Witnessing the Past, Healing the Present

I usually pay attention when things happen in threes. It's like a message from the Universe or God that I should REALLY pay attention to. A few days ago I had 3 references made to past lives within 24 hours, so I listened. The messages came in the form of an angel card that I picked out of a deck (the love cards version), a download during my meditation, and immediately thereafter hearing a song on the radio about "in another life." It was pretty clear that this was a step on my goddess path that needed a little exploration right now.

I never really thought much about my past lives, or if that was even a real thing. I guess until a couple years ago, I believed they didn't exist, but now I'm so open to any and all possibilities, it seems like kind of a cool thing to discover more about. My main question has been "What's the purpose of knowing anything about a past life? How will that help me in my current life?"

If I had to guess where a past life of mine was lived, I would definitely say Germany because I've always felt an uncanny and infinitely deep connection to that land and people. I also would guess it was sometime in the middle ages and that one of my current friends was with me back then. But I've never had any of this confirmed. I would like to find out, however!

What I did do was a little online research, where I found a YouTube video of an actual past life regression session being done on someone. I decided to try it out on myself! I listened to the words being spoken in the video setting the scene, getting me into a meditative space, and saw myself boarding the train that would eventually take me to another time.

Once the train went through a tunnel, I found myself emerging into my past life, or at least one of them. Through a series of questions that the man in the video was asking like "What clothes are you wearing?" "What is your name?" "What year is it?" etc, I was able to ascertain that I was a peasant in England in 1580. (I have learned to just trust the first thing that comes into my head as information and just go with it).

Among other things, I saw 2 very important events- the birth and immediate loss of my first child (a boy), and a severe illness (years later) that afflicted my devoted husband, of which I nursed him through, but which left him forever crippled. In both instances I saw myself using herbs and natural remedies to try and help the situation, but I still felt powerless against God's apparent will that he should take my son and cripple my husband. This helped me understand why today, even though I love and use herbs, sometimes I really question why they don't work as well or as fast as I'd like. Sometimes I truly do have a love/hate relationship with them, and it confuses me. I believe this past life experience helped me gain more insight into this confusing relationship with herbs I have sometimes. In addition, it helped me understand why I tend to worry and overreact when someone I love gets sick, and why I feel a sometimes overbearing urgency to take care of them until they get better.

Another current issue I'm dealing with is the huge fears surrounding pregnancy, childbirth and raising of healthy children naturally, although I have made great progress in this area the past couple years. But often, it seems like such an impossible feat to actually have a totally safe and natural home birth, (which is what I want), and at times it feels like no one has done it successfully! I have so much emotional charge around this, and I have had an extreme fear of the problems and complications that arise during childbirth, it almost felt like a phobia. Again, witnessing this experience in my past life has helped me understand why this fear is very real and deep-seated.

So now that I had identified a couple of issues that needed resolving, I set to work on clearing them with one of my tools I like to call "re-creating". I visualized those same events but pictured a totally different happy ending that was perfect, in an attempt to in effect rewrite the past so that my energetic field and DNA would hold different memories and energy. This is a form of soul reclamation, which I heard about from a friend, but haven't done in its full glory just yet. (Incidentally, as I was telling my sister about this past life regression and the re-creating I did, I noticed that a huge grasshopper hopped right onto our porch. I looked up grasshopper totems, and one of its symbols is 'the birth of a son'. Could my re-creation have already worked?!)

I still need to discover how to properly and completely clear these negative experiences from my past life so that my energy is a fresh and clean slate in my present life. I would love to be free of any emotional baggage I've been carrying around from days long past. Although it was super cool and fun to visit my past life in 1580, I will admit! Time travel has always been my ultimate dream.

Right after the self-guided past life regression session, I did a little more online research and found a different video by Dr. Brian Weiss, MD, who travels around doing these sessions for entire audiences. I want to try his video next! Fortunately he has also written some books on the subject, one of which is pictured above. The other one was right next to it at the library, and I'm excited to delve into them both to see how I can use my past life experiences to gain wisdom and healing in my present.

