S. Kelley Harrell's Blog: Intentional Insights - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism, page 61

What It Is Wednesday — Dauntlessly Dealt (joy) Reality

A weekly dose of dauntlessly dealt reality from the What It Is Wednesday Blog Carnival…

Years ago, when I was in spiritual emergency, I sought out a holotropic breathwork therapist. I recognized my distress wasn’t mind-level, and despite my awareness of that fact, I couldn’t sync myself. Even though I knew what it was, I couldn’t stop feeling funk. I worked with this woman for a while, and she became my mentor. One of the things she taught me was how to find a somatic connection to what I wanted to create in my life. It is one of the most valuable self-help skills I hold, and a tactic I use with pretty much every client.

Somatic means being able to experience something through the body, particularly as distinct from the mind. Somatic release is the ability to feel distressed, yet in the moment of that distress recall a soothing detail of the past, such that the body feels it. For example, consider the coziness of a warm blanket. As soon as the body registers the sensual memory of snuggling under softness against the skin, its comforting weight cocooning peace, its secure confinement holding gently… stress diminishes. When the body can register being soothed, the mind can find purchase to begin doing the same. It seems simple enough, yet the challenge of somatic release comes when there is no memory for the shift that’s needed.

For me that lack was joy. For the longest time, when I looked back at my childhood, I couldn’t isolate moments of joy. As an adult experiencing PTSD, that meant my repertoire of what I could draw on to bring my body to a sense of peace was limited, if not nonexistent.

Keep in mind, all modern self-help and New Age proselytizing is built on victim-blaming. If you want to participate in the triumph of creating your own reality, you have to be able to feel what you want. The trope stops there, hinting that if you can’t feel what’s desired, you’re screwed. Regarding somatic release, that’s a really important detail to be missing, and I just couldn’t find it.

One afternoon when I was particularly lost to myself, my mentor decided to regress me to find a moment of joy in my childhood. Regressing trauma survivors is a very risky undertaking, one even seasoned practitioners don’t rush into.  As someone who did that work for others, I wondered if she was prepared for what we may encounter.

At first there was a lot tension. I just didn’t really want to meander back into my past at all. After all, I was there the first time, and I’d spent a lot of therapy hours and money slogging through it years later. What could be left unwitnessed?

Following the tension came a lot of angst, frustration, and me thinking the session was a bust. Then, just around the edges of bright blurred lights and whirling motion, I found myself on The Scrambler with my cousins. I was about 8 years old, maybe 9, and I was at the annual Wayne County fair with my cousins.

About every year, Uncle Marvin would take me, my sister–Ellen, and our cousins, JC, Tammy, and Eddie, to the Fair. It was a big deal, and Uncle Marvin was brave for taking the five of us by himself. We must have ranged from 3-13 in age, and surely been sugared up on every sweet treat available. But he took us, and in that session the world spun by. The aroma of popcorn and cotton candy filled the air. Hair bands blasted from the Super Himalaya. My shoulder pressed into whoever I was smooshed  up against, squished by the body on the other side of me.

We spun through space, and I was laughing.

I was elated.

I was a perfect moment of joy, then and now.

And it was enough.

When I need to find joy through whatever fogs my present, I go back to that moment on The Scrambler with my cousins, and I’m okay.

Last night was the funeral of my youngest cousin, Eddie, and as true mystery works, the County Fair was just across the way. As the family gathered to remember him, brights lights flashed and fun house music played. It was so appropriate, not just in my memory, but in saying goodbye to someone so precious.

My thoughts are with the family. Please consider them in yours, as well, and consider your moments of joy. Let them embody you, every chance you get.

If You Want to Be Real on your blog, visit the inaugural page —http://www.soulintentarts.com/what-it-is-wednesday/  and follow the instructions there to share your reality with the world!

The post What It Is Wednesday — Dauntlessly Dealt (joy) Reality appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism.

The Weekly Rune – Raidho Reversed

For the week of  2 October 2016

Realizing roots.

Gebo is the half-month rune through 13 October.  Raidho reversed is the intuitive stave, and Uruz indicates the planet’s needs. Read right to left is Gebo, then Raidho reversed, followed by Uruz.

The half-month rune is set by the runic calendar, and governs for a tad over two weeks. The intuitive stave indicates the life force most available to us, which brings the focus of the half-month rune into sharper focus for the present week. It suggests how we can handle these energies. The planetary stave indicates the state of the planet.

