Letting Go Into Love

As I write this, I am feeling the loss of a treasured colleague and friend who lost her long struggle with cancer. She was fortunate in her life to have a right livelihood, be surrounded by loving people and have the companionship of a wonderful life partner. She was ever ready to focus on the needs of those around her and she brought much comfort and support to her clients, her friends and her family.

Her story reminds me of many people I have met in the healing arts. Like she, many healers are what might be called, life-long “helpers.” While on the surface, this way of being appears to be holistic and harmonious, it can have a terrible dark side. Many times, there is an intrinsic piece of the puzzle missing. That is, having compassion for the Self. For some people, compassion has become an energy that is only outwardly focused. Giving is offered to the point of depletion, disease and even death. While this may seem altruistic, it is actually a distortion or misperception about the nature of compassion.

My spirit teacher insists that for the fullness of compassion to be expressed, it must include the self. Like a glass filled beyond its capacity, giving to others from the place of fullness allows for a constant overflowing of love, healing and support. However, when one gives to others from a state of depletion, the actions create resentment and also physical, mental and emotional dis-ease.

A lack of self-compassion may stem from relational patterns that developed in early childhood. A situation may have existed that left the “helper” needing to find ways to relate to a weak, ill or dependent parent. Since children are wise enough to find creative ways to get their needs met, the child may have developed the pattern of caring for the parent in an effort to receive necessary food, shelter and attention. This creates the perception that the “helper’s” ultimate wellbeing and feelings of self worth depend upon endlessly serving others. This pattern can become so entrenched that the person expends their life in the external quest for self worth, love and peace.

Helping in this dysfunctional way is the antithesis of true caring as on an unconscious level, the “helper” is actually trying to get his or her own needs met. In a way, it is really being selfish not selfless. In addition, by not caring for the self, the “helper” wounds the hearts of those that care for him or her. These loved one witness the healer expending their last drop of energy chasing self-esteem and self-worth, as they continually aid others while their own health, wellbeing and relationships suffer.

Indeed, according to Kristin D. Neff, Ph.D. in her article, “The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion” published in the journal, Self and Identity, the degree to which individuals display self-compassion is what actually determines a person’s health and wellbeing. Self-compassionate individuals experience greater psychological health than those who lack self-compassion. For example, self-compassion is positively associated with life-satisfaction, wisdom, happiness, optimism, curiosity, learning goals, social connectedness, personal responsibility, and emotional resilience.

On the other hand, those that do not practice self-compassion are much more prone to severe self-criticism and more likely to experience depression, anxiety, rumination, positive thought and action suppression, perfectionism, and disordered self-care attitudes. People trapped in this cycle often ignore their own needs for good food, appropriate health caring, and nurturing relationship. They push loved ones and the nurturing aspects of life away in the vain hope that their constant helping of others will someday, somehow leave them feeling full and complete. The unending quest to help one more person or help out with one more project will never bring satisfaction. It is quite literally, in the case of my friend, a dead end.

In other words, one-sided compassion that is only externally focused, is unbalanced and incomplete. It does not hold the notion that all of life—including the self—is sacred and therefore deserving of caring.

If you have recognized yourself in these words, it is time to find a new way. Our planet is deeply into her process of balancing herself. For this to occur in a way that will also allow human beings to survive, we need to develop wholeness and balance in our own selves. Never before has the adage, “as within, so without” held such importance for our individual and collective futures. If we want to have a world that is peaceful, harmonious and vibrantly alive, we need to attend to our inner realm. In other words, if you really want to see that others are helped to heal and change, you must express the fullness of compassion for yourself first.

In finding a new, more self-compassionate way of being it is necessary to remember that the pattern that traps you was not developed in isolation. It was the result of a dysfunctional relationship. As a result, it is best resolved through a therapeutic relationship with those who have been trained to help people resolve unbeneficial patterns. Getting free from the old, dysfunctional way of being is not something that you can or should figure out yourself. Let go of the idea that you must do it on your own. That notion is also a part of the pattern that must be released!

People who have successfully broken this unbeneficial pattern have relied on the work of a trusted psychotherapist or have chosen to regularly engage in therapeutic practices such as our Shamanic Inner Body Healing process. Whichever therapeutic method you choose, it must include identifying and healing the unconscious root cause of the pattern. The therapist provides the necessary container of a safe, guiding relationship that gives the vulnerable inner self the courage to let the old way of being go. You must be willing to devote time to your healing. Since the pattern has been entrenched for a time it requires more than a quick fix to change it. Therapeutic support must be accessed on a weekly or biweekly basis to make real and steady progress. Remember, you are retraining your unconscious mind and changing the behaviors that originated from the misperceptions you held about yourself and the world.

Along with a therapeutic relationship, it is important to place yourself in a supportive community. Like-minded souls can help to reinforce the positive changes you are striving to make. Again, since the dysfunctional patterns were developed in relationship, it is important to have healthy people to reinforce your transformations. Just as importantly, make sure to steer clear of people who want to sap your energy, are dependent or who are actively engaged in addictive behaviors as these individuals will trigger your old desire to want to “fix them.” In essence, their draining energies will work to negate your forward movement.

Another critical component is to develop a strong, daily spiritual practice. This can be as simple as taking time to pray aloud or make entries in an intentional gratitude journal every day. Another spiritual practice for which I am personally indebted is the shamanic journey process. This method offers you access to transcendent spirit teachers who can provide unique support. Their soul-level perspective on our process can be incredibly helpful when we are in the midst of tackling a life-long, unbeneficial pattern. Journeying everyday can help us to stay on track and give the kind of support our inner children need to feel strong enough to follow through.

Rounding out the supports that are necessary to aid in transforming old patterns is time in nature. Nature offers a backdrop of both stability and constant change that helps us to understand on a deep, visceral level that we, as a part of nature, have the capacity to remake and renew ourselves. Just as seasons follow each other and rain or snow eventually give way to sun, we have the ability to rework the perceptions and behaviors we developed in our earlier life. Like the seeds slumbering under the snow, our Light is there, just under the surface waiting to be discovered and brought into the world.

The last element is the need to fully attend to the work. Don’t put it off another minute! Your life and the hearts of those who love you are held in the balance. Getting free of the illusionary burden you have carried for much of your life and realizing your own intrinsic preciousness is possible for you if you chose to follow through. That means not just ruminating about it (which is a part of the dysfunctional pattern) but rather actually taking the concrete, physical steps that are necessary to make the change. The shifts in consciousness and behavior to ones of healthy, self-compassion are essential, not only for you to be able to survive but to truly thrive.

In this time of seasonal darkness, it is appropriate to take steps into the Light. Make the appointment to interview a therapist, start your gratitude journal, let go of relationships that drain you and reach out to those people that are honestly supportive of you and your changes. You’ll know who they are as they aren’t emotionally standing there with their hands out but their arms and hearts spread open and ready to embrace you.

Are you ready to embody this new consciousness and live every moment of every day in the fullness of compassion for yourself and others? Make this transformation your holiday present to yourself and the gift you give those who love you. This auspicious turn of the calendar into 2012 couldn’t offer a better time!

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk
Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is www.spiritpassages.com.

Embodied Light Meditation

This meditation is a very simple to learn and easy to practice in any situation when you need to feel focused, calm, and present. I find that it is an excellent way to begin each day.

1. Begin by finding a quiet space where you will not be disturbed. Sit down in a comfortable chair that allows your back to be straight with your feet on the floor.

2.  With your hands folded gently in your lap, close your eyes and take a few moments to breathe. Allow your breaths to be both quiet and full–somewhat like the breaths of the deep sleep state.

3. As you begin to more fully relax, notice that your breath originates in the center of your chest. Imagine a light there that grows brighter with every breath you take.

4. As this light grows brighter, see it also expanding to fill your entire body –growing ever brighter.

5. Your radiant body is a gift of the stars.

6. Exploding novas seeded the cosmos with all the elements to make you and the body of our beautiful planet. All the iron, calcium, oxygen and other elements are gifts from the stars. This gift is what you inhabit while you are embodied. You are a divine radiance wrapped in star-stuff!

7. Allow your light to expand so that your physical body is enfolded in light. Your spirit –your light–completely surrounds your body. This is your true state of being.

8. Your entire being is full, rich, radiant, beautiful, and divine.

9. While continuing to breathe notice how your radiant body is connected to the radiant body of the Earth.

10. Your body moves within the atmosphere of our planet. You live by swimming through her air with your feet touching her body. Your body is held by your light and is always cradled by the Earth.

