Higher Asp-Irations

For awhile now, there has been someone skulking around in the shadows at the corner of my consciousness. Well, not skulking so much as slithering.  I have been an admirer from afar, and felt a kinship and connection, but have never really owned that.  Recent events, however, have brought that full in my face (literally -- but I'll get to that) and I've had to acknowledge the place Snake has in my power animal pantheon.

I've always liked snakes and remember playing for endless hours with the garter snakes at my cousins' house as a kid. At one point I even drew up the blue-prints for an enclosure so I could bring one home with me (luckily for the snakes it never got past the planning stage).

Though I've never had a live snake, I do have a snake skin that I feel was a gift from the Snake Spirits.  It was a couple years ago and I was at this local Pagan ritual.  As I was walking past some underbrush I heard a rustling sound, and catching a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye, I quickly turned my gaze upon it, expecting to see one of the many rabbits that populate this area.  To my surprise I saw a snake, smoothly sliding out of sight into the tall grasses, and in his wake, a glistening complete sheath of his former self.  Holy crap! I had just witnessed one of the most amazing, and magickal, occurrences in the animal kingdom!

Then came the question: Do I take it?  I've had mixed feelings through the years about keeping various animal parts, particularly when it came to dead animals (something I have, since then, resolved), but then I realized that this wasn't a dead animal and in fact was not very different from the feathers I collected -- each one a gift and message from that particular bird.  This was basically a gift and message from Snake -- a snake feather!

Actually, what prompted me to finally write this entry today is that, last night I dreamed I found two snake skins.  The weird, and admittedly a bit creepy, thing was that when I picked up the second one, I realized the snake was still in it. The skin was totally loose and unattached, but the snake was still moving through it -- kind of like one of those gel-filled tube toys that you can endlessly slip through your hands because it keeps rolling and turning back into itself.  Not sure how good an explanation that is, but hopefully you know what I'm talking about. :)

Almost exactly one year ago, I had a huge encounter with Snake in a dream, which then manifested in my purchasing a beautiful, 3-way drone flute in the shape of a snake.  Since that was an entire blog post of its own, I will let you read it here if you are interested, rather than re-telling that tale. :)

So this past summer I've taken a couple shamanic classes that have influenced and deepened my relationship with Snake.  The first class was the basic class from the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, the organization created by Michael Harner who basically brought Core Shamanism to the main stream western world. We were learning about Power Animals, and the teacher explained them differently than I had ever heard them explained before. I just thought they were like guardian angels, just watching over you and guiding you, etc. But when they say Power Animals they really mean "Power" Animals.  They are the ones that help us plug in to the power of the Universe, and help that power to flow to and through us, maintaining our well being.  She told us they were like transformers, taking the vast power of the cosmos, which would totally wipe out our circuitry, and bring it down to a level that our systems can handle.  Me, being who I am, when I heard our Power Animals were transformers, could only picture Nathaniel, my reindeer, transforming into a Delorean -- As one friend put it, "Totems in disguise!"

Anyway, we then learned to do Power Animal Retrievals, to reconnect someone with a power animal they had lost or were disconnected from, which we performed on a partner in the class, and the animal who was retrieved for me? Snake!

When my partner journeyed to find my power animal, she actually almost stepped on him.  "Oh sorry! Ok! Now where's this power animal I'm looking for!" She finally realized Snake was the one, and he showed himself to her three more times (an agreed upon demonstration to signify that this is the power animal you're looking for).  The final time that he appeared (and when I heard this I just nodded my head and said, "Yep. He's gotta be one of mine.") he was driving a car -- a Ford Fairlaine my partner thought -- and saying, "This is a different reality, baby!"

A week after the Foundation class, I went to Portland for another shamanic class taught by a well-known author/teacher who focuses on Celtic Shamanism.  Now the Celts did not believe our essence or spirit resided in our hearts, like the general consensus seems to believe today.  They thought the head was the receptacle for one's essence and power, and thus the Celts would take the heads of their enemies.  So the exercise was to do a dismemberment journey (a process where during a journey one's guides dismember you and then put you back together in a clearing and transformative way) only it was to be a partial dismemberment, asking our guides to just take our head and to doctor it up into a power object.

