Our first global pandemic has brought us a new way of perceiving the world. A wake-up call. A way of realizing our interconnectedness by sudden isolation from each other. Because our world has duality, yin and yang, things tend to happen in polarity to one another. 

Humanity is slowly but surely realizing that everything is energy. This is why distance healing works. This is why prayers create miracles. The science of quantum physics is right there with us, consistently showing that particles “talk” to each other when separated by great distance. What happens to one, happens to the other instantly.  We glance at these science articles when they make the news, but we do not fully grasp their truth. We don’t think they apply to anything in our reality. We forget that each one of us is made up of particles all stuck together. There is no separation on an energetic level.

Realizing this and acting upon it is what is going to help humanity to evolve into a species that can thrive. We are not thriving now. When only 1% of the entire global human population is thriving, that is the antithesis of thriving. There is more to thriving than economic prosperity. But it is difficult for humans to thrive when they don’t feel safe. When they don’t how they are going to pay rent and feed their families.  When they don’t have clean water to drink. When they are living in war zones. When they are refugees. That fear of not being safe is what feeds separation. It is what the media and authoritarian and plutocratic governments around the world count on to keep themselves in power. It ties up our compassion and strangles the expansion of our hearts. But it is the fog of illusion, and that fog is lifting away.

Without the illusion of separation, your poverty is my poverty. Your virus is my virus. Your fear is my fear. Your grief is my grief. The bindings around our hearts we’ve woven to keep us from feeling, to keep us functioning, to keep some semblance of normality in the face of friends, family and society are unraveling. Our hearts cannot help but expand when we can look at ourselves and see the other mirrored within. When we can see the other is us.

The virus of separation has caused us to be susceptible to greater ills.

In this time of reckoning, we are realizing the connecting of our hearts and compassion for all beings will be the cure.

Do you ever think about what you are radiating?

Right now, I’d like you to take a moment and check in.

How are you feeling inside? Expanded, contracted, neutral? Any particular color? Light, solid, sparkly, flat?

Is there a feeling or an emotion that underlies your automatic mental gears working to read this?

It may be very subtle. This subtle energy state is what we are radiating out from within us. It is not the same as sending (although some of us may be sending or projecting as well).

Now imagine that the brightest star in the universe is shining down on you, moving through space-time into your crown chakra and illuminating your body from within. Do you feel the light inside? Imagine the light permeating every cell of your body. It radiates out of your skin into your energy field. That light is your original soul state, before you took on this body here on earth. It is infinite in its divinity.

What if we radiated this light at will whenever we thought about it?

What if we knew every other being on earth, in the galaxy, the universe was made up of this same light? Yep, I mean everybody – including bullies, crooked politicians, even murderers.

What if enough of us all radiated our light together? Would polluted waters clear? Would soil renew? Would the air over our traffic-clogged cities become clean and fresh?  Would wars suddenly end?

This what one of my teachers, Sandra Ingerman calls “transfiguration”. She and a small circle of friends and practitioners did this transfiguration process in a series of controlled experiments to clear toxic chemicals from water. The experiments adhered to the scientific method and the methods and results were documented in her book Medicine for the Earth.  It probably comes as little surprise to those of you reading this that their experiments showed a marked reduction of toxicity in the water.

When I read her book about 8 years ago, I was so excited by this idea, and the possibilities it sparked in my imagination. I looked at ways I could bring this practice into my life.  I feel like I was only able to scratch the surface, and my practice tapered off as life events took my focus on other things. I also did not have a close spiritual community at the time where we could support one another in this practice.

When I moved to Oregon, I found that Leia Hart, a student of Sandra’s in Eugene was holding monthly Healing with Spiritual Light circles open to the community. And I became friends with a woman who had worked with Leia and liked to go to those circles. I went to one with her and it was so powerful to be in circle with 30 – 40 people all radiating our light together!   It sparked my practice again. I felt my guides on the etheric sidelines around me high-fiving my Higher Self, and they joyfully brought me guidance and support in my journey work to deepen my practice. Last fall Sandra released an online course of Medicine for the Earth through the multimedia publishing company Sounds True. As she guided us through the deepening of the practice and in journey and ceremony, I felt my understanding of the calling of this work refine and expand.