11. Allow yourself to reach out even further and feel how the Sun’s radiance embraces the Earth as she embraces you in her loving warmth. Allow all your senses to be fully enlivened by this nurturance.

12. You are an embodied Light–a divine and magnificent aspect of the All That Is–made manifest by your physicality–always connected to the Earth and All That Is.

13. Breathe in the depth of this radiant, loving connection and allow it to bring you to a peaceful and fully enlivened state of being.

14. When you feel full of this experience–clasp your folded hands tightly together. As you are doing this, recall the sensations of being fully enlivened and cradled by the Earth –completely peaceful.

15. Whenever you wish you will be able to attain this fully embodied state by repeating this symbolic gesture with your hands.

16. Now, gently release your hands and allow yourself to slowly return your attention to the room in which you are sitting. Take a full, deep, sighing breath and gently open your eyes.

When you feel ready, you may wish to make notes about what you experienced while doing this meditation. Take time to record all that you felt, saw and heard.

If you experienced difficulty visualizing or feeling the light at your heart center, don’t worry. Sometimes it can take some time to move the consciousness down into the body and into the heart. This is especially true when we are used being in our heads or being out of our body as a protection. Those wonderfully ingenious strategies that may have helped us survive when we were younger can interfere with us being able to thrive as an adult. However, with practice you will be able to move through to a heart-centered experience.

If, on the other hand, you feel foggy, confused, or lightheaded after this meditation, it means you need to practice grounding yourself. Some easy ways include:

• Eating a light snack

• Spending time outdoors-especially in a natural setting (with grass, trees, ocean or by a river)

• Doing something with your hands–making something, touching stones, playing in water or digging in dirt.

• Sitting on the ground with your back up against a tree

• Breathing with a focus on the soles of your feet–feel them touching the inside of your shoes or the ground

• Imagining roots coming from the bottom of your feet into the ground to firmly tie you to the core of the earth.

• Listening to whatever music makes you want to dance–and DANCE!

Above all, please be gentle with yourself–especially if you feel like your experience with the meditation feels difficult. You are in the process of transforming! This is something that is best done with a loving patience and a gentle persistence. Over time, a kind of softening begins to occur whereby the new way of being becomes gradually easier. Practice this meditation daily until you are able to attain this state of being more easily.

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author ofModern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is www.spiritpassages.com.

* This meditation is from her  book  (working title) Spirit Walking: A Course in Shamanic Power.

River Offering

Last evening, Allie and I bundled up against the Autumn chill and walked down to our little local river. Just as the sun was sinking below the horizon, we allowed ourselves to remember all the moments that brought us to gratitude. We filled our hearts with the feelings of our purring cat, savoring coffee as we listened to public radio, hearing from friends and many other simple blessings the day had given us.

With full hearts, we each tossed a handful of fine, cornmeal toward the river. The cloud flew through the air and settled on the surface of the water. A slow current gathered the particles into long, lazy spirals and carried them downstream. As the sky began to turn indigo, I thought of our gift being carried to the ocean by the river’s insistent flow. Soon, her surface will be hard with winter ice.

This river, the seasons and everything in and around us is in perpetual motion. All Life ebbs and flows in an endless circle dance and in this season, that inevitable progression is more evident to me than in any other month. By November, the leaves are gone, the night arrives early and there is a whiff of mortality in the atmosphere that mixes with the aroma of wood smoke.

On such cold and clear nights, I can’t help but turn my vision toward the sky. Lingering before entering the house, I look up and watch my breath snake into the Milky Way. I take comfort at the stars’ steady procession around the pole and smile at the Little Bear pivoting on his tail. His whirling dance is so fine a mirror for our planet’s pirouettes around the Sun, I blow him a kiss!

In taking time to honor the moments that life give us, we imbue them with a greater splendor. Like a glittery coat of frost on an evergreen, everything feels more marvelous when wrapped with gratitude. Every thing and person we love can feel even more precious when so enfolded. It is a way to capture the fleeting moments of our existence and preserve them in our hearts. In expressing our appreciation, we participate in creating even more opportunities to feel grateful.

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author ofModern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is www.spiritpassages.com.

Light on the Water

Our shaman ancestors understood that everything around us is alive. Of course, it is easy for us to see that the plants, animals and birds are living. Yet, the rocks, the river, the clouds, the rain and the winds are as inspirited as you and I. Every aspect of our world is humming with enlivening energy. This indefinable “something” that continually breathes everything into existence is described in many ways. Physicists talk about infinitely tiny, vibrating Super Strings creating the particles of matter from which the visible world is formed while we shamanic practitioners honor that everything is filled with spirit. Whatever unique language we use to try and explain it, it is clear that we all are part of a marvelously interconnected fabric of Life. Each of us is enfolded by and in constant interaction with it. Our actions, thoughts and feelings create ripples that impact the others in the fabric.

In family systems therapy, the family is described like a group of people held together by an enormous rubber band. When one member of a family makes a move forward, the band that connects them naturally pulls the other members of the group forward as well. Initially, this produces a kind of chaotic rumble of movement that is a series of actions and reactions bouncing the family back and forth. This uncomfortable jostling prompts the family to initially fall into chaos. If the members of the family unit are willing to look at what is changing, shift the relational dynamics and then work out their issues–the entire group can begin moving in the same direction.

A similar process is going on in our larger family of human beings. As some of us change and move forward, the rest of our human family is feeling shaken up. Some people will resist the shifts and create chaos. In the face of this turmoil, the individuals in the group have a choice. They can either choose to succumb to the turbulence around them and stay in that anarchic state or they can choose to work on their own inner resistances and wounds. In family systems work, as individuals in the group attend to their inner environment and experience their own healing, the benefits impact every member. Eventually, through the irresistible force of connection, everyone is moved forward.

It is clear from the daily news that our human family is deeply immersed in the chaotic phase of change. While we are experiencing the pandemonium that is occurring in our larger family, we have a choice. We can contribute to the agitation by being resistant, remaining polarized and staying stuck in our old dramas or we can refocus our attention to our own inner healing. The latter choice is the one that can contribute to a more rapid and positive shift in the outer world.

If we are honest with ourselves, each of us can see places inside that need loving attention. Perhaps we have old wounds that have caused us to believe that we aren’t as good or as important as others. In our early life, we may have been taught that we weren’t loveable. Perhaps we are feeling controlled by the fears of being abandoned or being unworthy. Maybe we have tried to cover over our wounds with alcohol, too much work or other addictions.

As we have the courage to unpack the old, unbeneficial perceptions and behaviors we have lived with for years, we have an opportunity to not only free our selves, but to unleash a powerful series of vibrations across the energetic web that unites us. These changes contribute to all the waves being made by other people of courage. Eventually, there is an irresistible upwelling of transformation that carries all of us to a new, higher way of being. While that sounds like an impossibly huge shift, all each of us needs to do is our own part.

Often, the hardest part of the shift is to recognize that each of us is a precious and remarkable aspect of the divine Wholeness. No part of the All That Is can possibly be more or less important than any other. My Nepalese shaman friend, Bhola always greets people with a shallow bow. While bowing, his hands are pressed together with his palms touching and his fingers pointed upwards, in front of his chest. This namaste gesture literally means that, “I bow to your form.” When two people greet each other in this manner, it is both a recognition and a reminder that each one is a transcendent, sacred being clothed in human form.

This understanding of our divinity is grounded in traditions that are hundreds of centuries old. While in their shamanic trances, our ancient ancestors were able to see that every aspect of the inspirited world is connected by a numinous radiance. In reaching beyond the ordinary way of perceiving the world, those early explorers beyond the realm of the senses grasped the nature of reality that is only now being discussed by the discipline of higher physics. That is, everything that is or ever existed, is first and foremost Light. Everything we understand as physical, is simply a standing wave pattern in that Light.

Those early shamans who called that radiance “spirit,” also learned that each of us impacts this Light as we are irrevocably connected in it. Physicists, too know that our connections interact with the Light of all potential. How we think and feel produce different vibrations and those vibrations have a direct impact upon how Light “crystallizes” into matter. Our thoughts, feelings and the actions that flow from them change the nature of our physical reality. While this may seem hard for our minds to grasp, it implies that you and I are participating in creating and recreating the world. Right now. This also means that we have the ability to impact the wellbeing of our selves and this planet. We just need to remember our inherent magnificent power–stepping out of the false illusions that keep us feeling small.

