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If you are just joining me in these posts you can catch up on the chapter-by-chapter book review of Awakening to the spirit world through these posts:
- Chapter 1: What is Shamanism?
- Chapter 2: The Shamanic Journey
- Chapter 3: Reconnecting with Nature
- Chapter 4: Visionary Work with the Weather and Environmental Changes
- Chapter 5: The Power of Ceremony and Ritual
- Chapter 6: Dreaming (personal stories)
- Chapter 7: Creative Arts as a Bridge
- Chapter 8: Working with Light and Sound
- Chapter 9: Death as a Rite of Passage
- Chapter 10 and 11: Death: Experiential and Initiatory
Welcome back.
I read through this chapter, it’s a short one, and had a few thoughts about what to write. I went back and forth in my mind. Children are not an immediate part of our life here at home, we’re a gay couple with no plans for anything but DINK-hood (DINK = Double Income, No Kids).
Many of our friends have children and we enjoy the time we have with them. At various ages we experience the highlights and woes of pregnancy and birth and hen later their children’s growing curiosity and exploration of the world.
I wanted to contribute some bit of knowledge to this chapter but aside from the loving and spiritual connection to childhood through the little ones, there is not much that I can say about rites of passage without referring to my own youth and learning experiences. It’s not that they are invalid or that I don’t have something to give but the chapter focuses on the transformative process of youth and responsibility we have to the children that are in our community, noting that they are our future, literally.
Our Children Are Our Future
With all that said I find that I do have something to write. My, aren’t you surprised… 🙂
One of the topics that jumped out to me in the chapter came into the writing straight away: The Shamans experience as being childlike. Sandra writes,
“Thus, in some way, the way of the Shaman is the way of the child. And, as Sandra Ingerman points out, beginners in the study of Shamanism often immediately see the connection between shamanic journeying and their own childhoods:
When I teach workshops on Shamanic journeying, a large percentage of my participants tell me that they actually journeyed as children. They simply did not realize that this was what they were doing, yet when their attention refocuses into the imaginal realms where their spiritual allies were waiting to companion and champion them, they discovered that these “spirit-friends” were assisting them through the perils and pains of their childhood.”
In my world “imagining” plays an integral role in creation magickally, creatively, daily. Children are our leaders in this world through the fantastic and tremendous power of creative visualization. Not only do they create entire worlds and scenarios, they interact with these worlds and often the spirits and energies in them in a direct and primal way. Children become the teachers and our lessons are in the spontaneous interaction, and channeling that creativity through our focused intent. This is where we create. This is where we live every day in greater or lesser degrees driven and routed by the core beliefs we have about life, reality, and the world.
On Tuesday of this week I had a great conversation with a friend at work. We talked about the life-calling. She, Anne, brought up the point that many people do not know what they want to do (to “be”) until much later on in life. We began to relate our feelings and thoughts about growing up, maturity, and in general the blind stumbling run of the 20’s and how things begin to form, a path becomes apparent, in our 30’s.
Now we can call this the Saturn Return but whatever name we give it, most of us find that there is a shift where what we thought we were supposed to do, and what becomes clear what we should do suddenly become clearer. I spent my early years studying mystical paths, only to find that I resisted them later on. I would work a finance company then a slew of hospitality jobs before bouncing back to Dot Coms and working in Graphic Design, Real Estate, and many other positions.
It wasn’t until the calling hit me to re-dedicate myself to the spiritual path, that things began to once again come together in a sensical way. First I met many opportunities for learning, which I ate up like a grub under a log. Then these paths narrowed in focus as I ingested the meaning that I thought (first) was in the books, classes, and workshops, and then (later) realized that it came from within.
This came out in my conversation with Anne, easily illustrated: I realize that I am becoming again who I was when I was a child. I feel this is growing older.