I realized that there is both an active and a passive part in the work. That duality mirrors the natural duality of our 3rd dimensional earth school. The active part is deciding to do the practice and then following through on that with action. Whether we decide to do it monthly, weekly, daily, hourly – it is the action that matters most.
The passive part is the actual practice of radiating. Radiating is not an action, it is just being. I admit this was difficult for me at first. As energy healers and lightworkers in the modern action-oriented world, we are taught to send energy, send light, send love. But in this practice, there is no sending, only radiating. What is the difference? A student in class put it best; a flower radiates its beauty, it does not send it, it is just being a flower.

When we realize the light that we truly are and radiate that light, there is a causal effect, as demonstrated in Sandra’s water transfiguration experiments. We influence the environment immediately around us, but there is no limit to how far our light radiates. Just like stars that are a billion light years away, their light still reaches the earth. 

The great thing about it this practice is that it requires no special training, knowledge or attunements. All it requires is sensing into our body and the intent to connect with our Divine light.

There are ways to work with it and refine it, and Sandra has encouraged us to share this practice with as many folks as we can. My plan is to organize and offer this practice to my local community in Corvallis soon. I may even offer a way to connect via zoom so our circle can be more than local. I’d like to synchronize it with other local or global groups, perhaps Leia’s Healing with Spiritual Light group in Eugene or the Global Coherence Full Moon meditations.  If you have ideas about the implemention of this or would like to be involved, I appreciate hearing from you.

In the meantime… let's all shine on!!

When we think about shamanic guides and helping spirits, what usually comes to mind are power animals, ancestors, angels, ascended masters, and all varieties of deities. But we also have plant spirit guides just waiting to connect with us.  They provide healing, protection and other help as needed, and we can rely on them just as we do our power animals and other guides.

Their way of teaching is direct and multi-faceted. Some of the most profound lessons I have received have been from plants.

When I was very new to shamanic practice, one of the first successful journeys I ever did on my own resulted in a teaching from the World Tree. The World Tree is a universal archetype that has a place in many global traditions and stories. It is also called the Tree of Life (Celtic) and Yggdrasil (Norse). It spans all the worlds and has amazing life-force and wisdom.  It introduced me to the cosmology of the worlds in non-ordinary reality. It gifted me a symbol and merged its energy with mine. I got a download of energy that made me feel as if I was as big as that infinite tree! It lasted about a day, then gradually faded. I told my teacher about it. She said that with serious practice I could hold that power longer, channel it for myself and others. The realization that there are shamans who walk around holding that level of power every day really blew my mind.  That one journey taught me so many things, I am forever grateful to it for gifting me with so much.

There are plants that we meet in non-ordinary reality that are always there for us as a main teacher and helper. I have experienced their help and lessons in a myriad of ways; for healing, protection, knowledge and as vehicles of transport through the worlds. Then there are plants that just come to help with one job, like tend to a lung infection in a client, or clear a space of heavy energy. They are incredibly versatile, and always so happy to be of service.

Today when one hears the words power plant or plant medicine, what likely comes to mind first are hallucinogens like ayahuasca, mushrooms, peyote and other entheogens. They are powerful teachers, and many people new to shamanism think that having an experience with them is the way to initiation and knowledge. And it might be for some people. But it can also lead to confusion and dis-empowerment.  I experienced that downside of hallucinogenic medicine myself very early on in my path. When people ask me about working with plants that way, I tell them that they do not need to ingest an entheogen or any other plant to work with it on a spiritual level or have it as a helping spirit. Journeying to the spirit of the plant is an initiation and begins our relationship.  Then if it wants us to ingest it, smudge with it, cultivate it, it will let us know. It becomes our teacher and will tell us in journey how it wants to work with us.

Plant medicine is working with us in ordinary reality every day, sharing energy with us all the time. Trees, herbs, fungi and flowers growing right outside our door are wise and powerful teachers. When we recognize that we can connect with them on the spiritual level as well, our relationship becomes whole.