Lately, I’ve been thinking about the human form as an intricate permaculture, from a holistic point of view containing everything we need to be healthy in mind, body and soul if we can keep our living world of the self—psyche, soma and spirit—in good balance. If we think of our body self as a biological unit and tend to it as we wish all people to appreciate, respect, and treat the earth, we may discover that we have the power to maintain not only a healthy persona, but the power to do anything we set our intent to. In fact, we humans are multifaceted, multilayered beings, not simply one size fits all, living organisms as deep as the oceans, as varied as the earth’s crusts, and as expansive as the universe. We are very complicated beings.
Everyone feels that they are different on the inside than they are on the outside. We may present one side of ourselves to the world, the safely prepared and carefully honed ego self but keep our inner self private, as is appropriate. When we delve deeper into the world of the inner self, exploring the layers of the unconscious, we discover that we are more elaborately constructed than at first suspected.
What follows is an excerpt from my upcoming book The Recapitulation Diaries: The Man in the Woods, year one of a three-year shamanic journey through my own multifaceted self. During my recapitulation I discovered that, by intent, I could volitionally experience more than one world simultaneously. I was reminded of the following experience from nine years ago by the violent thunder, rain, and lightning storm that barreled through our area last night. It feels appropriate to post it in this blog.
It’s thundering and lightning and I’m sitting on my bed in my room at night in the dark, surrounded by windows on three sides. I begin doing the recapitulation magical pass, the sweeping breath. Lightning flashes and thunder cracks loudly as I sweep my head back and forth, back and forth, breathing in my own energy and passing out my abuser’s negative energy. The flashing of the lightning and the crashing of the thunder accompany me as I sweep my head back and forth. The rain beats against the windows and the winds whip as the tremendous storm pounds out its flashing, drumming rhythms.
In the dark haziness of my room I’m aware of a scene off to the left and slightly in front of me. The silhouette of a seated figure on top of a mountain ledge appears, clearly discernable through the rain that is pounding down in torrents on this scene, remarkably like the storm raging outside. I’m aware that I am both sitting in my room at this moment and that I am also that figure sitting on the ledge and that I should go to that mountaintop.
Suddenly I’m no longer just sitting on my bed. I am also in ancient times, sitting on the ledge of a cliff, overlooking a vast valley in the dark of night, on a promontory sticking out into air, into the storm raging all around me. I am aware of the presence of others behind me in the shelter of a cave, but it’s my time to sit in the elements, to brave the forces of nature, to unflinchingly allow myself to sit exposed, unprotected, but fully aware that I have within me the strength and courage to sit here for as long as it takes, until I’m done with this challenge.
The storm rages and someone places a rough-woven, thick woolen blanket over my head and shoulders. This is allowed, the blanket is woven with symbols and icons that will protect and provide me with added strengths. I am a native woman, a tribal woman on a journey. Meanwhile, I am still in my bedroom, sitting on my bed doing the sweeping breath, breathing in and out, sweeping my head from side to side, the storm continuing to drum as I ride its energy.
Back on the ledge, I become the storm; I breathe it in and out. The thunder, the lightning, the darkness, the earth, the stone ledge I sit upon become one with me. I am earth and sky, water and sound, light and dark. I am journeying and yet sitting solidly at the same time, both on the ledge and on my bed simultaneously. I am strong, committed to taking this journey without fear and without regret. I know this is my duty, my destiny, and my challenge, but also the fulfillment of my shamanic line. I am completing my tests of worthiness and humbleness before all the gods of nature. I am testing my inner strengths, while acknowledging those sitting behind me as my guides. In full awareness I am marking this moment of my journey, knowing that this is part of my process, trusting all I have experienced in the past, all I am experiencing at this moment, and all that is to come as necessary, if I am to evolve.
Suddenly I am taken into the belly of the storm. I leap into its mouth, I sit upon its tongue, I swallow its saliva, I feel the beat of its pulse, I tremble with the rumble of its heart, and I withstand the blinding light of its intent. I am its apprentice at the same time that I acknowledge its power as my own, simultaneously humbly grateful for it and daringly accepting of it.
When it’s done, when the storm subsides, I am spat out of its mouth. As the winds die down, as the thunder rumbles off into the distance and as the rains slow to a drizzle I find myself back upon the ledge where I have been sitting for days, still under my blanket, now damp on the outside though warm and dry in the inside. My guides come out of the cave. They lift me by my arms, steadying me upon my feet. Helping me to walk upon my wobbly legs, they take me with them into the warmth and dryness of the cave where they have kept a fire going.
“Well done. You have done well,” I hear them say.
As I finish my recapitulation breath magical pass the storm ceases, the thunder rumbles off into the distance and the lightning quiets to intermittent flashes. The mountaintop scene where I have just journeyed disappears from my room. I’m still sitting on my bed, fully aware of having been in two places at once, having gone on a journey of significance into an ancient experience while expelling alien energy from my current body self. Though I’m not sure what it means I come away with a greater understanding of my self as wholly in alignment with the greater universe.
I also now know that my inner strength and determination are solidified, firmly aligned with my spirit and with my greater intent to continue trusting this shamanic recapitulation process that I have been allowing myself to take. I also know that I am indeed just beginning my journey, a journey of humbleness and awe, of inner self constantly being asked to make adjustments, to nonjudgmentally acquiesce to the process, to stay in alignment with what comes to guide. In addition, by constantly pushing myself to keep taking the inner journey, I have found that true self and innocence are completely compatible, trustworthy, reliable, and viable, no matter what world I might find myself in. I am indeed on a magical journey!
Here’s to magical journeys for everyone!
Jan