In my journey I met Nathaniel, and I think before I could even ask, I saw him cock his head to the left, and with one fell swoop of his antlers, off came my head.  It was one of the oddest sights, seeing a reindeer pick up and carry my head by the hair.  He set it on a big rock, and then, as I watched out of my own eyes again, Nathaniel took one more swipe with his antlers, and split my head open, exposing my brain. (Perhaps at this point I should interject that there is no blood or pain, for those of you over there cringing in the corner.  ...sorry) The next thing I saw was this huge cobra-ish snake coming right for my head with opened mouth and brandished fangs. He sank one fang into each hemisphere of my brain.  I don't remember actually being put back together, but then as I heard the call-back signal on the teacher's drum, I turned to Nathaniel to say good-bye, and was shocked by what I saw. "Nathaniel! Where are your antlers?!" "On your head, duh!" I sort of lolled my head back and forth and felt the extra heft of them. "Oh my god! That is so cool! Thank you!" Nathaniel just sort of smiled and loped off as I returned to the room where I lay.

The timing of all this has not been lost on me.  Everything that is happening in my life right now (and particularly over the last 9 or so months...) is pointing me toward a HUGE rebirth.  Everything I thought I knew no longer holds sway.  I am having to let go, release, and surrender everything I thought I was, or thought I had.  It's been a painful exfoliation experience, out-growing my old skin and letting the things that are no longer, or never were, true peel away, leaving a tender and not fully hardened skin exposed to the world. Snake shedding it's skin.  And add to that the alchemy of transforming the poisonous venom into healing medicine -- That all these changes and experiences, painful as they may or may not be, are all purposeful and hold at their root that which is necessary to heal myself and the world. 

What better example of this transformation than my aforementioned journey where big, beautiful antlers, like the branches of a tree reaching up and opening receptively to the sky -- to Spirit -- sprout from the same spots where the snake's venom was injected into my head. 

And as I'm still processing all of this information and allowing it to integrate into my system, I'm preparing for another huge transformation. Two weeks from today I begin a 5-day intensive training in Soul Retrieval with the woman who literally wrote the book on the subject.  As I just start to think about it, the tears well up, and all I know is that something big is in the makings.  BIG.  Big, big medicine.

"This is a different reality baby!"

The Best Medicine

As I mentioned in my last post, the last few weeks have been exceptionally rough.  One thing that has been a light in the darkness of this time has been that, for some reason, a couple of people in the office at my day job were asking for jokes -- particularly clean ones.  So every so often I would troop into the office from the warehouse, stop in front of all the desks where everyone could see me, clear my throat *Ahem!*, await everyone's attention, and... "So there was this..." 

It is amazing to me how quickly and thoroughly laughter shifts energy!  No matter how awful I was feeling, if I went in and shared a joke (and I assure you they were all Hi-larious!) my spirits would soar again, like hitting a reset button.

So I thought I would share my current 10 favorite jokes of all time...

*

So Sherlock Holmes and Watson went camping.  It was late by the time they set up their tent so they just crawled in and immediately fell asleep.  In the middle of the night, Holmes woke Watson, saying, "Just open your eyes and tell me what you can deduce." 


Watson opens his eyes and begins, "With all the billions of stars in the sky, if even just a fraction of them are similar to our own sun, and only a fraction of those are orbited by planets similar to the earth and capable of supporting intelligent life, I have to deduce that we are not alone in the Universe!"


"Watson, you idiot! Somebody stole the tent!!"

*

So Jesus was walking through a village one day when he happened upon a crowd preparing to stone an adulteress.  He quickly stepped between the woman and the crowd loudly challenging them, "Whoever is without sin may cast the first stone!"

The crowd was quiet, and Jesus smiled to himself, when suddenly a stone came sailing out of the center of the crowd and hit the accused women in the head. Jesus was very taken aback by this and craned his head to see who threw the stone...

..."Mo-om!!"

*

How do you calculate the circumference of an igloo?

Radius times Eskimo pi!

