Very often I am asked what do I mean when I ask folks to bring an "eco-friendly offering" to the land or to Spirit when attending my journey circles or medicine gatherings. Making offerings of love & gratitude is an important part of my practice. I make them during every walk in nature, during times of duress, when I feel helpless against the atrocities of the world or when I am full up with appreciation for the blessings of life. Here is a wee time with me at the Squamish River, talking about and making offerings. I hope this can help answer questions and I invite you to join the many of us who are loving up the world.
Enjoy this beautiful day!
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Ahhh yes! Working with an altar can become a juicy, tangible way of working in our personal spiritual practice. They bring us a physical place to tend to. It works with the powerful subtlety of symbols directly speaking to our subconscious. On a left-brained, scientific side of things, an altar brings together electromagnetic frequencies of items and the energetics of thought, intention and emotion - to generate a specific vibration - which in turn affects the world around us and our physical, emotional and etheric bodies. Nice huh! Let's look at a couple things before we consider how many altars we might want:
It is a beautiful way of working, one that our human tribe has been inspired by for longer than anyone can truly tell. Often I hear people mention having many altars around their homes, or the jubilant desire to create many. To me, this signals a caution to look at - it can end up feeling like a bit like a home with every single light on, with a whole lot of energy beaming out from many points around the house. If we go further and imagine each light bulb has a different intense colour; like each altar might have a different intention, the effect could be rather overwhelming, confusing, or even conflicting. It can become a lot to mindfully tend to on a practical level. A lot to feel. A lot of energy coursing through the night while you sleep. In many traditions an altar or shrine to one's ancestors is tended to for our beloved deceased. Some ancestral altars or shrines are actually kept in a cupboard, special box, or are only created during certain times of the year, due to the added feel of "company" or a sense of more personalities within one's home that may stem from such altar work. For myself, I have an altar for my personal work, or work on behalf of a friend, client, or family member, and we have a shrine for our Ancestors. To me, this is plenty to work with. My altar changes and refreshes as I do, as my practice does, and is definitely something I feel sensitive about when I have company over, especially because it is in our main living space. With energetic work like this the fields of those present may be affected and can contribute or interfere too (lets face it, lovely energy and beautiful objects are attractive to touch!) My preference is to lay it to rest and keep it covered when guests are over. It is a place of personal work, not a conversation piece. Just these two power centers within our house create plenty for me to tend to, work with, and live in the energy of. Other people may have a different threshold - but it is interesting to me to consider the call to have many altars all over one's home as instead a call to work more deeply with just one. Consider too if you are one called to have many altars, what is your nervous system is experiencing - would more energy sources around a hyper-vigilant, excitable person create a harmonious feel or overwhelm? If you struggle with learning to rest, pause, think things through, would more power sources help or hinder? Do you tend to have lots of fantastic ideas but burn out before seeing them to completion? Does the dedicated time spent with each fit practically into your day-to-day? Would many shrines, places to honour, to experience gratitude at, and leave offerings with, fit the bill instead of more altar work? Having altars ALL over the house is really something to consider! Ahhh summertime soul-work season is upon us! So many exciting, deep, fun, and powerful opportunities for collective yet also personal healing work. Solstice celebrations, fire ceremonies, the Conscious Goddess Festival, workshops, vision quests, plant spirit experiences, spiral dances, labyrinth walks... yummmm! Such good stuff! and yet... afterwards... What happens after? After such moving and personal healing work, after our heart-felt connections and tribe building, we head home. Back to our mundane world of jobs, spouses, kids, emails, bills, television, grocery store lighting, facebook trolls, rigid scheduling or simply home alone to more solitary and solo lives...alone. Yet you just had this powerful, earth shattering internal experience! and these two worlds may feel like separate realities that really have a hard time even coming close to meeting. You might feel irritated, discombobulated, frustrated, having strange dreams, or simply dying to convey your amazing insights to others who can't fathom its depth. You might even just forget - like a lost dream upon waking.
This time of Integration is often considered the hardest part of any initiatory or deep healing work. I can tell you from my experiences as a brainwave technician, as well as my personal development, and field of shamanic practice - this happens much more often than is desirable. It happens in the realms of medical, mental health, spirituality, alternative therapies, and training schools - this western workshop mentality has forgotten how to hold people all the way through to the other side of Integration. There is a lack of guidance and support for people working to bring their new gifts, healing and insights into their regular lives. (and actually the personal process often starts BEFORE the event!) Here are some tips to support this sensitive and important time:
We talk a lot about building relationships with the land, connecting to nature, establishing a place where you listen to the trees whisper wisdom, invite the river to cleanse your heart, draw on the strength of stones...but what happens when you have to say goodbye? When you move and leave your shrines, fae, elementals, and place of solace behind? When a land is no longer accessible to you, here are a few steps of my leaving process.