It is only our ordinary mind /personality that sees us as anything less than powerful creator beings. This is because we have believed the limited perspectives spun by our senses. Our sensory organs can only perceive the smallest aspect of the suite of vibrations that constitute All That Is. We can only see visible light and hear audible sound. This is a tiny portion of reality and even less that what many insects, birds and animals can perceive. Yet, we have based our fundamental foundations about what is real or true wholly upon our sensory input. As a result, we have fallen completely under the spell of illusion.

This illusionary world creates the belief that we are separate. It is the illusion that contributes to our belief that we are small, powerless and without value. This misunderstanding does not serve us nor does it serve All That Is.

When a shaman is initiated, they often experience a kind of tearing away or destruction of their old self. The ordinary person with limited perception must fall away so that the initiate sees her or him self as a person of power. During a spiritual dismemberment ritual the person would see their body burned or eaten away. This often times terrifying experience helped the initiate to understand that the true self was eternal and existed both in and beyond the ordinary world. In essence, the initiate was liberated from the perceptions of their limitations while experiencing that everything in the surrounding world–including him or herself–is radiant with spiritual light. Rather than creating a longing for the world of “no form” it helped the shaman to see that, since that light pervades everything, all of life is inherently precious.

This same kind of understanding underlies the Medicine for the Earth work of Sandra Ingerman. Grounded in the most ancient practices of shamanism, it is a method that helps a person understand that—like the tribal initiate—he or she is a being of light. In addition, each of us can use our heart-felt intentions and focus to alter physical reality through experiencing ourselves as that radiance. In other words, when we bring our consciousness into the full experience of our Light, we create a harmony that transcends the limitations held by our ordinary mental state.

In our Medicine for the Earth monthly gathering, we have witnessed water that was poisoned with a strong alkali become completely harmless. The water came back into a balance in the presence of a small group of people who released themselves of the illusion of their ordinary perceptions and then experienced them selves as pure, radiant Light. No one focused on or touched the water.

As the people remember their true nature, their inner harmony supports the beaker of water, to remember its harmonious wholeness and balance. Amazingly, this happens in just a few minutes of ordinary time. This process is completely unexplainable by using scientific means. Ordinarily, the same this shift in Ph would only be possible if the polluted beaker of water was placed outdoors in sunlight for several days. It is scientifically “impossible” for it to happen in minutes. Yet, perhaps this is the very way that the shamans of old were able to perform the miraculous healings and transformations that are attributed to them.

When we are experiencing our true nature and the nature of All That Is, we are transcending our ordinary limited self. In this transfigured state, we naturally generate healing and harmony. You see, our ordinary, limited perception produce disruption. The consciousness that functions from limited beliefs is in constant opposition to the true nature of reality. When we shed that old, unbenefical way of being, the world around us returns to harmony.

The analogy of a swimming pool works well to help understand this idea. Every person in the pool disturbs the water as they move. When a group of individuals are each moving around, their waves crash into the next person’s waves and the water quickly begins sloshing around in a disorganized and turbulent manner. Once the people in the pool become still, allowing them selves to be upheld by their natural buoyancy, the water quickly returns to calmness.

When we think about the fabric of reality, the chaotic patterns we see around us a result of people acting from a place of illusion. In their feelings of separateness and smallness, they “splash around the pool” causing turbulence. When even a small a group of people remember that they are radiant beings who are upheld by and part of the radiant “waters” of reality, everything returns to its most harmonious state. That is because the group that is transfigured transforms everything and every being around them. This change occurs because harmony is not only conductive to creation it is the natural state of All That Is.

At no place in our long, human history has their been so much support for us to be able to live from this understanding. There has also never been so much riding on our being able to “get it” and remember our place as divine, creator stewards of this beautiful world.

Autumn is a perfect time to allow the illusions that keep us small to fall away like the dying leaves. As those unbeneficial patterns go away, we allow the energy of growth to flood back. We are able to experience life around us changing for the better. In dismembering our selves of those limiting beliefs or behaviors that keep us small and re-membering our place as divine co-creators, we not only step back into the flow of creativity, we co-participate in creation. We “calm the waves” and finally begin to manifest a better world for our selves and all beings.

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk
Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is www.spiritpassages.com.

Sustaining spiritual patience

Sometimes it feels as though the transformations you want to experience are arriving too slowly! When you stumble in your evolution, lose your passion for the process or just have times of feeling “stuck,” it is useful to receive support so that you don’t become impatient or lose faith in your inner wisdom. I find that a good focus to keep yourself on track is to begin thinking of your life as a “playground of transformation” and to experiment with the following ideas!

Cultivating compassionate curiosity

To better move through the times when you don’t feel as connected, it is important to cultivate a willingness to stretch into places that feel “beyond your comfort zone” and lovingly “investigate” yourself!  I am referring to developing an ability to observe yourself, your thoughts and your actions. Each of us have many aspects of Self–an inner wise person, the inner child/children, an inner critic, and so forth.  You also have a part which can observe you with compassion.

This part of yourself is can be an essential ally when something disturbs the rhythm your practice. Often we run up against some kind of inner interference that temporarily throws us off course. When we wear the eyes of the compassionate “inner detective,” we can recognize that these disruptions are actually calling our attention to some perception, thought or feeling that needs to be shifted so that we can move forward again. Since you are creating your world through your perceptions and their resultant thoughts/actions–being willing to become more conscious through self observation is a key to changing not only yourself but through you the outer world as well.

Eliminating Inner Interference:

Many of the inner stumbling blocks we encounter in our lives are unconscious perceptions, outmoded beliefs and habits. In order to understand them, it is useful to begin to look at what energies motivate our behaviors. Fundamentally, all human behavior is either based in love or fear.

The motivation of LOVE produces:

gratitude, compassion, appreciation, caring, wonder, mercy, sympathy, harmony, admiration, thankfulness, empathy, benevolence, exhalation, patience, tenderness, courage and thoughtful regard, as well as actual love.

FEAR on the other hand expresses itself as:

anxiety, anger, jealousy, envy, doubt, judgement, blame, shame, depression/shut down, bitterness, holding yourself back, feelings of being a “victim” or “inferior,” power abuse, impatience, emptiness, cowardice, suspicion and actual fear.

In the larger culture, people use many methods to avoid feeling their fears and so are  not able to identify or clear them away. These unbeneficial coping mechanisms include such things as: procrastination, distraction by keeping “busy” or staying involved in other people’s “trauma-dramas,” blaming the situation or other people, using substances such as alcohol, narcotics or food and/or behaviors such as sex, excessive watching of TV, playing computer games or hoarding to stuff feelings or shut feelings down. People also try intimidating others in an effort to feel more “powerful,” hold onto emotional pain because it provides a kind of “excuse” for not moving forward or even identify others as “enemies” who then become the focus for what are actually a person (or culture’s) inner, unconscious fears.

Since your unconscious mind can be such a strong motivation for your actions and thoughts, it is useful to begin observing yourself so that you can get a clearer sense of what is happening below the surface of your mind.

This means being willing to engage your compassionate inner detective to observe how you are in the different aspects of your life. This is important as many of us behave very differently in different situations. Take the time to notice how you are at work and at home. Notice how you behave in relationships. Begin observing how you think, what language you use about yourself and others and observe the times that you are judgmental.  Also look at how you deal with disappointment and notice what is happening inside when you forget to be engaged in your spiritual practice. Pay attention to what you learn and see how you can begin to become more conscious about your thoughts and actions. As you pay attention, you may begin to notice that many of your difficult moments involve strong feelings. Conscious and unconscious perceptions held in your mind blend with the input of your emotional body and exit you as feelings. Sometimes, the feelings you express have little or no connection to what is actually happening in the present moment! Indeed, often they are often connected to past events and the perceptions you developed then.

Many of our interference patterns are actually connected to our anxiety or fears. Often, these fears are actually unconscious so that they are difficult to recognize. With the assistance of your compassionate and curious “inner detective,” you can look at the ways your fears reveal themselves.

