Shamanism and Native Spirituality

Monthly Archives: April 2017


~Harley SwiftDeer

Let me sing to you the Song of the Twenty Powers within the Song of the Universe. It is like an Orchestra whose members have played together, since always. Each member of this Orchestra has its instrument, its sound, its light, its energy, its harmonic vibration called orende. Each has its giveaway to the collective sound even though it has its separate distinct sound.

Within this Orchestra called the Everything there are twenty sections or parts, the Twenty Sacred Powers. This Everything Orchestra has a Great Spirit within every member and within every instrument, and how it plays the sound and songs of Beauty and Light is indeed a Mystery. This Great Mystery has existed Since Always and will continue For Always, even as it is playing now.

This Great Mystery, this Everything Orchestra and its twenty sections, is the Great Wheel, the Universal Medicine Wheel of the Twenty Sacred Powers. Each Power has its sitting place on the Wheel within the Orchestra so that its orende can contribute in a perfect harmonic way to all the songs and sounds that resonate within the Wheel as well as those that go otu from it in an ever increasing circle of Light. Let us listen and see if we can hear our Song…

The first part of this Song also contains all other parts. It is the Zero, the Nothing That is Everything, the Great Mystery, the Great Spirit of this Everything Orchestra. Light is an energy or power which includes cycles of four as it manifests itself into this sacred Twenty Count Medicine Wheel.

The first Power is Grandfather Sun who sings His song of Illumination and Enlightenment from His sitting place in the East on this great Medicine Wheel. The Sacred Fire burns here singing of our Fire From Within

Across from Him in the West is His mage, the second Power, Grandmother Earth. She sings the song of Introspection and chants the Mysteries of Death, Life, Rebirth and Movement. Hers is the song of the beauty of Change.

To her right is the third Power and Her first children, the Sacred Plants. They are sitting in the south singing the songs of Trust and Innocence, the songs of the Give-Away. The Waters are singing the songs of Carrying the Myths of Our Lives, the joy of having Pleasure Within Our Emotions in everything we do.

Sitting in the North across from the Plants and the Waters are the Sacred Animals. They are the fourth Power and the second children of the Sun and the Earth. The song they sing is one of Balance and Harmony, and they carry the sacred chant of Wisdom and Logic. For this is the chant that is carried on the sacred Winds which sometimes blow fiercely through our minds like hurricanes bringing awakening and at other times blow gently whispering Clarity.

These Powers of the Four Directions are dancing with the Four Elements carrying the Song into the South of the Center of the Wheel where we Humans are sitting, playing our instruments and dancing our Dance of Life as the fifth Power. Sometimes our instruments, our bodies, are out of tune and our Song and Dance become disharmonious.

So we must turn to the Southeast where the sixth Power is sitting, singing the Power of the Ancestors’ song. Their song is of the Beauty of the Concepts of Self as a Spirit, a Soul, who can sing and play in harmony if we will learn the Enlightenment chant and begin to SunDance. They teach us this SunDance in order that we might learn songs of Self-Acceptance, Self-Appreciation, Self-Pleasure and Self-Love.

As they sing their song and play their music, we begin to hear from the seventh Power of the Southwest. This is the Power that is the most difficult to hear because it comes from within us and yet is outside us. Here sits the Power of the Sacred Dream. It sings to us the songs of the Beauty of Symbol, of the Beauty of Experiencing Life and chants of the Memory Circle. And when we hear this chant, we begin to Awaken. We begin to realize that the Past, the Present and the Future may appear to be different songs, but they are really different lyrics within the same song.

To know all the lyrics and melody of this song we must turn to the Northwest, to the eighth Power, for here sings the Circle of Law. At first we seem confused. There appears to be more than one instrument playing and we hear many different songs. They seem almost dissonant, so we listen more closely. They are playing about the Laws of Cycles and about Patterns and Paradox. Here resonate the Sacred Image and Rules and Laws chants. We begin to see and hear that within this Circle of Law chant is our Book of Life and all the songs that we have ever sung and all those that will be our future songs.

We are playing and dancing almost in perfect harmony, but we are a little bit out of rhythm. We are drawn to the cadence of the ninth Power in the Northeast, the song of Pure Energy and Movement. This ninth Power is dancing and flowing with the rhythm of all the other sounds, catching them and turning them like a Great Choreography. Change is here as well as the beautiful harmony of Female/Male Balance. We begin to perceive that maybe our Song is written here.

