Pagan

[Bit]

Oh my gosh, I almost missed this! {{{{{{{{{{{{{{Foxy}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Hi, honey! So glad you checked in!

I'm reading and growing, stretching my mind and skills. The latest book (I just finished it) is Soul Retrieval, by Sandra Ingerman. FASCINATING book. I bought it for Gryph, actually, but ended up reading it myself because I was curious.

I've been feeling disconnected for a while, haven't been able to meditate, so after I started the book I bought a couple Sandra Ingerman CDs. I figured, this is the premier Shamanism teacher, so Gryph should have access to her, right? And one of the CDs is guided meditations, shamanic journeys--so I thought, hey, two things at once, show Gryph that I support him on his path, and also get myself kick-started back into meditating and Circling again, right? Bring myself back into balance?

Sandra Ingerman has a loud voice, and she drums REALLY fast, and she never shuts up to let you get down into a meditative state... and if you persist, and finally manage to get there despite her voice?

She WHISTLES really loudly like a bird's cry. *buries face in hands*

What could we do but laugh, as she repeatedly popped us out of meditating/journeying? I guess she's not necessarily the teacher for us, although we have been enjoying her audiobook about soul retrieval.

So. At this point, I can send energy when I'm careful about it, and I can still of course get people grounded whenever I talk to them, but for the most part my meditating skills are on hold. It's the brain fog from the fibromyalgia. Gryph keeps it mostly at bay with energy work and that allows me to function on an everyday level--yanno, cooking, taking care of the dogs, getting the bills paid and the taxes filed--but although I can connect enough to hear the Goddess, the Ancestors, and our Allies, I cannot go deeply enough to do really profound work. So I figure the best use of this time for me is reading and learning, and when the brain fog eases, I can start working again.

[foxyshaman]

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{BIT}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Hey Sunshine!!! Good to hear from you.

Sandra Ingerman is the soul retrieval (SR) guru. I took her five day SR course and think she is a good teacher. Now I have not listened to her CD's, but I did read the book you are referring to a number of years ago. I started doing SR's long before I took her course... I took just to get "Cred".... you know shamans can be such a stuffy lot. Pedigrees who knew!! And here is little ol me just wandering about picking up wonderfully led spirit insight and info. Ah well what is a gal to do... besides keep trying.

I went to WI in early March and took a seven day Compassioante Depossession workshop with Betsy Bergstrom. It was 12 hours a day and lots and lots of classroom discussion about death and cosmology. But it leaves your head full.

Then I came home and have been gearing down my drumming circle. This has been a way of life for me for 17 years and I have been teaching shamanism for 14 years. Tonite is the last journey circle. I thought I was gonna be all <granite> about it... I think I am granite softie . This circle is all about Middle World work and tracking. How to track your own energy, a patient's energy or even things that have been lost or misplaced. I am not sure who many ppl will show up, but I think my little buddist temple is going to be filled!!

I have had lots of patients for compassionate depossession... now that is fascinating work. And incredibly tangible. I have my first fibro patient in early May so I will keep you posted on how she does. Who knows maybe you could find a practitioner in your area and it may help you.

I feel like this is a great tool, and it certainly helps me to understand some of the 'things' I have encountered in my healing work over the years. I have gotten in touch with an old circle mate who is a psychiatrist at our local mental hospital to see if he would be willing to chat with me and perhaps recommend the work to some of his patients. I also would like to work with veterans, not sure how, but I think the work would be very helpful to some in their healing process.

Anyway... on my way to writing yet another TOME...

Lots of Love.. I am keeping your sister in my prayers and thoughts. Please give a hello hug to Gryph.

[Bit]

Oh my golly, your last journey circle?!! {{{{{{{{{{{{{{Foxy}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Dunno how a person could be granite for that! Are you ending the drumming circles as well, or just the journey circles?

How interesting, the way your work is evolving! It'll be fascinating to know what kind of things start happening, what you find, how it changes things. I would be really interested in what you discover when you work with the woman who has fibromyalgia!

What I've noticed over my life is that I seem to attract vampires and malicious-yet-small spirits (you know, the kind that take glee in making one extra clumsy?). The vampires are the most serious and drain me pretty badly, but are clearly external to me. I have no idea if there is any possession, but I am already so crammed full with just being me that I dunno where anything else would squeeze in!

