Author: sixgateways

Last week I took a trip to the Sierras with my partner, to get away and relax for a week. We’d been watching the Ken Burns series “Our National Parks” on Netflix, and wanted to experience in person the beauty of Yosemite. It was my first time there, and I was eager to explore a deep shamanic connection to the Earth in the magical valley where the Ahwahneechee people once lived.

Usually any trip into wilderness is healing and rejuvenating for me — but this trip was different. Instead it brought all of my inner demons to the forefront. Instead I experienced this:

“The shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to projection, turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else”

–Carl Jung

It was probably my own fault, for traveling during the transformational Scorpio full moon. The sign of Scorpio is known for dredging up the deep, dark, stuff that we don’t want to look at and bringing it out into the light. This process is necessary for me if I want to let go of past disappointments and injuries and become a person who is more open, loving, compassionate, and kind.

But on this trip I was very uncomfortable. I found myself snapping at my partner more often than not, and was beyond irritated by almost everything he did. For some reason, all his faults became magnified in my eyes, and I became angry and unpleasant to be with.

I know that when I’m this disturbed by someone else that the real fault lies within ME, not in them. So I prayed for guidance from Spirit, and began a deep inner search. I was led to immerse myself in music with my headphones, and in reading spiritual literature while we were in the car. When we hiked I focused on breathing and being silent.

Shift gently began when I realized that HIS behavior was really just a mirror for MINE. I decided to take a vow to completely stop any criticism, nagging, or judgement of my partner, and to keep anything coming out of my mouth positive.

Failure was inevitable because I’m just not perfect. But I succeeded about 80% of the time. With that success, I discovered something magical. When I stopped criticizing him, he criticized me less. As I focused on being kind, he became kinder.

This is one of the secret powers of Water Medicine — that like water, our emotions flow and mingle and affect the emotions of others. We are all part of a vast ocean. In fact, scientific studies that show that the heart’s magnetic field affects the fields of other hearts around it. (see https://www.heartmath.org/research/)

As we continued our travels through Yosemite and beyond, I noticed what a powerful metaphor the myriad states of water could be for my own feelings. When I was afraid I felt like ice, when sad, like rain, and when angry, like a raging waterfall. When I felt love, I was a creek singing over the rocks, when joyful I was light sparkling on the river, and when serene, I was the glassy surface of Mirror Lake.

For now I have to remember every day to be diligent about bringing the peace and healing of Water Medicine into my life. These are the things that help when I do them every day:

1. As much as possible, I do what I love. In the car when I was angry, I shifted myself by listening to music I liked, reading something that helped me feel happy, or playing a game on my phone. At some of our rest stops, playing my flute for a few minutes dramatically lifted my spirits.
2. I just say no to things I don’t want to do. My most difficult experience was being slightly injured and wanting to catch the shuttle back to our campsite and rest. Instead I continued on for another hour, which created a mini-meltdown.
3. I sleep. The lazy shaman’s Earth Medicine  of napping and sleeping in supports Water Medicine and resets my emotions.
4. I drink water to stay calm.  When I’m dehydrated I become vague, confused, and unable to feel anything but fear. Carrying water everywhere keeps me hydrated, as well as more clear, joyful, and conscious.
5. Soaking makes everything better. A pivotal shift happened on our trip when I spent an hour in a jacuzzi after a few days of not even being able to shower. Too much time away from water separates me from my feelings and I start to “go numb”.
6. I practice circular breathing. One of the easiest methods for shifting difficult emotions is deep even breaths with no pause between the inhale and exhale. Once I start to calm down, I tune into the Water element all around me and let it heal me.

Want a shamanic healing with me to learn more ways to balance your life with Water Medicine? Start by requesting a free phone consultation. 

This has been my year of Ease and Grace. One of the byproducts of getting a closer relationship to Spirit has been that I simply don’t have to work so hard at the spiritual practices I’ve been doing for years. But what’s more, I’m finding easier ways to accomplish the same things. One of the most recent is a real gem. For years I’ve been doing really difficult chakra clearing practices as my fourth gateway work. I did fire breath, dragon breath, Kundalini yoga, sex magick, chakra bellydance movement, and healing with stones. It was a lot of work!