Our fears/anxieties are usually expressed in some form of the fight/flight/freeze response. While it is easy to recognize a literal “fight” or “freeze,” we may not readily notice these responses when they are wrapped in our behaviors. For example, if you become controlling, blaming, argumentative or bossy in certain situations, it is a form of the “fight” reaction. On the other hand, if you becomes vague, withdrawn, confused or emotionally immobile you can think about it as a “freeze” reaction. If in response to a situation you easily lose patience, give up or repeatedly don’t have “enough time” to do something then you may be expressing a form of “flight.”  Notice these reaction with deep compassion as they are very human!  Catching these behaviors is the first step of disabling the fear which is behind them. The prize is to relinquish the grip your unconscious fear’s have on your life!

As you compassionately observe yourself, make notes about when feelings come up and under what circumstances. Developing a picture of your reactions will support you to want to dig a little deeper. An excellent method is to journey to a teacher or power animal to ask questions such as “What fear is underneath this behavior?”  A deep meditaion on this queston may serve you in a similar way. As you bring the fears into the light of consciousness, you begin to disempower them and loosen their grip on you. Once on the surface, fears can be healed far more easily than ones that are hidden in the depths of the unconscious mind.

As your fear becomes clearer, see if it has a message for you. By finding out more about the fear, you can begin shifting out of your old, disfunctional behavior and learn new ways of being that are healthy and can contribute to moving you forward.

Using gratitude to make you more resilient

Making changes in your life can be stressful but gratitude has a healing effect on the body. Research by the Institute of HeartMath has found that people who practice gratitude regularly are able to sustain their positive biochemistry and regulate their moods even when stressed! In other words, the continued practice of gratitude allowed individuals to have a physical and emotional resilience that was not accessible to those who didn’t practice gratitude.

Feeling gratitude helps you to nurture the seeds of your new dream of yourself. The time in which we are living offer us an opportunity to shed the old, outmoded ways of being human. As each of us changes, we in turn help to rocket human evolution forward and so transform everything and when you commit to being grateful in spite of personal struggles, fears, illness or other “disruptions,” it becomes much easier to be peaceful and loving even in difficult times.

Expanding possibilities–Shamanic Imagination.

The shamanic journey process is one very ancient method which can expand you beyond your ordinary way of perceiving the world and help you to move beyond your mind’s limitations. While you are in the journey state, you are able to FEEL experiences and new possibilities before they are physically realized. This in turn, supports you to stretch into new places of consciousness and help you to shift out of old beliefs that limit you. Expanding your perceptions of what is possible, actually helps you to realize new ways of being. This can support you to grow!

In addition, the unconditional love and guidance that the transcendent spirits offer can buoy you up and give you courage to keep going forward. Their expressions of compassion can also support you to have more compassion for yourself.

Getting support from the human world

We human beings are social primates. There is a reason that solitary confinement is considered a harsh punishment. In the psychological theory referred to as, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, after the need for physiological support–such as food, water and shelter–and the needs for safety, the third layer of human needs are social and involve feelings of belonging. Without the close connections of family, friends, and larger social groupings, humans become much more susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression.

Especially during those times when you are engaged in making changes in your life, it is important to become an active participant in supportive communities. This may mean that you need to be willing to stretch into places that feel uncomfortable by meeting new people, going to gatherings and taking classes. Supportive, social relationships can help you to integrate all that you are learning and experiencing as your new life continues to unfold.

On the other hand, you may also find that you may have to let go of older relationships that do not support your growth. This is usually something that occurs organically. In the course of our changing and evolving, some of our relationship naturally “grow apart.”  While it can often be emotionally difficult to experience this kind of shift in a relationship, it is also true that as one person leaves you, you become open for others to enter into your life.

If at any point you need even more support than your “friends and family network” can provide, give yourself full permission to seek out a professional person, such as a therapist or counsellor, who is especially skilled at assisting people on their life paths. A good counselor is worth their weight in gold in helping to sort out feelings or untangle patterns when they feel too overwhelming to deal with on your own!

Being compassionately persistent

There is no substitute for being willing to pick yourself up when you falter or stumble on your path. Indeed, our journeys through life are seldom straight. They are usually a long series of starts, stops, twists, turns and restarts. When you falter, stall or get lost along the way, remember to repeat all the steps I’ve outline here. So long as you give yourself permission to look at all of your life as exuberant explorations on the “playground of transformation” you can keep making progress with no limits upon how far you can go.

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

(Excerpt from the soon to be published book: Spirit Walking: A Course in Shamanic Power)

Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is.  Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives.  In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is www.spiritpassages.com.

A Consciousness of True, Reverent Relationship

I’m so grateful to be living in a time when our most ancient ways of understanding the world are being joined with the most advanced way of perceiving reality. The combination of these is creating a new paradigm for stewarding the Earth and also providing a new template for being a whole human being. This new paradigm has deep parallels to the way of being exceptional tribal shamans also exhibit.  Each of the ones with whom I have been fortunate to study constantly expressed their spirituality not only while teaching, healing or leading ceremony but also during the everyday, mundane aspects of their lives.

When I studied with the late, Grandfather Mikhail “Misha” Duvan, he was a ninety four year old man visiting a place a world away from his home in Southeastern Siberia. While his teachings were profound, it is the personal time I spent with him that showed me how congruent his practice was with his life. In the traditions of the Ulchi, the shaman is always gracious with the spirits–attending to their needs and treating them as revered elders. Much in the manner of Native American peoples, the many spirits Grandfather worked with were addressed with titles such as “ Old One,” “Grandmother,”“Uncle,” “Elder Sister” and so forth.  The spirits of Nature and the Ulchi ancestral human spirits were all fed good food and offered songs and vodka to nourish them. This was done in the same fashion and with the same energy that one might care for one’s treasured , living family members.

Indeed, a sense of humble and gracious reverence was expressed in all aspects of Grandfather Misha’s life-practice. He bowed when encountering a person and was equally respectful during his interactions with the spirits of place. As he walked along with his staff, he would converse with the plants and stones. Since his home was far from where he was teaching, he would ask the spirits of place to forgive him for not fully understanding their customs. He requested that they be especially gentle with those of us who were his students as we were “still learning.” He fed them food and vodka and, in turn, asked them to share some of their power with him while he was in ceremony.

Through his action, Grandfather Misha was expressing what I call, Reverent Participatory Relationship and this is the way the really powerful shamans I have met always live their lives. Like he, they approach the world feeling a profound respect–expressing consideration and appreciation for all beings. They participate not simply with thoughts, but with coherent actions. Their actions arise from a deep sense of obligation that is in no way burdensome, but rather a form of reciprocity in motion. Shamans understand very deeply that everything in the world is inspirited and that no one can exist without the complex interactions of the others with whom we share the planet. As such, the shaman feels a deep sense of responsibility to give back with gratitude for all that is given. In other words, caring for those with whom he or she is already in relationship.

This way of being has tremendous power to transform and heal. Consulting physician for the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital and renowned medical conference speaker, David Reilly, MD, has proven that an effective therapeutic encounter–that is, one where a healing response has been engendered–is based in such an understanding of relationship.  In his April 2005 presentation for the Academic Departments of the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, Creating Therapeutic Encounter, Dr. Reilly suggests that “traditional and indigenous healing systems including shamanism have spent a long time learning about these things – translating it to our world is the challenge.”  In regards to our own bodies’ capacity to heal, Dr. Reilly noted, “We know a human recovery reaction is a built in potential, we have seen that it can be modified for good and bad by human interaction.” I believe that the very same may be said for how our human interactions impact the non-human beings around us, too.

When Reverent Participatory Relationship becomes ingrained enough to be a person’s framework for living,  remarkable coherence is exhibited across all aspects of life. The typical separation most people feel between the spiritual and mundane worlds simply does not exist. Indeed, everything is felt to be and treated as sacred and beloved.

Another one of my teachers, the late Ai-Churek, said in a 2007 interview that, “Shamanism is like a gift, and for me…it is for life.”  She was someone who worked tirelessly on behalf of her people and the natural world believing that, “…the main thing in shamanism is the Earth, Nature, and my connection….” Her focus when doing rituals was to “help to people who are not indifferent to the fate of trees, the fate of living nature.”  The same fierce respect was bestowed upon the people who worked in her shamanic clinic in Kyzyl, Tuva. She lobbied the government to make sure her shamans received appropriate respect and challenged anything she felt was unfair. Thanks to her hard efforts, both men and women healers at her clinic receive government maternity leave. This was a feat she shared delightedly with us! For her, this work was as holy an action as performing an ancestral fire ritual as they stemmed from the same root of sacred interaction and deep caring.

