental work going on today. I felt this was a real opportunity for me to begin to infuse the environmental community with some of the spiritual practices to use in combination with other work being done. I look forward to bridging more the Medicine for the Earth work with other environmental work.

Be very observant by watching, listening, and feeling the changes that are happening in nature as the seasons change. Notice changes in the plant and tree life. Notice the changes of all the animals that inhabit, the land where you live. Nature doesn’t just survive, nature thrives. Learn how you can thrive with seasonal changes by observing the natural world around you.

The earth is a living breathing being. How connected do you feel to earth? How are you supporting the earth’s life?

Please join us in creating a planetary human web of light on the full moon which is Nov. 1. As I keep initiating people into the web of light during my trainings it really feels as if the web has become electric. It feels very strong and very healing. Lets keep up the work.

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Transmutation News – October 2001

As a few weeks have passed our shock has worn off of the great loss of life in New York and Washington. We are left with heavy hearts and many of us are left with questions. Why did such a tragedy occur? Why can’t we live together in peace and harmony? Why were so many people saved miraculously from death at the World Trade Center while so many others died?

The answers to these questions will probably remain a mystery. So the true question becomes can we find peace within ourselves while we live lives so full of mystery?

As we react to the catastrophe that has occurred with a variety of feelings that might include fear and anger we look for where we can feel in control and find safety. The bottom line is that our bodies are always in danger of loss of life. That is the nature of having a body. If we perceive ourselves as just a physical body we will never feel safe no matter how many restrictions are put on our environment. As most of you know we are not just bodies. Our bodies are simply a vehicle for our spirits to move through and to experience life on earth. Our spirit can never be destroyed so on the spiritual level there is no death. As we continue the spiritual practices to have a strong connection with our spirit that is where safety lies. In Medicine for the Earth l wrote about how the only safe place is in us. There is no safety in the material, physical world.

Right now as people are looking for safety and for answers many of us look to others as authorities to what is going on in the world both physically and spiritually. Once again l encourage you to go inside yourself to find the peace and the answers you are seeking.

In my own spiritual practice l have looked at what l can learn from the terrorist attack. Some of what l have learned is new to me while some builds on understandings l have already been working with and writing about.

As our bodies are the vehicle for our spirit, we are also the vehicle for the helping spirits, source, god, the divine, whatever words fit your religious and philosophical beliefs. There is the side of being a vehicle of love and light for the divine. There is also the shadow side of being a vehicle. In the case of the terrorists they acted in one collective conscious in the belief that they were bringing through god’s wishes and that they are waging a holy war.

In this action we see the shadow side of spiritual work. In being a vehicle of spirit and the divine we must also work on our egos. For we often interfere with being a true vehicle when we get caught in the illusion of separation. When we get caught in the illusion that we are separate from each other and the divine we typically end up reacting to life from a place of fear, anger, and self-righteousness.

As we continue our spiritual practices we must continue the work of learning how to identify when our ego and sense of being separate is speaking. We must learn how to identify when our minds are speaking instead of our hearts and when we are coming from a place of desire instead of surrender. We cannot forget this piece. As we have seen throughout the ages people who only focus on what they term is spiritually right and correct usually move into fanaticism.

As a culture in modern history we have been in a process of individuation. This has only strengthened our own egos. The process of individuation has been an important part of our evolution of consciousness and yet at the same time has created quite a shadow. A balance must be achieved. How do we now combine the brilliance and strengths we have developed as individuals to work together in a strong collective consciousness to create peace and harmony? How do we accomplish this while still honoring our own personal destinies? This will be a great challenge of our time.

During the week of the tragedy in New York and Washington many people were wondering how they could help. l was teaching a five-day soul retrieval training during this time. There were 43 of us at the training who wanted to blend our energies and abilities together to help. During our free time we worked together to look at how we could help.

After l journeyed on how l could lead the group to be of help l was asked to spiritually travel with the group to New York to offer assistance to the spirits. We were being asked to be vehicles of the spirits to help those who needed to move on and those who were returning to life. We were asked not to have any desires or attachments to what work we were being asked to do. We were asked to surrender to how the spirits needed help.

This was a great relief for all of us and added to our understanding of spiritual healing. We were to put aside what we felt needed to happen to act as a vehicle for the spirits to work through. We were also asked in the midst of chaos to hold a clear space for the spirits to work. This encompasses the principles of surrender and humility. We had to surrender our desires to a higher power and to realize that it was not our egos involved in the process. We had to move any sense of our egos out of the way to be in service.

