Transmutation News July 2004
Happy summer!
I realized half way through June as I was journeying on how I wanted to honor the summer solstice that I did not give you a ceremony to honor this change.
I hope with all the suggestions I have given you over the years for ceremonies to honor the summer solstice that you were able to come up with your own.
For myself I am out on the land so much everyday honoring the trees, the plants, the birds, the animals, the rocks, and the rest of life that is prevalent where I live, I feel a continual celebration and appreciation for nature. So for the solstice I continued my practices as well as used my rattle and incense to empower and honor the spiritual energies around and in my house.
I really believe that the practice of transfiguration of remembering our divine nature is crucial to our own healing and the healing of the planet.
At the same time it has been important for me to learn how to hold the duality that I am divine and there is no separation. And yet, I am in a body that experiences separation. For me I have been working with the joy of being a spirit that only recognizes oneness that has embodied on this planet to manifest beauty in the world. As I have written before I keep experiencing the joy of caretaking this great garden we call earth.
This means I continue my transfiguration practice of experiencing oneness throughout the day as I also continue exploring what brings me joy in being human. I have found that as I continue to work in my own garden at home there is great joy in connecting with the spirits of the land, the elements, the plants and trees, and the animal life.
As the drought continues in New Mexico I am outside a lot watering where I can and sharing the light and love to help empower the plants and trees.
In late May as I started spending more time in my garden I felt inspired to begin working with making flower essences. I always liked the idea of flower essences, but never tried making them myself.
I began with making an essence of cherry with the blossoms on my cherry tree. I love creating in this way. Being out on the land talking with the devas of the plants and trees and making essences brings out the old alchemist in me. As I have now made eight different essences I feel the same excitement in my being as when I first started working with shamanic journeying.
The day after I made my first essence of cherry the wind really started coming up. I watched the weather report that night, and there was a severe wind warning. I went to sleep that night feeling some fear for some of the trees as the wind was so strong. I had to remind myself of the divinity of the trees and to trust their knowing of how to stand strong. With this thought I drifted to sleep.
During the night I had a dream that many people were running around trying to make an essence of the wind. I was standing outside yelling this is not the right time. I was saying, “The wind is too violent. You are bringing the energy of violence into your essence.” It felt to me like an endless dream.
When I awoke in the morning the wind was still strong, but not as violent as the night before. I knew I was to go outside and make an essence of the wind. I brought my bowl of water outside and stood in the sun with the wind blowing. I thanked the wind for all the help it had given me over the years. Twice now I was under evacuation alert due to fire danger and the wind changed direction each time saving our land and home. The wind has given me many messages that have helped me in my life.
As I spoke to the wind I experienced it dancing around me in a very magical way. The word magical can be very overused, but you know what I mean. I then asked if the wind would share its essence in my bowl of water. The wind moved through the water in a way that I knew in every cell of my body that my request was answered. I left the bowl in the sun for three hours as I do with all the essences and then I brought it in and stored it in brandy so I can use it over time.
I know there are many ways to work with essences. Some people work with flower essences and some crystal essences. I had not heard of making essences out of the elements. But I will continue to work with making an earth essence, sun essence, and water essence.
I follow “the recipe” in Michaelle Small Wright’s Garden Workbook. But I use my own journeys to work with the devas and spirits and have developed my own way of working.
This has become a fun and joyful process for me. I love to watch how nature responds as I making my essences. It is great fun to watch how the birds gather to watch what I am doing not from a place of fear but curiosity. Engaging with the spirits of the land brings me to a deeper place in my spiritual life and practice. It feeds my soul.
I continue the process of absorbing light and sharing light through my breath as I have been writing about during the last few months and spend more time engaging in nature in different ways than I have done before. This has brought more peace and joy into my life. And I do feel that experiencing joy in life is an energy so needed in healing the planet at this time. As so many people are lost in confusion, separation, pain, and suffering remembering the joy of life is a healing energy to infuse the collective with.
I hope during these summer months you can find a way to take some time out of your life and establish ways to connect joyfully to the natural world. It is the most nourishing food to the body, heart, mind, and soul.
In my journeys I keep going deeper with the principle of “receiving” that I have shared with you on and off over the last year. I keep getting that as we learn to receive on a deeper level only then can we really learn how to give. I have written over time that giving and receiving are all one process. As you know there are always deeper levels we can attain with our giving and receiving process. And as we learn to receive more, we honor the empowerment of feminine energies on the planet.
I want to emphasize the importance of keeping up a practice of receiving light, love, and nurturance from the food you eat, the water you drink, the air you breathe, and the light you take in. Continue to work with metaphors that I spoke about in the May Transmutation News to help you receive on a deeper level.
And keep up the practice of breathing in and absorbing light and love from the universe and breathing out light and love back into the universe.
On June 8 there was the eclipse of the planet Venus with the sun. This was an event that received much attention from the scientific community. And of course this eclipse was also acknowledged by many spiritual communities which manifested in different prophecies about this time being shared.
