Kelley Harrell2013-05-19T11:22:33-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=kelley-harrellCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Kelley HarrellGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Myth of Teen Violence and Spiritual Pathstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32652582013-05-14T15:34:25-04:002013-05-15T11:29:54-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/ A passionate supporter of social causes, a civic voice sounding our shifting cultural landscape, a wonderful mother, and a brilliant writer -- meet Beth Winegarner. Creator of Backward Messages, a forum openly discussing social elements that feed violence in teen culture, and the media that perpetuates myths around them, Winegarner doesn't hold back. She takes on sacred cows that have always clouded adult judgment where youth behavior is concerned -- heavy metal, video games, the entertainment industry, and the occult. Her work deconstructs every façade that informs our policy, parenting, and perspectives on teens. Not stopping to just debunk socially accepted truths about teens behaving badly, her platform goes on to highlight the real issues creating problems. Among them she cites lack of mental health support, parenting, and in some cases, healthy social communities.
Having interviewed people from all walks of life to understand what creates the cultural myths of violence surrounding teens, a big trend noted in her work is young people turning from organized religion to earth-based belief systems. According to Winegarner, teens by nature "break away, to seek their independence and try on new things, because they're in the process of learning who they are." She noted that often those raised with a specific religion may strike out from that religion simply because it's been a part of their lives and their families for so long. Teens raised without a specific spirituality may seek one out because they want something new.
Her research revealed more specific drives toward open spirituality than just innate rebellion. Drawing from the work of David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in their book unChristian, of the majority religion, Winegarner noted that a lot of teens have "lost respect, because they find [Christianity] anti-homosexual, judgmental, or hypocritical." However, this transition to a nature-based religion only reinforced a seeming turn to the dark side.
Winegarner cites common fear as the base reason that Nature religions are shunned by the overculture, a 'what-we-don't-know-will-hurt-us' reaction. She also states that the presentation of various pagan faiths as scary or harmful in daily news reports and horror movies contributes to confusion around esoteric beliefs, tenets, disciplines, and rituals. Of them she says, "It can be tough to know what to believe."
Of course, it's anyone's guess as to the intentions of such media influences, though their effects often work as deterrents. "You have religious leaders claiming that the Internet makes kids more prone to demon possession just by dint of the fact that it makes information about non-traditional religions more readily available." That said, she noted that media such as books, films, or TV shows don't necessarily change someone's belief system or spiritual path. Her studies showed that while such may introduce young people to new possibilities, they were already open to change.
"I don't know that they have much of an influence on shaping most teens' beliefs, though they can be a catalyst in opening them to different modes of spirituality. A book like The Mists of Avalon or a show like Charmed might introduce someone to Wicca as an alternative path worth exploring." She goes on to say that media certainly can play a role in spiritual change, and everyone's got their own opinion whether that's a good thing or bad thing.
In all, Winegarner is breaking into old territory in a poignantly new way. While she realizes the challenges in conveying her work and research, her commitment to redeeming teens and their unique culture are solid. "I strongly believe that there is good in all these so called 'negative influences,' and that the kids who seek them out know that. They know exactly what the benefits are and what they're getting out of their interaction with these things."
As a result, her view on these influences is more flexible, and her expectations of the overculture more stringent. "We need to stop trying to limit teens or take away the sources of culture, entertainment, reflection, and solace that hold so much meaning for them. When it comes to teens and violence, we need to stop blaming the wrong causes, because that prevents us from being able to stop teens from harming themselves or others."
Learn more about Beth Winegarner and her publications at bethwinegarener.com. Arm yourself with information at backwardmessages.wordpress.com.]]>Weekly Rune: Uruztag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32652382013-05-13T17:11:28-04:002013-05-13T17:11:55-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/ Uruz -- Auroch -- This second rune of the first aett hasn't come up in a long time. In the story of the runes, Uruz is the first point that we become aware of our ability to shape the universe. We become aware of nature's mysteries, specifically, that we are one of them. How, then, does Uruz shed light on our ability to shape ourselves?
This week, look to the story we tell about ourselves. Uruz begins a deep transformation in how we manifest ourselves. How we manifest ourselves depends on the inner story we tell. Is the one we're actually telling in sync with the one we want to tell? If not, now is the time to change it. The magic of Uruz lies in the ability to realize that we are the only ones who can control both the story and its delivery. Responsibility, then, is a key component, as is the realization that we can't control how our story is accepted. This understanding creates a recursive wisdom pointing back to ourselves as the shapers of our destiny.
The ability to change our inner story relies on our ability to see its value. In order to see its value we have to take time to understand what we're telling at present and know how we want to write it differently. Take some time this week to investigate where the story needs to change, and write that revision. Literally, sit down and write it out. We overlook such simple acts of manifestation as expressing the inner story into art. When we breathe our story into art, we give it life. We honor it. We make it real.
Uruz indicates a rite of passage into awakened personhood. This week we stand on the verge of intense self-empowerment. The elements support it, so go ahead. Jump off. Because we are so active in our stories, we'll be there to catch ourselves.
For more on emotional wellness, click here.]]>Weekly Rune: Sowilotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32221322013-05-07T11:16:11-04:002013-05-07T11:16:14-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/ Sowilo -- Sun -- Ah, the rising sun! After a steady pattern of stop, go, and duck, who doesn't welcome a sunrise? Take it as a brilliant nod from source that all is in accordance, that the job has been well done.
I imagine that we, too, are all about well done at this point. The last few months have been action-packed and consciousness-shifting.
The presence of Sowilo (or Sowilu) at this time means we have persevered through hardship and truly mastered the work. Whatever has been pressing, its breakthrough and recently-revealed wisdom are lasting. This final rune of the second aett tells us we can accept this eureka! moment as real, and enjoy the reprieve that follows.
The thing about sunrise is it indicates time to get up, to become active again. Rest is done, and it's time to get on with the day.
Take the time to celebrate your current victory, to revel in the moments of quiet time. Be fully present in looking back over the last few months, owning the process that brought you to this point, and carrying the insight of that experience into what comes next. Enjoy, though don't lose yourself in that revelry. We rest to honor and heal from what we have come, so that we can be ready to move forward implementing that wisdom.
The sun rises to provide us energy, to illuminate clarity. Sit with the revelation this dawn has to offer, bless it, then proceed, knowing you can now see it in a completely different light.