Many of us crave a deeper meaning to life, a sense of connection to a greater whole, to bring a sense of spirituality into our day-to-day. But of course it has to be easy, and well, it can’t take a lot of time either, because our schedule is just so full. Is this even possible? Yes. Yes it is!
Click the image below to read the article I wrote for elephant journal This post is written for The Conscious Goddess Festival - the many faces of the Goddess, in Squamish this June 24 - 26. As women, we embody different aspects of the Goddess at different times, in certain situations, as we cycle through the month, and phases of life. We have the sweet maiden self, the fierce warrior, a nurturing mothering side, hot sexy vixen, wise, wise crone, so many! There are times we plunge so deep into darkness we fear being lost forever, and times so filled with love and light it bursts from our bodies that simply can't contain it all. The medicine wheel is a powerful and rich teaching. A compass to orient and guide us. One culturally inclusive wheel that easily demonstrates this wisdom, is of our seasons. It is always the same. Repeating. From the dark, inward stillness of Winter always comes the sweet birthing Spring with an expanse of possibilities. The heat and activity of full Summer action gently shifts into the harvests of Autumn, where the inward focus returns to us with the shortening days. Looking at these energies at play around the wheel of the year, the many faces of the Goddess can be harmoniously placed.
I invite you to explore the Goddesses of your cultural heritage, and the feminine deities or archetypes you are drawn to and create your own personal medicine wheel of the Goddess. Let's begin together:
If you would like more support around how to use your medicine wheel, more can be found HERE I hope you will join us at The Conscious Goddess Festival this June! I will be holding the Saturday morning ceremony and leading us through a heart centered exercise of connecting with the energies written about in this article. Find information and tickets HERE! Healers of the soul, bean feasa, medicine people. western shamanists, animists and certain energy workers often speak of “medicine” in ways that are sometimes confusing to us. Usually when we think of medicine we think of a prescription a doctor gives us or an over the counter pharmaceutical to ingest. So what does it mean when we hear our alternative health practitioner speak of the medicine of a cherry blossom or of a garden snake? What healing alchemy could they possibly mean? Many alternative health and spiritual practitioners work with energetic fields and spiritual consciousness, bringing harmony and balance to our lives with the aid of our natural world. Examples of disharmony in these realms would be the tension one can feel in a room after an argument has taken place or a sense the person we are talking to isn’t being “present”, or has a jittery nervous energy. In these cases, the medicine is not drawing on a chemical compound interacting with our physical body as with medical medicines, but instead it draws on the energetic and spiritual qualities for an ability to restore a healthy balance within our emotional, spiritual and then in turn, sometimes our physical health improves as well. Let’s think of some of the qualities cherry blossoms bring us. Softness. Beauty. Sweetness. Gentleness. They are delicate and uplift our spirits after a long hard winter. These qualities make for a sweet remedy to any residual hard feelings after an argument. A shamanist when seeking to bring balance may have the spirit of cherry blossom come through to be applied in a variety of ways. We can bring a bouquet of cherry blossoms into our home, swish them in our water cup to create a flower essence, we can sit under a tree while the breeze snows petals around us on the wind or even visit the spirit of cherry blossoms in a meditation or shamanic journey. Now what about a garden snake? What healing qualities might be found here for the ungrounded, anxious person? Let’s think about snakes for a minute. They are belly to the earth grounded, their skin shedding makes them experts at releasing what they have outgrown, they are acutely aware of their surroundings with a tendency to rest in complete stillness and without wasting energy on useless movement. These aspects all would help balance out an ungrounded person. If a garden snake came to the shamanic practitioner in their journey and brought these medicines, they could be integrated over time by practicing these qualities, perhaps by walking barefoot or lying on the earth, finding ways to release and let go of situations that bring anxiety, and taking time to be still in the sun. Other times we may hear spiritual healers speak about “being in the medicine” and again this has a different meaning. In this case it is usually a reference to undergoing a process of deconstruction followed by growth that is being supported by a conscious personal spiritual practice. A sort of “what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger” type experience. Outwardly it may look like a personal crisis such as the end of a relationship, loss of a job, death of a loved one, maybe mental or physical illness. Inwardly, there is an element of mindfully moving through it, drawing on all the spiritual and energetic supports one has available. Prayer, meditation, energy healing, plant medicines, journeys, vision quests, yoga, dance, making offerings, dream work, journaling, intention setting, following