The Seventh Fire Prophecy

The Seventh Fire Prophecy, rooted in the teachings of the Anishinaabe people, carries profound spiritual and cultural significance. This ancient prophecy offers not only a glimpse into the worldview of the Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes region but also a powerful roadmap for collective healing and unity. As humanity grapples with the social, environmental, and spiritual crises of the modern era, the wisdom of the Seventh Fire provides vital guidance for our shared future.
 

The Origins of the Seven Fires Prophecy
 

The Seven Fires Prophecy originates from the teachings of the Anishinaabe, a group of Indigenous peoples that includes the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi nations. These teachings were passed down orally for generations, preserved through stories, ceremonies, and sacred practices. The prophecy speaks of seven distinct eras, or "fires," each representing pivotal stages in the journey of the Anishinaabe people and, by extension, all of humanity.
 

The first six fires recount the history of the Anishinaabe, including their migration from the East Coast of North America to the Great Lakes region, a journey guided by spiritual visions. These fires also reflect challenges and struggles faced by the Anishinaabe, including colonization, cultural erosion, and loss of land. The seventh and final fire, however, is different. It is not merely a chapter of the past but a prophecy that directly addresses the choices facing humanity today.
 

The Seventh Fire: A Fork in the Road
 

The Seventh Fire prophecy describes a time when humanity stands at a crossroads. During this era, a new generation will rise, rediscovering the teachings of the ancestors and seeking wisdom from the old ways. This generation will be tasked with making a critical choice: to continue down a path of materialism, environmental destruction, and division, or to embrace a path of spiritual renewal, respect for the Earth, and unity among peoples.
 

The prophecy uses the metaphor of two paths. One is a scorched path, representing greed, exploitation, and the neglect of spiritual values. The other is a green path, symbolizing harmony with nature, the resurgence of Indigenous wisdom, and the healing of relationships between all peoples. The choice of which path to follow will determine not only the future of the Anishinaabe but also the fate of the world.
 

Rediscovering Indigenous Teachings
 

Central to the Seventh Fire is the revival of Indigenous knowledge and traditions. The prophecy speaks of a time when the "light-skinned peoples" (interpreted as settlers and non-Indigenous peoples) will turn to the Anishinaabe and other Indigenous nations for guidance. This turning point represents a collective awakening--an acknowledgment that the spiritual and ecological wisdom of Indigenous peoples holds essential answers to the challenges of the modern world.
 

Indigenous teachings emphasize the interconnectedness of all life. The Anishinaabe, for example, view humans as part of a larger circle that includes animals, plants, and the elements. This holistic worldview is embodied in the concept of "Mino Bimaadiziwin," or "The Good Life," which is achieved by living in balance and harmony with the natural world.
 

The Seventh Fire also calls for the healing of historical wounds. For centuries, Indigenous peoples have endured the devastating impacts of colonization, forced assimilation, and cultural suppression. The prophecy suggests that healing these wounds requires not only the revitalization of Indigenous cultures but also reconciliation and meaningful partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
 

Environmental Stewardship: A Sacred Responsibility
 

The Seventh Fire prophecy is deeply relevant in the context of today's environmental crises. Climate change, deforestation, pollution, and the loss of biodiversity are stark reminders of the consequences of prioritizing short-term economic gains over the health of the planet. Indigenous peoples have long warned of these dangers, advocating for sustainable practices and respect for natural resources.
 

The prophecy's emphasis on the green path aligns with modern movements for environmental justice and sustainability. It calls on humanity to protect the Earth not as a resource to exploit but as a living entity to honor and nurture. The Anishinaabe concept of "Aki," or "Earth," reflects a sacred relationship between humans and the land, one that is built on gratitude, reciprocity, and responsibility.
 

Unity Through Diversity
 

One of the most profound lessons of the Seventh Fire is its call for unity among peoples. The prophecy envisions a future where the wisdom of diverse cultures is shared and celebrated, fostering mutual understanding and collaboration. This message is particularly important in an era marked by polarization and division.
 

The journey toward unity requires humility, openness, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths. Non-Indigenous peoples, in particular, are called to listen and learn from Indigenous voices, acknowledging the harm caused by historical injustices and working to build equitable relationships. The Seventh Fire reminds us that healing is not a solitary process but a collective one--a fire kindled by the contributions of many.
 

Walking the Path of the Seventh Fire
 

The Seventh Fire prophecy is not merely a warning or a vision; it is a call to action. It challenges each of us to reflect on our choices and their impact on the world around us. Are we contributing to the scorched path, or are we helping to pave the way for the green path?
 

For individuals, walking the path of the Seventh Fire might mean reconnecting with nature, supporting Indigenous-led initiatives, or advocating for policies that prioritize environmental and social justice. For communities, it could involve creating spaces for dialogue, fostering cross-cultural partnerships, and honoring the sovereignty and knowledge of Indigenous nations.
 

A Beacon of Hope
 

At its core, the Seventh Fire prophecy is a message of hope. It acknowledges the pain and challenges of the past but offers a vision of a brighter future--a future shaped by compassion, respect, and a deep commitment to living in harmony with the Earth and one another. The green path is not an easy road, but it is a necessary one. By embracing the wisdom of the Seventh Fire, humanity has the opportunity to not only survive but to thrive, united in purpose and spirit.
 

As we navigate the complexities of the modern world, the teachings of the Anishinaabe and the guidance of the Seventh Fire remind us of what truly matters: our connection to each other, our relationship with the Earth, and our shared responsibility to build a better world for future generations. The fire has been lit--it is up to us to carry it forward.

A Spiritual Perspective on Political Grief

In our increasingly polarized world, it's common to feel overwhelmed by the political climate. Whether it's the disheartening news cycle, divisive rhetoric, or the perceived erosion of societal values, many of us experience profound grief related to politics. This grief can feel all-encompassing, draining, and difficult to navigate. While traditional coping mechanisms may offer some relief, a spiritual approach can help us transform political grief into an opportunity for deeper understanding, connection, and personal growth. In this blog post, we'll explore what political grief is, why it feels so intense, and how spiritual practices can help us process this complex emotional experience.

What is grief?

Grief is simply the outcome of loss, but there's a caveat--the criterion for what you lost is that you were attached to it. You can grieve things that are both clear and unclear. Most of our literature is based on a clear loss--death or the loss of money, things that can be quantified or proven. But political grief is more ambiguous. It's not like a grief of a person for whom you have a death certificate and a funeral after and rituals of support and comfort. 

Understanding Political Grief

Political grief is a unique form of sadness, anger, or mourning that arises in response to political events or decisions that we perceive as unjust or harmful. It can manifest in several ways:

1. Loss of Faith in Institutions: As government systems fail to address the needs of the people, we might feel a deep loss of trust and confidence.
    
2. Mourning Collective Values: We may grieve for societal values that seem to be disappearing, such as compassion, equality, or environmental stewardship.
    
3. Empathetic Pain: Seeing others suffer due to policies or political actions can lead to a form of empathetic grief. It's not just our own pain but the shared pain of witnessing injustice and inequality.

Political grief is distinct because it often feels collective. It's not just about a personal loss; it's about a perceived loss of shared ideals and dreams for the future.

Why Political Grief Hurts So Much

Political grief is particularly painful because it strikes at the core of our identities and beliefs. Politics, at its essence, is about how we structure our collective lives. When political decisions clash with our personal values, it can feel like a betrayal of the social contract. This betrayal can trigger feelings of helplessness, disillusionment, and despair.

Moreover, the rapid pace of today's political landscape, amplified by 24/7 news and social media, means we are constantly bombarded with distressing updates. It can be hard to find a moment of peace when each notification brings fresh anxieties. This persistent exposure can turn political grief into a chronic state of being.

The Spiritual Approach to Political Grief

From a spiritual perspective, political grief offers an invitation to deepen our understanding of interconnectedness, compassion, and resilience. Rather than trying to avoid or numb the discomfort, spirituality teaches us to engage with our grief in meaningful ways.