Nepalese shaman, Bhola Banstola, who will be with us again at the end of June, is another great example of someone who practices Reverent Participatory Relationship. He is a twenty seventh generation shaman and the thirtieth generation in his family history to be a practicing shamanic healer. As we are friends, Bhola lives with my partner and I during his visits to Maine. From so close a relationship, we are able to see him in all of life’s of situations. Whether ironing his costume, preparing a meal, doing e-mail or negotiating with airline personnel when a flight was canceled, Bhola consistently maintains his focus to remain kind, grateful and in spiritual harmony no matter what is happening. In other words, he lives his practice.

It is too easy in our culture to allow anything of importance–even our spiritual practice–to become an intellectual or theoretical exercise.  In reality, while many people can have high ideals, it is in the living of one’s life that the “rubber meets the road.” That is, it is through expressing one’s spirituality in every day life that true real power is achieved. To be sure, this is a disciplined way of life. It means truly “walking the talk”–that is, following through on spiritual beliefs by taking concrete actions. It means living in gratitude, being completely faithful to our word and keeping our words and deeds in complete alignment.  It means eliminating the erroneous ideas of separation from the mind and stepping up to care for the beings around us that give and sustain life. It means treating all of beings as you might a treasured friend or loved one.

It is my profound belief that this is how we all must learn to live our lives. In so doing, we support a renewal of the Earth and ourselves. As an added benefit,  we also develop the level of spiritual potency that a truly powerful tribal shaman exhibits.  In our spiritual practices, learning the nuts and bolts of metaphysical techniques and methods of transformation are just the very beginning. It is only through deliberate practice of loving the world and being in Reverent Participatory Relationship with all, that our lives transform. Through this way of living our practice, we develop ourselves into beings who are able to provide healing and balance through our daily interactions.

Thankfully, this way of being is slowly gaining more credibility even though it challenges the typical ideas our culture has about power. This is marvelous as unfortunately, too many people in our culture still feel powerless whether they express these uncomfortable feelings or not.  From a place of emptiness, they seek to fill themselves with ever “more” in hopes of one day feeling complete, worthy or happy.  This addictive behavior keeps them in a constant cycle of temporary highs which are followed by feelings of an almost desperate hollowness. It creates a lifetime of desperately seeking and never really finding peace.

In stark contrast, those that are willing to step into deep relationship with the spirits of nature, other beings and themselves are able to feel that they are a part of the divine.  In essence, through behaving as our ancient shamanic ancestors did, we are more able to perceive the nature of reality that quantum physics proposes–that is, that we are always intimately and irrevocably interwoven with everything and everyone.

At no other time in history, have we been offered so many opportunities to truly comprehend and act from this understanding of the world. In diverse corners of our culture from business, to science, to healthcare and education we are seeing a convergence of knowledge that is extraordinary. All paths seem to be coming together to show us the nature of the cosmos is one of connection. Furthermore, these connections are best nurtured and healed through heartfelt interaction.

For instance, a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by Helen Riess, MD titled, “Empathy in Medicine—A Neurobiological Perspective,”stated that “… new generations of physicians must understand the emotional, physiological, and practical consequences of … empathy.” The author goes on at length to describe the actual, positive neurobiological, psychological and physical changes that occur when we choose to be in an empathetic relationship. In other words, when we realize that we are actually part of one organism–sharing the same experience, we are able to transform every moment into opportunities for healing, renewal and an even deeper connection.

This premise has become the foundation for my and my partners life. It is at the heart of our healing practice as it is our belief that our being in Reverent Participatory Relationship with our clients supports them to become healthier individuals. We follow this ideal in our teaching practice as we believe that it is the only road to becoming a truly powerful shaman. We believe this so strongly that our shamanic graduate level training as it is especially focused on immersing advanced students even more deeply into relationship with All That Is through the deliberate, heartfelt practice of Reverent Participatory Relationship, expressing one’s own inherent sanctity and being consistently grateful.

It is also why we continue to host Bhola Banstola’s work in Maine. He is not only a wonderful teacher, he models a spiritually integrated way of life which infuses all of his interactions. In his presence, his students are reminded again that as each of us takes steps to embrace the world with reverence, allowing our hearts to be open, grateful and loving–we are reshaping our human existence into something truly and wondrously powerful.

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk www.spiritpassages.com

Spirit Passages’ Fifth Graduate Program in Advanced Shamanism and Dreamscaping the New Earth begins September 29- October 2, 2011 and applications are being accepted now. The program is open to those that have graduated a thorough shamanic training such as the Spirit Passages Apprenticeship, FSS 3-year Program, Sandra Ingerman’s Teacher Training or comparable training. More information may be found at: http://www.spiritpassages.com/initiatorytrainingprograms.html

Nepalese shaman, Bhola Banstola will be teaching in Falmouth, Maine on June 25 & 26. There are also opportunities to have a private healing session  with Bhola still available. Contact Spirit Passages: info@spiritpassages.com or call: 207- 846-6829

An Emerging New Human

Recent scientific discoveries have proved that we Homo sapiens or modern humans carry Neanderthal genetic material in our DNA. The same is true about another branch of the family tree recently discovered in Siberia. The genetic material of these so called Denisovans,  was also successfully passed to the modern human genome.  This has a powerful significance. It means that we aren’t as different as we once thought. For successful interbreeding to have occurred between these variations on the human theme it would have required that we are essentially the same species.  When members of different species interbreed–like horses and donkeys producing mules — the resultant animals are sterile and so cannot pass on the mixed genes.  So these ancestors were more like us than we previously imagined. As a result we carry a bit of them in our body.

Indeed, our DNA carries many other surprises. When the scientists sequenced the three billion bases and 100,000 genes of the human genome they discovered that fragments of other species may be seen in our genetic code.  For instance, as much as 8% of our DNA is genetic material that came from viruses. Our cells’ mitochondria–our cells’ power plants that convert nutrients to energy were passed to us from bacteria that entered cells in the primordial sea approximately two billion years ago!  We share genes with every single creature on Earth that has a backbone and even some that don’t like starfish, as we shared a common ancestor over half a billion years ago.

Thanks to this kind of information, we can begin to imagine our amazingly complex and rich genome–the DNA we carry in every one of our cells–as a library of our biosphere.  This molecular library is a sacred record of Life on Earth and so our bodies may be thought of as a kind of sacred bundle.  Much in the way a shaman’s sacred bundle or a medicine bag holds a collection of objects from which a shaman feels her or his connection to power, the DNA in our cells can remind us of our complete integration into the body of the Earth.  Even on a gross physical level, our bones and tissues are composed of the minerals found in the soil and rocks while our blood and lymph share many similarities with the waters of our planet.  We are inseparably connected with our Home. We live in her body and her body lives inside of us.

We are part of the Earth’s body and our distant cousins the Neanderthals and Denisovians passed traits to us with their genes. We can wonder with amazement what of who we are now was once them! Who of the hundreds of thousands of generations of our ancestors gave us the desire to create beauty? Who passed to us the desire to care for other beings? Which one was the first heart to feel love? We may never know.

These are remarkable times.  We are learning so much about who we are and the powers that we have. We are starting to remember our place in the Cosmos and recognize that we have the capacity to co-create our reality.  I believe that this is a very powerful period in human evolutionary potential.

In his book The Biology of Transcendence, Joseph Chilton Pearce examines our five neural centers–or brains–four of which are located in the head while the fifth is located in the heart.  He suggests that the dynamic interaction of the head brain (intellect) and heart brain (intelligence), of biology and spirit, allows us to transcend from one evolutionary place to the next.  Our biology has designed us to be transcendent beings–becoming who I like to think of as the New Human.

As we are beginning to make these shifts we are feeling the dissolution of much of what we previously understood. It may be likened to the period of time that a caterpillar pupates into the butterfly.  The chrysalis is the body that the caterpillar reveals when it sheds its skin for the last time. This shell is what protects the caterpillar while it transforms.  Inside this protective chamber, the caterpillar secretes enzymes which breaks its body down into a kind of soup which contains nutrients and imaginal disks. These imaginal disks are undifferentiated building blocks –like stem cells– in that they can become any type of cell. In the chrysalis, the rich environment that was once the caterpillar’s body supports these undifferentiated cells to begin growing and creating a completely new organism.