It seems as though the Circle is complete, but then we Awaken further. We feel pulled by spinning, whirling sensations, as though winds of a tornado are sweeping us towards the North of the Center of this Great Orchestra. This Power is elusive, the sound from this tenth Power is on a very high scale. For a brief moment as we are singing our song, playing our music, dancing our dance, we fall into perfect rhythm and harmony and realize that this tenth Power is the Great Measure of Intellect, all possibilities within ourselves. It lies within every note, song, sound, light, presence and Power within this Great Orchestra. We are conscious of it and yet unconscious of it. We seem to be part of it and yet not part of it. We struggle to remain in harmony, for we know intuitively that it is here that all of the energies, all of the instruments, sounds and songs are collected and blended together into a Collective Unified Circle.

Now we dance at a Gateway. We see, hear and sense the experience of this great SunDance. We realize that if we can dance through this Gateway an even greater song is being played. This song is coming from within the Circle and from outside the Circle at one and the same time. A Double Energy is coming from each of these Powers on this Wheel of Life.

We turn again to the East and we hear many voices, many songs and instruments harmonizing with Grandfather Sun’s song. These are the Grandfather Stars, the eleventh Power. They are singing the song of Inspiration and the chant of the Heyoehkahs. These songs are Sacred Teachers, and the Light coming from them begins to reveal to us our own Illusions.

We have sung many songs and danced many dances in many lives, and we had thought there that was but one. That was our feeling of separation. We turn to the West so we might hear the Looking Within chant that is coming from the twelfth Power, the Grandmother Planets. All the songs and dances from this Power speak of many lives, of all our brothers and sisters, throughout the planets and worlds of this Universe and of all the other Great Orchestras. They are singing to us the Grandmother songs of the Power of Woman. Especially they chant Everything is Born of Woman. We begin to spin and dance with this Beauty.

We seem to be playing faster now, more smoothly. We can no longer separate the instrument from ourselves, the sound from the music. It is a part of us. Deep within our hearts we realize that the song and dance have always been there, and we sing for joy as we turn toward the South. We hear beautiful lyrics, a sweet gentle voice singing to us from the Heart of the Plants. We realize their Spirit is singing to us the Song of Nature. This is the thirteenth Power, our Earth Mother. Her song is so beautiful, for it carries the Light and the Spirit of all the Plants straight into the fibers of our Being, traveling straight into our Hearts. Here is the beautiful song of the Blessed Beauty Way chant.

Our hearts begin to soar like an eagle as we spin towards the North and become the dance within the Winds of the fourteenth Power. We see that this fourteenth Power swims as the dolphin carrying us through the rivers of life and flows into the great Lakes of Memory, for this Power is the Earth Father. He teaches us the dance of the Snake so that we might be close to the ground and hear the songs of the Rock People. He teaches us to love to dance with the 4-leggeds, the animals, through the flowers and the trees and hear the songs of the Plant People in a world of magick. We feel the Medicine of this sacred chant and we realize that this is indeed the Sweet Medicine chant ant that within it are the songs of the Spirits of all our Sacred Animal brothers and sisters.

We dance with joy. We begin to see through the eyes and hear through the ears of all our brother and sister humans, now realizing they are our Mirrors if we choose to look into them. In fact, everything around us, every Power within this Orchestra is a Mirror, reflecting back to us our own Inner Light, which is carrying the songs of Our Soul on the Sacred Winds. We can see this Great mirror reflected back to us from the East at the Center of the Circle. It is the fifteenth Power, the Souls Of All Humans. It sings the Gathering Together Circle song and chants the Sacred Rainbow chant of the SunDance Way. It sings to us: Little Sister, Little Brother, sing the Look Within Yourself Songs, see the Beauty Of All That Is. Open your eyes and look around you and see the many Mirrors and the many Powers. When we look through the eyes of our brothers and sisters, we can see the Whole Universe.

We can play all the songs, know all the music, dance all the dances. They sing to us to go beyond all that appears to be by going within the song of the sixteenth Power of the Southeast. These are the Enlightened Souls and they sing a Song and carry a Light that is a Great Rainbow. They sing the Many Paths chant. Their powerful song says: You, Little Brother, Little Sister, are the Way, the Light and the Truth. Look within yourself and find the Light. Know that Truth can be found from anywhere on the Wheel and that towards the Center of the Wheel is The Way. They begin to teach us how to find our Way. They sing the Honor Your Brothers and Sisters Way chant.

They play the sounds of All The Ways Will Gather Together Within The Rainbow Circle Dance. You must Dream. You must awaken within the song of the seventeenth Power of the Southwest. Hear the Great Kachina Powers, the Dream Teachers. They are chanting Dance Your Dream Awake and Walk in Beauty. Dance to the Sacred Medicine Way chant and the Sacred SunDance Way chant.