1. Accept the Pain as Part of the Human Experience

One of the fundamental principles of spiritual practice is the acceptance of suffering as a part of life. In Buddhism, for example, the First Noble Truth states that suffering is inherent in existence. By acknowledging our grief, rather than fighting it, we allow ourselves to be fully present with our emotions. This acceptance does not mean resignation; instead, it creates space for healing and transformation.

2. Practice Mindful Awareness

Mindfulness encourages us to observe our feelings without judgment. When faced with political grief, it's easy to become consumed by anger or fear. Mindful awareness helps us step back and witness our emotions, allowing us to process them more effectively. Through meditation or deep breathing, we can create a moment of calm, grounding ourselves in the present and alleviating the intense grip of distressing thoughts. Consider a daily mindfulness practice where you sit quietly for a few minutes, focusing on your breath. As thoughts about politics or the state of the world arise, notice them without attachment. Let them pass like clouds in the sky, returning your focus to your breath.

3. Connect to a Larger Vision of Life

Political systems and structures are, by nature, impermanent. Spiritual teachings remind us of the cyclical nature of life and the universe. The world has seen countless political systems rise and fall, yet the human spirit endures. By connecting to something larger than the current political moment--whether that's nature, the cosmos, or a higher power--we can gain a broader perspective that helps us find solace. For many, prayer, meditation, or spending time in nature can serve as a reminder of the greater forces at play beyond the political sphere. These practices can help us detach from the need for immediate control and embrace the flow of life with a sense of trust and faith.

4. Channel Grief into Compassionate Action

Spiritual traditions emphasize the importance of compassion and service. Political grief, when acknowledged and processed, can be a powerful motivator for compassionate action. Instead of being paralyzed by despair, we can transform our sorrow into purposeful deeds that help others. Consider volunteering for a cause aligned with your values, participating in peaceful protests, or engaging in community-building activities. Designate a time each week to write letters to elected officials. Set up a monthly donation to a cause that aligns with your values. These actions not only serve the greater good but also provide a sense of agency, helping to alleviate feelings of helplessness.

5. Establish Personal Rituals

Establishing personal rituals offers a way to process emotions constructively. One of the most therapeutic rituals for coping with grief is journaling. Set aside 10-15 minutes each day to write down your thoughts and feelings about the current political climate. Express your worries, disappointments, and hopes. An unconventional but symbolic ritual for coping with political grief is creating a political altar. This space can serve as a focal point for your emotions and intentions. Decorate it with objects that represent your values and hopes for the future. You might include: photographs of leaders or activists you admire, candles, which can be lit as a gesture of hope and solidarity, and quotes or poems that inspire resilience and strength. Taking a moment each day to sit by the altar, light a candle, or say a quiet prayer can serve as a reminder that you are part of a larger movement for change, and that you are not alone in your grief.

6. Cultivate Inner Peace Amid Outer Chaos

While it's natural to be affected by the turmoil of the world, spiritual teachings encourage us to cultivate a sanctuary of peace within ourselves. Practices like shamanism, yoga, meditation, or prayer help us build a resilient inner core, which can remain stable even when the external world feels chaotic. This inner peace does not mean turning a blind eye to injustice. Instead, it equips us with the strength to face challenges with clarity and compassion. It's about finding a balance--acknowledging our grief and frustration while also nurturing a sense of calm that allows us to respond wisely rather than react impulsively.

Finding Hope Through Spiritual Growth

Political grief, when viewed through a spiritual lens, can be a profound catalyst for personal growth and collective healing. It forces us to confront our deepest fears and anxieties, but it also offers a path toward greater empathy, resilience, and wisdom. By embracing spiritual practices, we can transform our pain into a source of strength and a deeper understanding of our interconnectedness.

Conclusion

Navigating political grief is challenging, but a spiritual approach can offer solace and guidance. It reminds us that while we cannot always control the external world, we have the power to shape our inner experience. Through acceptance, mindfulness, connection to the greater whole, compassionate action, and cultivating inner peace, we can move from a place of despair to one of hope and empowerment. The next time you feel overwhelmed by the state of the world, take a moment to breathe deeply and connect with your spiritual center. Remember, you are not alone in your grief, and together, we can find the strength to continue striving for a more compassionate and just society. To learn more, read a sample of my book The Great Shift: And How To Navigate It.

Reviving Our Indigenous Souls

In Reviving Our Indigenous Souls: How to Practice the Ancient to Bring in the New, Cathie G. Stivers examines the resurgence of Indigenous wisdom as a response to the alienation, environmental degradation, and spiritual disconnection pervasive in modern Western society. Drawing from diverse Indigenous cultures and spiritual practices, Stivers advocates for a return to ancestral ways of knowing and being that respect and harmonize with nature, family, and community.
 

Stivers' central thesis is that modern society can heal itself by reclaiming Indigenous values and reconnecting with ancient practices that emphasize interconnectedness and reciprocity. To support this journey, she outlines a framework for integrating these values into contemporary life. This book serves as a call to action for readers to reconnect with their own "Indigenous soul"--a concept Stivers uses to refer to the inherent wisdom, respect for nature, and spiritual connection that she believes reside within all humans.
 

Embracing the "Indigenous Soul"
 

Stivers begins by discussing the concept of the "Indigenous soul," which she describes as a deep-seated, intuitive awareness that everyone holds, irrespective of cultural background. This soul represents our innate sense of connection to all living things and to the cycles of the earth. The author argues that Indigenous is neither a culture nor a people. It's a way. The Indigenous way is the embodied ancient memory of how to be fully human, and it's encoded in your soul, no matter who your ancestors are. Hidden deep and dormant within your Indigenous soul is your identity and your life's purpose, longing for you to remember them and put them into action.
 

According to Stivers, the Indigenous soul has been repressed by the pressures of a consumer-driven, individualistic society that prioritizes material success over spiritual wellbeing and community cohesion. The author argues that a disconnection from this Indigenous soul leads to suffering, both personally and collectively, manifesting in issues such as environmental exploitation, social injustice, and mental health crises. However, by reconnecting with this lost part of ourselves, Stivers believes we can address the core issues underlying many of these challenges.
 

Learning from Indigenous Practices
 

Throughout the book, Stivers explores a range of Indigenous practices, including rituals, storytelling, communal gatherings, and nature-based spirituality. She emphasizes that Indigenous cultures maintain a profound respect for nature, viewing it not as a resource to be exploited but as an extension of the self. This reverence for the natural world contrasts sharply with modern practices of consumerism and environmental degradation, and Stivers argues that adopting this respect is essential for sustainable living.
 

One key aspect of Indigenous practice that Stivers discusses is the importance of ritual in maintaining community bonds and spiritual health. Rituals, she explains, can help modern individuals create sacred space and time in their lives, even in urban or industrial settings. Through rituals, individuals can celebrate seasonal cycles, honor ancestors, and create moments of reflection, which foster a deeper connection to themselves and the environment.
 

The Role of Storytelling
 

Stivers devotes considerable attention to the role of storytelling in Indigenous traditions, viewing it as a critical tool for passing down knowledge, cultural values, and ethical guidelines. Indigenous storytelling, according to Stivers, serves not only to entertain but to teach important life lessons and reinforce the interconnectedness of all beings. She notes that in Indigenous cultures, stories often emphasize the unity between humans, animals, and nature, encouraging listeners to recognize their place in a larger ecological and spiritual system.
 

In a society saturated with information but often devoid of wisdom, Stivers suggests that reclaiming the power of storytelling could be transformative. She encourages readers to seek out and share stories that emphasize unity, compassion, and respect for the natural world. By doing so, individuals can help reshape cultural narratives toward sustainability and respect for all life.
 