It is a rite of passage and the authors write something significant that I can relate to in these passages:
“As Hank points out, the “rights of passage” seen in Western culture do not come close to accomplishing what shamanic ceremony does in terms of preparing an individual for a new stage of life:
Getting a driver’s license, going to the high school prom, and drinking alcohol or smoking pot are pale comparisons to indigenous ceremonies where each boy and girl is subjected to tests, trials,and tribulations that may include social isolation for many days and nights, fasting with no food or water during that extended time, and even enduring physical mutilation-circumcision, tooth evulsion, whipping, scarifications, or tattooing (Scott: Paths of power), in which the “child” dies and the “adult” is born. During this time, their helping spirits may approach them once again, which is why many groups call such rites of passage the “vision quest.”
Hawaiian elder Hale Makua once said that in ancient Hawai’i, each boy-child lived in the house of his mother until he was bout six or seven years old. Then the boy went to live in the Men’s House, and the first thing that the men taught the boys was how to treat women with respect.
…The role of initiation was (and is) the key.“
As a teenage I was envious of stories that told of rites of passage. More than envious, I sought them knowing that what I was to expect from society was not enough. A driver’s license? The lawful ability to drink? These are not enough to sustain the psyche, they are footnotes on a life, generally speaking.
There is great power in finding our creative, primal, wild and imaginative self within and through our relationship with the children in our life. The stress on the ideal that the physical is the only reality and the path to power is dominion and ownership of physical things is but an immature ideal that has run mad and grown into an ox that we cannot control. Finding our true self, our inner child if you will, our magickal being within that can imagine outside of the box that our “adult” self cannot escape become essential to escaping the trap of age, situation, and the “reality” that we have been told is our only option.
This could be open for great discussion… but I know in myself, as I have let go and given faith in my experience beyond “the physical” and in my feeling, knowing, creating self I have found a truer definition of what I am becoming.
The remaining parts of the chapter focus on the reintroduction of the visionary experience, the rite of passage (for children), and a topic called Chidren’s Fire, which becomes a brief on introducing these changing moments to our children again.
I invite you to read along and to think about the children in your life and the child within, who is even now imagining the world we are experiencing and tell us a story or two.
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Be well,
Scott K Smith
http://lifencompass.com
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As promised (if a little late), the Dream Gatherer, which I call Dream Circles. This exercise came out of Awakening to Shamanism, chapter 6 ~ Dreams.
In Awakening to Shamanism, the Path of Direct Revelation, Carol Proudfoot-Edgar:
“…We also construct “dream gatherers,” usually using natural materials in the landscape where we are meeting. Dreams are a doorway into another world, and the dream gatherer is the door. Think of the wreaths that people make Christmas (Yule, Winter Solstice ~Scott) and hang on their doors. There is a circle within the wreath. The dream gatherer is made from things from Nature and has a circle that represents the doorway into the dream world. These are then placed somewhere close to each dreamer and used to entice the dreamer and the dream spirits to join one another in mutual collaboration.”
I personally wanted to create a safe circle of communication for the dream work. This particular piece would be for two dreamers.

Dream Circles, by Scott K Smith. 12'' x 36'', Acrylic on Canvass, Paper Machete, organic materials (stones, vines picked respectfully).
Aside from the obvious circles with the connecting pathway, there are three spirit guardians between the portals. The feathers are made from the under feathers of a Redtail Hawk, in blue, white, gold, and purple representing their protective and insightful energies while one journey’s in the dream. These guardians mind the pathway to and from the world of dreams, casting illuminating light on the message for the dreamer.
Dream Circles is one of the paintings that will be appearing in the August, 2010 show, downtown Los Angeles.
I hope to see you then.
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Be well,
Scott K Smith
http://lifencompass.com
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Good morning.