*

So two guys are walking their dogs, and as they pass a bar they realize they are thirsty.  "Dang!" Said the first man. "We can't go in with the dogs!"  The second man said, "Wait! I have an idea. Watch what I do, wait a few minutes, then follow suit!"

So the second man put on his sunglasses and walked into the bar.  "Hey!" Yelled the bartender. "You can't bring a dog in here!"  "It's my seeing eye dog," said the man, so the bartender let him in.

"Brilliant!" Thought the first guy.  He waited a few minutes, put on his sunglasses, and nonchalantly walked into the bar. "Hey!" Yelled the bartender again.  "You can't bring a dog in here!"  "But it's my seeing eye dog!"  "I've never seen a chihuahua as a seeing eye dog!"  "They gave me a chihuahua?!"

*

So there was a new pirate aboard this ship, and the rest of the crew were scared of him because he had a wooden leg, a hook for a hand, and a patch over his eye, so he was obviously really tough having survived a lot of scuffles.  Finally one of the crew mustered the courage to approach the pirate and ask...


"How did you lose your leg?"

"Arr! A canon ball blew it clean off!"

"And how did you lose your hand?"

"Arr! I fell overboard and lost it to a ravenous shark!"

"And how did you lose your eye?"

"Arr! A sea gull flew over and shat in me eye!"

"Huh?"

"It was the first day I had me hook!!"

*

So Jesus was watching the Pearly Gates and taking care of the entrance interviews while St Peter took his coffee break.  An old man approached and Jesus thought he looked very familiar, but couldn't quite place him.  Jesus began asking questions.

"Where did you live?"

"In a land far, far, away."

"And what was your occupation?"

"I worked with wood."

The man continued to seem increasingly familiar, and Jesus continued his questioning.

"Did you have children?"

"Well some people say I did and some people say I didn't."

The light of recognition lit Jesus' eyes as he opened his arms to embrace the old man, and excitedly proclaimed, "Dad!!!"

"...Pinocchio?"

*

How many kids with ADD does it take to change a light bul--LET'S RIDE BIKES!!!

*

What do vegetarian zombies eat?

Grains! GRAINS!!

*

So a polar bear walks into a bar and says, "I'll have a     ...beer."  The bartender asks, "Why the big pause?"  The polar bear holds up his two front feet and replies, "Always had 'em!"

*

And saving my all time favorite joke until last--

A grasshopper walks into a bar.  The bartender says, "Hey! We have a drink named after you!" And the grasshopper says, "Really? Who would name a drink Bob?"

Caterpillar Soup

Things have been different lately. Really different.  So much so that even at Faerieworlds a couple weeks ago, the one place and time of year I feel I can be my most uninhibited true self, a friend mentioned I didn't seem like myself.  Crap! I didn't know it was that obvious...

Something has been building since at least my last birthday in October -- "at least" because it has actually been hanging around for longer than I care to remember. But October was the first time it showed its face in a unified, organized feeling-- a feeling still difficult to describe.  It's sort of a dark heaviness that threatens to burst forth from my, seemingly permanently, restricted diaphragm. It actually started with a dream that has expanded into only what I can call visions (and vague remembrances of similar visions from childhood).  The main component of all these things, that have since blended together, is seeing the earth as smaller (like from a distance?), seeing a snow covered continent -- or just a 'finger' of land -- with an accompanying fear of either falling off of or of missing the earth.  Then I find myself trudging through the snow, in the cold darkness, alone and feeling like I'm either in the wrong place and not suppose to be there, or at the very least am not happy about my presence there.  It is hard to describe or to express the tendrils of emotions all wrapped together in this and how uncomfortable, confusing, and frightening it has been.  I had kind of managed to move beyond the vision part of these feelings until recently when I started watching a TV show about ancient aliens, and the multitude of images of the earth from space drew those right back in front of my face. 

I don't think I had really, at least consciously, been suppressing these things but was more the case that I didn't know what to do with them or how to deal with them.  They simply didn't have a context.  For the most part, even up to this past month, they had abated to just the very edge of my conscious recognition -- still there, but just annoying in their presence rather than interfering with my life.

So what changed?  Well, in the past month I have taken two separate shamanic classes which have both expanded and influenced me in significant ways, not the least of which was receiving a Power Animal Retrieval in the first one -- namely Snake. Snake is BIG medicine, being all about transformation, shedding old skins to be reborn, and the fiery alchemy of changing venom (poison) into healing.  Huge!  But I intend on writing an entire entry on this asp-ect (hee-hee!) since its scope is too large on it's own to be done justice here. 

Along with these two classes that I've already attended, I am also signed up for a 5-day training in Soul Retrieval in August.  Soul Retrieval is a shamanic method of 'retrieving' parts of a person that have been separated from that person, usually in instances of trauma.  It is very powerful to have these parts of your soul reunited and reintegrated. Not only will I be learning how to do this for others, but as part of the training I will be receiving one as well.  Now, as I discovered first hand before my Reiki attunements, as soon as you sign up for something like this, as soon as you solidify that commitment, you have already begun the transformative process of whatever that program, event, or class entails.  In most instances, according to personal experience, this involves a clearing, whether emotional or physical or both, to make room for the new stuff to take hold and grow -- which usually means you get sick before you get well.

In this case it hasn't been physical sickness, but a lot of emotional shrapnel from the past, things I'd thought were dealt with and done, rising back up to be faced and cleared again, which, though ultimately in the long run serve my highest good, in the short run have a tendency toward undermining my confidence and making me feel weaker, less grounded, and vulnerable.  Emotionally ill. 

The hardest part about this process is that the best way to deal with it and help it along, is to let go -- deeper and deeper levels of surrender. The harder I fight it (and believe me I've tried!) the rougher the terrain gets.  The more I try to pretend nothing is happening, and try to be my cheerful, optimistic, gleeful self, the harder it becomes, exponentially, to maintain that facade.  Case in point -- my friend's comments at Faerieworlds.

And it is amazing, once I start to accept my state, to be present with my feelings and not try to over-ride them in order to show the world that I'm okay and 'normal,' the easier it is to be with and accept these changes.  I've been accepting that my energy levels are going to be lower than usual, my emotions are going to be all over the charts, and that I'm gong to crave more solitude and at the same time experience increased loneliness.  It has been easier, but it has not been easy! 

I have been debating whether I need to get a soul retrieval (or other shamanic healings) to ease this transition. but I journeyed on it last night, and both my Upper World teacher and my Lower World guide told me over and over (because I kept asking them over and over) that I was "right on schedule" and didn't need to do anything else.  In fact, if I got a soul retrieval, it would interfere with the timing of my path.  I asked if I really should be taking the training in August and Nathaniel, my reindeer, said, "Of course! That's why you're in this position with all this happening right now." I had to laugh too, because after the journey when I was writing this part in my notebook, I heard Nathaniel's voice say, "Duh!"

And as I closed my notebook I heard Fred's voice say, "Just be willing to be present."

I kept remembering the conversation I had with a friend, who has been a spiritual mentor to me for nigh on 20 years, right after Faerieworlds as I tried to get a handle on all of this.  She was not surprised by anything I told her.  In fact she almost seemed like she expected it, with all the shamanic work I do, etc, you have to keep shedding the layers, keep being born a new, keep letting go of everything!

I had had another dream recently of being in a great library which was made of glass. I went outside the front doors and when I looked down the street I saw the tops of the trees just swaying back and forth violently.  I dashed back inside and dove behind a shelf to avoid the flying glass resulting from the cyclone blowing right through the library.  Everything I thought I knew, that I had organized and stored and built upon, was wiped out and blown away.  Nothing I thought I knew means anything. Square one. New game. Letting go of everything.

My friend said one thing that has stuck with me.  We talked about the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly, and how the caterpillar totally breaks down before the butterfly can take form.  As I've found out recently, the carterpillar actually has antibodies that fight off the butterfly transformation, as if it were a disease. But at some point, when the caterpillars disappears into the pupa to make its change, the antibodies die off and the caterpillar literally dies as the butterfly aspects take over. The thing my friend told me is, "You're in the pupa. You know what's in the pupa?  Caterpillar soup!" 

 That's what I am right now, and the process can't be rushed because it takes time for the butterfly to form -- and I want my wings to be fully-formed, strong, and glorious!