Grand Ole Osprey

I’ve been doing a weekly post on my Facebook page for years now that I call Totem Tuesday. Each week I put up an original drawing of my own of an animal along with an explanation of that animal’s ‘medicine’, which is the powerful gift or lesson that animal brings to our lives to help us grow. 

Normally it can seem rather random as I try to come up with animals I haven’t featured yet and balance the appearances of various classes - mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, insects, etc - so as to represent a wider range of animals and expand people’s understanding about how EVERY species has a place and a purpose to which we are all connected. We are all related. Mitakuye Oyasin - The Native American phrase which means “All My Relations.” 

This year, however, I have noticed a lot less randomness as almost every animal has volunteered to come forward by repeated appearances in my own life, and their particular medicine has been precisely what I needed or what I was experiencing at the time, and usually they have not been animal guides I’ve experienced working with before - Tasmanian Devil, Narwhal, Slow Loris, and Whale Shark to name a few. But the one that has gotten a lot of my attention and has been working steadily with me is Osprey. 

This is the original post from my Facebook page:

*TOTEM TUESDAY*

OSPREY is a hawk that is HIGHLY SPECIALIZED to fish. She has long, sharp fishhook talons, textured feet for a better grip on slippery scales, and closable nostrils to name a few adaptions. Her message here is that you came into life with SPECIAL STRENGTHS AND CAPABILITIES to carry out your unique life purpose. These talents and abilities are natural and an integral part of you, and are custom-made to lead you toward that which nourishes and feeds you most. But to use these things, like Osprey, you may need to REACH OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONES. Venturing into territory that other birds of prey, including Fish Eagles, won't, Osprey is the only raptor that dives into the water. She TAKES THE RISK of doing so so that she can KEEP HER EYE ON HER PREY even as she enters the water. With Osprey as your ally, there is nothing you can not achieve once you have locked on to it. FOCUS and CONCENTRATION are a couple of her greatest gifts, as well as an ACTIVE SEEKING OF ONE'S PASSION, and a FEARLESSNESS to enter unknown territory to do so. Osprey does not wait for things to fall in her lap. She makes things happen. 

Osprey's nest is a large mass of grasses and sticks built with a clear view of the fishing grounds. Not only does this make her a SENTINEL, aware of everything around her from her clear vantage point, but Osprey has also become a BEACON and a GUIDE for fishing boats who use her nests as navigational landmarks.

Also there is an aspect of INTEGRITY with Osprey. Whereas the noble Eagle sometimes scavenges and steals Osprey's catches, Osprey is SELF-SUFFICIENT, relying on her own skills and abilities to care for herself. It is her own CONFIDENCE and ADEPTNESS that allows her to decide her own fate, and with a sense of POWER and MAJESTY that is self-evident without the need to boast.

So find that one thing that feeds your soul, and dive into it wholeheartedly no matter where it takes you. From your vantage point the future is yours. Set your vision and go for it. Let Osprey guide you and nothing can get in your way! 

Osprey’s medicine really resonated with me, especially with having decided that this is my year of deepening my path. After I posted this I realized that what Osprey medicine is really about is Dedication. Everything is dedicated to one purpose, customized to contribute to her goals with nothing extraneous. Dedication is focusing on one thing and releasing everything else. In a way it's like using the Law of Attraction -- You continuously affirm and focus on what you want, not giving time and energy to what you don't because 'Where consciousness goes, energy flows." Everything serves her singular purpose.

This brought to mind an experience from Sandra Ingerman's Teacher Training. We were to journey to one of our helping spirits and ask what it was that we needed to release in order to move forward on our healing/teaching path. As I slid into the spirit realms on the hoof beats of the wind-horse drum, Mike, my dragon guide loomed above me. Before I could even fully ask the question, Mike let loose with a barrage of fire, and I saw the word 'OBLIGATIONS' before me engulfed in flame and burning to ash.

I have a tendency to spread myself thin with obligations, whether with other people or organizations, which of itself is not a bad thing except when doing so saps and drains the energy from one's own medicine and purpose, especially when they are done out of guilt or outside expectations and duties. I have a specific purpose and path I came her to fulfill and, no matter how much good I may have been doing through other groups,etc, it is nothing compared to what I can do if I consolidate my energy and direct it to that singular purpose and destiny.