our cultural spirituality, all the aspects of our personal practice - this is being in the medicine. When balance has been restored and health regained, we often find we have reached a better place than previously imagined, stronger, and having learned valuable life lessons. A new and healthier relationship has been found, or a more satisfying job, even renewed physical health and strength. A lovely exercise to try is to identify an area where you feel out of balance, or that you could use some support with. It might be a weary heart, a difficult relationship with a co-worker or racing thoughts at bedtime. Find your symptom situation, and set an intention to notice a natural remedy of energetic or spiritual medicine as you go for a nature walk, sit in a garden or meditate. See what catches your eye, stands out or appears in a dream or meditation. It may be an animal, plant, stone, clouds, wind, warm sunshine, rain drops, bird song - be open to the many forms it may come to you. Then relax and sit with the idea of the remedy until the medicinal qualities become apparent. You could journal stream of conscious style or research information, or simply tap into your inner knowing. Then allow a method of connecting to this medicine come to you. If you need some support in this area, here are 7 ways to cultivate a relationship with spiritual medicine, in this article or you may choose to book a soul restoration session with me. To learn more about my practice and how we can facilitate well-being together, visit www.3foldbalance.com for sessions & journey circle information and www.returntoreverence.ca for our year long immersion programs * Edited in 2022 to update language and links. A medicine wheel is a concept in many shamanic and nature influenced cultures and spiritual lineages, used as a map to orient oneself. It allows you to experience the energies (or medicine) present in each direction. It shows you where you are, what phase you just came from, and what awaits you. The aspects of each direction varies by culture and within that, vary by lineage and within that, sometimes varying by individual - but the general concept appears universal. A repeating cycle to get one's bearings and to move through. This has been one of the most powerful teachings I have received - it greatly influences my life and my practice. The idea is to use your Medicine Wheel to help you mindfully move with the natural energies present at any given time as opposed to struggling against unknown forces. To be able to work with the natural rhythms of the world in a medicinal way. A supportive and healing way. Knowing when it is time to let things rest, or when it is time to rally the troops. When it's time to sow seeds, and when to harvest your efforts. If the natural world around you is slowing down, you may find it more frustrating to be ramping up and pushing ideas forward. But if you wait until the phase with latent energy dedicated to new growth and action, you may find your projects flows effortlessly. You can apply a Medicine Wheel to any aspect of your life, be it your age, your creative process, your spiritual practice, a challenge, or your emotional stages. Generally one moves clockwise around a wheel, this way when "feeling lost" or disoriented, you can find what stage you are at, know what has been completed and see what is coming next. Looking at the Seasonal Medicine Wheel above can be very helpful to begin with as we are so familiar with the repeating seasons of the year. Trees give us a perfect example to follow. In winter they have no leaves, their branches are quiet, sap slows, they lay dormant with their life force energy deep down into the earth. With springtime, tree energy begins to quicken. New shoots, fresh blossoms, birds return with joyous song. There is growth. Summer sees branches full of leaves turned toward the sun, full of life, energy, bearing sweet fruit. Children climb and play in and around. Animals visit and nibble. It's busy and there is a vibrant energy. Come Autumn this energy begins to retreat. Energy dedicated to leaves are no longer the priority. They grow dry with lack of vitality and are released from the places they've known, and become mulchy goodness for something else. Sap begins to slow with the cold. And the energy has returned from the outermost edges and vibrancy, back deep down into the center. Now.... think of all that but with a baby conceived, birthed, growing from maturity into eldership, and finally released back into the mystery where we came from. Now try it with the creative process of a project or idea. See the flow? Some cycles are faster moving, like the Moon. Instead of a 365 day wheel its only 28. There are many many who align their actions and orient their internal realm to work in synchronicity with the moon. This moon pulls the mighty ocean tides, affects women's menstruation (ehem...moontime) biodynamic farmers pay close attention to this energy, and you may notice that neighbourhoods, people in public places, children and even your sleeping patterns are affected as well. The Medicine Wheel of the Day gives us even faster cycles of rest and activity. Which wheel is for you? Each direction of each wheel holds a plethora of aspects related to that phase that all have a natural flow to them. It is that direction's "medicine" and it's available to you! Looking at the samples here of the Seasons, the Lunar, and the Menstrual, you might find similarities among them all. You can get a sense of being able to amalgamate all three into one.
