When I was starting out on my shamanic path, my first teacher, Lone Dove, told me that since I made my decision to follow the spirit path of my true self, that which no longer supported my true self would fall away from me. This would include partners, friends, jobs, ideals, belief systems, and ways of being in the world.  She said the shadow part of ego was to believe that these needed to change with me as I changed. The way out of that judgement was to release them to their perfect path.

It made me uneasy at first. Who would I be without them? Could I make it without them? I had relied on some of them for a long time as defining who I thought I was, as well as for sustenance and support.  It took courage, but I also realized that ultimately it took love. It is an action based on unconditional love, both for myself and for them. It releases us each to follow our own will and destiny. Who am I to say what is perfect for anyone or anything else? How can I know what their perfect path is? I can only know what mine is, and by keeping that integrity for myself is the best I can do for all involved.

Releasing them to their perfect path became one of my most healing philosophies and tools. It is a state where I end my attachment to the idea that things can be any different than how they are at this moment. The action is in the decision to release them to their perfect path. Often further actions are needed after that to facilitate the release. If it involves cutting ties with a person or institution, then I must take that next step. Most times I have found that it is easier than I thought it would be because I am coming from a place of love, not hurt or anger, even if it is only love for myself.  Energetic action may be also be necessary. I cut any etheric cords that would keep energy flowing between us. I set clear boundaries. I also ask my guides if there are any soul essences that I have may have lost or that I may have taken unconsciously, and if so, ask for their help in the return. 

Releasing something or someone to their perfect path does not always end the relationship. Our perfect paths may still go in the same direction together, but the relationship changes it so that we are each in alignment with our own integrity. 

We all want to help others, especially if we have family and friends who are in pain and want our help. And we can help in many practical ways, but sometimes we overstep our good intentions. The most common egoistic trap of all humans is to think that we know what is best for another person. Releasing them to their perfect path frees us from this trap and respects their free will. It says we trust their Higher Self and guides to help them fulfill their soul’s purpose. Just as we trust in ours to help us fulfill our own.

Years after learning this from Lone Dove, I delved deeper into soul work through shamanic practice and reading Dolores Cannon’s quantum healing hypnosis case studies.  I looked at etheric contracts, soul group and lineage agreements, and how past lives interconnect us with others.  It neutralized the urge in me to judge anyone or anything. There is so much more going on at a soul level than we can ever realize!

Our current lives here on earth are but a tiny strand in the thread of our soul that is interwoven into the tapestry of the universe in the loom of the Source of All There Is.  Our purpose is to love and take care of our tiny strand the best we can. As we do that, the integrity of our strand is radiated to the other strands so that we all make the thread strong and the tapestry wondrous.

The mushroom people have been calling to me in my hikes this fall. They flash a glimpse at me and head me off the trail like an arrow pointing in detour. I’m led to an interesting stand of tiny pale fungi trees sprouting in the pine needles of the forest floor. Or I look inside a hollow tree stump and am surprised by a vibrant cluster of fungi family. Delicate looking with frills and gills, they are in fact so hardy that they grow anywhere; in sun, in shade, up on trees, hidden underground. Their colors are often ethereal shades, even in the earthy tones. After they have sprouted, matured and released spores, they melt into fantastical shapes as they recycle themselves into the matrix from which they unfolded.

I have never seen so many different mushrooms and fungi before coming to Oregon. When I see them, I feel their energy as enchantment. They have a symbolism associated with magical realms in stories and cultures spanning ages around the world from Mayan sculptures to the Rig  texts to Disney animations. In my modern western culture, I associate them with faeries and other hidden folk, earth Elemental gnomes, entheogens, and doorways into non-ordinary reality.

After connecting to them on my hikes, I wanted to connect to them in the spirit realms to get to know them better. I visited them in their fungi realm in the Lower World and asked if I could step into their energy fields.  I immediately felt blanketed in a soft full feeling of kindness and compassion. I also felt that they radiated a deep inexhaustible supply of power.

They say that they are like the skin and nerves of the planet. Their underground mycorrhizal mat is like a nerve matrix. They showed it to me as tiny neural-like fibers within the soil, winding through roots and seeds and pebbles and stone. Tiny sparks of light flash here and there in communication and transmutation. They sense everything. They work as an energetic network linking together plants, trees, insects, and animals and minerals. They are working hard to transmute all kinds of toxins and pollutants, trying to keep up with us as we keep dumping more all over the planet.