Reclaiming Rituals for Modern Healing
 

One of the primary ways that Stivers suggests modern readers can reconnect with their Indigenous soul is by incorporating rituals into their daily lives. While many of these rituals are rooted in Indigenous traditions, Stivers encourages readers to adapt them to their own circumstances and needs. Simple acts--such as lighting a candle with intention, creating a small altar at home, or acknowledging the four directions (a common Indigenous practice to honor different aspects of the natural world)--can cultivate a sense of the sacred and foster mindfulness.
 

She also discusses the healing potential of community rituals, which bring people together and reinforce bonds. In an increasingly individualistic society, where people often feel isolated and disconnected, Stivers emphasizes the importance of communal activities that restore a sense of unity and mutual support.
 

Practicing Reciprocity and Gratitude
 

A recurring theme in Stivers' work is the concept of reciprocity, which she argues is a fundamental aspect of Indigenous spirituality. Indigenous worldviews often emphasize giving back to the earth and community, viewing resources as something to be shared rather than exploited. Stivers believes that modern society can benefit from incorporating this principle by practicing gratitude and consciously giving back--whether through acts of service, mindful consumption, or environmental stewardship.
 

Stivers suggests that readers incorporate gratitude rituals into their daily lives, such as expressing thanks for food before meals or acknowledging the people, animals, and plants that contribute to their well-being. This practice, she asserts, can shift perspectives from entitlement to appreciation, fostering a more sustainable relationship with resources.
 

Transforming Society Through Indigenous Wisdom
 

Stivers ultimately sees the revival of Indigenous practices not as a nostalgic return to the past, but as a way to build a more harmonious and sustainable future. She advocates for a cultural shift toward values that prioritize community, environmental stewardship, and spiritual connection. This transformation, according to Stivers, must begin on an individual level, as people awaken to the Indigenous soul within them and begin to act in ways that align with its wisdom.
 

In addition, Stivers calls for broader social change, encouraging leaders and institutions to consider how Indigenous principles can inform policy and community structures. By reorienting society around principles of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and respect for nature, she believes that humanity can address many of the existential threats it currently faces.
 

Conclusion
 

Reviving Our Indigenous Souls by Cathie G. Stivers offers a compelling and thought-provoking perspective on how individuals and society as a whole can benefit from reconnecting with Indigenous wisdom. Stivers' exploration of Indigenous practices, from ritual and storytelling to gratitude and reciprocity, provides practical steps for readers seeking to incorporate these values into their lives. By following Stivers' guidance, readers can cultivate a deeper sense of purpose, connection, and responsibility toward the earth and one another. Ultimately, the book calls for a transformative shift in both personal and cultural paradigms, envisioning a future where humanity lives in harmony with nature and each other by honoring the ancient to create the new.
 

Every person alive today, modern or tribal, has a soul that is original, natural, and, above all, Indigenous in one way or another. Every human on this planet has ancestors whose languages, myths and spirituality were taken away, exploited, or destroyed by a soulless, culture-crushing mentality. What is Indigenous--in other words, wild, untamed and unrestricted--in each of us has been banished from our life. We're taught to believe that our rational mind is actually the center of our being. Like the conquering, modern culture we belong to, we understand the world only with the mind, not with the Indigenous soul. Reviving Our Indigenous Souls is a guide to awakening the Indigenous way of being encoded in our soul. The more we consciously remember our Indigenous soul, the more we physically remember how to be fully human. Read a sample of Reviving Our Indigenous Souls (paid link).

Changing the World

Whether you realize it or not, you are creating your reality all the time. Your reality is the perfect, exact mirror of your thoughts and what you consistently focus upon. Every thought, idea, or image in the mind has form and substance. Everything that we perceive began with a thought. The structure of our universe is thought, mind and consciousness. Consciousness determines the form of our experience. Consciousness is the "theater of perceptual awareness." It is the collective consciousness of humanity that shapes physical reality. We are the universe made conscious to experience itself. We are mind. We live in a universe of mind. From photons to galaxies, life is conscious intelligent energy that can form itself into any pattern or function.
 

Metaphysically, the ultimate nature of existence is that there is but one consciousness which presides over a singular, yet multidimensional, field of energy that it can form into any patterns it desires by the exercise of its thoughts and intentions. And these patterns encompass everything seen and unseen. This consciousness has been referred to as source consciousness, universal consciousness, or cosmic consciousness. Moreover, cosmic consciousness not only creates patterns of energy, it can also perceive and experience them.
 

There is only consciousness, information and the perception of information, and this facilitates the creation and experience of multiple realities. The world that you believe exists outside of you is basically an illusion--it is a purely perceptual experience. Your experiences are real, but the outer world is imaginary. Your reality is only information that was imagined into existence and is essentially just imagery that your consciousness perceives. Perception is an illusory product of consciousness. The world around you is nothing more than a very convincing perceptual illusion.
 

If consciousness creates reality, then change starts within. It starts with the way you observe the outer world from your inner world. You can change the outer world by changing your inner world. The world is your stage. The stage that collective reality plays out on is just there to create a context within which to play out the story of your personal reality. You can create anything you want in life, and it is not limited to what already exists in the collective reality, but it does provide a host of options to select into your life. However, they are all optional--they cannot enter into your experience unless you invite them in with your thoughts. In fact, the collective reality can be a distraction that lures you into focusing on "what is" instead of "what can be."
 

Quantum physics points out that this is a participatory universe in which the power to change reality is literally in our hands at every moment. Modern physics is describing what indigenous shamans have long known. Shamans know that the creative matrix of the universe exists within human consciousness, enabling humans to participate in creation itself. For the shaman, changing reality is not just an ability, but also a duty one must perform so that future generations will inherit a world where they can live in peace, harmony and abundance.
 

Shamans access the creative matrix through techniques of ecstasy such as drumming. Rhythmic drumming is a simple and effective way to induce an ecstatic trance state. Shamanic drumming transports you to the creative matrix within. It is an inward spiritual journey of ecstasy in which you interact with the inner world, thereby influencing the outer world. Ecstatic trance enables you to participate directly in the work of encountering and transforming your inner structure, which mirrors your reality. Structure determines how energy will flow, where it will be directed, and what new forms and structures will be created. Through the transformation of your inner landscapes, you transform the external landscapes. You create new forms, new structures that are not based on hierarchy, estrangement and exploitation. You renew the Sacred Hoop of life on Earth.

Initiation into Shamanism

Shamanic initiation is a rite of passage, connecting the apprentice shaman intimately to Spirit. It is probably the most powerful and least understood of all forms of spiritual awakening. It is not achieved by having mastered a body of knowledge or having completed some long-term training program. Though it may be set in motion by an apprentice's human teachers as part of an ordered training process, authentic initiation can only be conveyed by the spirits themselves. Ultimately, shamanic initiation takes place between the initiate and the spirit world. It is the spirits who choose and make the shaman.
 

The most frequent and most genuine manner of shamanic initiation is that of crisis, often involving psychological and physical suffering. The encounter with illness, suffering, and death not only opens the world of the spirits to the shaman, it also provides an experiential ground for the healing work that the shaman will later be doing. Election can also occur through heredity, signs at birth, a proclivity or gift that is recognized in childhood, through a realization arising in the course of a ceremonial event, or in the experience of a vision quest.
 

Shamanic initiation is typically the final step in becoming a shamanic healer, a process that is facilitated by the aspirant's shamanic teachers as part of a training regimen. However, initiation may also be spontaneous, set in motion by Spirit's intervention into the initiate's life. To be initiated by a helping spirit forever transforms your life. For the uninitiated, this can be problematic to say the least. They may have no clear idea of what is happening to them, and may find themselves overwhelmed by fear of their nonordinary experience. 

The Dismemberment Journey

Initiation into shamanhood often involves the visionary experience of symbolic dismemberment--the experience of being taken apart, devoured, or torn to pieces. In a classic dismemberment journey, the apprentice witnesses their own body being torn apart and perhaps completely destroyed. The apprentice dies a symbolic death and is then restored and brought back to life, whole and empowered. At its deepest level, the dismemberment experience dismantles our old identity. It is a powerful death-and-rebirth process. The experience of being stripped layer by layer, down to bare bones forces us to examine the bare essence of what we truly are.
 

