Sky Yeager
Shamanic Practitioner - Usui Reiki Master - MariEL Reiki Medicine
You can now listen to a podcast recording of my latest article below And find more episodes on Spotify |
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You can now listen to a podcast recording of my latest article below And find more episodes on Spotify |
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As we continue our practice of being heart centered humans, we naturally expand our perceptions of awareness. When we are in our second attention* and using our felt sense, we realize that we are receiving so much information on subtle levels. If we are paying attention we can begin to sense the rich layers of the subtle energies and beings that share our world. These are the nature spirits and elementals that inhabit the plants, trees, winds, water and stones. We can also sense the devas, which are the overlighting spirits of places, beings and ideas, among other things.
How we receive the information depends on how much we are paying attention. It also depends on how well we have come to know our own body's energy so we can separate what is ours from what is not. If we are walking through a forest and we feel a sadness come over us, can we tell who it belongs to? Is it ours because we were thinking about someone we miss? Was it from the person we just passed on the trail? Or is it coming from the forest itself? If we can stay in neutrality and keep paying attention, we might get more information. We might pass out of the area of sadness to one of lightness, and we may not know the cause of the change, but we know the forest feels and looks different to our senses. And other times the cause might be quite obvious as we ascend the next hill and see the land below razed by logging. The forest is mourning the loss of their trees from a clear cut, the plants, trees and animals still in shock from the unnatural and unilateral destruction of their homes. Then of course we become sad as well, sharing in the mourning of the loss. And then it is up to us as intuitives, light workers and representatives of the human race to communicate and interact with the nature spirits. After all, it is one of the reasons we are consciously in our second attention. We want to work from this level of evolving intuition. So we may walk to the edge of the clear cut or just inside it. We let ourselves feel what we feel so it can be released. We can say prayers for the loss of life, for the beings who lost their homes. We can ask the overlighting deva of the area to come and help any beings who are still in shock or lost to find their way home, and to help heal the area. We might leave an offering of some sacred herbs or tobacco, we might offer a song. And we can bless. We bless by honoring what was lost, and loving what remains. Many times we go in and out of our second attention, flitting from our felt sense into mental chatter. When we are not paying attention, the spirits may use other means to give us messages. This fall I was exploring an area in the hills around us with my brother, and we were walking down a non-public trail I found that I had not been on before. A friend and I had done some tending in the area with the deva of the place and with the nature spirits a month before and I was checking in on how things felt. Overall they felt lighter, more balanced and connected. We came across a huge circle of mushrooms, the biggest I’d ever seen, maybe 15-20 feet in diameter. To me it felt like that was a sign that the nature spirits were thriving. The trail led on under old oaks and through lush long grass, and I started down it, chatting with my brother about something else. Then I started having a burning sensation on the bottoms of my feet. It was very odd. I stopped. I amplified my felt sense and took in the subtle vibrations around me, and got the direct message that the nature spirits didn’t want us going any farther that day. We turned around and started walking back the way we came and immediately the burning sensation in my feet went away. I thanked the spirits for giving me the message that way, grateful to be paying attention so they didn’t have to give me something bigger to get my attention like a falling tree branch or a hole to step in for a sprained ankle! The more we let Spirit know we are open to receiving messages, the more they will give us. It is up to us if we pay attention to them or not. *second attention is when our feeling and intuition primarily inform our awareness rather than our mental judgment
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As we learn to tend to our own energy, we get clearer about what our own energy feels like. Practices like yoga, chi gong, and tai chi help us feel how the chi or life force energy moves within us, and how it affects our energy levels. Practices like meditation, mindfulness and contemplation help us get used to our own energetic signature, which is like our unique background frequency. It is that sense of ourselves that is always there that we hardly pay attention to while we are busy living our lives.
Once we know our own energy pretty well, we have a clearer read on how other energies we come into contact and interact with affect us. If we pay attention with our felt sense, we can get a lot of information that helps us avoid trouble, deepen relationships and add depth and richness to our lives. We might start by noticing how our energy feels in different places and with different people. We have all had the experiences of walking into a building, shop or forest and feeling very uncomfortable like we want to get out as soon as we can. It can feel like a heaviness, a skin crawly type of feeling, or maybe just a feeling that we are not welcome. We usually leave as soon as we can. We may also experience the same thing with certain people, like a heaviness or uncomfortable feeling while we are around them, sometimes lingering after our interaction is over. On the flip side of that, we have all probably been places that feel good. We like to spend time there. These might be places like grandma's porch, or a room where spiritual circles meet, or our own backyard, and of course our favorite places in nature. And we also may notice that it feels good to be around certain people. We not only enjoy their company, but we feel uplifted and light after we part. As we pay attention to the energy we are sensing, it informs us, helping us make decisions about where we want to live, who we want to spend our time with, and what we bring into our own energies. If we walk into an antique store where the energy is heavy and unpleasant, do we really want to buy something there that could bring some of that heaviness into our homes and energy? And if we don’t buy anything and leave pretty quickly, can we notice if we unintentionally brought some of that energy home with us anyway? Situations like that are when it is so beneficial to know your energy because then you know when you are carrying something that is not yours, or as the mystic seer and teacher Orion Foxwood describes it, “ Honey, you stepped in something.” Then we can smudge with a cleansing herb like sage, use our pendulum, our intention and free will to clear it from ourselves. But we have to know our own energy to know when we need to tend to it. And we need practices to screen out and release energies that are not beneficial to us. If we feel off in any way, that is a signal to check in with our intuitive self and our spirit helpers to see what needs to be tended to bring us back into balance. As a practice, start the day with your breathing, sitting, felt sensing yourself. Note your energy. Before going to bed, sit and check in. Do you notice a difference after all your interactions and travels of the day? All my teachers I’ve had over the past 20 years have had a method for releasing what is not ours at the end of the day. Most of them are fairly universal, easy, and usually involve breath and visualization, and like most energetic practices, intention is key. Knowing our own energy well is invaluable to navigating relationships with beings we meet in non-ordinary reality and in the spirit realms. And knowing it and tending it well is crucial to keeping ourselves healthy and moving forward along our path of spiritual evolution. I’m so grateful to have a yard now and I’m spending a lot of time getting to know it. As I write this, it is after the fall rains have started but before the first frost has come. The texture of the yard went from summer crunchy brown survival to lush green thriving just two weeks after the rains came back. The deep green is dotted with bright yellow splashes of dandelions and cat’s ears, commonly called false dandelions. On an exquisite clear sunny autumn afternoon, I sit among the buzzing of bees.
