shaman - Spiritual Blogs - Ashtar Command - Spiritual Community2024-03-28T16:26:18Zhttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/shamanWHAT A SHAMAN SEES IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL...https://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/profiles/blogs/what-a-shaman-sees-in-a-mental-hospital2014-08-25T00:23:35.000Z2014-08-25T00:23:35.000Zamparo alvarezhttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/members/amparoalvarez<div><p><img src="http://www.redicecreations.com/ul_img/12495mentalhealth_blue.jpg" alt="12495mentalhealth_blue.jpg" /></p><p><span class="font-size-6" style="color:#ff00ff;"><strong>What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital</strong></span><br /><br /><br /><span class="font-size-6" style="color:#ff00ff;"><strong>Stephanie Marohn with Malidoma Patrice Somé</strong></span><br /><strong><span class="font-size-4">Waking Times</span></strong><br /><strong><span class="font-size-4">The Shamanic View of Mental Illness</span></strong><br /><span class="font-size-4">In the shamanic view, mental illness signals “the birth of a healer,” explains Malidoma Patrice Somé. Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm. “Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Somé. These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">One of the things Dr. Somé encountered when he first came to the United States in 1980 for graduate study was how this country deals with mental illness. When a fellow student was sent to a mental institute due to “nervous depression,” Dr. Somé went to visit him.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">“I was so shocked. That was the first time I was brought face to face with what is done here to people exhibiting the same symptoms I’ve seen in my village.” What struck Dr. Somé was that the attention given to such symptoms was based on pathology, on the idea that the condition is something that needs to stop. This was in complete opposition to the way his culture views such a situation. As he looked around the stark ward at the patients, some in straitjackets, some zoned out on medications, others screaming, he observed to himself, “So this is how the healers who are attempting to be born are treated in this culture. What a loss! What a loss that a person who is finally being aligned with a power from the other world is just being wasted.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Another way to say this, which may make more sense to the Western mind, is that we in the West are not trained in how to deal or even taught to acknowledge the existence of psychic phenomena, the spiritual world. In fact, psychic abilities are denigrated. When energies from the spiritual world emerge in a Western psyche, that individual is completely unequipped to integrate them or even recognize what is happening. The result can be terrifying. Without the proper context for and assistance in dealing with the breakthrough from another level of reality, for all practical purposes, the person is insane. Heavy dosing with anti-psychotic drugs compounds the problem and prevents the integration that could lead to soul development and growth in the individual who has received these energies.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">On the mental ward, Dr Somé saw a lot of “beings” hanging around the patients, “entities” that are invisible to most people but that shamans and psychics are able to see. “They were causing the crisis in these people,” he says. It appeared to him that these beings were trying to get the medications and their effects out of the bodies of the people the beings were trying to merge with, and were increasing the patients’ pain in the process. “The beings were acting almost like some kind of excavator in the energy field of people. They were really fierce about that. The people they were doing that to were just screaming and yelling,” he said. He couldn’t stay in that environment and had to leave.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">In the Dagara tradition, the community helps the person reconcile the energies of both worlds–”the world of the spirit that he or she is merged with, and the village and community.” That person is able then to serve as a bridge between the worlds and help the living with information and healing they need. Thus, the spiritual crisis ends with the birth of another healer. “The other world’s relationship with our world is one of sponsorship,” Dr. Somé explains. “More often than not, the knowledge and skills that arise from this kind of merger are a knowledge or a skill that is provided directly from the other world.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">The beings who were increasing the pain of the inmates on the mental hospital ward were actually attempting to merge with the inmates in order to get messages through to this world. The people they had chosen to merge with were getting no assistance in learning how to be a bridge between the worlds and the beings’ attempts to merge were thwarted. The result was the sustaining of the initial disorder of energy and the aborting of the birth of a healer.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">“The Western culture has consistently ignored the birth of the healer,” states Dr. Somé. “Consequently, there will be a tendency from the other world to keep trying as many people as possible in an attempt to get somebody’s attention. They have to try harder.” The spirits are drawn to people whose senses have not been anesthetized. “The sensitivity is pretty much read as an invitation to come in,” he notes.