You might find you can identify where cultural deities that you work with would sit. Kali? An Cailleach? Kwan Yin? How about Totem Animals? Solstices and Equinoxes? Elements? Meditate, journey, consult and find or create a wheel that you can identify with, something meaningful. As I mentioned above, many cultures and lineages have different Medicine Wheels steeped in tradition and history. I encourage you to look into your heritage, find an elder, research and see if there is a natural resonance there within you. If you notice the tops (or the North) of my examples, you will find a certain similar energy represented there among them all, but your research may show those energies sit in a different direction. You may also find some people start in the East while others start in the North or South. This is the beauty of diversity. This is where you find your Medicine Wheel. Do you have an affinity for a particular herb? Have you been drawn to certain crystals? Maybe you collect rocks that always seem to catch your eye. These are each invitations to cultivate a relationship with these beings and their unique medicines. Perhaps you have already studied a bit or have begun to work with them and want to take things deeper. There are a good number of methods that you can gradually get to know your new allies with or dive right into a full immersion experience. Here are a few of my favorites. Dreaming: Take a fresh sprig of the plant, a crystal or the stone you want to work with and place it under your pillow (or inside the pillowcase if you are worried about losing it) Thank them for sharing information in your dreamtime. This may come through directly where you meet the spirit and have a lucid dream of asking questions or being shown energies and how to work together, or it may come through as an indirect influence of metaphor where meanings reveal themselves over time. Ritual Bath: Depending on the type of crystal or plant (watching for toxicity or dissolving) having an ritual bath is a lovely way to immerse yourself in the energetic medicine of your new ally, especially if you are sensitive to energy. Rose quartz, amethyst, lavender, rosemary, or stones from special places are all wonderful to bathe with. This isn't a "get-clean" kind of bath, it's a quiet time to feel subtle energy. Light a candle, do some mindful breathing, meditate, and allow yourself to notice how you feel, invite these energies into your thoughts and see how they shift. Make a tea or water: Again using caution around potentially toxic plants and crystals if using a direct method, or stick to an indirect method to be safest - you can transfer the energy of your new friend into teas or waters and bring these medicines right into your body. A direct method is one where the plant/crystal/stone has been washed then placed directly into your water cup, or if a plant it can be brewed as a tea. Some safe crystals for this are rose quartz, clear quartz, or non-irradiated citrine. Generally some safe plants are lemonbalm, lavender, or red-belted polypore (of course I need to advise consulting a professional for any contradictions with existing medical conditions). An indirect method involves placing your item into a flat bottomed glass, then placing this glass into a bowl that has been semi-filled with water. Your item never gets wet, but will infuse the water surrounding the glass with its energy. Again, being thankful and respectful of the gifts being shared with you. This indirect method is safe to use for any plant, crystal or stone. If you are very sensitive you may only need a couple drops of your water or tea to feel its effects, you might choose to sip all of it slowly over the day, or you may wish to drink much over a few days. 'Shamanic' Journey or Meditation: If you have learned the shamanic technique of journeying, or if you have a meditation practice suitable, you may glean a lot of information by visiting the spirit of the plant/crystal/stone that you are working with. You can ask for a healing, for guidance on how to work further with them, thank them for showing you just what the medicine they are offering is and importantly how you can reciprocate in the relationship. Wearing: Tuck your stone, plant or crystal into your pocket, into a medicine pouch around your neck, find or make a pendant where it touches your skin (some plants like Devil's Club can be dried and made into beads) In this way you are in constant contact with the medicine, the energies of this helper. Skin to skin or simply in your energy field, there will be a conversation happening as you move through your day. Mesa/Lia Mala/Crane Bag/Medicine Bundle: Some shamanists or medicine people carry a Mesa, Lia Mala, Crane Bag or other Medicine Bundle. If you have one of these, tucking a new stone, crystal, or part of a plant into the folds is a nice gentle way of bringing their medicine into yours. If it is right to do so, you might add this piece fully inside to work more deeply, to alter the harmony already present, and to stay as a longer term influence. Each lineage will have differing ways of working with your medicine hearth so you may want to consult an elder for guidance around this. Saining/Sacred Smoke/Smudging: Some plants, even certain fungi, are beautiful to cleanse and