For more on emotional wellness, click here.]]>Weekly Rune: Nauthiztag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31771742013-05-01T14:35:08-04:002013-05-01T14:35:21-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/
Nauthiz -- Need
Have you noticed that the last time Nauthiz was the weekly rune, Mannaz came the week prior, as is the case this time? It's not a coincidence, and I swear I have more than two runes in my bag!
By now we know that Mannaz is about learning to call on support and finding mind/body/soul balance, and that Nauthiz encourages us to slow down and be sure of our process. What does it mean that at this time we are being repeatedly called to be certain of our personal cosmology? That the way we order ourselves and observe how our order is supported by, supports, reflects, and fosters our authenticity? It's a big question to ask.
So often we turn ourselves inside out to get into a routine that provides spiritual discipline, mental focus, physical strength, and emotional nourishment. Specifically, most of us don't find that clarity without baptism by fire, without deep crisis prompting life change. We wouldn't even look at ourselves at that level without deep personal emergency. Taking the step to take charge of our core wellbeing is perhaps the most important one we take in our whole lives. So then, how do we respond when the universe asks us to change that routine, or to question its current relevance? We are used to questioning whether we're in balance, not the method by which we sustain it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, yes? The very idea that what works needs to change can generate crisis all its own.
This week, gently consider where soul sustenance has become rote. This is a bold undertaking from inside the comfort zone. We may gaze upon the scape of our spiritual discipline and see that it works fine, all is well, stability abides. Bless it, thank it, then look again. The message of repeated Mannaz then Nauthiz is that something somewhere in our personal spiritual path isn't as it seems, even if that thing is reluctance to change the spiritual path. Recall that which nourishes and guides us to expand our consciousness isn't meant to be comfortable. It's not meant for escapism. It's meant to grow.
As you examine your personal spiritual path and find so much as a crack, address it now. This is your furlough of the soul. This is your opportunity to step back and find the glinting threads that bind your passion to your footsteps again, and find the way that meets your current needs in carrying it through everything you do.
This Runic duo heartily encourages us to use the resources at our disposal, to make the changes needed in our lives, however very personal and sacred. This combination is saying that we can either make that change of our own volition -- initiate controlled crisis -- or the universe will initiate one for us.
For more on emotional wellness, click here.]]>Everyday Journeying: When the Ecstatic Becomes Mundanetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26151622013-02-05T12:21:00-05:002013-04-07T05:12:01-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/
Journeying is often confused with pathworking, in which participants are guided in what to see and do. When learning to journey, a general framework is followed to access the ecstatic state, though what occurs once in the spirit realm is entirely organic. Upon mastery of theta trance, the framework used can be as unique as what occurs in the journey, itself, if a framework is necessary at all.
In the beginning, for most eager shamanic students, journeying is vivid, lush. Deep emotions stir and challenge how we hold our changed psychology in waking reality. For many, those first flights out fulfill a deep longing to connect, or reconnect as it were, with the unseen, that other belief systems or practices don't provide. In those early stages, journeying seems to provide answers to everything, and for that reason it can be addicting, even escapist if not done with care.
Inevitably, though, the journeying process begs to deepen or to expand in some way that challenges the shamanist. Perhaps getting into trance becomes more difficult. The devices that facilitated it at first no longer smooth the path. The sensual experience internalizes. We begin to see that the spirit realms aren't wonderland, serving up what we want to see, comfort, companionship. Its messages become less clear. Guides are absent or not as forthcoming. What happened? Why would a process that so fulfilled and provided stop working?
Traditionally, in indigenous and ancient cultures, shamans were chosen by heredity or transformation of a trauma (also called a shamanic death), while some were self-appointed. How they are revealed isn't as significant as noting how shamans developed and were supported by their communities. Most modern students of shamanism come to it out of personal need, be that trauma or a sense of needing "more." However, we are not a shamanic culture. We haven't been surrounded from birth in an animistic life view that fosters our connection with the spirit world in and out of trance. As a result, we leave shamanic circles and classes to return to a mundane that doesn't support our experiences. We don't have the network of support to help us sustain the miracle of the ecstatic state beyond the journey. Thus, the journey process, itself, becomes strained.
That lack of network also tends to create the pattern of journeying only when something is wrong, when we feel a lack in our lives, or on behalf of others. In this way a constant pattern of taking is established, creating an imbalance in how we relate to the spirit realm. Without making it a daily practice as part of our personal spiritual discipline, we can't evolve to be truly proficient at journeying, and we can't begin creating ourselves as an animistic culture. We can't become solid anchors engaging in waking what the spirit realm guides in trance.
Should journeying lose its initial luster, instead of forcing it to suit expectation and demands, dig deeper into formed being. Find a mentor and community who can support soul travels. Connect with the the spirits of immediate surroundings -- familiar space, daily relationships, Nature. The more grounded we can be in the awareness that unseen reality is with us all the time, not just in trance, the more we lace spiritual interconnection through everything we do, the more readily trance comes.
Normalization of the journey experience isn't failure. It's natural, it's progress, integration. The act of journeying is a relationship, not just the connections we make from it. At some point, it is right for the experience of trance to integrate, for us to become the embodiment of the community, connections, and wisdom we gain from it. Yet at the same time, we must hold our journey experiences loosely. Let the process unfold as it desires. Along the path of ecstatic journeying, we learn to trust the inner compass, not just to show direction, but when to be directionless, when to become the direction.
For more on emotional wellness, click here.]]>Tragedy, Collective Soul Loss, and the Healing Storytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24017832013-01-04T08:41:58-05:002013-03-06T05:12:01-05:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/
Horrific, heart-wrenching tragedies, such as the killings at Sandy Hook, in Nigeria, China, Portland, Colorado, at Virginia Tech, Columbine, 9/11, cause collective soul loss. Natural disasters such as Katrina, Sandy, the 2004 tsunami, the TÅhoku earthquake and tsunami, which caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, result in mass soul wounding. As a population watching tragedy from afar, once we can process beyond our instinctive reflex to assess self and realize we are physically unaffected by the disaster, our hearts go out to those who were. We grieve for those lost. We mourn for those who lost loved ones and survived. We devote compassionate support to the affected community, through donations, prayer, providing manpower. We watch through the haze of the media circus, judicial process, and/or legislative attempt to prevent future disasters, seeking release, perhaps even hope, vindication.