Anthropologist Felicitas Goodman, the modern discoverer of Ecstatic Body Postures, notes that Siberian shamans considered dismemberment to be an essential phase of initiation for healers. Goodman researched and explored ritual body postures as a means to achieve a bodily induced trance experience and discovered that this archetype appears to be universal. In her trance work with Westerners, those who experienced spontaneous dismemberment visions were invariably destined to become various kinds of healers.
 

Completing this restorative rite is precisely the task of the shaman. As Joan Halifax explains in her book Shamanic Voices, "The shaman is a healed healer who has retrieved the broken pieces of his or her body and psyche and, through a personal rite of transformation, has integrated many planes of life experience: the body and the spirit, the ordinary and nonordinary, the individual and the community, nature and supernature, the mythic and the historical, the past, the present and the future." The cure for dismemberment is remembering who we actually are. As Halifax puts it, "To bring back to an original state that which was in primordial times whole and is now broken and dismembered is not only an act of unification, but also a divine remembrance of a time when a complete reality existed."(1)
 

Shamanic initiation functions as a transformer--it causes a radical change in the initiate forever. An initiation marks a transition into a new way of being in the world. It informs us about the mystery of life and death. According to noted shamanic teacher and author Sandra Ingerman, "Initiation is the death, dismembering, and dissolving of old forms, structures, and ways of life. And I have come to understand that true initiation is allowing Spirit to sing into creation the new forms and new creations. Allowing Spirit to sing formlessness into form creates a new evolution of consciousness."(2)
 

Shamanic initiation is complicated, profound and nothing short of life-altering--in the best possible way. While it may not be easy, it will improve your life for the better with patience, trial and error, and the passage of time. If you find yourself in one, all you can do is trust the process, hang on tight, and get ready for a newly awakened life.
 

Global Dismemberment
 

There is so much more to discover and explore about shamanic initiations and the deep spiritual knowledge held in Indigenous cultures. Now that the present world-age during which all human civilization developed is ending, it might be time to pay more attention to the experience of those whose world has already ended: Indigenous peoples. Depending on how you count them, there may be up to three hundred million Indigenous people still on the planet. Most are survivors of colonialism. The genocide of the Indigenous peoples was the beginning of the modern world for Europeans, but the former remain as veritable end of the world experts. Models for restoring our relationship with the earth exist in the cultures of Indigenous peoples, whose values and skills have enabled them to survive centuries of invasion and exploitation.
 

From an Indigenous perspective, the global climate and ecological crisis represents a mass shamanic dismemberment--the experience of being taken apart, devoured, or torn to pieces on a global scale, allowing for a shift of awareness and transformation of collective consciousness. The acceleration of planetary crises can either provoke a planetary awakening and a shift into a regenerative planetary culture based on shamanic wisdom and sustainable principles, or a destruction of human civilization in its current form, and perhaps extinction for our species. We are all responsible, for better or worse.

 

As the global upheaval intensifies, our interest in shamanism represents an attempt to retrieve and include a part of our inner and outer lives that technology and civilization has consistently denied, suppressed, or destroyed since the advent of agriculture. The cultural imprinting of hierarchical, agriculturally based societies leaves the individual outside the realm of personal spiritual experience. Any sense of the Great Mystery is beyond the individual's grasp. In the contemporary world, where our rites of passage for young men mean going to war, in a world where social turmoil and environmental disaster induce fear, anxiety and despair, the way of the shaman, the one who is a master of the initiatic crisis, might well be of great value for all of us.

 

1. Joan Halifax, Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives (Penguin, 1991), pp. 18-22.
2. Sandra Ingerman. "Messages from Sandra Ingerman." Transmutation News (Mar. 2011): <https://www.sandraingerman.com/transmutation-news/english/english-2011/page/2/>.

Bringing Light Into the World

It is not hard to see that, even though we live on a planet that surrounds us with great beauty, there is a lot of darkness manifesting within humanity. We must learn to deal with this dissonant energy. We cannot make sense of it because it is entirely destructive. Dark energy is dense, negative, and goes against the flow of the universe. It is about manipulation, oppression, conquest and fear. Darkness is part of who we are, and we all have to take responsibility for it.
 

In these uncertain times, it is impossible to find stability in the outer world, so do not waste your time looking for it. Instead, we must hold steady within ourselves and observe the chaos from an inner place of power. When we center ourselves and calm our minds, we stop feeding the negative drama that is playing out on Earth. Our inner calm and stability helps contain the darkness so that it is unable to wreak as much havoc upon the world. It can be easy to lose hope at times, yet there are many opportunities for spiritual growth and meaningful action during this time.

One of the most important things you can do is to bring more light into the world. One way to do this is to practice white light cleansing. Light--imagined or real--is a powerful cleanser. Light energy is unlimited and comes from the divine source. It is highly vibrational, expansive and full of love. White light can be called upon by anyone for cleansing, healing and protection from negative energies. 

 

Begin by finding somewhere that you can sit undisturbed for several minutes, and then do some mindful breathing to calm and focus your mind. Next, visualize a sphere of white light emanating from your heart. Just allow it to expand outward until it completely fills and surrounds you. Envision the white light purifying your body and displacing any negative or foreign energy. Really focus on seeing it clearly in your mind and keep building it up so it is brilliant and glowing. You can keep expanding the light, sending peace and love out into infinity.

In times of chaos, it is important to be mindful of who you are. You are a being of light, capable of the most extraordinary things. You were put here on Earth to hold a steady place in an unsteady world. Remain calm and centered in your power. Never compromise or lose sight of your goals and principles. Such an attitude will sustain the inner light that exists within you in even the darkest of times. We each have a part to play during this dark time. We each hold a piece to the puzzle. Through honest seeking and compassionate sharing, we can weave our threads of wisdom together to create a whole tapestry.

Dark Ecology

Scientists have determined that we are now living in the Anthropocene age: the new epoch of geological time in which human activity is considered such a powerful influence on the environment, climate and ecology of the planet that it will leave its legacy for millennia. The Anthropocene is notable as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric, and other Earth system processes are now altered by humans. In the Anthropocene, humans move from a biological to a geological agent. The Anthropocene is distinguished as a new period after or within the Holocene, the current epoch, which began approximately 10,000 years ago with the end of the last glacial period.
 

The awareness we've gained in the Anthropocene is not generally a happy one. Many environmentalists now warn of impending global catastrophe and urge industrial societies to change course. Philosopher Timothy Morton, however, stakes out a more iconoclastic position. He wants humanity to give up some of its core beliefs, from the fantasy that we can control the planet to the notion that we are 'above' other beings. His ideas might sound weird, but they're catching on. Morton, whose most quoted book is called Ecology Without Nature, proposes a perspective that sets him apart from all those scientists and social commentators warning of the impending disaster that is global warming. Instead of raising the ecological alarm of the apocalypse, he advocates what he calls "dark ecology," which holds that the much-feared catastrophe has, in fact, already occurred.
 

Morton means not only that irreversible global warming is under way, but also something more wide-reaching. "We Mesopotamians" -- as he calls the past 400 or so generations of humans living in agricultural and industrial societies -- thought that we were simply manipulating other entities (by farming and engineering, and so on) in a vacuum, as if we were lab technicians and they were in some kind of giant petri dish called "nature" or "the environment." In the Anthropocene, Morton says we must wake up to the fact that we never stood apart from or controlled the non-human things on the planet, but have always been thoroughly bound up with them. We can't even burn, throw or flush things away without them coming back to us in some form, such as harmful pollution. Our most cherished ideas about nature and the environment -- that they are separate from us, and relatively stable -- have been destroyed.
 