I also realized as I began to concentrate on deepening my path this year, that besides committing to exterior groups and people, I've also always looked for some exterior spiritual way, ideal, or deity to dedicate my life to in order to give my life meaning and purpose. The big news is that my life already has purpose; That I am already part and parcel of Source Energy, so dedication to anyone or anything else is still, however subtly, a dispersion of essential energy without which critical mass of purpose fulfillment can never be reached. There is no higher obligation or dedication than that too my own inner calling and guidance.

And so I began withdrawing my energy from various groups, and at the same time I became consciously mindful of where and to whom I promised my time and energy. If I am to do what I came here to do in this lifetime, I have to let go of those things that don't serve that purpose. I need to pay attention to the inner ebb and flow of my energy and feelings, letting that be my compass and final counsel on whether I act rather than the guilt and 'shoulds' of outer expectations. Enter Osprey as my perfect model and teacher of dedication - Dedication to myself and my path.

In an ironic twist, after thinking I had 'gotten' Osprey's medicine and how it worked toward deepening my path, I discovered I was still just skimming the surface of the meaning. While journeying for a student recently, Hortance, my shape shifting Owl/Toltec guide who helps me with teaching, mentioned, almost casually, my working with Osprey medicine, saying, "What you haven't grasped yet is that Osprey's dedication is not to the Fish. It is to the fishing."

In other words, it really is about the Journey and not the Destination. It is the continuous process of writing, drawing, and exploring, that brings joy to my heart and the feeling of better alignment with my True Self that is the point.  It is the doing and the creating of my various, seemingly countless,  projects that is the important part, not in the finishing. Of course, if I never finished anything my creativity would starve and my soul would wither, like the Osprey with out the fish. The fish is important for my continued survival and nourishment, but it is just the external indicator of how clear and aligned I am.

In other words, as my favorite Zen teacher, Alan Watts says, "When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point."   

"...the journey itself is the point..."

My life is my music and my path is my dance.

An Affair To Re-Member

Recently I spent one of the most intense periods in the 'Non Ordinary Realities' of shamanism I have ever experienced since I began my shamanic path.  I was beginning the fourth and final session of my Two Year Shamanic Teacher Training with Sandra Ingerman, and up to this point there'd been nothing special to set this time apart from our previous times together. Little did I know that was about to change.

It has been a rough couple of years with the intense initiations of losses -- deaths, dreams, identity, power, relationships -- and as I sat in our luminous circle, feeling stronger and more empowered than, possibly, I ever had before, I was able to see those releases and trials as part of my training rather than extraneous things that kept randomly happening to me while I was trying to complete it. In that moment I could actually be grateful for those experiences of diving into hell and back because I had weathered the storms and, not just survived but was beginning to thrive in a world awash with possibilities and opportunities that my tenacity and resilience had opened up for me. So this was my mindset as we settled into exploring the main focus of the week -- Death and Dying -- one of my favorite shamanic subjects.

To familiarize our students with what it's like after death, so that they have some idea of what it's like for the spirits they work with on the other side who have neither body nor ego, one of the first shamanic journeys we do in teaching about death & dying is a dismemberment journey. This is a journey where a helping spirit or power animal breaks down your body (in the spirit realm) until you are nothing but spirit, before reconstructing you, usually either filtering out inharmonious elements or inserting a medicine object, such as a particular crystal, to increase one's personal power and well-being. Admittedly these can be gruesome and shocking if you don't understand what is going on, but for me they've become pretty run-of-the-mill, many times even requesting one from my spirit guides to help clear me of unwanted energy or confusion, or to reset me to my default settings. I had no idea how different this one would be or how it would change me...