Somewhere along that road we begin to realize that we are more affected by the tragedy than we realized, and we feel guilty for that fact. We feel that because our lives were not directly impacted by the disaster, we shouldn't be disrupted in the daily honoring of life. We shouldn't be stunted or disconnected from our joy. We shouldn't feel it as much as we do. We feel selfish for thinking that we need healing, and for turning that heart focus to ourselves, rather than those in the immediate community.
Guilt and ego are the key inhibitors to healing collective soul loss. To devote healing to the whole dynamic, to treat the wound of collective soul loss, we have to include ourselves in honoring what happened, how it left us feeling, and in the healing offered. We must grieve the dead, even if we didn't know a single one of them. Have compassion for the survivors, and all of the dark days ahead of them as they put their lives back together. Support them and their community in the way that we best can without depleting our own resources. Then repeat that whole process for ourselves.
Animism teaches us that we are all connected in the web of all things. As trauma in our personal lives creates perceived fragmentation of our souls, so collective trauma results in the perceived tear in that web. Only by remembering that we are all connected do we heal. Nothing heals in isolation, but through the combined efforts of us all. We must do what we can to express support for the immediate community, then our healing efforts must turn to our own wounds, knowing that what we heal in ourselves generates healing for others. This is the shamanic narrative. Through the creation of our own healing stories and sharing them, we inspire others to speak their stories. We create a bond focused on collective healing, assuring wellbeing for all.
Take time to reflect on your healing story. Write it down, if it helps, or draw it, paint it. Express all of the feelings wrapped into your experience of the healing process, and know that in doing so, we all heal. We all move closer to wellness.
For more on emotional wellness, click here.]]>To Heal or Not to Heal: Shamans in the New Eratag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22494942012-12-06T07:23:30-05:002013-02-05T05:12:01-05:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/"Rivers know this; there is no hurry, we shall get there some day." -- Winnie the Pooh
"Too many times we confuse motion with progress." -- Albert Einstein
A growing pain in the maturation of neoshamanism is the instinct to heal everything, that where there is energy imbalance it must balanced. Imbalance can occur in a person, a place, an animal, or an era. The inclination to heal at all cost can be viewed as a proactive model of health and wellbeing, no doubt the mindset many modern shamans bring to soul work. To indigenous healers, the "must heal" mindset is very modern, and it embodies fear, isolation, even aggression. Because of its emphasis on the healer, the instinct carries with it arrogance, presumption, and idealism; thus is incomplete. It perpetuates the notion that imbalance is something to be viewed as broken, something unnatural, ideas that disregard the constantly changing state of Earth consciousness and experience. We are always in flux, and most of us realize profound growth not from balance or being out of balance, but in the process between the two. A task of the modern shaman is to embrace the full circle of life, and in doing so, to impart that while perhaps uncomfortable, no facet of it is unnatural.
The starry promise of restoring full functionality throughout daily life omits shadow. Shadow is no one thing. We tend to think of it as bad and what should be avoided, as Western culture has demonized anything that doesn't dazzle with quick results. In fact, shadow is usually the thing we most need to address in order to progress in the creation of ourselves. In the case of the "go-fix-resolve" mentality, Shadow is forgetting to allow. Allow what? Whatever. No object is needed, when we are open to whatever is needed most. In that passive receptiveness, the seed for healing blossoms into its unique destiny. We often forget how challenging it is to be passive, and those who practice it in meditation understand that to be passive doesn't mean to do nothing. It means to allow, not to stand in the way of. The full spectrum of everything must be honored, and frequently the best way to honor it is to stop naming specific outcomes. When the emphasis becomes a specified outcome, the focus is on the healer, not on the highest outcome for the client. The ego pursuit of assuming that something needs to be done usurps the passive healing power gifted us by the multiverse. The notion that everything broken must be fixed separates us from our connection with all, implying not only that we can control everything and should attempt to, but that undesired outcomes of our actions are failures, mistakes, or weakness. In some cases, the best prescription to resolve symptoms, release pain, or balance the etheric field is death. Yet many modern shamans still view death as the result of healing methods not working. In many modern practitioners, the natural healing properties of death are considered failure.
There are schools of thought that all energy or spiritual healing is good. While the argument is strong, it's not that the work is good or bad. What is in question is the intent behind it. When we assume work should be done for a client based on intuitive observation -- which for some shamans occurs instantly without journeying, lacking the consent of the client and/or impeccably clear direction from the client's guides to do that work -- we are operating outside the connection of all that is. Outside that bond, nothing good can come. In some cases, if energy is shifted without examining the wider picture, more harm is caused than good. For instance, if a client has a terminal illness, just extracting the illness can make the "sick" cells more aggressive. The body, in this case, has forgotten how to function without the offending cells. Other supportive healing must be done first, and if it becomes possible, the imbalanced energy can be removed. Soul retrieval is another example. Returning soul aspects the individual is not ready for psychologically or emotionally can exacerbate the reasons the retrieval was done. In such situations, active intervention actually diminishes healing.
Some argue that the question of intent is, in part, why we have passive healing modalities such as reiki, the Japanese healing art providing passive rejuvenation of life force, and hosts of spirit guides to call upon for aid. These are approaches to healing in which we express need to them then step aside, allowing their work to be done. They are an opportunity not to have to control everything, to honor the connection with all, and allow multiversal support to work as it will.
Ultimately, healing isn't about what symptoms go away, what miracles happen, or what death occurs. It's about being connected to all things and having a sense of peace that regardless of what occurs, we are well, we are in good company, and we are loved. As shamanic healers, we are often a final destination along a client's path toward healing. Traditional modalities, even more accepted alternative ones, have been tried with little or no results. It is sincerely challenging to look into the eyes of someone who has struggled to find healing and tell that person that all a shaman can do is facilitate allowing, between the client and all that is. Yet that is our express obligation. We guarantee no specific outcomes, only that all listens and delivers. In the connection, we know when our influence is needed and when we should refrain from acting. The cradle of healing rests in that balance and that is the best comfort we give.