bless with while burning. You may already know how buffalo sage brings about a different cleansing than tobacco or palo santo, but you might also find rowan berries become your go-to for protection while lavender opens the door to your Ancestors. You may find that some plants instantly connect you to different healing work, helpers, or area of focus than others. Over harvesting of certain popular herbs gives us an extra nudge to look local and to our cultural heritages. What is naturally growing in abundance around you? What might your great-great-great-grandmother have burned? I have been sweetly surprised to learn certain plants coming to me have a long history of being added to sacred smoke rituals. I had been working with fomitopsis pinicola for about 20 years before I discovered some First Nations used it during smudge rituals. This knowledge deepened my respect for this powerful healing ally. Oh! how I love working in these ways! Remember, we don't just ask and take from our human or animal friends, we also care for them and support them when they need it. The same is true for our plant, crystal or stone friends. We are entering into a spiritual relationship, they may become sacred objects and part of your medicine basket, we need to always treat them with respect and honour. Never leaving them laying around or placed directly on the floor, cleansing and recharging them with moon or sun light, salt, the running water of a clear stream, or by saining. Feed them offerings, whisper your gratitude, sing to them, wrap them in special cloth or place them on your altar. This is a special and personal friendship :) 2 months ago I cooked up some rice, put it into two jars and put them in my cup & plate cupboard. Every time I opened the cupboard I'd pick up one jar and Love it. I Ignored the other. Sure enough, the love rice is still white with a small amount of liquid forming on the bottom. The ignored rice is rotting. Turning beige and manky looking. Now I ask.... how much do we Love or Ignore our body? Our homes? Our Lives? Our Spiritual Nature? Family members? What aspects are we ACTIVELY Loving? Where are we ignoring? What would happen to Hate rice? Hated bodies? Hated Lives? This is an amazing experiment that will bring home the personal knowing that our energy, our thoughts and our intentions have a great affect on the world around us, our cells, and on life. Love the food you make. Love the people you see. Love the water you drink. Love the medicines you make and take. Love the ground you walk on. Love the air that comes into and out of your lungs. Its real. Xoxo *Update* February 21 2016 6 months in - and LOOK! Full disclosure, I haven't been loving my rice quite as often as I did in the beginning, but it definitely is still white and fairly fluffy while the ignored rice is completely manky beyond mank. (These are the same jars, I just had to re-write the details on from all the handling.) Sometimes I bring them to the workshops and gatherings that I host to demonstrate first hand just how powerful our intentions are right before we meditate on radiating love into the world, before we bless water, or before we create medicine bundles. Whenever you think you are just one small person trying to make a difference in the big wide world, remember this image and know you are actually making a big difference. Better yet, cook up your own rice and really really KNOW it! Man, one day I'm going to have to open these jars to clean them out - ugh! haha *Update* July 18 2016
WOW! We have made it to 11 months! I admit the last number of months I actually stopped loving the Love Rice :( I had grown accustomed to bringing these jars to workshops and journey circles to demonstrate the power of our intentions, emotions and before engaging in Transfiguration work. Interestingly, I noticed some folks were drawn to shake these jars as they looked at them. At one gathering however the individual white grains of rice were shook into a mush ball. I felt like the experiment was over and procrastinated at opening the jars to wash them out ('cuz I mean... look at that really manky one!) I tucked them back into the cupboard and thought about my reaction to the situation. Then I noticed something... despite the Love Rice being a mush ball it was still white, and it was still white even after weeks and months of not actively loving it anymore. The effect of having been loved for over half a year had a lasting impact. It didn't just rot right away. What a powerful revelation! What a release of pressure to adhere to strict and rigid thought patterns and habits! It's okay if we sometimes fall off the wagon and into self doubt, or have our inner critic speak up periodically - the effects of our loving intentions are lasting! Below is a photo of the rice jars at 11 months old. At 1 year - August 15th I will take one last photo and brave the emptying out process with 5 sticks of Nag Champa burning <3 I really encourage you to try this at home. Show your friends, kids, blog about it - we need such strong lessons in mindfulness and love in the world. |
Juliette JarvisA bean feasa of Gaelic heritage shares stories & insights from her animist and 'shamanic' practice on the West Coast of Canada. Categories
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