Tarot Weekly: Monday, June 28th – Sunday, July 4th, 2010
Before I begin the Tarot Weeklies I wanted to express a few things about the nature of the work, and the purpose (vision). We know that there are different levels of energy, magick, and expression. Some are more spiritual and abstract, some more practical and directly influence the work we do here in this world. There are strengths and weaknesses in those workings, as we’ve seen in various forms there are energies that are stronger in the physical, affecting out blood and bone. These energies have little influence over the organizing intelligences of the lighter energy fields. That said these “lighter energies” (spiritual energies) gather a greater intelligence and can affect powerful organization on the denser energy of the body, but unless they can convince these “denser energies” to cooperate with the changes we wish to see (like our health for example), not much of what we want occurs.
I think one system that shows a perfect example of how the physical and spiritual energies interact, is Reiki. The power of Reiki (Lighter Energy) isn’t in it’s ability to heal, but to influence and let the body (denser energy) which has the greatest power to mend but needs an organizing influence to do so. Reiki moves in from subtle levels and through hands, or distance work, the energy begins to work on the denser energies of the physical and help us to shift back into a natural and healthy state of being. The Reiki cannot carry out healing, correcting the body’s health, without the bodies innate ability to regenerate and fight off illness. Regardless if the body in a state of shock, pain, illness, if it cannot organize the energies of the organism, it cannot create the healthy change that it needs.
This is where Reiki can be essential in a healing process if the body is already healing it can allow the natural intelligence with the directive and vitality that it needs. If conditions are more severe the Reiki will help shift that innate mind back in the right direction.
Why is this important for the weekly Tarot reading?
Naturally this *waves hands around my blog space* is all from my perspective, but it looks to me that the world is in a place, as a body organism, that is in need of corrective healing energy. By the world I mean, us and those that live in it. The energy we as a species generates through our thoughts, works, actions, and words. We have tremendous power as a people (generally speaking) but we’re “all over the place”… Which I suppose is our way. We fight, we love. We create, we destroy. We conserve, we burn up energy like it will always be available to us. We do these things because we can, or sometimes because we believe that something has a greater priority either by fearing it or championing it, and acting from that place. And the world keeps turning…
I believe that our purpose here on this planet is not only to live in harmony with it, naturally, but also as human beings we have the power to help each other by shifting our consciousness, so that regardless of our practice we can learn to acknowledge the tremendous power we actually have and our responsibility to all our relations.
That’s the path I follow. I shift my consciousness to the here-now while accessing the lighter energies, spiritual influences, to create the shift in the world around me. I don’t mean like shifting the war in Iraq, although enough of us probably could, I mean creating change in the relationships around me. The relationships we carry with each other, friends, family, associates. Our relationship with food, our environment, plants, animals, and nature. Our relationship with our self.
These three paths of relating are essential for survivability. Daily, they are the relations that we interact with (on some level). The way that we interact with our relationships is how we can gauge the focus of our consciousness. Knowing our focus we can then plumb the depths of our watery nature and understand the emotional vibration we are sending out into the world.
You, yes you, like me, are responsible for your own energy, your own expression of that vibe you are sending out; and we can begin to change it by focusing on how we relate to others. This is telling of the type of influence we are projecting into the world. Fearful? Negative? Mean? Are we loving? Kind? Creative? Insightful?
Do our bodies, vehicles for our All, traveling through the world leave a path of blind and senseless destruction? Chaos? Beauty? Love? Do people fear us or engender us with kindness, helpfulness, friendship, and companionship?
This weeks energies are calling to us and focusing on tuning the mind into two frequencies, both dense and light, to see our own energy and explore the actions and emotional frequencies we are transmitting to others around us. We can explore this through getting centered and working the spiritual paths, our energetic and emotional body, and also by looking at the world around us, right near our hearts, head, and body to see how our relations respond to us.