Originally published at Kelley's blog, Intentional Insights.]]>Mindfulness and Animism: The Art of Soul Healingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20771622012-11-06T12:30:15-05:002013-01-06T05:12:01-05:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/I've written about contemporary approaches to shamanism, and how we have remade our perceptions of soul healing. Many people now know what a shaman is, what a shaman does. They know concepts that a mere decade ago were shrouded in mystery: soul retrieval, soul loss, soul wound.
In the more recent years of my shamanic practice, I find a pervasive belief that soul healing should in and of itself be enough. There is an expectation that it's a quick fix, a miracle cure for everything. Along with this travels the belief that we shouldn't need medication, surgery, therapy, a balanced diet. Many people now believe that the singular trip to the local shaman should make us well and sustain us through our days. This hope is neither new nor culturally centric. Ancient and indigenous shamans informed us that soul healing, indeed, cured wounds and instilled miraculous wellbeing.
Modern reality shows us something different, however. Many seekers invite soul healing into their lives, then experience an initial phase of euphoria and wellbeing, only to eventually take on symptoms of dis-ease or imbalance again. It becomes curious then to explore why, when we are better informed and eager for healing, did soul healing work so thoroughly for the ancients when it doesn't seem to for us. If belief in miraculous soul healing isn't new, why are contemporary enthusiasts not receiving miracles? What function of modern life makes soul healing different?
The short answer to that question is mindfulness. Foremost, in ancient shamanic cultures, the soul healer was the doctor, the dietitian, the pharmacist, the therapist. Moreover, these mundane acts of healing were done with the intention of their spiritual significance alongside their physical and emotional properties. In ancient healing, the mindfulness of these important approaches to healing was inseparable from their spiritual counterparts. For the majority of contemporary wellness enthusiasts, body-mind-spirit are three vastly different territories that don't overlap. Why would the difference in how we look at healing modalities and aspects of ourselves affect how we heal?
What our forefathers knew that we have forgotten is the significance of an animistic worldview. Animism extends far beyond seeing nature as soulfully imbued or respecting the energetic validity of manmade objects. Animists realize that all things have souls, are connected, and interact within that bond. This life view formed the basis not only of spirituality for the ancients, it was the social construct that made tribal life thrive. It reinforced that all approaches to healing are of the soul, and that we are accountable for each other. The healing of one is the wellbeing of all.
Tribal support was a vital component of any mode of healing. Just as caregivers fed and tended the wounds of the healing patient, they also witnessed the healing story (shamanic narrative), provided accountability to stay on track, and could empathize with the healing path. In this way, the positive effects of a singular healing spread throughout the tribe.
In the West, we are not an animistic culture. Instead, we revere individuality. We don't have a strong sense of collective responsibility, support, or giving, particularly as related to spirituality. Given that, often imbalance returns because we have no one in our everyday to talk to about our new balance. When we have no one with which to share our euphoria, we have no one to help us sustain its momentum. As a result, we don't spawn healing in others from our healing stories. Our core beliefs don't incorporate that the sickness of one indicates the dis-ease of all; thus, they can't create healing for many from the balance of one.
Likewise, because we don't have a sense of tribal connectivity, we don't create healing constructs to support staying well past the initial euphoria. We don't see other modalities of healing that would help with our recovery process as having spiritual power. We internalize a lack of connection to tribe as a separation of the aspects of ourselves: mind-body-soul. When we approach soul healing as "only healing that which is soulful or pertaining to the soul," we miss vital opportunities for renewal and wellbeing on all levels. The isolated way in which we view soul healing modalities and community affects our ability to heal and stay well. When we focus only on what we perceive as the soul, we stop supporting the other layers of ourselves, we stop empowering ourselves to stay healed.
Spiritual healing isn't a replacement for life skills. In the New Age we have been taught that we should only focus on the soul. As humans, separating concepts into compartments helps us work with them, understand them. As animists, we know that all things are soul -- even these other layers of Self. When we devalue the physical and emotional components of ourselves, the message then becomes "If you heal the soul, the rest will follow," perpetuating the myth that these levels of our being are separate to start with.
To create and sustain soul healing we must bring some sort of awareness into everything that we do. When we decide that we want to heal, we must become active participants in that process. This truth is the core of animistic perspective. In the West, often we don't know how to be active participants, and soul healing, itself, doesn't teach us. However, only part of soul work is spiritual. The rest is just plain work. If we don't already have some way of holding mindfulness through the mundane parts of our day, we're not going to suddenly have it when we approach soul healing.
Mindfulness is learned from meditation. Through meditation we learn to be in our bodies. We become present with purpose, without judgment. As we master these skills, we align with the layers of ourselves, which directly affects our ability to connect with others. As we connect with tribe, we maintain healing. With the ability to bring this open, interwoven world view into our spiritual practice and healing, the more likely that healing will root into our lives, and sustain.
It isn't that our approaches to soul healing aren't working. Rather, it's that our way of holding our awareness doesn't support our soul healing. Imagine how great it would feel to have a community that helped us hold our awareness toward wellbeing! That singular aid alone would vastly improve our balance. Perhaps the message from our animistic elders isn't that we forsake other modalities of care in favor of soul healing, but that we begin to see them all as having value. When we can see the value of the many good things we do to maintain balance in ourselves, the more we will see evidence around us of balance supporting us.
For more on mindfulness, click here. ]]>A Shaman's Journeytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17307892012-08-06T10:18:11-04:002012-10-06T05:12:17-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/
"But he wasn't," she replied.
Unsatisfied, I asked again, only to receive the exasperated, recursive answer. My mother gave the same empty response later, in private.
It's no huge surprise that when I was about 14, my many dissatisfaction with the Church overwhelmed my fondness for it, and I began to explore other spiritual paths. Coinciding with this transition was also the realization that intuitive gifts I'd manifested since childhood demanded open expression, and that the energetic truth of my femininity deserved acknowledgement on my spiritual path. By the time I was 17 I had separated from the Church and begun crafting my own relationship to shamanism.
That may not seem like a terribly logical leap on the surface, but for me it was sound. Emerging from a sexually-abusive childhood into young adulthood with full-blown PTSD, I needed help. As someone who was deeply intuitive and aware of the signals and messages from the unformed, I knew that aid could come from many levels of being. I also recognized that through my wounding, I was experiencing what is considered a classic "shamanic death." I could feel the insight of my experience leading me, though I couldn't emotionally accept it or understand in what direction we were headed. Also, in myself and the world around me I recognized a thriving Feminine Divine and a loving Divine Masculine who fully embraced Her. I wanted to learn how to incorporate these vital components into my spiritual experience. I needed to find a way to move through my life that enabled me to feel more whole. The trouble was, I had come through a tradition in which every belief had been told to me. I had no framework for delving into the wisdom and divinity of my own experience to find meaning, guidance. In short, I had no teacher.