Morton likens this realization to detective stories in which the hunter realizes he is hunting himself (his favorite examples are Blade Runner and Oedipus Rex). "Not all of us are prepared to feel sufficiently creeped out by this epiphany," he says. This is a hard pill to swallow, but there's another twist: even though humans have caused the Anthropocene, we cannot control it. That might sound gloomy, but Morton glimpses in it a liberation. If we give up the delusion of controlling everything around us, we might refocus ourselves on the pleasure we take in other beings and life itself. Enjoyment, Morton believes, might be the thing that turns us on to a new kind of politics. "Even if it's true that we really are screwed, let's not spend the rest of our lives on this planet telling ourselves how screwed we are."

Return of the Sacred Feminine

"The world will be saved by Western Women." --Dalai Lama
 

We live in an age of accelerated change and transformation. It is a head-spinning, anxiety-inducing time. We see severe climate change, devastating oil spills, species dying off, and a deadly global pandemic that has affected everything and everyone. We find corruption and stagnation in business, politics and religions around the world. We see worldwide systemic racism, inequality and oppression. We see mass social delusion, extremism and a plethora of misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories. We witness fear, anger and hopelessness in our communities.

 

None of the countless issues we face on this planet today can be resolved by our current masculine, left-brain analytical thinking. A functioning, sustainable whole requires the feminine and the masculine to be integrated within the individual and within humanity as a whole, and we are increasingly aware of the dysfunctional results of millennia of human development based almost solely on patriarchal, masculine value systems. The patriarchy has now reached a toxic degenerate phase. After the leak of the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito opinion that will most likely overturn Roe v. Wade, we see the true patriarchal hatred of, contempt for, and prejudice against women. With autocrats like Vladimir Putin, we see the twisted rage of the male ego, which turns cruel and psychopathic, given unlimited power over others.
 

The feminine wasn't always subordinate to the masculine. According to world mythology, it was the Earth, Nature herself, who provided our oldest ancestral forefathers and mothers with the concept of the Great Mother and with a value system based on Nature's ways and cycles. The Great Mother was a symbol of life itself, for all life emerged from her womb. She sustained all of life through the nourishment she provided, and all living things returned to her upon death. Therefore, the Great Mother was seen as the life-giving, nurturing, creative and intuitive force. 
 

The feminine principle stems in its origins from this nature-based concept, as the female body exhibits the same patterns and cycles as nature. Consequently, the feminine was seen as the life-giving, nurturing, sustaining and life-embracing force, the creative vessel of life that contained, birthed, nurtured and protected. Not surprising, then, that ancient people respected the feminine. The power of the feminine as a calm receptive energy is the key to bringing balance to the world's excessively masculine state -- in other words, aggressive, extroverted, loud, superficial, materialistic, ego-driven culture.

"The Shamanic Drum" eBook Sale

Mark your calendar! I am taking part in the 13th annual Smashwords July Summer/Winter Sale, taking place Thursday, July 1 through Saturday, July 31, 2021. For the entire month of July, all of my ebooks are 50% off list price: The Shamanic Drum: A Guide to Sacred Drumming, I Ching: The Tao of Drumming, Shamanic Drumming: Calling the Spirits, Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide, and The Great Shift: And How To Navigate It. Choose from multiple file formats including .epub, .mobi for Kindles, and PDF. Click on the following link to my Smashwords author page and you will receive the 50% discount automatically by adding my books to your cart: Smashwords July Summer/Winter Sale.
 

Why does Smashwords call it "Summer/Winter"? Here in the Northern hemisphere, it's mid-summer. Readers are loading their e-reading devices for summer beach reading and long-awaited vacations. South of the equator, readers are now in the middle of winter. They're ready to curl up in front of the fireplace and enjoy a great read too! Smashwords is the world's largest distributor of indie ebooks. They make it fast, free and easy for any author or publisher, anywhere in the world, to publish and distribute ebooks to the major retailers and thousands of libraries. The Smashwords Store provides an opportunity to discover new voices in all categories and genres of the written word.

Liberating Ourselves from the Power of Darkness

It is not hard to see that, even though we live on a planet that surrounds us with great beauty, there is a lot of darkness manifesting within humanity. We must learn to deal with this dissonant energy. We cannot make sense of it because it is entirely destructive. In these uncertain times, it is impossible to find stability in the outer world, so do not waste your time looking for it. Instead, we must hold steady within ourselves and observe the chaos from an inner place of power. When we center ourselves and calm our minds, we stop feeding the negative drama that is playing out on Earth. Our inner calm and stability helps contain the darkness so that it is unable to wreak as much havoc upon the world. It can be easy to lose hope at times, yet there are many opportunities for spiritual growth and meaningful action during this time. Here are some helpful guidelines to liberate yourself from the power of darkness:

The most important thing you can do is to smudge yourself and your home each day. Smudging is a method of using smoke from burning herbs to dispel negative energy. Sage, cedar and sweetgrass are traditionally used for smudging. To smudge, light the dried herbs in a fire-resistant receptacle, and then blow out the flames. Then use a feather or your hands to fan the smoke around your body and home. I recommend cracking a window or door for ventilation and for releasing unwanted energies.
 

Use consecrated or holy water. The practice of charging water with intention, words, and sound is widely practiced in indigenous cultures throughout the world. In fact, people have believed in our ability to influence water since the days of antiquity. The Christian tradition is the obvious example, with the ongoing performing of rituals that turn regular water into holy water. Essentially, holy water is water with salt added during a rite of blessing. Learn how to make your own consecrated water, and use it for cleansing, protection and blessing. Pour some holy water into a spray bottle. To bless and protect your home, spray holy water around the perimeter of your dwelling and yard. Many people will dismiss the power of holy water based on its association with the church. This is not about religion; this is about a pragmatic solution to an age-old problem. The fact of the matter is that holy water is your best protection against negative and dark energies.

Practice white light cleansing. Light--imagined or real--is a powerful cleanser. White light can be called upon by anyone for cleansing, healing and protection from negative energies. Begin by finding somewhere that you can sit undisturbed for several minutes, and then do some mindful breathing to calm and focus your mind. The most basic way to do mindful breathing is to breathe naturally and simply focus on your breath as you inhale and exhale. Next, visualize a sphere of white light emanating from your heart. Just allow it to expand outward until it completely fills and surrounds you. Envision the white light purifying your body and displacing any negative or foreign energy. Really focus on seeing it clearly in your mind and keep building it up so it is brilliant and glowing. You can keep expanding the light, sending peace and love out into infinity.

Use protection stones. Protection stones can help dispel negative energies and shield you from psychic, emotional and physical attack. Black tourmaline repels lower, harmful frequencies and is good for general all-round protection. Black obsidian is a good grounding stone to wear in your aura each day, shielding you from negativity, sorcery and spirit attachments. Jet helps clear internalized emotional energy. Apache tears transmute negative energy. These gemstones can be obtained as small tumbled stones which can easily be carried in your pocket every day. To protect your entire home, place black obsidian in the four main corners of your house. Cleanse your stones frequently with holy water.
 

One of the most important things you can do at this time is to keep your heart wide open. To keep your heart open, be willing to accept what life brings you. Regardless of the experience happening around you, how you respond, how you choose to perceive that experience is always your choice. You can use what happens to learn and grow from your experience. Resistance is futile anyway, and what you resist persists. You need a completely balanced and open heart to be able to hold steady during these dark times. Make a conscious choice not to be swept along by unfavorable circumstances or permit your steadfastness to be shaken.
 

You do not have total control over what happens to you--in fact, often you have no control at all. But you have considerable control over how you relate to what happens to you. You can be mindful of your feelings and hold yourself with kindness and compassion. It is important to be mindful of who you are. You are a being of light, capable of the most extraordinary things. You were put here on Earth to hold a steady place in an unsteady world. Remain calm and centered in your power. Never compromise or lose sight of your goals and principles. Such an attitude will sustain the inner light that exists within you in even the darkest of times. We each have a part to play during this dark time. We each hold a piece to the puzzle. Through honest seeking and compassionate sharing, we can weave our threads of wisdom together to create a whole tapestry.