So we began our journey and, arriving in the Spirit Realms, I waited to see who among my guides would show up for this task. It didn't take long for me to see Amaranth, my unicorn guide, casually walking up to me, his head bobbing with each step of his cloven hooves. Of course it would be him, I smiled to myself. One of the things we would be exploring this week was merging with a spirit helper, for which we were assigned to bring a mask and regalia. I had brought my unicorn mask, which I'd doctored up with bells and feathers and beads, so Amaranth would be the one I'd merge with, and it seemed very appropriate for him to show up at this his point. Before I could finish appreciating the congruence of his appearance, with a sudden, single, forward thrust of his head, Amaranth ran me through the chest, his horn piercing my heart completely and extending out my back. So unexpected was this that I physically gasped, not from pain for I didn't feel a thing, but the shear surprise of the act.  Pausing only briefly, as if to allow my mind to catch up with what was happening, Amaranth then threw his head back, his horn ripping up through the top of my body, which just dissolved into powder, raining to the ground around me. A few side to side slashes, ala the Mark of Zorro, finished the bottom part of my body. As my unencumbered spirit hung there in the air, looking down at the pile of dust that had formerly been my body, I glanced over at Amaranth and there, still skewred on his horn, was my heart. Tenderly he laid it atop the mound of powder and withdrew his horn. I gazed at my heart lying there, a hole bored all the way through it, and I began to sob, physically where I sat in the room with my shamanic tribe. 

Taken aback, I tried to stifle my teary sniffles, thinking, "Why am I crying?! Dismemberment is a happy thing! What's wrong with me!?" But there was no holding it back, and I decided it was best to literally flow with whatever comes up. Then as the tears continued to run down my cheeks, it dawned on me what the point of this particular dismemberment had been. All at once I realized how much I'd been holding inside this past year or two -- Grief, pain, anger, sorrow.  All the things I hadn't previously allowed myself to feel began to move, flow, and finally release through the openings Amaranth had created in my heart. And so for a very long time I sat and did nothing but feel the waves of emotion washing over me, tears washing away years of hiding from and of holding back my true feelings, my true self. 

Soon -- too soon though it'd seemed like an eternity -- it was time to begin wrapping up the journey and return to awareness of my physical body sitting cross-legged in the physical room somewhere in 'Ordinary Reality.' So Amaranth stepped forward from where he'd been quietly waiting just out of my conscious awareness and began the process of putting me back together, of "re-membering" me. He swirled his head in an ever widening circle, faerie sparkles and pixie dust dancing off the tip of his horn (I swear I heard the words, "Bibbidy-bobbidy-boo!"), and in kind the small pile of powder danced and swirled in correspondence until the dust devil it'd become coalesced into my body, and I stood embodied before my unicorn companion again. I was fully embodied but for one thing -- my wounded and punctured heart.  It now hung in the air in front of me where I could see that the holes, as well as several cracks and battle scars, had been filled in with gold. 

There is a Japanese art said to have begun in the 15th Century, called Kintsugi, which repairs broken pottery by gluing the pieces together with a lacquer infused with powdered gold. In so doing the damage is aesthetically incorporated into the piece as part of its history, making it more beautiful because of the breakages. This was my heart. Apparently Amaranth is partially Japanese... Could this have anything to do with the appearance of my Kirin helping spirit shortly thereafter (see my previous post For Kirin Out Loud)? 

My new and improved heart floated toward me and disappeared into my chest. I hugged Amaranth and kissed him on the nose as the return drum beat sounded again, and looking into the depths of his liquid eyes, thanked him before turning my attention toward my physical body.

When we were back and grounded once more in 'Ordinary Reality' we were given a break because of the tendency of this to be an emotional journey. I didn't need much prompting before I was outside lying on the grass and crying again, letting the earth receive and transmute the remaining pain and emotions that streaked down my face. I allowed her to cradle my body, and I breathed her healing energies up directly into my heart. There have been very few times before that I felt so open and vulnerable, yet so safe and loved at the same time.

The intensity of this initial journey set the stage for the rest of the week, with countless transformations, shifts, and changes to come that shattered former beliefs about myself and who I was. The seed of who I was becoming was planted, and the cast-off emotions and thoughts fed that blossoming flower of a shaman I was growing into, rising out of the compost. This journey was pivotal, and perfect for integrating everything I'd learned and experienced up to that point as I stepped into my power. It was definitely an affair to re-member. 

                                       My heart with cracks and holes infused with gold.