This is a wonderful intention to hold during these changing times. How can l be in service to the spirits, the divine, the power of the universe? We need to be flexible to new ways of working that the spirits will show us as we evolve. As we learn to be in true service and work in cooperation with the spirits, the veils between the worlds will continue to open and we will experience a weaving together of the spiritual and material worlds.

In many traditions fire is used as the element to describe spirit. If we feed the fire that burns inside of us with fear, anger, and hate that fire will be a destructive force and will destroy life. If we feed the fire with love, hope, and inspiration then the lire acts as is does in nature of cracking open the seeds of new beautiful life.

A fire burns through many of us now during this time of great change. We must honor our grief and our emotional feelings. And at the same time if we fuel the spiritual fires that live inside of us with love and hope we will see a beautiful rebirth in “the forests and the meadows” of our lives.

Because of my teaching schedule in September l had actually begun writing the October transmutation news in early September. As many of you have shared with me l also had a premonition that something terrible was going to happen. l didn’t get information about this in a journey or a dream. But it was tangible in the air for me. l couldn’t identify what l was experiencing but l kept telling those close to me something terrible was going to happen.

As l began to write my web page for Oct. in early Sept. some of what l wrote was what l needed to remember as l felt such a strong foreboding energy in the air.

In Welcome Home l wrote about a journey l had at the time of the Gulf War. l had asked my helping spirits what l needed to do in my own spiritual practice as it looked like the U.S. was engaging in war. l was told that l needed to keep tending the garden.

This journey really stayed with me. And l realize now that it is time to bring that journey into reality. We need people who are willing to keep tending the garden. We need new dreamers, as the ancient ancestors were dreamers. We need to hold the vision of a healthy earth with beings living in peace and harmony. For any healing work we do to be successful we need to be able to hold a good vision.

l had an interesting revelation in August. l realized that with the Medicine for the Earth work l am not teaching how to heal the earth, l am teaching people how to manifest a new dream for the earth. This realization created a real shift in perception for me.

As the nature of human beings is to project onto other people and onto life circumstances we create our reality through our projections. If we were created in the image of our creator we have the same power as our creator. l wrote about this in chapter one of Medicine for the Earth. l have also written that our perception shapes our reality.

This all means that we have the ability to manifest a new dream and new reality for the planet. As l have written, shamans from other cultures say, “We are dreaming the wrong dream.”

A few months ago l asked you to hold a “visioning party” to start to use your imagination (one of the key elements for the formula for transmutation). One day of visioning is not enough. What is needed right now is for a significant number of people to hold a new dream and vision for our lives and the earth. This vision must encompass a choice to live and create out of love and harmony and a desire to be in partnership, collaboration, and cooperation with all living things. Once again remembering the connection with the great web of life and light.

As a visioner you must be able to use the principles written in the chapter on imagination in Medicine for the Earth. You must be able to incorporate all your senses and be able to feel, taste, smell, bear conversations, and see your vision as if it is happening now. And you must be able to combine putting out a positive vision with surrender and asking for “thy will be done”.

It really will not take that many people to help change the consciousness on the planet. Please join others and myself in holding the vision of harmony, beauty, light, and love. Now more than ever we need everyone who is willing to keep feeding and holding the vision of the human web of light. If you are new to this web page go the section titled “Creating A Human Web of Light”. We will continue the full moon meditations (this month’s full moon is on Oct. 2), but please try to visualize and nurture the web everyday.

We can no longer say that we don’t have time for our spiritual practices and to live our lives in a joyous way. This must become a priority in all of our lives now.

During this month and hopefully forever, imagine and experience your energy shifting from your head to your heart. As much as you can throughout the day experience yourself breathing through your heart and send love and appreciation for your life and life of all beings out into the universe. Breathe in love and light and breathe out love and light. This will make a difference and you can make a difference.

l have posted a full new calendar for 2002 in the Training and Announcement Section of this web site. Please take a look at it for full descriptions of trainings as well as new workshops l am offering. Check it out occasionally as l make additions.

“Alchemy is the art of transmuting bodily consciousness into spirit: body must be made spirit say the alchemists, for spirit to become body” Titus Burckhardt from an article written in the summer 2001 issue of Parabola.

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Transmutation News – September 2001

I continue to reflect on my trip to Brazil. In being with Joao De Deus I am now left with the absolute knowledge that all miracles are possible and that it is our own limiting beliefs that blocks us from being able to experience more miracles in our lives.

Joao De Deus, being a full medium, is a vehicle for other spirits to work through his body. In the shamanic work that I practice, teach, and write about the key is working in partnership, collaboration, and cooperation with the spirits. Our own consciousness is still present as we do our spiritual work and healing. In mediumship, as John of God does his work, he has no memory of what happened.