Following is a summary of The Weekly Rune. Read the full runecast for more details on how these runes impact human life force over the next week, and how to best manage the curves and twists.

Despite that it’s just now reaching its peak station as half-month rune, over the last month Gebo has flitted in and out in supportive placements. When I do personal readings for clients and it comes up, I tell them this is one of the staves everyone wants in their cast. It brings a general light tone, sense of partnership and balance, and it promotes exchange and elements of closure.

“Better ask for too little than offer too much,

like the gift should be the boon;

better not to send than to overspend.”

Hávamál, #144, Olive Bray translation

As we discusssed last week, “a gift for a gift” and “a gift freely given” are reiterated by Odin throughout the Hávamál. The emphasis of Gebo isn’t just a gift, but the exchange of gifts, balance, and the process around it. A caveat of Gebo that’s often lost is not  tooverextend self to start with. If we’re not poised to give in good faith, don’t. If it will deplete us to give, don’t. These details are very important right now, given the placement of the other staves.

Raidho reversed hints that things aren’t as they are presented. Ultimately when Raidho appears, it’s demanding that we pay more attention to where things are going in life, life force. We don’t have to be graceful about it, though we do have to be flexible. We must deal with it, whatever it is, and do something. Reversed, things may not progress as desired. It’s just an indicator to drop expectations, call in the elements, and re-route the GPS, as needed.

Uruz is a wild thing. With this stave, the planet reminds us to go back to our roots, our wild, our feminine. Remember its associated with Audhumla, the feminine principle in Old Norse cosmology. What’s significant about Her is She created Herself. Now more than ever, we need to reconnect with the primal spirit of the planet. We need to make very clear declarations of where we stand, how we stand, and what that means in the time that we have here.

We are being called upon  to move, this week, to act. Knowing isn’t enough. Holding space isn’t enough. Be honest with self about what resources are available to give, then clarify how they will be given. The roots of Uruz rise to support us in that endeavor, and in so, we rise to give back.

Read the full runecast.

Learn more about the Reclaiming the Runes Intensive and preview course.

Originally published on Soul Intent Arts.

The post The Weekly Rune – Raidho Reversed appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism.

Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude

My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.

I’m grateful my kids kept their mouths shut about a super sneaky birthday party for their dad, and for all the awesome friends and family who came to play a birthday game with him!

I’m thankful for prednisone :(.

I’m grateful for life.

What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks? Who is grateful for you? I am!

This post is part of Lexa Cain’s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things, along with her  co-hostesses L.G. Keltner and Tonja Drecker. Participate by emailing laura.6eg(at)gmail.com to request to hop on, then post your gratitude every Friday.  Easiest blog hop ever! Thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment and collective awareness.

The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism.

What It Is Wednesday — Dauntlessly Dealt (elderhood) Reality

A weekly dose of dauntlessly dealt reality from the What It Is Wednesday Blog Carnival…

Along the discussion of deathwalking, at some point the idea of elderhood enters the forum. As daunted as we are to talk about death in the west, elderhood is just as taboo. We look at elderhood as the foyer of death, which traditionally, chronologically makes sense. We become elders through life experience, application of wisdom, being recognized as someone with the credibility to lead. For us, though, it speaks of getting older, looking older, taking on greater responsibility, facing duty, leadership, ancestry, and legacy. We associate that state of knowing with the life stage of ending.

What has fostered our rejection of elderhood? A key factor is our widespread social disregard for and lack of care provided to elders. Nobody wants to get old and be forgotten, shelved, or considered useless, and seeing others become debilitated by age frightens us. Instead of dealing with that reality, we push it aside, along with collective care for elders. In our culture we still base worth on what we physically contribute, not on what we know, what legacy we leave, or how hard we worked to get where we are. We don’t value wisdom as worth preserving, tending, savoring, cultivating; therefore, neither are those who carry wisdom. These lacks leave us in a state of wisdom not being carried forward; we reinvent the wheel, one generation to the next.

From a figurative standpoint we lack of rites of passage in our culture–deep, spiritual rites that flow with the change of natural season, life season. I can list lack of parenting, disconnect from Nature, lack of tribe, privilege, and entitlement as factors. All of these play a role in our collective rejection of elderhood. As a result of our cultural attitude toward elderhood, we don’t have a trove of elders to look to for cultural guidance, or we don’t embrace those that we have. When no one with leadership skills steps up to lead, we get what we get, which may not be what’s best for all involved.