Tomorrow starts the Virgo new moon, which incidentally is a fantastic time for physical and emotional detox! I'm all about the clearing out of old stuff, even 434 year old stuff! Let's have some fun!

Have you ever done a past life regression, either from a professional, or a self-guided one? How did you clear any trauma that you may have witnessed yourself experiencing?

Shamanism 101

Recently I finished a 4 week Shamanism 101 course, which was fantastic. It was taught by an Arapaho medicine man, Two Horses (Dorian Sanchez), Shaman Goddess Renee Shaw, and a few other shaman staff members. This was definitely a first for me, and some parts of it were a bit too "unknown" for me, but that's good! A huge part of my goddess journey includes many things that are new and unknown. I'm dedicated to trying to new things on this goddess path, and getting out of my comfort zone. With that, expansion is inevitable. It's interesting that Renee has been teaching Shamanism 101 for years, but I'd never felt called to go to the class until now. Timing is always perfect.

The course started off with a sweat lodge (pictured above), which was fascinating to watch and be a part of. This was my first one and I didn't know what to expect. A lot of my friends had been to one, and they each had different things to say about them. One thing everyone warned me about is how HOT and SWEATY you get inside the lodge. The funny thing is, that didn't bother me at all! In fact I relished the hot, thick, moist air dancing with the scents of aromatic herbs thrown onto the glowing hot rocks in the center. When the water was poured on them, the herbal steam filled the air and my lungs, and I drank it in like a healing elixir.

I could definitely feel the powers of Two Horses, powers from an ancient time. He is so connected to the earth, and has such respect for the Grandfather and the ancestors. It actually made me tear up listening to him talk since he speaks with such deep honor and sacredness of "our eagle brothers" or "our rock brothers." He is a healing poet with his words and medicine.

Inside the lodge, we did different forms of sacred ceremony, united as a connected group in intention and space for healing. Two Horses sang many chants, offered many prayers, and performed different forms of healing and cleansing. It was pitch black, until the door was opened to let in more hot rocks from the fire, and create more steam. 

Some other things we covered in the 4 week course were:

Prayer ties (left)
Medicine wheels
The elements and the 4 directions
Medicine bundles for healing and ceremony
Sacred and protective herbs (salt, cedar, tobacco, sage, sweetgrass)
Pipe ceremony
Male/female balance
Attuning to the powers and energies of nature and animals/totems
Ancient chants and mantras
Energy work and healing
Shamans in many cultures and different specialities of shamans
Cleansing and purifying ourselves and spaces
Sacred colors and symbols of Native American Shamanism
Native American astrology 
Father Sky and Mother Gaia

 One of my favorite things was seeing the different personalized medicine bundles that each of the staff had collected over the years. They were all so unique and fitting to the person's personality and life experience. The woman who had lived in Australia for many years had many Aboriginal artifacts that had meaning to her. Another person had a gigantic staff he had carved and decorated with feathers, leather, and meaningful symbols for him. Another one had essential oils and symbolic items she had collected in her travels from around the world. She explained that each one had powers from ceremonies she'd done with the items. Renee had a gorgeous collection of symbolic musical instruments she had acquired in her travels as well, from Peru to Uluru. It really got me thinking about the different healing tools and sacred symbols I would collect for my own shaman kit and medicine bundle. 

 At the end I got to collect some of the different protective herbs in a little bundle (above) to keep with me (and my car!) at all times. Neato! I loved that. It was also very interesting learning about the symbolism and power of the medicine wheel. Arranging the rocks (must be of specific colors) in the exact pattern that they do creates a portal! How cool is that? I didn't know WE could create portals. I guess I just always thought they existed and we were just lucky to happen on them from time to time. I really loved everything I learned, the sacred energy with which everything was presented, and the wide opening of my shamanic horizons and sensibilities.

I'm so grateful to my guides for leading me to these wonderful teachings, and for each of the teachers for sharing their gifts and inspiration. Powerful in so many ways.