Their chants are as infinite as the Stars within the Great Sky and all of them are the Sacred Dream of the eighteenth Power of the Northwest. In this place on the Great Wheel we hear the Great Magick chant, for within this Power are the Chuluamadahey, Keepers of the Keys to the Books of Life of all Humans. Their most sacred chant is the Children’s Fire chant, which sings that Nothing Must Be Done To Harm The Children, including Grandmother’s children. They sing gently to us that within us as within all Humans is a Child. They sing the Become As A Child song. They sing the Honor The Child Within song.

As they sing, they point to the Northeast to the Light that Speaks with a Voice of Thunder, the ninetheenth Power. Here are the Great Hokkshidehheys and they are singing the Cosmic chant, the chant of Total Balance and Harmony of All Things Within The Everything. They sing to our Highest Spirit Selves. You Are, they chant, You Are.

There is a Flash of Lightning and a Clap of Thunder. In an instant that becomes infinity, we are imploded into the Sound of the Lightning and exploded into the Light of the Thunder. We soar through the Gateway of Infinity, flowing through time, space and dimension, awakening finally in the West of the Center of the Circle. We have met the twentieth Power, the Great Mystery, the Great Spirit. You and I, all things, have now become One With The Everything.

The Song is finished.

Spirit Rap by Astarius Miraculii

I Invoke, Decree and Dream Awake the full cellular ascension of my being; physical, mental, emotional, spiritual in this Now, with the full support of God/Goddess, the Ascended Master realm to include:

  • Our Ascended Master Self,
  • Father Saint Germain,
  • Sananda,
  • the Holy Mother Mary,
  • Quan Yin / Goddess of mercy,
  • Archangel Michael and the legions,
  • Ashtar and the entire command,
  • Babaji,
  • Raphael,
  • Gabriel,
  • Clan of the Trumpet Angels,
  • Aboriginal and Tribal Shamen,
  • Goddesses of Fortune,
  • Angels of Light,
  • Elohim,
  • Clan of the Serpents,
  • Shiva,
  • All Christ frequencies,
  • All Animal Totems,
  • Elementals of Fire, Air, Water and Earth,
  • all Divine Beings of Light, Love and Ascension, named and unnamed,

To activate the cells within my being who are your counterparts.

With the unified power of the One, I decree my highest good always operating in this now. I decree grace and mercy always operating in this now. I Invoke decree and dream awake the full truth and reality of Ascension in this Now.

I invoke and dream awake with every breath that I breathe, the violet fire, transmuting my whole being. I invoke and dream awake the full current of Ascension in every cell of my being.

I AM ASCENDED!

I invoke and dream awake expanded God consciousness, fully realized in me as unlimited abundance fulfilling my every need and desire. I invoke and dream awake the ending of procrastination, tiredness, blockages, obstacles and unhealthy belief systems. I decree immediate abundance in my life.

I invoke and dream awake my liberation from all karmic debt. I am Infinite Opulence.

I invoke and dream awake my personal empowerment in every instant that anyone is impacted by my Being and Creations.

I invoke and dream awake the Infinite empowerment of my sexual, spiritual, mental, emotional, physical and financial relationship with Life.

I invoke and dream awake sacred sexuality, erotic innocence, and always express the sacredness of sexual force, for pleasure, creativity and healing. I invoke and dream awake World Universal Healing from all sexual woundedness and shame.

I invoke and dream awake world wide release of all 150 manipulating forces and beings who would control humanity, past, present and future.

I invoke the Angels and Ascended Masters to re-align and heal all mis-used energy, to include the full restructuring of our DNA.

I invoke and dream awake the transmutation of all negative and judgmental projections.

I invoke and dream awake my constant ability to be centered and balanced in my psychic perceptions and empathic nature. All overwhelming psychic energies are released by me automatically, easily, effortlessly.

I Am Empowered by Everything!

I invoke and dream awake my Lucid Dreaming each night I sleep and total remembering when I awake.

I invoke and dream awake my Infinite harmony with God/Goddess I Am.

I invoke and dream awake the full expression of my Miraculous Healing Power. My Life is a continuous stream of Miracles.

I invoke and dream awake my Infinite ability and willingness to receive all Life’s Blessings.

I invoke and dream awake a constant attitude of Gratitude for my whole life, all my Accomplishments and Blessings, including the same for the Universe at Large. I invoke and dream awake the full Blessings of God/Goddess, the Ascended Masters, Angels, guides and Beings of Light to Bless this Earth.

I invoke and dream awake all my Decrees, Invocations and Prayers I have released to the Universe and open myself to God’s response, support and Love in my Highest Good.

I invoke and dream awake the release of all past, present and future lifetimes of decrees and vows, which would bind me to limitation, lack, density and anything not of Ascension in this now.