So I became my own. I read everything I could find on shamanism, including Michael Harner's The Way of the Shaman and Mircea Eliade's Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Both tomes seemed informative enough on the philosophies driving shamanism, elucidating on the techniques shamans use to heal themselves and others, enlightening how one becomes a shaman. I felt novel kinship with their ideas, though something was still off. Among what these hallowed resources didn't share was the presence of the feminine in the shaping of the shamanic legacy. In fact, at least according to the deigned grandfather of the modern shamanic movement, Eliade, there wasn't one. I'd come all that way, struggling through soul healing and psyche reformation, breaking free from the limitations of my birth religion, only to be told that shamans weren't women, either.
Of course, that didn't stop my studies or pursuits to find teachers, which I eventually did. It didn't stop me from creating a thriving shamanic practice, Soul Intent Arts, or from being ordained as an interfaith minister in a Goddess-centric organization, or from pursuing a Masters of Divinity focused on shamanic study. In all, I took the off-road adventure, self-creating my own shamanic path without the guideposts and maps we are used to finding on spiritual quests, a feat common to many modern seekers on broken paths in this cultural melting pot.
Along that jaunt to manifesting myself in the spiritual truth best suited for me, I learned the many shrouded histories of female shamans. According to another revered academic, Ioan M. Lewis, shamanism was merely a construct for individuals -- particularly women and gay men -- to express otherwise socially unacceptable behavior, a description still embraced by many of our highest institutions of learning. But from women of various traditions I learned that females dominated shamanic roles in the ancient histories of eastern Asia, Africa, Siberia, and many indigenous North and South American tribes. In truth, women were scattered all through historic shamanic cultures, only the western curators of that knowledge omitted them, devalued their contributions. Through reconstructionist studies, I learned that women, and the feminine aspect, were vital figures in the spiritual movement that is now considered the Church.
Generally speaking, we still don't incorporate the diverse path of shamanism into the modern study of it. We assume that by virtue of being Western-born and having the privilege to study whatever we choose, to elect the faith that sings most resonantly within us, that our presence as women on sacred paths, now, is enough. Yes, it is our destiny to look forward and blaze that trail into whatever fulfills our hearts most deeply. It is a gift and a responsibility to look back and know, to bless where we came from.
Now, when the history of anything seems too groomed to be true, too biased to be thorough, too tidy to be real, I remember the omission of women from the path of the modern shaman. I remember to look for those places from which she has always thrived and merely been hidden.
For more on mindfulness, click here. ]]>The Shamananic Narrative of Tigger's Bouncetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16951722012-08-01T11:35:23-04:002012-10-01T05:12:03-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/"Bouncing is what Tiggers do best. -- Tigger, from A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh
Since the birth of our twins a little over three years ago, I've delved back into children's literature in an entirely new way. As someone who works as a shaman, I'm always intrigued by the shamanic narrative told in everything. This narrative is the story told to the shaman by the body or emotions, through symbols that are interpreted to bring healing to the individual. We each have this collection of symbols, some unique, some joined in collective meaning. In reading to my children a narrative I commonly find is the story of soul wounding and healing.
The most basic view of what a shaman does, thus the basic principle of the shamanic narrative, is an imbalance of power. Power is either missing from a place that it should be or is in excess in a place where it shouldn't be. A common state that results from this imbalance is called soul loss, perhaps the most common ailment shamans work with. Though I refer to it as "soul shelving," it's a state in which one (or more) of the infinite facets of the soul has wandered out and cannot reconnect with the manifest consciousness.
Wandering out is our natural state of widening our awareness, and we often accomplish this through dreams, creative processes, engaging new ideas and feelings. Upon experiencing trauma, soul parts leave and often can't reconnect with the earthly consciousness. How this reaction to trauma manifests can range from severe self-destructive behavior to mild depression, the onset of physical illness, or the general sense that one isn't quite one's self anymore. This interrupted flow of life force abrupts personal power.
In reading to our kids, I see this journey from wounding to loss of power, to victorious balance and empowerment in children's stories. Take the beloved Winnie the Pooh character, Tigger. Everyone knows him for his ability to revel joyfully in life, specifically for his ability to bounce as both a way to experience joy and share it with others. Because it is his most fond pursuit, it is his soul's expression. Laura Driscoll's The Search for Tigger's Bounce, a later addition to the Winnie the Pooh series based on works by A. A. Milne, describes such a journey from soul wounding through the story of Tigger's lost bounce.
One day Pooh observes that Tigger isn't his usual bouncy self. Specifically, Tigger is moody, his tail is drooping, and he's very still. When Pooh presses him about feeling down, Tigger says, "I think I've lost my bounce!"
He can recall when he last bounced and that he doesn't feel like bouncing now, but he doesn't know the root of his lethargy and woe. Tigger realizes that his bounce has gone away, and that it went away so suddenly he didn't know where he lost it. This is a typical description of the lethargy and sense of disconnection that occurs with soul loss. Senses and awareness we had prior are simply gone. Tigger's ability to articulate how he feels and the symptoms around not being able to bounce demonstrate how we can intellectualize that we should be able to do something, be aware that it's not working properly, yet we can't just by knowing those things force it to be fixed. This is another symptom of soul loss.
His friends offer to come along and help him look for his bounce. This is a common facet of the shamanic narrative -- the acquisition of spirit allies (nature spirits, angelic guides) who support and assist along the way to healing. Eeyore, Piglet, Roo and Pooh set off to help Tigger find his bounce.
Roo suggests that Tigger return to the place he last had his bounce so the group can search for it there. This return to the source of imbalance is akin to the induction into trance in the shaman's decoding of the narrative, and is also symbolic of Tigger having to face what caused his bounce to leave. In the shamanic narrative there is always some realization of returning to the source of trauma -- figuratively or literally -- in order to heal it.
In observing the stream where Tigger was playing when he lost his bounce, the group learns that he was bouncing on a fallen tree trunk, which bridged the stream's banks. While bouncing on the fallen tree, Tigger realized he was above water and become very afraid.