Appropriate Destruction

From a shamanic perspective, all creation is based on some form of destruction. In order to create something new, something old first must be destroyed. The old form is taken apart and from its energetic source, something new arises. Nature offers the best examples of this constant destruction in the form of seasonal changes. As each season gives way to the next, something is destroyed in the process. Fall kills off the green leaves and lays the landscape bare. Winter kills off the insects and weakest animals. Spring destroys the snowpack and brings floods. Summer bakes the land, drying up the streams and plants. Everywhere in nature are examples of great destruction that reform the land, creating a new canvas for change. Earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, erupting volcanoes, and withering droughts destroy the landscape as it was, clearing the way for new life, new forms, new possibilities.
 

Shamans acknowledge the awesome power of transformation that comes with destruction and seek to harness that power. One powerful universal shamanic motif of appropriate destruction is the dismemberment of the apprentice during the initiation as a shaman. The individual dies a symbolic death and is then restored and brought back to life. Completing this restorative rite is precisely the task of the shaman. As anthropologist Joan Halifax explains in her book Shamanic Voices, "The shaman is a healed healer who has retrieved the broken pieces of his or her body and psyche and, through a personal rite of transformation, has integrated many planes of life experience: the body and the spirit, the ordinary and non-ordinary, the individual and the community, nature and supernature, the mythic and the historical, the past, the present and the future."
 

The viewpoint emerging from the shamanic community suggests the times we live in have a theme of planetary and cosmological initiation. Shamanic initiation is most often precipitated by physical, psychological, emotional, or spiritual events that force the ego into submission. Who we believe ourselves to be is not who we truly are. No matter how many years one has been developing their consciousness, no one is exempt from this shamanic death-and-rebirth. This is a shamanic initiation on the grandest cosmological scale.
 

The times we find ourselves in are like a great river in flood. We can try to hold on to the shore to save ourselves from being swept along with the current. But this is a futile effort, for nothing can resist the great tide of change that is sweeping through and forever altering life as we have known it for millennia. Instead, we are being challenged to let go and go with the flow. We are being given the opportunity to surrender to the current of change so that new dreams and visions can emerge.
 

The cure for dismemberment is appropriate destruction. An appropriate destruction measure for anyone would be to get rid of anything that does not contribute to personal growth and learning. This would include the elimination of unnecessary possessions, ideas, habits and limiting beliefs that no longer serve you. Situations, careers or relationships that no longer resonate with you will eventually fall away from your life. When you clear out the old, you make way for the new.

Out of the Darkness, Light

From Hitler's Rischstag Fire to 9/11, history is beset with instances of governments using terrorist attacks to justify invasions or suspend civil liberties indefinitely. The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on February 27, 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler's government stated that Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was the culprit, and it attributed the fire to communist agitators. A German court decided later that year that Van der Lubbe had acted alone, as he had claimed. The day after the fire, the Reichstag Fire Decree was passed. The Nazi Party used the fire as a pretext to claim that communists were plotting against the German government, which made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, restrictions on civil liberties began to grow. The attack spawned wars to export democracy abroad, while degrading it at home. Our military actions, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Syria, have reflected increased investments in the military, accompanied by diminished attention to political change, economic development and institution-building -- the essential prerequisites for democratic freedoms. Fear of terrorism has justified excessive and persistent suspension of good governance, ultimately creating more fertile ground for terrorists. Our leaders have nurtured a crisis of "domestic terrorism" within U.S. borders, perpetrated not by foreigners, but by U.S. citizens.

The question is not, "is it happening?" but, "why is it happening?" To fully comprehend the "why" of it, we must first understand the meaning of the Latin phrase "ordo ab chao" or "order out of chaos." The  expression "order out of chaos" or more accurately translated, "out of chaos, order" is the idea that the order of the world emerges out of chaos or the undifferentiated. The term is often used to capture a fundamental dimension of evolutionary change within nature. It has become popular in contemporary times to identify chaos as a precondition for transformation, rebirth and creativity.

However, to our political leaders and their inner circles, chaos is a way of getting power and keeping it. That is, if you can create just the right crisis or chaos, you will necessarily get a citizen outcry for the kind of solution or order that you wanted to have all along. It really is a "shock and awe" military strategy based on achieving rapid dominance over an adversary by the initial imposition of overwhelming force and firepower. Politicians engage in shock and awe politics in order to stun their opponents into inaction.

The idea that the order of the world emerges out of chaos is actually not new at all. It was preceded by more ancient principles such as "lux in tenebris," or "light out of darkness." Light out of darkness is an expression of an ancient wisdom about the relationship of complementary opposites in nature. In the eastern tradition of Taoism, light and darkness are represented by yin and yang, each of which contains the seed of its opposite within it as expressed in the ancient Chinese symbol (T'ai Chi Tu) of the yin-yang. The two teardrop figures within the circle illustrate the balance between the dark yin and the light yang. The black vibration of yin is dark, passive, feminine, nurturing, intuitive, and corresponds to earth or matter. The white vibration of yang is light, active, masculine, creative, expansive, and corresponds to heaven or spirit. Yin and yang pulsate within all things and in unison, they are the moving force of nature and all its manifestations.

Various mystery traditions such as Hermeticism had similar concepts such as "As above, so below" and "As within, so without." In Hermeticism, the phrase "As above so below" can be taken to indicate that earthly matters reflect the operation of the Cosmos. In other words, the human experience is a microcosm of the macrocosm we call the universe. Each human being is a hologram of the Cosmos, a weaving together of universal information from a particular point of view. Essentially, we are the universe experiencing itself in human form.

The idea that "As within, so without" can be found in the world's indigenous shamanic traditions. In the shaman's world, all human experience is self-generated -- our inner thoughts actually create what we see and experience. Everything that we perceive began with a thought. The structure of our universe is thought, mind and consciousness. Consciousness determines the form of our experience. The shaman traverses the inner planes of consciousness in order to change and shape experience. It is an inward spiritual journey of rapture in which the shaman interacts with the inner world, thereby influencing the outer world.

Shamanic rites involve many technologies for inducing altered states of consciousness. These vary from drum and dance to ingesting sacred plants. Practitioners enter trance states in order to perceive and interact with the inner world of the self. The essence of shamanism is the experience of direct revelation from within. Shamanism is about remembering, exploring and developing the true self. Shamanism places emphasis on the individual, of breaking free and discovering one's own uniqueness in order to bring something new back to the community. The goal is inner transformation; not outer.

Those who presently call the shots and pull the strings on the world stage only use "order out of chaos" to create favorable circumstances for themselves; to gain and sustain the same authoritarian power relations. For the power elite, external order is the goal. To achieve their goals, they first create the conditions for chaos/disorder to bring about order. The controlled chaos we are witnessing in society today is the direct result of the coordinated efforts by some to turn people against each other. This is a classic "divide and conquer" strategy.

A highly centralized government relies mainly on lies, fear and economic prosperity to maintain equilibrium. Allegiance is achieved through various means of socialization and indoctrination. Political propaganda emphasizes material and technical development while suppressing access to personal revelation and spiritual experience. Citizens are discouraged from thinking for themselves and required to follow the laws of secular authorities regardless of the discrepancy between what is legal and what is considered to be moral, ethical and right. The individual is left morally and spiritually impaired; their soul abandoned in darkness and chaos while urged to acquiesce to the needs of the collective.

This imbalance is reaching such heights that the pendulum of change will soon begin swinging back in the opposite direction. The movement for external transformation will reach a psychological extinction -- meaning there just won't be a situation chaotic enough or carrot sweet enough to keep people hoping external transformation and order will bring salvation without a shift in the internal direction. People will begin to realize the limits of external order when their internal worlds are in chaos, thus discovering the seed of the one in the other… out of the darkness, light!