So in looking deeper into the miracle of transmutation of toxic substances using transfiguration, what are some of the key elements that need to be addressed. In chapter 14 of Medicine for the Earth I wrote that one of the keys to embodying our divinity is to look at what is burdening us and blocking us from the absolute state of transfiguration.

In past writings on this web page I have written that anger about the politics around what is happening with the environment can block the ability for the divine to work through us. It is one thing to be a spiritual warrior and stay true to our principles and ethics and state the truth of our beliefs. But if we move into a state of anger and judgement this blocks our ability to keep our hearts open. As the vehicle for the spirits is our hearts any blockage will prevent true spiritual healing from taking place.

Being in an empathic state can also block the spirits from being able to work through us to accomplish the miracles that are possible to create. When we are filled with the pain of others or the attachment to wanting to make things better for others once again our hearts are blocked from being a true vehicle for spiritual energy to come through.

Now I ask that we look at how our egoic desires can also be a block to the creation of miracles. And first I would like to look at the issue of humility, which I mentioned last month.

What keeps us functioning in the world is our ego. In our spiritual work it can block the process of getting in touch with our own divinity as well as bringing spiritual energies through for healing.

When I hear about spiritual pilgrimages that people take to shamans and healers outside the U.S. I typically hear a common theme of what people found so powerful. What I hear is that it was not that any technique was taught, but that a true transformation occurs by being in the presence of a great spiritual healer. And what everyone notes is the power of being with a spiritual person who carries the energy of true humility. We see this all the time in indigenous cultures. But it is rare to find this in modern day teachers and practitioners. When we begin to take credit for the spiritual healing whether it is for a person or the environment I do believe that this blocks the veils between the worlds from truly opening for miracles to occur. And in this culture where the process of individuation has become so important to us it is difficult to stay on the razors edge of the spiritual path of not taking credit for the successes. But it is so key for the results that we wish to happen.

So during this month I ask that as you do your spiritual practices to really examine your motives of what you are trying to attain. Do you want to be of service to the planet and the spirits unconditionally? Are you looking for some personal gain? Do you need personal recognition? Again to walk the razor’s edge of any spiritual path it is important not to judge yourself or others. Just look and be observant to where you are with your own egoic needs. Examine without judgement of where you are and what you might still need to work through.

By doing this work we will also end up forming stronger communities to work with. We weaken the link in our communities when we are not working from a place of true cooperation where we put our own egoic needs aside.

Another issue I would like to bring up this month is honoring our ancestral connections. In most indigenous cultures shamans and healers suffered tremendous religious and political persecution for continuing their work. Today we draw on cultures from all over the world as we bring ancient spiritual practices back into a modern day culture. We emphasize honoring the spirits we work with for all that they have given to us. Do we honor the ancestors for all that they have given us? Do we honor our own biological ancestors for the gifts they have given us so that we might thrive in our lives?

Honoring the ancestors is work that must be done on a continual basis for obvious reasons. But by honoring our spiritual and biological ancestors we also open up the lines of communication so that our ancestor’s ancient wisdom of transmutation can be heard by all of us who opens our hearts and souls to listen.

Please add to your spiritual practice opening up your hearts to the ancestors of this great earth who have given us such wisdom and gifts. Speak to them from your heart. We have so much to be thankful for and so much to learn from those who have gone before us. We must give love and appreciation for that line of knowledge to be honored and for it to continue.

When I reflect on the work we have done with the water so far I can say that through embodying the divine through transfiguration and through working in cooperation with the spirits we have seen some good results. When I think of the amount of environmental pollution in the world today I am humbled by how far we still have to go. The spirits are showing us that we are walking on the right path but we are not there yet.

In America it is staggering of how much of the population does not realize that we have an environmental problem. I find in Europe there is more of a consciousness to the problem, but a feeling of powerless to finding a solution

So we continue to do the work required to do the transmutation work from a true spiritual path of emnbodying divine energies and working in partnership with the spirits, the spirit of the earth and all the elements, and the spirit of all living things. As we continue to examine our motives of doing this work and embrace true humility and the desire to be in service we will continue to unburden ourselves from our egoic desires and the next steps will be shown to us.

And when finally the consciousness of the public at large perceives that there is a problem the foundation will have been laid for the spiritual work to step in and offer viable solutions for healing.

During the month of September we celebrate the fall equinox. Personally this is my favorite season and I look forward to the change in cycle. Find a way to honor the equinox. As we honor the change of seasons we move into harmony with the river of life and learn how to live by going with the current instead of against it.

And please remember to join us in creating a human web of light that continues to shine through our planet on the full moon. The full moon this month will be September 2.

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