*wry laugh* I tried to avoid saying that I'm "full of myself" since that has such a negative connotation! I guess I could say that I feel completely myself.

[foxyshaman]

I am done teaching in journey circles. Cricles are places where we call in spirit, introduce a new topic every friday and journey (or other work) to get to know and work with the spirits who have gathered to help us. 14 years of being a leader is long enough. Every Friday drumming and teaching and learning and sharing and....

I am still teaching, I just want to take it deeper. So, private students, small groups and some larger workshops. I am enjoying the depossession work along with the other healing modalities I have learnt along the way. What a great combination. I will always have patients, of that I am sure.

I think every leader has their day and has to step aside for someone else who has vigor and naive ideas of leadership and all it is cracked up to be. My jaded self has learnt three very important lessons in this role:

1. Leaders are put on pedestals whether they want it or not. (falling off someone else's pedestal has always hurt me more than them)
2. For every Jesus there is a Judas.
3. For as equally valuable as you are... you are equally disposable.

Shamanism has been my passion for almost twenty years. I am so grateful I have practiced at a time in history when it was 'safe' to do so. This is the first time in history that we can learn from cultures half way around the world. I was not raised in a tribe, hell I barely have a nuclear family, so I don't have tribal teachings behind me. I used to lament that, but you cannot lament what you will never have. But I also don't have 1000 years of superstition behind my practices as well. So, I have been afforded more freedom in some respects. I have been incredibly blessed by the spirits that have taught me. I am blessed to have met and been taught by the shamans (Sangomas) I have from West Africa, Australia, and South America. I am grateful for the Grandmother spirits that have taught me and 'schooled' me.

But yeah... it is a hard day. Even though I have been gearing up for this - the finality of it looms ahead of me.

Energy vampires and nasty spirits are no fun. I have had my share of those over the years. And even though you and I practice differently I relish in our conversations and sharing. I am not bothered by those same spirits anymore, or at least not as much. I think I have been fortunate to have gathered around me some fantastic kick assers...which I need at times cause i can be pretty oblivious.

Anyway... I have to finish my handout for tonite. It will be a large circle, word of mouth and all... so I don't even know how many copies to have on hand!!!

See you later Sunshine!!!

[Bit]

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Foxy}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

That hug has been passed onto Gryph ~smiling~ and he says "hello!" We're both sending you love for this momentous day and evening.

It's been a long time since anyone called me Sunshine--you made me smile, darlin. Thank you.

I have to say, your three rules are spot on! I have also recognized those things, but not quite so succinctly as you have.

It seems you and I are very much alike. I also lamented not having that tribal background; I felt cheated even as a child by that lack. But it's true that when you don't have the background, you're also free to work without those constraints. Let's face it, humans have a tendency to get hidebound in our traditions and to therefore sometimes miss things which would work perfectly well, simply because they aren't part of the established traditions. So lately I have come to recognize the strengths of forging my own path; I look back and can see, "yes, I learned this better, and that, because I had to find my own way."

It helps a LOT that I am far enough removed from the pain of that forging to not be focused on it... indeed, sometimes now I manage to forget.

This really is an amazing time to be alive and learning, isn't it? Sometimes I wonder how I ever managed without the internet, and each time I think about it, I'm conscious of the utter miracle of it all. When I was a kid I didn't even know what a computer WAS, and the only ones in existence took up entire rooms. When I first got a computer, there was only DOS and it was cumbersome and limited. When I first got online, Windows was an upstart.

Today the world is at my fingertips, almost instantly, any time day or night. I can literally learn about ANYTHING. Not only that, but my next computer will most likely take up not a huge room or two, but only the space my school notebook filled with lined paper took when I was a child, and I will most likely be able to use it anywhere in the world.

I think my "tribe" is online, Foxy. I actually have bookmarked two different sites about my own ancient heritage--if blood counts for anything when you believe in reincarnation, lol--and they're filled with information that I would have had to become an archaeologist to discover just thirty short years ago. It's tickling me no end that the people called themselves "The Purple People" because I can look at my extended family and see the preponderance of women who unabashedly ADORE the color purple, even three thousand years later.

