Consciously engage in this moment

Notice regardless of what we encounter, a shamanic initiation mirrors our own healing journey. Initiation is also a metaphor for the journey of transformation we are now making and experiencing through the matrix of the Earth, planetary and cosmic environments. More than ever, each of us benefit from stepping up into new levels of initiation, going deeper into our psyche, working out how we really process energies in this world. The point is to grow familliar with strong forces that when misused can hurt ourselves, others, prevent us from seeing beyond.

The classic shamanic initiation involves the experience of a catastrophe, mental and physical suffering. Heredity may come into play, signs at birth, a gift detected in childhood, a realization arising from a pivotal ceremony, vision quest, our response to the crisis of someone we know. However it comes, we accept or resist the information we bring to the surface of ourselves for healing. Every thought and feeling is directing and redirecting the course of our existence.

My experience is genuine initiation begins as unforeseen crisis, but this is actually the tip of the iceberg. Our illusions are systematically called into question, until we dismantle them and let go. Encounters with illness, suffering, and death, not only open other worlds to the shaman within, they also ground the work of social, personal, and environmental healing. Our personal reality is shaken up when we are ready. Everything prepares us for the unforeseen.

We share our journey with mythic heroes, those who have had death-rebirth experiences in rites of passage, the posthumous journey of the soul, clinical death experiences and LSD or other hallucinogenic experiences, and to what one can encounter in deep spiritual and meditation practices. Its all here right now.

To embark on a shamanic journey offers us insight into human development, evolution, devolution, and society's relationship to nature. This guides us to understand social values as they are reflected in art, myth and shape our relationship with the Earth.  It is significant to understand what happens in the journey of unravelling our crisis because we are undergoing this on a personal, collective (global) and cosmic levels simultaneously.We a re a filter for energy flow until the filter is no longer.

At some stage it dawns, for initiation to be effective, it must be entered personally, whoelheartedly, not thru heresay. It is an experience that does not function at a distance but under the skin of each the energy passes through. The benefits of initiation only arise as the path is directly experienced and known. Its visceral and energetic language flows through the body. When one is ready, opportunity is knocking. Everyone is chosen but not everyone hears the call. Opportunity passes through our timelines and experiences again and again in varied forms.  Consciously engage in this moment.  Watch that happens.

Shamans are conscious shapeshifters.  This requires the ability to transcend our attachments (ego) to identity and who we are. To move through attachment to labeling self and openly letting go of identity, we can be virtually anybody. We can slip in and out of different shells, masks, even different animal forms or deity forms. 

Grow into a wounded healer

Notice the shaman in pop culture images is widely portrayed as a tribal witch doctor, wearing exotic masks, using rattles, magic or nature spirits to heal others. True shamans beyond media may be misunderstood. Each is a wounded healer; having suffered through adversity and confronted inner demons. Shamans make the unconscious conscious to access innersights and act as an authentic guide for others so they light the way through their own darkness.

In essence, the shaman is a multidimensional seer, traveller, communicator. This being has ability to connect with spirits, animal guides, does things often forgotten by those disconnected from nature. Shamans assist others to release themselves from their own pain. In some ways, a shaman is a soul healer, not a body healer. Yet all division is illusion as body-mind-spirit are already unified.

So, to truly understand suffering, one must also have suffered, know what it feels like. Through trials and tribulation, each being is invited grow, learn, teach. The shaman is divinely guided to share personal lessons with those s/he works with to facilitate healing and vibrational shifts. Integration is journey back to wholeness.

On the path of knowledge, the shaman confronts layers of ego and undergoes ego deaths. It is ego that keeps us wanting more material things, that fuels jealousy, harms our self esteem by making us compare ourselves to others. Many equate ego with identity. By losing sense of self, we see the much bigger picture.

The key is expansion of consciousness. To allow this requires letting go of beliefs we are separate entities and recognizing we all echo one energy source. In this unity, we are much more aware of others feelings, interconnected experiences. By breaking down the ego, the shaman within each of us is able to put to rest selfish desires and focus energies on service. In doing so, the shaman within must die to self, be reborn multiple times. A series of literal and figurative deaths and rebirths shapes the shamanic path.

Move beyond your own Resistance

Notice nothing stands in the way of the unfolding of who we are in this physical reality except the nature of our own resistance. Spirituality is part of every soul destiny. We grow, expand into an intergrated version of Truth at unique rates.  At some stage it dawns we cannot simply live vicariously through, mimic or truly grow another's experiences. We must navigate our own alchemical journey.

Some still ask whether human lives are predestined, whether we have any control. Truth is, this is not a personal problem, it is a philosophical question. Our lives are both predestined and not. This applies to all. On some level, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in us, material, mental, is predetermined. Yet, something within also untouchable, unpredictable. That something is the nature and flow of consciousness.

Thing is, if we identify with the body and material existence, in the same proportion we are determined, limited by cause and effect. Yet, if we are not identified with material existence, with either body or mind – if we feel self as something separate, different, beyond and transcendent to body-mind – then that consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free.

Many people seek to prolong experiences of freedom in the physical world, and wonder why such feelings do not last. Matter implies slavery. Thus, much depends on how we define ourselves and live our lives. If we believe, ”I am only the body,” then everything about us is completely predetermined, beyond our control. If we say that man is only the body, we cannot say that man is not predetermined. If we feel we are just a material existence, then true freedom is not possible. Those who do not believe in such a thing as consciousness believe in fate. Matter means that which cannot be free. It must flow in the chain of cause and effect.