I invoke and dream awake the full reclaiming of my Eternal Self as Powerful, Loving and fully aligned in abundant God Consciousness.

I invoke and dream awake the total dissolving of all manipulating forces, which would bind this earth plane in fear.

I invoke and dream awake the influence of the Ascended Master realm and Angels to intercede and raise the vibrations higher, to bring darkness into the Light, raising the frequency of Love and God Consciousness on Planet Earth in this Now.

I Invoke and Dream Awake the Ascension of Planet Earth in this Now!

Copyright 2000 Astarius Miraculii
From CD Spirit Rap & the book Miraculii Song of Ascension

A vision quest is a rite of passage, similar to an initiation, in some Native American cultures. In traditional Lakota culture the Hanblecheyapi (vision quest, literally “crying for a vision”) is one of seven main rites.

Vision quest preparations involve a time of fasting, the guidance of a tribal Medicine Man and sometimes ingestion of natural entheogens; this quest is undertaken for the first time in the early teenage years.

The quest itself is usually a journey alone into the wilderness seeking personal growth and spiritual guidance from the spirit, sometimes Wakan Tanka.

Traditionally, the seeker finds a place that they feel is special, and sits in a 10 foot circle and brings nothing in from society with the exception of water.

A normal Vision Quest usually lasts two to four days within this circle, in which time the seeker is forced to look into his soul.

It is said that a strong urge to leave the Quest area will come to the seeker and a feeling of insanity may set in. However, the seeker normally overcomes this by reminding him or herself of the overall outcome of the quest, causing the mind to stop wandering on random thoughts. The individual can generally find solace in the fact that he or she will not die in just two to four days.

Some have claimed grand visions on their first Vision Quest while others have not. It is an individual experience and often subject to the emotional, spiritual, and physical make-up of the person.

Native American totems are said to be capable of speaking through all things, including messages or instructions in the form of an animal or bird.

Generally a physical representation of the vision or message such as a feather, fur or a rock is collected and placed in the seeker’s medicine bag to ensure the power of the vision will stay with the individual to remind, protect or guide him.

Since the beginning of this cycle of time, humanity has returned to nature to connect with spirit and to seek answers to problems of the physical realms, especially in this timeline when the messages of prophecy reveal themselves to the seeker.

There is something about being alone in the wilderness that brings us closer and more aware of the 4 elements and our connection to a creational source. We go to seek truths and divine realization, just as many of the ancient prophets did in their time.

In its own way – the vision quest is an Initiation not unlike the days of the ancient mystery school teachings where one learns about themselves and the mysteries of the universe are often revealed to them. It is a time of internal transformation and renewal.

  • Who am I?
  • Why am I here?

In a vision quest, conditions are set up that allow the soul to move beyond the illusions of the little self and enter the unity of the inner whole. It is a time of fasting – praying – and being in nature.

It is a period of solitude in which we seek an inner revelation – a vision -which grants profound meaning and direction to our life.
This initiation leads to maturity and an understanding of our responsibility to ourselves, our society, our natural environment, and our soul.

Though the Vision Quest is associated with Native Americans traditions – it is practiced all over the world.

As an expression of the archetypal “Heroic Journey,” the vision quest has been enacted in religious pilgrimages, mythological tales (including the story of the search for the Holy Grail), and our own daily pursuit of truth and purpose.

Today, there are companies which sponsor vision quests. They provide a wilderness area in which it is to occur, and they give instructions and guidance before and after the event.

In Native American traditions these times of inner trial are marked liked passages. Time is set aside to honor them. It might take a day, a week, a month – whatever is necessary to complete the transformation and get the answer one seeks.

Source

One of the greatest gifts of dreaming is that it puts us in touch with soul. It takes us beyond the limited understanding of the everyday self and shows us who we are, what our soul’s purpose is in this life experience and what our heart truly yearns for. There is a word for this vital function of dreams in the language of the Huron, a dreaming people of North America. The word is ondinnonk, and it means a “secret wish of the soul”, especially as revealed in dreams. This expression takes us to the heart of healing.

By connecting with our dreams, and celebrating and acting on the information they gift to us, we bring the energy and magic of soul into our daily lives. As we allow our big dreams to take root in this world, we become whole and well, and start living our deeper story. As we help others to honor and celebrate their soul guidance, as revealed in dreams, we become healers and dreambringers.

Ancient dream healers understood that we are often out of touch, in our surface minds, with our deepest truths and our heart’s desires. Not knowing who we are, forgetting our soul’s purpose, we do terrible harm to ourselves and others. Dreams invite us to get back on the right track, the soul’s track. I learned about this many years ago when I asked for dream guidance in support of a narrow, ego-driven agenda.