It's also food for thought that in the description of these people who lived so very long ago (Canaanites), I find my own values reflected... a people who were skilled merchants and builders, and who believed in negotiation rather than war, always. I suppose in a way that's healing for me, because my other heritages are Celtic and Germanic, both so uncomfortably warlike!

I think maybe I'm rambling. Ooops.

What I've learned since I have come to be with Gryph is the value of those ass-kicking Allies you mentioned. Once we realized how VERY vulnerable I am to random spirits, Gryph set up an early warning system with the Allies for me. We knew it was working the night I heard a rattlesnake buzz a warning in the bedroom... it was really Trooper pawing at his crate in his sleep--yanno, he was running in a dream--and I knew that sound when I heard it... but within about thirty seconds I realized I was hearing it again and again in my head as a rattlesnake and it really scared me. I woke Gryph up to tell him about it and sure enough, when he did a scan, there was a nasty intruder where I thought the snake was.

The next time it happened, instead of hearing something, I saw a malevolent face in the cat litter. I scooped the pattern away and told Gryph, and again--there was a spirit trying to get into the house there.

The next time, I saw a skinny man in a white shirt and yellow baseball cap cutting through our side yard (that really annoys us when strangers cut through our yard) and I rushed to the front door to ask him not to do that anymore... but he wasn't in my yard! And then I realized two things. His feet made no sound on the gravel, and I cannot actually see out that window--it's blocked off with opaque plastic.

It seems That House is full of what Gryph calls "portals" and new ones are opening as fast as the old ones get closed. I think we would have our hands full, and I would certainly be overwhelmed, if our Allies weren't looking out for us.

I begin to understand why it was important that we should live in THIS house, out of all the others available in our neighborhood... and why WE should live in this house, out of all the people available in our neighborhood. You don't often find people who can bring stability to such an active place. I suspect that after we've been here for a while we'll be pretty good at it, too: practice makes perfect, and we will certainly be getting a LOT of practice, lol!

I'm so glad to be talking with you again. I love being able to compare our ideas and experiences.

You know something... it would be so very interesting to know what kind place your patient with fibro lives in, whether it's a peaceful stable place, or wildly active (or something in the middle). I don't know if having fibro might contribute to a place opening up or not--I never really thought about it before--but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that having fibro makes a person more sensitive to spirits, since it seems to have been the key that opened me up psychically.

Take care, darlin, and let us know how the journey circle went? Gryph and I both love hearing from you!

Sunshine

[*Magic_and_Silk*]

Hello, every one.

I have been a Witch for 26 years. But, even before that, I knew that some things were not as they seemed. I was raised in a christian home that started out as Southern Baptist (scary, I know) and ended up non-denominational. But, I could feel that I REALLY didn't fit in with them...Both my family with respect to their beliefs and with the 'church people'.

When I finally found the Pagan / Wiccan / Shaman / Witch lifestyle and began to get more involved and learn more and more, I realized that I had come home. The people didn't judge me (for the most part) and I was accepted like I never had been with the christians.

It was wonderful. It still is.

Bit, I know it was a little while ago, but, thank you for starting this thread.

Blessings to ALL!

[Massive]

I've read through all of this thread and find it all utterly fascinating.
I've had my issues, and those very major, with 'organised' religion, I dithered between being an atheist and an agnostic.
Now I call myself a Spiritualist, Pagan, Buddhist, because I take what feels right to me from all three.
I'm a Spiritualist because I am psychic/empathic, I'm a Pagan because I feel more for what is tangible around us, and in the outside world, than I do with anything else, and I am a Buddhist because of their simple acceptance and their views on Karma ...
Fundamentally I have and always will have issues with christianity, because I had it forced down my throat, religious education here was about the christian faith; Hinduism, Buddhism, the Muslim religions, none were touched on, and when I asked why, I was sent out of the classroom, which made me rebel all the more.
I'd say I've found my peace now, and I firmly believe that it's personal choice as to what any one person chooses as their focus or religion, I will defend that for anyone, as long as I'm not then told what is wrong with my choices.
So, after all that, I really wanted to say Thank you to Bit, and everyone else who has posted on this thread, I feel welcome here, for the first time, in a 'religious' sense.

Just to be clear, these are merely my own opinions and I don't mean to offend anyone with them, this is just where I have travelled to through this lifetime, so if I have anatagonised or offended it was unintentional and I apologise.