Although there is an element of thinking involved in this observation your seat of power is really your emotional nature. This seat tells us two things, when we sit down in it and get comfortable. How we interact emotionally with the world and if we rule, or are ruled-by, our emotions. It also tells us what vibratory level we are carrying into the world. Our emotional self is like a vessel of water and it’s rate of vibration is indicative of what we are giving to the world. This is our temper or tone. How you feel is what you vibrate. Your vibration is the vehicle for all that you send. All that we do is a gift into creation, and it returns to you. The longer you generate your emotional energy the more you sustain the vibration you are creating. Changing the tone of that vibration can change the entire transmission going out of us and into the world, and this returns, affirming that shift in consciousness.
This shift affects the world around us as well. The lighter frequencies go out into (by being grounded) the physical world (denser frequencies) through our changed behavior. This doesn’t mean that we suddenly take on different morals or become different people, essentially we are the same person once we know who that being is beneath all the chatter. It is an opportunity to adjust our frequencies personally so that we can better communicate our joys, passions, loves, desires, and will for a better world into the world around us.
There is a great exercise in Awakening to Shamanism, the Path of Direct Revelation. Transfiguration.
“This Transformation of the physical being into light is seen everywhere as a spiritual rebirth in which the visionary becomes a luminous being who has access to the spirits and spiritual realms.”
EXERCISE: TRANSFIGURATION
Sandra Ingerman writes,
“To experience this divine state of your own immortal light, it is good to do some preparation. It can be experienced in a myriad of ways. According to Hank, many discover that it is like a tightly woven basket or cloud composed of lines or light that create an elongated, orb-like luminous field. For some it is the bright darkness of the void. Some will see this field visually; others simply sense utter peace and tranquility in which they often feel the light expand within themselves or perceive it behind their closed eyelids.”
The later, after you have readied yourself for journey work…
“It is important to note that in this experience you are not journeying outside of yourself into another world. You are actually traveling within to experience your inner light so that it can shine through you. Many people actually perceive it as a luminous visual phenomenon against the darkened field of their closed eyes.
You might begin the journey by repeating the following intention: “Thank you for taking from me that which keeps me separate from my spiritual light, my divine perfection, the source, and the state of oneness.”
(SCOTT: IMO you should feel free to substitute these words with whatever sort of intention that best suites your personal magickal / spiritual path).
“This intention at the journey’s onset tells your helping spirits and the universe that you want to transform the form of your body and the thoughts that fil your mind. This, in turn, will bring you into a state of oneness with your source, your personal creator, your god-self, and beyond that with the god or the goddess, the power of the universe, or whatever you wish to call the source of all things.
As you repeat your intention you wil find that your helping spirits may hep you create a way for your body and mind to dissolve so that you may begin to experience yourself as pure spiritual light. Keep breathing and experience this wonderful state. Soon you might feel a change in the change in the vibration of your body. You can stay in this state for the length of the drumming, or for anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes while you are listening to the music (See CD). This is enough time to truly give you the experience of transfiguration.
When we keep up our transfiguration work and have an experience of our inner light, we also start to find our eyes shining-reflecting that we have touched into the place of inner joy and inner wealth as the indigenous shamans do. In this way we bring more light into our own lives and the world.”
Awakening to Shamansim, The Path of Direct Revelation, Pgs. 171-171
Sandra Ingerman
You can practice this exercise or some other exercise that is more to your own tastes, or you can simply keep your awareness centered in the emotional body. Pay attention to the message of the vibration, and note how/when/if you can and should shift it to help create the beneficial, natural, healthy changes in our relationships that support our greater well-being.
Your cards for this weeks meditation have been: The Star. The Queen of Cups. Three of Pentacles.
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Be well,
Scott K Smith
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Awakening to the Spirit World: Chapters 13-15.
September 9, 2010 in Book Review, commentary, Promotion, Story | Tags: awakening to the spirit world, Awakening to the Spirit World: The Shamanic Path of Direct Revelation, Book review, Community, cycle of ages, dreaming, end times, Hank Wesselman, healing, Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Joseph Campbell, New Age, prophecy, Religion and Spirituality, Sandra Ingerman, Shamanism, Spirit | Leave a comment
If you are just joining me in these posts you can catch up on the chapter-by-chapter book review of Awakening to the spirit world through these posts:
Okay. I know. It’s been awhile but if you have followed along with me at The Journey, you know I’ve been a busy little bee, with some events and other things happening.