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Those who develop so-called mental disorders are those who are sensitive, which is viewed in Western culture as oversensitivity. Indigenous cultures don’t see it that way and, as a result, sensitive people don’t experience themselves as overly sensitive. In the West, “it is the overload of the culture they’re in that is just wrecking them,” observes Dr. Somé. The frenetic pace, the bombardment of the senses, and the violent energy that characterize Western culture can overwhelm sensitive people.</span><br /><span class="font-size-6"><strong>Schizophrenia and Foreign Energy</strong></span><br /><span class="font-size-4">With schizophrenia, there is a special “receptivity to a flow of images and information, which cannot be controlled,” stated Dr. Somé. “When this kind of rush occurs at a time that is not personally chosen, and particularly when it comes with images that are scary and contradictory, the person goes into a frenzy.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">What is required in this situation is first to separate the person’s energy from the extraneous foreign energies, by using shamanic practice (what is known as a “sweep”) to clear the latter out of the individual’s aura. With the clearing of their energy field, the person no longer picks up a flood of information and so no longer has a reason to be scared and disturbed, explains Dr. Somé.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Then it is possible to help the person align with the energy of the spirit being attempting to come through from the other world and give birth to the healer. The blockage of that emergence is what creates problems. “The energy of the healer is a high-voltage energy,” he observes. “When it is blocked, it just burns up the person. It’s like a short-circuit. Fuses are blowing. This is why it can be really scary, and I understand why this culture prefers to confine these people. Here they are yelling and screaming, and they’re put into a straitjacket. That’s a sad image.” Again, the shamanic approach is to work on aligning the energies so there is no blockage, “fuses” aren’t blowing, and the person can become the healer they are meant to be.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">It needs to be noted at this point, however, that not all of the spirit beings that enter a person’s energetic field are there for the purposes of promoting healing. There are negative energies as well, which are undesirable presences in the aura. In those cases, the shamanic approach is to remove them from the aura, rather than work to align the discordant energies</span><br /><span class="font-size-6"><strong>Alex: Crazy in the USA, Healer in Africa</strong></span><br /><span class="font-size-4">To test his belief that the shamanic view of mental illness holds true in the Western world as well as in indigenous cultures, Dr. Somé took a mental patient back to Africa with him, to his village. “I was prompted by my own curiosity to find out whether there’s truth in the universality that mental illness could be connected with an alignment with a being from another world,” says Dr. Somé.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Alex was an 18-year-old American who had suffered a psychotic break when he was 14. He had hallucinations, was suicidal, and went through cycles of dangerously severe depression. He was in a mental hospital and had been given a lot of drugs, but nothing was helping. “The parents had done everything–unsuccessfully,” says Dr. Somé. “They didn’t know what else to do.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">With their permission, Dr. Somé took their son to Africa. “After eight months there, Alex had become quite normal, Dr. Somé reports. He was even able to participate with healers in the business of healing; sitting with them all day long and helping them, assisting them in what they were doing with their clients . . . . He spent about four years in my village.” Alex stayed by choice, not because he needed more healing. He felt, “much safer in the village than in America.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">To bring his energy and that of the being from the spiritual realm into alignment, Alex went through a shamanic ritual designed for that purpose, although it was slightly different from the one used with the Dagara people. “He wasn’t born in the village, so something else applied. But the result was similar, even though the ritual was not literally the same,” explains Dr. Somé. The fact that aligning the energy worked to heal Alex demonstrated to Dr. Somé that the connection between other beings and mental illness is indeed universal.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">After the ritual, Alex began to share the messages that the spirit being had for this world. Unfortunately, the people he was talking to didn’t speak English (Dr. Somé was away at that point). The whole experience led, however, to Alex’s going to college to study psychology. He returned to the United States after four years because “he discovered that all the things that he needed to do had been done, and he could then move on with his life.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">The last that Dr. Somé heard was that Alex was in graduate school in psychology at Harvard. No one had thought he would ever be able to complete undergraduate studies, much less get an advanced degree.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Dr. Somé sums up what Alex’s mental illness was all about: “He was reaching out. It was an emergency call. His job and his purpose was to be a healer. He said no one was paying attention to that.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">After seeing how well the shamanic approach worked for Alex, Dr. Somé concluded that spirit beings are just as much an issue in the West as in his community in Africa. “Yet the question still remains, the answer to this problem must be found here, instead of having to go all the way overseas to seek the answer. There has to be a way in which a little bit of attention beyond the pathology of this whole experience leads to the possibility of coming up with the proper ritual to help people.