I usually love the first night of the introduction to shamanism class. I usually love the first night of any of the classes. We have just started Reiki as well. I ask them 'why this class?' I watch them while they answer.
Who is answering from the mental plane-staying in what they know, what they think they know, what they've already taken? The expert that wants the class to know it?
Who comes to the class like a new born, open and curious and willing to play?
Who is wounded and wanting an answer to some inexplicable feeling that is there that they can't describe and can't tell anyone about?
Who is really in the wrong room and probably won't come back?
I'm not often wrong. I've played all the parts myself at one time or another over the last 20 years. Twenty years! Whew. That's getting to be a considerable amount of time in the linear. In shamanic time-it's just a moment ago. It's now. I can step back to my first day of my first class. I can step back to the first time I sensed the energetic field of someone else and was surprised. I can step back instantly to the first time I fumblingly 'felt' a chakra and was sure I was doing it wrong.
I can remember so clearly the first time I sat with my stones and my cloth and thought, "What am I doing with these toys?" I was so adult, so critical. I remember watching some of the others as they played, and thinking "I wish I could do that!" But I didn't seem to be able to. It was a lost art to me. I wanted to. I looked around and wondered what they knew that I didn't?
And then remembering that even as a child, I didn't really know how to play. Play was something I put away when my world got very scary and very tumultuous. Our deep inside self says "it isn't safe to play", and it gets put away.
I was 35 and I didn't know how to play with my children. I watched their innocence and delight. I would sit on the floor with them with their toys and imitate them. The joy and wonder! And I would think "when did I lose that?" I was a very good adult. I had been a very good adult since I was about four. Maybe even younger. Maybe as young as a year and a half when I got out of the hospital. My mother says I was changed. I was. The child was gone. Put away. Not gone forever though, and this I can attest to.
I found my way back to my child. She was deep inside. And I even thought for awhile it might be better for her to stay there. But it isn't. It's always better for that lost inner child to come home to us.
So. There we are. The first night of class. And I am inviting them to play. Come and play with me, with yourself, with your own mind. Now. This moment. For two hours, suspend that critical adult. Leave her/him outside wit h your shoes, and come into my world. Come into your inner world. Come this way.
But this month for the first time, before I could even weave the spell, offer the invitation, there was immense challenge in one of the classes. What IS this? Why am I here? I smile.
You are here by choice. Some inner part of you prompted you to click and register.
But no. IF someone else has signed you up because THEY think you need it, it is not your choice. Then it is an intervention and there is opposition in you. Maybe you are able to stay open minded for 2 hours and find out why you are there, or maybe you are too angry. Anger is always about fear.
The challenge to let go of your defenses is always fearful.
But.
The very universe herself is challenging us right now, right here, this moment and the next one, to do exactly that.
And. Shamanism and Reiki are a challenge to find a new path. To find a way to let go of the shield of anger and opposition that you have held your entire life to 'keep you safe'. What if you let down your defenses, and you let yourself play? What then? Who will you be? And what if you don't recognize yourself?
Whatever you have read about Shamanism, about Reiki about any of the healing arts, my invitation to you is to play. Find the lost inner child and come back to yourself, the self you were born to be. This work is an invitation to find your way out of the illusion of dark as your safe place and back to your own light.
Don't follow me. Follow yourself. The way is through the heart. And the way is back to embracing all of who you are. If any of these classes didn't appeal to you, try again. Find another one, or a book, or simply get quiet and reach up and out. The energy is all around you and it will meet you and your answers are there.