As promised I’m back to complete my thoughts (review) on Awakening to the Spirit World: The Shamanic Path of Direct Revelation.
You may be expecting three more blog excerpts but I’m going to blend these last three chapters together into one. You see, much like the chapters on Death (previous entries) there is a similar message in these last three chapters. It makes sense then to bring them together and close with some last thoughts here.
Community. Transformation. The Return of the Shaman
We return to the last three chapters of Awakening to Shamanism, like many inward journeys, the seeker lead back out through chapters on Community, Transforming Communities, and a final Chapter called The Return of the Shaman.
Image via Wikipedia
Clearly there is a connection between our self, our work, and the communities we live in. Naturally there is an exchange… As I believe, when we as people shift our consciousness there is a 100th Monkey Effect (I recognize that this is a considered “discredited” idea scientifically, but in Magickal work, I don’t. So I will use it). Enough magick and energy are infused in an area, it’s going to be changed. Magick is affecting consciousness, energy / vibration, matter composed of energy, etc, etc, etc.
“Shamanism”, or more closely put for me “Magick” is most effective when it is integrated into our core perceptions. Meaning, if it’s not considered in your day-to-day moments, I don’t know that you will find it always works. By “works” I mean that you actually experience it as a living thing, more than just imagined things from candles and such.
Community doesn’t always mean forming a circle and banging drums, chanting, preaching, or selling your wares. Community, I think, should probably mean that your (in this instance) “Shamanic Practice” could be best used in your own personal life, in the relationships that you have most immediately around you. Family, friends, etc. I’m not saying that one can’t form a drum circle or dreaming group, but as I remember I often saw a confusion between the two. A “Do as I say, not as I do” person or group who rattled and banged their spiritual tools, then went home and it was over.
Magick isn’t Church, it happens with every breath, it applies to the most mundane. Natural. Living. Now. In this circle.
In Chapter 13 we discuss a little bit more than that, looking for the Shaman in modern society. Who is he or she? The Minister? The Physician? Politicians? How about Visionaries like Joseph Campbell? I think that the important question is, who are our modern functionaries through the process of living and are they qualified to help us through our passages? Moreover, what are they helping to facilitate? Is it a functional change or simply the advancement of a metaphor-to-be-taken-literally?
Okay. Maybe that’s my question. I’ve never fully been a part of the mainstream choices: Church. Sports. Pop. Patriotism. I’ve found I fit into the more sub-culture and fringe… which happened to become more mainstream. It seems like the integration of these so-called “New Age” things becomes almost overwhelming (but pleasant) when you can speak and not feel like you’ll be stoned.
Image via Wikipedia
Anyway, my point, and I think that of the authors, is the question of who are our visionaries and how do we interact with our community; and in our interaction the learning of who and what are community spirit actually is.
Recognizing and honoring our interconnected nature comes from participating in life, and with those we surround ourselves with both physically and spiritually. This is the place of healing, and transformation in our self and our community when we bring it into our conscious, recognized life. We are not alone in our search for belonging or our quest for a place, in taking our journey into the realm of the day-to-day, we cut a door for connection to happen to some of our core hopes, fears, passions, and beliefs, creating connections with those forces that allow and understand our desire.
Sandra Ingerman writes:
Sandra and Hank then guide us through some scenario’s like “Healing Challenges Within Families“, including an exercise for seeking identity in healing, and our perceptions of those who are sick. They talk about the environment and sharing an ecological responsibility and move into our role as (becoming) a visionary within your community. Sandra and Hank write about forming a circle and the collective dream of a tribe and a people, that takes us into the next chapters, The Transformational Community and the Return of the Shaman.