The night of the eclipse I had a powerful dream. I dreamt that a young man wanted to go visit some of the major wartime sites on the planet. In my dream there were two sites that he visited. At each site there was an elderly veteran guarding a small cage with a very large snake in it. I am not sure whether the young man or myself as the dreamer was horrified at this sight. For the snake could barely move within the cage. Either the young man or myself freed the snakes out of their cages.
I felt real strongly that there was a power being caged represented by the snakes. And of course to me, it represented the freeing of feminine energies that have been caged up.
Part of allowing the feminine energies to be free has to do with the principle of receiving. We have a great opportunity at this time to balance out our own giving and receiving natures.
I continue to work daily and minute to minute with the spiritual practices that help me deepen my own giving and receiving nature. I continue to work daily and minute to minute with remembering my own divinity and that any feelings of separation from source and the rest of life are pure illusion.
As we all continue to bring spiritual practices into our lives that heal our feelings of separation the energies of separation that we see on the planet today creating war, hunger, hate, and violence will be healed.
Remember every change in consciousness you make affects the entire web of life.
On this note last month I said we would work with changing the field of energy using ceremonies with the elements. We already did some of this work throughout the years. But it is important to keep it up.
There are so many people leading global ceremonies through the web right now. This is great. The more people engage in whatever level they can to honor the earth, air, water, and fire the more the web of life is affected. A collective shift begins to happen. And we must not get caught up in looking for outcomes. We must just continue to do our spiritual work with the deep cellular knowing that a shift is occurring on some level. As I have said many times before, everything starts in the spiritual level before manifesting on a physical level.
I thought this month we would work with water. We have done the following ceremony a few times already. Let’s all try to work together on the new moon, which is July 17.
You can do this ceremony alone or you can work with a group. And please invite your children to participate on any level they are able to. You can go to a body of water where you live and work in nature. Or if you prefer you can gather a bottle of water from a water source near you and work with it at a sacred place for you.
As preparation take 15-30 minutes and walk outside focusing on absorbing the light and love from everything around you and send back light and love with your breath.
While you are at the source of water you want to honor or at your sacred place do your transfiguration practice. Experience yourself fully in your divinity and with the cellular experience of oneness. Use toning as we have done in the past to deepen your experience. We have learned over time in the experiments I have shared with you that harmony within creates harmony without. The water will reflect back to you your divine nature.
If you are working in nature at the water source finish with giving great love and appreciation to all the waters of the world and the rain that comes down which nurture us on all levels.
If you are working with a glass, bottle, or bowl of water bring it back to the water source you got it from. As you empty the water give your thanks and appreciation. Ask the water to send the message of how much we love and appreciate water to all the waters of the world.
We will continue this process next month with air. Remember the spiritual work we do does make a difference.
As I said earlier it is quite a dance to hold the polarity of experiencing one’s divinity and at the same time being human and experiencing the human condition.
As I find myself experiencing a greater joy of life I also keep finding it harder and harder to observe the pain in suffering in children that comes from living in a world of inequality and where the experience of separation creates hate and violence.
Also on the new moon, let’s also honor the energy of innocence. The innocence in children of all species of life and the child within every one of us. Again this can be done through transfiguration or through an honoring ceremony you are inspired to create.
At the end of May I presented parts of the Healing with Spiritual Light training at the Third annual Conference on “Shamanism in Medicine, Expanding Worlds of Healthcare” in Santa Fe, NM. The conference was sponsored by InnoVision Communications.
As part of my presentation we did an experiment. While I was presenting the Medicine for the Earth work at a conference at Findhorn in Scotland I met a physicist who lives in the Findhorn community. He had built a device similar to what was written about in The Secret Life of Plants to measure a plants response to outside stimuli.
While I was at Findhorn, Mark, the physicist asked me if I would ever be willing to try a long distance experiment to see if a plant in his apartment would be aware of communication from a group I was working with.
We tried such an experiment at the conference in Santa Fe. I showed the group a picture of Mark’s philodendron. The picture was on the altar as we did our singing our dancing. It was on the altar as we did healing on each other that involved the process of transfiguration. And then we also did some toning focusing on the plant.
Mark has been moving so he has not had the time to fully examine and interpret the results. He did say that the computed spectrogram shows several interesting variations of the signal. There were some peaks right in the middle of our activities. I wait for more information from Mark. But it is an example of how time and space do not interfere with communication with all of life.
I have shared with you about the study that I am engaging in with The University of Michigan Medical School to research the health benefits of the Medicine for the Earth work. I am delighted to tell your we have the research design and most of our funding. Now we are now looking for volunteers who would like to be part of the study. I have included the advertisement that we are putting out. If you are interested or know someone who might be interested in being a participant in this study please call the phone number listed below.
PLEASE NOTE: Being involved in this study is free of charge. Volunteers coming from out of state only need to pay for airfare.
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Michigan Integrative Medicine
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UM Preventive Cardiology
Medicine for the Earth: Healing the Heart
A Pilot Research Study
Researcher seeks women and men aged 25-75 years with a recent history of heart attack (not less than 6 months or more than 18 months ago) to participate in a spiritual healing research study.