The reason elderhood is on my mind is because, frankly, I’m getting older. I’ve always felt old, crone, even, though seeing the older generations of my family leave, as well as some of the younger ones, it becomes evident that somebody has to step up. Somebody has to accept the role of elder to the family, and not just because s/he’s the last one standing. In fact, we’re best fit for the role if we’ve done the work to get there, before we are called upon to be elder. We all have to come to terms with our potential for elderhood, and make heartspace for it to grow all along. We have to be willing to put our youth down long enough to realize the value of our own experience is much bigger than our single path. We have to realize the value of the experience of those who came before us. All of our path depends on it.

Who are the elders in your life? What does being an elder mean to you?

If You Want to Be Real on your blog, visit the inaugural page —http://www.soulintentarts.com/what-it-is-wednesday/  and follow the instructions there to share your reality with the group!

The post What It Is Wednesday — Dauntlessly Dealt (elderhood) Reality appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism.

The Weekly Rune – Gebo

For the week of  25 September 2016

Feed the soul, save a village.

Kenaz is the half-month rune through 28 September, at which point Gebo takes over.  Eihwaz is the intuitive stave, and Ehwaz reversed indicates the planet’s needs. Read right to left is Kenaz above, Gebo below, then Eihwaz, followed by Ehwaz reversed.

The half-month rune is set by the runic calendar, and governs for a tad over two weeks. The intuitive stave indicates the life force most available to us, which brings the focus of the half-month rune into sharper focus for the present week. It suggests how we can handle these energies. The planetary stave indicates the state of the planet.

Following is a summary of The Weekly Rune. Read the full runecast for more details on how these runes impact human life force over the next week, and how to best manage the curves and twists.

For the last two weeks Kenaz shone as the half-month rune, and we’ve talked in-depth about its emphasis on fire, passion, and things that come to a boil (pun).  Having moved through that tipping point into the territory of doing something with the information that was revealed, we are now in a place to enjoy its rewards.

Gebo is such a lovely truth. It speaks to all things partnership, gifts, and balanced exchange. The saying that come up around this stave are “a gift freely given,” and “a gift for a gift.” On the surface those states seem to clash. How can a gift be freely given if there’s always the underlying expectation of receiving one, as well? How can we receive a gift with no angst if we are expected to reciprocate? The current of this stave is learning to do for self as it benefits the collective–meaning, our actions must bless beyond merely ourselves.

Telling is Eihwaz in the place of life force most available to humanity, this week. All about ends, death, transformation, and releasing into the unknown, framed between partnership and spirit allies (Ehwaz), Eihwaz urges us to let go of what’s trying to leave. Attempting to hold onto something we know no longer serves us takes us out of our power, and leaves us unable to move on. It leaves us powerless in the dynamic of giving and accepting to the collective.

Speaking of animism, Ehwaz reversed as what the planet needs us to know is gorgeous. This is the rune of the horse, which has particular significance in Old Norse culture. Where Gebo can be viewed as the rune creating partnership between humans, Ehwaz is the rune that brings humans closer to their spiritual selves. Reversed as it is, it hints that we need to go deeper in this interconnection.

For this week, allow balance in relationships, particularly with finding the place that filling personal need addresses greater community lack. Let the turning point come, and in doing so, connect with vast spiritual resources.

This week, by drawing more deeply into our spiritual truths, we become more beneficial to community.

Read the full runecast.

Learn more about the Reclaiming the Runes Intensive and preview course.

Originally published on Soul Intent Arts.

The post The Weekly Rune – Gebo appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism.

Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude

My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.

I’m grateful for contact with a new neurologist, even if I have to wait another 6 weeks to see him.

I’m thankful for a a great few days gaming with friends. Great con, TBGT 2016!

I’m grateful for seemingly having dodged the current family plague.

I’m thankful for hope.

What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks? Who is grateful for you? I am!

This post is part of Lexa Cain’s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things, along with her  co-hostesses L.G. Keltner and Tonja Drecker. Participate by emailing laura.6eg(at)gmail.com to request to hop on, then post your gratitude every Friday.  Easiest blog hop ever! Thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment and collective awareness.

The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism.

What It Is Wednesday — Dauntlessly Dealt (initiation) Reality

A weekly dose of dauntlessly dealt reality from the What It Is Wednesday Blog Carnival…

Last week I engaged in a discussion that absolutely nailed the response to a question that comes up often in esoteric healing circles, and that question is: “Why do I need a teacher/mentor? Can’t I just read books/intuit it all, myself?”