I wanted inspiration for a commercial potboiler, a thriller that would follow the formula of a successful previous novel I had published. In my dream, I found myself in a banquet hall where a lavish feast for hundreds of people was being prepared in my honor. But there was a problem. In the dream restaurant, the master chef had walked out in disgust because he was bored with my menu.

The message, on waking, was clear. If I persisted in repeating myself – in using my creative gifts for a limited purpose – my deepest creative energy (the “master chef” of the dream) would bow out; the soul and its magic would be missing. I abandoned a major book project because that dream showed me it wasn’t “major” in the ways that serve the soul.

Dreaming not only renews our understanding of the soul’s purpose; it can literally bring the soul back home. From the shaman’s perspective, soul loss is the root cause of much illness and affliction in our lives. We suffer deep grief, heartbreak or abuse or trauma – and maybe then succumb to negative habits and addictions – and a part of our vital soul energy goes away. Chronic depression, lethargy, memory gaps, low resistance to illness and emotional numbness are among the most frequent symptoms of soul loss.

Our dreams can tell us which parts of ourselves may be missing, and when it is timely to bring them home. Recurring dreams in which we go back to a scene from our earlier lives may indicate that a part of us has remained there. Dreams in which we perceive a younger self as a separate individual may be nudging us to recognize and recover a part of ourselves we lost at that age. Sometimes we do not know who that beautiful child is – until we take a closer look.

Unfortunately, a common effect of soul loss is dream loss. Indeed the absence of dream recall is often a primary symptom of soul loss – as if the part of the sufferer that knows how to dream and travel in deeper reality has gone away, out of pain or disgust. It is fascinating and deeply rewarding to observe what can happen when people who have forgotten how to dream start dreaming again. This can amount to spontaneous soul recovery.

A middle-aged woman approached me for help. She told me, “I feel I have lost the part of me that can give trust and know joy.” As preparation for our meeting, I asked her to start a dream journal, although she had told me she had not remembered her dreams for many years. When she came to see me, she had succeeded in capturing just one tiny fragment from a dream.

She remembered that she was standing over a table, looking at three large-size “post-it” notes. Each had a typed message. But the ink had faded and she could not read the messages.

Slowly and carefully, I helped her to relax and encouraged her to try to go back inside her dream. Quite quickly, she found herself inside a room in the house where she had lived with her ex-husband prior to their divorce, almost twenty years before. Now she could read the typed messages. The first read in bold capitals, “YOU CAN DO IT.” They were all about living with heart, and trusting life.

She realized that she had left her ability to love and to trust in that room for nearly twenty years. I asked her what she needed to do. She told me, “I need to bring my heart out of that room and put it back in my body.” She gathered up the messages and made the motion of bringing them into her heart. As her hands crossed over the place of her heart, we both saw a sweet and gentle light shine out from her heart center. She trembled, eyes shining, and told me, “Something just came back. Something that was missing for twenty years.”

In the most literal sense, dreaming can make us whole. It not only connects us with lost or buried aspects of ourselves. It connects us with our larger identity – our Higher Self – and our larger purpose.

Honoring the secret wishes of the soul, as involved in dreams, requires us to learn some simple and powerful strategies such as the ones below:

Continue reading

Then I had a dream, and in my dream one of these small round stones appeared to me and told me that the Maker of All was WakanTanka and that in order to honor Him I must honor His works in nature. The stone said that by my search I had shown myself worthy of supernatural help. It said that if I were curing a sick person I might ask its assistance, and that all the forces of nature would help me work a cure.”

~Talanka Ohitika

I found a great blog post about shamanism at a pretty cool website called Blue Plant Shaman. The whole thing is worth reading – I just pulled the juicy part out for posting here:

Here is a list that I came up with that I call the basic requirements for a person to be a good Shaman.

  • You need to come from a dysfunctional family.
  • You need to understand abuse, alcohol, drug, sexual, physical, mental, verbal, the more the better.
  • You need to have a fast mind. This is usually shown through a quick humor and/or problem solving skills.
  • You may have a thought that nothing is sacred nor should it be.
  • You will probably have a very strong sex drive.
  • You may think some things are funny while other people severely disagree.
  • You have the ability to teach without formal training.
  • Even the most introverted people will instantly open up to you.
  • You can make friends with the most vicious junk yard dog because you can relate.
  • You had the “visits” from the other side at an early age.
  • Sometimes we can seem like a twisted bunch, but everyone wants to come to our parties.
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Truth
"Take your false face off. There is no need to throw your hands up in despair!"
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