So for the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into butterfly to occur, there needs to be a period of no form.  In the same way, we need to let go of the attachments we have to our old, outmoded ways of perceiving and behaving for a new way of being human to emerge.  This can certainly feel disconcerting as, like the caterpillar, we have no previous experience to help us to know who we are becoming. It may even be as inconceivable as the caterpillar’s transition from a soft-bodied, leaf-eating, worm-like creature into a hard-bodied, flying, nectar-sipping insect!  Just as none of the caterpillar’s previous experience could possibly prepare it for such a change, we have to rely upon something other than our thoughts.

This is where our heart, as the fifth neural center or intelligence, can come into play along with the ability to expand our awareness to help prepare our psyche for previously unimagined possibilities. The act of expanding awareness creates shifts in our perceptions.  We experience new things in the shamanic state of consciousness or in very deep meditation that create new neural pathways. We gain new insights and ways of looking at reality. This in turn supports a shift in understanding the nature of the world and ourselves so that we gain not only a new perspective but gain the opportunity to respond to the circumstances of our lives differently. The “new” information we receive in an altered/expanded state helps us to gain the “bigger view.”  In the way climbing to an observation deck gives us a new perspective on how a city is laid out, this new vantage point helps us to better understand how things and beings are connected.

The new perceptions that develop help us to respond differently to the stimulation around us. We have opportunities to think and even more importantly, feel differently in situations. This internal shift has the effect of transforming the situation itself.

As I wrote several years ago in Inner Tapestry Journal, “There was a time that many dismissed the possibility of such a profound shift, yet through such relatively new scientific disciplines such as neuralcardiology, the truths given to us by the great transcendent masters of the past are confirmed.  When talking about miracles, the master Jesus told us, “These things shall you do and greater things than these shall you do also.” He taught his followers that all human beings are divine.  Our sciences now support this as well.  When we begin to see and feel our selves as creator beings, we aren’t behaving in a heretical way, rather we are following the logical truth which was encoded into our biology.  We were designed to evolve through our limitations.”

Still some of us hesitate.  If this remarkable leap of evolution truly is encoded into our biology, why do we stubbornly desire to remain caterpillars when we have the capacity to fly?

Perhaps these few lines of Marianne Wiliamson’s 1992 book A Return To Love, explains it best:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. …”

Then she writes,

“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?…”

Indeed, we are meant to transform ourselves and our world. To accomplish it, we need to enter into expanded states to experience the world of possibilities and so shift our old understanding of the world and begin to feel our part in its transformation.  We need to learn to feel the reality we want to experience and cultivate a state of being that is grateful, loving and takes action in accordance with profound awareness of our interconnectedness.

In a Hopi Prophesy it is said that, “When birds fall from the sky and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people shall come unto the earth from many colors, classes, creeds, who by their actions and deeds shall make the earth green again….” I think of these people as you and I and all the other people around the planet who are committed to a positive global shift. We are not only the ones we have been waiting for to save us, you and I are already becoming the New Humans. It is happening all around the world as many others make profound changes in themselves. From the global networks of which I am a part, I am hearing stories of ordinary people transforming their lives through gratitude, by living more fully in the awareness of themselves as co-creators and by choosing to speak out and take actions for the benefit of all beings.  In my healing practice, I am seeing people who once felt powerless, disconnected and victimized becoming empowered, grounded, joyful and able to make contributions to the larger world.  From my blessed vantage point, I am experiencing astounding changes happening all around me.

When these changes in our selves–and so our world–more fully emerge, we will have taken the sacred bundle passed to us from all of our ancestors to a new pinnacle of evolution. Maybe the current definitions of humanness and our taxonomical designation will no longer be appropriate. Maybe we will begin to refer to ourselves in a new way. No longer Homo sapien, but instead, Homo transcendentia–the transcendent human.  I can’t imagine participating in a more exciting process–at least not yet!

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is.  Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives.  In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is www.spiritpassages.com.

A change of mind

The book Gifts of Unknown Things outlines the remarkable experiences the biologist, Lyall Watson had on an island in Indonesia.  First published in 1976, the book describes Watson’s encounter with a shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly vanish into thin air. While he and another astonished onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then disappear again several more times.  This credible eye witness account is not only very powerful, it suggests that we need to begin looking at our ideas of “reality.”

What we currently understand as reality is largely a product of perceptions we have developed based upon the input we have received from our sensory organs. We have defined what we see, hear and touch as what is “real.” However, what we “see” with our eyes is only a tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that we call visible light. This is the familiar rainbow of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet rays which together create “white” light.  Raptors, like hawks and eagles, and some other animals see below red into the infrared part of the spectrum and so can “see” the heat trails left behind by their prey. Many fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and some mammals like rats and mice can see the higher frequency of ultraviolet light. Our hearing is equally limited as it only picks up a small range of audible sound. Elephants and whales can hear below that range just as  dogs, bats and other creatures can hear far above it.

So the flaw in this strategy of defining the world through our senses is that our ability to taste, touch, see and hear are extremely limited in their scope. An additional limitation at play is the fact that all we CAN perceive with our senses may not be “real” at all.  It isn’t to say that the sensual experience isn’t a powerful one. I’d be very hard pressed to say that tasting a fresh strawberry, smelling the ocean or listening to a Bach fugue isn’t anything less than transcendently pleasurable, nor that hitting my finger with a hammer is anything less than shockingly painful. However, it is equally important to begin placing all of our sensory experiences into a new contextual framework.

Mark Comings is a physicist who has been working in the area of fundamental physics for over 20 years. His focus has been on the physics of space, time, light and energy. He has been actively involved in re-visioning these basic concepts in fundamental ways that resolve deep contradictions at the basis of our scientific conceptions of nature. He has been particularly interested in the nature of energy and has been involved in exploring and expanding our understanding of energy at a theoretical level as well as investigating ways to reduce these new conceptual approaches to practice in a wide range of new technological applications particularly focused in the area of high efficiency clean energy generating technology.

At the 2005 True North annual medical conference, Mr. Comings shared some of this exciting information which is being taught in The New Physics.   Fundamental to this new view of All That Is,  is understanding that matter–the stuff of our physical reality–isn’t solid at all!  Everything is vibration. Quantum physics’ “M Theory” asserts that everything is composed of an infinite number of vibrating membranes–each of which contains a parallel universe to our own reality. Every tiny spec of matter–our bodies, the elements and everything that exists in our physical world is first and foremost vibration.

In the book, The Universe as a Hologram the author, Michael Talbot argues that we agree on what is “real” or “not real” because we have believed our senses and have created a  consensus reality which has been formulated and ratified at the level of the collective human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected.

Furthermore, Keith Floyd, a psychologist at Virginia Intermont College, has pointed out that if the concreteness of reality is but a holographic illusion, it would no longer be true to say the brain produces consciousness. Rather, it is consciousness that creates the appearance of the brain — as well as the body and everything else around us we interpret as physical.

Comings agrees that human consciousness is an intrinsic feature of the field of reality and furthermore that it is a central feature of both physics and biology. Consciousness is not just our thoughts, but a combination of our thought/feelings.  In addition, certain feelings provide us a direct way to align ourselves with what Comings refers to as the multidimensional “sea of radiance” which unites All. The shifts in our vibration caused by the shifts in our feeling states are capable of creating profound and measurable changes which has been proven hundreds of times in Medicine for the Earth ceremonies across the world.

In those ceremonies a small group of people heal polluted water.  It isn’t done by praying about it, or through intention to heal the water, but rather those of us that perform these ceremonies, change ourselves with the understanding that our outer world will reflect back to us the inner changes that we make.  This way of perception goes back to the ancient and esoteric principle of “as above, so below; as within, so without”.

Science is providing a clear understanding of how this works. A growing number of scientists from diverse disciplines believe that the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm is that there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality. In other words, not only is the Indonesian shaman’s feat witnessed by Watson plausible, it implies that even more amazing accomplishments are possible!

This radical idea about the nature of our reality is called the holographic paradigm. Mounting evidence suggests that our world and everything in it are merely projections from a level of reality so beyond our own it is literally beyond both space and time–the realm of our consciousness/spirit.  What this means is that in order to experience a different kind of reality, we need to “change our mind/consciousness.” Doing this will allow us to reprogram what we have created as the material world–what an Amazonian shaman once referred to as “dreaming a new dream” for your world.