I know. They’re two questions. They go hand-in-hand, sitting in a tree. I never find one without the other, so there you go.

I tell people all the time that if they’re genuinely interested in learning a modality of spiritual or energetic healing, find a teacher, or better yet mentor. What’s the difference? Teachers teach classes. Mentors teach classes and foster the embodiment of that information into everyday life, well after the class has finished.

I choose  mentor.

“But Kelley, that’s so logical. Where’s the issue?”

Right? The issue is that with Google everyone thinks they’re an expert in everything. With energy and spiritual healing, the problem of how you acquire your knowledge arises when people realize they have to actually take this all seriously, that it is a dedicated study and commitment, and they have to compensate their teacher/mentor for time/information/expertise/energy.

I won’t even get started on the latter, which is an entirely other ideology that boggles my brain. For this dose of reality, I want to focus on why you need to work with an actual person over time to learn an esoteric healing art, and I’m finally going to share the nugget that I got from the interaction last week:

You need a mentor because words and concepts aren’t training.

I giggle into my hands every time I say it, because of its sheer simplicity and truth. One of the tenets of traditional Usui Reiki that has hung on is that you aren’t really doing it if you haven’t received the attunements. You can learn the teachings, you can see the sigils (though it’s frowned upon), you can absorb every book published on the subject. However, you’re still not doing Reiki. Why? Because the attunements are sacred space in which the teacher shares the information on what you’re doing, and the spiritual guardian of the technique rewires your energy field to support initiation into its tradition.

You can’t get that from a book.

You can’t get both parts of that on your own.

And you can’t get it in a two-hour class, either.

That same protected space for initiation is created when learning shamanism. Yes, you can learn to journey. You can find the cosmology that works for you. You can thrive on the grit of your guides, alone. But pulling it together into the cohesive narrative of your life, such that you become the hollow bone through all that you do comes from sacred initiation with someone who knows what they’re doing in the mundane, here-and-now.

Can you experience initiation on your own? Sure. We all do, all the time. That’s life. Should you intentionally undertake a critical spiritual initiation on your own? Maybe. We all arrive at these crossroads at various levels of understanding, experience, and maturity. For me to categorically say that it’s perfectly fine for us all to do so would be untrue, unethical, and unprofessional. Why? Because I know that initiation that doesn’t reach a point of closure is PTSD, and spiritual crazy very few of us can do on our own.

“But I love learning from books!” I know. I do, too. That’s why I write them on the subjects I teach and mentor, and in every one of them I say, ‘Read this book, then put it down and go find a mentor.’

I love and trust my spirit guides, too, though I can say without hesitation they have no idea how to walk this walk in actual skin and bones and emotion and society. Only people on this path do.

That’s why on the rare occasion that I do teach a one-off class, and after I do personal sessions, I build into our exchange ample time for us to stay in contact for at least a couple of weeks after, to process what that initiation brings up.

So, the next time you ask an energetic or soul healing professional why you can’t learn their modality from a book or why you can’t just find it on your own, consider that reading about building a combustion engine isn’t the same as a getting a degree in mechanical engineering. You can build a combustion engine based on your reading. Whether you should is a totally different, explosive, subject.

Is a degree in mechanical engineering a fair comparison to training in energy or spiritual healing? Well, turn it around, and ask the question a different way. Instead of asking if deep learning can be gained without initiation, ask which professional you would go to for healing: the one who consistently demonstrates a path of healing, or the one who read a book about it?

If You Want to Be Real on your blog, visit the inaugural page —http://www.soulintentarts.com/what-it-is-wednesday/  and follow the instructions there to share your reality!

The post What It Is Wednesday — Dauntlessly Dealt (initiation) Reality appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism.

The Weekly Rune – Ansuz

For the week of  18 September 2016

The power to say no.

Kenaz is the half-month rune through 28 September.  Ansuz is the intuitive stave, and Nauthiz indicates the planet’s needs. Read right to left is Kenaz, then Ansuz, followed by Nauthiz.

The half-month rune is set by the runic calendar, and governs for a tad over two weeks. The intuitive stave indicates the life force most available to us, which brings the focus of the half-month rune into sharper focus for the present week. It suggests how we can handle these energies. The planetary stave indicates the state of the planet.

Following is a summary of The Weekly Rune. Read the full runecast for more details on how these runes impact human life force over the next week, and how to best manage the curves and twists.