</span><br /><strong><span class="font-size-6">Longing for Spiritual Connection</span></strong><br /><span class="font-size-4">A common thread that Dr. Somé has noticed in “mental” disorders in the West is “a very ancient ancestral energy that has been placed in stasis, that finally is coming out in the person.” His job then is to trace it back, to go back in time to discover what that spirit is. In most cases, the spirit is connected to nature, especially with mountains or big rivers, he says.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">In the case of mountains, as an example to explain the phenomenon, “it’s a spirit of the mountain that is walking side by side with the person and, as a result, creating a time-space distortion that is affecting the person caught in it.” What is needed is a merger or alignment of the two energies, “so the person and the mountain spirit become one.” Again, the shaman conducts a specific ritual to bring about this alignment.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Dr. Somé believes that he encounters this situation so often in the United States because “most of the fabric of this country is made up of the energy of the machine, and the result of that is the disconnection and the severing of the past. You can run from the past, but you can’t hide from it.” The ancestral spirit of the natural world comes visiting. “It’s not so much what the spirit wants as it is what the person wants,” he says. “The spirit sees in us a call for something grand, something that will make life meaningful, and so the spirit is responding to that.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">That call, which we don’t even know we are making, reflects “a strong longing for a profound connection, a connection that transcends materialism and possession of things and moves into a tangible cosmic dimension. Most of this longing is unconscious, but for spirits, conscious or unconscious doesn’t make any difference.” They respond to either.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">As part of the ritual to merge the mountain and human energy, those who are receiving the “mountain energy” are sent to a mountain area of their choice, where they pick up a stone that calls to them. They bring that stone back for the rest of the ritual and then keep it as a companion; some even carry it around with them. “The presence of the stone does a lot in tuning the perceptive ability of the person,” notes Dr. Somé. “They receive all kinds of information that they can make use of, so it’s like they get some tangible guidance from the other world as to how to live their life.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">When it is the “river energy,” those being called go to the river and, after speaking to the river spirit, find a water stone to bring back for the same kind of ritual as with the mountain spirit.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">“People think something extraordinary must be done in an extraordinary situation like this,” he says. That’s not usually the case. Sometimes it is as simple as carrying a stone.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">A Sacred Ritual Approach to Mental Illness</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">One of the gifts a shaman can bring to the Western world is to help people rediscover ritual, which is so sadly lacking. “The abandonment of ritual can be devastating. From the spiritual view, ritual is inevitable and necessary if one is to live,” Dr. Somé writes in Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community. “To say that ritual is needed in the industrialized world is an understatement. We have seen in my own people that it is probably impossible to live a sane life without it.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Dr. Somé did not feel that the rituals from his traditional village could simply be transferred to the West, so over his years of shamanic work here, he has designed rituals that meet the very different needs of this culture. Although the rituals change according to the individual or the group involved, he finds that there is a need for certain rituals in general.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">One of these involves helping people discover that their distress is coming from the fact that they are “called by beings from the other world to cooperate with them in doing healing work.” Ritual allows them to move out of the distress and accept that calling.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Another ritual need relates to initiation. In indigenous cultures all over the world, young people are initiated into adulthood when they reach a certain age. The lack of such initiation in the West is part of the crisis that people are in here, says Dr. Somé. He urges communities to bring together “the creative juices of people who have had this kind of experience, in an attempt to come up with some kind of an alternative ritual that would at least begin to put a dent in this kind of crisis.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Another ritual that repeatedly speaks to the needs of those coming to him for help entails making a bonfire, and then putting into the bonfire “items that are symbolic of issues carried inside the individuals . . . It might be the issues of anger and frustration against an ancestor who has left a legacy of murder and enslavement or anything, things that the descendant has to live with,” he explains. “If these are approached as things that are blocking the human imagination, the person’s life purpose, and even the person’s view of life as something that can improve, then it makes sense to begin thinking in terms of how to turn that blockage into a roadway that can lead to something more creative and more fulfilling.