The first order of business is to change your fundamental perceptions of reality by opening the mind to the possibilities that other realities exist. One method for this is the shamanic journey state. If you are a journeyer, begin to ask your trusted power animal or teacher to give you mind/heart expanding experiences in your journeys.  Extreme and altered states can provide a kind of spaciousness to our consciousness that allows us to “dream bigger.”  Indeed, when teaching my students about the shamanic state of consciousness, I do not talk about altering consciousness, rather I suggest that the the shamanic state of consciousness is an expanded state of awareness/perception which produces an altered experience of “reality.”

It has been said that no change is possible without being able to imagine it first. Caroline Casey an American astrologer says:  “Imagination lays the tracks for the reality train to drive down.”  In other words, if we desire to create a new reality for ourselves–as well as our entire species and the planet as a whole–we need to be able to have conscious experiences of those new realities before they can be “made physical!”

Shamans have understood for millennia that creation is not a singular act, but rather a process that is continuous. Surrendering to the illusions that your senses provide and producing unconscious, unfocused and unintentional thoughts/feelings create needless suffering, discord, and dis-ease in your life. On the other hand, when you have a conscious, unshakable understanding of how reality works–through having had experiences in the shamanic state of consciousness– and have a way of mastering the “inner technology” of your feelings, you can begin to generate a life of more harmony, peace and healing.  As I have stated many times before,  gratitude/love/compassion/appreciation feelings produce the vibration that is most effective for creation and the one with which powerful shamans strive to align themselves. You can think about it as the “original vibration”.  By that I mean that it is the energetic framework that continues to create and evolve the natural world. At every moment, whether we realize it or not, we are affecting the health and well-being of All That Is.

The dissonant energies of unconscious humans are powerful, as they create disturbances or disruptions in the fabric of creation. They have the effect of interfering with the natural flow of life giving forces. When a human being chooses to become conscious and stop interfering with the flow of creation, a field of harmonious energy radiates from them. This produces an environment that is more conductive to healing, balance and creating a desired experience.  As a you understand that the world you feel and think is actually the “real” world, then your entire playing field begins to shift.

This requires a great deal of discipline as your senses will continue to weave the illusion of reality in your mind even as you are in process of weaving a different one! I find it is necessary to continually refresh my mind/heart with the true nature of reality through journeys and meditation so that I can continue making it more securely fixed in my being.  If in this process, I stumble across old beliefs or perceptions that challenge my desired new experience, I work through them with the help of my spirit teachers and with human support when necessary, too. While is sounds difficult, knowing that I am actually creating my experiences  fuels my desire to keep going forward with whatever is necessary to completely “change my mind” and so transform my world.

A complete consciousness evolution does require a dedicated tenacity. However the circle of actions that make it possible are actually quite simple. Expand your perceived possibilities,  be in synch with the original vibration and keep feeling the new dream. Do it as often as you can every day. Go to sleep with these steps and bring them into consciousness before opening your eyes in the morning. Stick with it. Together, we can transform our consensual reality into something miraculously splendid!

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Transforming your world.

© Evelyn C. Rysdyk 2010/2011

This is a season of deep and profound gratitude. All over the world, millions of people are practicing the art of becoming grateful, Conscious Co-creators. My partner and I are seeing a growing commitment to this path among both our shamanic healing clients and folks that we work with in our training programs.  Our students, who have chosen to reawaken their sacred connections to All That Is through shamanic spirituality, are perhaps the strongest in their desire to make this change.  In their explorations, they continue to gain a visceral knowledge of the radiant connections that unite all of our cosmos.  They also see the impact each of us has upon that whole. This, in turn, awakens the urge to only generate positive impacts. Through engaging in this journey of awareness, they step ever closer to becoming powerfully transcendent human beings. They commit to this in spite of personal struggles, fears, illness or other “disruptions” because they realize it is the best hope for our world.

These wonderful people also realize that becoming a grateful and loving co-creative force makes it much easier to be peaceful and loving even in difficult times or when surrounded by angry or fearful people.  This is especially true when all around us we see swirling divisiveness, alienation, judgment and deliberate fear-mongering stirred up by fundamentalist fringe groups ranging from reactionary political parties to aberrant religious sects that intentionally distort their traditions to exclude or even harm others. All of these groups have a common thread in that they choose to spread fear, control and constriction as a response to the world.

Although not a shaman, Dr. David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. is an internationally renowned psychiatrist, physician, researcher, and pioneer in the fields of consciousness research and spirituality.  In his book Power vs. Force, Hawkins writes,  “We all float on the collective level of consciousness of (hu)man kind,so that any increment we add comes back to us.” Plainly put, that means, if you project fear, you’ll be bathing in more fear and if you radiate gratitude and love, you’ll actually produce more to be grateful for! This state enables you to feel lighter, be more compassionate and more easily radiate healing energy into the world. Hawkins also suggests that one person who chooses to live with optimism and non-judgment of others offsets the energy of 90,000 individuals vibrating at lower energetic frequencies which include despair, rage, blame, cynicism and antagonism. These impressive numbers are further multiplied by those who choose to live in gratitude and peace.

As you can see, this act of practicing gratitude exponentially boosts your ability to change the world around you.  As Brother David Steindl-Rast (www.gratefulness.org) states, “In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” By living in gratitude, we CREATE the very situations we desire to experience. This happens as all matter initially exists as a wave or vibration which may take form.  Form happens when the wave is “collapsed” into a point in time/space.  By consciously working with the “inner technology” of our feelings, we can change the wave or vibratory state which in turn changes the nature of reality.  In a sense, our feelings “decide” how the waves collapse into physicality.

Numi, a Shuar shaman from the Ecuador rain forest once told John Perkins: “The world is as you dream it, ” …“Your people dreamed of huge factories, tall buildings, as many cars as there are raindrops in this river. Now you begin to see that your dream is a nightmare….Everything you do ripples across the Mother.” When Perkins asked another of his teachers how people might be able to change this terrible situation, the shaman replied, “All you have to do is change the dream.” after which he added,  “It can be accomplished in a generation. You need only plant a different seed, teach your children to dream new dreams.”

As the outer world seems more and more intent on glorifying calamity and apocalypse as we grow ever closer to 2012,  it is very timely to begin “dreaming a new dream” for yourself, our species and our planet. Each of us can start by using our waking imagination to visualize and feel the new reality.  Once you have imagined the new possibilities, you must be unwavering in your dedication to it.  It means continuing to practice gratitude and feeling the new world that you desire already happening now. It also means backing up your feeling prayers by taking physical actions.

So for instance, if you desire a cleaner world, take all the “stuff” that you haven’t used for over a year to Goodwill. Once you’ve tackled your living space, organize your  neighbors to clean up the street or a local school or volunteer for an organization that supports your new dream.  If you want a world with more social justice, you could begin by approaching people who look, speak, worship or love differently than you do with an open heart. Don’t let the prejudices of the media, your family or friends turn you away from learning to appreciate all of humanity.  You’ll find that practicing this creates a tidal wave of internal change!

I would also suggest that if you want more peace, take a break from the negatively biased, fear-generating news media!  Vow to take the last week of December as a news-free week in preparation for the New Year.  Use the time you would have been watching the news or reading the paper and turn it into the time you create a brand new gratitude list!

Start with a beautiful notebook you have either made or bought. Begin the list on the first right-hand page with the following sentence: “I am grateful for the co-creator,_____________________.” and put your own full name on the line!

On a new right-hand page, start with the line: “I am grateful for _____________________ who made my life possible.” On that blank line, place the names of your parents and grandparents. This is important to do EVEN if they were not nurturing presences. Their only gift may have been to give you life, but what a wondrous gift it is!

Then add on the same page, “I am grateful for these people who nurtured me to wholeness.” On this part of the list, add the names of every teacher, friend, therapist, relative, coworker or neighbor that gentled your path.

Continue using only right-hand pages as you add new sections to your list.

Now start a list of all the role models living and dead who have inspired you with this sentence: “I am grateful for these people who helped me to know my life could have meaning.” This is the place to list historical people and others who you may have never met and yet have positively impacted your life. Whether they are the Rachel Carson, Jesus, Susan B. Anthony, Einstein, Joan of Arc, Thomas Edison, Georgia O’Keefe, Hariet Tubman or others,  add all of your heroes, heroines and inspirations to the list.