Purpose: to study the effects of participating in a Medicine for the Earth (MFTE) 4-day workshop on psychological stress and physical and emotional wellbeing. Follow up will occur over 6 months. Medicine for the Earth is based on the work of Sandra Ingerman, a nationally and internationally well known teacher, writer and spiritual healer.
If eligible to participate you will be designated into one of three groups. If assigned to the MFTE group you will participate in a 4-day weekend workshop learning ancient spiritual practices to help you to reconnect with the spirit of nature and improve your health. If assigned to the Lifestyle Change Program (LCP) group you will participate in a 4-day weekend workshop learning the importance of nutrition, physical exercise, stress management, and group support to your health. If assigned to the control group you will continue only with your regular treatment.
All research participants will complete a survey and have a blood test at baseline, three and six months. Participants involved in either the MFTE group or the LCP group will complete an additional survey and have a blood test immediately after the workshop.
For more information on how to volunteer for this study call (734) 998-0033 and ask for the Study Coordinator for the Medicine for the Earth research study.
This study is sponsored by Michigan Integrative Medicine and UM Preventive Cardiology and funded in part by the Kalliopeia Foundation.
If you are on my mailing list you will receive or will have received the following flyer. If you are not on my mailing you might want to read the information below.
Trainings to Consider
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Five-Day Medicine for the Earth Gathering
September 5-10 2004 in Santa Fe, NM
My passion is to keep teaching Medicine for the Earth. Due to the fact that I am doing four two-year teacher trainings in shamanic journeying and healing in 2005, I will not be doing a Medicine for the Earth training next year. I will teach many of the practices in all the trainings I do lead, but I will not be doing a week-long gathering.
The five-day Medicine for the Earth Gathering does prepare you to teach the work. Scholarships are available.
Contact: For further information and registration call Corky St. James 505-271-9306
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Second Two-Year Teacher Training in Shamanic Journeying and Healing
starting April 2005 in Santa Fe, NM
Due to the overwhelming interest in the teacher training, I have started a second course in Santa Fe, NM. There are only a few spaces left. My goal is to train people who already have strong experience in shamanic work. Therefore, there are prerequisites to get into this training.
As I already have four trainings in 2005 (in NY, Switzerland, and 2 in Santa Fe) I do not know when I will be offering another training of this kind.
For more information please contact Ruth Aber at 505-438-3366 or email her at: aruthabelle@aol.com
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The Shamanic Dreampath March 6-11 2005 at Sunrise Springs in Santa Fe, NM
I am very excited to bring Carlo Zumstein to the U.S. next year. For years I have been listening to Carlo talk about his workshop on the Shamanic Dreampath. I have been very impressed with what he has to share and the feedback that I get from his students in Europe. I am delighted to make his work available here.
The five-day workshop “The Shamanic Dreampath” opens doors into ways of being and seeing that were common to all our ancestors.
Carlo Zumstein has explored the shamans dream path for more than thirty years, guided by shamanic dream allies. These profound personal experiences connect Carlo with the traditional wisdom of shamanic cultures-including ancient Egypt and the dream yoga of Tibet, as well as the discoveries of contemporary dream research. Upon this basis, he has developed a unique series of dream rituals, which he has been teaching successfully in Europe for the past ten years.
Dreaming becomes a nightly journey of the soul into realms of non-ordinary reality where the soul itself is a dream of the universe. As pure light and in its divine state the soul dreams itself in a process of self-creation back into every day life.
We begin to understand ordinary reality, our life stories, our sufferings and needs, even our bodies as unfulfilled recurrent dreams. By dreaming them to fulfillment, we restore the power of our soul. We experience profound healing, transformation and the liberation of our creative potential to create an intact world.
Using innovative approaches workshop participants will progressively develop their dream memory and dream perception, as well as their ability to dream consciously (lucid dreaming).
Please don’t come expecting psychological interpretation of dreams.
Although Carlo speaks English, the workshop will be translated from German into English. In this way Carlo can speak and guide us in the fluidity and poetic way he is known for. Sandra Ingerman will also be present at this training to assist Carlo.
Carlo Zumstein holds a Ph.D. in psychotherapy and has been a shamanic practitioner for thirty years. After ten years of being a faculty member for the FSS he has founded the Foundation for Living Shamanism and Spirituality. He is the author of three books about shamanism, the shamanic healing of depression, and the Dreampath.
The prerequisite for this training is having good shamanic journeying skills.
For more information and to register contact Ruth Aber at 505-438-3366 or email her at: aruthabelle@aol.com
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If you want to read the Transmutation News in German, Italian, French, or Slovakian please go to the Important Links section of this website listed on my homepage.
The full moon is July 2. Let’s continue to weave together a planetary web of light. Experience the web of light within the earth getting fuller and stronger. Transfigure if you can or visualize, feel, smell, taste, and hear the web of light circling the earth strong and bright and filled with love.
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