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">The example of issues with an ancestors touches on rituals designed by Dr. Somé that address a serious dysfunction in Western society and in the process “trigger enlightenment” in participants. These are ancestral rituals, and the dysfunction they are aimed at is the mass turning-of-the-back on ancestors. Some of the spirits trying to come through, as described earlier, may be “ancestors who want to merge with a descendant in an attempt to heal what they weren’t able to do while in their physical body.”</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">“Unless the relationship between the living and the dead is in balance, chaos ensues,” he says. “The Dagara believe that, if such an imbalance exists, it is the duty of the living to heal their ancestors. If these ancestors are not healed, their sick energy will haunt the souls and psyches of those who are responsible for helping them.” The rituals focus on healing the relationship with our ancestors, both specific issues of an individual ancestor and the larger cultural issues contained in our past. Dr. Somé has seen extraordinary healing occur at these rituals.</span><br /><span class="font-size-4">Taking a sacred ritual approach to mental illness rather than regarding the person as a pathological case gives the person affected–and indeed the community at large–the opportunity to begin looking at it from that vantage point too, which leads to “a whole plethora of opportunities and ritual initiative that can be very, very beneficial to everyone present,” states. Dr. Somé.</span></p></div>Levitationhttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/profiles/blogs/levitation2011-12-08T21:09:20.000Z2011-12-08T21:09:20.000ZKelly Lightchalicehttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/members/KellyLightchalice<div><p><b>Levitation</b></p><p><br />Levitation is a phenomenon of psychokinesis (PK) in which objects, people, and animals are lifted into the air without any visibly physical means and float or fly about. The phenomenon has been said to have occurred in mediumship, shamanism, trances, mystical rapture, and demonic possession. Some cases of levitation appear to be spontaneous, while spiritual or magical adepts are said to be able to control it consciously.</p><p>There seems to be several general characteristics about levitation. The duration of the phenomenon may last from a few minutes to hours. Generally it requires a great amount of concentration or being in a state of trance. Physical mediums who have been touched during levitation usually fall back to a surface. Levitations of saints usually are accompanied by a luminous glow around the body.</p><p>Numerous incidents of levitation have been recorded in Christianity and Islam. Among the first was Simon Magus in the first century. Other incidents reported among the Roman Catholic saints include the incident of Joseph of Cupertino (1603-1663), the most famous, who is said to have often levitated through the air. It is reported he often gave a little shriek just before levitating, and on one occasion levitated for as long as two hours.</p><p>Saint Teresa of Avila was another well known saint who reported levitating. She told of experiencing it during states of rapture. One eyewitness, Sister Anne of the Incarnation, said Saint Teresa levitated a foot and a half off the ground for about a half hour.</p><p>Saint Teresa wrote of one of her experiences: "It seemed to me, when I tried to make some resistance, as if a great force beneath my feet lifted me up. I know of nothing with which to compare it; but it was much more violent than other spiritual visitations, and I was therefore as one ground to pieces." (Evelyn Underhill "Mysticism," 1955)</p><p>Also Saint Teresa observed these levitations frightened her but there was nothing she could do to control them. She did not become unconscious, but saw herself being lifted up.</p><p>And, at the beginning of the twentieth century Gemma Galgani, a Passionist nun, reported levitating during rapture.</p><p>Incidents also have been reported in the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Milarepa, the great thirteenth century yogi of Tibet, is said to have possessed many occult powers such as the ability to walk, rest and sleep during levitating.</p><p></p><p>Such feats were said to be duplicated by the Brahmins and fakirs of India. Similar abilities were reportedly shared by the Ninja of Japan.</p><p>Within the Eastern traditions levitation is reportedly accomplished through such secret techniques of breathing and visualization. The techniques involve the employment of an universal life force and are called by various names such as: 'prana,''ch'i' and 'ki.'</p><p>Throughout history the determining factor for judging whether the practice of levitation is caused by good or evil influenced seems to depend on the one doing the levitating. Simon Magus was judged evil while Saint Teresa was said to do it in states of rapture. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance levitation was thought to be a manifestation of evil. It was said to be an unusual phenomena generated by witchcraft, fairies, ghosts, or demons.</p><p>Even to the present levitation is often thought to be involved in cases of demonic possession. Many times beds, tables, chairs and other objects have been witnessed flying up into the air apparently by themselves. They frequently aimed themselves at the exorcist or his assistants.</p><p></p><p>In 1906 Clara Germana Cele, a sixteen year-old school girl from South Africa, was said to be demonic possessed. She raised up five feet in the air, sometimes vertically and sometimes horizontally. When sprinkled with holy water she came out of these states of possession. This was taken as proof of demonic possession.</p><p>Likewise, incidents of poltergeists and haunting often involve the levitation of objects.</p><p>Some physical mediums claimed to have experienced levitations. The most famous is Daniel Douglas Home, who reportedly did it over a forty-year period. In 1868 he was witnessed levitating out of a third-story window, and he floated back into the building through another window. When levitating Home was not always in a trance, but conscious and later described his feelings during the experiences.</p><p>Once he described "an electrical fulness (sic)" sensation in his feet. His arms became rigid and were drawn over his head, as though he was grasping an unseen power which was lifting him. He also levitated furniture and other objects.</p><p></p><p>The Catholic Church excommunicated Home as a sorcerer. Although he was never discovered to be a fraud like other mediums who used wires and other contraptions to levitate objects.</p><p>Italian medium Amedee Zuccarini was photographed levitating with his feet twenty feet off of a table.</p><p>Controlled experiments involving levitation are rare. During the 1960s and 1970s researchers reported some success in levitating tables under controlled conditions. The Soviet PK medium Nina Kulagina has been photographed levitating a small object between her hands.</p><p>Skeptics of levitation have came up with several theories as to its cause including hallucination, hypnosis, or fraud. These theories are not applicable to all incidents, however. The most likely and acceptable explanation is the Eastern theory of an existence of a force (simply, an universal force) which belongs to another, nonmaterial reality, and manifests itself in the material world.</p><p>The technique of "yogic flying" which consists of low hops while seated in the lotus meditating position has been achieved by advanced practitioners of Transcendental Meditation (TM). This has received worldwide publicity. The technique is claimed to be accomplished by maximizing coherence (orderliness) in brain-wave activity, which enables the brain to tap into the "unified field" of cosmic energy. However, skeptic say yogic flying is accomplished through muscular action.</p><p><a href="http://www.crystalinks.com/levitation.html">http://www.crystalinks.com/levitation.html</a></p><p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tW6pVFOpE6Q?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QZ7aiN53p8M?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><p> </p></div>Coyote Medicine Spirithttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/profiles/blogs/coyote-medicine-spirit2011-02-27T21:30:00.000Z2011-02-27T21:30:00.000ZDromehttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/members/Drome<div><p align="center"><img src="http://www.linsdomain.com/totems/pictures/coyote.jpg" border="0" height="366" width="300" alt="coyote.jpg" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#800080;"><em><span class="font-size-3">Trickster, Shape-Changer, Cunning Magician</span></em></span></p><p><span class="font-size-1"><br /></span></p><p><span class="font-size-1"> </span>Oh that Coyote! Up to his usual tricks no doubt and creating chaos and mischief every where he goes! Yet Thank God/Goddess/All that Is for Coyote medicine and the people who carry its energy, for without him and them, this world would be very drab and dreary indeed! And have a little sympathy for those of us who do carry this medicine; like Raven and Crow, its not an easy path to walk.<br /> <br /> There is a wonderful Native American story that tells of how Coyote and Silver Fox sat dreaming one day, trying to see which one could out-do the other in their creations. Everything was going fine until Coyote got the idea to think up a creation that was smarter than itself. Coyote focused and concentrated very hard indeed, (see, it really does take a lot of energy to get into trouble, VBG!) and when he finally opened his eyes, he found he had created the first humans. Poor Coyote, because we are his creation in this story, we are also his responsibility and he has had his hands full with us ever since! Coyote thought he was being very clever indeed and was so clever, he ended up tricking himself, truly a hallmark of Coyote medicine.<br /><br />Stories about Coyote abound in Native literature. He is the practical joker, the trickster, the chaos aspect of all creation. For the most part in Native American "myth", his focus is primarily on himself and his own gain which is always his undoing and for people that carry this medicine, they too would do well to heed this example. People that focus only on their own benefit and gain at the expense of others tend to attract folks that would love to give them their comeuppance. Coyote once heard a pair of Chickadees saying how they had learned to throw their eyes up into the air and catch them again. Of course, they knew Coyote was near and they had decided to play a trick on him to teach him a lesson. Over and over Coyote heard them chanting "I throw you up and you come down in". Coyote, deciding to give it a go, took great delight in informing the Chickadees that he already knew about this wonderful game and that he could do it even better than they could. So he took his eyes out and threw them up in the air. They returned to their sockets so he decided to try it again except this time, the Chickadees stole his eyes and made off with them. It took Coyote quite some time to finally get them back! There is a double moral to this story for so often, Coyote really is able to do many things that others might find difficult. However, Coyote also needs to bear in mind that he too needs to keep his eyes wide open and firmly in their place, lest someone else get the better of him/her. If Coyote is really guilty of anything it can be of hubris or thinking that one is better or more gifted than everyone else, assuming one's self to be on par "with the Gods". Coyote is actually very clever but the problem usually occurs when Coyote forgets that just maybe, he or she doesn't know everything and that there is much more that one can learn.