Sky Yeager
Shamanic Practitioner - Usui Reiki Master - MariEL Reiki Medicine
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In my last article I talked about co-creating ceremonial grids and altars as containers for intentions and prayers. After being inspired by a despacho ceremony from a Peruvian paqo and elder Wilbert Salas Atasi, my spirit team came to me and nudged me to make these ceremonial offerings regularly as part of my personal practice. Bringing these ceremonies into my personal practice has been life changing. And I feel the energy in turns anchoring what it needs to anchor and also rippling out to where it needs to flow. But like the despacho ceremony Wilbert created, when we come together in a group with focused intention, its effect is felt far and wide. It makes an impact on the collective energy of the world. I felt the energy of our ceremony that day wrap around the earth like a beautiful ribbon. In some ceremonies we may be called to attend and be an active participant. That is when we may be speaking intentions and prayers, sharing in singing songs of power, holding objects and energy. My dear friends Gayle Mair and Roger Wheelock are ceremonialists, and I have been fortunate to be part of many of their ceremonies. I recorded an interview with them about what they do which you can find on Spotify here. As well as despacho, they have been creating crystal grid ceremonies for community. Their ceremonies always invite participation. Before attending they ask that we bring a personal intention that we can align with the overarching intention and theme of the ceremony. Then they provide the time and space for us to speak and share what we are bringing. In the crystal grid ceremonies we each take turns choosing crystals and items which we place on the altar space where we feel called. Roger then listens to the stone beings and spirit helpers and moves key anchoring crystals around accordingly to focus and attune the energy patterns we create as they build and blend. I feel the energies flowing like an energetic tapestry we have woven together, wrapping around each of us as participants, and also flowing into the collective energy of the community and the environment. The active co-creation that Gayle and Roger facilitate in groups is purposeful and powerful. But we don’t even have to take involved roles in the ceremony for our participation to be meaningful. Many times our presence is enough. We bring with us our unique energy and soul’s purpose, as well as all of our energetic and Spirit connections. Chingiz Kam, a shaman from the republic of Tuva in Siberia came to Corvallis recently to perform ceremony and songs from his tradition. It was held at the museum and open to anyone, and at least fifty people attended, a big turnout for a weeknight in a small college city. My ancestors nudged me to go as soon as my friend told me about the event. My ancestors told me then that the shaman would sing a song for them. It would seal all the tending I had done for them over the past year and enliven the lineage moving forward. Sitting there in the crowd, as a passive observer, I could feel that the room was full of ancestors that each one of us had brought with us. And I realized that was our part of the ceremony. His songs and drumming, his Spirit allies and ancestors wove a tapestry of alignment, healing and blessing into the strands of all of our lineages. All of us were called by our ancestors and Spirit guides to have our presence there to be part of the ceremony. I sometimes see each one of us as crystals on a collective grid, sacred objects on the altar of our planet, Mother Earth. Where each place we are called to live, work or visit creates an energetic thread in the ceremony of everything. Our intentions always flowing, creating, interweaving with all the other beings to co-create our lives, our timelines in the multiverse. What if every breath, every thought became a strand of fiber in those energetic threads. Would we know what kind of world ceremony we are creating as we go about living our lives?  Crystal grid for Resilience created by Gayle and Roger and their community in Asheville, NC
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One intention I’ve set for this year is to find ways to bring more elements of ceremony into my daily life. This helps me to be in the state of reverence and harmony within myself and everything around me. For me ceremony is a way to bridge the mundane and the reverent, the physical and the etheric. It reminds me that everything is Spirit and everything is sacred. Recently I had the good fortune of being in a global ceremony led by a Peruvian elder and teacher Wilbert Salas Atasi, who has been a teacher to a couple of my close friends. One of Wilbert’s gifts is to create powerful despacho ceremonies. This ceremony was for the new year 2024 and created an energetic container for our prayers and intentions to be in what he calls ayni, the state of being in right relationship with Spirit. Thanks to the spirits of technology we are able to gather together at the same time no matter where we are in the world and see and hear one another. I was fully enmeshed in it, participating and sharing my energy with the ceremony and with all the other people who were online with me, as well as all the people who would watch the recording of it later. All of us focused our prayers and intentions on each element as he added to the despacho. The despacho works like a container for these elements and prayers and when complete it is folded up in paper, loosely tied, then given to a ceremonial fire for release. At the end of the ceremony he shared the power and blessings by tapping the wrapped bundle on our outstretched hands, and from thousands of miles away I clearly felt the powerful flow of it move in and around me. After the ceremony my Spirit team came in with a clear strong message for me. They said that I could make a similar ceremony every week to help anchor my intentions and call in blessings and create ayni with all around me in my life. Then it was like they took my toolbox and dumped it out on the floor in front of me. I got really excited. What came out of my toolbox was my innate creativity, intuitive vision, empathy and all the shamanic and Reiki skills I have learned over the years. And the sacred objects all around me, my crystals, crystal skulls, oracles, art, herbs, feathers, flower essences, were the medium to work in with these tools. I started clearing a space on my altar right away. I then became aware of some beings standing at the threshold of my consciousness. They had the feel of fae and Sidhe. They were standing by, getting ready to take part in and help create the container for the Gaian Congress, a gathering of human, nature and Spirit beings that I would be attending in a few days. This was a formal nudge for acknowledgment now so they could begin readying their part. I let them lead as we co-created a ceremonial space for our intentions. It unfolded as part crystal grid and part oracle reading, and reflected our prayers for powerful ayni, for right relationship between all of us and all of our realms. This ceremonial creation worked its magic for ten days then it let me know it was done a few days after the Gaian Congress ended. The next ceremonial grid was already forming in my vision for prayers and intentions for a successful surgery and recovery for my dear friend’s upcoming procedure. This new way of thinking about personal ceremony brings together many elements that have been scattered throughout my life into a focused relationship. What I am calling a grid can be thought of in different terms, an altar, a mesa, a mandala, a sigil or design. It doesn’t have to have the appearance of a grid, it can take the shape of anything. And I don’t think there is any rigid format or recipe about what items we decide to put into it. What is important are the intentions that are seeded into it, what it means to us, and how we feel the energy flowing as we create it. The other key piece which sparks the energy is feeling the co-creative relationship with our Spirit partners as we harmonize and let the weaving of our partnership create magic.  Elements included selenite roses, kyanite, mica, crystal skulls, herbs and flowers and cards from the Sidhe deck by David Spangler & Jeremy Berg
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  |
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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Linkswww.rainmother.com/-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 in Asheville NC. 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. Gayle has a beautiful practice of helping others through the art of despacho ceremony which you can find out more and book here http://www.rainmother.com/and Roger has a shamanic practice 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/ NOTE!
None of the writing on this website was generated by AI and are all my original thoughts except what what I have included as references from others.
All articles and posts are copyrighted by me, Sky Yeager. |
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