June 3, 2014
My shamanic journey yesterday (Monday, June 2, 2014) proved to be quite provocative, and I will try to recall the details and significance of it here.
After our usual preliminary chants and pranayama exercises, Anna and I went off into our own visionary and energetic experiences. I immediately felt the energetic rush that signals the address from a spirit entity with whom I might communicate. As I melted into the energetic communion, I noticed that this communicative experience was not simply a verbal and energetic exchange—my usual experience—but a dreamlike visionary one as well. I saw and felt myself walking or floating through a mountain meadow surrounded by steep spruce forests rising up at least a thousand feet from the high meadow valley. The meadow was a rich grassy plain.
I noticed that I was walking along with some other creatures of some sort but was not trying to make out who or what they were as the guiding voice narrated the significance of my experience. The voice said, “You are surprised to find that the foundation stone of your practice is still here beneath you when you thought you had melted it into your being.” At this point I saw a stone rectangular slab about two feet by three feet wide and a foot tall, the kind of stone slab that serves as the front doorstep for many old farm houses here in southeastern Ohio, stones carved out of the local landscape.
I suddenly shifted out of the dreamlike flow, telling the being speaking to me that this must all be too dreamlike, that I should snap out of this dream and gain better focus. But the voice told me that this dreamlike experience was exactly what I needed to experience rather than some more purely intellectual verbal exchange. So I relaxed into the dream vision and let the spirit voice continue.
He went on with the narrative. (I have a sense of the entity being male, but I had not yet sought the being’s identity other than my recognition that he gave off an atmosphere of calm assurance and comforting wisdom.) “You are surprised that you have not yet melted your foundation stone into your being and your practice, and you find yourself standing on this stone, comforted by its stability.” With these words I saw myself standing on the stone, yet the stone, curiously, was moving along with the procession through the high mountain meadow as if carried by some liquid or airy flow. Perhaps the stone was suspended on a magnetic field that allowed for its hovering motion.
The voice added, “You see around you the antlers of thousands of Elk,” and once he said this I noticed thousands of white sticklike things rising up from the ground. I only now recognized them as antlers rather than old tree branches. “You are walking through the ancient Elk graveyard, which is very sacred ground, and you are re-establishing your ancient connection with the Elk Spirits.” Aha, I thought, this is exactly what I feel, although I had not before now been conscious of this strange yet familiar feeling of belonging and kinship in this cemetery landscape.
“You are happy to be reunited with your Elk family, and it is here that you find yourself still drawing from the power of your foundation stone. Your Elk family are in fact Buffalo, and you now see your ancient connection with the Bison Spirits of the Planet.” As my Spirit Guide said this I saw the elk transform into buffalo as I walked among them in the procession.
At this point one of the large buffalo in front of me turned and faced me in a gesture of recognition and address. I acknowledged the buffalo and then felt myself morph into a buffalo, my head growing large, long, and heavy, my eyes dropping to the sides of my skull, and my nose dropping down to form a long, low snout. (I had had this same morphing experience about five years ago in another visionary experience, which was my first shape-shifting experience that I can remember.)
I realized then that it was the Buffalo who had been speaking all this time. As he spoke I felt the comforting assurance of being in the presence of an ancient soul connection. The Buffalo continued, saying “I give you your pearl, your precious Inner Gift,” and he slowly handed the large pearl, the size of a mango, over to me. As I reached out to accept the pearl I saw that it was emanating an intense and comforting light and energy. But before my fingers even reached it I saw it transform into our Taos Stone, the sacred stone we had retrieved two years ago on a previous spirit venture. The buffalo spirit said, “This is your sacred Foundation Stone, the inner pearl of your being, and you are now ready to reacquaint yourselves with its power.”
As I took the stone from the Buffalo Spirit he transformed into a mastodon and said, “Of course, your true path lies with the mastodon spirits, those with whom you walked this earth so long ago.” I then saw all of the Elk-become-Buffalo of the procession now shift into Mastadon spirits and I felt a deep soul memory of knowing this spirit plane very intimately. I remembered my Mastadon vision of two years ago in northwest Missouri and realized that this, too, is a deep part of my soul memory now making itself available to me on this current spirit path.
I embraced the Taos Stone, knowing that very soon it will begin to unlock its secrets and I will once more know its powers and its purpose in our lives as Anna and I move forward on our path. I felt an overwhelming sense of belonging and purpose and began crying in gratitude for this precious gift of myself back to myself. The Mastadon Spirits and the sacred terrain of the mountain meadow retreated from my visionary space and I was once more sitting with Anna meditating in our living room, thankful for this moment of what Carl Jung would call sacred individuation, the homecoming of a crucial part of my being that has before now lain hidden in my unconscious field of experience.