<br /><br />Coyote is the Divine Fool. Think of The Fool from the Tarot and there is Coyote in a nutshell. About to walk off a cliff and yet there is also a sense that somewhere below there is a strong safety net waiting to catch Coyote as he/she falls. Knowing Coyote, not only will the net catch him, it most likely will bounce him back up to where he was before so he can do it all over again! Coyote people and I am one of them, often do find that they tend to repeat the same blasted mistakes over and over and over and over again. Its not that Coyote folks are stupid, far from it! There is however a sort of innocence that Coyote people carry that leads them into the same silly (or very challenging) situations repeatedly both as a means of learning and too, to show others how they do NOT want to be or what paths not to walk! Its as though Coyote people at some level have volunteered to go ahead and be the clowns, the ones who fall into some truly bizarre and even heart rending situations because they know that can be the best way to teach others the potential pitfalls of life. Bless Coyote people and if you know one, give them a hug and a pat on the back! Truly they don't mean to repeat the same mistakes, its just in their nature to be both teacher and fool. Learn from these folks, they can be some of your greatest teachers in life if you allow them to be. And in your learning from their mistakes, they too are blessed and allowed to move a little further along in the game of life. Coyote people do make the most wonderful teachers. They are well known for taking an unorthodox approach to teaching (as well as everything else in life!) and often have a wonderful sense of humour that makes learning a great deal of fun. And they truly are so often very clever people, insightful, quick studies themselves, and not as apt to be impatient with others if they are struggling to learn something new. Coyote people have had some very painful and difficult lessons of their own to learn and so they deeply empathize with what others are experiencing.<br /><br />Coyote medicine is Heyoka, the shamans and teachers who act in sometimes truly bizarre though often humerous ways in order to get a message or point across. For those who carry this medicine, sometimes it feels as though something "takes over" and they suddenly find that they are saying and doing things that cause more than a few raised eyebrows. Yet, this is not meant to imply that a Heyoka can say or do what ever they feel and use this medicine as an excuse for bad behaviour. There are strict, spiritual rules and guidelines that a Heyoka must follow if what they have to offer is going to bring peace and healing instead of hurt feelings and problems for others. Among the Confederated Nations of the Northeast, Heyokas would be called in to act out (in a very humerous fashion!) the possible consequences of any new laws that might be set into place. This allowed the elders to see quite clearly the ramifications from a totally different perspective. Through the antics of Coyote medicine, there is indeed much wisdom! Among many Native American Nations, humour was used to gently bring someone back into alignment with the rest of the group if that person was starting to behave in ways that were not for the good of all. Often we really cannot see how our behaviour is impacting others unless someone else makes us aware of it. Yet the teasing was done in ways that would not hurt the person, and quite often, many other members were teased at the same time so that no one person felt singled out.<br /><br />Coyote can also teach us how to balance work and play, to have more fun in our lives which also helps us to manifest anything much more quickly because we are vibrating more closely to the true nature of ourselves and the Universe. We can go through the process with a feeling of joy, ease and excitement, knowing that when Coyote appears, we can re-create our lives in ways that we might never have dreamed if we are willing to lighten up, let go and follow our inner guidance. Think of something you would like to release - how does it feel when you think of just letting it go? If you feel a sense of relief no matter if also underneath that is a feeling of fear, then you know you are right in your wanting to move on. The fear is our old way of responding to change because we don't see the bigger picture. Not yet anyway. We will though, as soon as Coyote has managed to trick us into going for what we really want! So often, what one really wants in life may seem very far away or impossible to achieve. Coyote people though have this sense of innocence and trust in the Universe that allows them to keep following their dream, no matter where it may take them. To Coyote, everything that one experiences is valuable. There is no right or wrong, up or down, black and white in Coyote's world. Its a hodgepodge of colour and experience and sensation that makes life to Coyote worth living. Anything less is too grim for Coyote to contemplate and this is why many Coyote people say (as do their friends and family) that they have lived several lifetimes in one. Granted, some of the experience has been painful, even terrifying at times. Sometimes the Coyote person feels like shaking their head and wondering how in God's name they managed to get themselves into such a terrible mess. Yet when the dust settles and the light dawns on a new day, the Coyote person is GLAD to have had the experience. They gained far more by their risk taking than they could ever have lost, even if its just that sense of total aliveness that comes from having been to hell and back and having lived to describe the journey.