Last week Kenaz debuted as the half-month rune, and we talked in-depth about its emphasis on fire, passion, and things that come to a boil (pun).  By this week, whatever skulked at the periphery of awareness has popped into clear view, and of course that means can now be acted upon.

Having moved past feeling the burn, some comfort can be taking in the supporting runes, this week. Ansuz in the place of life force most available to humanity gives clear expression to that passion. Having just been the half-month rune a few weeks ago, we know that Ansuz encourages us to speak our truth. It brings the perfect fusion of breath, spellsinging, and soothsaying to dispelling whatever masochistic crazy Kenaz may have dredged up on its way to manifestation.

All of this seems like the perfect momentum for action, and it is. The outburst of passion (Kenaz) with soothsaying (Ansuz) is certainly building to something. This week the planetary rune is asserting boundaries through Nauthiz, “not this,” and that boundary is a firmly spoken, “No.” Restraint is the word often associated with this state of being, with this rune. As it frames with the other staves, it’s message is a heartily empowered, “No.”

Whatever poetry comes up this week, sit on it for a while. Let it whisper only to you, even if everything around you wants to know your magick.

 

Read the full runecast.

Learn more about the Reclaiming the Runes Intensive and preview course.

Originally published on Soul Intent Arts.

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The Weekly Rune – Fehu

For the week of  12 September 2016

The lore, the gift, and the confidence.

Raidho is the half-month rune through 13 September, at which point Kenaz becomes the focus.  Fehu is the intuitive stave, and Ehwaz indicates the planet’s needs. Read right to left is Raidho above, Kenaz below, then Fehu, followed by Ehwaz.

The half-month rune is set by the runic calendar, and governs for a tad over two weeks. The intuitive stave indicates the life force most available to us, which brings the focus of the half-month rune into sharper focus for the present week. It suggests how we can handle these energies. The planetary stave indicates the state of the planet.

Following is a summary of The Weekly Rune. Read the full runecast for more details on how these runes impact human life force over the next week, and how to best manage the curves and twists.

Since mid-August, we’ve examined travel–literal and metaphoric–and come into greater clarity on how we tell our story with Raidho. In fact, by now, we know how to tell it, and we have a pretty good idea of how the story’s wrapping up. Following it is Kenaz, the rune of kenning, or a poetic way of speaking, such that referring to the metaphor of something evokes a deeper reaction than merely referring to the thing, itself. I go so far as to say that kenning induces theta brain state, or shamanic ecstasy.

This is cooling

Faster than I can

Tori Amos, musician/singer, is a master of kenning. Every lyric she’s ever written is between worlds, in that you listen to her music and words, and as your mind sifts through the dynamic she addresses, your senses simultaneously processes the metaphor. The act of listening to her, listening through the music evokes trance, because of the way she employs kenning.

 

Kenaz is that which must be expressed. It’s burning passion that comes from our deepest fusion of creativity and practical knowledge, none of which will abate until it’s released upon the world. Given that, Kenaz indicates self-derived inspiration, the AHA! moment born of long-sought clarity.

Fehu as the rune indicating the life force most available to humanity only reiterates the need to leap, now. It’s a good time to extend self and put creative energy to work for successful outcome. Whatever is coming forward, it’s productive, supportive, and prolific. Get behind it, do the dirty work of tending it, and let it fly free. Also, because Fehu is about how we create ourselves, it speaks to ongoing duty–that which is expected of us if we wish to sustain our assets.

Ehwaz blesses this whole picture. Speaking with the voice of the planet, it tells us to go deeper. The rune of the shamanic journey, this ‘horse’ rune encourages us to delve into our depths as Odin did upon Sleipnir’s back, and venture into the etheric ties to what’s going on in life and engage them. Again, we have the message of personal and collective reinforced, as when we look to the animistic connections of our private affairs to the greater web of life, we can make better choices in how we go forward to impact life for us all.

Read the full runecast.

Learn more about the Reclaiming the Runes Intensive and preview course.

The post The Weekly Rune – Fehu appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism.

Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude

My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.

I’m grateful to have had a long weekend.

I’m thankful for projects near completion.

I’m grateful for great friends!

What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks? Who is grateful for you? I am!

This post is part of Lexa Cain’s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things, along with her  co-hostesses L.G. Keltner and Tonja Drecker. Participate by emailing laura.6eg(at)gmail.com to request to hop on, then post your gratitude every Friday.  Easiest blog hop ever! Thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment and collective awareness.

The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism.