Soul Train-ing

A month or so ago, I finished a training in Soul Retrieval with Sandra Ingerman -- The woman who literally wrote the book on the subject.  I have written a number of posts on what was happening with me leading up to the workshop, and now as the subtle but palpable changes settle in I'm feeling ready to write about this slow-motion turning-point of my life.

As the date approached I was both nervous and excited. I knew something big was about to happen, if by no other means than by the emotional roller-coaster I'd been on for months prior.  Death/rebirth cycles can be a little rough on the ego, and when it starts fighting, and whining, and whispering doubts and fears into your mind, you know huge changes are around the corner, and oo-doggie was mine making a nuisance of itself!  But as I pulled off the main road and started down the lovely, long driveway winding ahead of me into the deep green forest, and the retreat center I would call home for the next five days, I felt a peace descend  upon me and I breathed a little easier. 

We met that first night in sort of an introductory capacity, and to help us gel as a group we drummed and danced like crazy -- and we weren't the only ones.  More than a few folks mentioned feeling or seeing the Fae that were dancing with us.  And that was not the only otherworldly thing going on.  Despite having spent around 6 hours straight, drumming on the beach a few weeks earlier, not until this night had I developed blisters on my hand from my drum stick.  Not only that, but I had to stop and look at my drum stick a couple times because I felt like it was bending, as if it were made out of rubber, and I was afraid it would break.  Another friend said she experienced the same exact thing.  What a way to start the week, and what an indicator of what an awe-inspiring week it would be!

I won't go into all the details and notes of the week, otherwise I won't ever get this posted.  Plus, by sticking to the highlights, perhaps I can inspire someone to investigate and explore it deeper for themselves.  Suffice it to say I took tons of notes (50 plus pages), and that Sandra prepared us very well and thoroughly on the subject.  Even with just highlights, this post became quite lengthy, so I tried to make it a bit more digestable by breaking it into bite-sized 'chapters.'

At this point, for those who don't know, I should probably explain what Soul Retrieval is -- When we experience a trauma, part of us leaves to avoid the full brunt of the pain. In itself this is a great self protection mechanism, but sometimes those parts don't find their way back on their own.  In a Soul retrieval, shamanic practitioners, with the help of  their spirit guides, can journey into the other worlds to find those missing parts and reunite them with the client, returning to them that lost essence and vitality, as well as the sense of wholeness that is every person's birthright. 

-SALMON SAYS- 

One of the key things to shamanism is that it is not the shaman or the practitioner who does the work -- It is their spirit guides.  The human is the "hollow bone" through which the spirits heal, and like humans, spirits specialize, so one of the first things we did was journey to find out who our Soul Retrieval specialist(s) were:

Even before the drumming started to send us on our journey, I was aware of a salmon jumping and swimming through my mind, providing the four different views of himself which is an agreed upon sign that a spirit is your personal guide. Perhaps a little over-cautious, once the drumming started, I asked my scaly friend to hold on a minute while I checked with my main power animal.  Nathaniel, my reindeer, came running and stopped nose to nose with me. I asked him to take me to my soul retrieval specialist.  I swear he rolled his eyes as he took one big step to the side, revealing the salmon leaning half-way up on a river bank, head resting on one fin while he waved to me with the other.  He said to call him "Sal" (short for Salomon I was to find out) when I asked him to tell me a joke --

Q: What do you get when you cross a parrot with a coconut?

A: Some crazy nut who won't stop talking!

He went on to tell me we'd been working together for some time, just not on a conscious level, and I thought about how often in at least the past year that Salmon has jumped into my awareness. And I thought to myself, what better guide for soul retrievals than a fish who can swim up stream to find the the missing pieces of peoples' pasts!

Seeing as most of us were introduced to a new guide that we hadn't worked with before, we did a couple of journeys to work with and familiarized ourselves with them, and to begin building our working relationship.  So I talked to Sal about various things -- preparation, singing and dancing during sessions, tools, etc.  Apparently I will come up with a healing song to sing as I'm preparing to do a soul retrieval -- something to instantly put me into the right consciousness and to merge with Sal -- but at the time I was too distracted by drumming for my own journey (we'd been sent outside to do this while connecting to the spirit of the land) to receive it.

-SOUL HEIR-

Finally, after a couple of days of preparations, journeys, and note-taking, it was time to jump into the deep end.  We partnered up to give each of us the opportunity to experience giving as well as receiving a soul retrieval, and switched with each other between the morning and the afternoon.

I gave first, but won't go into details because it's my partner's story to share, not mine, although I will say --what an awesome experience!  We were told that performance anxiety is natural before hand, and I was a bit worried -- "What if I can't do this?" "What if nothing happens?" "What if I do something wrong?" -- but the second part of that message was that, the truth is you can't do this! It's the spirits working through you who are doing the work, and our job was to be the hollow bone and let the spirits do their work. And what awesome work it is!

The most interesting thing that happened, though, was that the anklet of braided leather that I'd been wearing for months prior fell off immediately following this.  Just fell off.  Hadn't been loose, or anything else. When I got back to my seat I investigated to see what it was I was feeling under my foot, and there lay my anklet. A more blatant sign of a rite of passage being completed I can't think of, and I can't help but think of my recent reunion with Snake Medicine and it's inherent shedding of old skins.  The cool thing is I'd already talked to a friend about making me a beautiful new anklet with bells and beads, which I am wearing now.

After lunch and our afternoon break, it was my turn.  Again I was nervous and excited, not exactly sure what to expect.  And again I was struck by the ease of these transitional moments.  I had been feeling a 'disturbance in the Force' for months before this time, and now, with nary a whimper, it had passed.  After soaking in the retrieved vitality and energy for about 20 minutes, my partner told me how she had brought back my 16 year old self, who brought with him Clarity and Knowingness.  There was also a message that "Masculinity equals Inspiration."  Fittingly, her Stag spirit guide was very excited about that.

-TREEMENDOUS-

At this point everyone in class had received a soul retrieval, so we were sent out to sit with a tree and to ask it how to better root these returned soul parts into ourselves.  As I walked outside I was amazed at how different everything felt and looked.  I was definitely more grounded and present in my body.  And looking around was almost like when you get a new eye glass prescription -- everything looks the same but a bit sharper, and you're not quite sure how far away the ground is as you're walking. And as I leaned back and allowed the tree to support my weight I had to smile.  Just like my vision quest 2 1/2 years earlier, the first thing I heard was a Raven.  Deep, deep magick was a foot!


The tree answered my question with the image of a drop of water joining a bigger body of water -- there was no distinguishing it from the rest.  It was like a raindrop rejoining the ocean, and all the energy and essence of that drop is now infused with the rest of the ocean of my soul.  So, the message went on, I can't root that soul part to me as if it were separate, but can help that essence remain in my soul y rooting myself to my own essence/divinity.  Meditate every day. It doesn't matter when or how long, or whether in stillness or motion -- just touch base every day.

-UNGAWA-

The rest of that day and into the next, we learned more about life after soul retrieval, and setting up for clients, and other more 'mundane' subjects.  Then in the afternoon we journeyed again.  We had talked at length about "soul stealing" and how, particularly in our modern society, we are constantly giving our soul away, or trying to take others' soul or power.  Co-dependence is a good way to put it.  So from generation to generation this is passed and taught as the normal way of things, but, as Sandra emphasized, this is neither good nor bad, it's just time to stop it, heal it, and evolve into a different behavior.


So the intention for this journey was to ask our guides what souls we had that weren't ours, and for a ritual we can perform to release them --

When I emerged from the tunnel into the Lower World, Nathaniel came running. I asked him my question and he said I'd been doing a good job of unburdening my soul, and that it was more important for me at this point to focus on my own soul and the future rather than the past -- so it didn't matter whose souls they were.

Then he gave me a ritual to release whatever souls I was carrying:  I was to dance in a spiral while sowing cornmeal.  As I danced I was to sing --

"Go with Love

I let you go

And give Goddess

More seeds to sow"

I was to start out kind of crouched down, standing taller and taller as I get to the center of the spiral.  Once at the center, and I believe this was to honor my returned 16 year old soul, I was to face the sun and let loose with a Tarzan yell.

So, of course, the next step was to perform these rituals, and the moment I began to strew the cornmeal/lavender mix I carried in my hand, I palpably felt lighter. And when I got to the center and gave my Tarzan yell, though it didn't come out exactly Johnny Weissmullerish, I was surprised by the strength and duration of the call (as well as the fact that, loud as it was, no one seems to have heard it!).