Pooh then deduces that Tigger's bounce had been startled out of him. Having an aspect of the soul leave in times of duress is a classic feature of soul loss. Often in trauma one can articulate the feeling of a part of self leaving, afterward feeling fragmented or that something is missing. In this case, Tigger's bounce was missing. In being faced with a deep fear, his power had left him.
The group looks high and low for Tigger's bounce, only no one finds a thing. No one can identify exactly what Tigger's bounce looks like, so they aren't sure how to find it!
Drawing on the expertise of yet another ally, Christopher Robin, he points out, "I think you got startled on that tree trunk. And then you got worried about bouncing. But you could never lose your bounce," he says. [1] Christopher Robin represents the voice of the shaman, interpreting the symbols of Tigger's story of losing his bounce, drawing meaning from them so personal to Tigger that he acquires a context in which to understand, thus overcome, his fear.
With the support of his allies and through the process of them witnessing his journey to reconnect with his bounce, and with Christopher Robin's affirmation of his power, Tigger gains the confidence to try to bounce again. In the shamanic narrative, gaining the support of one's tribe is the deepest fostering of healing. It is the bestowal of power. Within that support, power is recognized, thus balanced, and the wound released.
In the end, just like Tigger, we may not know where we lose bits of our power, but we fully recognize their absence. Armed with the insight of the shamanic narrative in all things, we gain support to go back and find our bounce.
---
[1] The Search for Tigger's Bounce, Laura Driscoll. Disney Enterprises, Inc., 2004.
Originally posted at BarbaraArdinger.com.]]>Journaling as a Coping Devicetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16403092012-07-01T13:20:46-04:002012-08-31T05:12:07-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/Gift of the Dreamtime -- Awakening to the Divinity of Trauma, that often the synaptic processes fired in the creative act of writing stir emotions, memories, philosophies. Journaling can have intensely cathartic results. From a spiritual standpoint, blending the chronology of events of your life with art is deeply empowering.
Often in response to my suggestion to journal as a means of coping with stress I'm met with conflict around why it won't work. "I don't like to write." "I can't write well." "I stare at the paper and nothing comes." "I don't have anything to say." I get some stern looks when I encourage folks carrying these ideologies to write even more than those who greet the opportunity openly. Why? Not because I, personally, love to write, but because if you can put something into words, you've already made progress in eliminating the stress. The ability to associate thoughts with feelings goes a long way in taking the charge out of those feelings. Once free of emotional involvement, you can make clearer choices about how to proceed in the dynamic.
Even if you don't write, give journaling a try. Sit down and write whatever comes. There are no rules or boundaries. Your journal doesn't have to be your deepest, darkest secrets. You don't have to approach journaling with any specific intention other than to offer yourself the outlet.
And if nothing comes, write your grocery list. Write your to do list for the day. Write about how you have nothing to write about. All it takes is getting started. Before you know it you tap into a stream of consciousness and start forming opinions about what you are writing.
Maybe you start writing your grocery list and the thought occurs that for your evening meal you'd rather have mashed potatoes than cabbage, but you have to make cabbage to satisfy your visiting uncle. In making that menu item concession, you have an emotional reaction. ou don't really want to concede the mashed potatoes because since he's been visiting he's already taken over control of the television remote, and you're mad that you missed your favorite show...
This free association is your avenue into cathartic journaling. The synaptic process of writing taps into something primal, personal, pivotal. It appeals to our most basic emotional urges in the limbic system -- where we blend metaphor with reality, symbolism with structure. How you react to what comes out gives meaning to your overall need for journaling. Follow where your awareness leads you. Just write it out and let the words come as they will. The more you practice journaling, the easier it becomes. Before long, you will anticipate the luxury of that release.
For more on mindfulness, click here. ]]>Pagan Is as Pagan Doestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15734562012-06-06T19:32:38-04:002012-08-06T05:12:10-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/
For those who don't know, I'm a native North Carolinian and acting interfaith clergy. While there is strong support for and a very networked Pagan community throughout the state, half of my clients do not identify as Pagan. Specifically, they identify as various denominations of Christian. For some, stepping into a more mystical expression of spirituality is a comfortable and natural extension of their faith. Others don't allow such an esoteric openness in their belief systems. Rather, they reach out to me because other venues haven't brought them balance, including pastoral counsel with their own clergy.
Regardless of how they're ushered into my work, it is within local circles that I encounter the most powerful misconceptions about shamanism. In talking with clients about how they find me, a startling idea emerged: For many of these clients the idea that I'm Pagan is softened by knowing that I'm a shaman, as if that role somehow makes the truth of my spiritual path somehow more approachable. Upon delving further into that assumption a deeper misconception was revealed: the assumption that I'm Native American. That I have a fine thread of indigenous blood runs entirely independent of my calling and choice to be a shaman. A handful of people besides myself would even know that fact, just as they don't know that I'm Scottish, German or Irish. They don't know, because it's not relevant.
Had this assumption come up once or twice in the years of my work I'd consider it an anomaly -- disturbing, but a fluke. The reality is, it's come up dozens of times, leading to me to explore what drives it. Two base beliefs seem to lay in support:
The romanticized ideal of Native Americans being more spiritual than other cultural groups, an assumption that perpetuates the racist notion of the "noble savage."
The replete misappropriation of all things shamanic to Native Americans, indicating a lack in base understanding of shamanism.
Both of these beliefs open a wide arena of cultural land mines, the least of which is cultural appropriation -- the claiming of a facet of another culture as one's own, historically for exploitation, personal profit or gain. Even though I do not claim the spiritual heritage of another culture, a good proportion of my clients assumed that I did, by virtue of projecting their ideals onto my heritage. That's one problem. The other is that because they assumed my lineage, they rested comfortably in misunderstandings about my path. The message is that by assuming I'm Native American, my devotion to Earth religions is more OK than knowing I'm a modern Druid, Reconstructionist, Pagan.
Do most people not realize that in the animistic "country dweller" definition of Paganism, Native Americans are Pagan, under a diverse umbrella of spiritual traditions? Is there an instant, if not unconscious, distinction made between Pagans who are of European lineage and those who are Native American? And if so, does that not imply a judgement from many in the mainstream soul healing community that certain kinds of Pagans are better?