But this last month in my twice yearly practice of the fourth gateway I discovered that now that I’ve done a lot of my own healing, it’s WAY easier to maintain my chakras and keep them clear and clean. Keep in mind that this practice is more spiritual maintenance than big healing juju. If you need that, then I’m more than happy and willing to teach you the other practices. But for more advanced spiritual practitioners. or for people who are relatively healthy and happy but want to keep their energy open and flowing, these practices are for you. Here’s a simple list:

1. Root Chakra — Nurture — Eat healthy (high quality food, lots of fruits and veggies, fewer grains), exercise daily, sleep enough. Do body things that pamper you like massage, hot baths, and facials.
2. Belly Chakra — Desire List – Every day make a list of the things that you truly desire in your belly.  It doesn’t matter if you actually want to do anything about them. The important thing is to FEEL what you desire.
3. Stomach Chakra — Choices –-Acknowledge that you can make choices each day to move towards your desires.  What is authentic to you? Make those choices. Feel Powerful.
4. Heart – Self Worth — Take a moment each day to breathe in all the things that are GREAT about you. Yes, there are places where we can all stand to improves, but making a habit of focusing on your brightness is so good for you. Ask your friends if you need help coming up with a list of your fabulous traits. 
5. Throat – Inspiration – in the throat, let yourself receive all the crazy and wonderful ideas that flow in every day. Write them down or voice record them while you’re driving in your car. A friend of mine calls this the “Squirrel’s Nest”. Keeping track of the ideas helps the flow keep going. No need to do all of them! Just choose the the yummiest ones.
6. 3rd Eye – Vision – when you are meditating, driving in your car, or taking a shower each day, let yourself RECEIVE a vision of your life . Align that with your DESIRE for powerful manifestation. 
7. Crown – Let Go – The best way to achieve anything is to let Spirit handle it. Once you’ve touched into nurture, desire, choices, self worth, inspiration, and vision, visualize yourself handing over all of it to Spirit. Put it in Her/His hands and let go. My Apache Auntie calls this sending your prayers to heaven, and taught me to use this cool tool called a prayer arrow. Make a prayer arrow with your mind and shoot it into the heavens!

Want a shamanic healing work with me to do deep clearing or fine tuning of the chakras?  Start by requesting a free phone consultation. 

In the months of April and October each year I focus on the 4th gateway of Freedom. Two times each year I travel a spiritual journey through all six gateways, one per month, that leads me deeper into myself and the truth that I’m here on the planet to express.

Freedom is all about expressing my true nature. Waking up this morning I was reflecting on Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor who was able to create his own inner freedom with the power of his spiritual connection. It seemed like a spiritual message. If he could be free in those dire circumstances, why can’t I be free in my ordinary, if not ideal, life?

Struggling tremendously with feeling free was my habitual way of being for most of my life. Manifesting itself as what a close friend recently called the “I’ll be happy when” syndrome, I looked at the world through what my first husband called “Mud-colored glasses”. When I was first married, back in my 20’s, I thought I’d be happy when I owned my own house. When that didn’t work, I tried leaving my husband.

Nope.

Then I thought I’d be happy if I got the perfect new man in my life, got a better job, earned more money, sold the house, moved to a better location, and so on, and so on.

None of those things made me happy, even though I got everything I wanted. And finally I turned inward. There I found a tremendous well of joy and love that is available to me. The well gets deeper when I let myself be who I truly am through art, sexual connection with my partner, dressing the way that suits me, and a thousand other little things. Think about it: how many decisions do you make each day based on what other people want rather than what will make you happy? I’ve learned that it’s not either-or.

Now that I’m in the second 50 years of my life, I know with 100% certainty that my happiness is something I can create for myself in ANY circumstance. And what makes me happiest is expressing my true nature.

If you’ve read my blogs on power, you’ve had a glimpse of how I’ve worked to discover my true self. I’ve used love and my connection to Spirit to unearth my authenticity (and in my work with others I’ve helped them to do the same). These discoveries about who I am have added to my sense of power. Some might call it self worth. Others might call it purpose. It doesn’t matter what words you use, this power, once discovered, wants to move out into the world. It wants to be FREE.

Freedom is letting my power flow through my chakra centers to express itself in the way that is unique to me. How? Practice, practice, practice. That’s why they call it spiritual PRACTICE. It’s like I tell my 10-yr-old violin students, if you practice even 15 minutes twice a week, you will play violin much better than if you don’t practice at all. it’s the same with Freedom. You must practice being authentic — once you know what authenticity IS for you. You will have setbacks. You will have days when you forget or you feel constrained by your environment. But the more you practice being free, the more you WILL be free.

Here is a little exercise to get you started:

1. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Imagine becoming a tall tree, with roots deep into the earth and branches high up in the sky.
2. Imagine your roots receiving nourishment from the earth, while your branches receive energy from the sky
3. Take your attention to your belly and feel just one true nugget of who you are– it can be anything — a favorite food or hobby, a truth about your life, even just your favorite color.
4. Allow this truth to rise up from your belly and fill up your entire body.
5. Let inspiration flow in about how you will express this truth today.
6. Keep this promise to yourself.

Want a shamanic healing work with me to discover your true self and learn to express it?   Start by requesting a free phone consultation.