-FRIEND OF DORKY-

The next journey we did, after making sure our soul parts had at least 24 hours to settle in before bugging them, was to go inside ourselves and meet the returning soul part(s); To find out in our own words why they left, what are the gifts/talents they are bringing back, and to ask what changes we need to make in our lives to make them feel more welcome and to support this wholeness--

I met with my 16 year old self, and the first thing that occurred to me was that I didn't look as dorky as I thought I had at the time. We sat across from each other in my old high school's cafeteria sipping on root beer floats while chatting. He told me that he had left because of lack of support and being invalidated, and I think back to how little support I had back then -- I mean my physical needs had always been met, but emotionally there was not a lot of support for my true-self, so I really had become a shadow of myself as I constantly found the only way to express myself in an acceptable manner was in a self-belittling, self-invalidating way.  Okay. Understood.  

The good news was that that was over, and along with excitement and enthusiasm, he was bringing back a renewed sense of whimsy to help me not be so serious -- or to take myself so seriously.  He was bringing back Authenticity!

I asked what I had to do to make him welcome, and he said I needed to support him -- literally.  I needed to pay the bills and take care of the details of everyday life, then not worry about them.  Get them done and out of the way to leave space for me/him to play and be ourself. 

Still a buzz from our soul retrievals, I was particularly giddy and giggly with this new teenage energy, and began to get concerned that I was laughing too much and too loudly.  It didn't help matters that my friend sitting next me had had her soul part from the same time period as mine retrieved, so we were constantly breaking into 80s songs and stuff. Fortunately I was the only one who felt I was being obnoxious because everyone I talked to complimented me on my laugh and said how much they enjoyed hearing it, and how much it cheered them as well.  And it suddenly struck me that here was the validation I'd been lacking for my authentic, goof-ball self.  As Fred would say, "I'm perfect just the way I am!"

-BODY AND SOUL-

Then we learned that not only do we each have a soul, but that every part of us has a soul or spirit of its own. If someone has a body part that is damaged and needs healing, or even if something has been removed, like an arm or leg, or even a womb, the essence and vitality of that body part can be blown back into the person in the same way we learned how to blow soul parts back into someone, making them that much more whole and less susceptible to further disease and complications. 

We partnered up and did this form of soul retrieval for each other, choosing 3 or 4 physical things we needed help with.  I have had a history of challenges with my teeth, so I asked my partner for help with that.  She ended up doing an extraction -- removing some unhealthy energy -- from the area and then, as we joked afterwards, literally gave me mouth to mouth as she blew the spirit back into my teeth.  But my mouth has never felt as good as it has since then, and I find I don't have the same fears and concerns about my dental health that used to plaque me, having been replaced with a healthy confidence.

I won't mention her comments after I blew the soul of her hamstring back in...

-A DWEAM WIFIN A DWEAM-

Finally we learned one more form of soul retrieval that Sandra calls "Dream Remembering."  Basically, because when we journey in non-ordinary reality it is beyond time and space, we can specifically journey back to the point of a person's birth to find out what their original dream and intent for this lifetime was before all the physical and social conditioning began to erode that away.  Then retrieving that and blowing it into the person, we can return to them that original vision and sense of purpose for the path they were meant to walk, and in that way help them move in the direction of their dreams, which may have lay buried and forgotten.

We partnered up again and did this beautiful retrieval for each other.  Once we received what the dream was that we'd brought into this life with us, we asked for a symbol of this dream, which was then what we blew into our partner, and returning to Ordinary Reality, we drew the symbol for our partner so they could put it up somewhere in their home to remind them.  This is what my partner drew for me--

What my friend brought back for me, the dream I came into this life with, the intention and purpose with which I was born, was to help unite all faiths and teach people to see the common base at the root of all religions. Go fig! :)

-POST REVEL-

So that was the highlights of the week. There were smaller details (and a couple bigger ones I left out that may become posts in their own right) but that should give a hint of how intense and awesome the week was. It took me a while to acclimate back to Ordinary Reality and an 8 to 5 job again, but the funny, and somehow ironic, thing is that my 16 year old has steadily helped me mature since then, something that continues increasingly as I turn around and share what I've learned with the community.

Welcome home!