In the long run does it matter if the people who come to me for help know this distinction? Does it affect our work if they don't know that shamanism is the tap root of all religions, branching through every culture? Probably not. All they know is something isn't well in their lives and nothing else has brought relief.
For me it's a question of how much integrity my path has if I leave clients making assumptions about my lineage and work that aren't true. In my studies, personal spiritual discipline and work with others, I don't feed the racist dispersions the western route into shamanism has cast; thus, I don't want to mislead anyone about my ethical intentions.
For that reason I do take the time to educate clients who don't understand how we arrived at shamanism in this age, and how I became able to carry a spiritual tradition forward in a new way that fulfills the needs of modern seekers while honoring an ancient tradition.
In the end, Pagan is just Pagan.]]>A Modern Voice of an Ancient Alphabettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13312482012-03-09T14:55:46-05:002012-05-09T05:12:02-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/"It is what the symbol points to in our lives that needs the most attention."
The Book of Rune Secrets, Tyriel
Closing last year Rune enthusiast, Tyriel, published his first book --The Book of Rune Secrets. A modern ode to an ancient avenue into contemporary consciousness, I spoke with him about his work, his love for the Runes, and his desire to create a community of Rune scholars at the popular website, RuneSecrets.com.
According to Tyriel, his love of Runes began in childhood. Passed on to him by his mother, his work with them culminated in a four-year ecstatic crisis in his early twenties. This experience led him on a cathartic journey using psychiatry -- modern alchemy -- and the Runes to glean balance and useful wisdom. The insights he drew from that era fuel his drive to share the Runes as a tool to help others needing such wisdom today.
In that light, Tyriel feels the Runes have great significance to modern life and perspectives. Citing our busy lifestyles as full of demands and distractions, he says, "It's very easy to go weeks, months, or years without self-reflection. The Runes provide a way of contemplating the 'big picture' of oneself and one's place in the world."
That said, his take on the Runes isn't your everyday go at the Hávamál. Of the more rigid, socio-anthropological approaches to the Runes, in his book he says, "When it comes down to it, we can only imagine and contemplate." He honors that the meanings and uses have changed through time, and in as earnest an attempt as possible presents a secular study of the Runes not steeped in religious or spiritual associations.
Having studied the Runes from a traditional standpoint and with a modern take, I find the book treads an informed yet creative line between the two. For those who prefer a more traditional route into Rune studies, Tyriel's perspective on them values the meanings and associations we've all come to know, connecting them with modern counterparts. According to him, "We have not merely inherited the Runes, but inherited the right to create with them new meaning and new windows into the spirit." These new meanings, he says, "reach deeply into our unconscious mind and the collective unconscious."
His creation of the RuneSecrets.net community has opened dialogue on the Runes from all walks of academia and inspiration. In the true spirit of sharing, the site thrives on blogs, forums, and groups generating discussion and contributions from a range of enthusiasts.
So passionate has interest in the Runes become that of as March 1, Tyriel began a free 48-week course at RuneSecrets.com, based on his book. Every two weeks discussion on a specific Rune is opened. The class can be started anytime, and all interested are invited to join.
Tyriel can be found several places around the web. PM Tyriel on Runesecrets.net, or write him at runesecrets [at] gmail.com. Tweet him @runesecrets , and follow him on Facebook.
~*~*~*~
Kelley is a neoshaman and author in North Carolina. She has been on a shamanic path since 1988, and since 2000 has served her local community and an international client base. Her book "Gift of the Dreamtime: Awakening to the Divinity of Trauma" chronicles her pivotal step into the role of modern shaman. Kelley's current work focuses on The Tribe of the Modern Mystic, an effort to promote community and support among seers experiencing spiritual emergency as they begin their paths. She is a Reiki Master and is currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity.
Find Soul Intent Arts updates on Facebook and @SoulIntentArts. Read Kelley's literary updates and tweets @SKelleyH.]]>Emotional Avoidance and Disbelief in Deathtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12637512012-02-09T14:34:32-05:002012-04-10T05:12:01-04:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/"And as I have said to him a thousand or more times through the years, 'Well isn't life just a kick in the pants?' -- Esther Hicks, on the recent death of her husband, Jerry.
It's an odd thing to say, isn't it -- disbelief in death. Usually people contest life after death, or concepts like reincarnation. Yet, there are people who express that there is no such thing as death. Meaning, they believe that physical death is the birthing of the soul into some higher expression of consciousness, which remains undiminished and lives on. In this higher thinking, the physical path leading to death is insignificant.
While I do experience that the soul in some guise persists after the form expires, I most definitely experience that our life as well as our physical death are highly relevant events in our soul's growth. My reality perches on the cycles of Nature, which is comprised of seasons building and harvesting, death and rebirth. As an animistic spiritual occupant of the formed Nature realm, every season contributes something new, as does my emotional reaction to each season. Not honoring that death is part of the experience here -- that it's supposed to be -- is lacking. Moreover, to expect there to be birth without death in Nature's timing seems arrogant.
Am I'm splitting hairs? Is this just the difference between speaking literally and figuratively? Maybe. Maybe underlying such a belief is the distinction between finite physical death and spiritual infinity. Of late, though, I've encountered several spiritual healers, shamans, who insist that there is no such thing as death. Part of their practice hails death always as a joyful passage that should be celebrated.
To a large degree this belief is a New Age import of the "always be happy" variety. Given that context, I wonder how such healers work with grieving others. To approach death as nonexistent for yourself or your own beliefs is one thing. As a healer, to insist such to those in the midst of the emotional storm of grief baffles me. In fact, I find that treatment steeped in denial and emotional avoidance.
I admit, I'm wary of healers who seek a shamanic path with eyes trained only on what spirit guides say, to the detriment of acquiring skills in the pastoral counseling aspects of the shaman's role. The human dynamic is nothing if not laced with sticky, often deeply troubling emotional states, such as grief. These emotions can't be overlooked in the healing process any more than they can be avoided in life, itself. Talking with spirit ancestors for guidance and insight into healing is no substitute for being present and helping someone process grief after tremendous loss. Processing emotion is as essential to shamanic work as spiritual guidance. In fact, sometimes we can't even hear the spiritual guidance until we process emotion.