Earth: The Free Will Planet

Earth has always been a free will planet. We incarnate here on Earth to experience freedom of choice. A free will system is an experimental laboratory for creation. We can choose to do anything we want, no matter how it affects others. There are other worlds where we learn other experiences, but the human realm is the only one in which our choices (good or bad) affect our future. We live in a reciprocally interrelated world where there are repercussions for our actions. As conscious moral agents, humans have power that the beings in other realms do not; this clearly underscores the importance of moral action and spiritual development.
 

Freedom of choice is our human birthright and gift from the Creator. When the Creator created the world, he gave humans the option to choose between good (light energy) and evil (dark energy). Light energy is unlimited and comes from the divine source. It is highly vibrational, expansive and full of love. Dark energy is dense, negative, and goes against the flow of the universe. It is about manipulation, oppression, conquest and fear. Darkness is part of who we are, and we all have to take responsibility for it.
 

At any moment, each of us is confronted with choices between good and evil forces. The dark forces were created so humans could realize their inner powers and develop the soul. The darkness consistently tries to make people choose between the good and bad and tries to tempt them to choose the bad. Its goal is to force us to behave in opposition to our true soul, to be bad. When we choose good over evil, we grow spiritually and bring more light into the world. This is how we learn to take responsibility for our own actions and eventually realize that self-centeredness is counterproductive to the evolution of the individual and the collective.
 

The Great Shift
 

A growing number of voices in the international shamanic community are telling us that Mother Earth and her inhabitants are undergoing a fundamental, evolutionary change -- a change that many of us will experience first-hand in this lifetime. Some call it the Kali Yuga, the age of maximum darkness and ignorance; a time when the dark forces of the unconscious are at their strongest. Some call it the Era of Strife, Tribulations, or End of Days. Others refer to this unfolding event as the Turning of the Age or a Great Shift in consciousness that was foretold long, long ago.
 

Great shifts in energy are taking place at this time. The veil between the spiritual and physical worlds is growing thinner. In other words, the boundaries between spirit and matter have greatly dissolved, and these worlds are currently overlapping and blending together. There is a major battle going on in the spirit world between the light and the dark, and it is spilling over into the material world. It is not hard to see that, even though we live on a planet that surrounds us with beauty, there is a lot of darkness manifesting within humanity. The dark is making a bid for power. The light is countering every move made by the dark; the light will ultimately prevail.
 

In the struggle between good and evil, we are all being called upon to choose which side we are on -- the light or the dark. This is not judgment day. It has nothing to do with religion or ideology. This is about human existence, free will, and each of us claiming our sovereignty. Sovereignty is the supreme power to self govern -- to be the exclusive controller of one's own body and life. If we claim our sovereignty, we can shape a truly New World.

Bat Medicine and the Coronavirus

I am not a medical professional or an expert on epidemics. I leave the critical information in those important fields for the experts who have the appropriate training to help us get through the coronavirus pandemic. Even though I do not possess medical knowledge, as a shamanic practitioner, I believe I can try to humbly offer some insight into the spiritual significance of the pandemic that is spreading rapidly through much of the world. We are all navigating challenges as a result of COVID-19. Whether those issues are health related, economically related, or otherwise, we are being given an opportunity for growth.

Scientists say that the bat is the likely origin of the coronavirus near Wuhan, China, but humans are to blame for the spread of the disease. In the shaman's world everything happens for a reason -- there are no accidents. Furthermore, everything that happens in the physical world has its ultimate cause in the spirit world. So, what is the spiritual significance of the bat coronavirus? Bat represents rebirth, transition, and intuition. Bats often represent death in the sense of letting go of the old, and bringing in the new. They are symbols of transition, of initiation, and the start of a new beginning.

The word "medicine" in shamanic practice refers to the healing aspects that a particular animal brings to our consciousness. When bat medicine appears in our life, it is a call for the end of a way of life and the new beginning of another. This transition can be very frightening for many. But we will not grow spiritually until we let go of those old parts of us that are no longer needed. Success depends on our willingness to plow old habits into the soil in order to cultivate new patterns that enhance our natural growth. By facing the darkness before us, we will find the light of rebirth.

The bat is a symbol of death and rebirth because it is an animal that lives in the dark underworld of the Earth. From caves in the Earth Mother's womb, it emerges every evening at twilight. Thus, from the womb it is symbolically reborn every evening. Bat medicine embraces the idea of symbolic death in which the personal ego identity and the old ways of life give way to the new.

The Dismemberment Journey

In shamanism, there is an archetypal visionary experience known as the dismemberment journey. The student or practitioner of shamanism recognizes an illusion or fear that impedes the expansion of their soul. The practitioner prays for this flaw to be healed and, in doing so, surrenders to the wisdom of the higher powers of the universe to remove the impediment. In a classic dismemberment journey, the petitioner witnesses their own body being torn apart and perhaps completely destroyed. The individual dies a symbolic death and is then restored and brought back to life, whole and empowered, the fear or illusion vanquished.

From a shamanic perspective, the global coronavirus pandemic represents a mass shamanic dismemberment -- the experience of being taken apart, devoured, or torn to pieces on a global scale, allowing for a shift of awareness and transformation of collective consciousness. At its deepest level, the dismemberment experience dismantles our old identity. It is a powerful death-and-rebirth process. The experience of being stripped, layer by layer, down to bare bones forces us to examine the bare essence of what we truly are.

The viewpoint emerging from the shamanic community suggests the times we live in have a theme of planetary and cosmological initiation. Shamanic initiation is most often precipitated by physical, psychological, emotional, or spiritual events that force the ego into submission. Who we believe ourselves to be is not who we truly are. No matter how many years one has been developing their consciousness, no one is exempt from this shamanic death-and-rebirth. This is a shamanic initiation on the grandest cosmological scale.

The times we find ourselves in are like a great river in flood. We can try to hold on to the shore to save ourselves from being swept along with the current. But this is a futile effort, for nothing can resist the great tide of change that is sweeping through and forever altering life as we have known it for millennia. Instead, we are being challenged to let go and go with the flow. We are being given the opportunity to surrender to the current of change so that new dreams and visions can emerge.

As humans, we are being asked to go within and search our hearts in order to change those patterns of thought and behavior that work against us. It is necessary to still the mind and quiet the emotions so that inner knowing and intuition can emerge into our consciousness. Personal isolation and contemplation help us gain deeper insight and clarity of mind. Bat medicine gives us the wisdom required to make the appropriate changes for the birthing of our new identity.

Divination and Adapting to an Evolutionary Pandemic

Divination is the art of gaining insight into a question or situation by the interpretation of signs or omens. The goal of shamanic divination is to encourage well-being by helping a person live in harmony with the universe around them. One of the best known systems of divination is the I Ching, or Book of Changes. For some 3,000 years, people have turned to the I Ching to help them uncover the meaning of their experience and to bring their actions into harmony with their underlying purpose. Consulting the I Ching is one of the best ways I know of to restore harmony wherever there is disharmony.

I consulted the I Ching today in order to gain some insight into the coronavirus pandemic that is spreading rapidly through much of the world. When I consulted the I Ching regarding the hexagram that best describes the pandemic, I received Hexagram 51, "The Arousing (Quickening, Shock, Thunder)." This hexagram consists of a doubling of the trigram Chen (the Arousing Thunder). Thunder rolls over Thunder, forming a state of Quickening. This hexagram symbolizes the unsettling events of fate that arouse us when we cling to belief or behavioral patterns that no longer support our growth. According to the I Ching, "Thunder repeated is the image of Shock. Thus in fear and trembling, the superior man sets his life in order and examines himself." The first thunder denotes fear and trembling, the second denotes shaping and exploring.

Just as the deep, reverberating sound of rolling thunder jolts the senses, so the universe may use a shocking turn of events to arouse us when we have gone astray. To weather the storm, we must retain our inner balance and utilize available energy in a sincere effort to set our life in order. Success depends on our willingness to plow old habits into the soil in order to cultivate new patterns that enhance our natural growth. If we disregard this imperative and persist in outmoded ways, we will experience repeated shock. Innovative change, on the other hand, will revitalize our life and precipitate renewed growth and creativity.

