Dear Friends,
Agnes Whistling Elk told me,
“Lynn, the path of illumination is the path of balance, the path of balance with one foot in the material world and one foot securely rooted in the spiritual world. Many people today who are on this path, the path of spirit, are filled with anger from their childhoods. They never deal with that anger, and they throw away the physical life out of a need to reject the pain of their earlier life, and they call themselves spiritual. But they sabotage themselves at every turn. They hold up a spirit shield, but their feet are not planted on bedrock. Their feet are planted in quicksand, and spiritual power will eventually overwhelm them. Then one day they will have to hear the voice of the great teachers, and that voice will tell them that they need to go back and learn to walk in balance. For everything you do spiritually, you need to strengthen your body as well.” (From Shakkai, Woman of the Sacred Garden.) |
The way of experiential learning is the way I have always worked with my teachers. From the very beginning, I would go and be with them for short periods of time. Agnes and the Sisterhood of the Shields would never rely on words to describe something to me or to answer a question. They would always put me through something experiential so that I could form my own questions and find the answers within myself. When they knew that I had a grasp of what they were trying to teach me, they would then instruct me in their ancient teachings, which have been handed down from shaman to apprentice, mother to daughter, for many thousands of years, so that I could apply those teachings to my own life.
You cannot teach people about themselves by standing at a podium and lecturing. How can you make your own experiences and dreams part of someone else’s reality? Instead, the Sisterhood showed me how to look into the mirrors that the experiences of my own life create in order to discover my shortcomings and vulnerabilities as well as my strengths and the wisdom of my body-mind.
After my time with my teachers, they would then throw me back into my own life to live the teachings until they became part of my own healing, my own consciousness, and my higher awareness of life.
After all of my years as a teacher, I realize so fully what Agnes and Ruby had faced when trying to teach me. How difficult it must have been for them, having to struggle with the challenges of differences in language, culture, upbringing and world view that I brought them. What a feat it had been to bring me to the point where I could teach and work with people as they had once worked with me.
The study and application of shamanism shows us how to shape-shift out of a subjugated reality into a life of wondrous purpose and clarity. Agnes and Ruby have shown us that the keys to enlightenment are already within each and every one of us before we are even born. I once asked Agnes about the biblical passage that says many are called, but few are chosen. Agnes just laughed and said, “Lynn, we are all called and we are all chosen if only we have the courage to step into the unknown.”
One afternoon, Agnes Whistling Elk and I sat around the potbellied stove in the center of her cabin. A blustering south wind beat against the old boards on the outside of her cabin, and they groaned and strained against the pressure. Agnes looked up from the work she was doing and slowly turned her gaze toward me. Her deep brown eyes were tinged with the amber glow of the wood fire, giving them the yellow intensity of a mountain lion, until she moved her head and softened her expression.
“You think you’ve come a long way, don’t you?” she finally asked, taking one last stitch of her needle and tying a knot with her calloused brown fingers.
“Yes, I feel I have,” I answered.
“For as far as you have come,” Agnes said, “there is still that length to go, and even farther. I do not say these words to make you feel tired or sad or as if you need to give up."
“There is something inside me, Agnes, that makes me not ever want to stop learning.”
Agnes said, “So many people enjoy living on the edge. They dwell in the world of becoming, and never completely accomplish, not really. They never truly become. They are afraid to own what they have accomplished, because somehow that would mean that they are finished. In actuality, becoming is only the beginning. Perhaps that is what you need to see, my daughter. That is part of your next teaching.”
My world today is the world of the shaman, where energy and healing in all their powerful and magnificent forms are used to elevate body, mind, and spirit to the highest degree. My teachings are the teachings of harmony, the give and take of love and the nurturance of life.
We all have the ability to live in harmony and create balance in our lives. Often we just need the tools to be able to do so. When you live in the negative or painful conditioning from your past, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to move forward into the unknown with courage, love, and the willingness to be open to learning something new.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” It is time to move beyond fear. Great Spirit and the whole of existence are calling upon all of us to do that now.
Great Spirit, there is great wisdom in what President Roosevelt said. I see all around me the manifestations of fear. I see unknown diseases running rampant.
Oh Great Spirit, help us to heal our spirits so that we can heal our health. Health is the greatest gift you have given us.
As I look at the mountains reflecting the setting sun, I see the preparation for darkness. I see the great canyons losing their light, moving into a time of hibernation – the long, dark night of the soul.
But the sun will rise in the morning, and new light will be brought to those corners where shadows lurk and fears abide, and suddenly, like lost ghosts in the night, they are gone, and a new day dawns.
Thank you, Great Spirit, for giving us a new day. Thank you, for bringing the sun and illuminating the mountains of endeavor in our lives.
Each of us has a sacred mountain within us, Great Spirit, and I am climbing, ever climbing, toward the top. Help me on my journey, Great Spirit, so that one day I can look out across the vast desert from a new perspective and see the magnificent mystery of life as a truly reclaimed dimension of truth.
Thank you, Great Spirit, for the shamans, the great stones that create our mountains. Thank you, Great Spirit, for helping me to climb, for giving me the will to search out what is real and true.
Help me, Great Spirit, to see now across the world from my mountain peak. Help me to see with new eyes. Help me to hear your words whispered on the winds.
I know that you send me many allies, Great Spirit. These allies surround me, if only I could sense their presence.
I celebrate you, Great Spirit, every day of my life, and I give thanks for the creation of this great schoolhouse called earth. I thank you for my shaman path.
Great Spirit, forgive us for not understanding the trail. Forgive us our ignorance. But we will do better, and we are learning, and we are committed to the path of heart. Thank you, Great Spirit, for all that you have given us.
HO!
In love and spirit, Lynn |