Modern shaman Sandra Ingerman gives wonderful insight into moving through stages of grief in a recent article, "How to Deal With Grief." Her approach to working with grief could be applied not just to the loss of a loved one, but to distress following any life transition.
We can only meet someone where they are. We cannot force them to be in an emotional place that they're not, which means that in order to help them shift into a lighter state, we must possess skills that assist them in processing heavy emotions. Regardless of higher consciousness awareness of the soul's infinite path, I see no value in complicating someone's grief by insisting that the loss underlying it isn't important.
Ultimately, if physical life didn't play a significant role in the shaping of our soulstories, we wouldn't come here. We wouldn't do this dance through Nature's seasons of constant progression and regression. We wouldn't put ourselves through the emotional expanse of the human experience.
How do your beliefs about death and the soul help you cope with loss? How do they shape how you live?
Kelley is a neoshaman and author in North Carolina. She has been on a shamanic path for 24 years, and for 14 years has served her local community and an international client base. Her book "Gift of the Dreamtime: Awakening to the Divinity of Trauma" chronicles her pivotal step into the role of modern shaman. Kelley's current work focuses on The Tribe of the Modern Mystic, an effort to promote community and support among seers experiencing spiritual emergency as they begin their paths. She is a Reiki Master and is currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity.
Kelley writes the column, Intentional Insights - Q&A From Within, and has been published in many journals and anthologies. She is a founder of The Saferoom Project, a non-profit support network for sexual assault survivors, and their partners, family and friends. Kelley honors the path of the modern Druid. Her shamanic practice is Soul Intent Arts, and she is vigorously involved with the worlds in and around her.
For more on consciousness, click here. ]]>Totems of the Holiday Seasontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11576442011-12-22T20:00:14-05:002012-02-21T05:12:02-05:00Kelley Harrellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelley-harrell/
Totems, for most shamanists, are soul animal kindred, though those who know me recall that I work extensively with plant spirits. Bear in mind as I explore the possibilities of holiday power allies that when I refer to totems I include animals, plants, minerals and elements. Generally speaking, totems are complex symbols that move us in some way. For me, the power of totems extends through several layers. I greet them as archetypes -- collective traits found through the particular species, as spirits of nature, as an energetic manifestation specifically visiting me, which some refer to as "Unverified Personal Gnosis" (UPG), and as creatures of the wild, drawing from study of the totem's behavior, habitat and anatomy.
Popular holiday totems today are mostly of Western European origin and influence, such as mistletoe, fir tree, reindeer, the Yule log, doves, geese, holly, ivy. More recent imports are the Mexican poinsettia and Middle Eastern persimmons and pomegranates. Most of my holidays totems happen to be among the fairly well-known; however, my reasons for including them may be a bit lesser common. Also, a couple of them aren't typical at all.
Reindeer. The mythology that they can fly is attractive, though I work with their energy this time of year for their stamina. Reindeer are known to be resourceful in extremely cold, almost unbearable conditions, and they work well in large groups. I call reindeer in to help me get through the social anxiety that can come with holiday gatherings, to remind me that I can survive anything, well.
Yule Tree. I regard the Yule Tree as the altar hosting the entire season, and as my indoor connection to the frigid, wild outdoors when I least want to weather it. If there is one totem that I can't do without, it's the Yule Tree, which is usually some variation of a fir. From its branches hang decades of holiday memories and virtually every other symbol of the season, making it the center of sacred space in my home. At its base I leave gifts for those I love most in my life; thus, I imbue the tree with gratitude that I am able to give them gifts, and I feel an excitement for sharing that is greater than any other time of the year. To the tree itself, I'm grateful for its evergreen inspiration to persevere through all things, for being a symbol of beginning and ending, both at once.
Yule Log. The symbol of fire is potent this time of year, largely because I'm always cold, and because I want to be reminded of light, of inspiration, of a reliable rotation of seasons. Somewhere in my honoring of the season is a lighted fire reminding me that the sun is returning. It is also where I burn my summary of the year -- what I've accomplished, and what I do not wish to carry forward -- blessed with flame. The ashes are then scattered through the garden, to build the life of the near year. Both the log and the fire are relevant to this act. While the fire transmutes the sacraments of my own wellbeing, the log reminds me that I don't have to be my only vessel. I don't have to carry everything by myself.
Snowman. Yep. The snowman is shamanic in essence because mythologically it is the direct result of a manifest human creation taking on its own life force. It's the shamanic narrative of entering some magical space and shapeshifting with the elements to return some inspirational spirit to the world, and carrying on its teaching long after the ecstasy has melted--with a button nose and two eyes made out of coal. If we have snow, there will be a snowman in our yard. And if we don't have enough precipitation for frozen art, through the spirit of the snowman I recall the power of the elements to mirror myself, to remind me that everything is alive and looking back at me, extending an opportunity for partnership.
Rosemary. Yes, the culinary herb. I grow most of the herbs used in my cooking and ceremonies, and my relationship to this particular plant spans about 12 years. Rosemary figures into my ritual work often as a smudging agent, clearing away mental, emotional and energetic clutter. Tying into evergreen life force, consuming rosemary at this time of year gives me a sense of inner purifying and connecting with that renewable stream of life force. It reminds me also that ultimately, I consume life.
As you decorate for this season, think about the totems that are important to you and the reason that they move you. Are they traditional to your family or religion? Have you discovered new totems as you explore personal meanings of the season? How do you incorporate totems into your ceremonies and observations? If you're not sure where the totems of your holiday expression originate, look them up. Learning their history can help delineate their potency for you. And if you're truly ready to embark on the spirit of the season, ask the totems of your holy days to speak their spirit of the season to you, themselves.
A passionate supporter of social causes, a civic voice sounding our shifting cultural landscape, a wonderful mother, and a brilliant writer -- meet Beth Winegarner. Creator of Backward Messages, a forum openly discussing social elements that feed violence in teen culture, and the media that perpetuates myths around them, Winegarner doesn't hold back. She takes on sacred cows that have always clouded adult judgment where youth behavior is concerned -- heavy metal, video games, the entertainment industry, and the occult. Her work deconstructs every façade that informs our policy, parenting, and perspectives on teens. Not stopping to just debunk socially accepted truths about teens behaving badly, her platform goes on to highlight the real issues creating problems. Among them she cites lack of mental health support, parenting, and in some cases, healthy social communities.