I don’t want to gloss over these things but it’s hard not to write a novela here because we begin to discuss topics like Indigenous Prophecy and the Cycle of Ages.
I think that if you were to dedicate yourself to the suggestions and ideas in this book as a map for understanding our self, and discovering what our natural place / calling is in the world, you would be happy. The first chapters open us to the calling, the inner chapters give us the framework to create the experience of the Modern Shaman, and the last chapters bring us to our potential roles in the community and the World, which feels to be on the edge of something vastly transformative.
Joseph Campbell in the Masks of Eternity concludes with the necessity of the changing myths, of what they will become, of how they will transform our society in ways that we cannot imagine. Sandra and Hank talk about the return of primordial spirituality. Indigenous Prophecy. The Sioux and the Hindu cultures speak of the cycles of ages and the four-legged bull (buffalo) which is now standing on it’s last leg. The Maya spoke of 2012, taken up by recent “New Age” folks, Earth Birthers, and others. The climate has changed…
I don’t necessarily believe in prophecy as in I think it will occur, because I (personally) think that we collectively help to create them through our insistence in the outcome. Maybe the thought that births the result of the prophecy to fulfillment is necessary to create the change. I’d just hope that people would like something aside from a disaster to be transformed… yet that seems to be the nature of all prophecy. Death and rebirth. It doesn’t have to mean, mythologically speaking, that is / should be a literal event.
Whatever our coming times are to be, global warming, or White Buffalo Woman come again singing, I feel that we are in an age of change and it is important to have an understanding of our place within the natural world. Who are we and how are we connected becomes, how am I a part of this moment I am in and what can I do to help heal, balance, speed up, change.
I think it should be interesting. I’ve always thought that maybe it was a shift in consciousness. That maybe one person doing, becomes some people doing until the shift of energy is as natural as a hundredth monkey learning to wash a yam in the river because the many have embraced the idea into the social consciousness. The passage of ideas, the deepening of the spiritual awareness, which is our natural, normal, and healthy awareness of the world and all things in it, through a period of transition, transformation, and rebirth. If it were a song it would start with a sound of pain or bliss: This is wrong, I must change. That is beautiful, I must be there. Following our bliss is centering in who we are and from that place then discovering how what we are does something good, it is more than nature, it is innately human, it is our moment of becoming.
What if we find that we are all in a collective moment of becoming? What if it is our collective bliss or calling. What if prophecy is but poetry, dancing around the truth of our evolution… or death and rebirth?
I acknowledge that this is my part of the experience, my lens of practice, my metaphysical interaction with life and the world. Maybe it’s my message to me, connected to you, to life, an AUM moment of realization. Being alive. Shamanism like many things (I think) can be applicable because it also can be practical, and practical spiritual connections to the world are important. Metaphor’s and prophecy should connect us to the meaning of the now, expand our awareness, deepen our connections to life. Though some parts of Magickal practice do take us into other states of consciousness it is important to recognize (IMO) this truth that it should apply to our living, our love, our passages, and I think that in essence that is what Awakening to the Spirit World: The Shamanic Path of Direct Revelation is teaching.
I thank Sandra Ingerman, Hank Wesselman, Carol Proudfoot-Edgar, Tom Cowan, Jose Stevens, Alberto Villodo, Fools Crow, Black Elk, Merlin, and all the other seekers, Shamans, Witches, and Spiritual doer’s past, present, and future for taking the time to live the life of their calling. We all are human, imperfectly-perfect natural beings seeing into the great unknown and traveling paths to seek and bring back that which can help us all collectively.
Find your path to direct revelation. Reach into your inner being. Spend time in your bliss, your calling, your authentic, magickal self and bring back the gifts that you have. They are needed more than you know.
In love.
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Be well,
Scott K Smith
http://lifencompass.com
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Subscribe via RSS. Leave a comment, those are always appreciated. Submit something for posting, topics and ideas are welcome.
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