Yet, one who has known consciousness has known freedom. Consciousness itself means freedom. Only a spiritual person can harness the energy of freedom to consciously co-create. Once someone has tasted consciousness, enlightenment, s/he is completely out of the realm of cause and effect. He becomes absolutely unpredictable. He exists in the moment as the flow.

For many, human existence is simply a chain of events in which every step follows the past. Living in this vibration implies the future is not really future, but a by-product of the past. It is only the past determining, shaping, formulating and conditioning the future. That is why the future is predictable.

Some say a HU-man is as predictable as anything else. The only difficulty is that we have not yet devised the means to know the complete human history (total past). It is said that the moment we know, we can predict everything about humanity. Yet, if one being in the whole history of mankind is free and unpredictable, then man as a whole is potentially free and unpredictable. The whole possibility of freedom depends on seeing ourselves as more than a body.

So, if you are just an outward flow of life, then everything is determined. What about the inner? Do not offer a predictable reply. Do not say, ”I am the soul.” If we feel nothing exists inside, then be honest. Honesty will be the first step toward the inner freedom of consciousness. To go deeply inside, it hits everything is just an extension of the outside. That is, the body, thoughts have come from without, even your self has been defined by others. We are taught to adopt labels, beliefs, experience and do so unless energy shifts occur to change it.

To fear external opinion comes from the belief that the external is completely in control of the self, that we hold no power or sovereignty. If the external can trigger us, this implies we are still at least partly in the vibration of ego self, body, thoughts given to by others. This implies we are simply layers of outside ideas. If identified with the personality that arises from others, then everything is determined. How to move beyond this?

Be aware of everything that comes from the outside and come to a place where we are non-identified with it. The moment arises when the outside boundary dissolves. A vacuum arises. This vacuum is the passage between the outside and the inside, the door. We are so afraid of the vacuum, of being empty that we cling to the outside accumulation of ideas. One has to be brave enough to disidentify with the accumulation and to remain in the vacuum. Until courage is found, we cling and fill self with it.

Another view of being in this vaccuum is meditation. As we find courage to be in this moment, through breathing, meditation or other spiritual practie, soon our whole being will automatically turn inward. When urge to attach fades, our being turns inward. At this point, something dawns that transcends all we have been thinking self to be. Now we are no longer becoming; we are being, we are that. This being is free; nothing can determine it. It is absolute freedom. No chain of cause and effect is possible. This is the still point of consciousness.

Taking responsibility is not what you think

Notice at any given moment, to take responsibility for our lives, we must be vigilent of our actions. This implies we recognize if what we do is simply a means to an end, we are not present in what we do. If moving from point A to point B and only focused on the destintation, its easy to get impatient, stressed, imagine being somewhere else, be unfocused, not enjoy where we are. If the mindset is "I'd rather be (elsewhere)," then happiness is short-lived or even bypassed altogether. That's not responsible through the lens of the soul or expanded being.

Many people are taught that taking responsibility relates to self-care, "growing up", becoming financially independent, self-reliant. These traits have a place. Still, in many cases this involves developing a serious nature, forgetting spontaneity. The feeling of presence and awareness is widely overlooked.

In truth, taking responsibility for our life is about how we perform actions. If most of our actions and behaviours are a means to an end, then we feel heavy, drained, tired. We may work hard and get results, but we cannot enjoy it if mind is elsewhere. That implies living a life of low quality, unfulfilled, sad. We lack presence if we are always talking about the next moment which we think will somehow be better. If it prevents us from being here now, is it worth it?

High quality of life implies its not the quantity that determines the value of our life. What we own, how many people we advise, control or influence, how many subscribers or followers we have, none of that determines high quality of life. Quality time is quality attention with people, depth of conversation, soulful focus. Quality of life suggests we find blessings and joy in the moment.

Regardless of where we are and what is unfolding in our midst, when we can give our full attention to what we do and who we are with, this creates a 'high quality of life.' That is, when every action in our lives, large and small has a certain aliveness and presence, we savour it. It does not feel like a chore to do what we do. We do not feel resistance, impatience or irritation. At the perfect moment, it dawns negativity and dense vibration simply strengthen that false sense of self.

Ultimately, even if we continue to do what we have been doing, and our external conditions do not change right away, as we are mindful and begin to remove resistance patterns within us, that is the complaining, the negativity, irritation, the focus on depression about the past or anxiety of the future, life is completely transformed on the inside. On the outside, it may seem nothing has changed.  Yet inwardly, we know everything has.

Consciously shift frequency

Notice the more we take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, health and conditions the more we recognize being vulnerable is what allows us to be real, connect with others, dissolve illusions of separation. In fact, as we gain insight into trauma or adversity and the message or lesson offered, it would be selfish to keep that insight and source of growth for ourselves. It is in sharing our stories that others are inspired to bravely face themselves and blossom into true nature.

So, we must be willing to be completely honest with ourselves, recognize where and with whom we are, have been dishonest. Turns out, we are only ever dishonest with others in the same way we are dishonest with ourselves. As we expand, we are able to hold what is happening in the consciousness of love, to honour the interconnectedness of life. This is about seeing from wider view, so we can be what we came to be, access all of who we are.

Many people forget the deeper vibration of responsibility. Contrary to popular belief, its not about duty or meeting others' expectations. Its about being spontaneous. We have response -ability to be in this moment. Our attention, consciousness, focus, is only ever present. Being here is responding with our whole being. Be like a dragonfly, consciously shift frequency & vision.