<br /><br />Coyote can also teach us how to laugh at ourselves and our own folly. We all make mistakes and do/say things we really wish we hadn't. Its part of being human and part of life. Yet instead of beating ourselves up or feeling shamed, we need to remember that we have learned something very valuable and hopefully won't need to make the same mistake again. If we do, oh well, we can learn to laugh at what we have done and accept that maybe we had some more learning to do around a particular situation. The blessing in this can be too that perhaps there will come a time when someone will come into our lives that will really benefit from the mistakes we have made. We may be able to pass on navigational information in the sense that we can say to the other person "see that road there? Trust me, that is not the road you want to take! There's a big pit at the end of it." Well, sometimes I have to admit that Coyote and I both then go running down that road once again to show just how big and deep that pit really is. But we have learned how to climb out of it rather well at least! Sometimes, people with Coyote medicine really do need to go down into that pit yet again to help someone else climb out of it. Maybe they have fallen in and didn't notice on the way down the ladder that Coyote had made sure to bring with him the last time he was headed this way. Maybe the pit is just a little too dark and the person doesn't have the keen perception and sense that Coyote does. Coyote will be happy to help the person hone their own senses once they have both managed to climb out of the pit. Or maybe they will choose to stay down there a bit longer. After all, Coyote did hear someone saying something about buried treasures.....<br /><br />Coyote and the folks that carry this medicine often work best in cooperative ventures. Coyotes hunt in packs, and this too helps to balance the medicine so Coyote is not focused soley on itself but must act in a way that benefits the whole. In the Roadrunner cartoon, you can bet that had Wil E. Coyote been cooperating with another Coyote, Roadrunner would not have stood a chance. On the other hand, maybe the Acme Company WAS another Coyote and thats why everything Wil E. tried was bodged so badly! Yet he never gave up, each new cartoon there he was with another plan and another device that he was sure was going to help him get that Roadrunner. This is something that is also important for Coyote people to bear in mind: patience and persistence win the day for these folks more often than not. So what if we look a little foolish from time to time on the way to achieving our goals. At the end of the day, other folks are going to have a lot to thank us for, for they will have learned how, through our example, what is the best route to take and which should be avoided.<br />Coyotes also use a technique called "charming" to get their prey. A Coyote may dance around like it has gone completely mad, leaping and rubbing its nose on the ground, twisting and turning this way and that. Its prey becomes so fascinated watching what Coyote is doing, that it doesn't realise that suddenly Coyote is right on top of it. So too may Coyote people find that they need to use diversionary tactics to reach a goal. Coyote people in their innocence can also be a little naive as to others true intentions and before they know it, someone else may have snatched their idea or plan right from underneath their noses. Or taken credit for work that the Coyote person has done. This can be very painful to the Coyote person though they often will never show it but will lick their wounds in silence and then think up a new idea or plan. And these are some highly intelligent folks when all is said and done, adaptable as well. Coyote always has another plan, another goal to pursue! Hopefully though, they will be a little bit wiser and use the technique of "charming" to hide behind until the energy comes into manifest form.<br /><br />Oart of Coyote's wisdom is its adaptability. Coyote takes life as it comes and doesn't whinge about the dark times but simply gets on with things. It knows how to survive and so do the people who carry its medicine. Coyote may be the archetypal Fool and yet Coyote has managed to spread far and wide across the US. They have been poisoned, shot, run down, trapped and yet every effort on the part of a few misinformed to eradicate them has not only failed, but also failed in a rather spectacular manner! So who is the real fool in all of this? Certainly not Coyote who continues to thrive and do quite well for itself, thank you very much! Its a paradox, but the more efforts are made to eradicate Coyote, the more of them there are. Like Fox, Coyote is a master of disguise and can easily out wit its enemies through its ability to adapt and remain in the shadows until its safe to emerge once again. I also find it a most humerous paradox that the very creatures that are considered to be the greatest fools, Coyote, Raven and Crow, are also among the most intelligent creatures in the world. Perhaps it is their willingness to take risks, tred where angels fear to go, and not caring whether others think them fools or eccentrics that allows these creatures to thrive in a world where so many other species that are more "refined and focused" are dying out. Coyote goes with what catches its interest at a moments notice. And while in the real world of day to day life it can be difficult to follow one's