I asked them if they had a message for us that I could share. They said that they are the forest under our feet that we cannot see. They send messengers to interact with the above world in the form of mushroom and fungi people. When we interact with them by feeling enchanted by their beauty or in the excitement of collecting them for our meals, that emotion transmits through the fungi, down into the neural mat and through the matrix instantly over a great distance.  They appreciate the energy of our love and gratitude as they can send it around the earth almost instantaneously. It is beneficial to the planet and all life.

Even if we are living in a place where we don’t usually see mushrooms and fungi in nature, we’ll still see their images just about everywhere.  We’ll see them in the produce section of the grocery store, in art, in lawn ornaments, browsing the internet. When we see their images, we can remember to send them love and gratitude for who they are and all they do. They’ll get the energy. And in their infinite kindness they will return the favor and share it far and wide.

How often do we think about the spirit of water? Or think of water as an Elemental being? We don’t think about it at all usually because our heads are full of the logistics of living our lives. That amazing hot shower we took this morning was probably full of thinking about plans for the day, not about the spirit of the water. But on a subconscious level water is communicating with us, as it washes through our energetic field, as we drink it during the day. We have a relationship with the water Elementals (who prefer to be called Undines), we are just unconscious of it most of the time.

It’s relatively easy for me to relate to water. I’ve got a lot of it in my chart and my sun is in fixed water. I grew up wanting to swim in it as much as possible, in the lakes, ponds, and pools of upstate New York. I was even on swim teams when I was a kid. But meeting it as an energetic being and having relationship with it was remarkable. I understand why my shamanic teacher brought in the Elemental teachings early in our studies, and I do the same with people that I teach.

My awareness of water has changed over time as our relationship deepened. In the desert I learned to smell water and was awed when I saw the power of flash floods come racing down arroyos. There was never enough of it until the monsoons brought too much. When floods receded, it could be five or six months until it rained again.

When I got to Oregon, I found the abundance of water to be comforting. In the late fall and winter it can rain every day for weeks at a time. The morning fog turns to a misty rain that becomes a steady shower all day long.  It creates rivulets that collect into streams, rushing into storm drains and creeks, eventually finding its way to the rivers, and from there to the sea.  Rain is scarce in summer, and we get three months of hot sun and long bright days until fall brings rain again. And by then we are ready for the water and the greening of the land.

This year the rains came back early. A whole week in September of rain, unusual. Then more gray days and more rain.

During this same time, my daughter moved out to go on to the University. The two of us had been the nucleus of each other’s existence for 20 years. I was happy for her being ready to move on, I felt it was the right time for both of us. We were both ready to start this new phase in our lives. But I was surprised at all the different emotions that came up as I adjusted to living alone for the first time in my life. On the surface, I wanted more summer sun and was not ready for all this rain. Underneath that, I was not ready to fully recognize all the emotions unleashed at this major life change. I had no distraction, no other housemate to give my attention to, and my processing was stuck in a loop. I realized I was spiraling down into a funk. 

The rains stopped for a few days and the sun came back. I felt Spirit nudging me to take a day off from everything.  I needed to go to the coast. It was due to be a perfect sunny warm beach day. I needed to let nature be my counselor, my guide, my medicine.

Coming down the beach to the ocean felt like a loving reunion after a long uphill journey.

She flowed up to my ankles and spoke to me. “Look where you are standing now at the edge of the world. Think back on all your challenges and hardships over your lifetime and all the times you did not know how you would make it through another day.  All of your steps led you here. To me, to this day, to stepping into your true self and your power, to this good life you have made for yourself and your daughter. You can put down your burdens now, they are like grains of sand scattering in the breeze. It is time to embrace your joy.”

Heart opened, tears welling up, I released the doubts and vulnerabilities that had come up in my recent funk. I released my burdens. I gave gratitude to the Undines for their rains that floated things to the surface, their streams that moved them along and to their ocean who embraced and transmuted them.

I gave myself over to the medicine of the day, and was completely renewed.