Start a fresh page to be grateful for your body with this heading: “I am grateful for these aspects of my physical body and it’s marvelous abilities.” List all of your senses, the abilities you have to move your body, and your ability to feel.

On the next page add, “I am grateful for these other beings who shared my life.” This is the place to list all your animal and bird friends. List all of your pets and then include any amazing animal and bird sightings you have had over your life. Remember all your encounters–the deer who just stood and watched you, the hummingbird that hovered nearby, the butterfly that landed on you, a turkey vulture rocking in the sky, the chattering chipmunk that made you giggle, the formation of geese you heard at dusk. Whatever beautiful memories you have, put them on the list.

Broaden your list to include the following on the next page: “I am grateful for these places and the experiences I have had in them.” Write down everything you can think of that you are grateful for in nature on the list. Include all the stunning sunrises and sunsets you’ve been fortunate to experience. The times you went into nature and felt beauty, majesty and awe. Include rainbows, full moon nights, fireflies on a summer evening, the aroma of the pine, sea smoke dancing over the ocean, a fresh snowfall–reach deep into your memory and pour it all down on the pages.

This gratitude list is part of you planting the seeds of a new dream. If a part of you is thinking this is silly, let me share a study done by  researchers from UC Davis and the Mississippi University for Women in 2007. They found that organ transplant recipients who kept “gratitude journals” scored far better on measures of mental health, general health and vitality than those who keep only routine notes about their days.  In feeling gratitude, the patients were able to significantly improve their overall health and clinical outcome of their surgeries. In short, their gratitude changed their physical reality!

So, dear hearts, ignore the doom-sayers, pundits and negative people that tell you the world is anything less than a splendid miracle!  Keep your intent clear, stay in gratitude and take beneficial action.  Gather with other people who share optimism for this beautiful place and are willing to work toward creating that reality.  If you don’t already know how, learn the shamanic journey process* or begin a meditation practice so you can expand your spiritual support, as well.

The simple knowledge that we have this kind of a power which when added to our ability to imagine a better world can shift the entire human race to a path of beauty, love and restoration; fills me with tremendous optimism about our future as a species. By choosing the path of the conscious co-creator, you and I have the capacity to transform the world for the better! Treasure every one of your precious days here. Spend them imagining a beautiful future in all of its richness and adding your energy to making it manifest.

It is a blessing for me to write this.  My heart leads me to inspire and encourage you because I have deep faith in your ability to create more beauty, love and peace in the world.

Evelyn

www.spiritpassages.com

Imagine Peace

With so much happening in our world, it is important–no, make that necessary–to make peace in your life.  Taking time to create a quiet and peaceful place inside is the perfect antidote to the negative and frantic energy that surrounds us.

Whether it’s work, politics, money worries or other stresses our nervous systems are maxed out.  We need to hit the “pause button” to replenish the resources of our bodies, our minds and our spirits.

Stress takes a terrible toll on the physical and emotional body.  Giving yourself even a fifteen minute “peace break” helps to reset the nervous system.  During the reset, the body produces chemicals which bathe all of your tissues.  It relaxes the body and produces an inner environment that supports clarity and healing.  This healing is not only physical, but emotional and spiritual, as well.

To do this meditation, it is first important to have a few memories of gratefulness at the ready.  I’ve written about gratitude in this column before.  It is a feeling that supports well being and creates an atmosphere that is conducive to inner peace.

Remember times in your life that had you feeling grateful or appreciative.  Mine include the day I met my partner, cuddling with the cat on a snowy morning, holding my infant godson, the first time I hear the peepers in Springtime, enjoying a long hot shower after a sweaty day, the aroma balsam fir, my first taste of wild blueberries, a sunny afternoon during peak autumn color, and my favorite one–having a polar bear stand on its hind legs just under my tundra buggy window!

Your list can include a range from the simple to the monumental.  The important thing is that the memory illicit the feelings of gratitude.  I have a list at hand just in case one doesn’t trigger the feelings.  I work with the memories until I feel grateful.  (Some of the memories are so powerful that at their remembrance, I find myself so full that my eyes begin to spill over.  In my process, I know when my eyes fill that I’ve hit the right button.  Those are the best moments!)

Whatever is on your particular list, choose one and let yourself fill up with the memory.  Remember the sight, sounds, and smells of the experience.  Bring it back as richly as you can and let yourself remember the feelings you had in your heart.  remember how delicious it is to feel grateful!  For me it’s like in the moment, the world around me gets fuzzy and warm.

Give yourself the luxury of feeling these feelings for at least ten minutes.  Don’t look at your watch.  Find some other way to keep time.  You could set a kitchen timer or, as I do, listen to a favorite piece of music that lasts ten or so minutes!

Having music available that nurtures feelings of gratitude is a bonus.  Music–especially pieces without words–is wonderful for heightening and enhancing our feeling states.  Do a little experimentation and find music that supports you to attain and sustain the grateful state of being. I have several instrumental selections from the classical repertoire and some “new age” music depending on my mood.  Some of my favorite “gratitude soundtracks include, “Dreamstreams” by Dean Evanson, “Baroque Music for Trumpet” with Wynton Marsalis, Mozarts’ “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” “Galaxies” by Kevin Braheny, “Trois Gymnopédies” by Erik Satie, Enya’s “The Celts,” Aaron Copland’s  “Appalachian Spring,” and J.S. Bach’s complete “Goldberg Variations” played by Glenn Gould.

Once you are in a delightful state of gratitude, practice a prayer for world peace.  When I speak about prayer, I’m not talking about words that are memorized from a prayer book or lines of scripture. Rather, I am suggesting that you begin imagining a world that is peaceful!  Actually feeling what it is that you desire supports bringing it into manifestation.  (Using this “technique,” a recent global peace prayer experiment actually lowered violence in the designated region!)

Imagine a world in which all children wake up in a quiet, peaceful place.  Imagine them smiling and jumping out of bed, eager to play!  Imagine children of all nationalities and colors playing together and laughing.  What would that feel like?  How would it feel if a national holiday was being called to celebrate the outbreak of peace? Imagine the feelings that you’d have if you woke up tomorrow and read the headline “PEACE BREAKS OUT ACROSS GLOBE!” in the morning paper?

Let your imagination take you deeply into that vision and let yourself fill with the feelings.  Imagine first relief, then joy and finally exultation!  Imagine calling all your family and friends to celebrate. Imagine embracing your own children knowing that they and children everywhere are free to grow up healthy–without the terror of war.  Imagine that this peace touches every heart and every soul so deeply that no one ever wants to break the spell.

As you are reading this, you might be hearing the voice of doubt rise up in your mind.  “Ah, it’s just a dream.”, it says.  How could peace happen like that?, it asks.  The mind is often a nay sayer in the process of growth and change.  If it interferes, just go back to the feelings of gratitude.  In that emotional atmosphere, the mind will settle down and cooperate with creating a new paradigm for you and the world.  Yes, I said “a new paradigm.”

This kind of practice is part and parcel of creating the New Earth.  It is also part of the work of the spiritual warrior.  We, the dreamers who dare to believe that the world can be more magnificent, beautiful and peaceful.  We who can collectively dream it into being with our imaginations and the awesome power of our feeling energies.

Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

In Medicine for the Earth work, we find that the power of imagination helps to create the possibility in which intentionally polluted beakers of water are “healed” in a matter of moments.  It certainly makes logical sense. After all, how can we begin to create something new if we can’t first dream it?

So this season, make a pact with yourself to join the band of fellow dreamers who are helping create a peaceful world.  Start with your daily gratitude practice and add the feelings of peace.  Use your glorious imagination to dream immense possibilities for joy and tranquility into being for all of the Earth’s inhabitants.

You are a co-creator.  When you step up and start utilizing your magnificent abilities, you join with the many others that are dreaming the new world into being along with you.  You are shoulder to shoulder with the energy bodies of your compatriots.  Together, we are making possible what has never been before.

Out times are special.  More people are “aware and awake” that ever before.  More people understand the power that is as inherent part of our splendid humanness. Even with all our frailties, we have the opportunity to make a huge difference–simply by becoming impeccable about our emotions.  Using them for positive purpose and in so doing making the world a better place.

When I was young, a young prophet, who would have turned seventy this year, once wrote:

“You may say that I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will live as one”

If we give it a chance, there is a chance for peace.  Let’s gather that reality into our hearts and make it happen.  Join me in feeling our way into a peaceful world.

© 2010  Evelyn C. Rysdyk