The process of adapting to COVID-19 is just beginning. Over time, the impact of the novel coronavirus may be so sweeping that it alters human rituals and behaviors that have evolved over millennia. This could change everything from the way we conduct our economy to our greeting and grieving rituals. Our earthly reality is in a state of Quickening that demands that the human species build our evolutionary powers of adapting on a scale equal to the magnitude we've seen in the coronavirus pandemic. As humans, we are being asked to go within and search our hearts in order to change those patterns of thought and behavior that work against us. It is necessary to still the mind and quiet the emotions so that inner knowing and intuition can emerge into our consciousness. Personal isolation and contemplation help us gain deeper insight and clarity of mind.

The shock waves that we are feeling indicate that usable energy is now available to change those patterns that inhibit our growth and create disharmony. When mankind chooses to live out of harmony with nature, nature too becomes inharmonious. That is what has happened in this case, and when this lack of harmony takes place, everything falls out of balance. This virus is the most recent example of this lack of balance. Global upheaval occurs when imbalances need to be corrected.

A global crisis often spawns innovation and cooperation. One of the wonderful things that happens during a natural disaster is that people cooperate with each other. That's how humans have always evolved in harsh conditions. This is a moment for us to prove our humanity, not run away from it. So, let us open our hearts to one another and let this be our finest hour. This turning point in human evolution still has much more to come. To gain insight into your path ahead, consult the I Ching.

The Lifting of the Veil of Illusion

The first thing you might ask is what is the veil of illusion? The veil of illusion is essentially the boundary between the physical and the spiritual realms. You might think of it as the border between seen and unseen, or known and unknown. The veil is the barrier that restricts our infinite spiritual awareness so we can perceive ourselves as a limited physical beings. When we incarnate into the physical realm, we pass through the veil, losing awareness of our limitless potential. The veil creates the illusion that we are separate and disconnected from others and from everything else. By losing awareness of our immortality and our interconnectedness with all that is, we are able to have experiences which would otherwise be impossible. When we die, we cross over to the other side of the veil. It then becomes possible to view our earthly life from a highly expanded vantage point. When we are no longer veiled in the illusion of time and space, we can see that spirit and matter are truly interconnected.

We live in a time period in which the veil is growing very thin. In other words, the boundaries between spirit and matter have greatly dissolved, and these worlds are currently overlapping and blending together. As the two worlds merge, the invisible becomes visible, leading to an increase of paranormal activity and spirit contact. The realms of the living and the dead naturally intersect. Spirit sightings and interactions are becoming more common. More and more people are awakening to higher consciousness and direct spiritual experience. As more and more people awaken, the thinning of the veil accelerates. Eventually, the veil will completely dissolve. It's uncertain what the consequences of this will be.

Apocalypse: The Lifting of the Veil

The Greek word apocalypse literally means "lifting of the veil" or "revelation." This term has come to mean the end of the world, but originally meant the end of an age. The lifting of the veil is happening all around us. We are experiencing a disclosure of information hidden from us in an era dominated by falsehood and deception. Everything is becoming very transparent. We can clearly see how the patriarchal powers want to dominate us. We realize the folly of materialism and the unsustainability of consumerism. We recognize that happiness cannot be measured by wealth. We can longer deny the risks to our planet and our health. Because we've opened our eyes, we can see through the illusion that spirit and matter are separate. As we awaken to our true nature, we dissolve all feelings of separation and alienation.

We are coming to the end of an age and entering a new one. The veil is lifting, so what can we do about it? The first thing we need to do is to get out of denial about what's happening. It's time to pay attention to what's occurring in the physical world around us--the breakdown of all of the systems and the inevitable collapse of societies that comes with it. There's no way to tell if an impending collapse will take place suddenly or over a long period of time. The thing about collapse is that it can no longer be discussed in future tense. It's happening all around us. We see a global water crisis, severe climate change, destructive earthquakes, massive wildfires, and species dying off...the veil is lifting.

Navigating the Apocalypse

In these uncertain times, it is impossible to find stability in the outer world, so do not waste your time looking for it. Instead, we must hold steady within ourselves and observe the chaos from an inner place of power. When we center ourselves and calm our minds, we stop feeding the negative drama that is playing out on Earth. It can be easy to lose hope at times, yet there are many opportunities for spiritual growth and meaningful action during this time. To navigate these turbulent times and keep yourself sane, you might want to try the following:

1. Learn to Live with Your Heart

We live in a highly visual world that continually bombards us with stimulation, exposing us to a multitude of sensations that keep us in our heads. In a chaotic, rapidly changing world, it can be difficult to figure things out, so it is best to turn away from the external theatrics and move into our heart space--into the stillness at our center. To live fully from the heart, we must learn to still the mind so that our intuitive self can come to light. Stopping the mind's incessant chatter frees us of doubt, fear and limitation. Such inner calm and openness connects us with the guidance of our own inner knowing. Take time every day to quiet the mind, whether in meditation or prayer, and ask to be taken into your heart's sacred space. Then while you are there, practice seeing the world from that point of view. As we learn to live from the heart, we are able to move with the ebb and flow of change with grace and ease.

2. Seek Equanimity or Steadiness of Mind

Equanimity is the capacity to remain poised and calm even when under stress. According to Buddhist teachings, equanimity is an unshakable balance of mind. The kind of equanimity required must be rooted in the insight that we create our own reality. Nothing that happens to us comes from an external source outside ourselves; everything is the result of our own thoughts and deeds. Because this knowledge frees us from fear, it is the foundation of equanimity. To attain equanimity as an unshakable state of mind, we must release all attachments to negative feelings and thoughts that float on the stream of mind. It requires diligence and commitment to release such attachments. Equanimity allows us to stand in the midst of conflict or crisis in a way where we are balanced, centered and grounded.

3. Stay Grounded 

Grounding is a technique that gets you rooted in your body and helps keep you in the present moment. Grounding techniques are designed to redistribute the energy from your head into your body. Doing so has an almost instant calming effect. Grounding can reduce anxiety, quiet the mind and connect you to your inner voice. Grounding begins with mindful breathing. The most basic way to do mindful breathing is simply to focus on your breath as you inhale and exhale. You do not need to do anything to your breath. Just breathe naturally and focus your attention on where you feel your breath in your body. It may be in your abdomen, chest, throat or nostrils. As you do this, your mind may start to wander. This is perfectly natural. Just notice that your mind has wandered, and then gently redirect your attention back to the breathing. Stay here for five to seven minutes. It helps to set aside a designated time for mindful grounding each day.

4. Cleanse Your Space

One of the most important things you can do is to smudge yourself and your home each day. Smudging is a method of using smoke from burning herbs to dispel intrusive spirits and negative energy. Sage, cedar and sweetgrass are traditionally used for smudging. To smudge, light the dried herbs in a fire-resistant receptacle, and then blow out the flames. Then use a feather or your hands to fan the smoke around your body and home. I recommend cracking a window or door for ventilation and for releasing unwanted energies.

5. Develop a Spiritual Practice

The most important thing you can do at this time is to develop a spiritual practice. A spiritual practice is the regular performance of actions and activities undertaken for the purpose of inducing spiritual experiences and cultivating spiritual development. A spiritual practice is something you do every single day that facilitates deeper self-awareness, empathy and connectedness with others. Regular spiritual practice fosters inner peace, insight, compassion, non-attachment, integration and a sense of unity. Consistent spiritual practice helps to build spiritual strength and this in turn becomes our protective armor. We must not fall into hopelessness, but  instead must strengthen our personal practice and act as a light in dark times for those around us that are lost.

The Veil of Illusion, Tree of Life and other fundamental patterns of creation are all illustrated in the sacred geometry of the Flower of Life (pictured above). The Flower of Life is a visual representation of the interconnectedness of life and all beings.