I am contemplating how many different plants there are in the yard, and I realize that it has relatively little actual grass. I’m fine with that, as monoculture makes me nervous. I find comfort in the diversity and natural wisdom of the resilient landscape and its plants, insects, birds. Instead of grass forming the green carpet in my yard, there is ground clover, a variety of geranium, Queen Anne’s lace and the dandelions. I’m happy that the people who lived here before I did let the yard grow wild, and did not cultivate a monoculture of grass. I know wild yards aren’t for everyone, no judgment from me on that. Some people are comforted by soft carpets of grass especially if they have small children or animals who play in it. I once cultivated a grass area in my yard when my daughter was small and I wanted her to be able to crawl on the ground in a space without thorny things. But we can differ in our opinions of what we like, and that is also diversity and not monoculture. Some people would say I have a yard full of weeds. But what makes us classify plants as weeds? When they don’t fit into the idea of what humans want? Many plants that people regard as weeds are nutritious, medicinal and wise. Today it is the dandelions that are calling my attention. The yellow furred blossoms broadcast mighty energy, and generously create so much pollen that the bees quickly become laden with it. As soon as one flies off, another one takes its place. I watch their flowers open and close for relatively short periods of time during the day. I wonder what guides that cycle within them, as I can’t see a pattern in the amount or direction of sun on them. Maybe they know when they’ve given the bees enough pollen for the day. I feel that dandelion has an innate individual sense of timing that is woven into the perfection of the interdependence in their environment. Plant whisperer and shaman Davyd Farrell calls dandelions “time lords” as he feels them helping us navigate that dimension. I am invited to make a flower essence from dandelion today, something I have been wanting to do all year but did not have the opportunity to do until now. As dandelion energy and essence instills into the water, messages begin to come through. They say… Because we are adaptable to all environments, we assist with change. We are transducers. We take solar light codes and assimilate them into the earth and her beings. We are a balance of sun and earth. We ground ether. We help assimilate the great changes going on now. Later I get more as I sit and drum with the finished essence. There is power in our presence, and we are many. We help you show up again and again. Each cycle blossoming, seeding, letting go, growing, blossoming, letting go again. We are always there. We are always serving our communities. We are strong, we lend you our strength, perseverance, our NOW presence. But also our sweetness and optimism. Nothing can get us down for long. How can you work with us? We keep you going. That optimism for what is coming, stamina. The urge to keep sharing your innate beauty of your blossoms, keep releasing the seeds as you transform, keep blossoming anew. There is strength and beauty, harmony and service in that, and in showing up, being here now, aware and conscious in the midst of your transformation. Perhaps some of us have felt like weeds in certain circumstances at times in our lives. We felt we did not fit in with the monoculture of the group or social landscape around us. And chances are good we may feel like that again. We can take the wisdom of dandelion with us for those times, the wisdom of being present to share our blossoms, our sweetness and tenacity of optimism in any environment. And we will notice the other weeds blossoming in the network of transformation at these times of shifting consciousness. May we find the magic in what others call weeds. |
MissionTo help you tend to soul issues that may manifest in physical, emotional, mental or spiritual aspects of your life, and to give you tools to empower your path to harmony and well-being. Categories
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Links-There are so many kindred spirits doing the work out there. I include these links to help our community connect with one another.
FAIRY CONGRESS - Offers a summer weekend gathering in person with workshops, circles and of course faeries and nature beings! They also offer a winter virtual weekend with amazing guest speakers like Orion Foxwood, David Spangler and R.J. Stewart. I highly recommend joining the online network to participate in monthly workshops, circles, and book clubs. https://fairycongress.com/ SACRED HOOP Magazine Guide to Shamanism Compilation- http://www.sacredhoop.org/Pages/FreeGuide.html Owner Valeria Pearson lovingly created SOLE TO SOUL YOGA studio with a community focus. There are classes for all levels and events that lift the spirit. I am grateful to be able to hold circles and events in her studio. https://www.soletosoulyogaoregon.com/ My friend and herbalist mentor, LAWRENCE BIRCH is a Certified Clinical Herbalist, plant whisperer and shamanic practitioner. If you need custom tincture blends or are interested in a wildcrafting apprenticeship, he is the teacher extraordinaire: http://givingtreefarm.com/ ROGER WHEELOCK and GAYLE RUTH are shamanic practitioners and teachers in the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition. https://www.rainmother.com/ I am grateful to be able to take part in ceremony with them, and to support their love for the Peruvian people through the World Ayni Association. Roger has a practice in Asheville, NC https://www.communityshaman.com/ NEW WORLD KIRTAN = Kitzie's podcasts include interviews with artists and kirtan music. I love attending her weekly Satsang group and the New World Kirtan Band concerts - newworldkirtan.com/ |
Want to keep in touch? Every month I send an email with my latest article. I also have updates about workshop offerings and community events. I never sell or share your information and I will never abuse the privilege of being allowed into your mailbox.
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