impulses and do as one will (with harm to none), perhaps what we all need is a good dose of just not giving a flying squirrel what someone else or many someone elses might think from time to time about our behaviour and just cut loose. Coyote would also say, just who are those "someone else's" anyway? Certainly not anyone he knows. They can't be much fun to be around anyway. For a time I was living with a friend in the Hollyweird (my name for it) Hills. Sometimes at night, Coyotes could be heard calling and a few times we spotted one trying to get into the dust bin. While other folks were locking up their cats and dogs, I would be out there just waiting to hear Coyote call, and frequently would call back. Sure I got some very odd looks from neighbours the next day. It didn't matter to me because Coyote had taught me how to survive on my own in big cities by acting just a bit crazy if needed. It guaranteed that others of not so great intent would give me a wide berth! The least I could do was to acknowledge it when my "pack" came round for a nightly go at the bins.<br /><br />Coyote brings us many gifts, many of which are greatly unappreciated in modern day society. Coyote is our right to be individuals while learning how to cooperate and work with others. Coyote is our ability to adapt, to hide when needed, to act the fool to discourage others from invading our space or doing us actual harm. Coyote is the ability to speak the truth about a given situation, to tell it like it is and the devil take the hindermost. Coyote is our ability to play, to take risks, to not conform so just maybe we might find a better way of going about things that will be of greater benefit to all. Coyote brings us the gift of laughter which has been shown to heal dis-eases such as Cancer. Laughter is powerful medicine and one that all of us would do well to take more and larger doses of! Coyote is the part of us that knows what it feels like to be at the bottom and how to climb back up again with patience and persistence. Coyote can teach us how to live in a world that really has gone completely batty, being run by conservative "sane" individuals who can no longer see the need to work for a greater good. Coyote can teach us how to walk into our full potential as unbounded human beings if we will but listen for its call and respond. Our greatest teacher is waiting! It is said that if all the other creatures of the world were to die off, one would remain. Coyote. Somehow Coyote would find a way to survive and who knows, perhaps all the creatures would be brought back to life again because Coyote one day decided to close his eyes and envision what could be.<br /><br />-----<br /><em>Note: Some wise have observed me for a while in the Tribe of Many Colors forum(s), from all my statements and explanations they noticed I probably wear the Coyote Medicine Spirit. When they made me aware of their findings about my nature, I started to investigate this myself, and I conclude it is the truth. Another piece of my history completed.</em></p></div>2010 with Shaman Kiesha Crowther (Videos 1-10)https://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/profiles/blogs/2010-with-shaman-kiesha2010-04-03T04:52:20.000Z2010-04-03T04:52:20.000ZDiamond Johttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/members/DiamondJo<div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">I think these videos are excellent and everyone should watch them !</span></i><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK5OOfEmut4&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK5OOfEmut4&feature=related</a></span><br /><br /></div>Okay first entry herehttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/profiles/blogs/okay-first-entry-here2010-03-21T21:49:36.000Z2010-03-21T21:49:36.000ZSeekerJameshttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/members/SeekerJames<div><br /><br />So I have been meditating alot, and just discovered this great new spiritual tool, the shamanic journey. Reasearch into Shamanism has become really interesting and after my first couple trips i feel like i am really making progress. My first trip was into the lower world, in a jorney to meet my spirit animal. I won`t explain the entire journey, it is all written down in my journal, but after the experience i was unsure if what i experienced was "real" or "right". I had come across a small red and blue bird, spotted a squirrel, and then met an eagle, who said it was my spirit animal. I felt the presence of a snake as well, which sort of creeped me out. (I eventually accepted that the eagle was my true animal and set of on a journey with it. Like i said earlier, up on leaving i was not sure if i could take the vision seriously, was it just my imagination? After my meditation i had the random thought to look up the significance between zodiac signs and power animals, to my shock i found it read gemini: dog, serpent, squirrel, eagle, linnet, finch. I had encounted the serpent, eagle, and squirrel in my vision. And after google imagine a linnet (no idea what that was) i was even more shocked to find a picture of a tiny red and blue bird, matching the one that had flown out of my tunnel before i reached the lower world. So naturally this has to be more than coincidence, I happen to see nearly every animal common to my astrological sign having NEVER read anything about it beforehand. So I am convinced, and feel as though i have finally made a forward step in my spiritual development.<br /> My second journey was to the upper world, where i met with a spirit guide and healed myself there, transferring the energy to my body in the present. The feeling was incredible! Anyway i know this is kind of badly worded but its only hear for me anyway. I doubt anybody will read this any how :-]<br />Yay for shamanism!!!<br /></div>