To shed our past we must sink three hooks deep into our protective covering so that we can pull it off all at once.  The “hooks” are those compelling stories we tell—related to the themes, issues, or recurring patterns that keep us from joy, health, prosperity, love, or success.  We connect to the energy of these familiar travails and blow it into a stone intended for our medicine bundle, our mesa.  Then we place the stone—along with a shaman’s medicine stone, or kuya—on one of our affected chakras and breathe the pain of that issue out of our body and into the stone.  We do this three times, with three issues, represented by three stones.

The first time I went through the process, I didn’t allow myself to fully immerse myself in the pain I was releasing.  Who wants to revisit pain?  I stayed in my head and “willed” the pain into my stone.

The second time, however, with my teacher’s encouragement, I entered into the pain, asking questions about it.  The issue was the stress I feel about time.  I am impatient; I wake up in the middle of the night afraid I’m not going to get everything done, that I’m going to let people down; that I’m not going to fulfill my purpose.

In shamanic work, we recognize physical/literal reality, but we also recognize that the physical represents merely the tip of the iceberg—the one percent.  Our goal is to occupy the 99%—which is the symbolic level (related to the mental body and the power of words), the mythic level (related to the emotional body and our collective belief systems), and the energetic (the creational realm of pure spirit). 

So when I inquired into the symbolic, mythic, or energetic reasons I might fear the passing of time, I considered not only that I believe humanity is at a crossroads and this is “game time,” our opportunity to choose wholeness and health—for everyone—I also considered the mythic implications.  I recalled that in a past life I was killed as a child in the Holocaust.  How many other children—and adults—have lost their lives before their time, before they had a chance to do what they came here to do?  How many others didn’t get the chance to say what they wanted to say, experience what they wanted to experience, complete what they wanted to complete? 

My body started shaking and I realized that I wasn’t just breathing my own wounded energy, my own fears, into the stone—I was releasing pain for generations upon generations of people before me.

Similarly, with my third stone, which was transmuting the fear about speaking my truth—about being who I am—I connected to all of the women who were burned at the stake for communing with nature, or practicing “witchcraft.” I also recalled those who came before me—as well as the millions more at the present time—who are raped or slaughtered as an act of war.  I thought of all the infants killed at birth for being female, and the young girls sold into marriage—or the sex trade—while still children.  I connected deeply to rage, to the injustice, and I called in Jaguar energy and let out a roar.  Enough! No more!  I was healing for all of them. 

This is one of the ways that individual healing helps the Earth—and helps all humanity.  When we take our wounds to the levels of the mythic and energetic, we don’t just heal for ourselves.  We heal for all of us—past, present and future.  In spirit there is no time.  And in spirit, there is no other.  We are all one, all healed, all made whole.

At the same time, I was stunned by the realization (again) that we are not alone.  We are so not alone!  We are supported in our healing by all those who will be healed through us—and we are supported by cosmic forces—our future ancestors and Spirit itself, who longs for each dismembered part to remember Oneness and journey home.

And so it is.

My life is a swiftly flowing river.  It is clear, cold, still and deep in parts, but right now it is rushing over stones, tumbling down a mountainside. There is debris in the river–sticks, old tires, plastic bags–the debris of crumbling paradigms.  There are also many people in the river–some panicking as they are swept away; others trying to maintain their sense of adventure and community; still others trying to channel the river, care for the river, clean the river, protect the river.  I am alternately all of these.  I love the river as I love life.  The river is life.  It is love, it is clarity, it is healing, it is goodness itself–but at the moment I am being rushed along by the flow.  I would like it to slow down.  I would like to get my feet under me, or establish some sense of balance or direction…but at least there are times when I am OK to trust the river and go with the flow.  Carry me home, ancient river.

A-ho.

There is a unified field.

There is a unified field that connects everything—the dimmest star and the brightest searchlight; the tiniest amoeba and the monster hurricane; Wall Street criminals and beggars in Calcutta. 

We are all embedded in this field; hence, what we do affects the cosmos. The joy with which I greet the day sends ripples to the coast of Kenya. The disdain with which I eye a Gingrich supporter reverberates into outer space. “Thou canst disturb a flower without the troubling of a star.”

“I wonder what would happen if we leaned into justice, leaned into kindness, leaned into love, surrendered to compassionate commitment, and just looked for the simple, direct, and immediate ways we could express our love for each other, for life itself… to feed one another, to offer those who need what we have all that is extra that we can share, reducing our consumption and our habit of hanging on…. no matter what was happening around us…. no matter what choices others made?”

Amen to that.

If there IS a unified field, then we each must be aware of our contribution to that field.  If, in this universe, all things are connected, then we each have a responsibility to ensure that the real estate of our own consciousness is contributing to the creation of the world we want to inhabit.  No matter how dire “the facts,” we never know how close we are to the tipping point of a new consciousness–until after the tip.  So keep the faith.  Cultivate your garden.  Practice kindness.  Keep broadcasting love.  Promote peace.  Insist that it is possible. 

As MLK said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”